Neurosis vs. Character Disorder--Self-Image Issues, Part 2 by George Simon

[CZBZ]

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2008/10/01/neurosis-vs-character-disorder-self-image-pt-2/

From CounsellingResource.com:

Neurosis vs. Character Disorder: Self-Image Issues, Part 2

By Dr George Simon, PhD | 1 October 2008

Disturbed characters generally have too much self-esteem. They know what they have going for them and they equate their endowments with their identity. This is one of the main reasons their self-image can become inflated. On the other hand, disturbed characters often are frequently and chronically lacking in self-respect.

It’s fairly common for both lay persons and professionals to make an assumption that the ego inflation they encounter in disordered characters must be a compensation for underlying low self-esteem. But what they fail to consider is that there is a very significant difference between self-esteem and self-respect. The aforementioned terms are often used interchangeably, but I find it crucial to distinguish between these very important concepts, especially because issues related to a healthy balance of self-esteem and self-respect play pivotal roles in the shaping of an individual’s character.

Self-esteem literally means to estimate worth. Our sense of self-esteem arises out of an intuitive assessment about what we have going for ourselves in the way of talents, abilities, etc. If a person has been blessed with ample intelligence, with physical attractiveness, and with other desirable characteristics, it’s natural for them to feel good about themselves.

Self-respect, on the other hand, comes from the Latin respectere, which means to “look back.” Self-respect arises from a retrospective assessment a person makes about what he has done with the various gifts he has been given. When people use their abilities and talents to make a meaningful contribution to society, the usual result is the achievement of a fair degree of success as well as positive regard from others.

Among the most crucial issues affecting sound character development are the attributions a person makes with regard to the factors that engender both self-esteem and self-respect. All disordered characters, most especially narcissists, chronically overvalue and claim “ownership” of the desirable but accidental attributes (i.e., gifts of nature or blessings of God) that foster a sense of high self-esteem. What’s more, many times they get reinforcing messages from others like: “You’re so smart,” or “You’re so talented.” In short, they both receive and are readily willing to claim credit for things that they can’t genuinely attribute to their own doing. They know what they have going for them and they equate their endowments with their identity. This is one of the main reasons their self-image can become inflated in the first place.

Contrarily, disordered characters (once again, especially narcissists) are frequently and chronically lacking in self-respect. That’s because they know that they haven’t done enough for the good of others with the gifts they’ve been give to merit such a positive appraisal of their genuine worth. In short, they lack respect because they haven’t earned it. Self-respect is among the most valuable human commodities. Yet, the most disturbed characters among us try to demand respect in various ways without ever earning it, and sometimes others afford it to them when they haven’t truly earned it. Upcoming posts will further address this and the reasons for it.

One of the failings of modern culture is our frequent failure to recognize and reward what has in the past been referred to as meritorious conduct. Even some of our major religions and philosophical schools of thought sometimes unwittingly downplay the value or even existence of human merit. Merit has to do with the manner in which a human being exercises the ultimate human power, the power to choose. Human beings are endowed with a free will, and making the meritorious choice is never easy — yet it is the essence of character development. When a soldier enters a minefield knowing full well he could die in the process yet seeks to rescue a fallen comrade, he commits a meritorious act. When a father and husband turns down a flagrant offer to engage in a tryst with an attractive co-worker out of concern for the solidity of his marital commitment, the stability of his family, and the welfare of his children, he performs a similarly meritorious act. Doing the right thing is never easy.

The problem is that within modern culture and even within major schools of religious and philosophical belief, the value placed on such conduct is minimal. Sometimes, we simply expect good people to do right. Teachers and parents rarely catch and reward children for making the right choices, but we’re quick to chastise when they choose wrongly. We need to be careful not to praise people for the things that are rightfully attributed to nature or a higher power such as looks, brains, talents and abilities, but instead recognize and reinforce people for the meritorious exercising of their wills and their subordination of their baser instincts in the service of the common good. That’s what fostering sound character development is mostly about.

*     *     *

About the Author: Dr. George Simon received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Texas Tech University and has specialized in disturbances of personality and character for almost 25 years. He has appeared on several national radio and TV programs, including Fox News Network and CNN, given over 250 workshops and seminars nationwide, and consulted to numerous businesses, agencies, and organizations seeking his expertise on character disturbance.

[CZBZ]

Part one of George Simon's article is posted on our Integration Section:

http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php/topic,5249.new.html#new

[Cornfield]

I can easily note the difference between self esteem and self respect based on my experiences with my late husband's decline.  In his early adulthood he displayed excellent social manners and dressed well, often exaggerating his style so that he could be noticed as a "show-off."   He enjoyed the flourishes of overdressing at times, and I thought he just needed a fashion tune-up at times.  For serious occasions there was no problem at all.  His self respect seemed to be normal.

It was in mid life years that he began the behaviors a person could call "lack of self-respect" and I was quite puzzled by it all.  He thought nothing of going to a restaurant in dirty clothes with me, and he dressed inappropriately while I gave some attention to how I looked for the occasion.  After a while, I complained kindly, causing him to stubbornly refuse to dress better when accompanying me to eat out.

The last ten years there was a problem with being clean, and I began checking the soap dish in the shower to find if the soap was still dry.  Months went by and I never needed to replenish the soap supply.  I addressed the issue and got denial.  He was not showering, just standing in the water to rinse off.  He smelled after a shower.

The floor was dirty after a meal, like little children, and I was positive he had a stroke.  He didn't seem to care.  His mannerism became very crude, even in public.

At first I blamed myself for being too hard on his public persona, so I backed off on mentioning his lack of cleanliness and normal style.  It did no good, and he progressed into an embarrassment.  When I didn't attend church with him, he dressed pretty well, but would never allow me to take his suits to be dry cleaned.
They hung there for years because he said they were not dirty.  He could only wear a tie once because every meal caused a spot to be deposited.  He attempted to clean his own ties, leaving the stains and buying new ties often.  Finally he quit wearing ties, and turned to turtlenecks, out of season, which looked awful on his huge frame.  I thought he was having a mid-life crisis.
Putting the picture together over time, it is reasonable to understand that my husband lacked self-respect and had too much self esteem built up from overcompensation during childhood.  He was handsome and was told he was special.

My being consumed by his physical beauty overwhelmed me and I could not possibly see the difference in the personality and character issues.   I was in love and nothing else mattered.  I thought I had the catch of the century and life would be wonderful if only I worked hard enough to prove myself worthy of his attention.

Now I realize this was a formula for disaster for both of us.  I survived it all and he did not. 

Dr. Simon is correct, in my view.  Narcissists lack self respect and have too much self esteem.  I should have noticed it earlier because I am a teacher.  But even teachers confuse the qualities associated with the terms.  In retrospect, I realize I had boundaries of self respect long before I knew about boundaries.  It was a matter of taking action to be loyal to my self respect, and that is when all He...broke loose.

Life is good on the farm these days. 

Cornfield

[CZBZ]

"The construct of narcissism involves highly favorable, even grandiose views of self, a sense of being special or unique, fantasies of personal brilliance or beauty, and the belief that one is entitled to privileges and admiration by others (see American Psychiatric Association, 2000). In normal populations, scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Emmons, 1984; Raskin & Hall, 1981) correlate substantially with self-esteem (Rhodewalt & Morf, 1995; Sinha & Krueger, 1998). The heterogeneity of high self-esteem is indicated by the finding that some people with high selfesteem are not narcissistic, whereas others are; the reverse is not true (i.e., there are very few narcissists with low selfesteem).

Bushman and Baumeister (1998) measured both selfesteem and narcissism in laboratory studies of aggression. Narcissism, but not self-esteem, predicted aggression, and only when the target was someone who had previously insulted the participant. The idea that narcissistically high self-esteem is unhealthy is further supported by the finding that narcissists’ high self-esteem tends to be unstable..."~Roy F. Baumeister, Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger, and Kathleen D. Vohs (excerpted from the linked article below)


Dear Cornfield,

I thought maybe you'd be interested in Dr. Simon's distinction between self-esteem and self-respect.  Not only because our culture inappropriately praised our children (more akin to 'flattery' than truth), but also because people have falsely assumed narcissists have LOW self-esteem. That was certainly the rule-of-thumb psychology taught the general public. We made the erroneous assumption that anyone with an attitude was compensating for low self-esteem. That's what we all said to one another when complaining about someone's arrogance and pride, "Oh, he or she is acting like a fathead because they really don't like themselves. Deep down inside, there's a fearful inner child who pretends to be something s/he's not."

I am guilty of thinking that way. This is a serious mistake people make because rather than Letting People Tell Us Who They Are By Their Actions, we deny their behavior as being indicative of their values (self first and little to no regard for others). We make up excuses  for them. We minimize their not-so-pleasant-personalities. Then we proceed to reassure them that they're good people...that their lives have value, and that we can help them work on their self-esteem issues by loving them unconditionally.

I blame the silly self-help movement of the 70's for creating the entitlement monsters we're seeing today. Had I simply made my decisions based on what I SAW, I'd be in a far better position today. But NO! I had to go and believe the idea that anyone acting superior really didn't like him-or-herself and I could help them FIX their problem so they could bask in the human love-fest.
 
When someone acts like a pompous ass, you can be reasonably certain that they are.

The article linked to my message is fairly long, so I clipped a few more excerpts I think you'll appreciate!

Hugs,

CZBZ

DOES HIGH SELF-ESTEEM CAUSE BETTER PERFORMANCE, INTERPERSONAL SUCCESS, HAPPINESS, OR HEALTHIER LIFESTYLES?

Roy F. Baumeister, Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger, and Kathleen D. Vohs
Florida State University; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Brown University; and University of Utah

"...High self-esteem feels good and fosters initiative. It may still prove a useful tool to promote success and virtue, but it should be clearly and explicitly linked to desirable behavior. After all, Hitler had very high self-esteem and plenty of initiative, too, but those were hardly guarantees of ethical behavior. He attracted followers by offering them self-esteem that was not tied to achievement or ethical behavior—rather, he told them that they were superior beings simply by virtue of being themselves, members of the so-called Master Race, an idea that undoubtedly had a broad, seductive appeal. We have found no data to indicate that indiscriminately promoting selfesteem in today’s children or adults, just for being themselves, has any benefits beyond that seductive pleasure.

"Hence, we think self-esteem should be used in a limited way as one of a cluster of factors to promote positive outcomes. It should not be an end in itself. Raising self-esteem will not by itself make young people perform better in school, obey the law, stay out of trouble, get along better with their fellows, or respect the rights of others, among many other desirable outcomes. However, it does seem appropriate to try to boost people’s self-esteem as a reward for ethical behavior and worthy achievements.

"Although that may sound banal, we think it will require a basic change in many self-esteem programs, which now seek to boost everyone’s self-esteem without demanding appropriate behavior first. Using self-esteem as a reward rather than an entitlement seems most appropriate to us..." (click the title to retrieve this pdf article)

[Phoenixxx]

I dont agree with that hypothesis.  I think at the core there isnt an identity of any substance, and there isnt anything to hold in esteem.

If narcissism and sociopathy were exacerbated if not created SOLELY by spoiling a child then I could swallow that theory (my exN/S was spoiled and flattered and told he was better than most people by parents who felt they were better and more entitled than most people)

however, the prevailing wisdom is that abuse and neglect ALSO exacerbate if not create narcissism or sociopathy (and my exN/S was verbally and physically abused, as well as neglected and told he was horrible and would never amount to anything, was regularly temporarily threatened and abandoned as punishment for his behaviour)

my exN/S told me quite a few times how horrible he felt about himself as a child, was over-weight because food was his drug throughout his childhood, was using drugs and alcohol regularly in order to NOT feel, admitted to not being sexually active early because he was certain girls would reject him etc etc


any tests that show N/S's scoring high on self-esteem I am suspicious of simply because N/S's have spent their entire lives lying to others, and most especially themselves about their value and entitlement because the alternative, what they felt as children is intolerable to them

especially shame

and criticism



people that I have met in my life who have loads of GENUINE self-esteem can accept and tolerate criticism and shame
because they not only have a realistic notion of their strengths and weaknesses, but they can, without defensiveness, see it in others, even those who criticize or shame them

[LDW]

Here are two examples of how my ex-N's parents taught him NO self-respect:

1)
Alastair was taken to court because he got into a fight with a guy who defended a homosexual in a bar (note the displacement). This was highly inconvenient because he had applied to become an army officer in training at Sandhurst. His father at that point displayed his "Daddy knows best" attitude and took care of the situation; Alastair was not made to take responsibility for what he did. Instead his lesson was; 'If you can pay for the best attorney, you can decide yourself which laws apply to you and which do not'. He won and a couple of months later he joined the army.
 
[Inconsistent parental attitudes on aggression and self-assertion and other childhood experiences of being valued for specific, precocious talents seem to be the prime determinants. The child never learned who to identify with--the aggressor or the victim. They developed a pragmatic philosophy of siding with winners regardless of who was in the right or wrong. They feel they have the right to control, manipulate, exploit, and be cruel to others.]

2)
One evening I came back from work and I was tired, Alastair asked me to go out and have an aperitif with some colonel. I told him I was not in the mood, I could see this annoyed him, he didn't ask me why but just asked me to make food for when he returned. While walking on egg-shells again, I told him I could make dinner for more colleagues if he wanted to invite them over.

He came back 4 hours later with two female officers and they were all drunk. One officer left quite early, the other one, K., stayed on for a bit. They were talking about a discussion she had that afternoon with a corporal. From the discussion Alastair concluded that they addressed each other familiarly (i.e. they called each other by their first names). He said that no corporal fucknuts was ever to call him by his first name. This hit a nerve with me and I told him that I thought it was rather disrespectful to call a corporal a fucknuts because in the end he's the frontline soldier who actually gets killed in a war. He looked at me (his eyes became black, I'm not exaggerating) and said: "If you think doctors speak differently about nurses, you're ignorant. In their eyes you're a NURSE FUCKNUTS too".
 
[Narcissistic rage is a reaction to narcissistic injury (when the narcissist feels degraded by another person). When the narcissist's grandiose sense of self worth is perceivably being attacked by another person, the narcissist's natural reaction is to rage and pull-down the self worth of others (to make the narcissist feel superior to others).]
 
Voilà… that was the proverbial last straw that broke my back; if this was the man I was going to marry, I'd rather DIE. I slammed a kitchen cupboard door (3 glasses fell out) and asked K. to leave. I went nuts and screamed at him that this was the last time he was ever going to insult me or my friends again and that I was now leaving.

A few days later we cancelled the wedding and of course he had to explain to his parents the cause of the break-up. Guess what he told them? That we had a row because I didn't want to buy a house with him and that I slammed kitchen cupboard doors! His mother said that putting up with that sort of behaviour couldn't be good and that is was alright for him to reconsider marriage...



Whooaaaa combined with an abusive, controlling narcissistic father and a mother who neglected him, unable to give emotional support to him most of his childhood (believe me, I know from the stories he told me) and you have the perfect recipe for Narcissism. Wow...

So many things come to my mind now reading other people's stories ... He once told me that as a child he regularly used to snif glue in the garage of his home, when his parents discovered this he was immensely shamed and criticised for it...

I still get torn between feeling extremely sorry for him and wanting to kill the MOFO...    (not really of course!)

[CZBZ]

"I still get torn between feeling extremely sorry for him and wanting to kill the MOFO..." ~LDW

Don't we all? Our compassion establishes the ground for healthy relationships and unfortunately, makes unhealthy relationships last forever.  What's difficult to contain is the 'need' to be angry and want to kill the MOFOs without feeling guilty about being angry and wanting to kill the MOFO. For most people in narcissistic relationships, getting angry is the fuel to self-preservation, yet our conscience holds our anger in check. Or should I say, our conscience SUPPRESSES our natural anger, anger that reaffirms to ourselves that we are worthy of respect and dignity and reciprocal compassion (understanding). When a woman gets angry on WoN, the entire forum breaths a sigh of relief. No need to worry about her becoming aggressive and vindictive. Her empathy will moderate her fantasies and prevent her from taking self-destructive action.

It is my understanding that even psychologists differ on the etiology of NPD. We can read articles by psychologists that view NPD as a reaction to trauma and childhood abuse in which case, narcissism compensates for the 'disconnection' with the True Self. The True Self being the child whose feelings were honored and validated by nurturing caretakers. In this theoretical definition, narcissism masks feelings of emptiness, the loss of connection with the 'self'. Dr. Drew Pinsky, the celebrity psychologist, asserts this view in his book, The Mirror Effect. (Which I liked very much)

In the Narcissism Epidemic by Twenge and Campbell (social psychologists focusing on narcissism as a dynamic component of personality), suggest narcissism to be an overinflated self-worth, self-admiration based on HIGH self-esteem. (I liked their book very very much)

I think it's important to say that there are two subtypes of NPD that have differing presentations and beginnings: the overt and the covert N. The overt narcissist is described in the DSM-IV as being exhibitionistic, arrogant, full of him or herself, etc. The DSM-IV excludes criteria for the 'covert or shy' narcissist who is prone to depression and hypersensitive to criticism. But bottom line, overt or covert, narcissists become AGGRESSIVE if they are criticized, limited by rules, treated like ordinary people or as LDW wrote, when their superiority is not validated by others. The criticizm and judgment narcissists are quick to blast towards others, if reciprocated, becomes a Narcissistic Injury to their inflated self-worth.

Overt or covert, the narcissist will get ya for making him feel like he or she isn't special.

I like your example, LDW: what most people do not realize is that narcissists rank everyone on a pecking order. They are highly competitive, even if they mask their 'competitive nature' with false humility (or not putting themselves on the firing line to prove their 'worth').

So there are two ways to look at NPD: a compensatory defense against low self-worth, disconnection from the true self and an empty sense of self resulting from trauma and abuse. As Phoenixxx suggests. The other view is that narcissists consider themselves to be superior to all others with a sense of entitlement and grandiosity resulting from permissive (or neglectful) parenting.

There is one more way to define NPD though and that's the malignant narcissism syndrome manifesting psychopathic traits or antisocial behavior. No hope for cure there.

In my life experience, it's hard to know the difference between someone suffering from an abusive childhood who also manifests narcissistic traits and someone who lacks empathy, a core sense of self and thus suffers from pathological narcissism. In other words, the abused child who has the ability to 'connect' with the true self, has empathy for others, and is able to introspect (connecting present behavior to precedents in the past) and tolerate an essential grieving of their losses, is able to Heal and overcome narcissistic vulnerabilities.

The narcissist cannot do this. We may not know if a narcissistic person can overcome a traumatic childhood until they don't. Therein lies the rub for good-hearted people who believe their love has value and can support the narcissist during an emotional crisis. We've all seen those ARROGANT folks get their come-uppance and change dramatically because of it. We cannot know if an arrogant narcissist will be able to overcome his-or-her grandiosity either. Until they don't.

I hope this explains my understanding about NPD.


Hugs,
CZ

[LDW]

CZ, just wanted this on top of the message board... soooo so important!
thanks again
L