Dick Rauscher asked:


Copyright (c) 2008 Dick Rauscher

Everyone wants to experience happiness and kindness in their relationships with others. We begin our marriages happy and in love with our partner. We bring our children into the world and surround them with love and care. We offer kindness and compassion to our friends.

The thought of being unkind, or unloving, or uncaring to any of these important people in our lives is unimaginable. And yet, these relationships that began with expectations of love and happiness all too often end in sadness and conflict because of the negative energy produced by unkind behaviors.

As we have talked about in previous issues of this newsletter, the unconscious primitive ego of the inner-child that resides inside each of us is much too narcissistically focused on “self” to worry about the feelings of others. In other words, kindness toward others, or concern about their level of happiness, are not very high priorities for our primitive ego.

The narcissism of the primitive ego would not be a significant problem were it not for the fact that “virtually every adult human being living today is totally unaware that his or her primitive ego is unconsciously controlling almost all of his or her “adult” behaviors”.

When we combine the narcissism of our unconscious primitive ego, which is controlling our day-to-day behaviors, with the reality that every choice and every behavior that we make consciously or unconsciously creates a consequence or an outcome, it is no wonder we so often unknowingly create pain and unhappiness in our relationships.

In other words, if we choose to weave threads of love and kindness into our relationships with others, the consequence will be the creation of a life surrounded by love and kindness. When we choose to weave threads of hurtful narcissistic primitive ego behaviors into our relationships with others, the obvious consequence will be the creation of a life surrounded by unhappiness and unkindness.

We are each fully responsible for the threads that are woven into the fabric of our relationships with others. There are times in all of our relationships when we may not feel loving; especially when we are tired, overwhelmed, not feeling well, or distracted. Therefore it is important to know that the love and compassion, the kindness, that each of us weave into our relationships with others should never be based on a feeling. Love is not a feeling; it is a behavior. Thus, if you wish to have loving and compassionate relationships with others, then you will need to “intentionally choose” to manifest kind and loving behaviors regardless of how you might be feeling emotionally.

Stated simply, because each of us create our own life, and the quality of our relationships, one choice and one behavior at a time, “we” are ultimately responsible for the creation of the world we live in. Blaming others for the consequences of our own behaviors and choices is a good example of our unconscious primitive ego’s narcissism at work; a common form of ignorance based on a lack of self-awareness and self-knowledge. It is like asking the neighbor across the street to take an aspirin because we happen to have a headache.

If we choose to base our behaviors on how we are feeling, we may more often than not choose to bring pain and hurt into our relationship with that person. The real danger to the relationship however is not the pain and unkindness that we create in that moment, it is the unfortunate reality that unloving and unkind behaviors can quickly become a harmful addictive habit in any relationship; an addictive habit that is often very difficult to change.

As a pastoral counselor in private practice for twenty-five years, the majority of the relationships that came to me for help were searching for ways to heal the pain created by years of unkind behaviors toward one another. Sadly, many of these couples were unable to break the years long habit of unkindness and recover the love they once shared; the pain of their unkind behaviors toward one another proved simply too overwhelming to overcome.

To summarize, because love and kindness is a behavior , and because the commitment to always “be” loving is the foundation of all healthy and happy relationships, we must always be willing to make the choice to “be” loving toward others; regardless of how we might be feeling in the moment.

To actually “be” loving in our relationships with others means that we must be willing to embrace and practice three important spiritual practices.

First, we must learn to own our own feelings. No one can make us feel anything that is not already inside us. It is human nature to want to blame others for our feelings, but Jesus reminds us that we need to deal with the beam in our own eye before we worry about the spec in our partner’s eye.

The second spiritual practice is an intentional growth in self-awareness. To intentionally manifest kindness and happiness in our relationships with others requires the ability to look inside when life is not going the way we would like it to go. Again, it is human nature to want to blame others, especially those close to us, when things are not going the way we would like. Every one wants to change the world, but it is a rare person that begins by taking ownership of the problem and works to change him or herself first.

The third spiritual practice is the simple reality that only “we” can create our own lives and we do it one choice at a time. Again, it is human nature to want to blame others for the choices we have made or failed to make. If we want love and compassion woven into the fabric of our relationships with others, then regardless of our childhood, regardless of our environment right now, regardless of how loving or unloving others might be, we must be willing to offer loving and compassionate behaviors to those we choose to be in relationship with.

The golden threads of these three important spiritual practices are beyond the capability of our primitive ego. Only when we are willing to grow in self-awareness and strengthen our observing ego will we find the strength and wisdom to weave these spiritual practices into our lives. Authentic spiritual growth and growth in self-awareness are identical. We cannot have one without the other.

The behavioral threads of kindness and love that we weave into the tapestry of our relationships with others are important because we trade, day by day, all the days of our life to accumulate the many threads of love and kindness that we will use in our weaving. If we are successful, our weaving will make the invisible love of the Creator visible and it will give form to the intangible presence of spirit.

We will have learned to embrace and manifest a truly authentic spirituality.



Steven

Esther Kane asked:


It seems that when dealing with difficult people, one of the most challenging types is someone who is narcissistic. Without getting all psychobabble on you and boringly academic, I would like to simplify things by generalizing. While narcissism is actually considered a mental illness, not everyone who displays narcissistic behaviours is necessarily suffering from a mental illness. They’re just extremely challenging to deal with on a regular basis.

To get us started, I will give you the actual psychiatric definition of someone who has the Narcissistic Personality Disorder just to make sure I don’t leave anything out. This comes from the standard text, the DSM-IV, which psychiatrists use to diagnose people. Here’s their definition:

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, as indicated by at least five of the following:

1. a grandiose sense of self-importance

2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

3. believes that he or she is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

4. requires excessive admiration

5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

7. lacks empathy and is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes

Have you ever met someone with at least some of these qualities? Chances are you were dealing with someone who was at least slightly narcissistic. I think what defines a narcissistic personality is someone who thinks they truly are, “the bee’s knees”. They think they are better than everyone else, deserve special treatment, and seem to live in their own little world. In common parlance: SELFISH. There’s usually an ‘entitlement’ thing going on; where he/she acts like a king or a queen and expects people to drop everything to ‘serve’ him/her.

Unfortunately, many women have the experience of being raised by parents like this and/or being in friendships and intimate relationships with such people. They come to therapy feeling ‘crazy’ because they are angry with such people, yet don’t think they should be because the narcissistic person has convinced them otherwise.

I’ll give you an example. A client of mine, let’s call her Linda, came to me because her husband had been having an affair with another woman and told her he wanted a divorce. They had two children who had just reached adulthood and no longer lived with them. Linda felt like she’d been hit in the head with a sledgehammer. When she got angry with him for being unfaithful and expressed her sense of betrayal and hurt, he said that she “deserved it” for being such a “lousy wife” for all the years they had been together. Also, he called her “frigid” and said that since she wouldn’t provide sex, he was forced to find it somewhere else. He actually saw himself as the victim, not her, and believed that she had caused him to have an affair with another woman.

Not only that, but he called her “crazy” for being so emotional and said he thought she needed “professional help.” He took absolutely zero responsibility for his behaviors, lacked empathy for the wife he had betrayed, and even blamed her for his unfaithfulness. He even said he realized that he was “too good for her” and was wasting his time with someone so “beneath” him.

When his children reacted with horror and devastation he called them “wimps” and thought they were being “selfish” for not being happy for him now that he had “set himself free and found happiness.”

I could go on, but you probably get the gist of it by now. This guy definitely meets at least five of the criteria for “narcissist”! You’ve probably dealt with someone like this yourself- unfortunately, they’re everywhere. My work with Linda focused on helping her to trust her own reality; that what she was feeling was not only sane, but normal. She felt unheard, abandoned, betrayed, and blamed for things that she wasn’t responsible for. In therapy, I gave her the space she needed to feel her feelings and have them validated and to differentiate between what was “his stuff” and what was “her stuff.”

Since she had no contact with him, I suggested that in order to find closure with her marriage and to move on, she could write her ex letters saying whatever she needed to say and not mail them. This is a very helpful technique for dealing with ‘unfinished emotional business’ when the other person is either not available to do this with, or not safe emotionally. Boy, did she have a lot to say! She wrote and wrote until she could write no more.

I also got her to examine all of the things she had internalized that he had said about her and to find the faulty reasoning in each of them. In this way, she was able more and more to externalize all of the ‘garbage’ that she had taken in from him and put it back squarely onto the shoulders of the one whom it belonged to- him.

Narcissists are some of the most frustrating and crazy-making people to deal with in the universe. My hope is that you have no clue what I have just spoken about because you’ve never experienced it, but I bet you do know from personal experience. Narcissism abounds in this crazy world of ours.

In order to protect yourself from people like this, use the criteria for narcissism listed at the beginning of this article to discern whether someone in your life may be narcissistic. Then do whatever you have to do in order to protect yourself from being a victim of this person and their insanity. There are a lot of good books and websites out there, which will help you in this vein. I suggest doing a search on the internet or on your local library’s catalogue. Read as much as you can. Educate yourself. Then take the steps necessary to protect yourself and your children (if they are affected). It may be helpful to see a reputable psychotherapist as they will be able to give you helpful tools to learn self-care in the face of narcissistic personalities. Sometimes this means getting away from these people all together, and sometimes you can have milder but distant contact. The most important thing to remember in dealing with these people is that it is them who has the problem, not you.



Maxine

Joel Engel asked:


E 

Effeminacy: ankles, feet and wrists small; arms and legs tapering; curved lines on body of male; full lips on male; high heeled shoes; lashes (male figure).

• Effeminacy/homo-erotic tendency/homosexual tendency: lashes on male.

• Effeminacy/insecurity: feet small, male subject.

• Effeminate/narcissistic/submissive: emphasis on circles in depicting body.

• Egocentric/hysteria/immaturity/repression: eye as a circle (no pupil).

• Egocentric/immature/over concern of material criteria for social status: clothing carefully rendered.

• Egocentric/schizoid: body emphasis (under clothed).

• Egotism/narcissism: doodling of subject’s name.

• Emotional control (rigid): stiff posture.

• Emotional exhaustion/lack of drive/low energy: reclined or seated same sex figure.

• Emotional fixation or wish to return to youth/immaturity: younger figure than subject.

• Emphasis on possession and social prestige: clothing elaboration, grooming. Need for social approval and dominance: over clothed.

• Evasion/guilt/lack of confidence/possible psychopath: hands behind back or in pockets.

• Evasion of body problems: peanut man, snowman, and stick man.

• Evasion of problems/reluctance to reveal self: resistance to drawing figures.

• Evasiveness: figure of profile.

• Exhibitionism/sexual preoccupation: earrings.

• Exhibitionistic tendency/social accessibility/social communications/ social dependency: full-faced figure.

• Expectation of aggression from environment or impaired self-esteem possible (may symbolize psychic trauma): facial scars on same sex figure.

• Externalized aggression: hands emphasized, bushy eyebrows.

• Externalized aggression/paranoia: eye emphasized.

• Extroversion/need for support: left-to-right strokes.

F

• Fantasy relative to “femininity”: hat crease.

• Feeling of body disorganization/maternal dependence/psycho-

sexual immaturity/schizoid/schizophrenic: joint and knuckle emphasis.

• Feeling of decline associated with advancing age (shaded legs may be homosexual tendency): full body with shaded or thin legs.

• Feeling of emasculation/anxiety or masculine inadequacy: area depicted as broken, cut, damaged or otherwise impaired.

• Feelings of inadequacy or rejection/internalized hostility/self-contempt: cartoon figure, clown.

• Feelings of inadequacy: small same sex figure, tiny drawing.

• Feelings of masculine insufficiency: shoulders or other masculine details exaggerated.

• Felt lack of masculinity and virility: hair white on male figure.

• Felt lack of status/low self-esteem: disheveled, unkempt figure.

• Felt lack of virility: balding male figure.

• Felt subjection to strong environmental pressure or stress, with fear of psychosis: strong wind in scene of human figure drawing.

• Female protest/feminine role rejection: drawing male first, female subject.

• Female regarded as sexually rejecting: hand of female figure in pelvic area, male subject.

• Feminine identification: emphasis on left side of figure.

• Feminine identification dealt with by narcissism and obsessive-compulsive mechanism: hair parted in middle, head split.

• Feminine identification with dominant mother: chest emphasis, female subject.

• Feminine trait: rounded trunk.

• Femininity: rounded lines in formation of body.

• Forced amiability/inappropriate affection: clown-like mouth.

• Guilt, strong wish to be castrated: armless figure of male, male subject.

• Guilt (as theft or masturbation): shaded figures.

• Guilt/depression/schizophrenia/withdrawal: arms omitted.

This concludes list E-G

Joel Engel is the author of “Handwriting Analysis Self-Taught” (Penguin Books)

http://careertest.ws

http://www.learngraphology.com



Bethany

Joel Engel asked:


B

• Body narcissism/egocentricity/immaturity: same sex figure unclothed and carefully rendered.

• Breaks in judgment/voyeurism (depending on area): transparencies.

C

• Castration fears or wishes: nose cut off (castration may be projected on opposite sex where nose is shaded).

• Change against spontaneous reaction to situation as symbolized by detail first depicted: change of detail in drawing.

• Character disorder such as anti-social personality or psychosis: deviant

drawing with little evidence of anxiety.

• Chest fixation/voyeuristic tendency: V-neckline on male, female subject.

• Compensation for difficulty with interpersonal relations or masturbatory guilt: hands exaggerated.

• Compensation for felt inadequacy: massive shoulders on male (male subject).

• Compensation for felt weakness/guilt: large hands.

• Compensation for felt weakness/indecision: chin exaggerated.

• Compensation for inadequacy/indecision/fear of responsibility: chin emphasized.

• Compensatory fantasy aggrandizement: drawing that fills the page.

• Compliance/feeling of domination by others: puppet.

• Compulsive body image problem as in early schizophrenia: joints, fingers, and fingernails, carefully depicted.

• Compulsive/dependent/indecisive: elbows and joints stressed.

• Conception of self as dependent/helpless/insignificant: arms dangling at the sides, entreating facial expression, tiny same sex figure.

• Concern about sufficiency of intellect (brain damage, retardation)/ pride over intellect/intellectual aspirations (with possible grandiosity)/introspective of fantasy/preoccupied/somatic head symptoms: head enlarged.

• Conflict area: break in line, erasures, omissions, reinforcement, and shading.

• Conflict over interpersonal relations/possible thought disorder: head drawn last.

• Conflict relative to specific part of body: distortion of the particular part.

• Constricted erotic response/limited heterosexual experience/somatic sexual dysfunction: female characteristics under emphasized, female subject.

• Constricted/pedantic: minute detailing.

• Constriction/defensiveness/lack of assertion: rigid posture.

• Contemptuous attitude/tendency to think in terms of derisive social stereotypes: broad, flared or hooked nose.

• Coquettishness/seductiveness/self-display: long lashes.

• Decisive: uninterrupted straight lines.

• Dejection/feeling of guilt/lack of vitality: shoulders drooping.

• Denial or repression of physical drives/immaturity/regression: lower section of body omitted.

• Dependence on maternal figure: maternal figure rather than female sex object (male subject), male receiving something of value from female; torso of female upper half-emphasized (male subject).

• Dependency: chest emphasis, buckles, buttons, concave mouth, mid-line emphasis, navel, pockets.

• Dependency/desire for affection: overextended reaching arms.

• Dependency/feminine tendency/lack of assertion/emotional: circular strokes in formation of the body.

• Dependency/helplessness: fewer than five fingers.

• Dependency/immaturity/inadequacy and maternal dependence: buckle.

• Dependency/nutritional needs: long, weak arms.

• Dependent/oral-erotic: mouth markedly full, open or oval.

• Dependent/psychopath: pocket emphasis.

• Depersonalization/feeling of being controlled by outside forces: robot for male figure (male subject).

• Depressed/inadequate/withdrawn/schizophrenic: very faint line.

• Depressed state: acceptance of task to draw sketch with minimum protest, good initial performance, followed by obvious fatigue and discontinuance of task.

• Depression: narrow neck.

• Depression/discouragement: feet and legs drawn first.

• Desire to be woman/feminine identification: back of male figure to observer, male subject.

• Desire to escape from situation/fear/loneliness/mistrust: sitting on edge of chair.

• Difficulty in social contact/fear of aggressive impulses/passivity as defense against aggressive impulses: arms pressed to sides.

• Difficulty with interpersonal relations/masturbatory guilt: hands hidden.

• Discouragement/withdrawal: feet omitted.

• Disdain/refinement: trim eyebrows.

• Dissatisfaction with self: disguise (clown, etc.)

• Doubts about virility with compensatory virility striving/sexual inadequacy: beard, mustache, other facial hair (male subject-when the majority of the subject’s acquaintances do not possess as such).

Joel Engel is the author of “Handwriting Analysis Self-Taught” (Penguin Books)

http://careertest.ws

http://www.learngraphology.com



Louise

Tom Horvath asked:


I make a number of assumptions when conducting a substance use evaluation as part of a litigation process: 1) the individual’s use is usually not less than the individual reports, but it might often be more (or much more); 2) inaccurate accusations of substance abuse are common because there is usually little negative consequence for inaccurate accusations; 3) the parties to the litigation, and those connected with them, may provide biased and inaccurate information. Therefore outside corroboration of their reports is essential for determining the extent and consequences of substance use.

As a practical matter, getting outside corroboration (information from sources not connected with the litigation) is difficult because such information may simply not exist, or obtaining it would require work performed by other professionals (such as private investigators) rather than by psychologists. That work would be outside the scope of the psychological evaluation the individual has consented to. An evaluation that obtained outside corroboration could be conducted at great expense, but would require weeks to months of effort and at best would only establish the history of substance problems (or lack of them). Such an evaluation would be appropriate when litigation is only concerned with history and not with the future (as it is in child custody litigation).

In my typical evaluation I document what is reported by the parties, conduct basic psychological and addiction testing, review documentation, and interview collaterals, as appropriate to each case. In some cases I am able to identify reports that are unlikely or impossible (e.g., consuming only 2 beers would not result 90 minutes later in BAL of .22). In some cases the information I obtain allows me to offer a firm diagnostic opinion. However, in most cases I will not have a firm diagnostic opinion, because I will not have sufficient firm evidence.

Even with a firm diagnostic opinion, the prediction of future substance use is problematic. An individual’s substance use can change, suddenly, dramatically and without treatment or support group attendance, in response to changes in the environment. Litigation often produces substantial environmental changes, and therefore has the potential to lead to significant decreases (or increases) in substance use. The diagnostic manual (DSM-IV-TR, page 221) recognizes that “some individuals (perhaps 20% or more) with Alcohol Dependence achieve long-term sobriety even without active treatment.”

Consequently, if the litigation has a future focus, my normal recommendation is to obtain substance testing on a continuous basis. I will monitor the results of this testing if the court requests it. Random testing might work in some cases, but it allows a significant potential for delay in discovering problems. Such delay is unacceptable when the best interests of children are involved. Depending on the substances of concern, testing involves the individual stopping at a drug testing facility two to three times per week to provide a urine sample. Modifications to the basic plan need to be made if the individual tested is a reportedly moderate drinker, but in some instances such individuals are willing to abstain completely for the sake of eliminating suspicions about their having alcohol problems.

I normally recommend that the testing be paid for by the other party, and continued as long as the other party feels it is worth paying for. Solomon knew that the true mother would only want what was best for her child. Even Solomon did not try, simply based on the reports he received, to determine which mother was telling the truth.



Bruce