John Lau wrote:
if you define narcissism as mental illness, ok. but refusing
to play by society's rules for one's own benefit isn't
necessarily mental illness. it's a
choice made by free-willed men and women
I'm glad, John, that you qualified your statement with the
phrase "isn't <<necessarily>> mental
illness".
The advent of the MRI has given us incredible new
opportunities to actually witness the brain at work. One of
the things research scientists have noted is that a section
of the brain called the limbic system works very differently
in individuals who have been?diagnosed with Cluster B
Personality?Disorders such as Narcissistic PD, Antisocial PD,
and Borderline PD.
Specifically,?there appear to be differences in both size and
function in a body called the amygdala, an area which I teach
my psych students should be?equated with 'fear'. The?amygdala
is the center of the brain that triggers the 'flight or
fight' response when the person?is threatened. People with
Narcissistic and Antisocial Personality Disorder (narcissists
and psychopaths) tend to have much smaller amygdalas, and
their amygdalas tend to have a much higher threshold for
firing, when it has one at all. The result is that these
individuals do not feel that adrenal-driven anxiety and fear
that most of us feel when we're doing something we know to be
wrong (the response we call 'guilt' or 'a conscience').
Because they don't feel badly about doing wrong, there is no
internal punishment, and therefore these individuals do
ignore society's rules when it suits them to do so. They have
nothing to lose by manipulating and depriving others, and
everything to gain.
Before we had access to MRI studies?with these populations, I
used to say that they?were "missing parts you can't get
spares for..". In fact, I used that in one or two of my
books. I didn't realize at the time, however, just how
accurate that statement was.
The obvious problem this raises is - Just what in hell do you
do with these characters when you catch them? Rehabilitation
is pretty much out of the question. We've long since evolved
past summarily slamming people up against the wall and
unleashing the firing squads (at least in the US, we wait ten
or fifteen years and then try to make their demise as
sanitary and painless as possible, and then only for the most
heinous of crimes). If a narcissist or psychopath commits a
relatively nonviolent crime, which most of them do, what
should be the community's response? After all, you can always
put them away for a while, but once they're released they'll
just do it again.
Come to think of it, doing the same thing over and over, all
the while expecting different consequences, is one definition
of mental illness.
Gotta go. Things to write... R?
Richard Helms http://www.richardhelms.net
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03 Jun 2008 EDT