AboutLaurie Hamilton Expertise I am able to answer questions regarding Scientology practices and procedures, belief system, donations, religious rites, management, administrative and staff matters.
Experience I am a second generation Scientologist whose parents began in Dianetics in 1950 and studied directly with L. Ron Hubbard. I have been personally active in the church for 40 years, have eleven years former staff experience in both technical and administrative areas, and extensive technical and administative training and counseling. I am "clear" and "OT." I come from an extended family of many religions, but my spouse and children are Scientologists, as are my siblings and their spouses, several cousins, nieces, nephews, an aunt, and an uncle. Between us we have had every good and bad experience one might go through in the church at every level.
Question Laurie, I was wondering if you might be able to help me understand narcissistic personality disorder as it relates to the reactive mind.
Since Scientology generally categorizes mental problems as "case", it's hard for me to understand what specific aspect of case this disorder is.
Is NPD a manic-type disorder? I was reading some of it's symptoms and they seem to correlate with what Hubbard would call covert hostility but covert hostility stems from fear...not from a need for admiration right?
I also read what you said about admiration and how some people are shy about it because maybe they don't want to be thoroughly acknowledged. That's an interesting concept. I know I've experienced moments when I wanted a lot of attention, got the attention and then caved under the pressure of "being watched".
Having other people's attention is a pre-requisite for communication though. At what point does that kind of normal attention-seeking turn into an all out disorder, especially say, for an artist whose purpose is to communicate?
Answer Sorry for the delay. Fried computer. Jammed-up schedule.
One reason for not being able to understand what specific aspect of case NPD is, is that we don't categorize or label "conditions" or "sydromes" or particular packages of case problems.
NPD is one of the many faces of what, if you compare the person's overall behaviors to what can be seen in the antisocial personality, you will see is one such.
Again, the antisocial personality, which is convenient to "label," is no one discreet package of personality traits. It exists within a range of traits that stem from a terror of others, a certainty that one is under attack from all directions, and a need to make nothing of others for the sake of one's own survival. This in turn stems from a restimulation of some ancient circumstance wherein the person really WAS under threat of extinction from all sides. Such circumstance would be unique to each such case.
Admiration, as I described before, is total, perfect "appreciation," which, technically, can make MEST disappear. To the degree a person misconceives themselves to be MEST, they'd be likely to fear admiration, I would think.
Attention is not admiration. It is merely directed awareness - which, yes, is necessary for communication. Seeking attention or admiration is, perversely, unhealthy when it is a substitute for self-awareness. The core dynamic of theta with regard to the MEST universe is the command or urge to survive. In other words, continue to exist. One tends, if one is playing the MEST game, to be on the lookout for feedback validating one's continued existence, or "aliveness" - for evidence of the effects one has created. Pure, unsullied self-awareness makes such feedback unnecessary, even if it can be satisfying. Compulsive seeking of such feedback is indicative of anxiety over one's own existence. This can exceed anxiety, to the point of terror - wherein even momentary lack of validation invokes the specter of disappearance. In a catch-22 inversion, such a person lives in fear of being actually *seen*, which is more dangerous still - so there's the tightrope act - the man behind the curtain in OZ who craves continual praise and trembling and illusions they create, while living in abject terror of being detected. It's so ironic it would be funny if such people weren't some of the most dangerous ones alive.
