Relationship Unconscious

Whether I am serving in the role of executive coach or psychotherapist, most of my clients inevitably discuss problems they are having with a narcissistic manager. Elsewhere I have described the increasing prevalence of narcissism, a trend that ironically seems to be reinforced by cultural dynamics that emphasize the self or individual instead of, and often at the expense of, the other or the group. But in this particular podcast episode, I am going to focus on addressing narcissistic problems in the workplace, specifically when the employee is saddled with the challenge of a narcissistic boss and the disconcerting and highly manipulative drama he or she will create for the employee. If you are currently in the workplace, especially if you are employed in a relatively intense or high-profile industry at a prestigious firm, your chances of encountering a narcissistic boss are, unfortunately, quite high. Here are four things you should keep in mind about your narcissistic boss.

The 11 psychiatric diagnoses that make up the Anxiety Disorders category of the current psychiatric nomenclature center on the manifestation of worry, concern about future threats, ruminations about performance and social acceptance, and avoidance behaviors; paradoxically, as these concerns are emotionally and cognitively experienced and acted on, the level of anxiety rises rather than falls. Anxiety symptoms often begin suddenly within the context of a specific event or challenging situation, yet may persist and manifest in an emerging chronic condition. Anxiety often co-occurs with depression and is linked to a variety of other conditions including substance abuse, interpersonal difficulties, and reduced performance in academic and professional settings.

Despite the notoriety of the 2016 publication of Angela Duckworth's Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, it appears that a significant contingent of contemporary adolescents is trending toward attitudes and behaviors directly opposing the value of effort and, by extension, its apparent psychological, social and emotional benefits. We would probably agree that learning from failure and disappointment is a good thing at any age, but humility comes at a cost that some youths seem reluctant to pay.

Polarization is a common dynamic among couples that is unconsciously motivated and very hard to detect. When polarization occurs in relationships, it often yields conflict, distress, and impasse, with many couples who are polarized ultimately breaking up. But if the polarization had been addressed earlier and successfully reduced, there may have been an opportunity for the relationship to flourish.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, artist, and Latin and Greek scholar who is perhaps best known for his study of tragedy in ancient Greek mythology. Nietzsche conceptualized an important element of tragedy, the artistic depiction of human suffering. According to Nietzsche, theatre reified in spectators an appreciation of the human condition, the powerful forces that lead us astray, the dilemmas that have no solution, and the deterministic quality of flawed individual traits. Extending from these ideas, Nietzsche's concept of "eternal recurrence" denoted a sense of contentment with one's life and an acceptance of it. The notion of eternal recurrence has been linked to the Latin phrase "amor fati" which, loosely translated, means "love of fate" or "love of one's fate." It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or as meant to be, based on the origin of one's being and the many factors impacting this being.

As parents, most if not all of us probably hope that our own children will absorb the very best of us, our positive personality tendencies, our industrious habits, and our moral standards and values, and disregard the rest. The last thing we want to believe is that our worst characteristics -- a bad temper, for example, or persistent bouts of depression, or a predilection for failed relationships, will somehow be passed on to our children, troubling their existence now and into the future. But in my clinical work, it is not unusual to hear a parent describe with great concern how she is beginning to see some aspect of herself in her young child that has caused her to struggle throughout her life.

Often the solutions to many problems encountered in daily living and in contemporary relationships are not that difficult to reach. In fact, it seems to me that we often know what we need to do, as the issue at hand is not typically something we do not understand but something we do, in fact, understand all too well but merely have trouble accepting and, consequently, acting on once and for all. Instead, we tend to procrastinate or forestall, and a month turns into a year turns into a decade.   This inability to accept and act on what we recognize we must do is not a character flaw but, instead, seems to be a core element of the human condition, stemming from several key factors.

Counteridentification is an important term in psychological theory and in the literature on psychotherapy. It is also implicated in numerous problems that many adults experience. It refers to the common unconscious motivation in pre-adolescence and adolescence for the child to seek to be different from, and often opposed to, caregivers -- usually the parents. How the child seeks to be different from the parent may cover a range of qualities and characteristics, be it some aspect of the parent's personality, intellectual pursuits, behavior tendencies, social, political or cultural beliefs, even hobbies. A more global form of counteridentification is "counterwill," which numerous theorists conceptualize as the natural tendency to oppose anything or any person that makes demands on us, especially those demands that compromise our own uniqueness or individuality.

Many approaches to self-improvement and personal change are largely focused on self-understanding, on learning about one’s problematic or limiting beliefs, tendencies, and self-destructive actions.   Although this perspective on the internal, personal factors that may be responsible for a person’s discontent is important, it is certainly not the only perspective worth considering and, in my view, may actually limit what can be learned from other vantage points. Sometimes, how you see yourself, your problems, difficulties, and issues, is far less important than how you impact others. More specifically, what you elicit in others activates powerful relational and social dynamics that ultimately dictate your experience in the world far more than how you see, or feel about, yourself.  

There is an emerging body of scientific research indicating that the human brain is impacted by social experience in ways we did not realize previously. In the last several decades we learned that the brain is malleable, a discovery that continues to influence how the brain responds to trauma and other types of insult. But, beyond this, it now appears that social relations, all aspects of interpersonal experience, become imprinted on the brain, impact neurologic and physiological functioning, and ultimately linger as a kind of neurologic aura which sends signals to others in the social world. Essentially, experience changes the wiring of the brain and the nervous system, and this rewiring is unconsciously and inadvertently communicated. Somewhat eerily, what happens to a person relationally is not concealed within memory but revealed from one mind to another.