Thank you for posting that link, Dr. Grossman.
Something about that reminded me of Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism". Which I have not thought of in many years. So surprisingly, I remember reading it the year it came out, though I remember little about it. Of course, I had no clue at the time at how significant narcissism was in my life.
In this article the sentences that shocked me were these:
It's about at age 5 that children start realizing their feelings are not just the result of other people or events but occur within themselves, and that they have control over them. But this understanding does not take place for the narcissist, who continues to see all internal states as having an external cause. Because of narcissists' inability to control their own emotions, they unconsciously experience the world as constantly threatening—thus the tendency toward inexplicable rages, the wild overreactions to the slightest perception of criticism.
Do most people really realize that their emotions occur within themselves by the age of 5? That is so far outside of my experience and what I hear others say that I am absolutely in shock over this. In fact, I think I will begin to survey people to see if how their experience compares. As a mother of an 8 year old, I don't know of any children who actually understand that their emotions come from within. Children, as a line of first defense, blame others for everything. A slight bump is always intentional. An unkindness is clearly directed at them. I have to say that I think this is WAY off. From my perspective, it takes extreme maturity to understand that emotional reactions are really about an intermal reaction rather than caused by others. In fact, I know few adults who truly understand that.
What do you think?
BTW - great article Dr. Grossman. Thanks for the link.
