America Depressed and Distressed

Ron Johnson appreciation, emotional maturity, Feelings, Mental, political, Positive psychology

It is remarkable that the popular media has properly identified President Trump as a person with a narcissistic personality disorder. Sadly, this is certainly an accurate diagnosis for Mr. Trump although I prefer avoiding all such diagnoses because they just look at what is “wrong” with someone, which is never helpful. Instead of identifying someone with some kind of psychological diagnosis it is more valuable to understand the mechanisms with which someone operates and possibly the causes of these operations. Then it is important to know how to relate to those people. Diagnosing someone does not help us understand how to relate to people. Diagnoses only tell us what is supposedly wrong with someone. Let me propose to identify the psychological mechanisms that Mr. Trump uses in life, how they affect us as Americans, and how we might survive and thrive over the next four years.

President Trump most certainly fits the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder, or we might say he is “narcissistic.” Ultimately, we should be thinking about how we might be affected by what he says and does instead of simply calling him names and giving him a diagnosis. People with so-called narcissistic tendencies seem to act in selfish ways, and they seem very self-centered. But this is only their surface functioning. Inside such people is a much different operation. Selfish self-centered people do not have a sense of “self” inside. They are focused on external things, i.e. outside of themselves, instead of internal things that are inside of themselves. Sometimes we say that people with a narcissistic personality disorder, or any of the other personality disorders, lack a “core” of what it means to be a person. Lacking this “core” or “self”, people who act selfishly need these more from the external world because they don’t have a solid internal world. There is a deep psychological hunger inside people who are selfish. Because they feel “empty” inside, they need to “fill” up with as much external “food” as possible. Their hunger is insatiable; they are rarely satisfied. Furthermore, when they don’t get constant refreshment from the outside, they feel this deep hunger and become afraid. In a way, they are afraid of dying. They feel like they need to be “fed” by external rewards to keep them alive.

Narcissistic people, or more accurately selfish self-centered people, feed on many things that are “external,” mostly other people’s approval. Because they do not approve of themselves at a deep psychological level, they need almost constant approval from other people. The result of this constant seeking others’ approval works when everyone approves of them, but it doesn’t work when even one person disapproves of them. This constant demand for 100% approval from all people is what we see with people like President Trump. It is painful to see such a brilliant and successful person as he obviously is find it impossible to admit that everyone didn’t vote for him. His recent ludicrous assertion that there was some kind of conspiracy of “voter fraud” with millions of illegal immigrants voting against him is almost delusional. I think that if there had been only one person who voted against him, he still would be upset because he is not capable of managing the disapproval of anyone. He is deeply “hungry” inside and craves constant external rewards of some kind.

There are other ways that typify people who are narcissistic, but they all have the element of being external to oneself. People find different ways of attempting to satisfy their deep hunger. Hoarders are people who have found a way to feel satisfied only when they keep everything, whether of practical use or not. Many obese people have found excessive food to satisfy this deep psychological hunger, but only briefly. Extraverted people with this lack of inner core tend to talk too much and demand constant social engagement hoping to keep from feeling this internal hunger, while introverted people feel marginally satisfied only when they say nothing and keep to themselves. Working and dreaming are both good elements of life but if people are deeply “hungry” inside, they might work all the time to avoid feeling this hunger, and dreamers might dream all the time for the same reason. All addictions are essentially outgrowths of narcissism and the accompanying feeling of emptiness. Addictions include chemical (alcohol and drugs) as well as behavioral (sex, gambling, buying, exercise). All of these addictive elements are natural and useful, but when they are used to satisfy deep inner emptiness, they fail. An important aspect of an addiction is that the individual needs more of the substance or behavior to reach the same level of satisfaction.

Allow me to describe the cause of narcissism, that deep seated hunger that many people, like President Trump, suffer. Simply put, selfish narcissism in adults derives from natural narcissism in early childhood. Think of it this way: when I am an infant, or approximately until I am about two years old, I get most of what I want. It is a challenge to take care of infants’ demands and needs but infants get most of what they want because they don’t want much more than food, clean diapers and a bit of physical contact. But from about the age of two, things are very different. Because they can now talk, walk, and run, they see that the world is much bigger and there is much more interesting. Their wants now multiply by a hundredfold. They want more than they can have. If children of the ages two through about six receive good parenting, these children are routinely limited. They should hear “no” a hundred times more than “yes” because they simply want 100 times more than they can have. If children are not given their basic needs, they remain deeply hungry, sometimes for the rest of their lives. More common, however, is that children in these toddler years are given too much, and given to, rather than limited. This creates the 4-8-12 child that I have discussed elsewhere.

Narcissism is natural for children of the ages two through six: they want everything and feel “hungry” for everything. The task for parents during these years is go give to their children what they need but not much of what they want. Parents and children who have migrated these challenging years well lead to these children understanding that they do not get everything they want. If they learn this important lesson during the toddler years, they are then prepared to engage the social world during the elementary school years where they learn how deal with other people. They learn the importance of sharing, and the intrinsic value of giving. Most importantly, they learn to care about other people because they have been cared for and they care about themselves. If they do not adequately get through the toddler years, they lack self-care and certainly care for others.

No one gets through the early childhood years of natural narcissism unscathed. As a result we all suffer some remaining narcissism, i.e. wanting more than we can have. This adult narcissism shows itself in undue anger when we don’t get what we want, selfishness, and jealousy of what others have. It is very important to understand that we all have at least some of this leftover childhood narcissism if we are to deal with the narcissistic self-less people in our lives. It is not just President Trump who is narcissistic. We also are all narcissistic to some degree. And we know plenty people who suffer from the same lack of development. Being around anyone who is narcissistic is a challenge. Children who are psychologically undeveloped are a challenge because they throw fits when they don’t get what they want. Adults throw different kinds of fits. You can deal with a four-year old’s natural narcissistic demands by saying “no” and taking the consequences: he hates you. But it is much harder to deal with the adult who wants everything, whether your time, your property, your money…or your vote.

Mr. Trump wanted my vote. And he is angry that he didn’t get it. He is throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t get what he wanted: everyone’s vote. He will continue to be angry. He will continue to be demanding. He will continue to be selfish and self-centered because he does not have a good sense of self and personal core. We will hear him whining about one thing and another, all of which amount to the fact that he can’t have everything and he can’t have everyone like him. There will be more tweets and public statements, the substance of which will be how he isn’t getting everything that he thinks he deserves. He is not capable of accepting loss, disappointment, mistakes, and people’s disapproval. And he will be in our faces about it. He is a man of 70 who has a brain and life experience that is certainly well beyond those years. But he has the emotional structure, and hence the social ability, of a four-year old. We need to accept this phenomenon, which I called the 4-8-12 phenomenon in another blog. But the real task is how to feel, what to think, and what to do over the next four years dealing with his four-year old temper tantrums without being angry or afraid. This is no easy task. It will be distressing. It already is distressing. It could easily be depressing.

If we are to avoid the anger that is the essence of depression, and the fear that is the essence of anxiety, we need to attend to how we really feel. That feeling is sadness. Narcissism, like its cousins anxiety and depression, is contagious. When I am around a depressed or anxious person, I will tend to become depressed or anxious. When I am around a narcissistic person, I will tend to become narcissistic. It is something like, “He is getting everything he wants. I want to have everything I want.” This is real dangerous. It is dangerous enough to be angry at him all the time; it is more dangerous to be afraid all the time of what he might do; but it is much more dangerous to become narcissistic, i.e. become more selfish, self-centered, and self-less. We can do better.

My suggestions for your mental health, your social health, and your physical health:

  • Note the incipient narcissism that occurs in you when you are confronted by Trump’s narcissism. I could say, “Don’t stoop to Trump’s level,” but that would be wrong because it would suggest that you are superior to Trump.
  • I prefer to say, “Be mature in the face of immaturity,” “Be honest in the face of dishonesty,” “Be generous in the face of selfishness,” and “Be yourself. Don’t let yourself be dragged into thinking and feeling that is childish.” You are a mature, honest, and generous person. Be that way. Stand tall.
  • Be sad. It is sad that Mr. Trump has been elected. It is sad for me. It is sad for many people. It is sad for the country. It is sad for the world. If you can continue to feel sad, you will avoid the tendency to be angry and anxious, which are simply the result of repressing the feeling of sadness.
  • If you are a person of faith and prayer, do as Jesus said: pray for your leader. If you have a different philosophical perspective, you may profit from meditation and personal reflection. If you are a person of wit, use it carefully and constructively. If you are one who writes, write. If you write poetry, write. If you sing, sing. If you dance, dance. Be yourself. You will be well. Stay well.

Further reading:

  • “Narcissism as Evil” by R. Johnson and D. Brock. In the three volume set on Evil edited by J. Harold Ellens published by Praeger
  • The Power of Positive Sadness by R. Johnson and D. Brock to be published in March, also by Praeger
  • The 4-8-12 blog, and the forthcoming book

The Other F word

Ron Johnson appreciation, Connection, family, Feelings, relationships

Family. That is the other F word. And it can be much worse than the curse word. We can dismiss the curse word when we hear it. We can use the curse word with impunity as many people do. It’s just a word. But we can’t do the same with the other F word: family. There is nothing like family to bring you great joys and great grief. It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. You know what I mean. You can get away from the F word, but you can never get away from the F people. And this creates tremendous problems for everybody. Difficulties with family members include marital dysfunction, but are even more common among other family relationships.

When we think of family difficulties, we usually think of dysfunctional marriages and contested divorces. Indeed, bad marriages and bad divorces are challenging, both leading to fights of all kinds. But the really difficult family challenges are those that are blood related or related by marriage. You can actually get rid of your former partner or spouse, at least to some degree, but you can’t get rid of your blood relatives. Money, children, and property often divide couples and make for tremendous difficulties. These are hard to endure, but they have a way of eventually fading as children grow up, property deteriorates, and money problems slowly disappear. Not so with siblings, young children, adult children, parents, and to some degree in-laws.

You can quit your job if you don’t like your boss; you can move to a new neighborhood if you don’t like your neighbors; you can end a friendship; and you can leave your spouse, however difficult that might be. But you can’t get away from family. You can’t divorce your brother, you can’t quit your children, no matter what age. And you are stuck with your in-laws for the duration of the marriage. Relationships with children of any age, siblings of any age, and in-laws are often fraught with discomfort, dissatisfaction, and distress.

Childhood by its very nature is challenging, both for parents and for the children. Who really likes being awakened by an infant in the middle of the night, or the changing diapers, the colicky baby, or the eight-year old bed-wetter? Things get dicey particularly in the toddler years of two to six where kids are learning the use of their basic feelings. These years can be very taxing on parents as they attempt to nurture and direct their children beyond the natural narcissism of the toddler years into the social years of middle childhood. It is hard on parents to deal with the demands of these young children, but realize that it is even harder for toddler-age children to cope with having to transition from getting most of what they wanted in infancy to getting very little of what they want. These are years when parents and children often simply do not like each other even though they usually love each other. So much of early childhood is not particularly likable. I try to help parents admit to the paradox of loving a difficult child while not particularly liking the child.

Children are difficult and not always likable at any age, but siblings can be truly vicious to one another. The teasing, poking, prodding, and humiliation that goes on between siblings rivals the gang wars of Chicago. There seems to be no limit as to how some siblings talk to each other and treat each other. I think this sibling rivalry thing exists because you can’t get away from your sibling, no matter what age of the sibling. You can get away from your parents by running away from home, at least for a few hours. Eventually, you grow up and leave home. You can get a new teacher or a new job or a new friend, but you can never get a “new” brother. You’re just stuck with him. The terrible things siblings say and do to one another is due to this “can’t get away from him” phenomenon.

You would think that this sibling dislike and attack would end with adolescence but it often doesn’t ever end. I occasionally hear of wondrous friendships between adult siblings, and many of these relationships have been fostered after years of childhood and adolescent rivalry and hatred. My very best years of friendship with my own brother began when we were both in college and then lasted another 20 years. More often, however, relationships among adult siblings continues to be challenging, seemingly forever. I know of siblings who despise one another. Some of this vitriol is due to the fact that they are forced to be with one another at family functions, but more often these adult sibling problems are due to resentment that stretches back into childhood, and then continues into adulthood. It is remarkable that Jack still resents the fact that (he thinks) his sister was spoiled. It doesn’t help if his sister is back at home with Mom and Dad together with her three kids. It would be easier for Jack to see some distant acquaintance going back home to live as an adult, but when he sees his sister there, it galls him. The difficulties between siblings that began in childhood often exacerbate in adult lives to the point where these siblings never see each other at all. Yet the old feelings of ambivalent love remains. It is as if these still rivalrous siblings wish they could start over and understand each other. My first 18 years of modest rivalry with my brother was followed by 20 good years as we went to college, got married, and went to work. But the relationship deteriorated after that, partly due to the influence of in-laws.

There are many other combinations of siblings that cause potential problems, such as liking one sibling more than the other, having “two families,” one composed of the three oldest children and the second family of the four youngest ones. Rarely do these early “families” unite. It makes life with adult siblings challenging.

Equally challenging are adult child and parent relationships. When children leave the nest and find some life in work and their own families, their values and standards often change. Sometimes the adult kids don’t live up to their parents’ expectations, whether in school, partner, work, or how they raise the kids. Parents say to their adult children, “That wasn’t the way it was done when we raised you.” And from the adult children’s perspective, things are even harder. A child who might revere parent or parents early in life might later find fault with those parents when he is an adult himself. I know of one mother who hasn’t seen her son for a year and a half and has never seen her new grandchild, all for some unknown reason. I know of other grandparents who haven’t seen their grandchildren for months without hearing why their son has kept his children from them. These parent-child adult relationships might be some of the most difficult of all.

And of course, there are always the in-laws. Relationships with in-laws are fraught with potential difficulties. My parents did not want me to get married and refused to come to our wedding forcing us to postpone it for months. Perhaps my intended wife was not good enough for my parents for some reason. Variations of scenario are played out in all quarters. The problem is that the in-law doesn’t love, and may not even like, their children’s new partners. We don’t have the “love him but don’t like him” phenomenon; we may just have the “don’t like him” part. I certainly didn’t like my former sister-in-law and she certainly repaid me the favor.

Parents, children, siblings, and in-laws. It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. It is never easy. Young children can find ways to fight out their differences and have no trouble “hating” one another, but when they grow up, they no longer have the privilege of childhood. And adult relationships are much more complex. They seemingly have to find ways of relating to relatives that they really don’t like. The typical answers are: (1) never see your relatives and pretend that they are dead, or (2) pretend that you really like them and put on a happy face. Neither of these practices works.

My advice? Take it slow. There is no quick fix. Try the following:

  • Note that you are sad more than mad. Sure your sister was spoiled when you two were growing up, but that was not her fault. She probably still harbors some of the results of this spoiling, but you can’t change it. It is sad that you can’t change it. There is no value in your being angry at her for what happened 30 years ago.
  • Note that if you are sad, you love your sister, or whoever is difficult in your life. The only reason you get sad is because you love that person, whether parent, sibling, parent, or adult child. You probably even love your in-laws to some degree, and they can easily be frustrating.
  • Speak kindly to your loved one without pretending. Kindness is a choice, and it should be done out of generosity, not obligation.
  • Note that you don’t like your family member while also noting that your dislike for this person may not be entirely rooted in the present. Perhaps it is about something long remembered or long forgotten. Yet it still bothers you.
  • Let your sadness run its course. Sadness always ends. When you are no longer sad about your sister, brother, mother, child, or in-law, you might then be able to think clearly enough to know what to do or say.
  • There may be nothing to say or do, at least not right now. But you should never say or do anything while you still are resentful. Eventually, you might be able to say or do something out of love that is genuine, but first you have to get over the resentment, even if you still dislike this person.
  • Be honest. But that doesn’t mean telling your difficult family member everything you think or feel. Better to say something short and sweet that is true rather than to make it into something that it isn’t. Honesty, by the way, doesn’t mean saying everything you want to say. You need discretion, which you can discover only when you no longer resent your family member. Then the words will come carefully and honestly.

You might be interested in the following:

  • A chapter Deb and I wrote on narcissism a few years ago in a three-volume series on Evil edited by J.H. Ellens and published by Praeger.
  • Our forthcoming The Power of Positive Sadness by Praeger Press due out next month also by Praeger
  • Our 4-8-12 blog and forthcoming book by the same name

Liberal’s Moral Dilemma

Ron Johnson morality, political, Positive psychology, Spiritual

We liberals are not as moral as we might think. Worse yet, conservative America has just voiced their belief that the Republican Party has the corner on morality. Certainly, most liberal readers of this document will wonder how I could possibly suggest that conservatives are more moral than liberals. Well, it depends on the definition of morality, and to some degree ethics.

I recently read The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor who integrates psychology, morality, religion, and politics. Importantly, he has been a lifelong political liberal and served for a time on the Bill Clinton staff. I was put onto this book by the editor of The Week, a center left periodical that remains a mainstay of my weekly reading. Haidt admits that he found himself dragged kicking and screaming to a very important understanding of how morality is at the core of our current political divide. He comes to the painful conclusion that many Americans, not all of them conservatives, find the liberal moral platform lacking. His conclusion is based on a brilliant examination of the concept of morality, an examination that in a broad definition of morality liberals are found surprisingly wanting.

Haidt proposes that morality has five, or perhaps six pillars: (1) care, (2) fairness, (3) loyalty, (4) authority, and (5) sanctity, possibly adding (6) liberty. Simply put, liberals value care most and fairness next, while conservatives value authority, sanctity, and loyalty. Liberals give lip service to these last three values, but frankly not much, while conservatives give lip service to care and fairness, but not much. We liberals think we have the corner on the market of morality because of our care/fairness orientation. What could be more moral, we think, than taking care of the needy and giving everyone a fair chance at success and life satisfaction? What we have seen in the recent election should wake us up to see that we do not have such a corner, and more importantly, morality, and to some degree ethics, is much broader than care and fairness. This is, so I believe, how the Republicans have taken over so much of the country recently: they have cornered the market of morality, or perhaps more accurately, they have taken over at least three of these five corners leaving Democrats to cry in our wine about how immoral these Republicans are.

Let me look a bit closer at this concept of morality. Take, for instance, the concept of authority. We might think that Hillary spoke with authority, which she certainly did, but she did not speak as an authority, nor did she speak as someone who would use her authority as President. Donald Trump, for all his brashness and profound narcissism, spoke as an authority and spoke of using this authority as soon as he would gain office. Yes, there are significant dangers of being the authority and abusing authority, but we must admit that it is attractive to many Americans, not just conservatives, to have someone speak of setting things right with authority, however impossible it might be to do so. How silly it was for Trump, following Scott Walker and other Republican candidates to speak of doing something “the first day in office” but it was attractive to many people. These people felt a certain safety in the fact that finally someone would just do the right thing even if it offended many people.

Of course we, as liberals, might challenge what is right to do and whether a President even has the right to do the so-called right thing, but that doesn’t matter to people who daily hear of the danger of ISIS, the lack of healthcare for millions of Americans, and the exploding national debt. People just want the magic bullet that will cure these ills, and Trump provided it for them. We can complain that Trump was elected by “uneducated white males,” but this minority of Americans was not the only element in his victory. It is too easy for us to sit back and wine (sic) that people should have known better. We need to see what Republicans and other conservatives are saying about morality, particularly about the value of authority. My favorite President, Republican Theodore Roosevelt, “carried a big stick” in many ways, spoke and acted with authority but was more progressive in many ways before his time. His Democrat cousin FDR also spoke and acted with authority and not always within the rule of law. He just did the right thing with lend lease and other measures to subvert the liberal pacifism of the 1940’s. Kennedy acted with authority, often against a significant element in his own party fighting for racial equality on the one hand, and with the threat of war against Russia during the Cuban missile crisis. Liberals have forgotten the value of moral authority and focused on care and fairness.

The majority of Americans might give lip service to care and fairness, but the larger majority want the freedom to do what they think is right. The hallmarks of the Clinton campaign has been on these two laudable elements of morality. Unfortunately, most Americans care less about care than they do about the freedom to do what they want to do. I am fully behind a woman’s right to “care for her own body” (freedom to choose abortion) but most Americans don’t care much about this element of morality. Clinton also focused on the fairness element of morality speaking frequently and wisely about the great and increasing disparity between rich and poor in this country. So why would most under-waged Americans vote for Trump the billionaire? Because he said that everyone could be a billionaire if government would get out of the way and let them do what they want to do. Thus, the focus of the Clinton campaign was on this fairness element of morality while Trump trumped the other moral element: freedom. Which is more attractive to the person on the street, if we dare to admit it? We can complain that the freedom element can lead to narcissism so clearly displayed by Trump, but if it is a choice between what I have and someone else needs, we will always go with the first…and then hopefully the second.

Not only have Republicans garnered the corner on authority and freedom, they have added the sanctity element suggested by Jonathan Haidt. I find it truly remarkable that such a despicable person such as Donald Trump could secure the majority of evangelicals and many other peole with lesser strict religious convictions. The only vaguely religious element in his campaign was his exaggerated talk about “tearing babies out of the womb.” Otherwise, he was almost completely devoid of anything objectively religious. But we must consider that his statement about restricting Muslims coming to America, and perhaps even his threat of deporting 11 million Latinos seemingly spoke to a kind of sanctity, namely the sanctity of our allegedly Christian nation. As a recovering Christian fundamentalist, I recall the safety and sanctity of the absolutes that fundamentalism of any kind provides. Note the success, if we call it that, of ISIS based on similar absolutism. But aside from Trump, the Republicans have made great hay in espousing quazi-religious elements in their programs over the recent decades. I found it interesting that in her concession speech Clinton used a biblical reference, but never before in her campaign. Rather, she spoke of fairness and care, but little of the religious element. There is a strong element among liberals to belittle much that is religious, often for good reasons, but not with an understanding that sanctity is very important to Americans, including those who rarely darken the doors of church.

So I close with the suggestion that we liberals need to be more moral, or perhaps more broadly moral and understand the sanctity, authority, and freedom corners of morality finding value in these pillars. Authority is not authoritarian, freedom is not licentiousness, and sanctity is necessarily theistic.