Narcissistic Rage and the Sense of Entitlement

Joseph Burgoin
Depression and Bipolar Disorder
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Detours
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Shame/Narcissism
130

While the manic phase in what is commonly known as 'bipolar disorder' usually involves manic flight into grandiose fantasy and impulsive behavior, on occasion it leads to rage, violence, suicide and even murder.  The DSM-IV refers to this as "dysphoric mania" or a mixed state, where manic and depressive symptoms occur simultaneously.  Outbursts of rage also occur in other disorders:  they feature in Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and various types of narcissistic behavior; anyone dominated by feelings of shame may be prone to occasional outbursts of rage, which are often an intense form of blaming, one of the primary defenses against shame.  While the DSM-IV defines these disorders as unique categories of mental illness, with individual diagnosis codes, they actually exist along a spectrum and have much in common.  Most of the clients I've seen who demonstrated features of Borderline Personality Disorder or presented with Bipolar Disorder symptoms also displayed features of narcissistic behavior, often involving outbursts of rage.

In other posts, I've talked about the function of hatred and anger as a kind of psychic glue in the face of disintegration anxiety; I've tried to make room for the idea that rage, as destructive as its external effects may be, sometimes serves a positive psychic function when the alternative is the terror of a kind of psychic death.  Likewise, rage may function as a defense against shame that feels unbearable.  These two are connected:  shame, as I discussed in my early post on basic or toxic shame, is the emotional expression of our sense that we are damaged; that sense of damage can mean that the self is felt to be in pieces, in danger of collapse.  Hatred, anger and rage serve a defensive and cohesive function for these conditions, especially when there has been a narcissistic injury to one's sense of self that stirs up unbearable shame.

Narcissistic rage may also express a frustrated sense of entitlement, by which I mean the feeling that one has a right to be given something which others believe should be obtained through effort, and unrealistic expectations of favorable treatment or automatic compliance with one's expectations.  While this is a characteristic feature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I've seen it in every borderline client I've treated, and in many clients with Bipolar Disorder symptoms, as well.  A sense of entitlement reflects an inflated view of one's own importance and rights, which features intermittently  in many psychological states of mind.  No doubt you've known people who express this sense of entitlement, whether or not they fit into any of the diagnostic categories with which we've all become familiar.

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On Everyday Narcissism

Joseph Burgoin
Points of Departure
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Shame/Narcissism
35

In several earlier posts, I've talked about different aspects of narcissism.  Using the film The Social Network as a case study, I discussed characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder displayed by the fictional Mark Zuckerberg; I've described narcissism as the primary defense against shame and used public rants by Charlie Sheen as a way to illustrate it; I've talked about the difference between narcissism and authentic self-esteem; and finally, I've complained about narcissistic behavior and the lost art of conversation -- the way people at social gatherings so often seem interested in talking only about themselves.  There's yet another aspect of narcissism I'd like to discuss, one most of us wouldn't view as pathological.  Let's call it everyday narcissism.

First, a little bit of history.  The term narcissism was coined by Paul Nacke in 1899 to describe someone who treated his or her own body as if it were a sexual object, in lieu of having sexual desires for other people.  Freud took up the term and eventually made a distinction between primary (normal) and secondary (pathological) narcissism.  Primary narcissism is the universal desire to protect ourselves from danger and to preserve our own lives; it has a sexual component that doesn't preclude desire for others.  People who suffer from secondary narcissism, on the other hand, "display two fundamental characteristics:  megalomania and diversion of their interest from the external world -- from people and things" (Freud, On Narcissism, p. 74).

Since then, the concept of narcissism has expanded beyond Freud's original view, enlarging on the elements of megalomania and giving only secondary emphasis to the element of sexual desire.  Merriam-Webster's primary definition for narcissism is "egoism, ego-centrism," relegating "love of or sexual desire for one's own body" to the secondary meaning.  When most people use the word today to describe someone else, they usually mean he or she has megalomaniacal tendencies:  "feelings of personal omnipotence or grandeur" (Merriam-Webster again).   Our use of the word often implies personal vanity, which suggests a sexual desire for one's own body, but it's not the primary meaning for most of us.  In general, what is written today about narcissism focuses on having a grandiose self-image and an excessive need for admiration to sustain it.

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When Is It Appropriate to Feel Shame?

Joseph Burgoin
Shame/Narcissism
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Social Behavior
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Society and Culture
22

In many of my earlier posts, I've written about the role shame plays in psychological and emotional difficulties.  I've discussed the fantasy flight into an idealized self in order to escape an unbearable sense of toxic shame; I've also tried to describe typical defenses against shame and frequently connect shame and narcissism, as I did in my post about Charlie Sheen .  In each instance, I've been discussing shame when it becomes toxic and thereby linked to different forms of mental illness; but is there a different type of shame, one that is non-toxic and in some sense "normal"?  Isn't it appropriate, sometimes, to feel shame?

It seems that every culture (including less developed and non-Western cultures) includes ideas and codes of behavior related to shame.  According to Rochelle Gurstein in her book The Repeal of Reticence (1996), shame is always connected to physical exposure and vulnerability; it also "threatens to engulf us at moments when our biological reality -- our 'animal' nature, as it is commonly called -- overwhelms our 'civilized' self; that is, when we are too directly confronted with the body in its most physical aspects."  She quotes Norbert Elias (1939), who held that "people, in the course of the civilizing process, seek to suppress in themselves every characteristic that they feel to be 'animal.'"  The origins of the word shame -- not only in English but French and German as well -- are linked to the idea of covering up.  You may recall that, in the Bible, shame was born when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, realized that they were naked and covered themselves to hide their nakedness.

So (putting it baldly) if a stranger were to walk in while you were on the toilet or having intercourse, you'd want to cover up; the feeling that motivates you is shame.  (This does not imply that we feel those activities are "dirty" or "bad" -- a religious overlay -- but that they should not be witnessed by other people; they are private.)  Apparently this sort of feeling in connection with the activities of our "animal nature" is to be found in virtually all civilized cultures, even primitive ones.  As they become "civilized", human beings everywhere want to distinguish themselves from other animals on the planet, to believe we are on a different plane; when we have an experience that confronts us with the fact that we are not so different -- that we, too, are animals despite all the trappings of civilization -- we experience shame.

On the other hand -- and I may be anthropomorphizing here -- it seems to me that our dog Maddy on occasion feels shame, too.  Usually, she sleeps through the night without waking us and waits to relieve herself until morning.  But on several occasions when she was suffering some kind of digestive problem and couldn't wake us up to let us know, she peed on the floor.  In the morning when we awoke and saw what had happened, she hung her head and slunk off to the closet -- to me, the very picture of someone filled with shame.  This occurred without our saying a word to her, or attempting to humiliate her for losing control.  I've seen this with other dogs and heard similar stories from other dog-owners.  My theory is that Maddy feels shamed not of her animal nature but when she is unable to control her bodily functions.  Most human beings would also feel shame under those conditions.  Can you imagine how you'd feel if you lost control of your bowels in a public place?  This doesn't mean that you should feel ashamed but that you inevitably would.

As Gurstein notes in her book, ours has become a society where this type of shame scarcely exists any longer.  If you suggest that some behaviors actually are shameful (that is, should be kept private), you will be called "uptight" or labeled a "prude".  During graduate school, Gurstein studied with the historian Christopher Lasch, who famously wrote about The Culture of Narcissism (1979) and how individuals in modern American society, with a fragile sense of self, become obsessed with fame and celebrity.  Her own book shows how the "repeal" of social standards that used to preserve a realm of privacy around the transactions of our animal nature, particularly sex, has led to a debased public realm in which virtually nothing is held to be sacred and private.  She does not link the two themes -- shame and narcissism -- but I will do so now, expanding one of my central themes into the social realm.

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Coping with that Savage Inner Voice

Joseph Burgoin
Self-Esteem and Self-Sabotage
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Shame/Narcissism
10

As I've discussed elsewhere, when we emerge from our childhood with a profound sense of damage and the shame that goes with it, when we feel hopeless about ever getting better, we tend to long for perfect and magical solutions instead.  At the same time, a part of us comes to expect that we will become perfect and berates us brutally if we fall short of expectation.  I'm sure many of you know exactly what I'm talking about:  that savage inner voice that can make our life an ongoing misery.

In my own practice, the majority of my clients have suffered from such savagery, as I myself have done.  Even in the best of therapeutic outcomes, this voice never goes away entirely.  What we can hope to do is to free ourselves from its domination, to recognize it quickly and sideline the cruelty, moving on to more productive ways of thinking.  The first step involves some techniques that can be worked on and mastered, in keeping with behavioral modification techniques as well as meditation; the latter part takes time and involves building mental muscle, the ability to think clearly and exercise non-harsh judgment.

In an early post on the importance of mental silence, I described ways to put a stop to verbal thought and focus instead on breathing, much as advocated by Eastern meditative practice.  This becomes especially important in dealing with the savage inner voice.  To this day, I regularly have the experience of recalling something I may have said or done and feeling my entire body flinch; I'll close my eyes tight and clench my muscles, as if somebody very strong were about to strike me.  If I'm not paying enough attention, I might then start to tell myself what an idiot I was to have done such-and-such, or how stupid I am to act in so narcissistic a way.  I think you know what I mean.  Then I have to force myself to relax, to silence the words and focus instead on my breathing.

Behavioral modification refers to this as "thought-stopping," a useful technique.  I do not, however, go on to voice self-affirmations instead.  I don't believe in the lasting value of self-affirmations because they do nothing to promote real thought or to develop discernment.  The truth is that my savage attacks often contain an element of truth to them.  If I simply tell myself that I'm a good person, I'm strong and sensitive, that everyone makes mistakes, etc., I will have learned nothing from the experience.  The goal is not to substitute a non-reflective positive judgment for a harshly negative one, but rather to develop a more nuanced capacity for discernment.

Let me give an example, one I've referred to in other posts, especially this one abut how to make an apology.  Many years ago, I said something hurtful to a friend at a dinner party.  It took me a long time to recognize that I had misbehaved; once I did, I came down very hard, berating myself for behaving in a thoughtless and hurtful way.  I was brutalizing myself.  The solution was not to start telling myself that I was actually a good, thoughtful person, or to tell myself it's okay to make mistakes; what was needed was to remove the savery from the self-criticism.  Once I did, I was able to understand the envy that drove me to misbehave, to make an apology (though not as genuine a one as I should have given), and to pay more attention to my own frustrated longing.  In the process, I moved from viewing myself as a contemptible loser to a frustrated writer with painful feelings of envy for a successful friend.  This didn't excuse my behavior but made it understandable.  I learned something from the experience.

It takes a long time to develop the capacity to make such a transformation.  What we try to do is evolve a better internal parent, one who doesn't simply attack you because you made a mistake or lie to you about how "good" you are, but might help you understand why you made such an error and how you might learn from your experience in order to avoid such an error in future.  In my experience, it's difficult to make this change alone.  You may need to work this through in the context of regular psychotherapy, with a person who you respect.  Even then, it's not easy.  With my clients, I've been repeatedly struck by how difficult it is to clear a space where we can think together about something the client did, without feeling crushed with humiliating shame on the one hand or taking flight from it on the other.  For such clients, as discussed in my last post, any attempt to exercise discernmnent feels like harsh judgment.   It takes a long time to transform black-and-white thinking into a process with shades of gray.

Without such a thoughtful internal parent, only two options exist:  either you're wonderful and everything is fine, or you're a contemptible fuck-up and you'll never be any different.  This dynamic leads to a cycle of crime and punishment, as discussed elsewhere, where nothing can be learned and we're condemned to repeat the same behaviors again and again.

Finding Your Own Way:

Think of something  you did or felt for which you've criticized yourself harshly.  It may be something that happened long ago that you've never gotten over.  Maybe the memory of it makes you cringe, as some of my recollections do.  Don't run away from it or attempt to put it out of your mind, but focus on your breath and work for mental silence.  See if you can keep the idea in mind without berating yourself.

Can you think of possible reasons for your behavior that involve no harshness, either for you or for anyone else (i.e., no shame or blame)?  Can you feel any sympathy for yourself that doesn't excuse your behavior or make it somebody's else's fault?  Can you learn something about yourself from that experience that might help you to do something different next time?

The goal here is to recognize traits or feelings that might cause you trouble in future but not to judge them harshly; to take them into account and tolerate them next time, without simply acting reflexively, without understanding, and berating yourself afterward.

Charlie Sheen’s Rant and the Power of Destructive Narcissism

Joseph Burgoin
Defense Mechanisms
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Shame/Narcissism
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Society and Culture
37

Charlie Sheen's recent rant on The Alex Jones Show offers a perfect illustration of my earlier post about defenses against shame, as well as many features of narcissistic personality disorder.   Although I wouldn't classify Mr. Sheen as NPD per se, he exhibits a great many features of pathological narcissism.  If you haven't seen or heard the full radio interview, you might want to watch this YouTube video.  It's astonishing, deeply upsetting and sad.

From the beginning of the interview, Mr. Sheen makes clear we're dealing in the territory of shame.  "Dude, I'm 0-for-three with marriage and nary an excuse.  Like in baseball, the scoreboard doesn't lie."  At first, this quote makes it seem as if he's putting himself in the "losers" camp (to use his own terminology); but he rejects any sense of shame in the next sentence while discussing the current women (the "goddesses") in his life:  "What we all have is a marriage of the heart ... of the hearts.  To sully or contaminate or radically disrespect this union with a shameful contract is something I will leave to the losers and the Bible-grippers."

This is what I hear Sheen saying:  "I'm not a shame-ridden loser in marriage because marriage itself is the loser.  People who get married are the losers.  Rather than contaminate myself, I've engaged in a superior polyamorous form of relationship, where we exist on the level of gods and goddesses, peering down with contempt upon you pathetic mortals."  As I've discussed, this kind of contempt is a classic defense against unbearable shame; poor Mr. Sheen must be drowning in it.  Brittle and defensive, he next reports that one of the women in his menage-a-quatre has decamped; he wishes her luck in her new life because "she will need it."  Unable to bear the pain of rejection, he treats his former goddess with the contempt he feels for everyone outside his "family".

In Charlie Sheen's quotes, he continually exhibits a kind of grandiose narcissism, another primary defense against shame. "I'm so tired of pretending that my life isn't perfect and bitchen and winning every second and I'm not perfect and just delivering the goods at every second."  That's a verbatim quote, difficult to decode exactly, but he clearly wants to convince everyone, especially himself, that he has a close-to-perfect existence that's the envy of the contemptible losers around him.  "Look what I'm dealing with, man -- I'm dealing with fools and trolls.  ... I don't have time for these clowns, I don't have time for their judgment and their stupidity.  They lie down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and just look at their loser lives and they look at me and they say, 'I can't process it!'  Well no, and you never will.  Stop trying.  Just sit back and enjoy the show."  From Sheen's heavily defended viewpoint, he's a godlike spectacle the world should simply watch and admire.  Beneath that surface, he has to feel confused, out of control and shamed of what he's done with his life.

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