From the book "This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women"

I believe it is possible for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. For me, the difference between an "ordinary" and an "extraordinary" person is not the title that person might have, but what they do to make the world a better place for us all.

I have no idea why people choose to do what they do. When I was a kid I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I did know what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to grow up, have 2.2 kids, get married, the whole white picket fence thing. And I certainly didn't think about being an activist. I didn't even really know what one was.

My older brother was born deaf. Growing up, I ended up defending him, and I often think that is what started me on my path to whatever it is I am today.

When I was approached with the idea of trying to create a landmine campaign, we were just three people in a small office in Washington, D.C., in late 1991. I certainly had more than a few ideas about how to begin a campaign, but what if nobody cared? What if nobody responded? But I knew the only way to answer those questions was to accept the challenge.

If I have any power as an individual, it's because I work with other individuals in countries all over the world. We are ordinary people: My friend Jemma, from Armenia; Paul, from Canada; Kosal, a landmine survivor from Cambodia; Haboubba, from Lebanon; Christian, from Norway; Diana, from Colombia; Margaret, another landmine survivor, from Uganda; and thousands more. We've all worked together to bring about extraordinary change. The landmine campaign is not just about landmines -- it's about the power of individuals to work with governments in a different way.

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I believe in both my right and my responsibility to work to create a world that doesn't glorify violence and war, but where we seek different solutions to our common problems. I believe that these days, daring to voice your opinion, daring to find out information from a variety of sources, can be an act of courage.

I know that holding such beliefs and speaking them publicly is not always easy or comfortable or popular, particularly in the post-9/11 world. But I believe that life isn't a popularity contest. I really don't care what people say about me -- and believe me, they've said plenty. For me, it's about trying to do the right thing even when nobody else is looking.

I believe that worrying about the problems plaguing our planet without taking steps to confront them is absolutely irrelevant. The only thing that changes this world is taking action.

I believe that words are easy. I believe that truth is told in the actions we take. And I believe that if enough ordinary people back up our desire for a better world with action, we can, in fact, accomplish absolutely extraordinary things.

Jody Williams is the founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Williams previously did humanitarian work for people in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Her interest in advocacy began with a leaflet on global activism handed to her outside a subway station.

Reprinted from the book:This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman, eds. Published by Henry Holt. (October 2006;$23.00US/$31.00CAN; 0-8050-8087-2) Copyright © 2006 This I Believe, Inc.

About the Editors:
Jay Allison, the host and curator of This I Believe, is an independent broadcast journalist. His work appears often on NPR and has earned him five Peabody Awards. He is the founder of the public radio stations that serve Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod, where he lives.

Dan Gediman is the executive producer of This I Believe. His work has been heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Fresh Air, Marketplace, Jazz Profiles, and This American Life. He has won many of public broadcasting's most prestigious awards, including the duPont-Columbia Award.

To read more essays and submit your own, please visit www.thisibelieve.org.

next: Articles: Why Even Bother?

Study shows that combining ADHD medication with behavior modification therapy is the best way to improve behavior of ADHD children.

A new University at Buffalo study of treatments for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has found that combining behavior modification therapy with ADHD medication is the most effective way to improve the behavior of many ADHD children.   In fact, when the two are combined, the study showed, the amount of ADHD medication required to achieve the same results as use of medication alone can be reduced by two-thirds.

"One of the major findings of the study is that when using behavior modification, you can get away with tiny, tiny doses of medication, much lower than previously thought," said ADHD researcher William E. Pelham, Jr., University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology, UB College of Arts and Sciences and UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.The study is the first to test the effectiveness of a new drug treatment, a methylphenidate (MPH) patch.

Methylphenidate is the stimulant used in pill form by ADHD drugs Concerta and Ritalin.The study is published in the May issue of Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. It was funded by a grant from Noven Pharmaceuticals. Shire Pharmaceuticals Group, which purchased the rights to the MPH patch from Noven, will seek FDA approval for the MPH patch in 2006.

Twenty-seven children with ADHD, ages 6 to 12, participated in the study, conducted at the University at Buffalo's Summer Treatment Program for children with ADHD. Pelham and co-researchers assessed the effects of behavior modification, the MPH patch and a placebo on the children in classroom and organized play settings, and through use of parental behavior ratings.The researchers found that when used alone, the MPH patch and behavior modification therapy were equally effective treatments. The MPH patch was effective in all doses tested, with few reports of side effects and good wear characteristics.

Combined treatment -- using a very low dose of the MPH patch with behavior modification -- was superior to either treatment alone, however. "The patch used with behavior modification caused the greater amount of improvement in thebehavior of the children," says Pelham, who helped develop Concerta and who has conducted many other trials involving other stimulant drugs.

Significantly, the study also found that with combined treatment children required much lower doses of medication -- as much as 67 percent lower -- to achieve the same effects as high doses of medication used alone.Lower dosages of medication lowers the risk of long-term drug side effects, which studies have shown to include loss of appetite and stunting of growth, Pelham points out. "Long-term side effects of ADHD drugs are almost always related to dosage," he says.

"If you want to lower a child's dosages daily and throughout their lifetime, the best way to do that is to combine the medication with behavior modification."

According to Pelham, the MPH patch's dosage flexibility potentially makes it ideal for administering lower dosages of methylphenidate in combination with behavior modification. The MPH patch can be applied to a child for short periods during the course of the day. The most commonly used pill forms of methylphenidate, which last for 12 hours, do not offer such flexibility, Pelham says."The patch enables users to use less medication for short time periods, and that's good in my opinion," Pelham says. "I think parents are becoming more concerned about the safety of medications than they have been in the past."

The study is the first comparison study of ADHD medication and behavior modification to control for the presence and absence of behavior modification that is received by a child daily from parents, teachers, siblings or peers, according to Pelham. As such, the study is the first to accurately isolate the effects of medication and behavior modification treatments, Pelham says."There's so much behavior modification that goes on naturally in the world that unless you do a study where you guarantee that all of it is taken away you underestimate the effect of behavior modification because it's always there," Pelham says."This study shows that when you control for those outside factors, you get effects of behavior modification that are just as big as high doses of medication."

The study's results, Pelham says, should send a clear message to parents of children with ADHD. "You definitely should be using behavior modification," he says. "You'll be giving your children much lower doses of ADHD medication over their lifetimes if you combine behavior modification with medication."

The study's co-investigators were Lisa Burrows-MacLean, Elizabeth M. Gnagy, Gregory A. Fabiano, Erika K. Coles, Katy E. Tresco, Anil Chacko, Brian T. Wymbs, Amber L. Wienke, Kathryn S. Walker and Martin T. Hoffman from the UB Center for Children and Families.The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

Source: University of Buffalo press release

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John Allen, an NIAAA coordinator of Project MATCH, offers an institutional response to Stanton's critiques and commentaries on Project MATCH. Among the more amusing elements: Allen's tarring Stanton with Jeff Schaler's view that the 12-step facilitation treatment is identical to AA, while Stanton in fact argues the opposite. Allen and other mainline alcohol researchers have been circling their wagons furiously to disguise that MATCH showed modern clinical treatments of alcoholism are lost at sea on the nature of the phenomenon and how to deal with it.

The Sciences, March/April, 1999, pp. 3; 46-47

Several of Stanton Peele's comments about the design features of the U.S. government-funded study known as Project MATCH were in error. For example, though MATCH excluded many subjects who were dependent on illicit drugs, it included many people diagnosed as drug abusers but not dependent. Mr. Peele also gives the impression that the MATCH subjects had unusually favorable treatment prognoses, whereas the average number of symptoms of the MATCH subjects was roughly twice that required for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence, according to generally accepted diagnostic guidelines.

Each of the three MATCH-administered treatments was associated with dramatic decreases in alcohol consumption. More strikingly, those improvements were generally well maintained, even thirty-nine months after the initial treatment. True, the MATCH subjects volunteered for the study; that is, of course, a requirement for almost all medical research on human subjects. Nevertheless, the MATCH subjects probably sought treatment for many of the same reasons as did their counterparts in community-based treatment programs—because of some external pressure from family, friends or colleagues.

Why did the MATCH investigators decide not to include a control group in the study? First, it seemed unethical to deny treatment to alcoholics seeking it. Second, it seemed unlikely that subjects who had been assigned to the no-treatment group would refrain from getting treatment outside the protocol, or that they would comply adequately with a follow-up assessment. Finally, the primary goal of MATCH was to evaluate the interaction between subjects and treatment techniques. No hypothesis had predicted a favorable patient interaction with a no-treatment condition.

Mr. Peele suggests that MATCH results have wide-ranging implications regarding such issues as the effectiveness of AA, the "medicalization" of alcoholism treatment, the natural recovery from alcohol problems and the desirability of abstinence as a treatment goal. But MATCH made no attempt to address those issues. Contrary to assumptions made by Mr. Peele, for instance, the twelve-step facilitation (TSF) treatment technique was clearly not intended to be an analogue of AA. TSF differs from AA in that the TSF sessions are individual and conducted by a trained therapist; TSF sessions adhere to a detailed treatment manual and include considerable psychometric assessment; and subjects are given homework assignments.

Project MATCH focused on comparing different kinds of verbal treatments, and in that regard, it achieved its goal. Other kinds of matching, such as varying medications or the intensities of a treatment, remain to be explored.

John Allen
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

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Stanton Peele replies:

John Allen's response to my critique and interpretation of the MATCH study has a cookie-cutter quality about it, resembling other responses by MATCH authors to critics. (Mr. Allen is listed first among the MATCH research team.) That one-size-fits-all response misses by a mile what I actually said, undermining the group's scientific acuity.

Mr. Allen elaborately explains why no control group was included in Project MATCH. But I criticized the exclusion of a control group because the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) made so much ofthe success of the MATCH treatments. Mr. Allen criticizes my integration of MATCH results with other NIAAA data. Yet he and other NIAAA representatives illegitimately extrapolate in citing the overall effectiveness of the MATCH treatments without the control group of untreated alcoholics that would be needed to support such a claim. Such overreaching by the MATCH investigators is not surprising, because the study did not find any of the benefits, which NIAAA had bet nearly $30 million would be found, from matching treatments with patient profiles.

Mr. Allen next expounds on his idea that I claim that MATCH's twelve-step facilitation treatment was an analogue of AA. I actually made the opposite point: the well-designed and well-conducted twelve-step treatment in MATCH bears no relation to AA and twelve-step therapy as generally practiced in the United States. When Mr. Allen cites the use of a manual to train the MATCH therapists, as well as other careful quality controls, he (perhaps inadvertently) affirms my very point.

Mr. Allen alludes to the errors he says I made in describing the complex and multifaceted MATCH research and its reams of data. He presents two such "errors." The first, he says, is my claim that MATCH excluded people who abuse drugs and alcohol simultaneously. But the MATCH research team itself reported: "Nor do these findings hold for all types of substance abusers with varying or multiple substances of abuse."

The other "error" he charges is my assertion that the MATCH volunteers have a better prognosis than more typical, seriously alcoholic patients, simply because the former are socially stable, not simultaneously drug-dependent and not criminals. Much research supports my view, along with common sense. Does Mr. Allen really think that the MATCH outcomes he touts reflect the success of American treatment of alcohol dependence in general? The NIAAA survey data I detailed paint a contrary picture.

Finally, Mr. Allen proudly trumpets the success MATCH subjects had in cutting back on their drinking; thus he welcomes reductions of drinking that fall short of abstinence. But such acceptance is nowhere in evidence among alcoholism treatment programs across the United States, for which abstinence is the only legitimate outcome—and the only one regarded as worth reporting. Mr. Allen and MATCH's radical departure from conventional wisdom would be worth trumpeting, were they not afraid to contradict the prejudices that put blinders on alcoholism treatment in America.

The two AA members who wrote letters demonstrate that same doctrinaire inability to assimilate outcomes in which drinking is "merely" reduced. Their insistence on abstinence-only treatment is thus hopelessly out of touch with reality. (Mr. S.'s assertion that, according to AA, social drinkers don't need to abstain, is a non sequitur in the context of the seriously alcoholic subjects treated by MATCH.)

Most American alcoholics do not enter treatment, most who enter do not respond to it and most who successfully graduate from treatment later relapse. An American treatment policy that insists on abstinence and lauds the small minority who achieve it is a far cry from a comprehensive approach to alcohol problems. Maintained with the support of self-censoring NIAAA and MATCH personnel, that policy amounts to a cultural delusion. I am glad that the psychiatrist Douglas Cameron expresses a view of Project MATCH similar to my own. Readers should know that Mr. Cameron has successfully implemented a pluralistic public treatment program in Great Britain that avoids the American fixation on abstinence.

next: Love and Addiction - Appendix
~ all Stanton Peele articles
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

• Watch the video on Narcissism and Evil

In his bestselling "People of the Lie", Scott Peck claims that narcissists are evil. Are they?

The concept of "evil" in this age of moral relativism is slippery and ambiguous. The "Oxford Companion to Philosophy" (Oxford University Press, 1995) defines it thus: "The suffering which results from morally wrong human choices."

To qualify as evil a person (moral agent) must meet these requirements:

1. That he can and does consciously choose between the (morally) right and wrong and constantly and consistently prefers the latter.
2. That he acts on his choice irrespective of the consequences to himself and to others.

Clearly, evil must be premeditated. Francis Hutcheson and Joseph Butler argued that evil is a by-product of the pursuit of one's interest or cause at the expense of other people's interests or causes. But this ignores the critical element of conscious choice among equally efficacious alternatives. Moreover, people often pursue evil even when it jeopardizes their well-being and obstructs their interests. Sadomasochists even relish this orgy of mutual assured destruction.

 

Narcissists satisfy both conditions only partly. Their evil is utilitarian. They are evil only when being malevolent secures a certain outcome. Sometimes, they consciously choose the morally wrong - but not invariably so. They act on their choice even if it inflicts misery and pain on others. But they never opt for evil if they are to bear the consequences. They act maliciously because it is expedient to do so - not because it is "in their nature".

The narcissist is able to tell right from wrong and to distinguish between good and evil. In the pursuit of his interests and causes, he sometimes chooses to act wickedly. Lacking empathy, the narcissist is rarely remorseful. Because he feels entitled, exploiting others is second nature. The narcissist abuses others absent-mindedly, off-handedly, as a matter of fact.

The narcissist objectifies people and treats them as expendable commodities to be discarded after use. Admittedly, that, in itself, is evil. Yet, it is the mechanical, thoughtless, heartless face of narcissistic abuse - devoid of human passions and of familiar emotions - that renders it so alien, so frightful and so repellent.

We are often shocked less by the actions of narcissist than by the way he acts. In the absence of a vocabulary rich enough to capture the subtle hues and gradations of the spectrum of narcissistic depravity, we default to habitual adjectives such as "good" and "evil". Such intellectual laziness does this pernicious phenomenon and its victims little justice.

Read Ann's response: http://www.narcissisticabuse.com/evil.html

 

 

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next: Narcissism, Substance Abuse, and Reckless Behaviours

• Watch the video on Narcissist and His Addiction to Excitement

Narcissistic supply is exciting. When it is available, the narcissist feels elated, omnipotent, omniscient, handsome, sexy, adventurous, invincible, and irresistible. When it is missing, the narcissist first enters a manic phase of trying to replenish his supply and, if he fails, the narcissist shrivels, withdraws and is reduced to a zombie-like state of numbness.

Some people - and all narcissists - are addicted to excitement, to the adrenaline rush, to the danger inevitably and invariably involved. They are the adrenaline junkies. All narcissists are adrenaline junkies - but not all adrenaline junkies are narcissists.

Narcissistic supply is the narcissist's particular sort of thrill. Deficient narcissistic supply is tantamount to the absence of excitement and thrills in non-narcissistic adrenaline junkies.

Originally, in early childhood, narcissistic supply is meant to help the narcissist regulate his volatile sense of self-worth and self-esteem. But narcissistic supply, regardless of its psychodynamic functions, also simply feels good. The narcissist grows addicted to the gratifying effects of narcissistic supply. He reacts with anxiety when constant, reliable provision is absent or threatened.

Thus, narcissistic supply always comes with excitement, on the one hand and with anxiety on the other hand.

When unable to secure "normal" narcissistic supply - adulation, recognition, fame, celebrity, notoriety, infamy, affirmation, or mere attention - the narcissist resorts to "abnormal" narcissistic supply. He tries to obtain his drug - the thrills, the good feeling that comes with narcissistic supply - by behaving recklessly, by succumbing to substance abuse, or by living dangerously.

Such narcissists - faced with a chronic state of deficient narcissistic supply - become criminals, or race drivers, or gamblers, or soldiers, or investigative journalists. They defy authority. They avoid safety, routine and boredom - no safe sex, no financial prudence, no stable marriage or career. They become peripatetic, change jobs, or lovers, or vocations, or avocations, or residences, or friendships often.

 

But sometimes even these extreme and demonstrative steps are not enough. When confronted with a boring, routine existence - with a chronic and permanent inability to secure narcissistic supply and excitement - these people compensate by inventing thrills where there are none.

They become paranoid, full of delusional persecutory notions and ideas of reference. Or they develop phobias - fear of flying, of heights, of enclosed or open spaces, of cats or spiders. Fear is a good substitute to the excitement they so crave and that eludes them.

Anxiety leads to the frenetic search for narcissistic supply. Obtaining the supply causes a general - albeit transient - sense of wellbeing, relief and release as the anxiety is alleviated. This cycle is addictive.

But what generates the anxiety in the first place? Are people born adrenaline junkies or do they become ones?

No one knows for sure. It may be genetically determined. We may discover one day that adrenaline junkies, conditioned by defective genes, develop special neural and biochemical paths, an unusual sensitivity to adrenaline. Or, it may indeed be the sad outcome of abuse and trauma during the formative years. the brain is plastic and easily influenced by recurrent bouts of capricious and malicious treatment.

(I wish to thank my wife and publisher, Lidija Rangelovska, for many of the ideas in this article.)

 

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next: Narcissism and Evil

• Watch the video on Difference Between Narcissistic Traits and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissists are an elusive breed, hard to spot, harder to pinpoint, impossible to capture. Even an experienced mental health diagnostician with unmitigated access to the record and to the person examined would find it fiendishly difficult to determine with any degree of certainty whether someone suffers from an impairment, i.e., a mental health disorder - or merely possesses narcissistic traits, a narcissistic personality structure ("character"), or a narcissistic "overlay" superimposed on another mental health problem.

Moreover, it is important to distinguish between the traits and behaviour patterns that are independent of the patient's cultural-social context (i.e., inherent, or idiosyncratic) - and reactive patterns, or conformity to cultural and social mores and edicts. Reactions to severe life crises are often characterized by transient pathological narcissism, for instance (Ronningstam and Gunderson, 1996). But such reactions do not a narcissist make.

When a person lives in a society and culture that has often been described as narcissistic by the leading lights of scholarly research (e.g., Theodore Millon) and social thinking (e.g., Christopher Lasch) - how much of his behaviour can be attributed to his milieu - and which of his traits are really his?

Moreover, there is a qualitative difference between having narcissistic traits, a narcissistic personality, or the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The latter is rigorously defined in the DSM IV-TR and includes strict criteria and differential diagnoses.

Narcissism is regarded by many scholars to be an adaptative strategy ("healthy narcissism"). It is considered pathological in the clinical sense only when it becomes a rigid personality structure replete with a series of primitive defence mechanisms (such as splitting, projection, projective identification, intellectualization) - and when it leads to dysfunctions in one or more areas of life.

 

Pathological narcissism is the art of deception. The narcissist projects a False Self and manages all his social interactions through this concocted fictional construct. People often find themselves involved with a narcissist (emotionally, in business, or otherwise) before they have a chance to discover his true nature.

When the narcissist reveals his true colors, it is usually far too late. His victims are unable to separate from him. They are frustrated by this acquired helplessness and angry that they failed to see through the narcissist earlier on.

But the narcissist does emit subtle, almost subliminal, signals ("presenting symptoms") even in a first or casual encounter.

Based on "How to Recognize a Narcissist":

"Haughty" body language - The narcissist adopts a physical posture which implies and exudes an air of superiority, seniority, hidden powers, mysteriousness, amused indifference, etc. Though the narcissist usually maintains sustained and piercing eye contact, he often refrains from physical proximity (he is "territorial").

The narcissist takes part in social interactions - even mere banter - condescendingly, from a position of supremacy and faux "magnanimity and largesse". But he rarely mingles socially and prefers to remain the "observer", or the "lone wolf".

Entitlement markers - The narcissist immediately asks for "special treatment" of some kind. Not to wait his turn, to have a longer or a shorter therapeutic session, to talk directly to authority figures (and not to their assistants or secretaries), to be granted special payment terms, to enjoy custom tailored arrangements.

The narcissist is the one who - vocally and demonstratively - demands the undivided attention of the head waiter in a restaurant, or monopolizes the hostess, or latches on to celebrities in a party. The narcissist reacts with rage and indignantly when denied his wishes and if treated equally with others whom he deems inferior.

Idealisation or devaluation - The narcissist instantly idealises or devalues his interlocutor. This depends on how the narcissist appraises the potential one has as a Narcissistic Supply Source. The narcissist flatters, adores, admires and applauds the "target" in an embarrassingly exaggerated and profuse manner - or sulks, abuses, and humiliates her.

Narcissists are polite only in the presence of a potential Supply Source. But they are unable to sustain even perfunctory civility and fast deteriorate to barbs and thinly-veiled hostility, to verbal or other violent displays of abuse, rage attacks, or cold detachment.

The "membership" posture - The narcissist always tries to "belong". Yet, at the very same time, he maintains his stance as an outsider. The narcissist seeks to be admired for his ability to integrate and ingratiate himself without investing the efforts commensurate with such an undertaking.

For instance: if the narcissist talks to a psychologist, the narcissist first states emphatically that he never studied psychology. He then proceeds to make seemingly effortless use of obscure professional terms, thus demonstrating that he mastered the discipline all the same - which proves that he is exceptionally intelligent or introspective.

 

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In general, the narcissist always prefers show-off to substance. One of the most effective methods of exposing a narcissist is by trying to delve deeper. The narcissist is shallow, a pond pretending to be an ocean. He likes to think of himself as a Renaissance man, a Jack of all trades. A narcissist never admits to ignorance in any field - yet, typically, he is ignorant of them all. It is surprisingly easy to penetrate the gloss and the veneer of the narcissist's self-proclaimed omniscience.

Bragging and false autobiography - The narcissist brags incessantly. His speech is peppered with "I", "my", "myself", and "mine". He describes himself as intelligent, or rich, or modest, or intuitive, or creative - but always excessively, implausibly, and extraordinarily so.

The narcissist's biography sounds unusually rich and complex. His achievements - incommensurate with his age, education, or renown. Yet, his actual condition is evidently and demonstrably incompatible with his claims. Very often, the narcissist lies or fantasies are easily discernible. He always name-drops and appropriates other people's experiences and accomplishments.

Emotion-free language - The narcissist likes to talk about himself and only about himself. He is not interested in others or what they have to say, unless it is a potential Source of Supply and in order to obtain said supply. He acts bored, disdainful, even angry, if he feels an intrusion on and abuse of his precious time.

In general, the narcissist is very impatient, easily bored, with strong attention deficits - unless and until he is the topic of discussion. One can dissect all aspects of the intimate life of a narcissist, providing the discourse is not "emotionally tinted". If asked to relate directly to his emotions, the narcissist intellectualises, rationalises, speaks about himself in the third person and in a detached "scientific" tone or composes a narrative with a fictitious character in it, suspiciously autobiographical.

Seriousness and sense of intrusion and coercion - The narcissist is dead serious about himself. He may possess a fabulous sense of humour, scathing and cynical, but rarely is he self-deprecating. The narcissist regards himself as being on a constant mission, whose importance is cosmic and whose consequences are global. If a scientist - he is always in the throes of revolutionising science. If a journalist - he is in the middle of the greatest story ever.

This self-misperception is not amenable to light-headedness or self-effacement. The narcissist is easily hurt and insulted (narcissistic injury). Even the most innocuous remarks or acts are interpreted by him as belittling, intruding, or coercive. His time is more valuable than others' - therefore, it cannot be wasted on unimportant matters such as social intercourse.

Any suggested help, advice, or concerned inquiry are immediately cast by the narcissist as intentional humiliation, implying that the narcissist is in need of help and counsel and, thus, imperfect. Any attempt to set an agenda is, to the narcissist, an intimidating act of enslavement. In this sense, the narcissist is both schizoid and paranoid and often entertains ideas of reference.

These - the lack of empathy, the aloofness, the disdain, the sense of entitlement, the restricted application of humour, the unequal treatment and the paranoia - make the narcissist a social misfit. The narcissist is able to provoke in his milieu, in his casual acquaintances, even in his psychotherapist, the strongest, most avid and furious hatred and revulsion. To his shock, indignation and consternation, he invariably induces in others unbridled aggression.

He is perceived to be asocial at best and, often, antisocial. This, perhaps, is the strongest presenting symptom. One feels ill at ease in the presence of a narcissist for no apparent reason. No matter how charming, intelligent, thought provoking, outgoing, easy going and social the narcissist is - he fails to secure the sympathy of his fellow humans, a sympathy he is never ready, willing, or able to grant them in the first place.

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next: The Adrenaline Junkie

Most of us really don't how much we don't know much about sex.

How did you learn about sex? Of course you know a lot of the sexual basics, but how did you gain your information on this subject?

It's unlikely that you ever heard a "birds and bees" lecture from your parents and even if you did, you were most likely too embarrassed to ask questions. And like most of the rest of us, you probably giggled through those grade-school Sex Ed classes.

So my guess is that you learned most of your sexual information through trial-and-error. You dated the opposite sex and played around in the back seat of a car, got excited, and maybe ended up "going all the way." You might even have had a more experienced tutor.

But your main goal was no doubt to act like you knew what you were doing (even though you didn't), because you feared being seen as a fool. In the beginning, we all concentrated on making ourselves feel good and hoped somehow that our partners enjoyed the encounter. Sometimes we succeeded and sometimes we did not.

What we do know is probably a little warped

Our sexual education likely continued when our friends shared their expertise with us, or we ogled the X-rated magazines, or read a succession of steamy novels or we salivated over porn videos. In consequence, our viewpoint may have become a little kinky.

All of this input created an image of what sex is supposed to be. But these experiences probably created a raw, even warped understanding of the subject so that once we're in a committed relationship, most of us find it difficult to keep sex exciting year after year. We have little idea how to enhance our sex lives and make it truly awesome.

Problems in Paradise

American men are not very good lovers. Let me ask you, after all this "on the job training", how good is your sex life? Ann Landers reported about a survey which she took over the years that revealed an amazing statistic. She found that 71% (64,000 women) reported they preferred to cuddle with their man rather than have sexual intercourse with him.

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Now this is an incredible indictment of the average man's ability to make love! If 71% of American women would rather cuddle than have sex with men, men are obviously doing a LOT wrong. Why is it that most of these women want to avoid sex?

Men don't understand how to arouse their women. The answer is not that all these women are undersexed. I believe that the answer can be found in the way men approach sex. Most men believe that the purpose of foreplay is to arouse the woman and prepare her for sexual intercourse.

So men kiss passionately, fondle a woman's breasts, touch her skin and then rub the clitoris until she gets wet. Then they believe it's time for sexual intercourse. But while most men have climaxes through intercourse, many women do not. Is it any wonder that a woman in this situation would rather cuddle than have intercourse?

Women often avoid sex because it isn't that good for them. In the group counseling sessions I've had over the years, I've heard many women complain about their man's sexual performance. In most cases, these women felt their husbands were not very loving individuals even though they were often consumed by sex. If a man can step back and view lovemaking from his woman's point-of-view, he will probably understand why his wife views him as a poor lover.

Men are often seen as failures by women when it comes to meeting their emotional and sexual needs. Understand that most women's emotional and physical needs are simply not met through sexual intercourse. So it's no wonder women don't want sex if it isn't good for them or if they feel they're being used.

What causes a woman's coolness? When a woman doesn't like sex, it is likely that her coolness is caused by at least one of three things: 1) the lack of proper physical stimulation by her male lover, 2) not having her emotional needs met, or 3) she has developed a coolness toward sex based upon past experiences with you (or others).

Why some women want to avoid sex. A wife may come to view sex as something that just isn't pleasurable and therefore try to avoid it whenever possible. She may also have an increasing frustration towards her husband for his insensitivity, and find herself harboring unresolved emotional issues toward him.

The man in turn, wonders why he was so unlucky to get a woman who "dislikes" sex. A lot of husbands are frustrated with their wives, wondering why it takes them so long to get aroused. He thinks: "There's something wrong with her!"

For many couples, sex has become a great disappointment. Unfortunately, neither lover knows how to reverse this situation. Both may end up feeling that they have been dealt a "bad hand" in their love life.

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Sex has so many facets to it, you will find the more you learn, the more possibilities remain. But let me assure both of you that you can dramatically improve your sex lives. Intimate sex can provide the answers and give you a whole new outlook. But for this to happen, you must be willing to "relearn sex".

Sensual intimacy is an incredibly powerful glue that can bond the two of you together. If you reshape your attitudes towards sex, it can become the highlight of your relationship.

Once your mind is "re-tooled" on this subject, then you can begin to concentrate on improving your techniques. At the final stages of your learning experience, both of you will begin to retrain your bodies so that you can respond on a whole new and higher level than you ever thought possible.

Sex Class 101

1. Why does sex "go bad"? Think back for a moment to the beginning of your relationship together. Men, you first became involved, your woman was in love with you and sex was exciting to her. Why is that? It is probably because you wined and dined her. You brought her flowers and offered her gifts (perhaps including diamonds and gold). You probably verbalized to her how beautiful she was and declared your undying affection. In short, she felt loved and cherished because you were meeting most of her emotional needs.

At the beginning of your marriage, she was probably so much in love with you that she could look beyond the fact that sex was merely "okay" for her. She did this because of the intensity of her feelings for you which made sexual intercourse somewhat enjoyable. She probably wanted to please you and being physically intimate expressed those intense emotions she felt for you. So she gave you access to her sexuality, because her emotional needs were being met.

But things may have changed over time. Perhaps your relationship became more static and predictable. Over the months or years, the display of your love probably cooled down. You may have stopped spending so much money on her (or the things you spent it on seemed less romantic). Somewhere along the way you probably also stopped telling her how you felt about her, because after all, you had already said all those things.

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When most men encounter this situation, they're probably still enjoying sex on a regular basis, so they may not feel anything is wrong. They probably don't sense any need to make their woman feel special in order to woo her into bed. As a result, the woman's desire for sex may fall off dramatically. Because her emotional needs are not being met, sex can become a duty for her that she resents, and in some cases she may even detest it.

So how can you go about changing this situation?

Because sex begins in the mind, it is important to first change your mental outlook. A man must learn new ways to stimulate his lover's heart and mind, because for most women, the most powerful aphrodisiac comes on the emotional level.

Your first step will be to reshape your concept of how sex is supposed to work. Because sensuality starts in the mind, you need a completely different framework from what you've had in the past.

next: Understanding Intimacy

Thoughtful quotes about war and peace.

Words of Wisdom

 

"The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst." (author unknown)

"Either war is obsolete or men are." (Buckminister Fuller)

"Little girl....sometimes they'll give a war and nobody will come." (Carl Sandburg)

"No soldier starts a war - they only give their lives to it. Wars are started by you and me, by bankers and politicians, excitable women, newspaper editors, clergymen who are ex-pacifists, and congressmen with vertebrae of putty. The youngsters yelling in the streets, poor kids, are the ones who pay the price. (Frances P. Duffy)

"The next World War will be fought with stones." (Albert Einstein)

"The world would be a much better place if it was as hard to start a war as to stop one." (author unknown)

"There never was a good war and a bad peace." (Benjamin Franklin)

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

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next:Wealth and Poverty

• Watch the video on The Malignant Optimism Of The Abused

I often come across sad examples of the powers of self-delusion that the narcissist provokes in his victims. It is what I call "malignant optimism". People refuse to believe that some questions are unsolvable, some diseases incurable, some disasters inevitable. They see a sign of hope in every fluctuation. They read meaning and patterns into every random occurrence, utterance, or slip. They are deceived by their own pressing need to believe in the ultimate victory of good over evil, health over sickness, order over disorder. Life appears otherwise so meaningless, so unjust and so arbitrary...

So, they impose upon it a design, progress, aims, and paths. This is magical thinking.

"If only he tried hard enough", "If he only really wanted to heal", "If only we found the right therapy", "If only his defences were down", "There MUST be something good and worthy under the hideous facade", "NO ONE can be that evil and destructive", "He must have meant it differently" "God, or a higher being, or the spirit, or the soul is the solution and the answer to our prayers".

The Pollyanna defenses of the abused against the emerging and horrible understanding that humans are specks of dust in a totally indifferent universe, the playthings of evil and sadistic forces, of which the narcissist is one. And that finally their pain means nothing to anyone but themselves. Nothing whatsoever. It has all been in vain.

The narcissist holds such thinking in barely undisguised contempt. To him, it is a sign of weakness, the scent of prey, a gaping vulnerability. He uses and abuses this human need for order, good, and meaning - as he uses and abuses all other human needs. Gullibility, selective blindness, malignant optimism - these are the weapons of the beast. And the abused are hard at work to provide it with its arsenal.

 

 

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next: Abusing People of Authority - I'm a Narcissist

Many people spend a lifetime aggressively trying to protect an injured or vulnerable "self." Traditionally, psychologists have termed such people "narcissists," but this is a misnomer. To the outside world it appears that these people love themselves. Yet, at their core they don't love themselves--in fact their self barely exists, and what part does exist is deemed worthless. All energy is devoted to inflating the self, like a persistent child trying to blow up a balloon with a hole.

Because they need continuous proof of the significance of their voice, narcissists must find people, particularly important people, to hear and value them. If they are not heard, their childhood wound opens, and they quickly begin to melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West. This terrifies them. Narcissists use everyone around them to keep themselves inflated. Often they find flaws in others and criticize them fiercely, for this further distinguishes them from those who are defective. Children are ready targets: narcissists consider children flawed and lacking, and therefore most in need of severe "teaching" and correction. This negative picture of children is a sad projection of how the narcissist truly feels about his or her inner self before the self-inflation began. But the narcissist never recognizes this: they consider their harsh, controlling parenting magnanimous and in the child's best interest. Spouses receive similar treatment--they exist to admire the narcissist and to remain in the background as an adornment. Frequently, spouses are subject to the same barrage of criticism. This can never be effectively countered, because any assertive defense is a threat to the narcissist's wounded "self." Not surprisingly, narcissists cannot hear others: spouse, lover, or friends, and especially not children. They are interested in listening only to the extent that it allows them the opportunity to give advice or share a similar incident (either better or worse, depending upon which has more impact). Many engage in "sham" listening, appearing to be very attentive because they want to look good. Usually they are unaware of their deafness--in fact they believe they hear better than anyone else (this belief, of course, is another attempt at self-inflation). Because of their underlying need for voice and the resultant bluster, narcissists often work their way to the center of their "circle," or the top of their organization. Indeed, they may be the mentor or guru for others. The second they are snubbed, however, they rage at their "enemy".

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What makes it difficult to help this type of narcissist is their self-deception. The processes used to protect themselves are ingrained from childhood. As a result, they are absolutely unaware of their constant efforts to maintain a viable "self." If they are meeting with success, they are satisfied with life regardless of whether the people around them are happy. Two circumstances bring this type of person to a therapist's office. Sometimes a partner who feels chronically unheard and unseen drags them in. Or, they have met with some failure (often in their career) so that the strategies they previously used to maintain self-esteem suddenly no longer work. In the latter situation, their depression is profound--like cotton candy, their robust false self dissolves, and one is able to see an accurate picture of their inner sense of worthlessness.

Can such people be helped? Sometimes. The critical factor is whether they ultimately acknowledge their core problem: that as a child they felt neither seen nor heard (and/or their self was fragile as a result of trauma, genetic predisposition, etc.), and they unconsciously employed self-building strategies to survive. Acknowledging this truth takes much courage, for they must face their underlying lack of self-esteem, their exceptional vulnerability, and significantly, the damage they have caused others. Then comes the long and painstaking work of building (or resurrecting) a genuine, non-defensive self in the context of an empathic and caring therapy relationship.

About the author: Dr. Grossman is a clinical psychologist and author of the Voicelessness and Emotional Survival web site.

next: Voicelessness: Holiday Blues