August 22, 2012
Driver
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 at 12:02 am and posted in control. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
6 Responses to “Driver”
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Welcome to MONKEYTRAPS.
This is a blog about the oldest human addiction: control.
It's co-authored by Steve, a therapist who specializes in control issues, and Bert, his control-addicted inner monkey.
(Bert's a metaphor. Steve is fairly real.)
For a fuller explanation of what this is all about, click on START HERE above.
Feedback welcome, always.
Glad you found us.
NOW PLAYING
"Monkeytraps 101: Bert's Crash Course in Control"
A basic introduction to the most important unconscious idea in your life.
Serialized weekly at Mental Health Talk
(http://mentalhealthtalk.info).And when you get done here, come visit us at MONKEY HOUSE.
Monkey House is our sister site.
It's a forum we set up for people who want to talk about (or eavesdrop while others talk about) control issues.
It's a big house, with six rooms devoted to different topics.
In THE STUDY we talk about the idea of control
In THE LIVING ROOM we talk about control and feelings.
In THE BEDROOM we talk about control and relationships.
In THE PLAYROOM we talk about control and parenting.
In THE KITCHEN we talk about control and self-care.
And in THE BATHROOM -- well, that's for venting.
Visit us here:
http://monkeyhouseforum.wordpress.com/-
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August 22nd, 2012 at 1:23 am
Steve, I am really disappointed in you.
I have met one psychopathic liar who sought his own interest above all others’; but the word “narcissist” is thrown about much more widely. I understand Freud uses it for people whom others would call simply introverted. I do not think this post helps the extrovert understand the introvert at all. Unless you would tell us not to use the word “Narcissist” of people, because it is so extreme.
August 22nd, 2012 at 9:13 am
hey Clare,
I think you misunderstand the term “narcissist.” It comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a beautiful youth so proud of his own beauty that he rejected all suitors. The gods cursed Narcissus by making him fall in love with his own image; when he saw his own reflection in a pond, he plunked himself down to stare at it and just wasted away. Freud appropriated the myth to describe, not just introversion, but a self-involvement destructive to both narcissists and those who try to have relationships with them.
It was the latter context which inspired this cartoon. Many of my clients are codependents in relationships with narcissists; the two types find each other with startling regularity. And most codependents have trouble understanding narcissistic pathology, since its characteristics — especially a self-centered lack of empathy — are so different from their own. I created the Driver analogy as a way of explaining that pathology to them.
In coming weeks I’ll write more about all this in a post explaining what I call “split-level” relationships.
best,
~ Steve
August 23rd, 2012 at 4:01 am
I think “Narcissist” is bandied about more widely. I have been diagnosed with “narcissistic personality traits”, admittedly by the same idiot who wrote “Mr Languish is not transsexual”.
August 23rd, 2012 at 9:40 am
True. Like “depressed,” “schizophrenic” and “codependent,” “narcissist” is one of those terms more widely used than understood.
For the record, I don’t see narcissists as evil people. Often they are horrified when they see the damage they’ve caused. But a combination of desperation and blindness condemns them to cause it over and over.
The desperation usually comes from needs unmet in childhood, needs they have become obsessed (often unconsciously) with trying to satisfy now: attention, approval, validation, admiration. Stuff all kids need, but too few get.
The blindness comes from their preoccupation with those needs, which cripples their ability to be in touch with what other people need and feel. This makes healthy relationships all but impossible, and condemns them to both
continued destructiveness and perpetual neediness.
August 22nd, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Hello Steve
I thought the analogy you used in your cartoon was spot on in describing the negative qualities of a textbook “narcissist” – ( you said a narcissist is like……… You didn’t say a narcissist is …….)
August 22nd, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Thanks, Jon. Not everyone liked it. But I’m glad you did.