Thank you for the “reads” and the replies!
Ales2: I read the Wikipedia entry that you provided the link for. A true horror story—I’m so sorry your mother had to go through this. If your mother does have NPD, the question here is whether it was trauma that shaped her personality, or whether the genetic “predisposition” (as Gaining Strength proposes in another post on this thread) for NPD was already there. I have written about two Auschwitz survivors I grew up with (see, for example,
http://www.voicelessness.com/disc3//index.php/topic,10394.msg172937/topicseen.html#msg172937), both were/are lovely people and neither had a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. But I do believe that trauma of this nature will certainly put solidly into place all of the “defenses” we have predispositions for. And it takes a lot of therapy with the right kind of therapist (I have strong feelings about this!) to undo these “defenses.”
Hops: Thank you for the suggestions—and the new way of looking at this harmless process! At some point I’ll give it a try and have Hildy snap a few photos. BTW, can I hire you as my therapist? (Kill two birds with one stone!)
Tupp: I’m sorry you and your son have had to deal with narcissistic behavior from health care and social service professionals. As I have written on this Board, I have not only had to deal with this behavior from colleagues, but also as a patient (
http://www.voicelessness.com/disc3//index.php/topic,10329.0.html). Unfortunately narcissism is rife in high prestige professions (medical, academia, politics, etc.) But it is particularly painful when you go to someone (e.g. doctors) looking for care and find the person has no empathy, and their main purpose/goal in life is to keep their “self” inflated.
G.S.: Thank you so much, and I’m glad you came back! Yes, the first paragraph/question of the article is very important, and I’m very happy they included it in the article. It deserves to be told and noted.
I think you’re right: Most often genes (at least in the mental health area) create predispositions of varying degrees rather than 100% assurance of expression. If we look at the statistics on major depression for example:
“If one identical twin in a pair becomes depressed, the other twin will develop depression around 70-80% of the time. This is true whether or not they were both raised in the same household.”
From "Is depression a genetic issue?"
Stanford at the Tech Museum Understanding Genetics December 1, 2010
http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask387So, genes in the mental health area are not deterministic—otherwise (in this case) there would be a 100% correlation. Clearly, we’re dealing with probabilities and multiple factors. But the assumption used to be that if children were brought up the “right” way with loving parents, it was assumed they would turn out to be psychologically healthy. Therefore, it was always the parents’ fault if the children/adult children had psychological problems. As suggested by the above study on major depression and genetics, this turns out not to be true. Furthermore, personality variables (as shown by the Minnesota Family Twin Studies) have a significant genetic base—50% is the general figure often quoted (with the other 50% divided up into many other factors, only one of which is parenting.) I have seen normal, loving parents bring up adopted children who turned out quite disturbed (personality wise). When the adoptive parents looked into the history of the biological parents, it turns out they were drug abusers, in prison, etc. The guilt these adoptive parents felt (thinking they had done something wrong) was huge because they were caring, loving people. There is so much more to be said (and studied!) on this general topic, but I'll stop here…
Again, thank you all for your comments!
Richard
