Narcissism and Technology- Symptom, Cause, or Carry On?

Is technology blocking maturation, preventing age appropriate egocentrism

from fading and leaving a rise in Narcissism?

How do we learn to relate to one another?

Marcel Mauss’s The Gift details his observations of various Trobriand Islander’s potlatch ceremonies where etiquette is learned:

• Who gives gifts to who• How long to you wait “in debt” and in what

amount is the returned gift• What does it all mean?

How do we learn it?

Is it funny – or too true?

Oh no! Is this a presentation about how technology is bad?

• No- In fact, I love technology when it is in its place. I used PowerPoint, Google search, my iPhone, email, and tape recordings to make this presentation easy.

• My goal is in fact to have you think about the following question: Which way does this go?– Does our use of technology reflect something about us

as a people? (inside influences outside)– Does technology shape us? (outside influences in)– OR …

Social Maturation

• What skills do you need to “hang out” with friends? • Waiting turns (to talk, play a game, respond in a classroom)• Listening to one another• Cooperating and Sharing time (others get to have a share of the time and

occasionally decide where things will go next)

Can you imagine being without these basic social skills?

Is Technology causing blocks in maturation?

• Can early life experiences impact social maturation?– The drive to move from parallel to cooperative

play requires that the child struggle (get optimal frustration) with the previously mentioned social skills… so

Would a child take the easy road if given a chance to NOT have to wait turns, cooperate, and share….

Could technology interfere with the progression or regress us?

Is age-appropriate egocentrism

remaining as a narcissistic trait?

I plan to present:

Data from Sherry Turkle on relationships and impacts of computers

Data from Twenge-Arnette Debate

A theoretical frame from the Psychoanalytic world to answer both

“I found 3 stages in children's relationships with computers. 1st there is a metaphysical stage: when very young children meet computers they are concerned with whether the machines think, feel, are alive. Older children from age 7 or 8 on, are less concerned with speculating about the nature of the world than with mastering it. For many of them the 1st time they stand in front of a computer they can master is when they play their 1st videogame”

p 18 Turkle (1984) Second Self

Today’s Teens?

“Today’s Teens: More Materialistic, Less Willing To Work”

Study compared attitudes of three generations of American HS seniors (1976-2007).

2005 –62% lots of money is important (vs 48% from 1976-78). 25% said work was important (vs 39% in 70s). “This type of ‘fantasy gap’ is consistent with other

studies showing a generational increase in narcissistism and entitlement.”

A rise in Narcissism?

• Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is 3x’s as high for people in their 20s as for the generation currently 65 or older.

• 58% of college students scored higher on narcissism scale in 2008 than in 1982

• 40% of “millenials” believe they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance.

Time Magazine, 2013, May 20th The New Greatest Generation: Why Millenials will save us all.

A rise in Narcissism?

Of Millennials (b1980-2000) … “Their development is stunted: more people ages 18-29 live with their parents than with a spouse… and they are lazy. In 1992, the nonprofit Families and Work Institute reported that 80% of people under 23 wanted to one day have a job with greater responsibility; 10 years later, on 60% did.”

Time Magazine, 2013, May 20th The New Greatest Generation: Why Millenials will save us all.

Millennials

In the 70s, people wanted to instill self esteem, “It turns out that self-esteem is great for getting a job or hooking up at a bar but not so great for keeping a job or a relationship.”

And, the side effect of all that narcissism? Entitlement!

Time Magazine, 2013, May 20th The New Greatest Generation: Why Millenials will save us all.

Millenials

Millennials are interacting all day but almost entirely through a screen… They might look calm, but they’re deeply anxious about missing out on something better. p29

Time Magazine, 2013, May 20th The New Greatest Generation: Why Millenials will save us all.

The Future of An Illusion

• Freud’s idea was that religion replaces and becomes the depository of the wish for a perfect person out there-

• This denies the fact that all relationships include experiences of pain- narcissistic injuries.

• Interestingly the lowest level of Dante’s Inferno is inhabited by the traitors- truly those responsible for narcissistic injuries…

Dante’s 9th Circle We know we are in the unconscious, because of the dual existence of both the wish and the fear – the self-defeating elements of Satan encased in ice, something that we usually don’t imagine, trying to break free, by flying out, only to find that his wings flapping cause the ice to never melt. He is thought to be consuming:

Judas IscariotAnd Cain who killed his brother.

Briefly, a Psychoanalytic Understanding of Narcissism

Adam Phillips, On Missing Out

Tragedies begin with a person in an emerging state of frustration, beginning to feel the need of something; and at the beginning, for the protagonists, they are not yet tragedies.

“ growing up is always an undoing of what needed to be done: first, ideally, we are made to feel special; then we are expected to enjoy a world in which we are not.”

Stories tell us a lot about the authors theory of mind…

• Narcissus• The Lady of Shallot

For Narcissus… Born of Rape…

One day the river god Cephisus impregnates the water nymph Liriope after forcing himself upon her.

After she gives birth to a boy, called Narcissus.She has trouble mirroring him… there is a distance

and lack of the intimacy dance (not even 30%) She asks the prophet Tiresias about his future…

Tiresias answers “If he ever knows himself, he surely dies.”

Narcissus- missed out on early mirroring.

• …in the psychoanalytic tradition, one speaks about narcissism not to indicate people who love themselves, but a personality so fragile that it needs constant support. It cannot tolerate the complex demands of other people but tries to relate to them by distorting who they are and splitting off what it needs, what it can use.. P177(Turkle, 2011)…

• This often leads to the feelings others have that the narcissist is the only person in the room. They can’t tolerate the threat of narcissistic injury others pose.

(Intolerance and inability to share, take turns, etc.?)

What is in our own mind?

What expectations do we bring with us about relationships? - -conscious or unconscious?

What are the blueprints for our future relationships?

The Lady of ShallotTrapped in her tower because she feels cursed- nothing specific- but feels that directly interfacing with the world will bring on bad things- so she uses technology, her mirror and loom, to capture the world.

One day, she sees Lancelot in the mirror and and looks outside herself. The mirror

cracks and she feels the curse is upon her.

She gets in a boat in the river, thin dress of satin, bed of roses- and freezes to death.

Suicide? Or Curse?

What is age-appropriate egocentrism and what is pathological narcissism?

Freud (1914) “We may conclude… with a a short survey of the paths leading to object choice. A person may love, according to narcissistic type: – What he is himself (actually himself)– What he once was– What he would like to be– Someone who was once part of himself (p47)

Might we choose the easy way out?

• Growing up and being an adult sucks!– People want you to use your words instead of

them just reading your mind– You have to wait your turn– You have to share– You have to cooperateSounds familiar? Why be frustrated when you don’t

have to be? So…

Gen ME or WE?

The Twenge / Arnette debateGEN ME: Millennial growing up with the net, aka A

Millennial Edition Today’s under-35 young people are the real Me Generation,

or, as I call them, Generation Me. Born after self-focus entered the cultural mainstream, this generation has never known a world that put duty before self. (pg 1)

Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before

• , Whitney Houston’s No. 1 hit song declared that “The Greatest Love of All” was loving yourself.

• legalized abortion, and a cultural shift toward parenthood as a choice made us the most wanted generation of children in American history. (p4)

• I am also not saying that this generation is selfish. For one thing, youth volunteering has risen in the last decade. As long as time spent volunteering does not conflict with other goals, GenMe finds fulfillment in helping others. We want to make a difference.

• some very convincing evidence that depression and anxiety are markedly more prevalent among younger generations. These shifts in averages are important.

• some very convincing evidence that depression and anxiety are markedly more prevalent among younger generations. These shifts in averages are important. p9

• Only 1% to 2% of Americans born before 1915 experienced a major depressive episode during their lifetimes, even though they lived through the Great Depression and two world wars. p105

• Today, the lifetime rate of major depression is ten times higher—between 15% and 20%. Some studies put the figure closer to 50%. In one 1990s study, 21% of teens aged 15 to 17 had already experienced major depression. P105.

• Replicating Asch’s study: in 1980, they got completely different results: few people conformed to the group anymore. Apparently, it was no longer fashionable to go along with the group even when they were wrong. The authors of the study concluded that the Asch study was “a child of its time.”

• It goes beyond manners—people today are less likely to follow all kinds of social rules. Business professor John Trinkaus finds that fewer people now slow down in a school zone, and fewer observe the item limit in a supermarket express lane. More people cut across parking lots to bypass stoplights. In 1979, 29% of people failed to stop at a particular stop sign in a New York suburb, but by 1996 a stunning 97% of drivers did not stop at all. In Trinkaus’s most ironic finding, the number of people who paid the suggested fee for lighting a candle at a Catholic church decreased from 92% to 28% between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. In other words, 72% of people cheated the church out of money in the most recent observation.

• Cheating in school has also increased. In 2002, 74% of high school students admitted to cheating, up from 61% in 1992.

• “Downsizing” and “outsourcing” are the modern corporate equivalents of rudeness—and a lot more devastating.

• When we’re all on a first-name basis, the specter of authority takes yet another step back into the shadows of a previous era.

• Religion being highly individualized (Arnette, fewer than 23% are conservative) is like a personal relationship with “Jesus” over his father

• The Narcissistic wound caused by listening to others (pg 40) is preferred even at the expense of no one in class liking the person who interrupts all the time

• In the late 1990s, Prudential replaced its longtime insurance slogan “Get a Piece of the Rock” with the nakedly individualistic “Be Your Own Rock.” The United States Army, perhaps the last organization one might expect to focus on the individual instead of the group, has followed suit. Their standard slogan, adopted in 2001, is “An Army of One.”

• Some people have wondered if the self-esteem trend waned after schools began to put more emphasis on testing during the late 1990s. It doesn’t look that way. Parenting books and magazines stress self-esteem as much as ever, and a large number of schools continue to use self-esteem programs.

• Teacher training courses often emphasize that a child’s self-esteem must be preserved above all else. A sign on the wall of one university’s education department says, “We Choose to Feel Special and Worthwhile No Matter What.”

• In 2004, 48% of American college freshmen—almost half—reported earning an A average in high school, compared to only 18% in 1968, even though SAT scores decreased over this time period.

• All evidence suggests that narcissism is much more common in recent generations. In the early 1950s, only 12% of teens aged 14 to 16 agreed with the statement “I am an important person.” By the late 1980s, an incredible 80%—almost seven times as many—claimed they were important.

• Psychologist Bonnie Zucker, interviewed for a People magazine article on “Kids Out of Control,” saw a 10-year-old whose parents let him decide whether or not to go to school—if he didn’t want to go, he didn’t go.

• the people who talk loudly on their cell phones, oblivious to their effect on others. GenMe didn’t pioneer this trend—it’s popular among middle-aged people as well—but young people are certainly continuing it. It’s not the technology that causes the problem, but the attitude that comes with it, an attitude that captures the trend toward self-importance better than almost anything else. “Years ago, cell phones were the province of the powerful, but now that they are mass-market items, everyone has delusions of grandeur,” (p103)

• It’s almost as if we are starving for affection. “There is a kind of famine of warm interpersonal relations, of easy-to-reach neighbors, of encircling, inclusive memberships, and of solid family life,” argues political scientist Robert Lane. To take the analogy a little further, we’re malnourished from eating a junk-food diet of instant messages, e-mail, and phone calls, rather than the healthy food of live, in-person interaction.

Twenge, ME, p110

Society’s Mirror in Film

I like to say that modern movies have only four themes: “Believe in yourself and you can do anything,” “We are all alike underneath,” “Love conquers all,” and “Good people win.” (Do try this at home; almost every recent movie fits one of the four.) All of these themes tout the focus on the self so common today; in fact, it is downright stunning to realize just how well movies have encapsulated the optimistic, individualistic message of modern Western culture. Twenge, Gen ME.

Society’s Mirror in Film

• The rise in the 90’s of Vampires- – Anne Rice– Twiglight– Vampire Diaries

• The rise in the last decade of Zombies– Are you a zombie? Bony? Human? – An interest in Zombies tends to spike when the

economy sputters- Sarah Juliet Lauro, Clemson University, NYT 7/31/13, “At zombie races, It is survival of the undeadest”,

Warm Bodies: Zombies

• Undead- The Living Dead• Limited real talking/communication between

themselves • Generally operating on lowest common

denominator- reptilian brain• Some remnants of humanness- clothing, etc. • Experience hunger

• “lack” = collector/hoarder• “musical tastes”= ???

• Live in the airport

Warm Bodies: Bonies

• Anger- “they’ll eat anything with a heartbeat, but at least I am conflicted about it.”

• Hopeless- given up, “this is what I have to look forward to”; “we all become them someday”

• Naked- nothing but raw exposed bone

Warm Bodies: Humans

• Alive- but what kind of life? “My fathers idea of living is putting us in a box and waiting for us to die.”

• Brave? – is adherence to a rule brave? It gets Perry killed. (Julie – yes, as the exception)

• Projection- uncaring, unfeeling, incapable of remorse, “sound like anyone we know dad?”

Why Zombies?

Why Zombies (cont)

But what if the lack is the result of technology?

The scene before the first attack, there is a PSP working.

“Be Dead”•R is a collector/hoarder- Very Klienian to incorporate, as Zombies do.•Playing a Vinyl record, “You’re a purist”, “Just sounds more real- more alive. “•Images of connection are mostly nostalgia: snow globe, old-time 3D Stereo-viewer, photos with a Polaroid (not digital)•Re: Perry– Lots of bad things happened to him, he was dead before R killed him, she “already kinda knew” R had killed him. •Perry’s death becomes revolting to R and he spits out the brains. But, he will kill for Julie, even hits Marcus. •Hand holding at the airport gets them through. •The Dead do not sleep [dream, bleed, get cold.]

•So are the dead more alive than the humans?

Technology is simpler…

Love your body, friends, and life

Online with an avatar.

“Now, pleased with your looks, you have the potential, as Second Life puts it, to live a life that will enable you to love your life.” p158

Signs and Symptom

Do you see signs that people have fewer connections? What are they?

A patient recently told me about a new game…

But isn’t this what they said about the printing press, locomotives, TV,

etc?

Is Social Media Really Social ?

Alone Together…

…Drawn by the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy,

We conduct “risk free” affairs on Second Life and confuse the scattershot postings on a Facebook wall with authentic communication…

We are promised “sociable robots” that will marry companionship with convenience. …

We may be free to work from anywhere, but we are also prone to being lonely everywhere. In a surprising twist, relentless connection leads to a new solitude.

We turn to new technology to fill the void, but as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down.

Turkle and Colbert:Don’t get rid of technology, but put it in its place!

Siri: Conversation or Connection

Mobile phones were used to connect people, but now with Siri- we connect with our phone.

We are tempted by machines that offer companionship forgetting difference between conversation and connection.

Siri Argument

Brevity is the source of… a self-fulfilling prophecy spiraling downward

“ I answer questions I can answer right away, And people want me to answer them right away. But it’s not only the speed… the questions have changed to ones that I can answer right away.” p166

I share, therefore I am?

Being alone feels like a problem that has to be solved.

Old way: I am having a feeling- I am going to call someone.

New way: I am having a feeling- I am going to broadcast it

Is anyone listening?

Tosh.O on BLOGS

“Blogs are the worst side effect of a society where everyone thinks they are someone special. It’s less like having your own TV show and more like face timing with yourself… I understand people feel uncomfortable (and can’t talk face-to-face)… I feel uncomfortable when my maid brings her daughter over with her to clean… Make something of yourself before you share your views with the world. Now any kid with a strong wifi connection and two working parents thinks I am going to care what they bought at Sehpora. People who are busy doing things with their lives don’t have 20 minutes to write a scathing review of Redick…

Betrayed?

Looking to games for amusement is one thing. Looking to them for a life is another. P226

• With social robots, we are alone and imagine ourselves together… we are together but so lessen our expectations of other people [so much] that we can feel utterly alone.

• In both cases our devices keep us distracted.

Making Robots Human- NYT 2013Until recently, most robots were carefully separated from humans. They have

largely been used in factories to perform repetitive tasks that required speed, precision and force. That generation of robots is dangerous, and they have been caged and fenced for the protection of workers.

But the industrial era of robotics is over. And robots are beginning to move around in the world.

More and more, they are also beginning to imitate — and look like — humans. And they are beginning to perform tasks as humans do, too.

Today’s robot designers believe that their creations will become therapists, caregivers, guides and security guards, and will ultimately perform virtually any form of human labor. (Robots that can think on their own — that is, perform with high levels of artificial intelligence — have yet to arrive.)

3 Gratifying Illusions from Technology

• The Tribe of 1– Even the Army is now advertising to the ARMY OF

ONE. • We will always be heard• We will never be alone

Maslow’s Pyramid V Self Esteem

Love and Belonging come BEFORE Self-Esteem, not after it.

…we are promised “sociable robots” that will marry companionship with convenience…

• Social Robots deployed to work with elderly, freeing up nurses (replacing them?)– Patients seem to respond– But can you be helped without someone understanding

the meaning of what you say? – Check out Eliza. on the web…

Do we need to accept that humans deserve to be understood in a context of meaning… not with a computer program that ultimately can deceive us.

We are not as strong as technology’s pull…

Our neurochemical response to every ping and ring tone seems to be the one elicited by the “seeking” drive, a deep motivation of the human psyche. Connectivity becomes a craving; when receive a text or an email, our nervous system responds by giving us a shot of dopamine. We are stimulated by connectivity itself. We learn to require it as it depletes us. … Technology is bad because people are not as strong as its pull. P227

Case Study Research

Slip of the tongue…

“I’ll pull up my friend… uh, my phone.” p175-76

“pulling out” her phone, …she doesn’t really correct herself so much as imply that the phone is her friend and that friends take on identities through her phone.

…Drawn by the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy…

Hannah says, “Ian is the person who knows me best.” Hannah doesn’t want to add an audio or video channel to their encounters. As things are, Hannah is able to imagine Ian as she wished him to be. And he can imagine her as he wisher her to be. The idea that we can be exactly what the other desires is a powerful fantasy. Among other things, it seems to promise that the other will never, ever, have reason to leave. Feeling secure as an object of desire (because the other is able to imagine you as the perfect embodiment of his or her desire) is one of the deep pleasures of internet life. P249.

Why be afraid of connection? What would we lose if we were “really” connected?

“An affinity for solitude is comparable only to one’s affinity for certain other people. And yet one’s first experience of solitude, like one’s first experience of the other, is fraught with danger.”

P 27,Phillips, A. On balance.

The capacity for solitude is related to the capacity for relationship.

Yalom – Love’s Executioner

”…therapist must discourage false solutions. One's efforts to escape isolation can sabotage one's relationships with other people. Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation. p11

Adolescent Development: Identity v Role Confusion & the Process of Individuation

I would have thought [calling home all the time problematic]… I would have encouraged her to explore difficulties with separation. I would have assumed that these had to be addressed for her to proceed to successful adulthood. But these days, a college student who texts home fifteen times a day is not unusual. P178.

Is calling home all the time a problem?

Growing Up Tethered…“Today’s adolescents have no less need than those of previous generations

to express feelings. They need time to discover themselves, time to think. But speed and brevity, has changed the rules of engagement with all of this. When is downtime, when is stillness? The text-driven world of rapid response does not make self-reflection impossible but does little to cultivate it. When interchanges are reformatted for the small screen and reduced to the emotional shorthand of emoticons, there are necessary simplifications. And what of adolescents’ need for secrets, for making out what is theirs alone? Traditionally, the development of intimacy required privacy. Intimacy without privacy reinvents what intimacy means. Separation, too, is being reinvented. Tethered children know they have a parent on tap. (p172) … the tethered child does not have the experience of being alone with only him or herself to count on. (173, emphasis added).

But doesn’t having the chance to play a different character help the shy child develop outgoing skills?

Acting Out v Working Through

In thinking about online life, it helps to distinguish between what psychologists call acting out and working through.

In acting out, you take the conflicts you have in the physical real and express them again and again in the virtual. There is much repetition and little growth.

In working though, you use the materials of online life to confront the conflicts of the real and search for new resolutions. P214

Is that what happens?

From Multiplayer to Bots as Players

The dictionary says that “humane” implies compassion and benevolence. Adam’s story has taken us to the domain of compassion and benevolence toward inanimate. There are echoes here of the fist rule of the Tamagotchi primer: we nurture what we love, and we love what we nurture… Adam plays at gratifications he does not believe will come to him any other way. p223

To Paraphrase Shakespeare:

We are consumed by what we are nourished by.

-Sonnet 73

Born for Love?

• 25% [of Americans] say that they trust no one at all with intimate secrets...

• Back in 1960 58% of Americans endorsed the idea that most people can be trusted- but by 2008 this number was down to 32%, (by 1998, 33%- long before the economic crash. P3, Born for Love)…

• If sites (like post secret) are symptoms, and we need our symptoms, what else do we need? We need trust between congregants and clergy. We need parents who are able to talk with their children. We need children who are given time and protection to experience childhood. We need communities. P238

When was the last time you uni-tasked?

• What was it? • Why did you do it? • If you can’t remember a time, why not?

Multitasking…

Being absent is now the norm or equivalent for being fully connected… •Problems in relationships- including with ourselves•The Goldilocks Effect- we can’t tolerate too much or too little, it has to be just right…• It might appear we can’t get enough of others.. But this is only true as long as we can keep control of how much, when, etc. • What is wrong with conversation for most? It’s in real time and not able to be controlled.

Multitasking v Unitasking

Every additional task decreases performance. Brown, R. (2010). Multitasking Gets You There Later.

InfoQ. Retrieved from http://www.infoq.com/articles/multitasking-problems

Nass in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. PNAS September 15, 2009 vol. 106 no. 37 15583-15587

We are reinforced and continue our multitasking because of behavioral shaping or some internal biological reaction to the joy of completion. Even if we don’t always see its ineffectiveness-- much like the gambling addict who uses 3 different slot machines, pouring quarters into them in the hopes of a payout. p227

How is cognitive development impacted by this?

“Development occurs in a context and the context determines development” – Gullotta

David Elkin’s comments in CIO.com (2003!): There is considerable disagreement among experts

regarding the effects of technology on child growth and development. Some regard technology as advancing intellectual development. Others worry that technology may overstimulate and actually impair brain functioning.

One of the problems is that most researchers have taken too narrow a focus on the issue. They have looked at the impact of a particular technology rather than at the technological environment as a whole. One might argue that taken as an aggregate, technologies such as computers, television and cell phones create a digital culture that has to be looked upon in its entirety rather than piecemeal. The question becomes: What is it like growing up in a high-tech world, and how does that differ from growing up at an earlier time?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that the digital youth has a greater facility with technology than their parents and other adults.

• fast and getting faster-

• lack of respect for the older generation, “they don’t get it”-

• The high-tech culture has also changed children’s social relationships. – games, riddles, rhymes, jibes and so on that were adapted to the child’s immediate environment.

…The culture of childhood made it easy for a child to become part of a group. All she had to do was learn the language and lore. Such play rituals were passed down in the city streets and in country glens. They were intergenerational and made it easier for parents and children to connect.

• This traditional culture of childhood is fast disappearing. In the past two decades alone, according to several studies, children have lost 12 hours of free time a week, and eight of those lost hours were once spent in unstructured play and outdoor pastimes.) In part, that is a function of the digital culture, which provides so many adult-created toys, games and amusements. Game Boys and other electronic games are so addictive they dissuade children from enjoying the traditional games. Yet spontaneous play allows children to use their imaginations, make and break rules, and socialize with each other to a greater extent than when they play digital games. While research shows that video games may improve visual motor coordination and dexterity, there is no evidence that it improves higher level intellectual functioning. Digital children have fewer opportunities to nurture their autonomy and originality than those engaged in free play.

When connection goes awry.

What are the implications?

The Case of Leon

Leon (age 16) murdered a 12 and 13 year old girl in his apartment complex after they refused his sexual advances.

He killed them, raped them, and then kicked them. His blood covered shoes eventually led to his arrest when his brother Frank called the police. His parents were shocked.

What happened to Leon that got him here?

• What does it take to make a murder? – Nature? – Nurture?

Leon’s Assessment

• Verbal IQ- low to normal range• Performance IQ- Above average/High– He could read social situations and understand

others intentions– He didn’t know that he should feel remorseful..

“he simply wasn’t capable of taking into account the feelings of others in any way other than to take advantage of them.” p104

HOW CAN THIS BE UNDERSTOOD?

Leon’s Character

• didn’t when punished or praised• He learned to use flattery, flirtation and other

forms of manipulation to get what he wanted.• He lied. If he got caught in a lie, he was

indifferent.

Empathy

Empathy underlies virtually everything that makes a society work- trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity. Failure to empathize is a key part of most social problems- crime, violence, war, racism, child abuse, inequity. Difficulties with empathy or misperceptions of another's feelings also cause problems in communication relationships and business... P4, Born for Love

What about Leon’s empathy?

What about nature-nurture?

Nature? • Frank (Leon’s brother) turned him in – clearly

he felt something for others.– “Siblings share at least 50% of their genes. While

Frank could have been genetically blessed with a far greater capacity for empathy than Leon, it was unlikely that this alone accounted for their different temperaments and life paths.” (107)

Who is in control?

Self (Agentic) Other (outside)

Nature-Nurture?

• Nurture? – Maria and Allan raised Frank and Leon – what

happened to Leon? • They asked if they should have been stricter? Less

strict? • When Frank was 3yo, they left the home town where

Maria had family to help. • Maria created a routine for familiarity but without real

connections, she was over whelmed by her limited capacity and lack of support. • Leon was left alone to cry when feeding didn’t work.

• Early Intervention only educated him to talk and learn what was expected of him, which he could fake when he wanted. – “For him, people were just objects that either

stood in his way or acceded to his needs. “ p114– “Shunted into Special Ed… he found other peers

who reinforced each others impulsivity… Leon learned to copy the worst of human behavior, but remained unable to understand why he should imitate the best.” p115

Interventions that don’t work

• Early Intervention only educated him to talk and learn what was expected of him, which he could fake when he wanted. – “For him, people were just objects that either

stood in his way or acceded to his needs. “ p114– “Shunted into Special Ed… he found other peers

who reinforced each others impulsivity… Leon learned to copy the worst of human behavior, but remained unable to understand why he should imitate the best.” p115

Inconsistent care and abandonment is worse than abuse.

• “He stopped crying so much”- Maria’s solution worked in her mind. – He got attention sometimes, left alone for a day at other times– His developing brain’s unpredictable relief from fear,

loneliness, discomfort and hunger keeps a baby’s stress system on high alert.

– Receiving no consistent, loving response to his fear and needs, Leon never developed the normal associations between human contact and relief from stress (p133)• “This genetic preference produces the seeds of empathy. However,

they can’t sprout on barren ground.” P14, Born For Love

Results

• Leon’s learned he could only rely on himself• He didn’t understand relationships• Connection was toxic to him. • He could enjoy material pleasures and physical

sensations (i.e. his developing sexuality)

What is in Store next?

We expect more from technology and less from each other…

We are lonely but afraid of intimacy

Technology provides the illusion of companionship without the fear of intimacy

What can we do? • Goals: Learn to use devices and technology to make our REAL world

better. • Individual and Group psychotherapy to aid in the processing of

learning to be with another person- using titration to reach optimal frustration and make mind (see Liegner, The Hate the Cures)

• Help create supports for new parents (It takes a village and historically always has!)– [Humans have been hunter-gathers] , spending the last 150,000 years being

in multigenerational, multifamily groups... In these clans the ratio of [caregiver adults to for every little one] was 4:1... In the modern era, however, the relational milieu has collapsed. In 1850 the average household size in the west was 6 people- today it's 3 fewer. A full 25% of American live completely alone. Classroom size- 1:30. Daycare 1:5. That is 1/20th of the relational richness of a "natural" hunter-gather setting. P6, Born for Love

What can we do? (cont)

• Create an infant and child literate society• Promote physical and emotional needs (not

just intellectual) in schools. Lunch and Recess- Free time to be creative and play

What can we do … cont.

• Balance the desire for risk-free childhoods with the benefits gained from experiences

• People aren't spoiled by meeting needs, they spoil from unmet needs. – Raised with love, they want those around them to

be happy because he sees that his happiness makes them happy… it is a positive feedback loop (p243)

• Watch out for Selfish Capitalism- it erodes the propensity for altruism.

Be open to imperfections and accept the fact we are hard wired to struggle.

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability

Qualitative Research/Storyteller Lean into the discomfort of the work

Brown’s Findings

Courage- from heart, Compassion- for others, but starting with selfConnection- authentic… What makes them vulnerable makes them beautiful

Buy me this…

Consumption causes the pathology partly because it holds up the false promise that fixing an internal lack can be done by an external means, and partly because the process of working, by which we earn the money to pay for the goods, is itself alienating. P50 The Selfish Capitalist

The most of important of these to show, love…

• PATIENCE– The troubled youth are in some kind of pain (244) It

makes them irritable, anxious, impulsive, needy and aggressive.

– There is no short term miracle. – Avoid luring kids back to good behavior, it is only

temporary and externally motivated in those situations– Routines and Repetitions– Pay attention– Center yourself

Is there hope?

EXHUME

Stay Together. Keep safe.

Stay together. We are changing everything.

PS – On a personal level

What can you do today? • Call and wish a happy birthday instead of

Status Updates on Facebook!• Check email once per day.• Unitask- starting with driving. • Start noting why/when you engage in escape

type actions.

Other readings

St. Lawrence Unplugs for 12 Days: Identity in Age of Media Class

So…

• Is it the internal driving the external?• The external shaping the internal? • Or Keep Calm, and carry on.

Fromm and Kasser’s Theory

The four basic needs: SecuritySelf-esteemGood relationshipsAuthentic experience

Pg 108

Knowing the Limbic Brain and Drive-state creations…

• The roots of empathy emerge from the soil of our stress response system. We look to our mother’s to know if something is safe (this underscores another important aspect of attachment); and this builds the capacity to self-regulate; and to respond to stress flexibly. Later we can exercise, breath, meditate, etc; but it all starts with mother-child. – ( We still use others throughout life however to help with

this! An infant will die from rejection and isolation (cant do it-feeding, changing diaper- on their own!) but so can adults! The mother-child social dance is the first of many… p 16)

Drive Theory and Relationship

• We are DRIVEN to be social beings. • The most traumatic aspect of disasters involve the

shattering of human connections. • The breakdown of social connection that is common in

our society increases vulnerability. (p233)• We have become afraid of “unhealthy” touch and as a

result push a child coming in for a hug away. Dual drive theory- emphasizing fears and wishes- helps us see that we in fact are now making it easier for the predator to offer any touch to the child starved for affection (235)