Search For The Real Self

Unmasking The Personality Disorders Of Our Age

James F. Masterson

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781451668919
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Abnormal Psychology
• Index: Psychology

From the authoritative expert in personality disorders, Search for the Real Self is a thorough dissection of how one's real self is developed, how it relates to the outer world, and how personality disorders are understood and treated in our modern society. Personality disorders—borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid—have become the classic psychological disorders of our age. Outwardly successful, charming and powerful, personality-disordered individuals have long confounded their colleagues, family, lovers and employees—as well as mental health professionals. The author helps the reader understand them. After describing how the healthy real self develops and functions, he explains what can go wrong. Drawing on case histories, he shows how the false self behaves in relationships and on the job, and then delineates appropriate treatments, offering real hope for cure.

1
THE FALSE SELF

The Internal Saboteur

“I’M afraid I’m about to make a mess out of a romance,” confided Jennifer, 35, a tall, blonde, blue-eyed actress. She wasn’t referring to the domineering character she played on an afternoon soap opera, whose talent was making messes out of other women’s romances. She meant her own.

The popular, strong-willed character Jennifer played on television had become her professional trademark, and recently she played a similar character in summer stock to rave reviews, demonstrating to herself that she could handle the stage as well as the camera. But neither the reviews nor her fan mail really made her feel very good about herself or her talent as an actress. Without a strong director and a well-crafted script, she had little natural insight into acting, and she knew it. She was not a method actress, drawing on experiences from her own life, for there was little firm direction or self-understanding about what was going on in her life, which she frequently felt was “rather worthless.” After visits to her parents who disapproved of her career as an actress, she even doubted whether she should stay in acting, and more than once she seriously considered giving in to their wishes and embarking on some other line of work.

Jennifer had been in psychotherapy with me for a little over a year, and her on-again, off-again, relationship with Rodger, a 37-year-old dentist, seemed again to be headed for the brink. I had asked her often what she saw in him, and her reply was always along the same lines. “He’s solid, stable, in a good profession. I like being with a man I can rely on. He’s got a successful career and it gives my life some balance.”

What Jennifer was still unable to perceive was that the relationship was neither solid nor stable, but unreliable, and did not balance her life. Furthermore, in spite of her protestations, she seemed to need this very unreliability, as this was only the latest in a series of shaky, short-term relationships she had been involved in.

I asked her what the current problem was, although, from earlier episodes, I anticipated what her answer would be. “It’s getting close to Easter, and Rodger’s getting cold feet about his promise to get married in the spring. In fact, it’s not just his feet that are cold. His feelings for me seem to be cooling down too.”

I reminded her that even though he often told her that he loved her, his feelings for her were always cool and that this was one of the reasons they had split up so often in the past, only to get back together again, until another incident brought it home to Jennifer that Rodger was a basically unfeeling, dispassionate person, who found it hard to show any deep affection. She agreed but said that he hugged and kissed a lot, which pleased her and apparently offered her some amount of satisfaction, since, unlike her sexy television character, Jennifer was not all that interested in sex. She responded more to gentle, affectionate foreplay, and Rodger had no complaints about this and seemed to enjoy their physical relationship.

“Look, I’m getting old and have never been married. Thirty-five is halfway there, isn’t it? Soon there won’t be anyone for me. I know I love him, but he just won’t commit himself and we’ve known each other almost a year now. What’s wrong? Am I too demanding for wanting commitment? Is it me or him? Or both of us?”

In the past we had talked about her fears of rejection that underlay an inordinate need for reassurance and affection. This was partially aggravated by a career in which rejection played such a major part. Jennifer had learned to rely upon her relationships to see her through the hard times when she did not have steady work. She hated to be alone and had no other consistent interests or activities, although she could easily develop temporary interests under the inspiration of a new friend or acquaintance. She realized that she needed to fill up every moment of her life and would complain that when not busy she felt empty and directionless.

She wondered if the nature of acting required the actor to have an empty core at the center of his or her identity, a point many of her actor friends took pride in because they believed it allowed them to portray a wider range of characters. She feared that this trait would keep her from ever finding her real self, which in her heart she knew was a far cry from the hardboiled women she could portray so convincingly on the stage and television.

Jennifer’s need for reassurance began long before she landed her first acting role. Rodger was only the latest in a long line of men who seemed unsuited for her. The pattern was always similar: she would get involved, put demands on a man to show more affection or make a commitment, he would back off, Jennifer’s fear of losing him would grow, and the relationship would fall apart. Now she was about to replay once again this same scene that she had been repeating since she was a young girl in high school.

“I saw Rodger over the weekend, and we made love. He was very nice to me. But then I felt sick all over, even nauseated. I got so tense I had to leave and go back to my apartment. I knew I couldn’t be with him for a couple days. Then I felt guilty and lonely and went back to him, and we talked about the wedding, but he said he wasn’t sure the time was right. Again I felt miserable and returned to my apartment alone. I can’t bear to be apart from the only person who loves me, even though I know he’s not the right person.”

Pam, 19, dropped out of college in her freshman year because she suffered severe panic attacks. In high school she had been an outstanding student, but lack of self-esteem prevented her from really taking credit for her accomplishments or capitalizing on them to prepare for a career in science. In college she didn’t apply herself and led a rather isolated life, cut off from others, even students she considered her friends. She found reasons not to go to athletic events or campus parties, usually relying on the excuse that she had to study; but once alone in her dorm room, she would seldom crack a book. Her interest in science waned, and she turned down invitations to join science clubs and the campus ecology projects for which the college had an outstanding reputation in the community and which were among the reasons she had chosen it in the first place.

On some days she felt so depressed she found herself unable to leave her room. She would stay in bed and daydream, occasionally about a better life, but most often simply to relive the cannibalistic fantasies that had fascinated her from childhood when they took the form of fairy tales, such as Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood, in which children are eaten by evil adults or animals. At times she would imagine that she was the child; at other times she was the devouring monster.

“I didn’t care. I felt helpless, alone. Nobody loved me. So I would just stay in bed all day and lose myself in my fantasies.”

Daydreaming in itself is not a self-destructive activity. Fantasy is often the mainspring of creativity. Many famous works of art, scientific discoveries, and business ventures first began in the whimsical musings of their creators. The significance of daydreaming depends on its content and, more importantly, on why we engage in it. As a form of experimentation and rehearsal, free from the constraints of reality, we can give free play to our emotions and ideas, testing them, wondering about them, and then make plans to implement them. Healthy fantasies are spontaneous and flexible, able to roam and move around playfully—all essential prerequisites for creativity.

Pam’s fantasies, however, were pathologic for two reasons: they were about cannibalism, and they served no other purpose than to engulf her in a fantasy world as an escape from her depression and panic. Often on vacations or weekends home, she would stay in her room and refuse to see old friends who called her. She got into arguments with her parents over her lack of interest in school or dating and over what they called “throwing your life away.” She usually ended such arguments by telling them that she had a lot of things to think over and would retreat into her room where she would indulge in her daydreaming and fantasy life. Rather than enriching her life, or giving her ideas about how to reshape old patterns that weren’t working for her or to create new patterns, her daydreaming kept her immobile, trapped in her feelings that she was helpless and unlovable.

Martha’s situation was a variation on Pam’s. She too thought herself unlovable and dropped out of college in her junior year because of depression. “I just couldn’t get myself to go to class anymore so I would sit around the dorm, watch game shows on television, and eat. Now that I’ve put on so much weight, I don’t like myself and don’t want to be on campus where you have to compete so hard to get dates. I might as well stay out till next semester and try to diet. Maybe being away from it all will get my mind off things, and I won’t pig out so much.” But getting away from what she thought was the problem didn’t work. At home she continued to overeat and put on thirty pounds.

In addition to her problem with obesity, Martha had had roommate problems at school that stemmed from her inability to assert herself and command her share of the room. “When I tell my roommate what I think about things, or what I want to do, she always has these little ways of letting me know she doesn’t approve. Then I get scared to death because I’ve offended her. It totally wipes me out. I give up trying to say what I want.”

And giving up, for Martha, meant retreating into herself, lying around passively, watching television and eating.

Eating disorders are poignant examples of self-destructive behavior, whether they take the form of anorexia, a severe food deficiency resulting in considerable loss of weight, or overeating resulting in obesity. Bulimia, an eating disorder in which the patient regurgitates food, does not result in weight loss or gain. Bulimics tend to pass for normal and often have good jobs and function well in them. But all severely deviant eating patterns are pathological and symptomatic of more serious but less obvious problems that must be dealt with if the person hopes to begin or resume a normal eating pattern.

When Jennifer, Pam, and Martha each came to see me initially, none of them could articulate her problem specifically. Jennifer knew she had “trouble finding the right man,” and Pam felt that no one loved her, and Martha was depressed because of having failed to stay in college and because she had gained so much weight. In addition to these problems, each described herself as confused, uncertain about why she often felt depressed, and worried that her life was stuck in a rut that wasn’t going anywhere; but none of these women had a clear idea why her life was so unfulfilling.

The problems of these three women are not uncommon. Psychiatrists are increasingly meeting people with complaints that do not fall neatly into the traditional categories of psychiatric problems, such as an obsession or a phobia, that have been typical of patients since Freud’s day. Instead, they complain about their lives in vague and general terms, stating that they get little satisfaction from their work, they are bored or frustrated in their relationships, they can’t seem to pull their lives together and find enjoyment in work or love. Eventually, the vague discontent acquires a sharper focus and the patient unravels a long history of difficulties in loving and working. Subsequent sessions deal more specifically with distinct problems in maintaining relationships or deriving satisfaction from work.

For June, a 34-year-old clerical worker whose difficulties were more severe than those just described, making it through the day required enormous effort.

“I have to force myself to function every day to go to work. I feel dead but have to keep going. It’s a daily temptation not to slit my wrists or jump out of windows or in front of speeding cars.”

June’s job entailed filing workmen’s compensation claims and she could slip easily into the routine, once she arrived and began work, but the effort required just to leave the house in the morning and return home in the evening sapped her of any energy that could be used creatively in other activities. She lived a lonely life, isolated from others, at home with her mother and a younger sister who had two small children. She had had no boyfriends or social life since high school.

“Nothing has seemed real for the last eighteen years,” she explained. When talking about herself, June often used “she” and “her” or “that thing.” “Outside of plodding through work everyday, all the thing wants to do is sit at home in her chair and do nothing,” she once confessed. Her life was routine, rigid and uneventful, week following upon week, month after month, and the years were piling up without hope for the future.

For 12 years June went to a parochial school where she worked hard and was well liked by the nuns and other children. In high school she became involved in music, sang in the local choir, and even played small roles in the community theater’s local productions. Her father thought she should pursue a career in television or radio since she had a good speaking voice and had stage presence. For a time she seriously considered it, but when her parents divorced in her senior year, her father moved to the West Coast, and without his encouragement, she soon lost interest in the idea. Although she became “very quiet,” she seemed to have as much going for her as other girls her age, and family and friends expected her to embark on a satisfying adult life after graduation. But graduation was not a commencement. “It was the beginning of the end,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what I would do.” Eighteen years later, and after five years of therapy, June still didn’t know what to do or where life was taking her.

The stories of these four women reveal some of the common problems of people who unknowingly sabotage their real happiness in love and work, as well as in recreation and hobbies. In love, they allow the fervor of romantic fantasies to camouflage severe flaws in the relationship or they project their own problems onto their partners. Individuals, like Jennifer, who have difficulty with an intimate relationship, sabotage it by clinging or distancing behavior which often causes their partners to leave them.

People like Pam retreat into a fantasy world to avoid feelings of low self-esteem, but avoidance behavior simply reinforces their feelings of worthlessness. Martha’s low self-esteem led her to overeat, put on weight, feel guilty about that, and in turn, experience intensified feelings of worthlessness, which she tried to assuage by eating. She was trapped in a self-destructive cycle that merely encouraged her overindulgence in food.

June was the type of person who remains in a job far below her talent and interests and drifts through the years, never taking the steps to discover and get a more challenging job that would stimulate her interests and capacities and make her feel good about herself. A person in June’s situation could very well live out her entire life caught in an inflexible routine that provided little satisfaction or enjoyment.

Many people are caught in a knot of self-destructive behavior and are unable to see it or appreciate how they themselves have tied it. Each believes the problems lie somewhere “out there,” surrounding them but beyond them, rooted in external circumstances. They also believe that the solutions to their problems are “out there” too—the right man, the perfect woman, a more appreciative boss, a more interesting job, the right diet.

Not knowing what to do with one’s life, not being able to make up one’s mind or decide on a career can become a lethal form of self-sabotage. The habit of postponing decisions or indecisiveness to avoid taking action can deprive a life of any lasting satisfaction and happiness. The human mind can provide an endless reservoir of self-justification, of “good” reasons to conceal the “real” reason for just about anything. “The time isn’t ripe,” “I’m not ready for that yet,” “I need more information,” “I need more experience before taking such a big step,” “I’m still too young,” “I’m now too old.” The list of rationalizations goes on and on.

Consider the situation of Harold. After divorcing his wife, a childhood sweetheart, Harold decided to sell out his interests in one of the family companies for which he worked. Although only in his late 20s, he now was in the enviable position that many people only dream about: he was independently wealthy, freed from the necessity of earning a living for the rest of his life if he so chose. Nevertheless, Harold was not the type who could simply live off his investments. He knew he needed something to do, some meaningful activity, especially one that would provide human contact. But deciding on a career posed enormous problems for him.

When he began working in the family company he had not really considered what it would mean for him personally. As the eldest son in a family with strong traditions and intense loyalties, he was expected to join one of the firms and he complied. Selling his interest in the company and striking out on his own had been a momentous turning point in his life, causing most members of the family to raise their eyebrows and a few even to disown him, which raised important issues of identity and personal values for him. Now he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do.

In therapy, he often seemed like the little boy gaping at all the candy selections in the grocery store, afraid to make a choice and spend his nickel on something he wouldn’t like. He had trouble concentrating. He was ambivalent about all his interests, afraid that whatever choice he made would put him into psychic jeopardy. He was convinced that he would fail utterly in any line of work that he chose on his own and that he would make a fool of himself. He wanted to avoid humiliation no matter what the cost, especially since some members of his family were openly predicting that he was headed for ruin, so he sank into a state of passivity. He ended up unable to do anything. When he came to see me, his self-esteem was at its lowest ebb.

Vocational testing showed him where his abilities lay, but testing cannot provide motivation or tell a person what he or she wants to do. Finally, desperate to do something and increasingly depressed over his inability to make a decision, Harold took some classes in the community college, hoping they would help him find a direction. He enrolled in night courses in accounting, law, and painting. He also became a backer of a little theater group, took up jogging, and realized considerable success from business investments other than the theater—an achievement that made money for him but didn’t fit his self-image or satisfy his need to be recognized for his work. The college courses helped him pass the time but did little to show him a future career. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to pursue any of these fields professionally or merely as a hobby.

Of course, choosing a career is a serious endeavor and should be done with care, foresight, and self-knowledge. But Harold’s problem is typical of people who procrastinate and thereby sabotage their lives by involving themselves in activities that distract them from making hard decisions and commitments. No amount of vocational testing will tell a person what kind of work or activity will bring her unique gratification and fulfillment. At best, tests only indicate one’s aptitudes, something many of us already know. Experimenting with classes to test one’s level of interest, enjoyment, or skill is a reasonable approach, if it leads to commitment, rather than serving as postponement. A productive and satisfying life requires commitment to something one can do well or that offers pleasure. The fortunate person finds both in his commitments.

Most people who come to therapy with problems relating to career decisions fall into one of three categories. The first type are those who don’t know what they want to do with their lives. They have usually done a lot of thinking, daydreaming,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1: The False Self: The Internal Saboteur
• Chapter 2: The Development of the Real Self
• Chapter 3: The Real Self in Action
• Chapter 4: Fear of Abandonment: The Self Under Siege
• Chapter 5: Portrait of the Borderline
• Chapter 6: Portrait of the Narcissist
• Chapter 7: The Challenge of Intimacy
• Chapter 8: Psychotherapy with the Borderline
• Chapter 9: The Borderline Syndrome in Adolescence
• Chapter 10: Psychotherapy with the Narcissist
• Chapter 11: The Therapist as the Guardian of the Real Self
• Chapter 12: The Creative Solution: Sartre, Munch, and Wolfe
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index