A free eBook – 4X4 for Nons
|
An ATSTP List member explains the difference between lying and bullshitting as being about intent:
I think the distinction between lying and bullshitting is an attempt
to clarify the intent of the person engaged in the act.
According to my interpretation Harry Frankfurt’s essay, “On
Bullshit” (http://athens.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/
frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf), lying is a conscious effort to
misrepresent reality, whereas bullshitting is a conscious effort to
misrepresent the person doing the bullshitting. So the purpose of
bullshitting is to make the bullshitter seem like a different sort of
person than they actually are, or to misrepresent their own mental
state. Lying, in contrast, has as its primary goal to deceive another
person about reality.
So, if I am bullshitting you, my goal is to make you see me
differently. If I lie to you, my goal is to make you see reality
differently. Continue reading The important difference between lying and bullshitting →
An article from ABC News about Casey Anthony’s pathological lying and the disorder from which it may arise. Before I supply the text here, I want to discuss this quote:
Two of the potential issues Anthony could suffer from are border personality disorder and psychopathology, the experts said. The main thing these issues have in common is a total lack of empathy, according to LeslieBeth Wish, a psychologist and licensed social worker in Sarasota, Fla.
“They can turn a person into a non-person,” Wish said. “Borderline personalities have more emotional regulation problem and often use lying to get away from something and not ever feeling like they’re responsible.”
Those two potential issues were the ones that I identified and opined on the other day. The second paragraph above is why I believe that Casey Anthony probably doesn’t have BPD. The reasons for the lies are not impulsive and reactive, as they seem to be most often in BPD. People with BPD are much more likely to “bullshit” (as a term of art not vulgarity) than to actually lie with proactive intent. They can make up some elaborate stories about themselves, typically to make their world a safer and more livable place when others think better of them. Still, most often BPD lies are to get through a painful moment. Very often as the lies collapse, they will admit everything and ask forgiveness. Casey did NOT do this. She maintained her lies even after the police were aware they were lies. In fact, she started lying to her parents LONG BEFORE Caylee went missing. She lied (by omission) about her pregnancy. She lied about having a job at Universal Studios BEFORE the cops got involved.
As for psychopathy…. I presented the guidelines of Hare’s PCL-R on the other page. Let’s look at them again and see which of these seem to match Casey Anthony, based on what we know from the press:
PCL-R items
The following findings are for research purposes only, and are not used in clinical diagnosis. These items cover the affective, interpersonal, and behavioral features. Each item is rated on a score from zero to two. The sum total determines the extent of a person’s psychopathy.
Factor 1
Aggressive narcissism – Hard to say for Casey Anthony. We don’t really know enough. We do know that, when in jail, she got angry about what this situation was doing to HER!
Glibness/superficial charm – Yes.
Grandiose sense of self-worth – Again hard to say. This is one factor that really separates BPD from the narcissism spectrum. People with BPD have a lot of shame and generally hate themselves.
Pathological lying – YES, YES, YES.
Cunning/manipulative – I’d have to say yes.
Lack of remorse or guilt – Again, I think we need to say yes here.
Emotionally shallow – Hard to say.
Callous/lack of empathy – Could be. Hard to say.
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions – Yes. It’s never her fault.
Factor 2
Socially deviant lifestyle – Party girl. One night stands.
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom – Probably, but who knows.
Parasitic lifestyle – Yes. She was living off her parents and then off friends while pretending to have a job. Actually, it is interesting to note that she was telling her mother she had a job long before Caylee disappeared.
Poor behavioral control – Probably. Again, one night stands.
Promiscuous sexual behavior – Yes.
Lack of realistic, long-term goals – Yes.
Impulsiveness – Yes.
Irresponsibility – Yes.
Juvenile delinquency – well, some form of delinquency. She stole checks from her friend and passed them.
Early behavioral problems – unknown.
Revocation of conditional release – we’ll see.
Traits not correlated with either factor
Many short-term marital relationships – no, but many short-term boyfriends
Criminal versatility – it depends. She stole and possibly caused the death of her daughter. They couldn’t prove it in court to the satisfaction of the jury, but we may never know.
Ok, onto the article:
‘Dr. Judy’ Doubts Casey Anthony’s Penchant for Lying Can Be Cured
By CHRISTINA NG
July 19, 2011
Casey Anthony’s lawyers have said that Anthony has suffered “trauma” and will need counseling now that she is a free woman, but experts aren’t sure Anthony can be helped.
“It would be exceptionally difficult for anybody to treat her. There is no magic pill that’s a truth serum for a person who’s a pathological liar,” said Dr. Judy Kuriansky a psychologist from Columbia University, but better known from her radio show as Dr. Judy.
Kuriansky believes that Anthony likely feels that she has been rewarded for her lying with her acquittal and release from jail.
“Why would she want to go to therapy when she basically got what she wanted? There’s no motivation for her to seek help,” Kuriansky said. “If she had been sent to jail, maybe she would want to see somebody because her style didn’t work, but it did.”
Anthony, 25, is in hiding after being released from a Florida jail following her acquittal on murder charges for the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee. She has received death threats and as she left jail protesters changed “Caylee, Caylee.”
Casey Anthony Therapy Will Be ‘Challenge’
Anthony’s criminal lawyer Jose Baez has said, “It is my hope that Casey Anthony can receive the counselling and treatment she needs to move forward with the rest of her life.”
Her civil attorney Charles Greene was quoted as saying Anthony was “emotionally unstable” following the trauma of her daughter’s death and the grueling trial.
Psychologists interviewed by ABCNews.com agree that the desire to change is the key to successful treatment for pathological liars, which some believe Anthony may be.
While acquitted of murder, she was convicted on four counts of lying to police. One of her lies was that Caylee was kidnapped by a fictional nanny named Zanny. Zanny was one of a dozen bogus characters that Casey had created. She also lied about working at Universal Studios.
None of the psychologists who spoke with ABCNews.com have treated Casey Anthony, but spoke from observations and personal experience.
Two of the potential issues Anthony could suffer from are border personality disorder and psychopathology, the experts said. The main thing these issues have in common is a total lack of empathy, according to LeslieBeth Wish, a psychologist and licensed social worker in Sarasota, Fla.
“They can turn a person into a non-person,” Wish said. “Borderline personalities have more emotional regulation problem and often use lying to get away from something and not ever feeling like they’re responsible.”
Continue reading ABC News Experts talk about Casey Anthony’s potential disorder →
 Casey Anthony Acquitted A few weeks ago I posted an article entitled Casey Anthony: Borderline Personality Disorder, a Psychopath or What? This “analysis” garnered a lot of attention (or at least a lot of traffic) for me. I found that yesterday was the busiest day on my blog ever with over 400 views of that article alone (usually I get about 600 daily views of my blog so this was unusual). Of course anyone that has followed the Casey Anthony trial knows why – she was acquitted of first degree murder and aggravated child abuse, but was convicted of four misdemeanor charges of making false statements to the police.
I watched about half of the trial. I followed it as closely as possible and read about Ms. Anthony’s lies, watched the jail videos, read about her partying, watched her interviews, etc. The issue I see here is two-fold. Firstly, it is not a crime to lie (except to officials, which she did and was convicted of; or to the court, which she did not, since she didn’t testify), nor is it a crime to party with your friends. While the behavior is odd and curious (why would one do that if your child is missing?), it is not criminal. What the state was attempting to prove in this case was first-degree capital murder, without physical evidence, DNA, witnesses or a cause of death. A very high standard and hard hill to climb. Not too surprising that she was acquitted. I think (as do many others) that the state of Florida should have charged her with lesser crimes (homicide or manslaughter for example). It seemed to me from the beginning that Caylee’s death was probably a horrible accident or an impulsive action (like doping the child too much) that Casey thought she could distance herself from by lying and avoiding. Unfortunately, she has now learned that lies (even if she didn’t do it or it was an accident, we’ll probably never know unless someone with knowledge of what happens starts to talk) have paid off. In fact, if it WAS an accident and she had come forward at the beginning and said “I messed up, I’m sorry” she would have probably received a more severe punishment than she will now receive. (Of course I have trouble believing the George Anthony angle because Casey has a history of telling lies to get herself off the hook.) She is not a felon at this point. All that being said, I believe that this case is one in which our justice system was shown to work, but justice was not done for the child.
Which brings me to my second point about this case… It is not a crime to be mentally ill, no matter if you have Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD from abuse or you’re a psychopath. You can’t be thrown in jail or executed just because you’re sick in the head. You can only be thrown in jail or executed based on what you do and what evidence shows you’ve done and what a jury of your peers (or a judge in some cases) believes, beyond a reasonable doubt, you have done. Criminal behavior and mental illness are not synonymous. Actions and feelings are not the same. Someone who has aggressive feelings towards others and never acts upon them, they’re innocent of any crime. As for Casey Anthony, even her defense team said that her lies were an indication that she needed help. Those lies were reflective of a deeper psychological disturbance. What it may be, we’ll probably never know, nor should we.
Still, I believe that Casey Anthony will be unable to stay on the right side of the law for long. She’ll not likely kill anyone but, based on her pattern of behavior, she is impulsive and believes that she can talk her way out of just about anything. Unfortunately, this time she was able to talk her way out of any involvement in her daughter’s death – murder or accident.
 When Hope is Not EnoughGet the Non-BPD book that is designed for staying and working on the relationship  Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us  The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry  The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain  Handbook of Psychopathy  The Mask of Sanity (Mosby medical library)
Today, one of the members of the ATSTP Google Group made an insightful comment about his wife’s lying.
Lying was a big thing for me as well–I took my wife’s lying personally. In retrospect, I did a lot of damage because of that. I made my wife feel like sh*t by pushing her on it, which didn’t help her or the relationship. I understand now that she used lies as a way to create a space in her life that was more tolerable for her. It was one of her few (albeit ineffective) ways to escape some of her personal anguish, and I took it away from her–not because I wanted to help her, but in order to make ME feel better.
There is absolutely no better way to have somebody fear being close to you than to make yourself feel better at the expense of their emotional well-being. It sounds like you understand this now, but I wanted to emphasize its importance. To anyone who might counter with “But why should I have to put up with lies? What about me?”–My answer is, you don’t. You can leave, and I advise leaving while avoiding doing any needless damage to another human being.
Sorry if that sounds harsh–it’s not directed at you. It’s just that I’ve seen the damage that anxious, fearful, and entitled partners (ie, me a couple of years ago) can do to people struggling with internal demons. I’m not at all being hard on myself either–just realistic. I didn’t know better at the time.
 Casey Anthony BPD or Psychopath or What? A few days ago I got an email from a member of the ATSTP list asking me what I thought about the possibility of Casey Anthony, who is currently on trial for the murder of her 2 year old daughter (Caylee Anthony), having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In 2008, I was following the case with interest. I have followed it a bit during the trial. I am not a doctor or a mental health professional, yet I have met a LOT of people with BPD (both men and women) and members of their families. I’ve looked at Casey Anthony’s behavior and compared it with the behavior of people that I know with BPD. I pretty much come to the conclusion that Casey Anthony doesn’t have borderline personality disorder. It seems to be more likely that she’s a psychopath. It seems that some criminal profilers agree…
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36551199/ns/today-today_people/t/do-letters-show-casey-anthony-psychopath/
Pat Brown, a criminal profiler, told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira that in her opinion, Anthony is a psychopath who is trying to get potential jurors to feel sorry for her. The letters are the way she does it, Brown said.
“This will prove she’s a new woman. After all, she’s found God,” Brown said, adding that juries will frequently sympathize with a woman who claims she was abused and mistreated but now has found the light.
“A lot of time women go to court, juries start feeling sorry for them,” Brown said. “It’s manipulation.”
Brown called the letters “a wonderful window into how a psychopath thinks.”
Here is some information about psychopathy:
In his 1941 book, Mask of Sanity, Hervey M. Cleckley introduced 16 behavioral characteristics of a psychopath:
- Superficial charm and good “intelligence”
- Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
- Absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations
- Unreliability
- Untruthfulness and insincerity
- Lack of remorse and shame
- Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
- Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
- Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
- General poverty in major affective reactions
- Specific loss of insight
- Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
- Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without
- Suicide threats rarely carried out
- Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
- Failure to follow any life plan.
Continue reading Casey Anthony: Borderline Personality Disorder, a Psychopath or What? →
 When I saw the backward-carved “B” in Ashley Todd’s face last week, I couldn’t help but think about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). And one Mental Health professional actually came out and said that Ms. Todd did, in fact, exhibit traits of the disorder. Personally, I have to disagree with the experts that have “diagnosed” her with BPD. While self-injury is a hallmark of BPD, the motivation behind self-injury in BPD is usually NOT to get attention. Clearly, Ms. Todd, who was the “victim” of an attack by a black man in Pennsylvania (which later she admitted was a hoax), carved the “B” in her own cheek and she must have known that this action and the made-up story about the attack would garner a lot of attention. Yet, what I have seen in most cases of BPD-related self-injury is that the motivation is typically pain-relief and not attention-getting. The mere act of self-injury is a shameful one, and, in BPD, which already fuels shameful feelings, the self-injurer usually hides the act from others, doing it in private and on places that are not detectable by others. That’s because the self-injury functions to stop private emotional pain. Cutting oneself on the face (especially a letter on the face) would seem to me to indicate a different disorder. While it is possible that Ms. Todd does have BPD, I personally think it is unlikely.
I believe there are several basic motivations to lie when you have BPD. There are also two types of lies: by admission (by telling) and by omission (by not telling). Both types are a problem with someone with BPD. The motivations for telling a lie (or omitting truth) by someone with BPD are as follows:
1. When it is more painful to admit or tell the truth.
2. When she wants the other person to think “better” of her than she thinks of herself.
3. To avoid the judgment of the other person or judgment of herself.
4. When she can’t see the “truth” because of emotional reasoning brought on by the refractory period of the emotion felt. In other words, when feelings = facts.
The first three of these factors play a role in the lies of someone with BPD and they are often inter-related. If the person to whom the lie is told is likely to judge the person with BPD as “bad” or “deficient,” the expectation of disapproval triggers first rejection sensitivity and then shame, because the person with BPD actually feels deep inside that, if she admits the truth, the other person will “find out” that she is a “bad person” and reject her fully. The last motivation is “emotional reasoning.”
I bring up these motivations not to “let liars off the hook” but to point out something: a person with BPD does not live in the same “reality” as you (the Non) do. Your truth is informed by what you see, hear, experience and what you believe about those inputs. A person with BPD is most often informed by her feelings about the experiences. These feelings can be misaligned with the facts and, as Paul Ekman notes in Emotions Revealed, a person overcome with strong emotions “cannot incorporate information that does not fit, maintain or justify the emotion.” In effect the original lies can be motivated by the inability to see information that doesn’t support the feelings. When someone is emotionally dysregulated, she just can’t see the truth if it doesn’t match what she is feeling.
In effect, she is not really “lying,” but merely pointing out “facts” (or generating them) that support her overwhelming emotion about the situation. The subsequent lies, which are used to “cover up” or support the emotional reasoning, are typically done for one of the first three motivations, particularly the idea that you would think of her as less of a person (and deservedly so) if it was revealed that she lied in the first place. I think there can be some argument about whether deep-down a person with BPD really believes the original lie (or any of those generated by motivation number four) when she exits the prolonged refractory period. My suspicion is that deep down a person with BPD is more concerned with the pain and shame the revelation of the lie will cause her than with repairing, rather than repeating, the lie.
When Hope is Not EnoughGet the Non-BPD book that is designed for staying and working on the relationship While it is useful to know the motivations behind the lies, it still doesn’t make the lies any less hurtful. Being lied to is a painful and hateful experience for the Non. It destroys trust and personal integrity and leads to suspicion and paranoia. When someone specifically lies to you (by admission) or is secretive (by omission), you end up feeling angry, saddened and disconnected from your loved one with BPD. It is a confusing, embarrassing and painful experience.
Each of the motivations can be removed by:
Number 1: Pain management, distress tolerance (when the pain can’t be removed) and self-soothing
Number 2: Self-acceptance*
Number 3: Self-acceptance and developing the ability to tolerate judgment
Number 4: Emotional modulation
* a quick note on Number 2. I have known at least 3 borderlines rather well in my life. I have also known about 3 more peripherally (and of the 6 – not including my wife – 5 are female). But the 3 that I have known well (2 women and 1 man), ALL of them used motivation #2 to generate seemingly outlandish lies. Sometimes, each of them would have to “own up” to the lies and that was a painful experience I’m sure. I know if I every have to own up to lies, it is painful for me. I can only imagine how painful it is for someone with as much shame as a borderline feels.
After reviewing Mrs. Treasure’s article on BPD and Demonic Possession, I decided to read at least some of her other posts at AssociatedContent.com. I wanted to find out if she had posted more on Borderline Personality Disorder and why she decided to post on the disorder in the first place. I think she must believe that her new husband’s ex-wife has the disorder, because she wrote another article called “10 Ways to Handle a Difficult Ex? Focus on Borderline Personality Disorder” which refers to the person with BPD as “she” throughout. I’m not going to agree or disagree with the content of that article.
I also found an article called “Spiritual Glasses to Understand the Difficult Child” which was described with the question: When you get frustrated with your child, what is the most effective discipline? I was intrigued and decided to read the article.
I have to say, I was surprised by the wisdom in some of her comments. I find it interesting that what she says about children can be applied directly to people with BPD. Consider the following:
If your child is a chronic liar, parents worry and panic. The spiritual glasses allow you to see a very insecure child with poor self concept or image. Are your expectations of him too high? Why does he feel worthless? Is he bullied around by friends or older siblings?
I get more searches on this blog for “lying,” “liars,” “chronic liars,” etc. than about anything else. (Actually to be honest the most searches I get are about “celebrities with BPD” or some variant of that, but lying-related searches come in a close second.) I’d like to take her words and apply them to BPD and replace the words “spiritual glasses” with “emotional glasses.” I think if you look at a chronic liar, which many people with BPD are, you will find that one motivation for lying is a poor self image, feeling worthless or insecurity. These concepts are interrelated and spring from shame. People with BPD do have a poor self-image. Even though many nons report that their loved one with BPD is selfish or narcissistic, in reality people with BPD actually hate themselves. This feeling arises from shame as well, but the shame also arises from emotional invalidation. Mrs. Treasures doesn’t really provide a prescription for dealing with a liar, other than not to label (judge) the child as a “difficult child” right away and try to understand them and set proper expectations. The same can be said of a non’s relationship with a BP. Judging their behavior as “difficult” right away or setting expectations too high can invalidate the BP’s emotional responses. This sets up an “invalidating environment” for the child’s emotions and the effects of an invalidating environment are summarized by Dr. Marsha Linehan:
[The] effect of an invalidating environment, especially when basic emotions such as fear, anger, and sadness are invalidated, is that a person in such an environment does not learn when to trust her own emotional responses as valid reflections of individual and situational events. Thus, she is unable to validate and trust herself… If communication of negative emotions is punished, as it often is in invalidating environment, then a response of shame follows experiencing the intense emotion in the first place and expressing it publicly in the second.[i]
If a person is unable to trust herself, she can not validate herself and a “response of shame follows” emotional experiences. That is one pathway to BPD. If you punish a child for feeling inadequate, for example, if the child is lying to you because he wants to make himself feel better about himself, then you are invalidating his emotional responses.
Mrs. Treasures also say this about temper tantrums:
For your younger children showing tantrums and hitting other siblings, the spiritual glasses permit you to see a child struggling to deal with his immature emotions. The child’s frustration is his inability to communicate his feelings and needs to his siblings.
Again, if we substitute “emotional glasses” for “spiritual glasses” and “BP” for “child,” I believe she is accurately describing the state of someone with BPD. People with BPD are emotionally immature. It’s not their fault; it’s just that they were not raised in an emotionally supportive environment. They feel that by feeling emotions intensely, they are wrong and should be punished. Again, the shame comes into play. They do have an “inability to communicate [their] feelings.” Because of the invalidating environment, the BP becomes unable to trust her own emotions and becomes frustrated and angry. THAT is what fuels rage more than anything.
OK, now what do you do to counter-act an invalidating environment (with both children and BPs)? You learn to validate their emotional responses. I have quite a few examples of validation techniques on this site and if you follow this link, you can read about validation.
[i] Linehan, Marsha, Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, pg 72
The judge in the Paul McCartney/Heather Mills divorce case has released the judgment to the public. It can be found here: Judge’s Decision. I have included this post here, because Heather Mills almost made my top five potential celebrity BPs. Here are some juicy details from the judgement. The judge was not too kind to Ms. Mills:
But I regret to have to say I cannot say the same about the wife’s evidence. Having watched and listened to her give evidence, having studied the documents, and having given in her favour every allowance for the enormous strain she must have been under (and in conducting her own case) I am driven to the conclusion that much of her evidence, both written and oral, was not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid. Overall she was a less than impressive witness.
….
The proposed Amended Petition alleged a number of matters against the wife of verbal abuse, extreme jealousy, false accusations of violence, and that throughout the marriage the wife had shown a consistent inability to tell the truth.
….
I assume for the purpose of this judgment only that in those interviews the wife lost her cool completely, went right over the top, and behaved in an erratic, out of control, and vengeful manner.
Ouch! OK, I took them out of context, but still – ouch!
 Lying One of the most searched-upon subjects in this blog (and talked about in our ATSTP Google Group) is the subject of lying by someone with BPD. The nons are confused by untruthfulness on the part of someone with BPD and wonder how the person with BPD can have any credibility or trustworthiness when, clearly, they continue to tell bold-faced lies. In my response to a recent poster within the ATSTP group, I recently made a new revelation about truthfulness and lying by someone with BPD.
I have long said that someone will lie when telling to truth would cause more emotional suffering than lying would. However, that statement seems to indicate that there is a level of calculation when the lies arise. It infers that someone, when actually telling the lie, is deciding beforehand whether to tell the truth or not. For people with BPD, feelings = facts. It is not the events that matter to them, but how they feel about these events that truly matter.
So, two things have come to mind for me in this regard. One is that the experience of “reality” is filtered through those feelings and the person with BPD will reflect how they feel about them. If they have strong feelings about what has happened, they will actually experience things in a different manner than those of us who are rational in the face of the same events. It can hardly be called a lie in some ways because it is how they experienced reality. I lsitened to an audio CD on Buddhist a while back and there was a statement made that went like this: An artist doesn’t paint a picture and then put his “style” into the painting. He paints the picture through the lens of his style. That is how he or she sees the world. The same seems to be true for people with BPD and their emotions (rather than style).
The second thing that came to mind is the actual telling of the lie to a particular person. If someone with BPD feels that, by telling the truth, his or her feelings will be invalidated and judged by the other person, they will lie either by admission or by omission. If they don’t feel safe sharing the “truth” (and to them the truth is their feelings, not the events/behaviors themselves), they will not trust the other person with their feelings. In order to get a more truthful report from a person with BPD, one has to learn to listen to the feelings and not judge those feelings – which is extremely invalidating to the person with BPD and at the core of their “personhood” (since their feelings are immediate and strong and block out other more “objective” views of the situation). If you can listen to the feelings and validate those (for feelings are not right or wrong, they just ARE), I suspect you will get much more truth out of a person with BPD. But the truth you will receive is the truth for them, which is, of course, their feelings about an event. Still, once you start actually hearing and validating these, the level of trust accorded to you by the person with BPD will go up measurably.
|
Loading ...