My Experiments with Psychology

My daughter came out in flying colours in her SSC. She was to join in Intermediate. Coming to the selection of her subjects, as is usual with every parent, we have only two options for our children; they are Maths, Physics and chemistry, for making them an engineer, or Biology, if we want them to go for Medicine. Their taste hardly matters. We impose our choice on them. I did the same thing. I gave her MPC in her Intermediate. I arranged the best coaching for her. When the first year results came, they to my utter surprise, I found that she could get just pass marks in group subjects, but she secured excellent marks in languages. I realized my folly. Then, I told her, “Passing with barest minimum marks, in Inter, will take you nowhere, in these days of competition. You come out with your choice, and join a new course afresh.” She selected Commerce, and stood first in the college.

She was to join in graduation. She preferred the Royal Arts group, with History, English Literature and Political Science. As the adage goes, “Habits die hard”, I meddled again. We, parents, have a nasty habit of fulfilling our unfulfilled dreams and desires through our children. I used to be very much interested in Psychology. Those days my elders did not allow me to have my wish. Now there was a chance. I reasoned with my daughter, “These days who is interested in History? You would have no prospects. If you take psychology, which is very interesting (it was interesting for me, not for her), tomorrow you can be a practicing Psychotherapist, and you would have a bright future.” She agreed, though reluctantly. Luckily for me, she came out in flying colours in her graduation. But after her course was over, she never touched the books of psychology again, which were from renowned foreign writers. They became my property. For the past four years, I have been regularly reading these books. At last, my wish of studying Psychology got fulfilled, and I am happy about it.

Generally I have the habit of making a beginning from the end, or start the negative things first. When I tried my hands at learning Tamil, I made the beginning by learning the abuses first. In my study of Psychology too, I made the reverse beginning. I started with reading the Personality Disorders first. In this direction, two disorders particularly attracted my attention. They are:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Antisocial Personality

Narcissistic Personality Disorder:- is described as having an inflated sense of self importance, being preoccupied with fantasies of success, constantly seeking admiration, and attention, and being insensitive to the needs of others and often exploiting them. Until I read this, I did not know that this could also be a disorder or a mental disease. Who does not think great of himself? I feel that in some measure all of us have these features. Just as “Too much of anything is bad”, I feel that having this sense in a small measure may not be the disease, but having an Inflated sense of these cravings must be a disease or disorder.  

Antisocial Personality:- They are also called psychopathic Personalities. These people seem to have little sense of responsibility, morality, or concern for others. Their behavior is determined entirely by their own needs. In other words, they lack a CONSCIENCE. When the average person realizes at an early age that some restrictions are placed on behavior and that pleasures must sometimes be postponed in consideration of the needs of others, individuals who have antisocial personalities seldom consider any desires except their own. They behave impulsively, seek immediate gratification of their needs, and cannot tolerate frustration. They have little feeling for anyone except themselves and seem to experience little guilt or remorse, regardless of how much suffering theuir behavoiour may cause others. Their other characteristics are a great facility for lying, a need for thrills and excitement with little concern for possible injury, and an inability to alter behaviour as a consequence of punishment. They are often attractive, intelligent, charming people, who are quite facile in manipulating others- in other words, good “con artists.” Their façade of competence and sincerity wins them promising jobs, but they have little staying power. Their restlessness and impulsiveness soon lead them into an escapade that reveals that reveals their true nature. They accumulate debts, desert their families, squander company money, or commit crimes. When caught, their declarations of repentance are so convincing that they often escape punishment and are given another chance. But they seldom live up to expectations; what they say has little relation to what they feel or do.

The two main characteristics of them are lovelessness (the inability to feel any empathy for or loyalty to, another person) and guiltlessness (the inability to feel any remorse for one‘s action, regardless of how reprehensible it is).   

(In my next post, dabbling with my pet subject of Numerology, I shall try to find the causes of the above personality disorders)