Unbelieving the Unbelievable

The Lovers by Rene Magritte, 1928

When first learning about narcissism in 2001, many other people were also searching for explanations of the Jeckyl-Hyde person causing pain and relational confusion. At this point in time, there is so much information about personality disorders, Narcissism and Psychopathy, dysfunctional systems, toxic families and abusers that I’m more confused that I was prior to reading my first book about narcissism: Denial of the True Self by Alexander Lowen.

I’m j’est kiddin’ with ya a little, but the increase in websites, books, blogs and research articles has been phenomenal. At first, any book mentioning ‘narcissism’ was piled on my nightstand. Now books are lining my office walls. I’ve resorted to scheduling a read-list that should be completed by 2050, if my self-discipline improves from what it has been. Hopefully by then, psychologists will have a better handle on what narcissism is, who’s got it, who doesn’t and what kinds of people stay in narcissistic relationships.

In review of all the books I’ve read so far: Dr. So-and-So defined NPD as 'this' while Dr. Such-and-Such disagreed and insisted it was 'that'. Then Dr. What’s-his-Name questioned existing criteria while Dr. I-have-the-Truth, didn’t. To add to the confusion, some doctors said narcissism could not only be treated, it could be cured; while others insisted there was a biological component, precluding cure. While the good doctors define and redefine the NPD diagnosis (is malignant narcissism the same as psychopathy and can it be inherited?), the rest of us are making as much sense of existing information as we can. We are the ones who live/d with these folks, after all. We have valuable information about how the narcissistic pathology manifests and how other people are affected by the narcissist’s pathological self-interest.

If accumulated studies have relied on narcissists’ self-report, well, there’s one answer as to why specificity has been complicated. Narcissists are not inclined to admit failures, divulge bad behavior, confess to using people like stepping stones, nor offer an unbiased report of their public and private relationships. They are equally unlikely to admit they’re manipulating their psychological profile---and the psychologist, too.

If narcissists willingly admitted to their misdeeds, they’d not be defined as narcissists.

This is why listening to the narcissists’ victims merits inclusion in professional studies. But that would require offering us the same credibility extended to narcissistic clients; in other words: assuming we’re normal until proved otherwise. Extending an unbiased perspective means questioning assumptions about who those N-partners and children of Ns might be. It’s as if narcissists are finally diagnosed and we, by default, are assumed to be mirror reflections of their mental disorder. "Water Seeks its Own Level", don’t ya know.

So here’s what's worrisome after seven years of daily communication about narcissism:

There is an erroneous assumption amongst lay-people (and some professionals, too), that anyone related to, partnered with, caring for, or working with a narcissist has serious defects of character. A belief that victimized folks have psychological deficits, immature narcissism, character flaws, co-dependent behaviors if not a Dependent or Borderline Personality Disorder. Besides, as common knowledge goes, children of narcissists will likely become abusers and former partners are masochists-in-waiting.

Now, I’m not sure where people are collecting their pseudoscientific data, but to everyone out there writing about your private experience with narcissists, bon courage. Don’t be swayed by people’s attempts to deny the truth, which is: anyone can meet and love a narcissist. That anyone, no matter how ‘authentic’ they believe themselves to be, can still become involved with a narcissist. That even with a Red flag checklist tattooed on the palm of their hands, people can be misled, tricked, conned and fooled into believing someone is the person they claim to be.

I can’t fault people for their self-protective assumptions, though. Most of us read a news story about a sociopath or narcissist and tell ourselves we’re too smart to fall for such trickery and deceit. But con games would never work if people realized that being normal rendered them susceptible to manipulation and belief.

"The default is trust until there's a reason not to," says Robyn Dawes, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University. ~Article Link

Most people go through life without questioning their extension of trust, until it’s misplaced that is. In fact, I don't think most of us consider how much trust we extend every day of our lives. Because we don’t question our assumption that we're relatively safe in a not-so-safe world, each time a victim speaks about his or her experience, they threaten everyone’s self-protective defenses. Perhaps this is why 'threatened' people are quick to reify their Just World Assumptions by blaming the victim---making us feel worse than we already do. Suggesting there's something wrong with us and oh-so-right with them:

“Why’d you trust that person so much? Are ya gullible? I’d never do that!”

It’s easier to be a critic than it is to empathize and identify with the victim.

“We size up someone's trustworthiness within milliseconds of meeting them, and while we can revise our first impression, there are powerful psychological tendencies that often prevent us from doing so - tendencies that apply even more strongly if we've grown close.” ~Article Link

TRUST is a normal behavior. Imagine what our world would be like if we could not trust drivers to stop at stop signs. Imagine the chaos if we had to see proof of their safe driving records before we agreed to get on the road with them. We basically trust people to be conscientious, honest and responsible. It’s very hard to disbelieve our assumptions about life, especially since most of us don’t even know we have them.

It’s the same way with choosing a partner. We trust them to be committed to the relationship in the same way as ourselves. Once incongruent behavior causes us to question our perceptions, we’ll wrestle with Unbelieving the Unbelievable (Gilbert, 1990) by rationalizing our partner’s behavior.

Our society is on a steep learning curve about personality disorders (cluster B specifically) now that people are breaking the silence about psychopathy and narcissism. We are discovering that not everyone is trustworthy, nor of mutual good will. There are people in our world for which self-interest will always trump altruism. But rather than accusing victims of gullibility in a false sense of protection against a similar fate, we can learn about human behaviors in which trust is preliminary to a healthy society.

"Trust is the baseline," says Susan Fiske, a social psychologist at Princeton University. "Trustworthiness is the very first thing that we decide about a person, and once we've decided, we do all kinds of elaborate gymnastics to believe in people." ~Article Link

It’s important to give victims the benefit of the doubt and listen to their experience. They are doing everyone a service in their courage to face public criticism, speak of things most people prefer we silence, confront personal insults and the discrediting of their credibility. It takes a powerful confidence in one’s self-worth to insist on being heard, to admit to making mistakes, to being nothing less or more, than human.

Hugs,

CZBZ

Resources

Daniel Gilbert. Unbelieving the Unbelievable: Some Problems in the Rejection of False Information. 1990. "...This method of initially representing ideas as true may be economical and it may be adaptive, but any system that uses it will err on the side of belief more often than doubt. That human beings are, in fact, more gullible than they are suspicious should probably "be counted among the first and most common notions that are innate in us.""

Drake Bennett. The Confidence Game. 2008. "...The art of the con is based on a variation of this idea: that trust is more reflexive than skepticism. And research has suggested that, once people form an initial impression of someone or something, they seem to have a hard time convincing themselves that what they once believed is actually untrue..."