{"id":659,"date":"2013-01-14T22:56:49","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T06:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=659"},"modified":"2013-01-14T22:56:49","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T06:56:49","slug":"narcissists-psychopaths-and-other-bad-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=659","title":{"rendered":"Narcissists, psychopaths, and other bad guys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Narcissus\"<\/a>A patient of mine recently observed that the increasing use of the the term “psychopath” in popular<\/a> media<\/a> is really a disguised way of criticizing selfishness. \u00a0Dressing up selfishness as an odd and frightening clinical disorder \u2014 slapping a diagnostic label on it \u2014 makes for catchy news copy, and grants pundits emotional distance between themselves and those monsters\u00a0who look just like us<\/em>, but who lack the empathy and remorse that make us human.<\/p>\n

I immediately thought of how narcissism had its heyday in popular culture very recently as well, and to similar ends. \u00a0Narcissists and psychopaths care only about themselves, and have no qualms about hurting and sacrificing others when it suits their purposes. \u00a0These are dangerous people lurking among us; all the more reason to publish lightweight magazine and newspaper pieces on how<\/a> to<\/a> spot<\/a> them<\/a> in the wild.<\/p>\n

Both labels sound<\/em> like psychiatric diagnoses, but actually they’re not. \u00a0According to Heinz Kohut<\/a>\u00a0and other theorists, narcissism is a quality everyone has to a greater or lesser degree. \u00a0It normally develops in infancy: the sense all babies have that the world revolves around them. \u00a0However, we gradually learn that we are not the center of the world, and that other people, including our primary caregivers, have their own goals and perspectives separate from our own. \u00a0Infantile narcissism is thus tempered by the reality of healthy relationships, although its vestiges are present in our self-pride, and perhaps in our proven tendency to overestimate our own efficacy<\/a> and performance<\/a>. \u00a0Pathological narcissism in this view is infantile normality carried abnormally into adulthood. \u00a0It only becomes a psychiatric diagnosis when the condition fulfills certain observable criteria<\/a> and impairs social and\/or occupational functioning. \u00a0Likewise, psychopathy is a personality trait, not a diagnosis. \u00a0Renowned psychopathy researcher Robert Hare notes<\/a> that “psychopathy is dimensional (i.e., more or less), not categorical (i.e., either or).” \u00a0DSM-IV doesn’t include a diagnosis called “psychopathy” or “sociopathy.” \u00a0Instead, there is antisocial personality disorder<\/a>, which overlaps with psychopathy but is not<\/a> the same thing.<\/p>\n

These terms, psychopath and narcissist, are loosely applied personality labels when popularized in the media. \u00a0What do they add over simply calling someone callous or selfish? \u00a0First, they offer an explanation \u2014 a pseudo-explanation really \u2014 of frightening and\/or mystifying behavior. \u00a0Our feeling of powerlessness is eased by the label, as though now that the threat is identified, we may be able to do something about it. \u00a0Second, such labels imply that misbehavior is a function of one’s character, a categorical determination. \u00a0Yet categorical psychiatric diagnosis, especially of personality, is controversial<\/a> in general. \u00a0Moreover, we often overestimate personality factors and underestimate situational ones (the “fundamental attribution error<\/a>“) in explaining the behavior of others. \u00a0Using a label like psychopath or narcissist to describe another person (whom we’ve only heard about in the news, and haven’t formally evaluated) reaches for a premature conclusion about the cause of that person’s behavior. \u00a0In a way, we are falsely reassured.<\/p>\n

Third, the label adds power to our verbal disapproval. \u00a0 \u00a0We have a long history of abusing psychiatric labels in the service of putting others down. \u00a0Consider “idiot,” “moron,” and “imbecile,” all originally coined as official categories describing low IQ. \u00a0Or “cretin,” which originally referred to physical and mental disability due to congenital thyroid deficiency.\u00a0 Or the casual use of “crazy” and its synonyms. \u00a0Some patient advocates argue further that any diagnostic label used as a noun is demeaning, i.e., calling someone a schizophrenic, a neurotic, a borderline, etc. \u00a0Instead, it is more respectful to refer to a person (or patient) who has<\/em> schizophrenia, or a narcissistic personality. \u00a0But that’s exactly the point of the popular use of terms like psychopath and narcissist: To show disrespect and disdain, to disapprove. \u00a0And to underscore the difference between ourselves and the person with the label.<\/p>\n

Our earliest social categories are “good guys” and “bad guys,” defining one against the other. \u00a0From “cops and robbers,” to team sports, to bipartisan politics, to our allies and foes on the world stage, we divide self and other at every level, calling the former good and the latter bad. \u00a0Callousness and selfishness are in all of us to some degree, and it hurts<\/a> to admit it; it damages our self-image. \u00a0Instead, we psychologically defend against this realization in ourselves by projecting these traits onto others using a broad brush and pejorative terms. \u00a0While some people truly are unusually callous or selfish, the popular use of scientific-sounding labels\u00a0serves our own psychological needs by identifying “bad guys” and making us feel better about ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A patient of mine recently observed that the increasing use of the the term “psychopath” in popular media is really a disguised way of criticizing selfishness. Dressing up selfishness as an odd and frightening clinical disorder \u2014 slapping a diagnostic label on it \u2014 makes for catchy news copy, and grants pundits emotional distance between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,34,7],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-human-nature","category-psychiatric-diagnosis","tag-stigma","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}