“The Unreasonable Thinking of Disturbed Characters” Comments, Page 1
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Great post! It is certainly helpful to be aware that these sorts of people exist (and I will add that in a relationship, these types of people can make you feel unworthy if you’re not careful!).
I do have a two questions
1) What if you are stuck in a relationship with such a person but they won’t seek treatment? For example, I believe that the father of my baby is character disordered. While my preference would be to eliminate contact altogether, I am forced into contact with him face to face during visits and in emails and text messages at other times. I feel held hostage in a way because I fear if I do not respond to his messages he will get angry and take me to court. How best to deal with this?
2) Has research shown character disorders to be genetic? In no way do I want my baby to turn out like him, with that overriding sense of entitlement! Can a consistent environment of good values overcome it?
Thank you for a wonderful series.
Stephanie,
I have also been looking for information on what causes these disorders, as both of my parents fit the bill and I am worried about passing the possible genetics to my kids. I found a blog called LoveFraud that I find insightful. There are many articles under the ‘Sociopaths and Family’ section that deal with your problem of having a child with a “disordered character.” The link is http://www.lovefraud.com/Articles_in_Lovefraud_Blog.html
Also this blog and Dr. Simon’s book ‘In Sheep’s Clothing’ have totally changed my understanding and ability to deal with my parents. Good luck to you!
And on this post, I find that the “disordered characters” in my life place zero expectations on their own behavior. They seem to think they are just entitled to whatever they want, which ties in with the recent posts about egotistical thinking and is certainly reinforced when people respond.
Good questions and comments. Thank you both.
Stephanie,
Most of my writings (not just my book and upcoming book but also my blog articles) promote tools of empowerment that other people can use to not only deal more effectively with disturbed characters, but also to make it more likely that they will encounter sufficient corrective emotional and behavioral experience to consider changing their style. So, whether a disturbed character is at a point in their life where they’re motivated to use counseling as a change vehicle, others using the tools when dealing with them is very helpful.
Aimee, thanks for the reference. We’ve long known that there are constitutional predispositions toward many of the various character disturbances, but teasing them out specifically and determining how much influence they have and how they express themselves in the various pathologies is a much harder thing to pin down. The best comprehensive compilations of all we know about the various personality styles and how they come to be are the series of books by Dr. Theodore Millon and his colleagues. He’s sometimes a bit overly intellectual in his approach, but he incorporates just about all we really know from the most reliable research.
Another excellent post! Thank you, Dr. Simon.
I have a question on this topic, What would be the primary cause of this kind of unrealitic expectations and irrational thinking?
I’m askin because I have encountered some people like this and often wonder where their type of thinking comes from.
Thanks in advance.
Mariana
*”Asking”… sorry for the typo!
Thanks for the comment and question, Mariana.
It’s hard to know where to begin when delineating all the things that contribute to the distorted thinking patterns of disturbed characters. Part of it is what they learn while growing up and part of it is what they fail to learn. Other predispositions are constitutionally endowed traits which we’re only beginning to understand. At the risk of seeming unresponsive to your question, let me say that the contributory reasons – whether they be constitutionally-based, learning-based, or trauma based – are really irrelevant. The thinking patterns and the behaviors commonly associated with them need to change if the disturbed character is to function more adaptively. Spending time or energy pondering the root causes of a behavior often inadvertently sets a person up to enable or excuse the behavior instead of simply setting limits on the behavior itself. All that said, in some future posts I’ll be talking about all of the factors that contribute to character development and what goes wrong for those folks who end up character disordered.
Thanks a lot for your reply. I was curious about the causes. Sometimes I tend to think that -maybe- if we know what is causing a problem we can solve it from there. While that might be true with some pshysical conditions, I guess it’s not the common rule in psychology.
I totally agree with what you pointed out about being a source of excuses on their part. If they take no accountability on their thinking and issues, I bet they would love to find a good excuse for their behavior in the root of their problems.
Thanks again.
I lived with a manipulator for 5 years.Our relationship ended august 2006 and since then i have been reading a lot about this sort of characters from books from Isabelle Nazare Aga and the late Harriet Braiker. I also read a lot of articles on your site about manipulative people and their tactics and here in your blog.I am wating for your book on the subject to arrive and looking forward to reading it.
From all this you seam to be as far as my experience the one that has been able to summerise the problem better.
I believe many professionals on your branch do not understand the true nature of the problem and end up excusing the manipulator and his unreasonable thinking.Are they aware?Yes i think they are.They lack something ,they lack conciensce at different degrees,meaning empathy towards others feelings and needs.How can you teach this to a person?
Thank you very much for your articles.
Good comment, Silvana. Your question about how you teach empathy is particularly relevant. In fact there is research emerging pointing to the uselessness of including such things as “empathy training” in programs designed to rehabilitate severe character disorders. Empathy at its heart is a capacity, not a learned behavior. In fact, there is evidence that a person can “learn” to say and even do some of the right things they are taught with regard to empathy but because they really don’t have genuine conscience-based regard for others they end up being as risky or perhaps even a more risky relationship partner.