Being assertive is starkly different from being passive or aggressive. Paterson has a helpful analogy that distinguishes the differences. He explained:

In the passive style, all the world is allowed on stage but for you — your role is to be the audience and supporter for everyone else. In the aggressive style, you’re allowed on stage but you spend most of your time shoving the others off, like in a lifelong sumo match. With the assertive style, everyone is welcome onstage. You are entitled to be a full person, including your uniqueness, and so are others.

“Assertiveness involves advocating for yourself in a way that is positive and proactive,” said Joyce Marter, LCPC, psychotherapist and owner of Urban Balance, LLC. It also means being clear, direct and honest, she said.

For instance, if you’re upset with your boss over your performance review, you’re able to express your opinion in a diplomatic and professional way, she said. Again, this is very different from the other styles. If you’re passive, you might swallow your feelings and become resentful, which can chip away at your self-esteem and boost stress and anxiety, she said. If you’re aggressive, you might curse out your boss and quit. If you’re passive-aggressive, you might call in sick and give your boss the silent treatment, she said.

Why Some People Aren’t Assertive

Why are some people assertive while others aren’t? Many factors may contribute. Stress is one. “The fight-or-flight response is an evolutionary adaptation that pulls us toward aggression or avoidance, and away from calm, relaxed assertiveness,” Paterson said.

A person’s belief system also plays a role. According to Paterson, these assertive-sabotaging stances include: “Being nice means going along with others” or “It doesn’t matter if I’m assertive, no one will pay attention anyway” or “He’ll leave me!” That’s why it’s so important to become aware of these beliefs. “[This way you] can examine them clearly and rationally and decide what to do,” he said.

People with low self-esteem may feel inadequate and have a hard time finding their voice, Marter said. Others might fear conflict, losing a relationship, criticism or rejection, she said.

If you’re a woman, you might’ve been raised to set aside your needs and opinions and support and agree with others, Paterson said. If you’re a man, you might’ve been raised to react aggressively with a “my way or the highway” view, he said. Or just the opposite, you might want to be completely different. “[These individuals may be] fearful of provoking aggression when they are present in relationships, or of being ‘a jerk like my father was.’”

How to Be Assertive

Assertiveness is a skill that takes practice. It may always be easier for you to swallow your feelings, scream at someone or give them the silent treatment. But assertiveness is a better strategy. It works because it respects you and others.

Drawing on her own experiences and her observations of others, Schoen explains exactly what a “gentle self” is.  This type of narcissist puts others ahead of themselves because the narcissist feels that he or she is unworthy of love or respect.  I can definitely relate to the gentle self.  Schoen spends half the book comparing and contrasting the two types of narcissist.  You may be thinking, “How can someone who puts others first be a narcissist?  Isn’t that the exact opposite of what a narcissist is?”  Schoen addresses this very question.  She explains that a narcissist is anyone who is self-absorbed.  The gentle self is self-absorbed in the sense that they are constantly thinking about how they don’t feel like they belong, how they aren’t worthy of love, etc.

The second half of The Gentle Self is about how to overcome depression, anxiety, shyness, and low self-esteem.  Schoen offers such advice as, “If you feel strong anxiety or pain or even a nervous breakdown approaching, the first rule to remember is: leave yourself alone.”  She goes on to say, “We often tend to put more pressure on ourselves in the form of ‘I can’t possibly burst into tears right now,’ ‘what’s wrong with me,’ or ‘I hate myself,’” and suggests trying to “be your own friend” when others are being negative toward you.

In romantic relationships, Schoen recommends bringing the spontaneity that we crave into the relationship instead of waiting for our partners to do so.  If we sit around waiting for our partners to read our minds and do what we want them to do, our relationships will end in failure.  Affairs are a not uncommon problem in relationships with gentle narcissists.  In friendships, Schoen says that gentle narcissists should get out and meet people.  Since it’s human nature to crave connection, meeting strangers on the street can feel refreshing and give the gentle self the confidence he or she needs to feel good the rest of the day.

Some other practical methods that Schoen provides for dealing with personal issues are the typical options: psychotherapy, meditation, and growing up.  The phrase “growing up” means something different to everyone.  In the context of The Gentle Self, growing up can be explained with three ideas:

• Leave yourself alone.
• Stay involved with other people.
• Take care of somebody else such as a child, grandparent, or pet.

If you, or any other gentle self, can get your mind off of how you feel about yourself, you get out with friends or meet new people regularly, and you have someone you can pour your affection into, your life might just start to look a little bit brighter.

All in all, I’m not too sure how effective Schoen’s methods are.  I’ve tried meditation before with little success.  Though I do feel a little better when I’m interacting with people, when that interaction has ended, I’m back to feeling how I did before—worthless and unimportant.  There are a lot of things that I agree with in The Gentle Self.  As I read, I could see so many parallels with my life.  Everything from distant parents trying to live through me to my fear of intimacy in romantic relationships—Gerti Schoen covered it all.  I have yet to try psychotherapy, but it is something I’ve been looking into.  As for taking care of someone else, I don’t know what I would do without my pets.  The only way I can explain how I feel about my pets is how a parent feels for a child.  They mean everything to me and I would be lost without them.

On the whole, The Gentle Self was a slow read.  There are a few grammatical and spelling errors, but nothing that the average mind would notice unless it was looking for them.  Schoen offers sound advice.  Her methods work more often than not.  Ultimately, I would have to say that The Gentle Self is definitely a book I would recommend to anyone who suffers from major depression or bipolar disorder.  You may see yourself in the pages.

The Gentle Self: How to Overcome Your Difficulties with Depression, Anxiety, Shyness, and Low Self-Esteem
By Gerti Schoen
CreateSpace: August 25, 2011
Paperback, 136 pages
$7.20

You know how it goes: The oldest starts acting bossy. The kid who never helped with the chores still heads for the TV instead of the kitchen or yard where others are helping out. The guy who now runs a substantial business goes back to being the family screw-up.

Meanwhile, the parents oblige by being more parental than they would dream of being with other young adults in their lives: more critical, giving more advice than is appreciated, issuing orders to clean up their language or pick up the coat they dropped on the floor, and treating their adult kids like, well, kids.

Old patterns of behaving die hard. As a high school basketball coach I know frequently tells his players, “Practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect. It makes permanent.”

Think about it. The family is our first experience with the social world. Each kid who comes into the family reacts to those who came before, looking for a way to be unique but also to be part of the group. One kid becomes the “smart one” or the “smart one in math” while the other becomes the “smart one in history.” One becomes the athlete, another gets known to be the funniest, or the best or worst with money or the best or worst at organizing. For each family member, finding a unique identity means strengthening particular attributes and talents.

At the same time, belonging requires some level of conformity to our family’s idea of the family identity, at least some of the time. In the normal shuffle and scuffle of daily life, we learn what wins acceptance from our family and what will get us put in the timeout chair or sent to our room; what ensures our membership in the family and what will risk rejection. For almost 20 years, we spend some part of almost every day as one of the dancers in the elaborate dance of family life. Our roles become as choreographed and familiar as the opening number of a well-known show. Twenty years. That’s a whole lot of practice for making the family style and our role in it permanent.

Our roles may be modified considerably when we move out into the larger world. But get us together with the original group and 20 years of practice bubbles back up to the surface. Never underestimate the seductive draw of what is familiar. It just feels natural to snap back into our well-rehearsed part. The “responsible one” volunteers for more than she really wants to do. The “baby” goes back to playing the cute card in spite of herself. When with her dad, the independent woman can slip once again into the “princess” role she had as a child while her brother starts to swagger a bit like his former teenage jock self.

As we grow to adulthood, we expand our repertoire of skills for interacting with others. Feedback from friends, classmates, and colleagues shape us in new and important ways that may not work as well in the family. It’s normal and okay to regress a bit when in the bosom of family but it’s important to hold onto the adult we’ve become as well. Being mature means catching ourselves when we start to slide into old roles that are self-centered or over-stated or less balanced and actively deciding to relate in the family with the same dignity and maturity we use with others.

As parents age and become the parents of adults, they need to treasure the memories of these big people as the children they once were and at the same time validate and appreciate who they’ve become. It’s normal and okay to regress to a bit to being parental when adult kids come home but it’s important to step out of that well-rehearsed role as well. Being mature means not treating them as children and actively deciding to move to a more adult-adult relationship.

When both generations make the effort, moments of regression to the past can be sweet because they are nested in a larger appreciation of who each person has come to be in the present.

Avoid Getting Stuck in Regression

Most families can and do make the transition into adult-adult relationships. Here are a few ideas to help you avoid getting stuck in regression when pulled by the familiar family dance:

• Regression can be sweet if it’s kept in bounds. You don’t need to hold so tight to your new roles that you can’t enjoy and take comfort from revisiting the old ones. It’s OK for grown kids to enjoy Mom’s cooking or to sit on the couch with Dad to watch favorite sports. Those moments can be treasured – as long as adult kids then pitch in and contribute in some way to rebalance the relationship.
• Resist the impulse to correct, criticize, or give advice unless it is asked for. That goes for both generations. Parents don’t need to revert to being parental. Adult kids don’t need to regress into their teenaged critical selves. No amount of good advice or arguing is going to change things in a holiday weekend. Bite your tongue unless someone takes you aside and asks what you think. That’s a genuine request for help and support you can respond to as long as you do so with tact.
• If your family has always been contentious, promise yourself not to regress to bickering, arguing, or responding in kind to putdowns or critical comments. A fight can happen only if both sides engage. If you use humor instead or simply say, “Let’s not. It’s Christmas,” the other party usually will drop it too. (By the way: It may take a few tries. Sometimes people are so perplexed by a former adversary’s refusal to engage that they try again to start the familiar fight. Stay calm and just continue to decline in as friendly a way as you can. They’ll usually get the message.)
• Pro-gress instead of re-gress. It gets more and more complicated to go “home” when young adults find partners and start having kids of their own. At some point, it may no longer make sense for some or all of the adult kids to travel back to their parents’ home for every family celebration. The older generation can make this transition easier by being flexible about how and when they spend holidays. The younger generation can make it easier by remembering that parents and older relatives who love them are interested in their lives and need to see them – or at least hear from them – during the holiday season. Advance planning is the key. When there are careful and loving conversations about who needs to go where for family holiday events, it’s possible to maintain a sense of family togetherness while accommodating new realities.

Related Article:

The Turkey Trail: Which Home for the Holidays?

The editors position House and Psychology as a supplemental text for psychology courses in high schools and colleges.  Producer David Shore’s creation becomes a vehicle for teaching the basics of the discipline’s research and principles.  The book relies heavily, though not exclusively, on the tenets of social psychology in particular, with forays into abnormal and personality psychology and, to a lesser degree, neuroscience and the psychology of learning.

Its writing style is informal and sometimes hip, but don’t let that fool you.  Citations from peer-reviewed journals and classic experiments team up with liberal quotations from the House canon and deconstructions of its characters’ behavior, especially that of Gregory House, M.D.  The result mixes solid research with entertaining fiction.  I was already a House fan before reading this book, but I’d venture to say that readers unfamiliar with the series would also enjoy these essays, the same way they would enjoy a collection of juicy case studies.

The book’s 30 contributors — “The PhDs of Princeton-Plainsboro” — range from psychology students to postdocs and professors.  Their expertise includes but is not limited to research in the psychology of authenticity, cognition, creativity, humor, intergroup relations, moral reasoning and judgment, power plays, and self-esteem, as well as addictions, the neurobiology of mental illness, and psychophysiology.  Specialties also include parasocial attachments to television characters and psychiatry in film.

House and Psychology‘s four sections (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Awe-Inspiring) lead the reader through a rich landscape of human interactions and the motivations behind them.  Chapter 1 addresses helping behaviors.  Psychological theories such as the negative state relief hypothesis (helping so that one doesn’t feel guilty about not helping) and Dan Batson’s experiments on altruism are presented against the backdrop of actions by characters like Taub and Cameron.  The evidence presented tests House’s assertion that every act stems from self-interest (egoistic reductionism).

Is House an authentic person despite his penchant for lying?  Evidence in Chapter 2 indicates that authenticity is multidimensional, and that House excels in some factors but not all.  The personality theories of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are among those brought to bear on the doctor and his diagnostic team.

As a viewer of the show might expect, House ranks high on creativity, but why?  Chapter 3 delves into theories surrounding payoff vs. risk and a high vs. low need for closure.  Experiments like the Duncker candle problem illustrate the difference between “functional fixedness” and its opposite: finding an unconventional use for a common object.  Divergent thinking (making connections between disparate objects) and the role of the subconscious in processing memories round out the chapter.

House does much more poorly in his relationships, but his entire staff experiences problems there.  Chapter 4 examines different relationship styles, such as Cameron’s “destiny belief” in one true romantic partner, contrasted with Chase’s belief that people can grow into a relationship.  House’s childhood likely contributed to his “anxious-ambivalent” relationship style, marked by controlling behaviors and jealousy.  The different character interactions are matched to theories of attraction and relationship maintenance strategies, such as Robert Sternberg’s theory of love and its components of passion, intimacy, and commitment.  Chapter 4 closes by addressing issues of trust, conflict, and the dissolution of relationships.

Despite their relationship problems, House’s team members exhibit signs that they are generally happy, which in turn contributes to their diagnostic success.  Foreman tolerates House’s abuses because of the rewards his work provides.  Chapter 5 discusses the components of achieving happiness and the myths associated with it.  House’s assertion that miserable people make better doctors goes against established evidence.  Flow — being absorbed in the moment, as when House is fully engaged with a medical puzzle — also contributes to happiness.

Chapter 6 examines social support and the importance of reciprocity.  Cameron and Wilson both give more support than they receive, while House receives more support than he gives.  Foreman and Thirteen’s relationship had been reciprocally supportive.

The chapter also addresses the different types of social support (tangible, informational, and emotional) and the best times to apply each.  The wrong type of support can exacerbate stress and negatively affect a person’s self-esteem.  At times, simply knowing that support is available can suffice.  The lack of robust social networks outside Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital presents a problem for the entire team.

Conversely, humor helps House’s staff members, both individually and within their group.  Chapter 7 offers physiological and neurological evidence of humor’s health benefits.  It reviews the different styles of humor, such as the aggressive and (less often) self-defeating style that House employs.  The chapter examines the roles that upbringing and the environment play in determining someone’s joking style.

Is Gregory House a true clinical case of narcissistic personality disorder?  Chapter 8 scores him on that spectrum, comparing and contrasting him with people like Tiger Woods.  Unlike most individuals with the disorder, House not only talks a good game, he delivers.  He falls into the “great man with great flaws” personality type, making him an antihero.  His positive qualities make others want to minimize his shortcomings, a phenomenon called “cognitive consistency.”

Does everybody lie, as House asserts?  Chapter 9 describes a 147-participant study suggesting that everybody does, but in different ways.  Even sympathetic characters like Wilson and Cameron lie.  House’s lies are manipulative, but so too are his brutal truths.  He differs from the average person who fears getting caught in a falsehood, but who also lies for fear of offending another.  The chapter examines the motives behind various forms of misleading, from hiding a secret to easing social interactions and, in House’s case, hiding emotional pain.

The neurological underpinnings of House’s Vicodin dependence set the stage for Chapter 10.  The chapter discusses concepts such as neuroeconomics and the Iowa Gambling Task.  In this task, normal subjects differed from drug addicts (and from people experiencing a particular type of brain damage), who risked larger losses in favor of immediate rewards.  Increased tolerance, i.e., neuroadaptation, seen in drug addicts parallels brain damage in the prefrontal cortex, which governs higher cognitive functions and inhibits impulsive behavior.

Foreman’s prefrontal cortex aids his restraint when he chooses paperwork over alcohol after his patient dies in the episode “House Training.”  In contrast, the amygdala, involved in human emotion and immediate reward to stimuli, drives Thirteen’s drug use in “Lucky Thirteen.”  Cameron’s one-time crystal meth use in “Hunting” does not make her an addict, while Chase’s drinking in “Brave Heart,” following his role in the death of African dictator Dibala, resembles alcohol use by sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Chase uses alcohol as self-medication to numb his emotions.  House’s inability to cope with his emotions contributes to his Vicodin dependence.  His lack of “self-regulation” represents part of the complexity of drug addiction.

Chapter 11, on conformity, argues that House performs a valuable service by encouraging dissension within his team.  The chapter cites experiments such as that by Solomon Asch, in which the need to conform led subjects to give answers they knew were wrong.  House’s divisive tactics help guard against groupthink, but his nonconformity contributes to his own isolation even when he is morally right.  Stanley Schachter’s experiment comparing reactions to conformists vs. deviates illustrates the cost of being the odd person out.

Chapter 12 plots several series regulars and a recurring character on the Interpersonal Circumplex, whose four quadrants measure high to low ranges of two dimensions: agency and communion.  Agentic values (e.g., achievement, intelligence, competence, and power) co-vary with communal ones (e.g., harmony, nurturance, and loyalty).  The chapter details the ways in which different personality types play off of and change each other’s behavior.

House’s high agency/low communal score is a fitting lead-in to the power dynamics discussed in Chapter 13.  What confers power on a person?  (In this hospital series, it’s knowledge.)  How does having power change one’s behavior, and what differentiates powerful people from others?  The chapter examines the power struggles between House and Cuddy and discusses issues of risk-taking, self-confidence, goal setting, and empathy or the lack thereof.

Chapter 14 focuses more on House’s patients.  It explores the relationship between our brains and our thoughts, feelings, and behavior by providing background on several neurological disorders.  Among them are synesthesia, in which input from the different senses overlaps (Greta in “The Right Stuff”); akinetopsia, the inability to see moving objects (Kyle in “Son of a Coma Guy”); and aphasia, the inability to process language correctly (Fletcher in “Failure to Communicate”).  In “Euphoria,” series regular Foreman experiences blindsight, a condition in which he is unaware that he can’t see.

Chapter 15 classifies House and his diagnostic team among the “Big Five” dimensions of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.  Generally stable over time and across situations, personality is connected with numerous aspects of our daily lives.  For example, House’s and Foreman’s liking of complex music genres relates to their openness, i.e., intellect.

The “Big Five” carry through into Chapter 16, which connects personality with political leanings.  The series House, M.D. is liked by almost equal numbers of liberals and conservatives.  House’s nonconformity and high tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty relate more to a liberal mindset.  His tough-mindedness and dogmatism are more conservative attributes.  Ignorance on both ends of the political spectrum invites his disdain.

The finale, Chapter 17, argues that rather than being an antihero, Gregory House represents the classic hero of myth.  His development as a character parallels the hero’s journey as put forth by Joseph Campbell.  His infarcted leg wrests him out of an ordinary but uneasy existence.  Both his diagnostic team and his patients serve as guides as he progresses through life’s trials.  His Vicodin-fueled halluciations bring him to an abyss that forces him to transform.  “Huddy” — his relationship with Lisa Cuddy — represents the reconciliation of the changed hero with his old environment.  Central to the myth is the realization that the hero’s struggles parallel our own.

The brutal candor and self-reflection exhibited by House, M.D.‘s characters make them engaging case studies.  Numerous quotes from the show’s scripts illustrate each chapter’s subject matter, supplemented by references from the scientific literature.  Readers interested in psychology or developing fictional characters can learn from this book, which also offers an entertaining and insightful twist to the series for fans of the show.

House and Psychology: Humanity is Overrated
By Ted Cascio, Ph.D. and Leonard Martin, Ph.D., Editors
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: October 4, 2011
Paperback, 336 pages

Why the controversy?

According to Bethany Brand, Ph.D, a professor of psychology at Towson University and an expert in treating and researching dissociative disorders, there are several reasons. DID is associated with early severe trauma, such as abuse and neglect.

This raises the concern over false memories. Some people worry that clients may “remember” abuse that didn’t actually happen and innocent people may get blamed for abuse. (“Most people with DID don’t forget all their abuse or trauma,” Brand said; “sufferers may forget episodes or aspects of some of their trauma,” but it’s “fairly rare not to remember any trauma at all and suddenly recover memories of chronic childhood abuse.”) It also “pries into families’ privacy,” and families may be reluctant to reveal information that might put them in a negative light.

In the mental health field, myths persist because of a lack of education and training about DID. These myths create a mystique around the disorder and perpetuate the belief that DID is bizarre. For instance, one prevalent myth is that there are “different people inside someone with DID,” Brand said. Adding to the problem are poorly trained therapists who promote atypical treatments that aren’t supported by the expert clinical community. “Mainstream, well-trained dissociative experts don’t advocate using bizarre treatment interventions. Rather, they use interventions that are similar to common ones used in treating complex trauma,” she said.

What Is DID?

DID typically develops in childhood as a result of severe and sustained trauma. It’s characterized by different identities or “self-states” (there is no integrated sense of self) and an inability to recall information that goes beyond forgetfulness. Prone to amnesia, people with DID sometimes “can’t remember what they’ve done or said,” Brand said. They have a tendency to dissociate or “space out and lose track of minutes or hours.” For instance, it’s “common [for people with DID] to find they’ve hurt themselves [but] don’t remember doing that,” Brand said. The loss of memory isn’t due to drugs or alcohol, but a switch in self-states, she noted. Here’s a list of the DSM criteria for DID.

7 Common DID Myths

It’s safe to say that most of what we know about DID is either exaggerated or flat-out false. Here’s a list of common myths, followed by the facts.

1. DID is rare. Studies show that in the general population about 1 to 3 percent meet full criteria for DID. This makes the disorder as common as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The rates in clinical populations are even higher, Brand said. Unfortunately, even though DID is fairly common, research about it is grossly underfunded. Researchers often use their own money to fund studies or volunteer their time. (The National Institute of Mental Health has yet to fund a single treatment study on DID.)

2. It’s obvious when someone has DID. Sensationalism sells. So it’s not surprising that depictions of DID in movies and TV are exaggerated. The more bizarre the portrayal, the more it fascinates and tempts viewers to tune in. Also, overstated portrayals make it obvious that a person has DID. But “DID is much more subtle than any Hollywood portrayal,” Brand said. In fact, people with DID spend an average of seven years in the mental health system before being diagnosed.

They also have comorbid disorders, making it harder to identify DID. They often struggle with severe treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders and substance abuse. Because standard treatment for these disorders doesn’t treat the DID, these individuals don’t get much better, Brand said.

3. People with DID have distinct personalities. Instead of distinct personalities, people with DID have different states. Brand describes it as “having different ways of being themselves, which we all do to some extent, but people with DID cannot always recall what they do or say while in their different states.” And they may act quite differently in different states.

Also, “There are many disorders that involve changes in state.” For instance, people with borderline personality disorder may go “from relatively calm to extremely angry with little provocation.” People with panic disorder may go “from an even emotional state to extremely panicked.” “However, patients with those disorders recall what they do and say in these different states, in contrast to the occasional amnesia that DID patients experience.”

As Brand points out, in the media, there is a great fascination with the self-states. But the self-states are not the biggest focus in treatment. Therapists address clients’ severe depression, dissociation, self-harm, painful memories and overwhelming feelings. They also help individuals “modulate their impulses” in all their states. The “majority [of treatment] is much more mundane than Hollywood would lead us to expect,” Brand said.

4. Treatment makes DID worse. Some critics of DID believe that treatment exacerbates the disorder. It’s true that misinformed therapists who use outdated or ineffective approaches may do damage. But this can happen with any disorder with any inexperienced and ill-trained therapist. Research-based and consensually established treatments for DID do help.

The International Society for The Study of Trauma and Dissociation, the premier organization that trains therapists to assess and treat dissociative disorders, features the latest adult treatment guidelines on their homepage. These guidelines, which Brand helped co-author, are based on up-to-date research and clinical experience. (The website also offers guidelines for kids and teens with dissociative disorders.)

Brand and colleagues recently conducted a review of treatment studies on dissociative disorders, which was published in the Journal of Nervous Mental Disease. While the reviewed studies have limitations—no control or comparison groups and small sample sizes—results revealed that individuals do get better. Specifically, the authors found improvements in dissociative symptoms, depression, distress, anxiety, PTSD and work and social functioning. More research is needed. Brand along with colleagues from the U.S. and abroad are working on a larger scale study to test treatment outcomes.

So you may be surprised to learn that this very neighbor “was a sexual sadist who was using a small trailer in this backyard as a torture chamber,” write Mary Ellen O’Toole and Alisa Bowman in their book Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Instincts Betray Us. O’Toole, a retired FBI profiler, worked the case and interviewed the 60-year-old park ranger David Parker Ray, who appeared charming and even seemed to admire women. As it turned out, he’d been torturing women in his backyard for years, and none of his neighbors ever suspected him to be anything but a “regular guy.”

When we try to determine whether someone is a good person or a potential threat, we tend to focus on superficial qualities that actually don’t tell us much about the individual. We assume that people who go to work every day, have a family and a well-kept home are normal—and we give them a lot of credibility, O’Toole said.

We also assume that our bodies will warn us when we’re around someone dangerous. We’ll experience the sensations of fear and know to stay away. But as O’Toole said, dangerous people have a way of making us feel very comfortable. For instance, they’re friendly and courteous and make good eye contact. When O’Toole first saw David Parker Ray, he took her hand and told her how nice it was to meet her. He also was polite and well-mannered. Even O’Toole, who’s worked on the most notorious criminal cases, had to keep reminding herself of his heinous crimes.

What also complicates our ability to read people accurately is that many of us aren’t good listeners. The best way to tell if someone is dangerous is by observing their behavior, O’Toole said. That’s what FBI profilers do. “In order to be a good reader of behavior, you have to watch and listen,” O’Toole said. But if you’re too busy talking the whole time, you may miss key pieces of information.

We also tend to admire and even get intimidated by people in certain professions and positions, which additionally hampers our judgment. O’Toole calls this “icon-intimidation.” We automatically give people a pass if they’re a religious figure, police officer or military person. We assign admirable qualities to them without much thought. We assume they’re intelligent, courageous, compassionate and thereby harmless.

O’Toole gave the example of a recent case in Washington D.C. The area offers a free carpooling service called Slugging, where people give strangers a ride into the city. Last year two commuters got into a pricey car with a retired high-ranking military officer. After they got in, he started driving 90 mph. The people were terrified and insisted on being let out of the car. Once out, one of the people tried to take a picture of his license plate. He tried to run them over.

When reading others, people also “are clouded by their own emotional state,” O’Toole said. Being depressed or just losing a loved one puts you in a vulnerable state when someone offers to do something nice for you, she said.

In our society, we also hold onto many myths that put us in danger. O’Toole calls one of the most common myths “the myth of the straggly-haired stranger.” That is, we think that dangerous people look creepy, unkempt, are unemployed and uneducated and basically stick out like sore thumbs. So we overlook people who may be incredibly dangerous because they look like the rest of us.

Another myth is that good people just snap and act violently, O’Toole said. However, individuals who “snap” already have traits that predispose them to violence, such as a short fuse or physical aggression. It’s more likely, she added, that people minimize the presence of these red flags and that’s why it seems so unexpected.

In fact, it’s common for people to minimize danger in general. We may choose to ignore certain patterns of behavior, rationalize them, explain them away or talk ourselves out of taking action, O’Toole said. Take the example of a couple where one partner becomes increasingly obsessive and jealous (and even physically abusive), which O’Toole commonly sees as a consultant to schools and universities. The young woman wants to end the relationship, but she’s afraid of him. He has many good friends, plays competitive sports and comes from a well-to-do family. She doesn’t want to get him in trouble and worries that their friends will hate her. So the parents decide to deal with the situation on their own. They underestimate the danger. But these are criminal behaviors and they don’t just begin in young adulthood, O’Toole said. It’s likely he’s done similar things with other girls and has other concerning traits. Just getting your daughter out of this situation is not enough, and it “could cause your daughter to lose her life.”

Red Flags When Reading People

Again, reading people accurately means going beyond superficial traits and observing their behaviors. According to O’Toole, these are several red flags of concerning or dangerous actions.

They anger easily or talk about violence.

A person who has a short fuse in one situation will usually have it in another. For instance, if a person has road rage, it’s a good indicator that they also have anger problems outside the car, O’Toole said. Another red flag is if they think that “violence is the answer to everything no matter what they’re talking about.”

They are physically aggressive or abusive to others.

Has the person ever been physically aggressive with you or others? How do they treat staff or servers at a restaurant? If they mistreat others or act like a bully, this likely spills over into other areas of their life, O’Toole said.

They tend to blame others.

Let’s say you’re on your first or second date with a person, and they mention their past relationships. They not only have nothing good to say about their previous partners, but they blame them for everything, she said.

They lack empathy or compassion.

O’Toole views a lack of empathy and compassion as important indicators of someone’s character and their dangerousness. You can identify whether someone is empathetic or compassionate in a simple conversation, and in as little as 10 minutes, O’Toole said. These individuals highjack conversations by interrupting and refocusing the talk back to them.

Again, take the example of a blind date. The person not only blames their past partners for everything, but they may speak harshly about them or even make fun of their physical appearance, O’Toole said.

Psychopaths, who make up about one percent of the general population and 10 percent of prisoners, also lack empathy (among meeting other criteria). They may pretend as though they care, empathize and have feelings for their victims. But, as O’Toole and Bowman write in Dangerous Instincts, “Asking a psychopath what remorse or guilt feels like is like asking a man what it feels like to be pregnant. It is an experience they have never had.” If you keep asking a psychopath about their feelings (such as “How do you feel about those victims?”), they’ll become irritated, and their façade will start to crack, O’Toole said. For psychopaths, “emotions are a pain in their rear end.” They see them as problems, not something worth having.

Reading people accurately isn’t a gift; it’s a skill that anyone can master if they start paying attention to the right things.

The whole idea of loving one’s body, however, is confusing. What does it even mean to love your body? One day, as I walked our dog around the block, it hit me. Loving our bodies is a lot like loving a dog:

1. Loving our bodies means placing respect, value and importance on physical needs for regular nourishment, fresh air, motion, and touch. Just as neglecting to value these needs is a complete rejection of a dog, it is also a complete rejection of our bodies.

2. Loving our bodies means investing time and energy into building a nonverbal, unique, and ever-evolving relationship. Like dogs, each of our bodies has its own particular needs and preferences that change over time, but does not have words to communicate those needs. As a result, figuring out what our bodies need takes ongoing relationship-building, with patience and attention.
3. Loving our bodies means recognizing that they live in the moment. This means that we have to be the ‘big’ brain for them – the ones who see the big picture and anticipate consequences of choices. Just as we would not let our dog eat two pounds of raw cookie dough, we sometimes must differentiate between our bodies’ momentary wants and its true needs, and may have to say no to some of our body’s desires.
4. Loving our bodies means exerting control through respect and cooperation. Neither dogs nor bodies just do what we tell them to. We need to have realistic expectations and then give them the support, consistency, and guidance to reach those expectations. When they do not ‘behave,’ it’s not that they are bad. It is that we haven’t properly supported them toward those behaviors, or that we have unrealistic expectations.
5. Loving our bodies means accepting that they are what they are. No matter how little a Great Dane eats, it will never be a Chihuahua. No matter how much exercise a Chihuahua gets, it will never be a Great Dane. We can either accept that our body is basically a certain shape and size, and become the healthiest of our ‘breed,’ or we can live in continual denial of reality and frustration with our bodies.
6. Loving our bodies means being patient with the time it takes to adjust to different routines and unfamiliar surroundings. Just as a dog is uneasy with change, so are our bodies – even if it’s a ‘good’ or fun change. During and after transitions, we must be supportive and gentle with our bodies.
7. Loving our bodies means accepting that all bodies, like all dogs, have physical impurities, imperfections, and messy parts. Our bodies are not perfect or pure. Basing our sense of self-worth on whether we are physically perfect or pure is as ridiculous as seeing our dog as bad for having an asymmetrical face, hip dysplasia, or bad breath in the morning. Similarly, trying to make our bodies pure or perfect through extremely restrictive diets or chronic use of plastic surgery is as misguided and potentially dangerous as it would be for a dog.
8. Loving our bodies means being trying our best not to use them as whipping posts for our anger about other things in our lives. Just as a bad day or feeling bad about ourselves may lead us to become annoyed with our dog (just for being a dog!), we also may focus our anger and frustration onto our bodies, blaming them for all that ails us. This is unfair and damaging.
9. Loving our bodies means getting back what we put in. Just as our dog repays us with loyalty and vitality when we care for its needs, our bodies reflect the care that we invest in them. The more we provide a balanced life for our bodies, the more balanced, calm, steady, and reliable our bodies will be for us.
10. Loving our bodies means doing what we can to care for them, while also recognizing that there are limits to our ability to protect them. Like a dog, our bodies get sick even when we try our best to take care of them. They also never live long enough, age in sudden jumps, and die before we are ready to let go.

Most of us were never taught anything about how to love our bodies. A lot of us are lost in a sea of media and social pressures to look a certain way and conflicting and unrealistic ‘expert’ advice about how to be healthy and disease-free. When you model and teach these basics of a healthy body relationship to your children, it can be an important part of helping them (and you!) to move toward sustainable health and wellbeing. And even if your teen rolls his or her eyes and continues to complain about fat thighs or narrow shoulders, or refuses to get off the couch and take a walk, be assured that you are doing what you can to embed the seeds of body respect into your child’s psyche, and that at some point those seeds will bloom.

As Shari Y. Manning, Ph.D, writes in her excellent book Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, “People with BPD have an exquisite vulnerability to emotions.” And this susceptibility is hardwired.

For instance, Manning cites one interesting study where researchers tickled infants on their noses with a feather. Their responses ranged widely: Some infants didn’t react at all, others moved around and still others started crying and it was tough to calm them down. These babies were seen as “sensitive to emotional stimuli.”

Like other disorders, BPD also involves an environmental component. (Not everyone who’s emotionally sensitive goes on to have BPD.) Individuals with BPD aren’t just genetically vulnerable to emotions; they’ve also grown up in an “invalidating environment.” So they might’ve never learned how to regulate their emotions, or their emotions were continuously ignored or dismissed.

What It Means To Be “Emotional”

According to Manning, being emotional isn’t a lack of control; it has more to do with “three separate tendencies that cause emotional arousal in different ways.” These are:

• “Emotional Sensitivity.” Loved ones aren’t the only ones confused when someone with BPD has an emotional reaction seemingly out of nowhere. People with BPD may be unaware of the trigger, too. But they still have a strong reaction. “Emotional sensitivity wires people to react to cues and to react to their reactions.” Manning explains that: “To understand emotional sensitivity, think of the person with BPD as being ‘raw.’ His emotional nerve endings are exposed, and so he is acutely affected by anything emotional.”
• “Emotional Reactivity.” A person with BPD not only reacts with extreme emotion (“what would be sadness in most becomes overwhelming despair. What would be anger becomes rage”), but their behavior also is intense and doesn’t fit the situation. They might sleep for days, scream in public or self-harm. Manning points out that emotional reactivity isn’t self-indulgent or manipulative, which is an unfortunate myth attached to BPD. Instead, research has suggested that people with BPD have a higher emotional baseline. If most people’s emotional baseline is 20 on a 0 to 100 scale, then people with BPD are continuously at 80. What can intensify their reactions are the secondary emotions of shame and guilt because they know “their emotions are out of control,” Manning writes. Let’s say your loved one is angry. “On top of the original anger, these secondary emotions feel intolerable, and their fear of all this emotion, ironically, tends to fire off another series of emotions—perhaps anger that is now shifted to you, for ‘not helping’ your loved one or for some unexpressed reason.”
• “Slow Return to Baseline.” People with BPD also have a hard time calming down and stay upset longer than others without the disorder. And there’s interesting evidence to back this up. “In a person with average emotional intensity, an emotion fires in the brain for around 12 seconds. There is evidence that in people with BPD emotions fire for 20 percent longer.”

An Exercise in Understanding

In Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, Manning also helps readers better understand what it’s like to be emotionally vulnerable. She suggests thinking about an extended period of time when you were very emotional.

For Manning her emotional explosion happened when the company she’d worked for was going bankrupt. Not only was everyone upset and Manning barely sleeping but then her friend passed away. “At that point I felt like every emotion that I had was at the surface of my skin. I physically felt like I would explode with emotion if one more thing happened.” She notes that she was “an emotional sponge.” She didn’t even want sympathy because she felt like this would put her over the edge.

When thinking about your own highly emotional experience, Manning writes:

…Remember what it felt like emotionally and physically. Remember how it felt like emotions were just building on each other. Remember the experience of no one understanding how bad the situation was and how emotional you were. Now tell yourself that this is the experience of your loved one every moment of every day.

How Loved Ones Can Help

Manning shared her insight on how family and friends can help in a two-part interview on Psych Central (Part 1 and Part 2). And loved ones can do a lot, especially when it comes to helping the person when they’re upset.

In her book, Manning provides readers with step-by-step strategies and detailed examples. Below is a brief list of suggestions from her book:

1. Assess: ask what has happened.
2. Listen actively; don’t contradict, judge, or say your loved one is overreacting.
3. Validate: find something in what happened that makes sense and is understandable, that you can relate to; say what that is.
4. Ask if you can help, not to solve the problem but to get through the moment.
5. If your loved one says no, give him or her space and remember the emotions of emotionally vulnerable people last longer.

Also, it’s important to remember that people with BPD do get better and simply need to learn the skills of managing their emotions. While this requires hard work and effort, treatments such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) have been shown to be highly effective. You can learn more about DBT here and here.

In general, Werner and Smith found that there were a percentage of children in their sample that faced very adverse conditions as they grew: perinatal stress, chronic poverty, parents who had not graduated from high school, and family environments that were engulfed in the chronic discord of parental alcoholism or mental illness. Many of these children developed serious problems of their own by age 10. However, to the researchers’ surprise, about one-third of the children in adverse situations did very well in their lives. Werner and Smith called them the “vulnerable, but invincible.”

The researchers checked in with the study participants regularly until they reached the age of 40. Aside from the “vulnerable, but invincible” children, it was noted that even more of the high-risk children began to do better as they got older. Werner and Smith found that many of the cohort who experienced difficulties when they were teenagers – delinquencies, mental health problems, pregnancies – had become successful, functioning adults by the time they reached their third and fourth decades.

How did these people thrive in spite of their early circumstances? Although surrounded by potentially debilitating “risk factors,” the part of the cohort that showed the most resiliency were those who had access to buffering elements known as “protective factors.” Werner and Smith’s decades-long study showed that, although an innate capacity for resiliency helps, it is never too late to develop protective factors to bounce back from adversity.

Let’s look at some of the most common protective factors and how they can be nurtured and grown even in adulthood.

Reasoning Ability: Being able to problem-solve helped children increase confidence and plan for the future. How confident are you about your problem-solving capabilities? The Mayo Clinic has a simple problem-solving strategy here.

Emotional support outside of the family: Resilient people have at least one friend and a network of supportive people available when they encounter a crisis. For many of the children in the Kauai study who struggled as teenagers, it was the presence of at least one caring, committed adult that made the difference — someone who provided the anchor that helped them weather life’s adversities and taught them how to survive and thrive.

Answer this question: Who would I call if I was in a car accident or my paycheck was delayed at work and I needed a short-term loan? If no one comes to mind, it’s time to step out and develop a caring support network. Not sure how? Here’s another helpful article from the Mayo Clinic.

Inner direction (internal locus of control): The belief that one can impact her own destiny and that events result primarily from her own behavior and actions. Children with a high internal locus of control were achievement-oriented and assertive.

Are you in charge of your fate or is your fate in charge of you? Who is responsible for your life situation – you or something outside of you? To determine your locus of control and learn skills to increase an internal locus, see this article by Mindtools.

Autonomy: Being able to accomplish tasks alone.

Werner and Smith found that, even as toddlers, resilient children “tended to meet the world on their own terms.” How about you? Do you meet the world with confidence or apprehension? To increase confidence, set up a series of small tasks that you know you can do on your own. Celebrate what you accomplish! Then move on to more challenging tasks as you are ready. Does this mean you should always be able to accomplish tasks on your own? No, but it does mean that you make the decision to ask for help and feel good about receiving the help.

Sociability: Skills to elicit positive attention from others and to respond to others in socially acceptable ways. This means that people wanted to help the children because they were likeable and sought help in constructive ways.

Think of the last few times you received attention from other people. Was it because you were funny or helpful or thoughtful? Or was it because you demanded things go your own way and expected people to respond according to your demands? Here are just a few ideas about developing positive sociability:

• Smile.
• Be empathic. Listen carefully to the other person.
• Help others.
• Be open to learning new things (be an old dog who can learn new tricks).
• Be a good team member.

High expectations/positive view of the future: Despite the negative issues in their lives, resilient children still could see a positive future for themselves. It also helped when significant adults such as teachers, club leaders, or a Big Brother/Big Sister held high expectations for the child.

Are you able to hold high (not impossible or unrealistic) expectations for yourself? Do you see your future as positive? If you answered no to either question, consider these ideas:

• Meet with a friend who knows you well and have a frank conversation about your potential. It’s likely that your view of yourself is lower than the one your friend has of you. Discuss together why this difference in viewpoints exists.
• Talk with a therapist about your self-expectations and learn to develop a sense of self-confidence and hope for the future.

Seizing opportunities: The people in the Kauai sample who started to do better once they were out of their teen years did so mainly due to taking advantages of opportunities that were opening up to them such as higher education, good jobs, and stable life partnerships. Look around you for opportunities to increase your education and life satisfaction. Learn what you need and want in a job that will make a satisfying career for you. Develop relational skills to attract and keep a solid life partner.

Werner and Smith’s study showed us that resiliency – especially the protective factors that facilitate it – can be developed throughout our lifetimes. We can learn a lot from kids!

Reference

Werner, E. E. and Smith, R. S. (2001) Journeys from Childhood to Midlife: Risk, Resilience, and Recovery by Emmy E. Werner and Ruth S. Smith. New York, NY: Cornell University Press.

In Resilience: How Your Inner Strength Can Set You Free from the Past, Cyrulnik speaks of those he has worked with who grew up as orphans, were abused or forced to fight in wars and who later transformed their lives through resilience to emerge as remarkable individuals.

Cyrulnik discusses studies done in neuroscience, psychology, and genetics supporting the idea that resilience — the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and adversity — can provide the basis through which people subject to childhood trauma can later become socially integrated and highly successful. As Cyrulnik says in providing a definition, “To put it more simply, resilience is a sweater knitted from developmental, emotional, and social strands of wool. That is why it is more helpful to describe the history of a resilient personality.  We can then try to understand how it dodges the strokes of fate and still contrives to use solid supports in order to knit itself.” 

He later writes, “The purpose of this book was simply to say that there is such a thing as resilience.  Resilience has a form, and there is a price to be paid.”  Resilience: How Your Inner Strength Can Set You Free from the Past is a heart-opening, brilliant work of hope and understanding.  The book is written for all of us, because, as Cyrulnik says, “… we are all resilient and because none of us has the good fortune to avoid pain completely.”

Psychological resilience, the dynamic process that individuals exhibit positive behavioral adaptation when they encounter significant adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress, has had research findings published since 1973. What is outstanding in Cyrulnik’s Resilience, and used as criteria in measuring it, is both his revelation of otherwise uncovered statistics and his many personal stories describing resilient individuals.

Cyrulnik begins his introduction with, “Misfortunes are never wonderful. But when an ordeal does come, do we have to succumb to it? And if we fight it, what weapons do we have?” Cyrulnik points out that resilient children, undergoing trauma, often begin to use an internal defense mechanism at an early age.  This may involve the splitting of the ego into a socially acceptable and a more hidden, unspeakable side that, while held secret, nonetheless reveals itself in roundabout ways. The hidden side spurs the development of the imagination and abstraction.

Cyrulnik describes this splitting:

“Abstraction forces us to discover the general laws that allow us to defeat or avoid our enemies, whereas the absence of danger induces intellectual numbness.” 

But splitting, while arising with the development of dreams and abstraction, also suffers the cost of keeping the individual from being whole, with all of the resulting, often chronic stress.  Healing comes usually long after childhood, when the individual can later “knit” his or her own personal story meaningfully into the social and cultural story of the given place and time.

Cyrulnik explains, “Any memory is a dialogue between what our environment has implanted deep within us and what we want to reveal about ourselves to others. A story is a verbal representation that recounts a series of significant events. Telling our story creates a coherent feeling of selfhood.  It reconciles the two parts of the divided ego. The socially acceptable ego can at last tolerate the secret ego that cannot be talked about. The subject can at last talk about himself and express himself as a totality.”

In his conclusion he writes, “This is how resilience is knitted. Resilience is not just something we find inside ourselves or in our environment.  It is something we find midway between the two, because our individual development is always linked to our social development.”

Resilience does more than fulfill the purpose Cyrulnik stated for writing his book, which is simply to state that resilience exists. Cyrulnik shows that ”… the feeling of selfhood, which is shaped by the gaze of others, can be reshaped and reworked by representations, actions, commitments, and narratives.” While resilience is a defense mechanism, it is more conscious and more malleable than other defense mechanisms and can thus be shaped and reworked to bring us happiness.

It is through retelling our own personal stories that we reshape our feeling of selfhood and develop our own resilience.  Resilience reconciles the two parts of the divided ego, until the subject can at last speak of herself as a totality.  Cyrulnik’s masterful retelling and examination of stories shows us that not only may tragic circumstances not destroy us but can in fact be the basis from which we may blossom.

Resilience: How Your Inner Strength Can Set You Free from the Past
By Boris Cyrulnik
Tarcher: February 17, 2011
Paperback, 320 pages
$14.95

The first part of the book carefully surveys the scientific study of creativity, covering talent, genius, intelligence, memory, dreams, the unconscious, savant syndrome, and mental illness. The second part tells the fascinating stories of five breakthroughs by artists — Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Virginia Woolf, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Satyajit Ray — and five by scientists — Christopher Wren, Jean Francois Champollion, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. They were chosen for the significance of their achievements and the diversity of their domains. Part III of the book tackles three basic questions: “What do highly creative people have in common?” “Is there a pattern? “And do they involve imaginary leaps?”

Despite this diversity, spanning cinema, languages and literature, archaeology, physics and medicine, Robinson then looks for key elements that might be held in common in these careers, and whether they follow patterns such as the intriguing ‘ten-year rule’ — first identified by the psychologist John Hayes in 1989 – that it takes a person a certain amount of time of trial and error to come across these creative moments or breakthroughs as we call it. After applying the “rule” to all ten of the individuals mentioned in Part II of the book, Robinson is able to show that all ten individuals meet the criteria of the “ten-year rule” somewhat.

Collaboration and teamwork tend not to be a feature of the lives of the exceptionally creative — this could be for a variety of reasons, such as possible mental illnesses (Virginia Woolf), denouncing of family members (Mozart) and uncommon backgrounds (Champollion & Young). The greatest poetry, novels, paintings, music and even films are almost always the vision of one person, although research in science is collaborative, especially in recent decades. This is proven with Einstein’s theory of relativity, after reading several publications on atomic energy.

One thing that I think is important to mention is earlier experiences. According to Robinson, almost all of the creative minds mentioned throughout the book have one common denominator, which is earlier experiences. For example, Woolf grew up around literature, Mozart’s father introduced him to music and Leonardo da Vinci was trained early on in his life by another artist.

In the 21st century, talent appears to be on the increase, and genius in decline. Where today is the Darwin, Einstein, Beethoven, Chekhov or Shaw, the Cezanne or Picasso? Even in popular music, genius of the quality of Bob Dylan, the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix is a thing of the past.

Why should this be? Robinson puts it down to the ever-increasing professionalization and specialization of domains, especially in the sciences — the breadth that feeds genius is harder to achieve nowadays. That is because there are so many obstacles to overcome. For example, in order to publish research today many scientists must be working on their doctorates; also, for many artists to be recognized, it will take several years for their work to be published due to commercialization.

Also on the rise is technology, which is taking much of the credit given to musicians, scientists and even painters. As mentioned before in the book, Robinson mentions that many of the geniuses of yesterday put in several years of hard work and labor into their creativity, whereas with the technology we have today as well as research teams in scientific study, it is taking less time to come across major breakthroughs.

After reading Sudden Genius I feel Robinson is convinced that genius is not a myth per se, but that sudden genius is simply as he mentioned in the book ‘the work of human grit, not the product of superhuman grace’.. Also as we study the psychological backgrounds, the family history, environmental surroundings and measure IQs we will see no correlation among the ten geniuses. The only correlation is hard work, time and patience among these artists and scientists.

Overall, after completing Andrew Robinson’s book, I feel that he made some convincing arguments as to what we should consider when acknowledging an artist or a scientist as a genius. I think the author did accomplish the goal of breaking down the chapters to explain and give some background information on the ten subjects he wanted the readers to recognize as early geniuses. I was able to understand several points that Robinson makes in this book about correlations between these artists   and scientists, such as earlier experiences, the “ten-year rule” and the labor involved in their exceptional breakthroughs.

Sudden Genius? The Gradual Path to Creative Breakthroughs
By Andrew Robinson
Oxford University Press USA: October 2, 2010
Hardcover, 352 pages
$34.95

She appreciated his easygoing nature and laidback demeanor. It was maddening to her now that he would rather watch TV than talk to her about their relationship, that he did not help her to keep their house clean, and that he missed their bill payment deadlines on more than one occasion.

He married her because she was open with her feelings and straightforward about expressing her opinions. He now was irritated with her level of complaining, her blunt way of pointing out his mistakes and being overly focused on things that he considered small and unworthy of notice.

He once loved spending time with her and telling her his deeper thoughts and feelings. He now was quietly terrified to bring up any issue of relative personal importance, as her tongue became sharp as a knife when it came to judging him. He would rather spend his after-work hours watching TV and working on his car in the garage over the weekends.

She felt unhappy, lonely, misunderstood, and rejected. He felt hurt, criticized, unloved, and taken for granted. They both desperately yearned for love, respect, and appreciation, wanting nothing more but a hug. Unfortunately, their wicked way of negotiating their needs and expressing desires made them both decidedly unhuggable. With perpetuating resentment and increasing distance, they were heading for destination called Splitville. What has happened to this couple, so connected and loving only a few years ago, promising to each other with eagerness to love “till death do us part”?

When Relationships Sink Into Resentment

Ironically, the qualities that initially cause love and attachment may, over time, morph into resentment and contempt. At the beginning of the relationship, our mindset is on building closeness. We focus on cooperating and seeking agreement. Over time, unfortunately, there is a shift in focus. Not because our partners change drastically and deteriorate in character as time goes by, but because we no longer notice what they do well. Such things become like air or water: much needed but taken for granted. We begin paying more attention to shortcomings. The focus perpetuates its motion: The more we zone in on the problematic habits and behaviors of another person, the more evidence of this sort we gather.

When picking on and criticizing our partners for their flaws and mistakes, we may even genuinely feel that our intentions are pure, that we point out these problems out of love, trying to correct things, and wanting what is best for the relationship. Despite good intentions, this approach has a strategic flaw. Trying to motivate someone to change, not by support and encouragement, but by bitter and steady criticism only creates hostility and a relational standoff. Unless we notice and disown this pattern, confrontation will become a habit, leading to the erosion of trust and making connecting conversations impossible.

In a safe relationship, partners can say awkward things, act conflicted, make mistakes, and still be forgiven. The opponent chooses to listen, support and connect, rather than judge, confront and correct. Feeling safe allows genuine communication and disclosure.

On the contrary, when trust level is low, we listen to another person with increased guardedness and alertness. Most wisely chosen words and carefully selected arguments are easily misinterpreted. As conflicts increase in frequency and intensity and the negatives outweigh the number of good times spent together, partners not only avoid talking but become wary of each other’s company. The anticipation of spending time with a partner who is punitive and does not feel safe brings the same trepidation as the prospect of sticking a hand in a mousetrap.

Ending the Bitter Cycle

How do you end this bitter cycle and rejoice about the qualities that initially brought you together? The first step is trying to end the frantic search for self-justice, tempering down the high expectations and judging stance. It is not about shifting to low standards but increasing patience and neutrality toward behaviors and points of view that disagree with your own. Examining your personal level of fairness and integrity in treating another person may be a painful but much-needed introspective examination. Some of us may realize that instead of connecting and acting with integrity, we are having a one-sided conversation about ourselves, our needs and preferences, while also being forceful, controlling, and even manipulative. Of course, personal goals and opinions are important. But in all honesty, they are a measure of preference, not superiority.

It is also important to keep the emotional intensity in check when communicating. Some people deliver messages to their loved ones acting like kettles at full steam. It only creates negative emotional contagion: partners retaliate with anger or retreat in defensiveness. The validity or goodness of the initial message becomes irrelevant as it can’t be received. Calm down and realize that your partner is a human being who, just like you, wants to be treated with respect and talked to politely, without demands and putdowns.

Maybe our imperfect partners can still be lovable. Maybe this person next to you is not broken and in need of a complete personality and behavioral makeover. What if your own emotional nearsightedness, developed over time, is to blame for honing in on the relational shortcomings? Relationships are complicated and couples’ circumstances are unique. Yet, it’s worth examining if some partner-related frustrations are at least, in part, related to your own compulsive cycle of digging in a bin of apples and acting increasingly frustrated about why you are not pulling out any tomatoes. This realization may lead to a new way of fixing the problem and improving your relationship: being more flexible and kind, having a more positive and forgiving attitude, rather than trying to perpetually criticize and and forcefully mold habits and behaviors of the other person.

The second, powerful hypothesis that Ms. Brown asserts is regarding the “Super Traits” (p. 206) of the victim that dovetail with the psychopath’s. It would seem that the stronger and more independent the woman is, the more challenge and usefulness she provides for the man behind the mask. The psychopath is an opportunist as well as a sadist (in varying degrees). His parasitic lifestyle depends upon the strength of his victim and oftentimes her wealth. He will have many relationships to be certain that he always has a fresh supply of whatever he feels his needs are. The stronger woman will last longer. And yet, even after he has broken her, victims have reported that they have heard from these men a year or even ten years later. Many a woman will ask herself how this debacle happened; the book will give her a blow-by-blow description. And identifying the issue is a powerful way to begin a healing journey.

At first, it concerned me that the author began with the explanation of the psychopath. After all, this book states “for the first time, a book about her…” on the back cover. The beginning of the book endeavors to show exactly what we are looking at with this man’s label in medical and psychiatric terms. It is a long and dry slog through, but if the reader is persistent, it forms a firm basis for understanding how the author has built her victim description upon it and supports her findings.

Throughout the book, the author describes and gives clear examples of the way he stalks and woos his prey. He “flies under the radar” of law enforcement and her own self preservation (the dichotomy between the pull of his charisma v. her loathing of him; intense attraction; even trance and suggestibility). Ms. Brown goes through the entire relational cycle, and then gives indication of the stages of leaving and, as a warning, the danger to watch for: he doesn’t let anyone go. She will need help. It is interesting to note that, since many psychopaths elude police, studying the victims will give a more accurate account of just how pervasive the problem is, as the author points out.

Although the reading is peppered with quotes from the victims Ms. Brown worked with, I do think that the longer-version stories of the women should be nearer to the front. In reading them where they are in the book, it felt as it they were just tacked on as an afterthought and it struck a dissonant note with me. It was also depressing because none of the stories ended with recovery. I would have liked to have seen some references from former clients (names withheld, of course) of the Institute that the author mentions, numerous times, in the book. While I understand that you cannot heal from this kind of damage from reading a book and so no suggestions should be made how to do so, it would have served the purpose better by having some comments from those who have gone through and beyond to give hope and strength to those who were looking toward that road.

Another criticism is the “Resources” page where only the author’s Institute for Relational Harm Reduction & Public Psychopathy Education was listed. It is possible that victims in different parts of the United States and even other countries cannot possibly avail themselves of this one facility. It is also possible that the Institute would be inundated and unable to handle all of the requests. Ironically, a person who interviewed Ms. Brown, Susan Murphy-Milano of the radio broadcast “Time’s Up!” has helped many victims herself. A problem like this requires a network, a consortium of dedicated people who can advise and guide victims to the best place to start their healing.

Last, the brief pages regarding the inevitable harm regarding children could best be served in another book entirely. Written as they are here, it almost serves as guilt-inducing to the victim, who as Ms. Brown correctly states, is a tattered remnant of the person she used to be.

Still, this book does accomplish what it set out to do: describes who he is; who she is; who they are when they intersect. Armed with this basic premise, the author clearly explains the developing relationship and the “inevitable harm” syndrome that will surely result. A victim within the cycle may see herself and reach out. Certainly one who is in the latter stages could see more clearly and the victim who has managed to get away (at least, physically) can put a name to what has happened to her and search out support to heal. While naming something can give it power, the naming in this book demystifies and gives the victim power to, eventually, become a survivor.

Women Who Love Psychopaths — 2nd Edition
By Sandra L. Brown, MA
Mask Publishing: January 1, 2010
Perfect Paperback: 265 pages
$56.02

This is the first image that entered my mind as I began to read Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation.  Following that were images from the movies Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve.  After not many pages into the book came the realization that dissociative identity disorder, the subject of this book, is what had been portrayed in those movies.  “Dissociative parts of the personality are not actually separate identities in one body, but rather parts of a single individual that are not yet functioning together in a smooth, coordinated, and flexible way.” 

In a collaborative effort by authors Suzette Boon, Ph.D.; Kathy Steele, M.N., C.S.; and Onno van der Hart, Ph.D., patients and their therapists are presented with a skills-training course as another avenue to travel in the treatment of dissociative identity disorder. 

The book is aimed specifically at patients with the disorder and the authors note that it is not intended to be used by anyone who is not currently in therapy even though the content may be helpful on its own.  While it can be utilized in a one-on-one session between a patient and therapist, the skills training was designed to be used in group sessions led by two trainers with a predetermined number of participants that have already been assessed, diagnosed, and are in current treatment for the disorder.

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation is divided into eight parts, logically progressing from understanding dissociation and trauma-related disorders, to initial coping skills (reflection), improving daily life (sleep; a healthy daily structure; free time and relaxation), coping with traumatic triggers and memories, understanding emotions and cognitions (core beliefs, cognitive errors), advanced coping skills (anger, fear, shame and guilt, needs of inner child parts, self-harm, inner cooperation), and finally to improving relationships (isolation, loneliness, learning to be assertive, and setting healthy personal boundaries).  Each chapter begins with an agenda so that everyone knows upfront what to expect from the session.  Homework assignments close out each chapter and “are a central part of the training course, because consistent practice is the tried and true way to learn new skills.”  Awareness exercises and imagery exercises are presented throughout to help the patient effectively use what they are learning.  Whereas the majority of the book speaks directly to the individual, the last part focuses on group trainers and contains the necessary information and guidance for assembling and conducting these skills-training groups.

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation is almost certainly not the kind of book a casual reader would pick up at the bookstore or library, but may do so out of curiosity nonetheless.  Being neither a patient nor a therapist, it is with some hesitation that I attempt to conclude whether or not Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation hits its intended mark. With that being said, it is from the perspective of an interested reader only that the following observations are offered, based on the knowledge gained about the disorder by reading this book.

For someone with dissociative identity disorder, having to essentially assume the role of referee with “all the different aspects of personality” on a daily basis would seem to be emotionally demanding.  Add to that the tasks of reading this book and completing the in-depth homework assignments, the emotional demand could be stressful and overwhelming if it were not for the consistent manner in which the authors convey their message with thoughtfulness and understanding.  More importantly, they are very careful to not be graphic about any references to trauma included and thereby demonstrate concern for the reader’s fragility by avoiding potential triggers.  “Be patient with yourself and all parts of yourself” seems to be the underlying skill that is woven into the fabric of the training so that healing can progress.  It is difficult to even begin to imagine how demanding it must be to get all the parts to practice patience and work in concert with each other in helping to heal the whole person.

For the therapist who elects to become one of the group leaders of a skills-training course, or chooses instead to use this book in treating a patient, they may be further educated in responding to these individuals in a different manner.  It is a book worthy of their time, whether or not they use it in its entirety, as they may discover an opportunity to modify aspects of their current therapeutic approach by incorporating something from its pages they feel holds promise.

My conclusion is that if skills-training groups start sprouting up and the participants embarking on the journey together find its content important and mutually beneficial then, yes, the authors’ mission has been accomplished.

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation – Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
By Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart
W. W. Norton & Company: March 28, 2011
Paperback, 496 pages
$35

David Brooks examines what makes a person successful in his new book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement. Combining the generally boring science and statistics of sociology with a humorous and light-hearted narrative, The Social Animal is indeed “the happiest story you’ll ever read,” as the author claims in the introduction.

The narrative of The Social Animal doesn’t start with its main subjects; rather, it starts with their parents. Members of what Brooks calls the “composure class,” Harold’s parents work hard to achieve their status. They get rich the hard way.  When his parents marry and decide to have children, Harold is the result. Brooks then examines the infant Harold’s relationship with his mother—how she loves him yet resents him at the same time; how, despite her resentment, she knows that he is the only thing that matters to her.

As Harold grows, he learns to pretend; he learns to play and tell stories.  Eventually, Harold would be off to college to get the education that would stake his personal claim in the composure class.

Enter Erica. Erica’s beginnings are much more humble than Harold’s. Her mother suffers from bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Her father is distant—always telling such grandiose lies that even a 6-year-old Erica can see through them. Come adolescence, Erica cannot control her temper. Eventually, Erica decides that she needs to change. She decides that she will never work in a place where people don’t trust each other.

Needless to say, Harold and Erica fall in love. This isn’t to say that their relationship doesn’t have its ups and downs—every relationship does. But, through the magic of social theory, they make it out alive.

The Social Animal is definitely a book that takes some time to read. The narrative is easy and flowing—one can read several chapters in a single sitting—but the detailed explanations of statistics and sociology are grueling and slow. Those slow parts made it very easy to put the book down for a while. If you’re going to read this book, make sure that you can stomach wave after wave of referenced studies.

Over all, the quality of the work was as expected from a New York Times columnist. The grammar was impeccable; his humor refreshing. David Brooks obviously put a lot of effort into creating this book and for that I applaud him. My only complaint with The Social Animal is, of course, the slow parts. In my opinion, the long scientific descriptions seemed to be an attempt to up the word count to meet Random House’s publishing requirements.

Don’t misunderstand me: The Social Animal is a good read. It’s just not something I would recommend to anyone who isn’t a die-hard sociologist. If one has no real interest in why we as humans do the things we do, this book isn’t for you. Unlike works such as Moby Dick or The Grapes of Wrath, simply reading every other chapter to skip all the boring information won’t cut it with The Social Animal. The boring stuff in integrated into the narrative—which in itself is kind of annoying. The statistical and sociological interjections interrupt the flow of the story which, in my opinion, is otherwise a perfect example of how people function.

When it comes down to it, I think The Social Animal could have accomplished its goal with fewer words and fewer interjections. Tell the story, toss the additional information (unless it is absolutely necessary), and add in a couple footnote references so people can go do their own research. That said, unless you’re a die-hard sociologist or David Brooks fan, your money is best spent elsewhere.

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement
By David Brooks
Random House: March 8, 2011
Hardcover, 448 pages
$27