Okay, so we had been looking at the “shell” of the personality and how that forms over the last 12 articles. We had talked about the “Good Enough Mother” — and I gave an example of a client “Joey” — and showed what an attachment disorder looks like by using Domestic Violence as the backdrop.
I floated the theory that possibly this had happened to Obama? And then we found the back up on his Kenyan father for this.
So let’s go way back into the pre-verbal and verbal wounds and take a look at context in terms of the mother and grandmother and use some more examples…
Barack Obama: Mother not just a girl from Kansas
We can look at this as a case of the “rebellious” mother, going up against father (who wanted a boy) and doing a very brave thing for the times (early 60’s) by choosing a Kenyan man for a lover. We can use the movie “Guess Who’s coming to Dinner” to view what this looked like back in 1967. It’s going to show you what the times looked like, and also how the parents came to terms with what their children were doing. The place I have linked this video has the whole film broken into parts, and it looks like they are using it as a teaching device. Here is the opening of that film:
We want to get a sense of the times, and how interracial marriage was viewed during the Civil Rights era, and for that we can look into the wikipedia, because this was a “brand new thing” for most mainstream Americans. Here is an article excerpt from the wiki linked above:
“…Myrdal ranked the social areas where restrictions were imposed by Southern whites on the freedom of African-Americans through racial segregation from the least to the most important: jobs, courts and police, politics, basic public facilities, “social equality” including dancing and handshaking, and most importantly, marriage. This ranking was indeed reflective of the way in which the barriers against desegregation fell under the pressure of the protests of the emerging Civil Rights movement. First legal segregation in the army, in education and in basic public services fell, then restrictions on the voting rights of African-Americans were lifted. These victories were ensured by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But the bans on interracial marriage were the last to go, in 1967.
Most white Americans in the 1950s were opposed to interracial marriage and did not see laws banning interracial marriage as an affront to the principles of American democracy. A 1958 Gallup poll showed that 96 percent of white Americans dissapproved of interracial marriage. However, attitudes towards bans on interracial marriage quickly changed in the 1960s.
By the 1960s, civil rights organisations were helping interracial couples who were being penalized for their relationships to take their cases to the Supreme Court. Since Pace v. Alabama, the court had declined to make a judgment in such cases. But in 1964, the Warren Court decided to issue a ruling in the case of an interracial couple from Florida who had been convicted because they had cohabited. In McLaughlin v. Florida, the Supreme Court ruled that the Florida state law which prohibited cohabitation between whites and non-whites was unconstitutional and based solely on a policy of racial discrimination…”
The links will help you understand the sort of rebellion against their parents kids of the 60’s were doing! The Clintons grew up during this period, as well. They were fresh out of college and filled with the ideas the 60’s had about “changing the world.”
The struggle Obama’s parents faced is mirrored in this article off the Tribune above. It’s much the same as the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Parents on both sides had to come to terms with what their children are doing, whether they liked it or not. The tail end “Baby Boom” generation is full of kids whose parents were like the people in the film.
It’s my sense that these kids have similar searches for “self.” In a way, they have had to come to terms with their parent’s decisions. Their lives have been informed by the quest to see where they fit?
Even by the late 1970’s my best friend’s first steady boyfriend had very dark skin.
She told me that people would “look at them funny” when they were out in public together. Here in California, we were more used to seeing couples like this? My sense is that you would have in the bigger East and West coast “liberal” cities.
So, let’s take a look at the parents from that article off the Trib above. Here is the mother, Ann…
“…She was not a standard-issue girl of her times. … She wasn’t part of the matched-sweater-set crowd,” said Wall, a classmate and retired philosophy teacher who used to make after-school runs to Seattle with Dunham to sit and talk — for hours and hours — in coffee shops.
“She touted herself as an atheist, and it was something she’d read about and could argue,” said Maxine Box, who was Dunham’s best friend in high school. “She was always challenging and arguing and comparing. She was already thinking about things that the rest of us hadn’t.”
The education of Obama the would-be politician didn’t begin, of course, until after his birth in 1961, in Honolulu. But the parental traits that would mold him — a contrarian worldview, an initial rejection of organized religion, a questioning nature — were already taking shape years earlier in the nomadic and sometimes tempestuous Dunham family, where the only child was a curious and precocious daughter of a father who wanted a boy so badly that he named her Stanley — after himself…”
We are getting a sense of who “she” is, as rebel against the social norms…
(cont.)
It’s hard to stay on track writing such a difficult subject as Malignant Narcissism — so yesterday I took a break — poetry, music and a bit of beauty!
Hillary Clinton is MAGNIFICENT! That is all I can say after watching her speak last night. And so is Bill Clinton! (But, we all know that) — and that is why we wanted her. She has to be one of the most gracious, strong women I have ever seen.
You see, there will be NO HEALING for many people who are PUMAS — not after what we saw O & Co. pull. And, wasn’t it audacious to see the expectant look on guess who’s face, hanging on every word out of Hillary’s lips, (only thinking about herself) –?
We saw it. We saw it ALL! And, we don’t like you. It’s that simple.
TRUST? is not something you are going to achieve with the American Public! It’s just so all about the house deal with Rezko! And you and Treehouse Foods! Malignancy is all over you!
CLASS is all over Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
And, you haven’t got that!
The last eight years?
McCain looks fine! If we can’t have Hillary. They are seasoned, working politicians. McCain’s wife is over in Georgia right now. Just like a FIRST LADY ought to be.
And McCain? — he’s here in my state taking on the corruption! I love that about him! He is, he will, and he has been for quite some time around Washington. Here’s the story!—
Senator condemns political corruption
He’s going to be like a Teddy Roosevelt!
Teddy was the GREAT REFORMER, and after this election, we all see the NEED FOR THAT! McCAIN will! It makes me laugh to think about it! Senator McCain is NOTHING LIKE PRESIDENT BUSH!
SENATOR McCAIN is a GOOD GUY!
Just like Bill Clinton, and just like Hillary!
Here is a great little article about why so many will go McCain who have been Dems…
“Obama is inexperienced, fluffy and arrogant. I can’t back that.”
Succinct!
Alright, back into the depths of Depth Psychology as we go further into Narcissism, Grandiosity and Malignancy, election 2008!
Confronting narcissism, understanding components of Malignant Narcissism — Depth analysis (part 12)….
August 25, 2008
This is an interesting ad on the part of the McCain camp. The ad addresses how a narcissist acts. I think we were all expecting some kind of gestures to Hillary, and we did not see those. This is because for a narcissist like we are dealing with, Hillary simply doesn’t exist? Watch the ad, and then I have some excerpts from an article written by Sam Vaknin, whose book we looked at a few articles back.
This second ad is showing the “Grandiosity” we are aware of. The narcissist cannot “see” himself logically. Because of his inflated sense of self. This ad mirrors back what Obama looks like to an educated public. It is childlike and cartoonish to most of us.
Before we go back to Vaknin’s work, here is the “ShrinkWrapped” blog on malignant narcissism…
Narcissism, Malignant Narcissism, and Paranoia: Part III
“…One of the outcomes of this kind of family and environmental (emotional) impoverishment is that such children grow up with minimal reserves of self esteem. They don’t feel valued and the need to fend off despair requires them to find ways for the environment (the other) to support their self esteem. Other people become important props who can buttress or threaten their self esteem. (Think again of the “gangsta” who “demands” respect; if he is feared and respected, he is powerful and safe; once the fear is gone, he trembles. We see this at work on a larger scale in Afghanistan, the Ukraine, Iraq, now Lebanon and Syria, perhaps Egypt and Saudi Arabia; once the people are no longer afraid of the tyrants, the system can not long be maintained.) Other people are not related to as independent people (objects or selves, in analytic terms) who have their own desires and emotional lives, but as “need satisfying objects” whose sole purpose is to enhance the self esteem of the damaged one. In mild forms, this can lead to people who literally cannot conceive of another person’s mind working differently from their own. We all know people who insist that “everyone cheats”; since they cheat (and justify their cheating by rationalizing that everyone else does it, too) they cannot believe that you might not cheat, if faced with the opportunity...”
A malignant narcissist needs the “gratifying” experience of the “other” — anyone who doesn’t get that, is useless to the persona’s schema.
So, in that second ad we are watching Narcissism tell us that “a light is going to go off and we will need to vote for Obama.”
You are looking at the Grandiosity in that clip. It isn’t a healthy self’s narcissism.
An example of “healthy” narcissism was shown to us by the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Think of it like a race where athletes are competing. They have spent years training for a race. They have prepared themselves physically and emotionally to compete.
An example of a malignant narcissist?
They would cheat in the race, because they would stop at nothing to achieve their ends. They would be the sort of person to hire thugs to hurt the legs of the other candidates, just so they could eliminate the competition.
In other words, they stop at nothing? Just to bask in the reflected glow of adoration, But really, the followers mean absolutely NOTHING to the narcissist. They are only a means to an end? And, the narcissist is consumed with “winning” except, once having “won” what they are after? It’s on to the next challenge…
Let’s go back to Sam Vaknin again, below…
LOSS OF CONTROL OF GRANDIOSITY
“…The narcissist transforms his life into his single biggest creative act. In other words, the narcissist is an actor (FEGO) whose creation is his own life. He adapts the narrative to fit changing audiences. There is, actually, no discernible, identifiable, single narcissist – but a myriad, mirrored, confabulations.
This constant acting creates – both in the narcissist and in his social milieu – feelings of deceit, falsity, vacillating moods, a multi-layered existence, evasiveness, crookedness, and evil mysteriousness. SNSSs are frustrated by this and often feel threatened by the inability to “capture” and pigeonhole the narcissist.
Life as a work of art (rather than one’s art as part of one’s biography) is an element of the narcissist’s “virtual normalcy” (simulated normal functioning). The narcissist assembles whereas others create, cohabits instead of sharing, establishes and runs “Potemkin” businesses, and indulges in bogus fantasies instead of doing the real thing. He pursues PNSS (publicity) in lieu of professional reputation and standing.
The narcissist does not realise his potentials because he needs to work with others to do so. But he avoids getting involved in order to forestall pain and self-destruction (in the wake of abandonment). The narcissist’s schizoid reclusiveness is an act of self-preservation. One can convincingly argue that the narcissist’s self-destructive streak is better manifested in the way he secures NSSs.
The narcissist assumes that he is so unique that his uniqueness is enough to establish his position as entitled to special treatment – even without actually creating or achieving anything (works of art, fathering children, making a home, building a business, maintaining a relationship)…”
In this case, we would say that he hasn’t achieved any great works around Washington as a Senator yet? We have seen signs of the schiziod as well, in terms of “retreat” back to Chicago and refusal to debate in “Town Halls.”
These Town Halls mean nothing to a Narcissist?
He is only interested in being mirrored.
It is as if he has no running mates? Because they are not self-objects!
Here is a bit on the Schizoid position, off Vaknin, again…
“…Schizoids are often described, even by their nearest and dearest, in terms of automata (”robots”). They are uninterested in social relationships or interactions and have a very limited emotional repertoire. It is not that they do not have emotions, but they express them poorly and intermittently. They appear cold and stunted, flat, and “zombie”-like.
Consequently, these people are loners. They confide only in first-degree relatives, but maintain no close bonds or associations, not even with their immediate family. Naturally, they gravitate into solitary activities and find solace and safety in being constantly alone. Their sexual experiences are sporadic and limited and, finally, they cease altogether.
Schizoids are anhedonic - find nothing pleasurable and attractive - but not necessarily dysphoric (sad or depressed). Some schizoid are asexual and resemble the cerebral narcissist. They pretend to be indifferent to praise, criticism, disagreement, and corrective advice (though, deep inside, they are not). They are creatures of habit, frequently succumbing to rigid, predictable, and narrowly restricted routines.
Intuitively, a connection between SPD and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) seems plausible. After all, narcissists are people who self-sufficiently withdraw from others. They love themselves in lieu of loving others. Lacking empathy, they regard others as mere instruments, objectified “Sources” of Narcissistic Supply…”
(cont.)…. next up, Shadow and Trauma…
