Quote:
Originally Posted by here today
If she doesn't have the self-hate loop, didn't get conditioned to it early in life as Spotnitz hypothesized, then it seems reasonable that she doesn't experience it and can't understand/empathize with it.
Yes, people do need some degree of self-importance to stay alive and that is what Spotnitz hypothesized some people traded away in order to keep their caregivers happy and taking care of them. That was very important for our survival. At a very pre-verbal, just conditioning kind of level.
Not blaming the caregivers -- they were imperfect, their caregivers were imperfect, etc., etc. It all sucks. (Not just us.)
And then there are the good things. . . not that I know many but still. . .
Just for clarification, what Spotnitz called the "narcissistic defense" didn't mean that the people who had it were narcissistic necessarily. Just that their sense of self didn't function normally (and mine certainly hasn't! Wish it did.)
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I keep coming back to this thread every time I find an article suggesting my (and others') self-focus might actually be narcissism:
Millennials Believe They Are the Most Narcissistic Generation | Psych Central News
By this labelling (generation demarcation is annoying), I'm at the tail-end of the Millennial generation. And while I don't really do the whole Facebook/selfie-mad thing (I don't think I've ever even taken a proper selfie), I'm still much more self-centered than, I guess, I should be? All I really ever think or care about it myself, my mind, what I'm doing and experiencing. I don't know how I feel about that.
Another article elsewhere points out: "Compared to boomers, millennials and Gen Xers viewed goals concerned with money, fame and image as more important, and goals concerned with self-acceptance, affiliation, and community as less important." This is absurdly true for me.
That narcissistic defense info is interesting though. I can understand the idea - trade a little of yourself to remain loved and cared for. I'm kind of into personality types, and one system actually alludes to this for certain "types". For my own type, actually - an "inner deadening" and "cognitive laziness", ignoring one's inner self to maintain a sense of peace, traded to maintain a sense of security.
Quote from
Enneatype Structures, regarding type Nine.