Newer posts are loading.
You are at the newest post.
Click here to check if anything new just came in.
Click here to check if anything new just came in.
September 28 2011
The Last Psychiatrist -- Finding Existential Solace In A Pink Tied Psycho
'Though narcissism demands the right to self-identify, narcissists are often unable to do so because they don't know what it is they want to be. Who am I? What are the rules of my identity? So people look for shortcuts, like modeling oneself after another existing character. But the considerably more regressive maneuver is to define yourself in opposition to things. What do the protestors want? Can they articulate it meaningfully, not in platitudes or "people over profits" or "more fair income redistribution" soundbites? They can't tell you because they don't know. They can, however, yell at you what they don't like, and the louder they yell it the more they hear it themselves. If I hate the protestors, I'm on Wall Street's side, and vise versa, no further branding, let alone thought, is necessary. And now you have a quick way to decide if you hate me.'Partial Objects -- Protestors Get Maced
'...when the oppressive entity is so poorly defined (e.g. Wall Street, “the banks”, corruption) these protests always and without fail turn into protests against the police. ...iphones at the ready, praying someone maces them so they can get a video out of it. Here’s a clue that this is a pathologic narcissism, the nihilistic kind that 17 yo boys have when they threaten to kill themselves if their girlfriend leaves them: I actually agree with the protestors about Bank of America in principle, but because they are putting their identity ahead of the cause and are making it about themselves, I find myself hating them more than Bank of America. Their arrogance and entitlement drives me away from them, into the arms of their enemies. I’m hardly alone in this. Either they are not aware of this effect, in which case they are merely idiots, or the are aware of this effect and do not care.'September 26 2011
Narcissistic Allocation: Over-valuation (Idealization) and Devaluation
'Narcissists idealize potential new sources of narcissistic supply and later devalue and discard them. Cycles of over-valuation (idealization) followed by devaluation ... They reflect the need to be protected against the whims, needs, and choices of others, shielded from the hurt that they can inflict on the narcissist. The ultimate and only emotional need of the narcissist is to be the subject of attention and, thus, to support his volatile self-esteem and to regulate his sense of self worth. The narcissist is dependent on others for the performance of critical Ego functions. While healthier people overcome disappointment or disillusionment with relative ease – to the narcissist they are the difference between Being and Nothingness. The quality and reliability of Narcissistic Supply are, therefore, of paramount importance.'September 24 2011
September 22 2011
Partial Objects -- Who are the important characters in Star Wars?
'Most stories have a Macguffin (or two) but you want to make sure your life doesn’t use them: something you pursue, or which motivates you, drives you, that, after all, turns out to be pretty meaningless.'The Narcissist's Addiction to Fame and Celebrity by Dr. Sam Vaknin
'As far as their fans are concerned, celebrities fulfil two emotional functions: they provide a mythical narrative (a story that the fan can follow and identify with) and they function as blank screens onto which the fans project their dreams, hopes, fears, plans, values, and desires (wish fulfilment). The slightest deviation from these prescribed roles provokes enormous rage and makes us want to punish (humiliate) the "deviant" celebrities. But why? When the human foibles, vulnerabilities, and frailties of a celebrity are revealed, the fan feels humiliated, "cheated", hopeless, and "empty". To reassert his self-worth, the fan must establish his or her moral superiority over the erring and "sinful" celebrity. The fan must "teach the celebrity a lesson" and show the celebrity "who's boss". It is a primitive defense mechanism – narcissistic grandiosity. It puts the fan on equal footing with the exposed and "naked" celebrity.'September 19 2011
Partial Objects -- Ron Paul Forgot that America is a Blue Pill Nation
'Paul’s strategy failed because he failed to recognize that Santorum just gave the audience a blue pill: a narcissistic narrative scaled up for a whole nation. They were just reassured that the entire issue was really about who they were and how they stand for American Exceptionalism (wait, does that contradict the other thing “we” stand for?), and not about any sort of vulgar details like foreign policy decisions or what the military did when. The natural antidote would be a red pill, but Dr. Paul can’t write that prescription because he’s a still a politician. Even though the odds of him becoming President are slim, he still has play by the rules of the game he’s playing, just like everyone else on stage. Here is what Ron Paul could have said that could have dispelled the effects of the blue pill: ***Do you really believe that you are important enough for people you’ve never met from a far away land to end their own lives in an attempt to kill you?***'July 15 2011
Partial Objects -- The next phase in the evolution of action movies
'But the kids… they are limitless reservoirs of possibility. Sure, they don’t know kung fu now, but they could learn. At this point the only hope left to realize your fantasies is for your kid to become that fantasy, and then drag you along with them. But why is it always a daughter? ...your daughter, at two, at four, at six, seems very sophisticated. Sometimes she almost seems like an adult. And she’s so pretty. ...if there is anyone who could take advantage of an alternative universe where possibilities can be willed into reality, it would be the girl... While this is all happening – while 40 year old men are being offered a last ditch-last ditch attempt at fantasy, the new cycle of kids are starting from the very beginning: marginal guy saves the girl: Harry Potter, Twilight, and about thirty or so comic book movies. They run parallel to the middle-agers digital wish fulfillment, which reads: marginal guy is saved by his kid, redeemed by his kid, his partial object.'June 28 2011
The Last Psychiatrist -- Is The Cult Of Self-Esteem Ruining Our Kids?
'They didn't rush because the kid can't handle pain, but because they can't tolerate the kid's pain.' -- 'I know this is going to run me afoul of every comfy-chair therapist in America, but there is no reason to write anything down, ever. You're not a detective, you're not looking for inconsistencies or lost time, the patient is there for answers and the structure of your relationship is itself the answers. We can discuss good and bad technique later; the point here is to establish that these two people are creating "environments" that are safe for themselves. It may also be safe for the patient, it may be labeled as "for the patient" but I hope it is evident that the real impetus is the comfort of the therapist. With me so far? Ok: that's also how they parent.'May 19 2011
The Onion -- Fiscally I'm A Right-Wing Nutjob, But On Social Issues I'm Fucking Insanely Liberal
'It's all about striking a balance, really. I only wish there were more people out there as open-minded as I am.'March 30 2011
Wikipedia -- True self and false self
'...in the False Self, 'Other people's expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one's being'. The danger is that 'through this False Self, the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even attains a show of being real'. The result can be a 'child whose potential aliveness and creativity has gone unnoticed ... concealing an empty, barren internal world behind a mask of independence'. By contrast, the True Self is rooted in ... the "experience of aliveness"... 'Out of this the baby creates a sense that "Life is worth the trouble of living". In the baby's nonverbal gesture which 'expresses a spontaneous instinct', the true self potential can be communicated to, and affirmed by, the motherer. 'The False Self in its pathological guise prevents and inhibits the "spontaneous gesture" of the True Self. Compliance and imitation are the costly results ...'March 29 2011
YouTube -- TEDxUIUC: Sherry Turkle - Alone Together
"We can't get enough of each other IF we can have each other at a distance in amounts that we can control." -- "Things go from: I have a feeling, I want to make a call; to: I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text. In other words, the validation of a feeling becomes part of establishing it."
"We can't get enough of each other IF we can have each other at a distance in amounts that we can control." -- "Things go from: I have a feeling, I want to make a call; to: I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text. In other words, the validation of a feeling becomes part of establishing it."
March 13 2011
February 22 2011
PHD Worldwide -- We Are The Future...
("But Mommy said I was worth customized content. Mommy customized me exactly to *her* specifications.") -- Bad parenting meets world -- http://youtu.be/P81bb0TzwboFebruary 07 2011
The Last Psychiatrist -- Or, You Could Just Nuke The Bitch
'What about the puncher's mom? Surely she is not at fault? Well... her mistake, a crucial one, is she allowed herself to get blindsided by the Angry Mom's Cognitive Kill Switch – hijacking a discussion and making it a criticism of the person's identity instead of the actual issue. Rather than repeated I'm sorrys and he's not that kind of boy what she should have said is, "why are you yelling at me? I didn't punch your kid." That changes the whole movie, now we have a different main character. Now Angry Mom is put on notice: back off and let's talk rationally, or confirm to me you are a nut and face the consequences. But her reflex – a product of the generational forces to which she was exposed – was to square off and get defensive: my kid wouldn't do that, my kid wouldn't lie. She accepted Angry Mom's premise – the premise of Gen N – that the kid is only her, and so she took the Angry Mom's attack as an attack on her directly, which it was, because that's the premise.'January 13 2011
The Last Psychiatrist -- Are Chinese Mothers Superior To American Mothers?
'I'll explain what's wrong with her thinking by asking you one simple question, and when I ask it you will know the answer immediately. Then, if you are a parent, in the very next instant your mind will rebel against this answer, it will defend itself against it -- "well, no, it's not so simple--" but I want to you to ignore this counterattack and focus on how readily, reflexively, instinctively you knew the answer to my question. Are you ready to test your soul? Here's the question: what is the point of all this? -- Take a step outside the article. This is a woman explaining why Chinese mothers are superior. The thing is, I don't know any Chinese mothers who would ever talk about their families this way, publicly, describe their parenting, brag about it. Never. And then you see it: Amy Chua isn't a Chinese mother, she's an American mother. She had a Chinese mother, but now she's a first generation American... And what do Americans do? They brand themselves. SuperSinoMom.'December 18 2010
The Evolution of Childrearing - The Emotional Life of Nations
'...mothers earlier in history mainly saw their children as their own screaming, needy, dominating mothers-forming a "hypersymbiotic relationship" wherein the child is expected to make up for all the love missing in the mother's own life, cure her post-partum depression and restore her vitality. The need to shut up the mother's angry voice in babies lead to their being tied up, neglected and beaten. It is only when one realizes their own severe neglect and abuse and the extent to which their babies are poison containers for their feelings that one can begin to understand why mothers in the past routinely killed, neglected and abused their children. What is miraculous – and what is the source of most social progress – is that mothers throughout history have slowly and successfully struggled with their fear and hatred with so little help from others and have managed to evolve the loving, empathic childrearing one can find in many families around the world today.'December 15 2010
Childhood and Cultural Evolution - The Emotional Life of Nations
'Most of the time, parents simply reinflict upon their children what had been done to them in their own childhood. The production of developmental variations can occur only in the silent, mostly unrecorded decisions by parents to go beyond the traumas they themselves endured. It happens each time a mother decides not to use her child as an erotic object, not to hit it when it cries. It happens each time a mother encourages her child's explorations and independence, each time she overcomes her own despair and neediness and gives her child a bit more of the love and empathy she herself didn't get. These private moments are rarely recorded for historians, and social scientists have completely overlooked their role in the production of cultural variation, yet they are nonetheless the ultimate sources of the evolution of the psyche and culture. Childhood must therefore always first evolve before major social, cultural and economic innovation can occur.'December 09 2010
The Last Psychiatrist -- The Walking Dead: Not About Zombies
'All mourning is ambivalence. You're never too far from age 2, when your rage is magically powerful. ...the unconscious never forgets even the briefest of hates. Sometimes the guilt has a convenient narrative: caring for a cancer-ridden, demented parent who exhausted your physical and emotional resources, and then finally(!) dies. -- In most (all?) zombie movies, there is always a scene in which a main character confronts a loved one turned zombie. The rest of the previous zombie attacks are merely prelude to that one, specific, pivotal interaction. Quick, bolt the door, ambivalence is coming. Movies give the loved-one zombie a momentary flash of the old self – is it remembering, is it a trap, or are you seeing what you want to see? ...how the living negotiate that bit of mourning determines if they'll be able to put the dead to rest, or are going to have be tied to them forever.'December 07 2010
danah boyd | apophenia -- Digital Self-Harm and Other Acts of Self-Harassment
'...teens are attacking themselves in a public forum while making it look like they’re being attacked by someone else. I can’t tell you how many teens I’ve met who’ve been bullied by people at school who then turn to tell me about how their parents are absent – physically, mentally, or emotionally. And how often I hear teens complain about their parents trying to “fix” things by getting involved in all the wrong ways. Ways that make the dynamics around bullying so much worse. And it breaks my heart when I see teens respond to their parents’ helicoptering by engaging in self-harm practices through eating disorders or self-injury (“cutting”) as an attempt to gain some form of control over their lives. And it scares me to think that a digital equivalent is brewing, a form of digital self-harm where words can be as sharp as knives and are directed at oneself.'
Older posts are this way
If this message doesn't go away, click anywhere on the page to continue loading posts.
Could not load more posts
Maybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...
Maybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...
Just a second, loading more posts...
You've reached the end.
