I think change is possible but difficult. I believe we are slaves to hormones and chemicals we produce in response to different things. A chemically more favorable response to something may be enough to change someone. I am a believer in “fake it until you make it.” While faking it we will very often get a favorable chemical response, as we repeat this behavior and the response becomes consistent we very well might change.
I think narcissistic behaviour is not going to change as the whole thought process of this person is that they aren’t exactly self-aware and don’t have empathy. In order to make a change, you kinda need to want to change. But not everyone is a narcissist so there are lots of things you can do with mindset yes, such as a daily practice of some sort and make sure you’re kind to yourself.
Unfortunately, a lot of behaviour is based on long-ingrained habits and in order to change those you need to be very self-disciplined. If not the old behaviours will creep back in when you’re not looking or least expect it. Even people who are super mindful can fall back into old habits, it’s not a perfect process.
You are not. I have an affection for nearly all the world’s creatures, spiders included. The only ones I have issues with are ground wasps aka yellowjackets, cockroaches, and humans.
My wife does. I am kind of neutral. They don’t bother me and I like interesting webs, but I can live with or without them. Flies bug the hell out of me. I am insensitive to mosquito bites but not to the diseases they carry.
That “stress = ulcers” belief was incredibly resilient–my son had ulcer symptoms in his 20s, circa the late '90s, early '00s, and they tried to palm it off as “stress” until I told him to insist on a test for h. pylori and guess what they found? Yeah. I bet a huge number of people were affected as you were by this lack of awareness. The medical community has a lot to answer for in terms of keeping its members updated on current research conclusions.
Wow.
5
Agreed that he’s without hope, but not that everyone around him changing the way they relate to him would work. I was married for over 30 years to someone diagnosed with NPD, and I eventually learned a lot about the disorder. If you were to stage an intervention and have every single person in the NPD person present and confronting them, the NPD person still would not recognize he has NPD but would instead blame their lightning rod (Narcissists typically have one person on whom they project all their own perceived weaknesses.) for turning all those people against him. Or he might conclude they’re all jealous. But his psyche simply won’t allow him to recognize his own weakness.
People with narcissistic personality disorder who go to therapy (almost always forced because remember, they don’t believe anything is wrong with them) very, very seldom truly change. What’s more likely is that they’ll
• learn to better mask their motives/behaviors.
• outsmart the therapist.
• learn through therapy how to promote the illusion of change.
• consciously change behaviors temporarily to get out of trouble.
It’s tempting to think if people are forced to confront their issues, they can change, and in most disorders, that’s true. With narcissists, however, they seldom truly confront because they can’t see or accept. There are therefore no true insights.
I wish it were otherwise.
My ulcers were caused by stress, or rather, the overproduction of stomach acid as a result of stress. I don’t have the h.pylori infection, and a good percentage of people with ulcers do not.
Sure, but my point is that it makes no sense for a general practitioner to leap immediately to a diagnosis of “stress” when A) there is a well defined and easily ruled out bacterial cause for ulcers that should be the immediate first rule-out and B) they are not even close to qualified to assess stress levels and their impact on the person’s body. A GP not testing for h. pylori FIRST is not giving a good standard of care. Jumping to a mental health diagnosis before ruling out common bacterial or viral causes is saddling the patient with a mental health label that in itself can be pretty freaking stressful. There’s no excuse for a GP to not keep up on common causes for common complaints.
I agree. My GP, how I wish she was still available, ordered the H.pylori test first thing. But ulcers are not treated as a mental health issue at least not these days. You get meds. That work.
That thing that western medicine does, of labeling everything they don’t have a treatment for a “mental health issue” (aka you are imagining your symptoms, and that’s your fault, so long, nutso) is something I’m quite familiar with myself. But that’s not how ulcers are treated now, because they have meds.
Aside from personality traits, mentall conditions (phobias, mental disorders), or religious experiences, I feel there are two aspects of change that mustn’t be overlooked:
Openess to change
Our openess to change is an intrinsic quality we do have the ability to change. Openess to change means you make a conscious effort to not resist change.
For example, if you’re having a heated argument with someone about say politics or religion, you can decide to remain open to changing your own position based on the other persons arguments. Awareness of our own prejudices and honest reflection on our motives are skills that can be developed over time, making us more open to change our ideas.
Or if I meet somoene for the first time and this individual is from a different socio-economic background, culture or generation. If I wanted to, I could make a conscious effort to reserve my opinions, suspend pre-conceived ideas, and instead focus on the person and try to foster understanding.
Change in direction
I agree we don’t have much hope changing core personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness , openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism) or if we suffer from mental illness. But honestly, whether due to the widespread use of new technologies or rapidly changing society / culture, we all are directly affected by numerous mental disturbances and psychosomatic stresses. I almost want to go so far as to say, mental illness in varying forms and intensity is a given (“you have to be a little crazy to survive in this world” mentality).
But rather than focus on changing our personality traits, or healing our mental illnesses, what if we focus instead on changing our “internal compass”. Can we change our idea of ourselves by evolving our idea of our place in the world, the narrative we tell ourselves about life on earth?
Isn’t this what happens when an alcoholic or drug addict finally manages to “kick the habbit”? They’ve changed their direction in life by changing their internal compass, and evolving their idea about their place in the world / life purpose / internal narrative. Same goes for a person who turns from a life of crime. To me that’s a much greater change than someone changing a personality trait (e.g. become more extroverted if they have always been introverted.)