Unhappy childhood can stunt growth

By Amanda Kelly

Parents who constantly argue could be stunting their children's growth, say scientists who have uncovered a link between a reduced growth rate and a stressful upbringing.

Parents who constantly argue could be stunting their children's growth, say scientists who have uncovered a link between a reduced growth rate and a stressful upbringing.

The study showed traumatic childhood experiences have a serious effect on later health, causing disease and, in some cases, permanent stunting.

Epidemiologist Dr Scott Montgomery and his team at the Royal Free Hospital in London followed up a survey of 1,352 families across the UK which had taken place between 1937 and 1939. It had looked at children's health and lifestyles when they were aged between five and eight. Sixty years later, 149 members of the same group were tracked down and similar tests carried out.

Dr Montgomery said: "We discovered a significant relationship between parents who had argued and a slower growth rate in their children.

"Youngsters who live in very stressful situations have been found to have less growth hormone. If they are taken out of that unhappy situation, the hormone levels recover.

Such young people do not necessarily turn into short adults - they just grow more slowly. The danger is that if the stress goes on for long, it can stunt growth permanently."

His work shows that youngsters who grow more slowly are more likely to suffer high blood pressure as adults, putting them at greater risk of heart disease and strokes. "I believe this research emphasises the critical importance of looking after a child's emotional welfare," said Dr Montgomery. He believes the reason for the link between stress and growth can be put down to evolution.

"At a time of stress, it makes sense in an evolutionary way to switch off everything that isn't essential," he said. "You don't want to put your energy into growing when you might need it to run away or defend yourself. Once you are out of danger, you can afford to use your energy on growing again."

* Children with fathers in their lives, however, learn more thoroughly, have higher self-esteem and show fewer signs of depression than those reared only by their mothers, according to another study on child development, adds Cherry Norton.

The findings presented at a conference in Boston, Massachusetts, 2007 showed that children with a father or father figure scored higher on basic learning-skill tests and were more socially adept and likely to get on better with their peers.

Children who viewed their father figure as supportive had a greater feeling of competence and greater social acceptance.

Dealing with a Narcissistic Mother

Recent statistics indicate that the incidence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is on the increase. Therefore more and more of us will come across narcissistic individuals in the course of our daily lives, whether at work or in the family home.

We recently looked at the case of Elinor, who has a mother who suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As narcissists rarely seek treatment as they are not aware that they suffer from the disorder, it is up to friends and family members, the primary sufferers at the hands of the clinical narcissist, to take steps to protect themselves. Related articles, includes diagnostic criteria are included as links at the conclusion of this article.

Elinor has suffered for most of her life at the hands of her narcissistic mother. Of course, when Elinor was a child she had no idea that her mother had the disorder. As with any child, we accept our parents as being how all parents are, until we arrive at a point where we are able to reason that this is not the case. As we mature we are able to better gauge as to whether our parents did an "okay" job, which is the acceptable professional standard for parenting, or whether their style of parenting left a lot to be desired. It is often after we have children of our own that we can truly decide how effective both our parents and our own parenting style is.

But back to Elinor. Because narcissists can never be pleased, except for very short periods of time, the partner, friend or child of a narcissist is in a continual battle to please and amuse, flatter and placate, the narcissistic person in their lives. Selfish and self-absorbed, the narcissistic parent gives little emotional return and so the child of such a parent continually seeks approval, attention and most of all, love. It is a pointless task, as the narcissist does not really understand the concept of others, much less love for them.

But Elinor had tried her best. Over the years she has showered her mother with gifts, tried to interpret her every whim and do all in her power to get that all important love and attention. Elinor is now 39. Despite having a husband and two children of her own, she still puts her mother first. This is because neither her husband nor her children can fill the hole in her heart that should have been filled long ago by her mother.

Elinor's mother has a habit of rejecting many of her daughter's gifts, simply because she doesn't like them. When Elinor gets it right, her mother's face lights up with joy and Elinor feels happy. At last! She has done something right! But just as often as not, Elinor's mother does not care for the gift and tells her daughter so, even though many times the gift has been hand made by her daughter as she is an excellent craftsperson.

Elinor sought counseling due to her increasing anger and spells of depression. What we discovered was that part of Elinor was still seeking approval from her mother. But worse than that, she was seeking approval from a mother who was clinically unable to give approval. Elinor was playing a losing game: no wonder she felt an increasing sense of rage and sadness. Furthermore, her marriage was under strain as each time one of these event occurred, she lost valuable time crying and withdrawing from her family. With teenagers in the house, she was in danger of losing precious time with those people who were actually capable of loving her.

Escaping the Trap of the Narcissistic Mother

by Beth McHugh

In Dealing with a Narcissistic Mother, we looked at how 39-year-old Elinor was still caught up in a desperate game of trying to win the love and approval of her mother, who suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

When Elinor came in for therapy she was sad, slightly depressed and full of rage for a mother who just could not give her the love and approval that Elinor wanted. Although Elinor had a loving husband, and two wonderful children, she was not happy. This is not unusual when basic childhood needs such as love and approval have not been delivered to the child during the critical formative years of their life. No matter how much love her husband showered upon her, as well as her children's love, Elinor still felt an emptiness inside.

Of course, this feeling is not exclusive to adult children of narcissists. It is also common to many adults whose parents may have been alcoholics, absent due to heavy work loads, the presence of a mental illness, or many other situations. But the bottom line for Elinor is that, when it came to her mother, she described herself as "invisible".

She felt invisible, not through any fault of her own, but because her mother was incapable of seeing her as a real person, with real needs of her own. The narcissist views others as mere extensions of themselves, and their value lies in how much they can do for the narcissist. When Elinor was sick, her mother never really cared. She counteracted Elinor's comments with an unending string of her own ailments, all of which were of far greater importance and severity than Elinor's. But that of course, is how the narcissist thinks.

With little to give out to others, narcissists often find their circle of acquaintances grows smaller over the years and this was the position Elinor's mother found herself in. As her mother aged and Elinor's father died, Elinor's mother became increasingly unrealistic about the demands she put on her daughter. Still desperately trying to do the "right" thing that would finally unlock the key to her mother's love, Elinor came to breaking point and hence to me.

The big breakthrough in therapy came when Elinor, after knowing in her head for years that her mother was not going to change, was finally able, through therapy, to accept it in her heart. She said to me: "I finally realize my mother is not going to be that Gingerbread Mom that I'd always wanted her to be." I thought the concept of the Gingerbread Mom, all pretty and loving and homey and comforting, was a wonderful analogy of everything that Elinor's mother wasn't, and yet Elinor had spent her entire life wanting that. Of course this is understandable. Everyone wants a great mom.

But Elinor finally decided that it was easier to accept that this was how it was and give up the hope, that commodity that keeps us hooked in, that her mother would change. She finally stopped banging her head against that brick wall called Mom. Although this transformation took a long time for Elinor, it was worth it in the end. Her mother's behaviors still make her angry, but they no longer rip her heart out.

Do narcissists really hate themselves deep down inside?

Evidence that narcissists really do think they're "all that."

You probably have a pretty good idea of what a narcissist is. They're arrogant, self-absorbed, and generally speaking they're not too pleasant to be around--at least not for long periods of time. If you're like most people, you probably also assume one additional thing.You probably think that narcissists dislike themselves deep down inside.

In other words, narcissism is really just a mask that covers up deeply hidden insecurities and self-loathing. If you think that this is true, then you're in good company. This has long been a standard conceptualization of narcissism within the psychological literature. A recent study by Keith Campbell, Jennifer Bosson, Thomas Goheen, Chad Lakey, and Michael Kernis (let's just call them Campbell et al. to keep things simple), however, challenges this assumption.

Before we get to Campbell et al., let's first begin with a simple, but really important question. How can you determine what people think about themselves deep down inside? We call this type of thinking implicit cognition. More specifically, we're interested in implicit attitudes, since the cognition centers on the attitudes that people have about themselves. Positive and negative attitudes about the self make up our self-esteem, so what we're ultimately interested in is called implicit self-esteem.

Let's say that your brother, Donald, is a real narcissist and you want to know whether he really likes himself as much as it seems like he does. In other words, you want to know whether Donald has high self-esteem. You could simply ask him--his answer would tell you about his explicit self-esteem--but can you really trust what Donald tells you? Well, that's for you to decide, but most psychologists would be at least a bit skeptical. What we really need is a way to measure Donald's implicit self-esteem. Unfortunately, psychologists do not have any magical techniques to tap into implicit self-esteem. One particularly promising method, however, is called the Implicit Associations Test (IAT for short).

The inner workings of the IAT are far too complicated to get into here. There is a great website called Project Implicit (implicit.harvard.edu) that explains the IAT in greater depth and even lets you take the IAT yourself. Essentially, the IAT works by recording how fast you can categorize things. For example, let's say I show you the word "vomit" and ask you whether it is good or bad. Unless you're an emetophile(Google this at your own risk!), you would probably categorize vomit as being something that is bad-and you would likely do this really quickly and without much thought. Now what if I asked you to categorize vomit as being "like me" or "not like me" (this is meant to refer to you-is the vomit like you or not like you?) Although this is an odd question, you'd probably say very quickly that vomit is "not like me." OK, let's use a different, more pleasant word, like "smart." You could probably again answer both of these questions very quickly, but your answers would most likely be "good" and "like me."

Up to this point, we're assuming that you, like most people, think pretty positively about yourself. But what if you don't like yourself that much? Well, then we would expect you to take longer making these categorizations, or even categorize them differently (e.g., saying that "smart" is "not like me"). So the IAT essentially measures how quickly you categorize good words with "like me" and bad words with "not like me." People who categorize themselves with good words very quickly are said to have high implicit self-esteem. People who take longer or who actually categorize themselves with bad words are said to have low implicit self-esteem. (Note of caution: The IAT is actually much more complicated than this and researchers don't fully understand how it works. Please visit the Project Implicit website for further information.)

One of the great things about the IAT, from a researchers perspective, is that test takers don't know what's being measured (trust us on this, rarely do test takers realize that the IAT is actually a measure of self-esteem). This is unlike explicit self-esteem, which is assessed by asking people how they feel about themselves. So theoretically, the IAT provides a purer measure of self-esteem that comes from deep down inside and is not filtered though all of our impression management tactics and defense mechanisms. (Have you ever said that you feel great even though you don't? This is the problem with measuring explicit self-esteem.)

OK, back to narcissism. Prior research has shown that narcissists report very high explicit self-esteem (what they tell you about themselves), but lower implicit self-esteem (how they perform on the IAT). This research is consistent with long-standing beliefs about narcissism (e.g., psychoanalytic theories of narcissism) and seems to support the idea that narcissists don't really like themselves that much deep down inside.

Here's where a detailed analysis of psychological methods pays off. Campbell et al. noticed that a lot of the words used in the IATs of past studies were pretty communal sounding. Communal words are those that imply a connection between people. For example, the word "smile" might be considered communal because smiling facilitates social bonding. One thing that we know about narcissists is that they are not communally oriented. They're all about themselves. Indeed, past research shows that narcissists don't think very positively of themselves in terms of their relationships with others (i.e., communally). Therefore, if your IAT words are communal, then it should not be surprising that narcissists fail to quickly categorize the positive words as being "like me" and the negative words as being "not like me." In other words, communal IATs may be biased toward producing evidence of low implicit self-esteem in narcissists.

What Campbell et al. did next was create an IAT that used less communal words. For example, their IAT contained the positive word "energetic," which does not imply any sort of connection between people (i.e., the word "energetic" implies something about the individual, rather than relationships with others). What they found was that, sure enough, narcissists reported high implicit self-esteem using this less communal IAT. Again, this contradicts prior research showing just the opposite.

So what does this tell us about narcissism? First, we should take a step back and think about the methods that psychologists use to conduct their studies. Psychologists must frequently deal with the unseen and the unknown. While this makes psychology particularly interesting in our opinion, it can also make psychological research a little messy. Can we really be certain that Campbell et al.'s or anyone else's IATs really measure implicit self-esteem? Of course not. Nevertheless, Campbell et al.'s findings suggest that we should be skeptical of the notion that narcissism is always connected to inner doubt and self-hatred.

Without question, there are narcissists out there who really do hate themselves. We've all met people like this. People who say outlandishly positive things about themselves (e.g., "I'm smarter than Einstein") when it's obvious that they're covering up for a perceived deficiency (e.g., they dropped out of high school). But frankly, people can also be arrogant and conceited without any sort of deep-seated anguish. This isn't particularly pleasant to think about. Most of us-psychological researchers included-like to think that we live in a just world where bad things happen to bad people. In a just world, mean and nasty narcissists would experience inner turmoil and suffering. Unfortunately, we live in nothing close to a just world. And we suspect that many—if not most—people who say that they're awesome really think that they're awesome, even deep down inside.

What is the difference between a narcissist and a sociopath?

All human behavior exists on a three-dimensional continuum with the following axes: Empowered-Unempowered, Loving-Unloving, and Wise-Unwise; with various spectra of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual ailments arching through the Unempowered-Unloving-Unwise territories.

Nevertheless, how's this: Suppose we define the differences between and among benign narcissists, malignant narcissists, and sociopaths by what gives them their rush:

A sociopath gloats over the pain he creates, because it means he is powerful. A malignant narcissist glories in the service she compels and the turf she marks, because it means she is important. A benign narcissist basks in the admiration he receives, because it means he is valuable. (That is, beloved, talented, cool, fill in blank.)

So:

If you need constant reassurance that you are valuable, you are a benign narcissist. If you need constant reassurance that you are important, you are a malignant narcissist. If you need constant reassurance that you are powerful, you are a sociopath.

If this analysis is correct, then obviously an individual could be a little of all three, needing reassurance that he is valuable, important, and powerful; because at any moment he could be feeling worthless and/or irrelevant and/or helpless. Someone might be at one point along the spectrum this week and at another point next week.

I think another defining difference is laziness. A malignant narcissist is lazy, doing all his work with his mouth, whereas a benign narcissist will often actually strive to be genuinely valuable, and a sociopath can put inexorable and meticulous effort into setting up his victim.

Here's a characteristic all three share: Not a one of them gives a damn about the potential negative effects upon others of their self-seeking behavior.

The sociopath's stance is: "I want what I want, and somebody else gets to pay for it. Don't get in my way. But then, you don't have the right to escape, and once you're in my headlights I'll chase you all over the road until I get you."

The malignant narcissist's stance is: "I want what I want, and somebody else gets to pay for it. Don't get in my way. When I run over you, I'm going to be pissed off if you scratch my paint."

The benign narcissist's stance is: "I want what I want, and I'll pay for it--but don't get in my way. If I accidentally happen to run over you, I'm just going to wonder what that bump was."

The Narcissist In Love

My next several blogs will be sharing information regarding "The Narcissist" I hope others will find them interesting as well!

The Narcissist In Love

As bad as narcissistic behavior can be in a coworker, golf buddy or relative, it's worse in a romantic partner. Male or female, narcissists are the quintessential sharks: Self-confidence and charm make them highly appealing in the early stages of attraction. Since narcissists are very concerned about appearance, they're likely to be well-groomed and fashionable. "He was into nice things, the best brand names. Everything was about treating himself well," says Lynn, a 30-year-old consultant in San Diego, about her ex-boyfriend. "And he was totally charismatic. After we were going out for a while, I could see him turn it on and off when he wanted something."

Lynn found out that her boyfriend was what Campbell, author of When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself, calls a "game-playing" lover. Campbell found that narcissists' need for power and autonomy leads them to shun commitment—and to cheat. Romantic relationships become just another way for them to pump up their own self-image. Narcissists look for mates with very high social status (for example, looks or success) which complements an inflated sense of self.

Lynn's narcissistic boyfriend was a poker player, and she says now that the relationship was just like a sport to him. "He would figure out the landscape, and he was never willing to gamble more than he was willing to lose," Lynn says. "He told me I had qualities he was looking for, but also that he needed to see other women."

After nine months, they broke up, also typical for narcissists, whose relationships don't last long. In Campbell's studies, "relationships with narcissists were more satisfying initially, and then dramatically less satisfying at the end," he says. The extreme example might be Scott Peterson, who was charismatic enough to attract a beautiful wife—and coldhearted enough to murder her when he wanted to move on.

Obviously, most narcissists aren't killers, but they do tend to be very unsatisfying mates. If he's had a string of relationships, if he can't stop talking about how much people admire him, if he gets easily riled when he doesn't get what he wants—he may not be just another commitment-phobic man. He's a narcissist.

Unfortunately, anyone can be seduced by a narcissist. One misconception is that only those with low self-esteem date someone who's so self-centered, but people with normal self-respect can also end up involved with a narcissist. They have decisive, take-charge personalities in a society that shuns wishy-washiness.

And after all, they're experts at making people admire them. Best-case scenario: when narcissists date each other. That way, both can have a self-confident, impressive and shallow mate—and leave the rest of us in peace.

Getting Over a Narcissistic Mother

I have spent the last two years researching articles about narsisstic personality disorder in oreder to find a way to deal with my own mother. The following is just one of those. I can't wait to read to the book!

How to get over your narcissistic mom.

By Carlin Flora

We tend to throw around the descriptor "narcissist" when we really mean "selfish," but the term can properly refer to someone who consistently exhibits narcissistic traits as well as to someone with a full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The APA estimates that 1.5 million American women are "official" narcissists, meaning millions more can be found on the lower end of that personality spectrum.

Karyl McBride, Ph.D., has spent more than 20 years studying and treating women who grew up with narcissistic moms. I interviewed her about her new book, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing The Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. Here's an edited version of our conversation:

An inability to give love to, and show empathy toward, the child.

How would you describe the typical husband of such a mother?

The spouse has to revolve around her, often, in order to stay in the relationship. He may practically worship her. That means he may never help or protect the child who is being ignored. Some fathers I've talked to realize the damage being done to their child, but feel that they can't do anything about it. Others seem to not be aware.

You found two typical patterns of behavior in daughters of narcissistic mothers.

Yes. There's the high achieving daughter—I call her Mary Marvel—who appears to be perfect in all she does. One of the main messages that gets internalized when your mother is narcissistic is, "You are valued for what you do and not for who you are." So Mary Marvel is constantly trying to prove to herself that she does have worth, by mastering different endeavors.

The other kind of daughter is a rebel. She's an under-achiever who self-sabotages. She may end up on welfare or addicted to drugs or alcohol. It's interesting, the two types look very different on the outside, but their internal landscape is similar. The self-saboteur also thinks she's not good enough, but has given up on disproving it.

What determines which way a daughter goes?

I was really interested in this question, especially since my sister and I fit this pattern— where I'm the "Mary Marvel." It's not entirely clear, but it seems that in the case of the over-achiever, she had someone in her life—maybe a grandmother—who gave her unconditional love.

What typically happens to these daughters in their own romantic relationships?

These daughters learn a distorted view of love. They learn that love is about "what I can do for you and what you can do for me." They may be overly dependent on their partners, or choose people who are entirely dependent on them. A healthy relationship, meanwhile, is based on the back and forth of interdependency.

How can an adult daughter "recover" from narcissistic mothering?

In the book I outline a 5-step program. The first part is accepting that you had a mother that didn't love you. This is very hard for some women to acknowledge, especially because daughters in these families were not taught to deal with their feelings.

Then the daughter must separate psychologically from her mother. Part of that is tapping into who she is and figuring out who she wants to be. It's also important to end the legacy, to prevent the next generation from suffering in the same way.

How can these women avoid becoming just like their mothers, then?

It's really about internal changes, and changing how they interact with other people.

You can learn how to be empathetic with your children. That doesn't mean loving "my kid the ballerina" or "my kid the soccer player," but really tuning into who your children are as people. And it's not about praising them just to praise them. That leads children to feel entitled, which is a narcissistic trait.

If these women treat their mothers differently, will the mothers react differently?

If a daughter starts setting boundaries in the beginning of this process, the mother's bad behavior may in fact escalate. That's why I often recommend a temporary separation.

The mothers may not change. I wouldn't want to give daughters hope that they will. But once a daughter understands her mother's narcissism, her own anger and resentment will fade. She can approach her mother in a loving way, and not as a victim.

It's really about accepting your mother's limitations. One of the women on my online forum described her old mentality toward her mother as something like this, "It's like my mom is colorblind, and I keep asking her to appreciate a rainbow."