By Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW, located in Bernardsville, New Jersey
Throughout graduate school for social work, when the professors were teaching us about how to establish a working therapeutic relationship with a client, they repeatedly drove into us to “have unconditional positive regard for the client.” Implied in that phrase is the stance that we cannot accurately help someone we have prejudged. We learned first and foremost to see the valuable human being behind the behavior, to have compassion, and understand the reasons that brought a person to their present circumstance, even if it is criminal behavior.
People in the helping profession are there in the first place because they are hopeful about making a difference through their work and tend to be optimistic about the processes that make that happen. Therapists believe that people can be honest with themselves and effect change in their lives. We see it happen before our eyes. We believe in the core goodness of human beings.
We see the good in others
Even if you’re not in a helping profession, you were probably raised with values that directed you to treat other people well and see the good in them. We are taught early on to be “nice” to others. If our sibling or friend hurt us, we were trained to make up with them. Most of us are taught that if a rift happens between us and someone else, we should take an honest look at ourselves and take responsibility for our part, not blame the other person. Many of us are raised with ideals, religious or otherwise, of forgiveness and non-judgment, which foster the idea that others should be valued and regarded with compassion and understanding. We should overlook a person’s faults as much as possible. We are taught to “listen to our conscience” to know when we’re doing something wrong. And, if we find we are doing something wrong, then we should change it to the better or right thing. It is expected to think that all humans have this same social concept of a conscience.
Bad behavior in movies
As Americans, we have all been influenced in our perceptions of criminals and bad behavior by movies and TV shows. Scripts are written to be layered, so they will usually show background psychology of why a person has gone wrong, always including some type of brutality or hardship from their past. If you have any heart at all, you have probably felt some compassion for this person. These portrayals encourage that same concept I ingested in graduate school, that people are inherently good. People start out good, and if they do bad things, it is because circumstances have molded them. So, wouldn’t it follow that with the right help or rehabilitation, they could resurrect that good person who got lost along the way?
We do tend to draw the line of redemption before the extreme savagery of, say, a serial killer, a “grudge collector” who opens fire at a crowd or schoolroom, or a terrorist — what the media may refer to as a “psychopath.” A show like “Criminal Minds” makes no bones in graphically portraying the savagery of the sadistic killer, making it hard to perceive that behavior as anything but evil. But, when the show traces his path from abused or neglected child to adult killer, in spite of ourselves, we can feel a twinge of pity for him. It is in the nature of people with consciences to feel empathy, if for no other reason that s/he is a human being like we are.
To make matters worse, we are raised on endless movies about the “bad boy,” or girl, turning around through the power of another’s love, romantic or otherwise. They inspire our faith in humanity. Some of these stories are even true. We cut our teeth on movies like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin,” driving home the “diamond in the rough” theme, that encourage us in the belief that people are inherently good and are capable of change. They affirm our belief in love.
Hard to accept evil
It’s easier for us to accept badness on a grand scale. There are a multitude of examples throughout recorded history of tyrants dehumanizing or annihilating people in their ruthless grasps for power, and on a lesser scale, cults. We have no problem calling this “evil.” We may understand people like that as having gotten too much power that has clearly corrupted their conscience. But, a regular individual in society must have that core of human goodness that can be turned around. Aren’t they the same as we are? So, they can change, too, right?
We don’t even like to judge people as bad or “evil.” That feels a little evil itself, doesn’t it, because of how we are taught to not judge and give a person the benefit of the doubt?! We don’t consider that everything in nature and psychology is on a spectrum, including the gradations of human evil. We certainly do not recognize evil in that disarming and charming person right before our eyes. Because we’ve been conditioned to believe in the inherent goodness of humanity, and that hope springs eternal, we don’t recognize danger behind those eyes of love. We don’t second-guess love.
This is why we are so we are so completely surprised at the devastation wreaked in our lives once those eyes target us.
DONNA, this is a terrific article. YES, we are taught to make things nice, at all costs, and to “look at their point of view.” In reference to spaths, this becomes pathological thinking because the inference is to accept the blame for another person’s actions. Somehow, we failed to “understand” these people, and that’s why we’re hurt.
Well, the truth is that some people are “bad people.” I don’t like it. I don’t “have” to like this fact. Whether I accept it, or not, won’t change this fact. So, then it comes down to a choice for me: accept the facts, or not.
I once didn’t second-guess “love.” In my previous life, when someone said the words, “I love you,” I believed that they meant it because I would not utter those words unless I meant them. The person that I am, today, recognizes that “evil” exists in the forms of parents, siblings, children and offspring, friends, coworkers, lawmakers, religious leaders, friends, and professionals. I still may balk at this fact, but it’s a fact, nonetheless.
Once again, I’ve read what I need to read WHEN I needed to read it. Thank you, Donna!
Brightest blessings
My spath has said these words:
“SOMEBODY HAS TO DIE”
“I WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE”.
“I AM EVIL”.
Can I ask you something? Would YOU ever say these things? Ever? Under any circumstances? To anybody?
Why would anybody say those things?
“Somebody has to die”
– because he feels that it’s true, to give him some relief.
“I will ruin your life”
– because that’s his intent, it’s his goal
– because he thinks that might happen, an accidential outcome
– because he thinks he’s that powerful
“I am evil”
– because he thinks he is?
I am blown away by these statements. I am trying to figure out what they mean. But then, they were spoken by a spath.
So, flip a coin, because a spath IS a lie. Any words that come out are garden salad. Nonsense. Lies.
I think.
Athena
Mary Ann,, thank you for this thought provoking article…I was just prior to logging on here and reading your article, I was reading the NYTimes article about the little girl in Pakistan who was shot in the head by the Taliban because she was a proponent of education for girls. As I read that article I kept thinking “A CULTURE of psychopathy”—an entire culture of hate and evil. Maybe those men (and women?) who are brought up to believe that God wants them to do this kind of thing in His name are not entirely “evil” or unreachable, and yet….it makes me wonder.
Being a Registered Nurse Practitioner I also had drummed into my head that I must be totally non judgmental about a patient, I must realize that their “lifestyle” was theirs and that I must accept them with unconditional positive regard.
Having been raised in a home where I was required to accept other people’s bad behavior with “unconditional positive regard” this came fairly easy to me. Also as a child of the 60s, the “love generation” of “flower children” I was also tolerant of “alternate life styles.”
However, as I have matured I have learned to be judgmental
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2011/03/25/being-a-judgmental-person-is-more-than-okay-it-is-wise/
I have learned that I am not required to accept bad behavior toward me or anyone else with “unconditional positive regard”
Fortunately, I am retired, so this change in attitude does not effect my professional life. But come to think of it, I have “fired” medical patients in the past who were repeatedly non-compliant with treatment to the point of endangering their lives and whom I “encouraged” to find another provider as I was “not able to help” them.
In my personal life now, I set firm boundaries…and I do not believe that “everyone deserves a second (or third or fourth) chance”—I do not believe that there is good in everyone–I do not believe that everyone can change.
I now accept full responsibility for my own choices, choices that got me into a lot of hot water by believing false things…by believing that there is good in everyone, that all people can change if you are accepting enough and model good behavior….I made those choices to try to effect changes in those psychopaths around me. Now I realize I made poor choices based on false beliefs and I have changed my beliefs and am now operating on a different level of choices.
Oxy,
maybe the correct word is not “judgemental” but rather, “discerning”.
God judges us. We discern what or who is good for us or not.
Mary Ann, all your points are right on. I can relate to each.
Add to that our own integrity. We function as whole individuals who behave according to our stated beliefs. We were not brought up to believe that there are so many hypocrites out there who lead double lives, have split personalities, lie about everything and generally are dr jeckyll and mr. hyde.
Believing that all people are inherently good is something we choose to believe. We learned that belief and we can “unlearn” it as well.
What taught us that everybody is born good? Wishful thinking? I can’t think of anything.
There are plenty of instances suggesting that everybody has a chance to be bettered, but what specifically has taught us that everyone is born good or that all people can be improved are facts? I cannot think of anything.
We can reach those conclusions by inference, but I have never seen any evidence proving that either is a fact.
Believing that nobody is born evil and that everybody can be made into a “better” person give the general population a sense of security, but it is a false sense of security in my estimation.
Once upon a time, we could believe such things because people were born, lived their lives, and died within small geographical areas. Our worlds were very small. We knew our neighbors and we knew what was abnormal for our homes. A bad person stood out. If the individual didn’t change for the better, there were real risks of starvation or total rejection.
Nowadays, many people escape detection and if they are detected, they just move on to the next unsuspecting (and welcoming) group.
With the rise of rapid transportation, which I mark as starting with trains and people moving to cities, which began happening en masse as the Industrial Revolution took hold, we began encountering people from different cultures. They looked and acted different from us.
We lost our control over what was “normal.” We had no tools or knowledge to discern if what we saw was normal or not, and besides, who was in charge to say who was right? Social norms are hard to enforce with large clusters of people and could not keep people’s behavior in check.
We began relying more on the police and courts. The fields of medicine expanded and mental health became a recognized field of expertise, but even these lacked any guidelines as to what degree they were on the right track. All of these entities gave us a false sense of security that somebody could identify what was going on and would taking care of things for us.
Accepting that there are people who are born evil means our world is not safe nor is it predictable. How can one control what is not predictable?
Is our world entirely unpredictable?
Envision a world where believing that some people are born evil is commonplace.
We wouldn’t rush to have our children make up with the others when schoolyard disputes arise. We would be teaching them to be wiser with their playmate selections and to avoid those who deliberately hurt others.
We wouldn’t split hairs over bullying. It would be unacceptable not just with children bullying children, but with teachers and parents who bully children or judges who feel public humiliation done by these adults is acceptable.
We wouldn’t be accepting that parents have the right to discipline their children however they wish. (I just flashed on the image of that Texas judge whipping his daughter that was in the news last year.)
The courts wouldn’t force children to be repeatedly returned to abusive parents because the parents’ rights to their children override the children’s safety. The courts and others in power wouldn’t turn a blind eye on those suspected of sexual abuse.
Therapists would not press families to reconcile with known abusers. Individuals would not be re-victimized by well-meaning mental health workers pushing for an often unachievable state of everybody getting along. We would know that therapy does not work for everyone and in the case of psychopaths is actually counter-productive.
We wouldn’t open our doors to just anyone or immediately embrace the newcomer as one of us. We would know how to recognize real love and not fall for a con. We would know better to think twice before handing over our money or other valuables to smooth talkers and nice guys.
The burden of protecting ourselves wouldn’t fall to the police or courts. We wouldn’t be turning to “the experts” all the time because with enough education and awareness, we will achieve that expertise and be able to handle these things on our own as they happen.
We wouldn’t be abdicating our safety to overwhelmed systems that cannot address all the problems that arise.
We would know better and be less accepting and tolerant of unacceptable behavior. We would be cautious, but not paranoid. We would be wise and prudent, not naive and foolhardy.
We wouldn’t be expecting politicians to straighten out the economy and we wouldn’t tolerate laws or politicians that permit a select few to exploit the masses.
There would be more education of what we will accept and what it will not. We will empower ourselves and finally dissolve the last of the serf/overlord mentalities.
We can control our world to a large extent and make it safer. We cannot make it perfect, but we certainly can improve on the status quo.
I think we’ve been on a learning curve. In terms of the years of human existence, the steam locative and mass production happened a short blip ago. We had nothing to address the new society that evolved and why wouldn’t we have referred to what we knew was tried and true?
We have a new world developing at our feet and that is the world of information exchanged via the Internet. Lovefraud is part of the new world. Think of all the information and education that we are providing, not just via articles, but by sharing our personal experiences.
The glib lawyers and judges have had their day. People know better now and cannot be bamboozled by somebody talking over their heads. It’s far too easy to vet statements and information.
We took our best shot and hoped for the best. Who could have predicted what we would find when we exchanged our agrarian society for urban centers? We gave everyone the benefit of the doubt and we have learned the hard way that isn’t always appropriate.
Articles such as this one get the word out and our responses support it.
Thank you, Mary Ann. It was a wonderful piece. Please keep writing.
One of the factors that is in play is “Tolerance.”
The Intolerance of Tolerance by D.A. Carson
According to Carson, the old meaning of tolerance presupposed disagreement. One person expresses a belief and another disagrees with him while still holding fast to his own. In other words, he accepts that other beliefs exist outside of his own.
Contrary to the old tolerance, today’s version of tolerance actually accepts all differing views. That is to say, we have gone from accepting the existence of other views to believing that we need to accept all differing views. And if you think about it, there is no way that we can do this without rejecting the notion of absolute truth!
The second one is what society is teaching these days. That being “tolerant” is revered that we need/must accept all differing views. And this leads to no truths and ill defined personal boundaries.
Added: It also has a built in guilt trip and shame trip.
My 2 Cents
T
http://www.geekinheels.com/2012/03/25/reverent-sundays-the-intolerance-of-tolerance.html
We are now taught it seems that “tolerance” of “alternative life styles” and “different cultures” and to have OPEN MINDS until our brains fall out of our heads.
It is NOT an ACCEPTABLE “alternate life style” to have sex with children in MHO.
It is NOT an ACCEPTABLE “religious culture” that shoots 14 year old girls in the head for wanting girls to be educated IMHO.
It is a MYTH that there are “two (valid) sides to every story.
It is a LIE that “there is good in everyone”
It is NOT TRUE that “it takes two to fight”
We are taught that we must be supportive of whatever someone else believes even if what they believe is counter to our own culture.
A survey in the UK recently of Pakistani men BORN in the UK of immigrant parents that 20% of them believed that “honor killing” was a good thing if some woman in the family dishonored the family. 20% of men who were raised in the UK, not in Pakistan, but the culture of “honor killing” continues.
For parents, teachers and therapists to teach that “there is good in everyone, and everyone deserves a second chance, etc” is counter productive to reality in my opinion.
Sorry for the rant! Just MHO.
Oxy
Agree!
I recently started a new job and I have met alot of really nice people. But I can see the spath’s and narc’s, they are everywhere.. nobody has messed with me, it must be the invisible tattoo on my forehead that only spaths, narc’s and vampires can see..it say’S..DONT EVEN THINK YOU CAN FUCK WITH ME..
Oh my!