A Matter of Personality

From borderline to narcissism

David M. Allen M.D.

Nature vs. Nurture: Another Paradox

Neural connections in infants' brains are shaped through mutual interactions with their parents or other caretakers - a process whose importance is mandated by our genes.

The Idea of "Resilience" Can Marginalize Family Stress Level

In psychological research today, protective factors like resilience can get overemphasized—while the prevention and treatment of adverse childhood experiences gets short shrift.

Who’s In Charge – Parents or Kids? A Paradox

Making children the most important people in a home while catering to their every whim, and putting the parent's relationship second, can lead to a dysfunctional role reversal.

Who's to Blame for Family Dysfunction?

When each member of a relationship with problematic interactions singles out the other member’s contribution without also acknowledging their own role, problem-solving stops.

Dysfunctional Family Communication: Countering Tangents

Family conflicts are complex, and discussions about them may go in circles without anything being resolved. Here's a countermeasure.

Are Children "Geiger Counters" of Their Parents' Emotions?

Home environmental factors can lead children to develop both emotional and behavior problems.

Yet Another Strategy for Discussing Family Dysfunction

When you discuss sensitive issues with your parents, offering a guess as to why they do what they do - so they have to correct it - elicits more information than does a question.

False Assumptions in Personality Disorder Research, Part IV

Parts of normal brains change in size and activity level due to conditioned responses. A group average on some characteristic does not automatically apply to any one group member.

False Assumptions in Personality Disorder Research, Part III

Just because an individual doesn't do something does not prove that they lack the ability to do it. Relationships between parents and kids vary over time and over different issues.

False Assumptions in Personality Disorder Research, Part II

More illogical assumptions in personality disorders research: 1. social judgment is exercised independently from prior experience. 2. Confusion between correlation and causation.

False Assumptions in Personality Disorder Research, Part I

Authors of psychology studies often make illogical assumptions that are not spelled out. Awareness of these assumptions can show how their conclusions are completely invalid.

Confronting Dysfunctional Parents: Getting Sibs to Butt Out

With ongoing family dysfunction, all members of the family are more or less involved, and one of them may try to stop you if you start working for change. What to do?

Adult Sibling Rivalry and Family Dysfunction

Chronic fighting between adult siblings is at times not a random occurrence, but had been purposely engineered by parental behavior. Here is how it's done.

Successfully Confronting One's Parents: What Comes Next?

If you have successfully stopped repetitive dysfunctional interactions with your parents, with or without a therapist's help, there are still a few things you need to know about.

Invalidation of Patients by Therapists: "Job’s Counselors"

When a therapist assumes that strong emotional reactions are entirely due to abnormal distress tolerance, they invalidate patients by ignoring the severity of their stressors.

Is “Divorcing” a Toxic Parent the Best Strategy?

The advice to avoid all contact with "toxic" parents has become common today, but, while better than allowing abuse to continue, it does not really solve anything.

Study of Borderline Personality Disorder Observes Families

A study looked at interactions between young adult children with borderline personality disorder and their parents, revealing the ways children have to take care of the parents.

Depression: A Symptom, Not a Disorder

In the popular press and even in articles meant for professionals, the term "depression" is used as if it were a scientific word, when it is a symptom of many different diagnoses.

Where Psychotherapy Goes Wrong

Does your therapist seem to think your problems are all just due to your diseased mind or poor coping skills? They should be paying more attention to your social environment.

Research Into Borderline Disorder: A Mindless Assumption

When studying emotional reactions, psychological researchers often look at people as though their feelings are all generated completely from inside their heads.

How To Fail at Family Problem-Solving

When family members try to discuss their recurring, disturbing interactions, anger and frustration often result. There are many common strategic errors that lead to this outcome.

Therapy for Borderline Personality: Why It Takes So Long

Understandable mistrust of the therapist, along with fear, shame and complex interactions with family members, make psychotherapy with BPD patients very complicated.

Help Rejecting, Complaining Victims of Troublesome Spouses

How should you respond to a friend who is always complaining to you about their mate, but rejects any suggestion you make to them about how to handle their relationship?

Borderline Personality Disorder: Who Burdens Who?

Most personality disorders are in actuality a family affair, but saying this has become politically incorrect. Political considerations can trump scientific ones in science.

Dysfunctional Family Role: The “Loser”

Some adults who are actually perfectly normal act out in ways which ensure that they will always fail in life. They remain dependent on their parents for the sake of the parents.

Why Parents May Sacrifice their Own Children

Under certain circumstances, we have inherited a biological tendency to sacrifice ourselves and our children for our kin or social group. Abraham and Isaac's story is illustrative.

Performance vs. Ability in Psychology Research

Unwarranted assumptions invalidate research on personality disorders

Addict Cleans Up, Then Is Shunned by Family

Addiction is in the news again, and everyone wants to believe it's caused mostly by genetics. But a letter to a newspaper advice columnist reveals hidden family dynamics.

Intrapsychic Conflict and Dysfunctional Family Patterns

Conflicts within parents' minds over certain behavior can lead them to give double messages to kids, who in turn develop dysfunctional mental models about what is expected of them.

Family Dysfunction: How Therapists Get the Whole Story

Therapists have several useful techniques for getting shameful, protective, or guilty patients to open up and tell the whole story regarding dysfunction in their families.