Disordered Holiday Spirits

North-Polar Disorder (noun) : the chronic fear that someone is on the roof
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(And doing who-knows-what up there)!




Today's definition comes with thanks to Bruce Kluger in a 2003 holiday article in Psychology Today.

Ho Ho Phobia

Ho-Ho-Phobia (noun) : a profound fear of rotund, bearded men in red suits and black boots that surfaces earlier and earlier each year as sufferers begin to report frequent sightings of their most feared apparition on street corners, in shop windows and especially on the second Saturday of December when "Santacon" occurs and thousands are found running from bar to bar drinking in cities across the globe
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Today's definition comes with thanks to Bruce Kluger in a 2003 holiday article in Psychology Today(!).

I guess even therapists have a sense of humour at times.

Great Psychologists

Maybe it's just me, but when I see a father (Sigmund Freud), daughter (Anna Freud) and old guy (Carl Jung) arm-in-arm and advertised for sale as finger puppets with a couch, all sorts of psychological references come up. And not necessarily anything about which I want to think or blog.

I'll just leave it at that.

Sociopath

sociopath (noun) : the biggest prick you didn’t realize you knew who causes great harm with no remorse or sense of responsibility; syn: my ex-husband
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Hot on the heels of narcissist comes the sociopath!

While not all narcissists are sociopaths, all sociopaths are indeed narcissists. And although the sociopath apparently suffers from what’s called, “antisocial personality disorder" (which apparently is NOT being eliminated next year from the DSM as a personality disorder), that’s no excuse for these jerks to get away with the crap that they do through their lies and manipulations and total disregard for the rights of others or consequences of their actions.

The most well-known category of sociopaths are serial killers/serial rapists, so the big question is why would anyone be involved with one of these creeps? Well, research has shown that the sociopath is usually a person with an abundance of charm and wit, someone who appears friendly and considerate and loving. So we are lulled into the relationship by these seemingly great attributes, unaware that these attributes are superficial and are used merely as a way of blinding us to the nasty personal agenda behind the sociopath’s behaviour.

So if you happen to lack feelings of sympathy, have no sense of remorse, and don’t feel guilt, then this is the disorder for you!

And why would you want to be cured when you can do anything you want without those feelings and still be considered charming and witty?

Narcissism

narcissism (noun) : a psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem; see also, narcissist (better known as my mother, my ex-husband, an inordinate number of my female friends)
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But enough about me!

The real news is that narcissistic personality disorder (characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and the need for constant attention) has been eliminated from the upcoming revision of the DSM.

see: www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/views/30mind.html

Critics of course are concerned over how a treatment plan will be implemented if narcissism is removed as a personality disorder. Speaking from my own experience, I have yet to meet a narcissist who has changed, therapy or no therapy, and become less self-centered and more empathetic. So should we even care about them?

I think that since there's now room in the DSM for new personality disorders, how about one for those enabling all the narcissists out there? Because if therapy can help the enablers then the narcissists will be left to deal with each other, right?

And picking up on the whole 'daydream believer' melodyfest, maybe then the world will be a better place.

Daydream

daydream (noun) : the 24-hour period available for musing about the fulfillment of wishes rather than working on fulfilling them
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A daydream is a type of imagining, but when the dreamer begins to confuse the dreams with reality, it's called hallucinating. Which is why, I suppose, psychologists in the 1960s provided strategies to combat daydreams similar to those used in combating drug use. And Dr. Freud believed that only unfulfilled people created fantasies and that daydreaming was an early sign of mental illness.

Thankfully, by the late 1980s, psychologists considered daydreams a natural component of the mental process. Thus we dreamers are saved - at least this time - from the label "mental illness."

In daydreams, we form a mental image of a past experience or of a situation that we haven't actually experienced to escape from reality temporarily or to overcome a frustrating situation or to satisfy a hidden wish. My particular favourite (and I don't think I'm alone here) is the one about me winning the lottery. Daydreaming usually isn't harmful, unless it interferes with daily living. That means I can fantasize about what I'd do with my vast winnings as long as I continue to work.

And, as Shakespeare points out, there's the rub for all of us daydream believers.

DSM

DSM (noun) : 1. Distinguished Service Medal given to those mental health professionals who diagnose mental disorders; 2. the non-religious 'good book' referencing those mental disorders
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Apparently, the clinical usefulness of the DSM is more than a tool for making diagnoses - it´s a guide for communicating about mental health conditions. So when two clinicians discuss a diagnosis such as "major depressive disorder, single episode, severe with psychotic features," they both have the same visualization of the illness.

Categorizing conditions or disorders that people have helps with avoiding labels and further conditions. That means that while I may have suffered with depression, I was never a manic (or other kind of) depressive and therefore was able to eliminate or cure the depression with the help of my therapist (who, by the way, has been bugging me to say something nice about him in this blog; consider it done, dude). As with most therapy-like items, there are others who value the label because it may provide a sense of control over the illness as more can be learned about its treatment, causes, and outcome. With depression, I´m not convinced that this is true since the outcome of it as an illness usually is not good.

But look for that in MORE depression posts - coming soon to a blog near you!