PARANOYA Style Life Or The Story Of One Betrayal

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

A paranoid personality is characterized by excessive suspicion, lack of a sense of humor, as well as the projection of their negative sides onto others. Since the "threat" is in external factors, the "paranoid" perceives the environment as hostile, which determines his behavior, relationships with others.

In this article, we will talk more about the formation of a paranoid character than about the diagnosis of "paranoia", which we will leave to psychiatrists to deal with. A person with a leading paranoid radical, I will affectionately call "paranoid" to shorten the text)).

Because of their pathological distrust of others, paranoid individuals rarely seek help from psychotherapists. They really should be completely unbearable to ask for help, trusting another.

Paranoids often find self-realization somewhere in politics, in social projects and movements for something or against something. For them, this is a kind of compensatory psychotherapy. Here it is possible to designate the enemy in a socially acceptable way and fight him directly, weighing him down with all conceivable and inconceivable "bads". If we talk about extreme forms of compensation, then we will be dealing with serial killers who "destroy enemies", "saving the world from evil."

But, it should not be overlooked that from time to time each of us may experience fear of persecution, and this fear may be based on a real threat. At the same time, such a person can look extremely unattractive to others. Malevolence towards others is due to a high level of internal aggression and irritability.

Since the source of their suffering and problems, the paranoid person considers others, accordingly, they direct direct aggression at others, and not at themselves.

Returning to the sources of the formation of the paranoid character, we come to the age when the child begins to walk. And here the ratio of temperament, as innate mobility of nervous processes and the level of parental tolerance for accepting a restless child, will influence the formation of a paranoid character. Thus, the negative upbringing components of an adult for a demanding restless child will cause the child to feel an unsafe, hostile world towards him and form a fear of destruction.

The paranoid state is a mixture of fear and shame.

Fear of an omnipotent adult and shame at being helpless.

But the feeling of shame is so intolerable for them that in communication all their energy will be directed towards denying this feeling if the interlocutor tries to present it to him. Shame will be projected onto the one who is around. For example, a husband, himself being unfaithful, will suspect, track down and accuse his wife of being unfaithful, seeking confirmation at every turn.

Another guiding feeling is guilt. Inwardly aware of himself as sinful and violated, but carefully hiding it from the environment, the paranoid will, again, project his guilt on the other, finding evidence in the actions of the other.

Types of a child's relationship with a significant adult (parent):

1. Criticism, unpredictability and inconsistency of the parent in the upbringing process. Violence and humiliation of a child. "I will make a real man out of you!"

The formation of paranoid traits is based on criticism, punishment that depends on the mood of the adult, and not on the degree of the child's fault, the conflicting whims of the adult, which the child cannot satisfy in any way, and the extreme form of humiliation of the child. The worldview of the family is also of great importance, which can transmit the danger of the world, and the only way to survive is to remain forever in the parental family.

2. Uncontrollable parental anxiety. “I just can’t bear it,” “Don’t make it up, you’re doing well,” “Stop talking about bad things - thoughts are material,” etc.

Another aspect of the child's relationship with a significant adult, namely the mother, is increased anxiety and the mother's weak ability to resist stress. Such a mother is not able to contain the fear and anxiety of her child when he comes to her with a problem. She can only frighten him even more, bringing the problem situation to the level of a catastrophe or begin to deny the legitimacy of those emotions that the child is experiencing. Thus, the child grows up in fear and anxiety, believing that all of his emotions have the destructive power of a self-fulfilling prophecy. All the fears and fears of the mother pass into the personality of the child.

In communication, the paranoid person is the first to attack in order to prevent attacks, as he expects only ill-treatment from the other.

But their difference from the psychotic personality is that they are able to build long-term stable relationships, since they have experience of caring for them in childhood, although along with the care there was a lot of criticism, suspicion, distrust, anxiety and fear of parents.

The presence of a frightening father and the absence of a reliable, stable other who can help cope with difficult feelings without making them even more frightening form paranoid character dynamics.

"I will slay you before you slay me."

In the inner world of a paranoid nature, the representation of two polar parts. One part is humiliated, incapable, despised by itself, and the other is omnipotent, justified and triumphant. The problem is, none of these parts provide comfort. The first is shameful, the second is guilt. The weak part lives in constant fear and search for a safe place. The grandiose and omnipotent is fixated on herself in the context that "everything that happens belongs to me."

A relationship with a paranoid person will be filled with suspicion and projection. You can be perceived as either omnipotent or useless and insignificant. But you will be very lucky and you will find the most devoted friend and companion if your values coincide.

Regardless of the type of projection, the paranoid personality will be pre-hostile. Either you (if he sees a grandiose personality in you) will humiliate him and look down on him, or (if you are an "insignificant worm" in his eyes), cause contempt in him. With such a personality, either a desire to defend themselves or strong anxiety and fear may arise, respectively.

In this article, as well as in others, in which I describe personality types, character types according to N. McWilliams, I would not want to "expose" each personality from the point of view of pathology. In the description, the qualities of the paranoid nature are strongly condensed.

Each of us has traits of both paranoid and obsessive-compulsive, hysterical, schizoid, sometimes psychopathic personality. It is the ratio of these traits that makes our individuality.

If we consider a paranoid personality, so to speak, with a plus sign, that is, adaptive to reality, then these are very reliable and loyal people. They are sincere and truthful, ready to go to the end, defending their ideals. It is difficult to "bend" them, "push on", "dissolve". They are able to express themselves and their opinions, regardless of the authority to whom they say it. They have discernment and attentiveness to all manifestations of the interlocutor. They can catch every flashing emotion and thought of their interlocutor. Moreover, they are very rarely mistaken about the emotion of the interlocutor, but they are often mistaken about the origins of this emotion. They are straightforward and strong personalities, capable of building deep and affectionate relationships. They can be pretty highly functional in life.

The task of psychotherapy is to "translate minus into plus". This is possible if the therapist is able to create a trusting and emotionally close relationship in the therapeutic space. Actually, this will be the successful end of therapy. Since everything else such a person is able to do himself. In the therapy of such patients, an effective therapist is able to calmly accept the hostility of his client, thus demonstrating to him the possibility of accepting himself with all his "negative" qualities, as completely normal sides of the personality for each of us. Yes, each of us can lie, steal, think badly about the other, make mistakes, want the best for ourselves. As well as giving the last, being committed to your choice, sincerely wanting the very best for another, etc. One side of the personality does not exist without the other.

A sense of humor, if it appears in communication, can "defuse" aggressive impulses and relieve tension in therapy and ordinary communication with paranoid individuals.

In conclusion, I would like to summarize.

The formation of a paranoid character takes place in an atmosphere of total fear that the child experienced, while he had no one to turn to for help and protection. This fear is not just punishment, it is the fear of physical destruction. In order to cope with fear, the paranoid learned to project it onto another object. A paranoid person can be quite cruel and ruthless in relation to his "enemy", but unlike psychopathic or antisocial, she is capable of love and devotion if she sees in another like-minded person who shares his values. They have a margin of strength and stability gained at an early age in the form of love and acceptance, but in the process of development they faced the weakness of a significant adult and the inability or inability to provide help, which was regarded by them as betrayal. The paranoid will never be in a relationship with the person who, in his opinion, betrayed him. He is able to break off any, even very long-term relationship, if he is faced with deception. He already has a history of broken meaningful relationships at the earliest defenseless age, and he will not tolerate betrayal now that he is already able to fend for himself.

Used material "Psychoanalytic Diagnostics" N. McWilliams.