Behavioral Contagion of Psychological Problems
Brice Petgen wrote:
I have been studying quite a bit about personality disorders this semester. It is rather fortuitous that your blog entries have been what they have been recently. The more I learn the more I come to the realization that personality disorders are really disorders based on, and developed from, interpersonal relations. There is no pill that can alleviate these disorders. They only “fix” I see is a therapeutic approach with a strong relational basis. We, as therapists, must gain the trust of our client. We must create the environment in which the client can display these deficits in interpersonal relations. At that point we must address the deficits or distortions. CBT and behavioral techniques can be quite useful then to challenge the views and meanings that underlie the issue. Plus quite a bit of insight from the client is required. But that becomes the most difficult, due to the fact that the client generally does not see a problem. In essence we are attempting to help the client change who they are as a person. Now that is quite a bit of heavy lifting.
Dr. Tom wrote:
Yes, Brice, the concept of behavioral contagion is nicely illustrated using the personality disorders. You are correct that therapy with those who suffer from Personality Disorders is “heavy lifting” for both the therapist and the client. In fact, the message of behavioral contagion is that the only winning way to deal with the increasing spread of behavioral/emotional problems within a population is through prevention. Perhaps you recall the ol’ nursery rhyme, “All of the kings men and all of the kings horses couldn’t put poor Humpty Dumpty together again”. That is to say, all of the therapists that we could possibly field cannot stem the flow of Americans with psychological problems. The name of the game must be the prevention of psychological disorders…When it comes to “people raising”, doing it right the first time around is what must be done. That will require some major changes in our American socioculture. And that really is some “heavy lifting”!
Thanks for your thoughtful reply Brice.
Dr. Tom 4/6/10
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Behavoral Contagion: Dependent Personality Disorder
Dependent Personality Disorder
We all depend upon others. Indeed, to be socially connected to others is to be interdependent with them. But individuals diagnosed with dependent personality disorder show a near total reliance upon others who make almost all of their major and minor decisions for them, to bolster their self-esteem, and to care for their child-like needs. These individuals strongly feel that they cannot manage their own lives (though they may be capable), they are unable to assert their personal needs in a relationship, and they are desperate to hang-on to those on whom they depend---no matter what. As a result, such individuals lack the ability to manage their own lives and behave as a fully functional adult. Such individuals dread separation from those who they let run their lives, they are often depressed, and can suffer from suicidal thinking. They will often do degrading things in order not to lose the ones they depend on.
All of these features can worsen if they feel they are going to be abandoned by their care-taker (parent, boyfriend/girlfriend, or spouse). As a result, these individuals often suffer emotional and physical abuse at the hands of others, and they may tolerate emotional, physical, or sexual abuse of their children by those upon whom they are pathologically dependent.
If separated from those who they depend upon, they are likely to quickly “latch-on” to another dependent relationship to avoid feelings of intense anxiety and fear.
Representative Examples
It is not hard to identify examples of dependent personality disorder. These problems are most prevalent in women, but they can and do occur in men.
I recall the shocking media pictures from several decades ago, of wife and mother who had been beaten for many years by her husband, a successful New York attorney. Her face was shockingly disfigured by the chronic beatings she had endured.
To compound this tragedy, the mother also allowed her husband to beat her young daughter. This couple was prosecuted when an autopsy of their dead child revealed broken bones dating back to her earliest years of life.
A woman with three children sought the help of a therapist to extricate her and her children from an abusive marriage. The man had beat her repeatedly in front of her children, had held them all at gun point threatening to kill them. The therapist worked diligently to get this woman to take action: providing the phone number of the local women's shelter, prompting to call and talk to the professionals there, and to make the necessary plans to leave her home in a safe manner to gain refuge at the woman's shelter. The woman withdrew from therapy and stayed with this man.
Possible Causes
Dependent personality disorder has traditionally been thought to result from a lack of loving care during the first year or so of life. This could lead to a desperate life-long search for care and nurturance. As with so many other personality disorders, parental separation, loss, or rejection have often been implicated. Some theorists suggest that opposite causes of parental over-protectiveness and over-involvement in their children's lives could yield the same excessive dependency needs in later life. Behavioral explanations suggest that parents may actually reward (reinforce) extreme dependence in their children and punish their efforts at independence by withdrawing their love and support. It is also possible that some parents show their own dependency problems and their children come to imitate their dependent behaviors.
Dr. Tom 4/5/10
We all depend upon others. Indeed, to be socially connected to others is to be interdependent with them. But individuals diagnosed with dependent personality disorder show a near total reliance upon others who make almost all of their major and minor decisions for them, to bolster their self-esteem, and to care for their child-like needs. These individuals strongly feel that they cannot manage their own lives (though they may be capable), they are unable to assert their personal needs in a relationship, and they are desperate to hang-on to those on whom they depend---no matter what. As a result, such individuals lack the ability to manage their own lives and behave as a fully functional adult. Such individuals dread separation from those who they let run their lives, they are often depressed, and can suffer from suicidal thinking. They will often do degrading things in order not to lose the ones they depend on.
All of these features can worsen if they feel they are going to be abandoned by their care-taker (parent, boyfriend/girlfriend, or spouse). As a result, these individuals often suffer emotional and physical abuse at the hands of others, and they may tolerate emotional, physical, or sexual abuse of their children by those upon whom they are pathologically dependent.
If separated from those who they depend upon, they are likely to quickly “latch-on” to another dependent relationship to avoid feelings of intense anxiety and fear.
Representative Examples
It is not hard to identify examples of dependent personality disorder. These problems are most prevalent in women, but they can and do occur in men.
I recall the shocking media pictures from several decades ago, of wife and mother who had been beaten for many years by her husband, a successful New York attorney. Her face was shockingly disfigured by the chronic beatings she had endured.
To compound this tragedy, the mother also allowed her husband to beat her young daughter. This couple was prosecuted when an autopsy of their dead child revealed broken bones dating back to her earliest years of life.
A woman with three children sought the help of a therapist to extricate her and her children from an abusive marriage. The man had beat her repeatedly in front of her children, had held them all at gun point threatening to kill them. The therapist worked diligently to get this woman to take action: providing the phone number of the local women's shelter, prompting to call and talk to the professionals there, and to make the necessary plans to leave her home in a safe manner to gain refuge at the woman's shelter. The woman withdrew from therapy and stayed with this man.
Possible Causes
Dependent personality disorder has traditionally been thought to result from a lack of loving care during the first year or so of life. This could lead to a desperate life-long search for care and nurturance. As with so many other personality disorders, parental separation, loss, or rejection have often been implicated. Some theorists suggest that opposite causes of parental over-protectiveness and over-involvement in their children's lives could yield the same excessive dependency needs in later life. Behavioral explanations suggest that parents may actually reward (reinforce) extreme dependence in their children and punish their efforts at independence by withdrawing their love and support. It is also possible that some parents show their own dependency problems and their children come to imitate their dependent behaviors.
Dr. Tom 4/5/10
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Happy Easter
Happy Easter!
When well-developed scientific evidence is in support of the world’s great religious teachings about desirable moral and ethical human conduct: That is a very important observation.
With regard to human behavior and its consequences for both individuals and their sociocultures, in the material world, the great religions and the principles of behavioral psychology appear to be in very close accord. What appears to drive successful evolution at all levels of existence is selection by consequences.
Science is a method for understanding our universe. If one happens to believe that God created us and our universe, they may also conclude that a true science of behavior is a God-Given aid in the quest to discover God's Truths about how to approximate Heaven on earth.
If you not happen to believe that God created us and our universe then you may still contemplate paragraph one and two of this writing and do the best you can alone, or with the help of others.
God’s Blessings to you on and your loved ones.
Dr. Tom, Easter 2010
Written 11/30/07, Edited 2006 and 4/4/10
When well-developed scientific evidence is in support of the world’s great religious teachings about desirable moral and ethical human conduct: That is a very important observation.
With regard to human behavior and its consequences for both individuals and their sociocultures, in the material world, the great religions and the principles of behavioral psychology appear to be in very close accord. What appears to drive successful evolution at all levels of existence is selection by consequences.
Science is a method for understanding our universe. If one happens to believe that God created us and our universe, they may also conclude that a true science of behavior is a God-Given aid in the quest to discover God's Truths about how to approximate Heaven on earth.
If you not happen to believe that God created us and our universe then you may still contemplate paragraph one and two of this writing and do the best you can alone, or with the help of others.
God’s Blessings to you on and your loved ones.
Dr. Tom, Easter 2010
Written 11/30/07, Edited 2006 and 4/4/10
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Behavioral Contagion: Avoidant Personality Disorder
Avoidant Personality Disorder
Individuals with Avoidant Personality Disorder can become isolated from other people in a way that looks superficially similar to the schizoid personality type.
The big difference is that the schizoid really does not want, or feel, the need to have a relationship with anyone. They are content in their state of relative social isolation. The avoidant individual is actually lonely, unhappy, and desirous of close and loving relationships. But, after seeking and acheiving a relationship with someone, they thenbegin to withdraw from it. This process may repeat itself many times, and is likely to destroy marriages, romantic relationshops and friendships.
What appears to stand in their way of achieving lasting intimacy is their fear of criticism, fear of appearing inadequate, and fear of being rejected by those who with whom they wish to be close. These individuals withdraw from relationships because and they are uncomfortable with psychological intimacy and they fear shame, ridicule, and failure. They struggle to overcome feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, but they are inhibited and become isolated by these feelings.
If someone with these avoidant tendencies does find the courage to enter an intimate relationship with someone, they are apt to vacillate in and out of it until the relationship is destroyed. These anxieties about inadequacy are pervasive and they can inhibit other social, vocational, recreational and educational opportunities. Through it all, those with avoidant personality features feel lonely and unfulfilled.
A Representative Example
A handsome, bright, and articulate man in his thirties once sought counseling because of his distress in a relationship with his fiancee. His chief complaint was that she was the perfect woman for him, but “he could not help doing the things that damaged their relationship” and made it less likely that they would ever marry.
He would purposefully be late for their various dates and other events. He would not call for long periods of time and at other times would be quiet and cool in their relationship for reasons that he could not understand. At other times he would “pull himself together” and be especially attentive and caring to her, before he slipped into another cycle of avoidance of intimacy. The man was deeply distressed and perplexed by his inability to form a lasting intimate relationship a woman and he recounted many such failed attempts in the past with other girlfriends. Not only was he very unhappy, but so were the ones that he attempted to have relationships with.
Possible Causes
Therapists have found that individuals showing avoidant personality symptoms often were shamed and ridiculed by parents, who were highly critical and who did not showed much love and affection. It is thought that children so treated are in danger of “internalizing” (believing that such treatment reflects their true nature) and then continuing this treatment of themselves in their own thinking.
Many clinicians also think that this culture’s high rates of divorce can traumatize children into fearing such outcomes in their own lives if they attempt to have close and enduring relationships with others. In fact, this appeared to be the case with the man described above. The divorce of his parents was an exceedingly painful loss for him and (as typical of children) he had feared that he might have had something to do with it, hence his feelings of being flawed and inferior in some ways.
This is another example of bad behavioral contagion. There are conditions under which divorce is advisable such as abuse, chronic addiction, or chronic infidelity. However, I believe that divorce is very bad for the children involved and some of the effects are fairly subtle.
Often the tendency of young adults to remain single longer than in the past, and to divorce at alarmingly high rates, is attributed to various socio-economic factors,. The spread of relationship insecurities within our population, now called Avoidant Personality Disorder, contributes to this trend and it self-propagates through the mechanisms of behavioral contagion.
Dr. Tom 4/3/10
Individuals with Avoidant Personality Disorder can become isolated from other people in a way that looks superficially similar to the schizoid personality type.
The big difference is that the schizoid really does not want, or feel, the need to have a relationship with anyone. They are content in their state of relative social isolation. The avoidant individual is actually lonely, unhappy, and desirous of close and loving relationships. But, after seeking and acheiving a relationship with someone, they thenbegin to withdraw from it. This process may repeat itself many times, and is likely to destroy marriages, romantic relationshops and friendships.
What appears to stand in their way of achieving lasting intimacy is their fear of criticism, fear of appearing inadequate, and fear of being rejected by those who with whom they wish to be close. These individuals withdraw from relationships because and they are uncomfortable with psychological intimacy and they fear shame, ridicule, and failure. They struggle to overcome feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, but they are inhibited and become isolated by these feelings.
If someone with these avoidant tendencies does find the courage to enter an intimate relationship with someone, they are apt to vacillate in and out of it until the relationship is destroyed. These anxieties about inadequacy are pervasive and they can inhibit other social, vocational, recreational and educational opportunities. Through it all, those with avoidant personality features feel lonely and unfulfilled.
A Representative Example
A handsome, bright, and articulate man in his thirties once sought counseling because of his distress in a relationship with his fiancee. His chief complaint was that she was the perfect woman for him, but “he could not help doing the things that damaged their relationship” and made it less likely that they would ever marry.
He would purposefully be late for their various dates and other events. He would not call for long periods of time and at other times would be quiet and cool in their relationship for reasons that he could not understand. At other times he would “pull himself together” and be especially attentive and caring to her, before he slipped into another cycle of avoidance of intimacy. The man was deeply distressed and perplexed by his inability to form a lasting intimate relationship a woman and he recounted many such failed attempts in the past with other girlfriends. Not only was he very unhappy, but so were the ones that he attempted to have relationships with.
Possible Causes
Therapists have found that individuals showing avoidant personality symptoms often were shamed and ridiculed by parents, who were highly critical and who did not showed much love and affection. It is thought that children so treated are in danger of “internalizing” (believing that such treatment reflects their true nature) and then continuing this treatment of themselves in their own thinking.
Many clinicians also think that this culture’s high rates of divorce can traumatize children into fearing such outcomes in their own lives if they attempt to have close and enduring relationships with others. In fact, this appeared to be the case with the man described above. The divorce of his parents was an exceedingly painful loss for him and (as typical of children) he had feared that he might have had something to do with it, hence his feelings of being flawed and inferior in some ways.
This is another example of bad behavioral contagion. There are conditions under which divorce is advisable such as abuse, chronic addiction, or chronic infidelity. However, I believe that divorce is very bad for the children involved and some of the effects are fairly subtle.
Often the tendency of young adults to remain single longer than in the past, and to divorce at alarmingly high rates, is attributed to various socio-economic factors,. The spread of relationship insecurities within our population, now called Avoidant Personality Disorder, contributes to this trend and it self-propagates through the mechanisms of behavioral contagion.
Dr. Tom 4/3/10
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Pornography Is Bad For America
Pornography Is Bad For America
The following is a copy of a post that I did some time ago. I represent it here because I know that not many of those who view my current posts are likely to search back through my history of postings. I also represent it because a friend and former colleague has asked my opinion on a matter related to pornography and its effects upon culture.
My last, deep and comprehensive, analysis of the research literature on the effects of pornography was published 12 years ago. I spent two years on this project, almost exclusively and will not be able to match that effort again at this time. I am certain that there are new findings that will support and that will not support my conclusions. I am certain that, as in my previous analysis of the data available, philosophy and politics has biased many of the findings and opinions.
As a psychologist, my own assessment is not just based upon the research findings however. It was, and remains, based upon the principles/laws that underly Social Learning Theory, Operant Conditioning and Respondent Conditioning of humans and other animals. These principles, laws, and learning mechanisms predict that certain response tendencies will emerge from repeatedly pairing orgasms with a particular class of stimuli. Within this process new patterns of sexual arousal can be learned, new thoughts and images can become very frequent, new patterns of behavior can be fantasized, and new patterns of sexual behavior will become more likely. The conditionability of the consumer of pornography is especially heightened during puberty, but is present for many years.
The depictions in modern pornography include, children and young teens ( simulated or real), homosexuals, groups, aggression, torture, disfiguration, feces and urine, and animals, to name only a few categories.
Given what I have learned about human conditioning and learning over the past 47 years of study and observation (36 years as a professor and a concurrent 30 years as a psychotherapist), there is no way that flooding a population (children included) with the vivid pornographic depictions listed above will not produce an increased rate of human sexual actions that are harmful to a large number of individuals involved, in many different ways, and to their socioculture.
I have added an interesting post (following my own) from another source, to update my own post with more current observations of the many ways that problems produced by the porn industry can affect peoples lives. This posting will follow my own.
Yes, there is research and opinion to suggest no harm from the infusion of pornography into various cultures. I simply do not believe it.
My original posting follows:
It is so popular and comfortable to say that “whatever consenting adults choose to do is okay”. But there are consequences beyond what consenting adults choose to do, when they do “it” publicly. The same can also be said about some of the things that consenting adults do in private.
The hard reality is that many of our newly granted sexual freedoms (illegal less than one life-time ago) are severely damaging everyone, especially our young adults and children. These new sexual freedoms must therefore damaging our culture: How could it be otherwise?
As a psychologist, I have frequently witnessed the devastating effects of the scientifically flawed conclusions of President Johnson’s Committee on Pornography which recommended the legalization of pornography in 1970. In 1986 President Reagan’s Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography concluded that the earlier Commission’s findings of no relation between pornography and antisocial behavior was “starkly obsolete”. We now know much more about the effects of pornographic sexual stimulation upon humans than we did in 1970. What has been learned explains much of our sex-related human suffering and loss brought by a series of ignorant and irresponsible Court decisions mandating a nation-wide torrent of dramatically explicit pornography.
The following is a brief summary of scientific research findings about the effects of pornography viewing upon human thoughts, emotions, and behavior that I have previously published [Mawhinney, V.T. (1998). Behavior and Social Issues, 8, 2, 159-193].
1. Violent portrayals of sex can increase sexual aggression in the viewer. Graphic sexual violence is common in XXX and R-rated films rented by adults and teens from neighborhood video rental stores.
2. Much of pornography depicts women in grossly disrespected, exploited, and/ or sexually abused rolls. I am stunned by the absence of outrage among Women’s Liberation organizations.
3. The millions who masturbate while viewing the deviant sexual displays that flood the internet (teens and kids, urine and defecation, pain and torture, and sex with animals, etc.) are auto-erotically conditioning their own increased appetite for such portrayals. The same is true of any genre of pornography.
4. Both violent and nonviolent sexual portrayals can increase aggression in men when some other impulse-control impairing event is added such as drugs, alcohol, or frustration.
5. Commonly depicted rape scenes in which females finally acquiesce, and enjoy the sex, perpetuates the idea that female pleasure is a common outcome of forced sex.
6. Viewing rape depictions can reduce the estimated seriousness of such assaults for both men and woman and the severity of the punishment that they recommend for the rapist.
7. Viewing pornography can cause the viewer to overestimate the commonality of the sexual activities observed. It can also increase the viewers expectations that such behavior will occur in their own relationships with others and that others will probably be willing participants.
8. Viewing pornography “primes” the observer to think about sex more often and this increases the probability of sexual behavior.
9. Watching attractive male and female sexual models in pornography can reduce the viewer’s judgement of the attractiveness of their own mate, increasing dissatisfaction.
10. Pornography was a very small industry in the early 1960’s. By the mid-1990’s its revenues had grown to over 10 billion dollars per year. One recent estimate places this nation’s annual “mainstreamed” pornography earnings at about 56 billion dollars. The legalization of pornography has stimulated monumental new business growth and very substantial new revenues for our predatory government.
The longer-term consequences of our incompetent sexual experiment are unprecedented personal and financial costs for increased illegitimate births, sexually transmitted diseases, rapes, child molestations, sexual infidelity in relationships and increased divorce rates. The flood of pornography is a significant partial determinant of all of these painful events. I submit that this is not “new found freedom”, it is a deadly form of social chaos.
And what about our local strip clubs? The mixture of sexual stimulation, tension, alcohol, and frustration in a testosterone “saturated” local strip club frequently ends in physical brutality, violence, and death. Only the naive are surprised and shocked.
Do you really think a community gains more from these sex clubs than it loses? The costs to a city’s reputation are incalculable. The financial losses will be enormous. Consider the costs to law enforcement, emergency medical services, hospitals, and to our judicial and penal system. This “little object lesson” is an example of bad behavioral contagion. It is the spread of damaging behavior patterns within our lives, in large part, caused by the drug and sex practices that are encouraged by our own socioculture.
Of course one can make the First Amendment argument. But our founding fathers could never have dreamed that the meaning of “freedom of expression” would be so distorted to inflict an avalanche of pornography upon this nation. Many of us, born and raised in the 1940’s and 1950’s, felt very free indeed: We enjoyed freedom from the culture-wide pornography related human misery that now enslaves us all.
What do our children learn from all of this? And how many of us care anymore? It saddens me to say this, but each generation appears to be breeding a next generation that is increasingly more troubled than the one before. Our addiction to pornography is a large part of this problem. If you think that this culture’s sex, drugs, violence, and other impulse-control problems are bad now—just wait. There is much worse to come.
What can be done? The mark of emotionally healthy individuals and cultures is their ability to deny immediate gratification to achieve long-term rewards. All across this great nation, good citizens and their good governments must do all that they can to reverse our cultural sexual addiction contagion— and we must do it very soon. Eliminating the recreational sex industry within your own communities is a step in the right direction.
V. Thomas Mawhinney, Ph.D. 11/08/09
This is a slight revision of an article that I published in the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune approximately 9 years ago.
Dr. Tom, 4/1/10
The following is a copy of a post that I did some time ago. I represent it here because I know that not many of those who view my current posts are likely to search back through my history of postings. I also represent it because a friend and former colleague has asked my opinion on a matter related to pornography and its effects upon culture.
My last, deep and comprehensive, analysis of the research literature on the effects of pornography was published 12 years ago. I spent two years on this project, almost exclusively and will not be able to match that effort again at this time. I am certain that there are new findings that will support and that will not support my conclusions. I am certain that, as in my previous analysis of the data available, philosophy and politics has biased many of the findings and opinions.
As a psychologist, my own assessment is not just based upon the research findings however. It was, and remains, based upon the principles/laws that underly Social Learning Theory, Operant Conditioning and Respondent Conditioning of humans and other animals. These principles, laws, and learning mechanisms predict that certain response tendencies will emerge from repeatedly pairing orgasms with a particular class of stimuli. Within this process new patterns of sexual arousal can be learned, new thoughts and images can become very frequent, new patterns of behavior can be fantasized, and new patterns of sexual behavior will become more likely. The conditionability of the consumer of pornography is especially heightened during puberty, but is present for many years.
The depictions in modern pornography include, children and young teens ( simulated or real), homosexuals, groups, aggression, torture, disfiguration, feces and urine, and animals, to name only a few categories.
Given what I have learned about human conditioning and learning over the past 47 years of study and observation (36 years as a professor and a concurrent 30 years as a psychotherapist), there is no way that flooding a population (children included) with the vivid pornographic depictions listed above will not produce an increased rate of human sexual actions that are harmful to a large number of individuals involved, in many different ways, and to their socioculture.
I have added an interesting post (following my own) from another source, to update my own post with more current observations of the many ways that problems produced by the porn industry can affect peoples lives. This posting will follow my own.
Yes, there is research and opinion to suggest no harm from the infusion of pornography into various cultures. I simply do not believe it.
My original posting follows:
It is so popular and comfortable to say that “whatever consenting adults choose to do is okay”. But there are consequences beyond what consenting adults choose to do, when they do “it” publicly. The same can also be said about some of the things that consenting adults do in private.
The hard reality is that many of our newly granted sexual freedoms (illegal less than one life-time ago) are severely damaging everyone, especially our young adults and children. These new sexual freedoms must therefore damaging our culture: How could it be otherwise?
As a psychologist, I have frequently witnessed the devastating effects of the scientifically flawed conclusions of President Johnson’s Committee on Pornography which recommended the legalization of pornography in 1970. In 1986 President Reagan’s Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography concluded that the earlier Commission’s findings of no relation between pornography and antisocial behavior was “starkly obsolete”. We now know much more about the effects of pornographic sexual stimulation upon humans than we did in 1970. What has been learned explains much of our sex-related human suffering and loss brought by a series of ignorant and irresponsible Court decisions mandating a nation-wide torrent of dramatically explicit pornography.
The following is a brief summary of scientific research findings about the effects of pornography viewing upon human thoughts, emotions, and behavior that I have previously published [Mawhinney, V.T. (1998). Behavior and Social Issues, 8, 2, 159-193].
1. Violent portrayals of sex can increase sexual aggression in the viewer. Graphic sexual violence is common in XXX and R-rated films rented by adults and teens from neighborhood video rental stores.
2. Much of pornography depicts women in grossly disrespected, exploited, and/ or sexually abused rolls. I am stunned by the absence of outrage among Women’s Liberation organizations.
3. The millions who masturbate while viewing the deviant sexual displays that flood the internet (teens and kids, urine and defecation, pain and torture, and sex with animals, etc.) are auto-erotically conditioning their own increased appetite for such portrayals. The same is true of any genre of pornography.
4. Both violent and nonviolent sexual portrayals can increase aggression in men when some other impulse-control impairing event is added such as drugs, alcohol, or frustration.
5. Commonly depicted rape scenes in which females finally acquiesce, and enjoy the sex, perpetuates the idea that female pleasure is a common outcome of forced sex.
6. Viewing rape depictions can reduce the estimated seriousness of such assaults for both men and woman and the severity of the punishment that they recommend for the rapist.
7. Viewing pornography can cause the viewer to overestimate the commonality of the sexual activities observed. It can also increase the viewers expectations that such behavior will occur in their own relationships with others and that others will probably be willing participants.
8. Viewing pornography “primes” the observer to think about sex more often and this increases the probability of sexual behavior.
9. Watching attractive male and female sexual models in pornography can reduce the viewer’s judgement of the attractiveness of their own mate, increasing dissatisfaction.
10. Pornography was a very small industry in the early 1960’s. By the mid-1990’s its revenues had grown to over 10 billion dollars per year. One recent estimate places this nation’s annual “mainstreamed” pornography earnings at about 56 billion dollars. The legalization of pornography has stimulated monumental new business growth and very substantial new revenues for our predatory government.
The longer-term consequences of our incompetent sexual experiment are unprecedented personal and financial costs for increased illegitimate births, sexually transmitted diseases, rapes, child molestations, sexual infidelity in relationships and increased divorce rates. The flood of pornography is a significant partial determinant of all of these painful events. I submit that this is not “new found freedom”, it is a deadly form of social chaos.
And what about our local strip clubs? The mixture of sexual stimulation, tension, alcohol, and frustration in a testosterone “saturated” local strip club frequently ends in physical brutality, violence, and death. Only the naive are surprised and shocked.
Do you really think a community gains more from these sex clubs than it loses? The costs to a city’s reputation are incalculable. The financial losses will be enormous. Consider the costs to law enforcement, emergency medical services, hospitals, and to our judicial and penal system. This “little object lesson” is an example of bad behavioral contagion. It is the spread of damaging behavior patterns within our lives, in large part, caused by the drug and sex practices that are encouraged by our own socioculture.
Of course one can make the First Amendment argument. But our founding fathers could never have dreamed that the meaning of “freedom of expression” would be so distorted to inflict an avalanche of pornography upon this nation. Many of us, born and raised in the 1940’s and 1950’s, felt very free indeed: We enjoyed freedom from the culture-wide pornography related human misery that now enslaves us all.
What do our children learn from all of this? And how many of us care anymore? It saddens me to say this, but each generation appears to be breeding a next generation that is increasingly more troubled than the one before. Our addiction to pornography is a large part of this problem. If you think that this culture’s sex, drugs, violence, and other impulse-control problems are bad now—just wait. There is much worse to come.
What can be done? The mark of emotionally healthy individuals and cultures is their ability to deny immediate gratification to achieve long-term rewards. All across this great nation, good citizens and their good governments must do all that they can to reverse our cultural sexual addiction contagion— and we must do it very soon. Eliminating the recreational sex industry within your own communities is a step in the right direction.
V. Thomas Mawhinney, Ph.D. 11/08/09
This is a slight revision of an article that I published in the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune approximately 9 years ago.
Dr. Tom, 4/1/10
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
The narcissistic behavior pattern is one of total intense self-love and adoration. Like in the Greek myth in which a boy named Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water, these individuals are totally self-absorbed. These individuals exaggerate their own worth, talents, and accomplishments and they expect recognition for their wonderful superiority. They have strong fantasies of their own high success, genius, beauty or ideal love and they require great admiration from others as well as special treatment. This overblown sense of self-importance leads to arrogant and superior attitudes, a deep lack of empathy for the needs and feelings of others, and the expectation of special treatment and association with only superior people and institutions. These individuals are often jealous and exploitive of others and see them as being inferior to themselves.
A Representative Example
A lady complained that her date for a first (and last) evening talked only of himself, and never once asked her anything about herself. For much of the evening she indulged his selfish one-sided conversation. When she finally told him that he was rude and self-centered and apparently had little interest in who she was, he reacted with laughter and a hint of righteous indignation stating: "of course I talked about myself, I am the most interesting person that I have ever met!"
Possible Causes
Narcissistic personality disorder has traditionally been thought to be a very strong hand hard to penetrate defense against a terrible fear of inferiority. Some researchers think that these behavior patterns are reaction to cold and rejecting parents. The idea is that narcissistic defenses of dramatic self-love and over-confidence in their perfection helps these individuals to cope with feelings of worthlessness caused by a history of abuse, death of a parent, Parental divorce, or adoption.
A more contemporary theory is that Narcissistic behaviors are learned when children are treated with too much adoration and favor. From this perspective, children learn to overestimate their own "wonderfulness". This mechanism seems to be involved because first borns and only children are known to be more Narcissistic than are later children from larger families.
It is also suspected that a present breakdown in our culture may lead to children who are, and remain, impulsive, self-centered, and highly materialistic. From this perspective, we are in an age of selfishness or generational narcissism.
The narcissistic behavior pattern is one of total intense self-love and adoration. Like in the Greek myth in which a boy named Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water, these individuals are totally self-absorbed. These individuals exaggerate their own worth, talents, and accomplishments and they expect recognition for their wonderful superiority. They have strong fantasies of their own high success, genius, beauty or ideal love and they require great admiration from others as well as special treatment. This overblown sense of self-importance leads to arrogant and superior attitudes, a deep lack of empathy for the needs and feelings of others, and the expectation of special treatment and association with only superior people and institutions. These individuals are often jealous and exploitive of others and see them as being inferior to themselves.
A Representative Example
A lady complained that her date for a first (and last) evening talked only of himself, and never once asked her anything about herself. For much of the evening she indulged his selfish one-sided conversation. When she finally told him that he was rude and self-centered and apparently had little interest in who she was, he reacted with laughter and a hint of righteous indignation stating: "of course I talked about myself, I am the most interesting person that I have ever met!"
Possible Causes
Narcissistic personality disorder has traditionally been thought to be a very strong hand hard to penetrate defense against a terrible fear of inferiority. Some researchers think that these behavior patterns are reaction to cold and rejecting parents. The idea is that narcissistic defenses of dramatic self-love and over-confidence in their perfection helps these individuals to cope with feelings of worthlessness caused by a history of abuse, death of a parent, Parental divorce, or adoption.
A more contemporary theory is that Narcissistic behaviors are learned when children are treated with too much adoration and favor. From this perspective, children learn to overestimate their own "wonderfulness". This mechanism seems to be involved because first borns and only children are known to be more Narcissistic than are later children from larger families.
It is also suspected that a present breakdown in our culture may lead to children who are, and remain, impulsive, self-centered, and highly materialistic. From this perspective, we are in an age of selfishness or generational narcissism.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Antisocial Personality Disorder
This destructive personality disorder tends to emerge from childhood patterns of a disregard for the feelings and rights of others and for family, institutional, or social conventions,rules and laws. Childhood diagnoses for such behavior patterns are Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder. These disorders are listed under Axis I in the DSM-IV. I have presented them here with Axis II disorders because I think it is important that you see the tendency of these childhood problems to evolve into similar but more fully developed adult behavior patterns. It does not always happen, but all too frequently these behavior patterns tend to develop through one or two other child and adolescent diagnoses into its fully mature manifestation known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. The developmental steps toward the fully mature personality disorder are as follows:
In Oppositional Defiant Disorder, children challenge adult rules and demands, argue with adults, have often have bad temper problems, lie and blame others for their troubles. These problems normally start before puberty at around eight years of age.
Conduct Disorder is a more severe pattern of problem behaviors in which the rights of others are frequently violated. These children often lie, cheat, damage property, and run away from school and/or home. They may often aggress against others and may even hurt animals for entertainment. Other illegal activities such a robbery, extortion, rape, and murder may also occur in extreme cases. Conduct disorder can start sometime before 10 years or in later adolescence.
When an individual reaches the age of 18 years and still shows the enough of the previously mentioned behavior patterns they will be diagnosed as antisocial personality disorder. Individuals showing these behavior patterns are also sometimes called "sociopaths" or "psychopaths"; the names may change--but the behaviors the same.
As adults, these people show a strong disregard for the rights of others and the rule of law. They appear to have failed to develop the ability to empathize with others and they do not suffer conscious pangs of consciousness if they hurt or kill others. They are impulsive, seek thrills, take risks, are unreliable, spend money foolishly, can be irritable and aggressive, and have trouble maintaining close relationships with anyone. The motto for this category of diagnosis may be "if I want it---I'll take it, if it feels good---I'll do it: lying, cheating, manipulating, and stealing is good fun."
A Representative Example
Not surprisingly, these individuals have problems with drug and alcohol addiction and are often sentenced to prison for criminal behavior. Charles Manson is often cited as someone who shows many of the features of antisocial personality disorder, as well as other psychological problems.
A thirty year old man sought help from a therapist because he claimed to be having problems with his wife and wished to leave her for his girlfriend, of over one year. He attended only several sessions and attempted to persuade the therapist that leaving his wife and four children for his girlfriend was the right thing for him to do.
He contended that his wife was unstable. When the therapist discussed his responsibilities to his wife and children, and his moral obligation to work on his problem (actually only his reported “problem”) he did not return. Predictably he did not pay the bill for his sessions.
It was apparent that he was seeking a psychologist to support him in an impending court battle with his wife. At the start of the first session, this individual, with unmistakable pride and pleasure, reeled off a report of the drugs he had taken (nearly all that we might think of), the fights, the high speed chases with the police, fires that he set, a car he blew up, a "knee capping" ("shoot the guy in the knee cap --it won't kill them but it will hurt like hell--and others won't mess with you anymore"), and a stint in prison. He seemed excited to tell the therapist what he called the "Sicilian Motto": "The sweetest form of forgiveness is revenge!" Yes, these and similar behavior patterns extended back into this man's childhood; and yes, the diagnosis was antisocial personality disorder.
As you may already surmised, his wife’s psychological problems were largely a result of living with him. She would eventually divorce him, but he would remain a very damaging factor in his children’s lives. If he would remain connected to him, which is doubtful, he would be a very bad model for them to imitate. If he deserted them, they would suffer feelings of abandonment for the rest of their lives. It is common for such divorcing personality disordered individuals to remain unreliably connected to their ex spouses and children to frustrate and torture their ex and to propagandize their children against her or him. They will frequently spend significant sums of money and time to hire lawyers to drain their meager funds with legal fees and make them miserable.
The above is a strong example of how behavioral contagion can damage others who are associated with someone who suffers from a serious personality disorder. Unfortunately, research strongly indicates that anti-social personality disorder has a significant heritability factor and so behavior patterns similar to those of the problem parent are more likely to show-up in the children as they mature.
Suspected Causes
Genes
Antisocial personality disorder is perhaps the best researched of all the personality disorders. There is strong evidence that tendencies to show antisocial personality disorder can be inherited. Many studies have demonstrated elevated correlations in antisocial behavior of within families.
While some of the similarities could be due to imitation factors, children adopted and raised by adoptive parents still show stronger correlations for antisocial behavior with their biological parents than with their adoptive parents.
There is evidence that individuals with antisocial tendencies have slower central nervous systems, lower levels of autonomic nervous system arousal and slower skin conductance than normal individuals. They crave excitement and are not much affected by punishing consequences for their inappropriate behavior. One of the earmarks such individuals is their failure to learn from their painful experiences.
Learning
Antisocial personality disordered individuals are very likely to have lived in families that experienced poverty, disorganization, discord, family violence, divorce, abuse and abandonment. Presumably as a result of this, antisocial individuals do not trust others and they lack the moral development and interpersonal empathy so important to normal social relationships.
It is also thought that antisocial parents may teach their children to behave in similar ways through their modeling these behavior patterns and children learning to imitate them. Furthermore, it is very possible that when children tantrum, argue, and become aggressive to parental instructions that parents may "give-in" and terminate their demands, thereby teaching the children to behave in these oppositional and coercive ways to authority figures.
It should also be noted that Children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder seem to at an increased risk of eventually being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
It is likely that any, or all, of these factors could contribute to the development of antisocial personality disorder in any specific case.
If these behavior pattern emerge in your family, seek help early from an experienced psychologist. Protect yourselves from association with others who show antisocial tendencies and vote for representatives who will work to reduce the growth of these behavioral tendencies
within our population.
Dr. Tom, 3/27/10
This destructive personality disorder tends to emerge from childhood patterns of a disregard for the feelings and rights of others and for family, institutional, or social conventions,rules and laws. Childhood diagnoses for such behavior patterns are Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder. These disorders are listed under Axis I in the DSM-IV. I have presented them here with Axis II disorders because I think it is important that you see the tendency of these childhood problems to evolve into similar but more fully developed adult behavior patterns. It does not always happen, but all too frequently these behavior patterns tend to develop through one or two other child and adolescent diagnoses into its fully mature manifestation known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. The developmental steps toward the fully mature personality disorder are as follows:
In Oppositional Defiant Disorder, children challenge adult rules and demands, argue with adults, have often have bad temper problems, lie and blame others for their troubles. These problems normally start before puberty at around eight years of age.
Conduct Disorder is a more severe pattern of problem behaviors in which the rights of others are frequently violated. These children often lie, cheat, damage property, and run away from school and/or home. They may often aggress against others and may even hurt animals for entertainment. Other illegal activities such a robbery, extortion, rape, and murder may also occur in extreme cases. Conduct disorder can start sometime before 10 years or in later adolescence.
When an individual reaches the age of 18 years and still shows the enough of the previously mentioned behavior patterns they will be diagnosed as antisocial personality disorder. Individuals showing these behavior patterns are also sometimes called "sociopaths" or "psychopaths"; the names may change--but the behaviors the same.
As adults, these people show a strong disregard for the rights of others and the rule of law. They appear to have failed to develop the ability to empathize with others and they do not suffer conscious pangs of consciousness if they hurt or kill others. They are impulsive, seek thrills, take risks, are unreliable, spend money foolishly, can be irritable and aggressive, and have trouble maintaining close relationships with anyone. The motto for this category of diagnosis may be "if I want it---I'll take it, if it feels good---I'll do it: lying, cheating, manipulating, and stealing is good fun."
A Representative Example
Not surprisingly, these individuals have problems with drug and alcohol addiction and are often sentenced to prison for criminal behavior. Charles Manson is often cited as someone who shows many of the features of antisocial personality disorder, as well as other psychological problems.
A thirty year old man sought help from a therapist because he claimed to be having problems with his wife and wished to leave her for his girlfriend, of over one year. He attended only several sessions and attempted to persuade the therapist that leaving his wife and four children for his girlfriend was the right thing for him to do.
He contended that his wife was unstable. When the therapist discussed his responsibilities to his wife and children, and his moral obligation to work on his problem (actually only his reported “problem”) he did not return. Predictably he did not pay the bill for his sessions.
It was apparent that he was seeking a psychologist to support him in an impending court battle with his wife. At the start of the first session, this individual, with unmistakable pride and pleasure, reeled off a report of the drugs he had taken (nearly all that we might think of), the fights, the high speed chases with the police, fires that he set, a car he blew up, a "knee capping" ("shoot the guy in the knee cap --it won't kill them but it will hurt like hell--and others won't mess with you anymore"), and a stint in prison. He seemed excited to tell the therapist what he called the "Sicilian Motto": "The sweetest form of forgiveness is revenge!" Yes, these and similar behavior patterns extended back into this man's childhood; and yes, the diagnosis was antisocial personality disorder.
As you may already surmised, his wife’s psychological problems were largely a result of living with him. She would eventually divorce him, but he would remain a very damaging factor in his children’s lives. If he would remain connected to him, which is doubtful, he would be a very bad model for them to imitate. If he deserted them, they would suffer feelings of abandonment for the rest of their lives. It is common for such divorcing personality disordered individuals to remain unreliably connected to their ex spouses and children to frustrate and torture their ex and to propagandize their children against her or him. They will frequently spend significant sums of money and time to hire lawyers to drain their meager funds with legal fees and make them miserable.
The above is a strong example of how behavioral contagion can damage others who are associated with someone who suffers from a serious personality disorder. Unfortunately, research strongly indicates that anti-social personality disorder has a significant heritability factor and so behavior patterns similar to those of the problem parent are more likely to show-up in the children as they mature.
Suspected Causes
Genes
Antisocial personality disorder is perhaps the best researched of all the personality disorders. There is strong evidence that tendencies to show antisocial personality disorder can be inherited. Many studies have demonstrated elevated correlations in antisocial behavior of within families.
While some of the similarities could be due to imitation factors, children adopted and raised by adoptive parents still show stronger correlations for antisocial behavior with their biological parents than with their adoptive parents.
There is evidence that individuals with antisocial tendencies have slower central nervous systems, lower levels of autonomic nervous system arousal and slower skin conductance than normal individuals. They crave excitement and are not much affected by punishing consequences for their inappropriate behavior. One of the earmarks such individuals is their failure to learn from their painful experiences.
Learning
Antisocial personality disordered individuals are very likely to have lived in families that experienced poverty, disorganization, discord, family violence, divorce, abuse and abandonment. Presumably as a result of this, antisocial individuals do not trust others and they lack the moral development and interpersonal empathy so important to normal social relationships.
It is also thought that antisocial parents may teach their children to behave in similar ways through their modeling these behavior patterns and children learning to imitate them. Furthermore, it is very possible that when children tantrum, argue, and become aggressive to parental instructions that parents may "give-in" and terminate their demands, thereby teaching the children to behave in these oppositional and coercive ways to authority figures.
It should also be noted that Children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder seem to at an increased risk of eventually being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
It is likely that any, or all, of these factors could contribute to the development of antisocial personality disorder in any specific case.
If these behavior pattern emerge in your family, seek help early from an experienced psychologist. Protect yourselves from association with others who show antisocial tendencies and vote for representatives who will work to reduce the growth of these behavioral tendencies
within our population.
Dr. Tom, 3/27/10
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