Psyche & Soul 58: SIGNING OFF

 Psyche & Soul 58

SIGNING OFF

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Podcast Link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-58-Psyche--Soul--123-e15hk6o

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand (sumedhacentre@gmail.com) signing off with the final edition of Psyche & Soul.

……..

Dear Listeners,

This is the final podcast in the series Psyche and Soul. For the 57 weeks, I have been able to present regularly some psychospiritual reflections on these podcasts. In these reflections I used insights from psychology, sacred scripture as well as the socio-political realities of our everyday life to help us enhance our emotional wellbeing and our spiritual life – our psyche and our soul.

Thank you very much for your encouragement and appreciation which kept me going, week after week for more than a year. A special word of thanks to PT Joseph, the www.donboscoindia.com  web master, and CM Paul of Radio Salesian for facilitating the uploading of the podcast, and to Yesudas Karakkattu for composing and performing the Psyche & Soul theme song and background music.

All the 57 podcasts will be available on www.donboscoindia.com webpage, and www.anchor.fm/boscom  for you to access whenever you want. May these podcasts enhance your psychospiritual journey, take you deeper and deeper into your psyche and soul.

In this final podcast, No 58, I list the weekly podcasts under 8 themes.

Theme 1: Psychospiritual Wellbeing (5 podcasts)

1.      1.Foundations of Health and Happiness.

2.      2. Childhood Foundation of Healthy Relationships:  Trust

3.      3. Childhood Foundations of Healthy Relationships 2: Secure Attachments

4.      4. Threats To Healthy Adult Relationships: Insecure Attachments In Childhood

5.      5. Need Empathic And Admirable People Around Us

Theme 2. There were four podcasts Related to the Corona Pandemic (4 podcasts)

Covid:  A Time of Massive Disruption (19)

6.      6. Self-Care During Covid

7.      7. Coping with Stress and Anxiety During Covid – Physical, Mental and Spiritual Strategies

      Transformation through Community & Compassion (20)

Theme 3: Emotional Wellbeing (11 podcasts)

8.      8. Need Fulfilment and Emotional Maturation

9.       9. Living with Meaning and Purpose

1010 .  Self-Knowledge

1111. .  Self-acceptance

1212..  Balancing Autonomy and Dependence

1313.  Emotions, Health and Happiness

1414.  Living Gratefully

1515.  Generosity

1616.  Hope And Optimism

1717. Resilience: Thriving Despite Adversity

1818.  Stress: Prevention and Relief

Theme 4: Spirituality (6 podcasts)

2121.  Psychology, Spirituality and Religion

2222.  A Splintered, Distorted Spirituality

2323.  Holistic Spirituality: Wholeness, Not Flawlessness

2424.  Spirituality of Simplicity – “Downward Mobility”

2525.  Spirituality of Embodiment

2626.  Moving into the New Year with Hope!

Theme 6: Mental Health (12 podcasts)

2727.  Mental Health and Wellbeing

2828.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing Through Grateful Living

2929.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing Through Meaningful Living

3030.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing: Some Simple Practices

3131.  Enhancing Mental Health: 7 More Simple Practices

3232.  The Burden of Mental Illness

3333.  Major Depression

3434.  Schizophrenia - 1

3535.  Schizophrenia – 2: Symptoms and Dynamics

36.36  Schizophrenia – 3: Roots And Remedies. 

3737. Anxiety Disorder 

3838. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Theme 7: Personality Disorders (5 podcasts)

3939.  Personality Disorders: What They Are.

4040.  Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 

4141. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.  

4142. Borderline Personality Disorder., 

4343.  Paranoid Personality Disorder

Theme 8: Midlife Dynamics and the Spiritual Journey (14 podcasts)

4444.  Awakening to Midlife

4545.  Midlife Journeying

4646.  Emotional Awareness of Mortality

4747.  Time for Reassessment

4848.  Reassessment of “Dreams. 

4949. De-Illusioning 

5050.  Redeeming the “Shadow”

5151.  (Re-) Emergence of Sexuality and Intimacy Needs

5252.  Sexuality and Intimacy Needs: Women’s Experience

5353.  Balancing the Masculine and the Feminine

5454.  Moving Toward Integrity 

5555.Atonement (At-One-Men)t. 

5656. Aging Gracefully 

5757.  Spirituality for the Post-Midlife Years

 

I conclude with some significant quotes from the podcasts, something I would like to leave as a legacy from these podcasts.

“Acceptance of oneself is …the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life.” Carl Jung

“If you have a WHY to live for, you can live any HOW.” Nietzsche

 “If the only prayer you ever say in your life is ‘Thank you’, that is enough” Meister Eckhart

 “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

 “Split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone, and there you will find me.” Jesus, in the Gospel of Thomas, #77)

 

Thank you once again, for listening, for your support and appreciation. May your life be healthy and happy!

Theme Song “Listen to the Spirit.” Lyric by Jose Parappully SDB.  Sung by Yesudas Karakkatttu SDB

The Spirit is in us, around us!

Speaking to us…

Through all that happens to us

And around us.

Inviting and exhorting us

To health and wholeness.

Come let us listen to the Sprit

Let’s grow in our psyche and soul.

Background music: Composed and performed by Yesudas Karakkattu, SDB

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Psyche & Soul 42 BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

 Podcast link

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-42-Psyche--Soul--91-ev0ao0

 

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this weekend’s edition I shall describe Borderline Personality Disorder.

 

Susan phoned her boyfriend John. She wanted to talk to him badly. But he said he was out shopping and will call her back in an hour. Susan was not happy. But she waited for the hour to be over. An hour and half passed and he had not called her back. She called him back and gave him a mouthful, telling him how callous he was, not caring for her, burst into tears, and threatened to break off their relationship. John said sorry and explained what had happened. On the way back from shopping he witnessed a bike accident and had stopped to help and had forgotten to call her. Susan continued to be angry, insisting he could still have called her. John apologized. Now Susan began to feel guilty for the way she behaved. To sooth her feelings she began to cut herself- something she would do whenever she felt hurt…..

PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS

The Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by the following:

·         Intense emotionality characterized by frequent and fast mood changes;

·         Uncontrolled, intense anger and rage; sadness and irritability.

·nIntense craving for intimacy accompanied by fear of abandonment triggered by the slightest suspicion of lack of interest on the part of the other and frantic efforts to prevent it.

·         Intense idealization (admiration or love) followed by equally intense devaluation (dislike and depreciation) in quick succession.

·         Relationships characterized by passionate attachments but also frequent and intense conflicts.

·         Self-harming (cutting, bruising, burning)   and suicidal behaviour

·         Impaired or distorted cognitive processes.

·         Underlying fragile sense of self and resulting insecurity and feelings of emptiness.

 

Persons with BPD are often enthusiastic, idealistic, joyful, and loving, but soon may feel overwhelmed by negative emotions (anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, worry, anger, etc.).

They are in exuberant mood when feeling loved, cared for, appreciated and made to feel important. However, with the slightest disappointment they sink into despondency and react with intense anger and rage. They feel every emotion at a very intense level: rage instead of annoyance, intense grief instead of sadness, shame and humiliation instead of mild embarrassment, panic instead of anxiety. Their emotions often tend to spiral out of control.

 

They are very sensitive to the way others treat them, feeling intense joy and gratitude at perceived expressions of kindness, and intense sadness or anger at perceived criticism or hurtfulness. They are especially sensitive to feelings of rejection and can become very vindictive.

 

Naturally, their relationships are characterized by lots of conflict and frustration. They tend to see persons as “all-good” or “all-bad” in a sequential fashion. Their frequent mood fluctuations and swinging from idealization to devaluation make life very difficult and frustrating for those with whom they are in relationship, or with whom want to establish relationships. Their fear of abandonment, combined with feelings of emptiness and self-loathing, and frequent accusations of disloyalty and lack of caring makes those around them feel like they're constantly walking on eggshells, needing to be very careful lest they trigger a cascading dysfunctional behaviours that can include threats of suicide and even suicidal attempts.

 Since they feel their emotional pain with great intensity, they try to sooth their feelings and calm themselves through self-injury, which takes attention away for their emotional pain. Self-soothing approaches often also  include substance use disorders (e.g., alcohol use disorder), eating in excess, unprotected sex or indiscriminate sex with multiple partners, reckless spending, and reckless driving. They do all this because it gives them the feeling of immediate relief from their emotional pain, but later lead to feelings of shame and guilt over consequences of these behaviours. Thus a vicious cycle is often set in motion:  beginning with emotional pain, followed by impulsive and unhealthy behaviour to relieve that pain, then feeling shame and guilt over their actions resulting in renewed emotional pain, and then experiencing stronger urges to engage in impulsive and unhealthy behaviour to relieve the new pain. As time goes on, these impulsive and unhealthy behaviours may become an automatic response to emotional pain.

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS

There are some basic assumptions that persons with BPD hold and which lead to the behaviours described above. These include:

• I must be loved by people important to me or else I am worthless.
• Persons who love me are good and everything about them is perfect. Others cannot be trusted.
• Persons must understand my needs and respond to them in the way I want. Otherwise they don’t really care for me.
• Persons who love me must tell me they love me. If they don’t, it means they do not love me and will abandoned me.
• Nobody cares about me as much as I care about them.  So they can easily abandon me.
• When I am not in a relationship, I become nobody and nothing.
• I will be really happy only when someone makes me the most important person in his or her life and make me feel that way.

ORIGINS

It is generally recognised that there are two basic dynamics in the formation of the borderline personality disorder:

First, inherited biochemical factors, not easily observable on the surface, but responsible for impulsive aggression and affect instability that characterize a patient suffering from the disorder.

Second, early insecure attachments with parents and parent figures, which besides contributing to the above, seriously derail the crucial developmental milestone of basic trust. These also lead to unstable interpersonal relationships characterized by excessive intensity, overvalued expectations, unfounded anxieties. They also lead to distorted cognitive processes.

Borderline personality disorder is partly caused by brain abnormalities that can be identified by brain imaging techniques. Patients with borderline personality disorder may be bio-chemically primed to over anticipate and overreact to real or imagined criticism, rejection or abandonment.  There is impairment in their capacity to regulate or inhibit limbic-driven emotionality or impulsivity. These heritable risk factors, in turn, interfere with the normal attachment process during development, and this disruption can be magnified when there is inadequate parental support. All these cause and maintain profound sense of inner emptiness, emotional instability, interpersonal difficulties and disruptive behaviours.

TREATMENT

It is a combination of biological and psychotherapeutic interventions that really help those suffering from borderline disorder.

For a long time it was thought that borderline personality was not amenable to change in therapy. However, that idea has changed. Today borderline personality disorder is considered a treatable condition.

Data from research show that borderline patients treated by skilled therapists who focused their interventions on the transference and countertransference (relationship between client and therapist) showed a significantly better outcome than those treated with a more supportive approach.

According to experienced therapists, effective psychotherapy for patients with borderline disorder takes time, commitment and persistent. The biggest hurdle is to establish a collaborative partnership that can be sufficiently sustained to do some effective work, without the client unilaterally terminating the treatment. Maintaining proper boundaries of time, place and behaviour is also a big challenge.

Psychotherapeutic interventions are more helpful to manage self-injury and abandonment concerns, while the inherited bio-chemical contributors to the disorder are better treated with medication. 

Borderline behaviour is mostly driven by feelings of low self-worth, fear of abandonment arising from insecurity, and excessive craving for intimacy, approval and appreciation. Hence, responding with empathy and sensitivity to their erratic behaviours, though difficult and frustrating, and providing approval and appreciation and frequent expressions of caring on the part of persons who matter to them, can help those who suffer from the disorder feel cared for and supported and can help reduce and prevent escalation of conflicts.

Introspection and Prayer

·         Do you recognize the features of the Borderline Personality Disorder in yourself? If so, how do you feel about them and handle them?

·         Have you encountered these features in those with whom you relate or those around you? If so, what are the challenges you have faced in dealing with them? What has helped you cope?

 We could hold these people in prayer before God and ask God to provide them the love, appreciation and security they crave…..

Borderline personalities lack self-worth, feel others don’t love them and feel insecure. They tend to drive away those they love by their demands and dysfunctional behaviours. Our God is never put off by our dysfunctional behaviours, but always stands by us and provides us the love and security we crave.

We could read Isaiah 43, 1-5where God speaks of his love and care for us and his promise to never abandon us: “I have called you by name. You are mine. …. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you… You are precious in my sight, …and I love you…. Fear not, I am with you”

We could then stay a while with the feelings evoked in us by the reading and spend some time talking with and listening to God.

Have a healthy, safe and blessed weekend.

Thank you for listening

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

Psyche & Soul 39: PERSONALITY DISORDERS

 https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-39-Psyche--Soul--86-etl1tr

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this edition I shall explore another group of mental illness, namely, Personality Disorders, which take a toll especially on our interpersonal relationships.

What are Personality Disorders?

Personality is a complex mixture of biologically based temperament, the internalized record of the events and experiences that have shaped our character, the way we see ourselves and others, the conflicts involving wishes and defenses against those wishes that direct and motivate us, and our vulnerabilities and aspirations. These varied dimensions and characteristics define who we are as persons and form our personality styles.

Our personality is built on various personality traits each of develop, mostly unconsciously through our genetic (inborn endowments and our relational an environment experiences.  These “traits are enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and ourselves that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts.

Sometimes these personality features become maladaptive and inflexible, detrimental to our health and wellbeing and significantly impair our ability to function effectively in daily life, affect our relationships and cause us much subjective distress. When this happens, these impaired and maladaptive personality features move from a style to a disorder – a personality disorder. This impairment is often unconscious, the person affected bot being aware of it. The resulting distress is often suffered not merely by the person himself or herself but by those around too

A Personality Disorder, as defined by the DSM “is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the individual’s culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has on onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to significant subjective distress or functional impairment.”

Enduring here means that the characteristics are not transient, manifesting only now and then, but is always present and manifests across a broad range of personal situations.. These characteristics are not in keeping with what a culture expects of healthy individuals. These characteristics are quite well embedded in the personality and are not easily amenable to change. They have become part and parcel of the personality and follows the person wherever he or she goes. The most important criteria that establishes a personality disorder, and distinguishes it from merely personality style, is that it causes significant distress to the person and impairs his or her ability to function effectively in daily life.

These maladaptive features usually become recognizable adolescence or early adulthood. However, individuals may not recognize need for help until relatively late in life. A personality disorder may be exacerbated following the loss of significant supportive persons and other resources.

There is a high degree of psychological impairment associated with personality disorders. These include tendency toward suicide, violent aggression, self-destructive behaviour, cognitive and interpersonal impoverishment and painful isolation.

In order to be diagnosed as resulting from a personality disorder this impairment and distress has to manifest in at least two of the four dimensions of daily life:

(1)     cognition (i.e., perceiving, and interpreting self,  other people, and events)

(2)     affectivity (i.e., range, intensity, appropriateness of emotional response)

(3)     interpersonal functioning (how one deals with persons)

(4)     impulse control (the ability to manage one’s impulse to do something)

Which are the Personality Disorders?

The DSM-IV listed 10 different personality disorders, grouped into three clusters. These are: Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal forming Cluster A; antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic forming cluster B and the avoidant,  dependent and obsessive-compulsive forming cluster C.

Cluster A brings together the odd and the eccentric personalities; Cluster B brings together the dramatic and emotional types and Cluster C includes the anxious and fearful types.

Here is a brief description of the 10 Personality Disorders as given in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - IV or the DSM –IV.

·         Paranoid Personality Disorder is a pattern of distrust and suspiciousness such that others’ motives are interpreted as malevolent.

 

·         Schizoid Personality Disorder is a pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression.

 

·         Schizotypal Personality Disorder is a pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships, as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behaviour.

 

·         Antisocial Personality Disorder is a pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.

 

·         Borderline Personality Disorder is a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impassivity.

 

·         Histrionic Personality Disorder is a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking.

 

·         Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

 

·         Avoidant Personality Disorder is a pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.

 

·         Dependent Personality Disorder is a pattern of submissive and clinging behaviour related to an excessive need to be taken care of.

 

·         Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder is a pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency.

While continuing with the DSM –IV model of Personality disorders, the latest version of the DSM (the 5^th edition) gives an alternate model of Personality Disorders and reduces them from 10 to 6. Many leading personality psychologists do not accept this new model. They find it seriously flawed, based not on clinical models but academic research models which are not helpful in clinical/therapeutic work.

In the next few podcasts I shall present some of the more frequent and troublesome personality Disorders as presented in DSM IV.

Introspection and Prayer

Sit quietly for a while with what you heard in this podcast, especially with the descriptions of the 10 Personality Disorders. Can you recognise these characters in you or in anyone around you? If in yourself, how do you feel about it? If in others, how does it affect your relationships with them?

Then sit for a while in the presence of our God who knows you through and through and is interested in your wellbeing. Talk to God about all that bothers you about yourself and others you relate to, and listen to what God has to tell you in response.

Have a safe, healthy and happy weekend. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening/Reading.

Pictures: courtesy Google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com