The Sins Of The Father Essays - Psychiatric Diagnosis,

The Sins Of The Father The Sins of the Father What happens to children severely traumatized or neglected during the first years of life? This is an infinite topic, so the focus of this exploration will be limited to three personality disorders. The symptoms of these personality disorders are diagnosed in adulthood, but their roots lie in the first 4 years of life. Erikson's growth stages of trust vs. mistrust and autonomy vs. self-doubt will form the foundation for understanding. When a child is exposed to abusive, pathological parenting during these development stages the result is often a personality disorder. Personality disorders are enduring patterns of perception, which are maladaptive and cause significant functional impairment and/or subjective distress according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, edition 4. These disorders affect approximately 3% of our population and the number is probably significantly higher, except that many go undiagnosed. These people often suffer extraordinarily through out an entire lifetime and cause a great deal of suffering to those who love and interact with them. It is my intent to provide a general understanding of the people afflicted with these disorders. But more importantly, the causes that take place during infancy so that possibly some day the diseases can be eradicated. I will begin with the infant who is unable to be successfully fed and soothed at birth. Infants have very minimal needs but each need is crucial. The failure to meet any of these needs causes significant difficulty in adulthood. Infants are completely helpless; a tiny baby is unable to think for itself. Almost all feelings are intense and require adult intervention to help the infant manage the intensity. Lastly, the infant has absolutely no physical ability to do anything for itself including any mobility. Take a moment to try and imagine total helplessness and dependency on another for everything, hunger, comfort, warmth, communication and even the ability to calm oneself. An infant is born in a symbiotic state in which it is unable to differentiate between itself and the primary care giver. This is the foundation of trust. The caregiver must anticipate the needs of the infant and be able to interpret non-verbal clues, since the infant has no verbal communication skills. When a primary caregiver is unable to sense when the infant is hungry forces the infant into a panic. A pathological caregiver may either join in the infant's panic or ignore it. Both of these responses produce a hysterical infant in physical pain and extreme psychological distress. If the caregiver is unable to respond to the infant, the feelings of helplessness become a predominant part of the infants experience. The infant cries and cries, or withdraws, forming the experiential belief that it cannot survive or find stability. This is the very core of mistrust. The infant learns to mistrust the caregiver and internalizes the experience so as to mistrust itself. Remember the infant is unable to differentiate between the caregiver and itself. This is the foundation of significant distress and an inability to achieve a secure bond that in turn will be transferred to every relationship it has throughout life. The conflict of desperately needing to depend on another but being unable to trust another has begun formation. The conflict is then acted out throughout life in an attempt to resolve it. This inability to form a confident reliance in a primary relationship produces the basic underlying pathology for borderline, narcissistic and paranoid personality disorders. Significant characteristics of the borderline personality disorder include patterns of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, characterized by alternating between extremes of devaluation and over-idealization. A similar characteristic of the narcissistic personality disorder is continuous exploitation throughout the life of interpersonal relationships in order to achieve his or her needs with no concern for the needs of a partner. The narcissist also maintains a pre-occupation with fantasies of ideal love relationships and holds his or her partner responsible for all failures in the liaison. This pattern of an inability to trust is most predominantly displayed in the paranoid personality where interpersonal relationships, when they can exist, are marked by unjustified feelings of being exploited and constant doubt of a partners sincerity and loyalty with out justification