Personality Disorders and Public Behavior

All of the Personality Disorders are defined with one commonality: Lack of empathy. This lack of empathy in a person with a Personality Disorder is often the form of inability to let attention go to anyone else (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), violating the rights of others with no regard for the harm done to others, or enjoying the harm done to others (Antisocial Personality Disorder), to a general disconnect from others and inability to establish and maintain functional relationships with other (Schizoid and Schizotypal Personality Disorders).

Given this shared feature, mental health professionals and researchers have found a correlation between leaders of groups that create radicalization (political, religious, and other cult groups) and susceptible individuals who are at risk of being recruited. The shared feature is lack of empathy, or, more directly, individuals who have a personality disorder.

The recruitment process is direct: Appeal to the Personality Disordered person’s emotions of “you are better than” others; then just define a group of people who are “less than” the targeted person to recruit. Those individuals with a Personality Disorder are more likely to accept such an attempt at recruitment. Given the advanced analytics in social media, combined with algorithms used to promote a specific message to specific media consumers, the recruitment process can be very effective.

The recruiting organization, be it a religious, political, or other organization, engages in a variety of ways to recruit new members. For an individual with a Personality Disorder, one of the most effective ways to gain attention is to promote the thought that the person is superior to others, and “only” the recruiting organization has the solution to make this feeling continue. Another method used by a recruiting organization is to appeal to people with Personality Disorders fear. This approach entices the mark to be afraid of the “others”, and therefore to rally with the organization as “protection” against the vilified “others” who would, purportedly, do harm to the mark.

The result of this recruitment is that there are vast numbers of people who have been recruited into cults that are meant to fleece the individuals of their self-identity, and to achieve a goal of the organization.

Once an individual with a Personality Disorder is successfully recruited attends a public event (political rally, religious gathering, sales team education meeting), a fascinating phenomenon occurs: Mass Psychotic Disorder (with Delusional Disorder as the specific commonality), or Folie A Deux. In the case of Folie A Deux, a person with a Personality Disorder can be convinced to accept obvious lies as being truths.

The result of this radicalization of individuals with a Personality Disorder is that other members of that target person’s immediate circle of family and friends can also be radicalized through the Folie A Deux phenomenon, if those people who lack a Personality Disorder attend the public events.

People with a Personality Disorder often are rejected by family members and friends because they see that the afflicted person is delusional. Also, radicalized individuals often reject their family and friends in favor of joining the “movement” that acts as a surrogate family, from whom they derive a more complete feeling of “belonging”.

TREATMENT OF INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE PERSONALITY DISORDERS, AND ALSO MAY HAVE FOLIE A DEUX:

The most effective treatment for Shared Delusional Disorder and the negative attributes of a Personality Disorder is prevention. The most effective preventative measure is a good primary education, and consistent exposure to cultural differences. In this way young individuals learn that other cultures, groups of people, and those with different personal characteristics, are equal to each other; the only differences are individual characteristics, belief patterns, language, socio-economic status, and other qualities. Also, a person with a good primary education is able to detect when they are trying to be unduly influenced by others.

Barring prevention, the other best intervention for those people with a Personality Disorder is to appeal to their best interests. For those with a lack of empathy a direct appeal to care about their effect on others is meaningless. Instead. the person with a Personality Disorder must understand that, for their own best interest, they NEED to change behaviors so that they can have a feeling of belonging to a new group.

To achieve this goal there needs to be a group of individuals available who can appeal to the party with a Personality Disorder that replaces the cult that they belong to. This can be challenging from a treatment perspective, because society is currently on lockdown due to COVID-19, and social outlets are less common, unless found online. However, often it only takes a connection with one other person that has a common interest to prevent the person from engaging in radicalized behaviors.

The most common “treatment” for those with a Personality Disorder is official sanction, punishment, arrest, conviction and incarceration/detention in criminal justice or mental health facilities. The reason that formal incarceration of other kinds of judicial oversight is a common intervention is based on the common occurrence that the Personality Disorder is never fully identified in the person soon enough to be prevented.

This link provides an example of how a simple Foliex A Deux has been documented in one case.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252781/

This link is to a journal abstract that shows how political motives are driven by different personality traits:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26598789

The concept of Personality Disorder and religious beliefs is addressed in this article:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/01612840.2010.558234?scroll=top&needAccess=true&

This link to a Scientific American article shows current thinking of Personality disordered individuals and their susceptibility to radicalization in a political context:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/

If you believe that you have a Personality Disorder, you are unusual; most people deny that they have symptoms of a Personality Disorder. Most commonly a family member identifies the dysfunctional issues and brings the patient to therapy so as to prevent worsening behaviors. More commonly, though, people with a Personality Disorder are mandated to mental health treatment by the Judicial system.

If you believe a family member or friend has a Personality Disorder, and you need assistance to reduce the harm associated with that person’s public behavior, please set up an appointment with us as soon as you can.