Books >> The New Brain
Introduction
Contemporary American society is currently overrun with a personality that I call the manipulator. He exists at all levels of society, from the boardrooms of our nation's industries to the maximum-security wards of our prisons. Manipulators are numbered among our employers and spouses; many of our heroes are manipulators. So widespread is the manipulator, in fact, that manipulation has become a life-style which threatens to change the very fabric of American society.
Basically, the manipulator suffers from a deficiency in the sense of self: what we usually refer to as a sense of identity. This disturbance exists along a continuum beginning with innocent and commonly encountered difficulties in the regulation of self-esteem which we all experience from time to time and extending, at the other extreme of the continuum, toward dangerous psychopathic murderers. Along this continuum are encountered different kinds of manipulators: narcissists, borderline personality disorders, impostors and finally, psychopaths. This book explores each of these different personalities and illustrates how they all share a basic disturbance in the self. To this extent, the book is about the importance of self in modem life.
In the first part of this book, I take up what a self really is. How do we establish a self? How early in life does it first appear? How can a person suffer from a disturbance in the self? Why does a disturbance in the sense of self create a manipulator? The remainder of the book will try to answer these questions by examining the different guises under which the manipulator is commonly encountered.
At the lower level of the continuum of manipulation, we find the narcissistic personality. This is a person whose sense of self-esteem is based on the maintenance of a grandiose self: lavishly wealthy or an intellectual giant, or perhaps a legendary lover. The exact details may vary but the grandiose self exists as an inner ideal which is usually beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Coupled with this grandiose self there exists within the narcissistic personality an alternative devalued self-image of helplessness and impotence. The manipulation of the narcissist consists in turning the tables on the rest of us so that we have to acknowledge his superiority as well as help him to ignore the existence of his devalued self. He wants to be a superman and manipulates the rest of us into helping him realize this ambition.
Further along the continuum we encounter the borderline personality who suffers from an even more serious split within the core of his identity. Some experts consider the borderline to exist midway between neurosis and psychosis, inhabiting a kind of no man's land between mild emotional distress and outright insanity. In the borderline individual, the self disturbance is serious. He suffers from explosive feelings of rage, pervasive alienation, loss of the sense of personal integration. Based on the view of psychological development known as Object Relations Theory, which we will describe later in the book, the borderline individual is now thought to be reliving in the present past frustrations and failures dating from early in life, sometimes even as far back as infancy. He manipulates the rest of us into providing the love and attention that he missed earlier in life. Further, he doesn't want and can't accept our love when it's offered. He rejects it and tosses it back into our face, only to move on to yet another person who can be exploited and manipulated into loving him.
With the psychopath we approach the outer limit of disturbances within the self. He lacks all sense of community. He's a rebel without any sense of commitment to anything other than himself. He is cold, calculating and totally ruthless. But he also shares with his less disturbed counterpart, the narcissistic personality, the ability to charm, beguile and win us totally over to his Side. Many murderers and major criminals possess the ability, when the occasion demands, of evoking the sympathy of others. Psychopaths count on our feeling sorry for them, so they can manipulate us once again.
A particularly interesting and increasingly encountered variety of psychopath is the impostor who makes up for his lack of personal integration and identity by taking on a series of assumed roles. This is a form, of real-life playacting with masks. We are fooled into believing the psychopathic impostor is someone he isn't. We buy a product from him, introduce him into our offices or homes and, all the while, he laughs to himself at how well his clever imposturing is working. If caught in this deception, the impostor typically plays the role of the aggrieved martyr until, once again, we feel sorry enough for him or begin to doubt our own correct suspicions, that the impostor is pretending to be someone else. We are "stung," in a word manipulated in our perceptions and judgments.
All of these different personalities are united by their tendency to manipulate. Whatever else they may do and for whatever reason they may do it, they are, above all, manipulators. And the manipulator is a man (or woman; I vary the gender designation freely throughout the book both to avoid sexism and to underscore the fact that neither sex has a monopoly on manipulation) of many faces and many roles. He revels, in fact, in his chameleon-like talents. Since he is a consummate actor (even capable of fooling himself) I think of the manipulator as wearing a mask. I've arrived at this image by way of a dream.
Over my lifetime I've experienced a repetitive dream in which a mysterious figure is standing alone and barely perceptible in the mist surrounding the top of a mountain such as one might en· counter somewhere in the Himalayas. As I look closer I notice the dream figure is wearing a mask. At my request he removes the mask only to reveal yet another mask. At my urging this too is surrendered, but once again with the same result. Finally, after the appearance and disappearance of a varying number and variety of masks (in some of the dreams the masks seem to go on forever), the figure stands revealed: a creature without face or identity. At this point I've often awakened with a start at the realization that I've encountered in my dream a kind of prototypic mask: a seeming human who at heart, isn't a human at all but a series of changing and unpredictable unsubstantialities.
Later, during my waking moments, I've often considered that this dream may account for my lifelong interest in masquerade, masks, magic and "drag" as well as in the lives of people I've personally encountered or, in many cases, only learned about secondhand who resemble my dream figure, the possessors of an unending series of identities,
Psychiatrists and others concerned with human personality have commented over the years upon certain people who are distinctly masklike. To the casual Observer the people in question appear perfectly normal. They are often charming and friendly and fail to express or display even the usual quota of behavioral peculiarities possessed by us all. Such people seem so "normal," in fact, that almost everyone is surprised when, suddenly and without warning and just at the moment when all observers feel they've gotten a "fix" on their personalities, they metamorphize into an alternative, often strikingly, in fact almost terrifyingly different, being.
Within the last half-century, particularly the past twenty-five years, psychiatrists throughout the world have been encountering an increasing number of such patients whose personalities are as elusive as the figure in my dream. These people suffer, in fact, from identity disturbances so fundamental and profound that the psychiatrists who encounter them have had to revolutionize some of their most basic concepts concerning mental health and illness.
Character disorders is the technical term usually applied to these patients, who in elude borderline disorders, narcissistic personalities and psychopaths. Together they have puzzled, frustrated and intrigued their psychiatrists.
Although a character disorder is a form of mental illness, it's not at all like your everyday idea of craziness. Character disorders are also more ubiquitous than any form of emotional disturbance. For one thing, the character disorder is often indistinguishable from his normal counterpart. He is like all the rest of us, in fact is all the rest of us: we're all character disorders of one sort or another. That's what makes the whole issue so important.
I think of character disorders as people who wear masks like my dream figure, only in this case they're not only fooling other people with their multiple masquerades but, most importantly, deceiving themselves.
In Being and Nothingness, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote of "bad faith": a lie to oneself within the unity of a single consciousness. According to Sartre's formulation, the person in bad faith denies the obvious implications of his actions. Sartre's example is that of a woman who seeks to deny the implications of a man's taking her hand while they sit together in a café. The ad, according to Sartre, calls for an immediate decision: "To leave the hand there is to consent within herself to flirt, to engage herself. To withdraw it is to break the troubled and unstable harmony which gives the hour its charm. The aim is to postpone the moment of decision as long as possible. We know what happens next: the young woman leaves her hand there, but she does not notice that she is leaving it.
In such a situation, comments Sartre, the woman may begin speaking of sentimental or lofty subjects, ah the while ignoring the bond that has been formed without words or explicit intentions. By conversing while at the same time continuing to ignore the intimacy implied in the act of hand holding, the woman engages, according to Sartre, in "bad faith": "While sensing profoundly the presence of her own body--to the point of being aroused, perhaps--she realizes herself as not being her own body, and she contemplates it as though from above as a passive object to which events can happen but which can neither provoke them nor avoid them because all its possibilities are outside of it."
At the time when Sartre first described it, bad faith was little more than a curious phenomenon which, although pivotal to existential philosophy, had little relevance to everyday life. But in the ensuing years, bad faith has become a life-style. The character disorder lives a life of bad faith, deceiving others but, most of all, deceiving himself. In fact, at the basis of his disturbance is a disruption in the sense of the self. Rather than an integrated self, the character disorder is many selves, many "I's" which have little knowledge of each other. The "I's" are isolated from one another by a process (splitting) which causes a defect in emotional integration.
Imagine a clock in which all the parts are together and correctly aligned but the clock still won't run The character disorder is a personality that "won't run," can't be depended on, is inconsistent and has problems with intimacy as well as other areas of emotional life which well say more about later. The reason for these difficulties? The character disorder lacks the emotional integration necessary to experience that sense of wholeness which lies at the root of a healthy identity. To this extent, the character disorder suffers from a disturbance in the sense of self.
At first glance such disturbances of the self would seem restricted to instances of extreme emotional illness. But it's the theme of this book that such disorders of the self are not rare. Further, there are large numbers of people--and I think the numbers are growing, as I'll show later--who suffer from an impoverishment of their sense of self, a basic insecurity about who they are. Out of this insecurity arise certain attitudes and behaviors which are aimed at restoring the sense of self. The character disorder is like a country which is renamed every few years and therefore never has time to develop a history.
The character disorder exists in the here and now and experiences himself as basically at odds with his surroundings. His conflicts are with other people in the environment rather than with himself. As a result of his inner fragmentation, the character disorder doesn't feel many ordinary human emotions such as guilt or remorse. For these emotions require the achievement of an inner standard against which present behavior can be compared (the superego of Freudian psychology). But the character disorder lacks this internal standard since he doesn't experience himself as a person with a past or a future. There is only the present. The character disorder's experiential myopia results in specific behaviors. The most pivotal of these is manipulation.
Within a technological Society such as ours, it was probably inevitable that some people would begin to interact with others in ways similar to their interactions with machines. Machines are manipulated in order to bring about an effect. People, too, can be manipulated in order to get something out of them. They can be persuaded, threatened, cajoled, seduced, implored, intimidated-the verbs may change but the process is similar in each instance: treat the other individual as a "thing" little different from a complicated piece of machinery.
My experience with individuals afflicted with the split within their selves referred to above has taught me that character disorders can be recognized with uncanny accuracy by their tendency to manipulate those around them. Uncertain from one moment to another who they "really are," they cannot risk revealing themselves to the other person lest their own lack of integration be detected. Naturally, the person who is unsure of who he is remains perpetually at risk when dealing with other people. Since he neither knows nor can trust himself due to his lack of inner continuity and consistency he can't trust other people either, Thus, human relationships shift from what philosopher Martin Buyer called I-Thou relationships to I-It relationships: people are to be manipulated like objects for the purpose of control. This change in attitude ushers in new "techniques" of interpersonal relationships.
The very word "technique" when applied to human interactions already implies a dehumanized exploitive orientation to human affairs. Further, certain currents and trends within our society lead to an increase in the employment of manipulation as a means of dealing with others: increased fragmentation; the playing out of multiple and varied social "roles"; increased social mobility; loss of a sense of community; the disruption of authority; the disappearance of ethics and morality as important forces in many people's lives--each of these developments has brought about a deterioration in the "quality" of interpersonal relations. It's also resulted in increasing numbers of people who fail to experience any sense of personal integration, What they do now and how they feel about something on one day has nothing to do with their actions and feelings a day later. Not unexpectedly, such feelings of personal lack of integration are distressful. But most distressful of all, our present society has elevated fragmented, makeshift emotional approaches to human relationships to the level of a cultural norm.
"The people who will live successfully in tomorrow's world are those who can accept and enjoy temporary systems," psychologist Richard Farson wrote several years ago. The world of tomorrow that Farson referred to is already upon us. As a result of our individual and collective sense of fragmentation, new value systems have arisen based on the development of techniques for the manipulation of other people. And behind this need to manipulate is the loss of the sense of self. If hysteria was the psychological malady of sexually repressed nineteenth-century Europe, disorders of the self are the expressions of twentieth-century malaise,
Now for a few words concerning how this book came about. My interest in the self and its disturbances began as a result of encountering patients in my neuropsychiatric practice who complained of a lack of "integration" or "cohesion" in their lives. A review of the literature on the subject revealed that such complaints, formerly almost unheard of, have become commonplace among people presenting themselves for professional help. But the most important contribution to my present conviction on the ubiquity of self disorders came not from patients but from my contact with colleagues and acquaintances and even intimate friends who, when asked about the matter, volunteered that they experienced a multiplicity of selves or identities. And when saying this, they weren't speaking in a metaphorical sense. Nor were they talking about playing a series of roles. They felt, in fact, that they were multiple selves without any vital connecting link. It's important, at this point, to emphasize that I'm not talking about the phenomenon of multiple personalities: the "Three Faces of Eve" phenomenon. A few points will make this clear.
In most instances, multiple personalities-so-called split personalities--involve dramatic, hysterical phenomena: sudden blindness, paralysis, trancelike states, automatic writing or singing and SO on, In addition, multiple personalities within a single individual regularly exist in strong opposition to each other. For example, one personality may be saintly, kind and self-effacing while its counterpart is lewd, vicious and angrily explosive. Or one personality may represent all that is childlike while the other is a strong and resolute adult.
As another point of difference, the occurrence of multiplicity often has a dramatic onset: traumatic event such as a death in the family; a period of prolonged unconsciousness; or perhaps head injury from which the patient is aroused only with difficulty. (The alterations within a true multiple personality are typically associated with irregularities in the sleep-waking cycle.) In addition, the multiple personalities have a distinct appearance and "style" which can be readily recognized and identified. Finally, each of the multiple personalities frequently possesses knowledge of the others, in fact, may comment disparagingly of the others or speak of being influenced by the others such as through dreams.
This pattern of multiplicity is distinctly different from the splitting within the personality to which I refer. Rather than a disruption of the continuity of memory, the individuals I speak about display a lack of continuity within the emotional sphere. They remember their actions, sometime with photographic clarity, but somehow lack the feeling tone that accompanies the actions. Thus they complain of being "cut off, f~ their pasts, as if looking at a video of themselves absent the emotional coloring which could bring their past experiences "to life." In response to this split within the emotional sphere, they begin to feel as if they are, in fact, a string of separate individuals, a: series of multiple selves. While each separate identification is reasonably consistent, there is no overall integration or, in many cases, even coherence, between one self and the other. This absence of emotional continuity is often described as a sense of inner fragmentation, a feeling of utter meaninglessness.
Frequently, this division within the self is so far-reaching that the individual experiences a gnawing internal conviction that something is "missing" or incomplete within his personality. Such feelings may induce in the individual the desire to merge with another person, interact with his identity for the purpose of extracting from the experience a firm identification of his own. Or the individual with a disturbance in the sense of self to which I refer may go to the opposite extreme: resist any intimacy with another person lest his own fragile sense of self be swallowed up within the vastness of the other. In each instance, the sense of self is precarious and must be maintained by the process of manipulation.
This book examines the manipulator as he or she exists along a continuum of increasing disturbance. Starting with individuals who fit well within the "normal range" we progress toward people with serious self disturbances. But all share similar conflicts in regard to forming an enduring, consistent self. As a result of these conflicts, the various character disturbances emerge which are the subject of this book: narcissists, borderline personalities and psychopaths. In recent years, psychiatrists have noted that each of these distinct personalities shares the common tendency to manipulate others in order to make up for the difficulties they experience in regard to the formation of an integrated self.
In the first and second portions of this book I take up what we really mean when we speak about a "self." Defining the self is actually more difficult than it initially appears.
Sections III, IV, V and VI describe the manipulator as narcissist, borderline and psychopath.
In the last portion of the book I show how manipulation and our present culture exert: mutually supportive influences on each other: the society is presently greatly influenced, almost dominated, by manipulators.
Finally, in the last section I describe a new proposal for decreasing manipulation and self disorders within our society.
A word is in order at this point concerning the profiles contained in this book. They are all "real" people either encountered by me or, in most instances where I've learned about them secondhand, drawn from other people's recorded impressions. Many psychiatrists and psychoanalysts have helped by generously allowing me to quote from their notes or published writings. None of the portraits are composites, nor are they fictionalized, although, of course, suitable alterations have been made in order to preserve anonymity. Nor--with few exceptions--are the subjects representative of extremely "sick" or pathological characters. In most instances, the people I'm writing about would be readily accepted as fitting within the broad range of "normal" personalities. But they've all been selected as representative of those disorders of the self--the manipulators--who are the subjects, if not necessarily the "heroes," of the book.
This book is, admittedly, a highly personalized interpretation written from the position of a neurologist with a lifetime interest in disorders of the self. My viewpoint has been principally shaped by the diagnosis and treatment of patients. While this has the advantage of personal encounter, it also has the liability of perhaps a too limited vantage from which to view vast and complex social phenomena. For this reason, I've tried whenever possible to broaden my view by interview and personal discussion with others outside of the treatment situation who have been interested in and have written on the psychology of the self.
Since the development of our modem ideas on narcissists, borderline personalities and psychopaths (all included under the general heading of character disorders) represents the work of numerous psychiatrists over the years, I've tried to maintain--within the limitations of a book intended for the general nonspecialist reader--the historical continuity involved in this denouement. In my view, we can usefully understand these varied and complex personalities by concentrating on their shared tendency to manipulate their fellow man. I take particular responsibility for the not terribly flattering view that we are all manipulators to a certain degree.
As further inroads are made into the cohesiveness of our individual selves--a process that, to all intents and purposes, can be expected to increase even further over the next several decades-manipulation can be anticipated to occur with even greater frequency. Our awareness of the process, particularly of the insidious inroads manipulation is already making in our personal relationships, may help to restore a true communality wherein people can react to each other in less dehumanizing and less alienating ways. If The Self Seekers can contribute to this process, it will have served its purpose.
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