Gifts of wounds and personality disorders traits | Fiann Paul | TEDxBend

We know a lot about the burden of the wounds that we carry and how we struggle with them. Personality disorders from a social point of view are perceived as something dysfunctional. But perhaps they were the driving force, which perhaps set many remarkable individuals on their mission to contribute to the development of our civilization.

Fiann Paul is one of the world's most record breaking explorers, and one of the most record breaking athletes. His careers in sports, art, and psychology, embody the antique, Greek concept of Arete, multipotential development. He is also an accomplished photographer, and a postgraduate student of Depth Psychology, his main focus being the research of the psychological background of explorers, adventurers, and ultra-endurance athletes.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

"Life's blade

Deep cuts

Many to burden and dust

Some into diamonds"

I wrote this haiku,

and I would like it to indicate

that we know a lot about the burden
of the wounds that we carry

and how we struggle with them.

Personality disorders

from a social point of view
are perceived as something dysfunctional.

But I would like to focus
on the gifts of wounds

and personality disorders traits

that I metaphorically
related to as diamonds.

And I would like to take us on a journey

to find out that maybe
some of these traits

set someone on a mission to the moon

or on a mission to liberate our planet
from the trap of fossil fuels.

I am an explorer
and an endurance athlete,

and for a lengthy amount of time,

I need to endure environments
that look like this.

When I started organizing
my own expeditions,

I learned what kind
of personality traits I am looking for

in order to identify the best candidate
for a team member,

and I was surprised to find out later,
when I learned psychology,

that all these traits are listed there
on the maps of personality disorders.

(Laughter)

So I realized that I'm looking
for immunity to hardship,

compulsion to perform,

preference of solitary activities,

master at self-preservation,

so I basically realized
that I am looking for crazy people

(Laughter)

and that I am cultivating
craziness myself,

but to be precise: crazy enough,

because today, we don't talk anymore
about disorders in the binary mode,

as in we have it or we don't have it,

but we are talking
about the continuum of the disorder

and the traits of the disorder,

and we all are somewhere
on this continuum.

I decided to highlight here
the disorders that offer some gifts -

not all of them do,

and not everybody
manages to harvest them,

but many do -

and I will focus on these today.

I dare to consider that these traits
were strictly linked to endurance hunting,

and possibly,

from the evolutionary perspective,
genetically reinforces preferable ones.

Endurance hunting

is not only related to the origin
of the endurance performance of humankind,

but in my opinion,

it is also essentially related
to the origin of the humankind itself.

Endurance is the only aspect
of physical performance

where humans can outperform
all the other land mammals -

not speed, not strength,
not explosive power,

but endurance.

Physicality apart,

I decided to investigate the most
contributing individuals in history

and find out whether they also
displayed any of these traits,

and I was shocked to find out

that they not only displayed
some of these traits,

but actually, their contributions
were based on these traits.

I will start with something easy to grasp:

A person who cuts
human hearts with a blade

remains calm and focused
and emotionally detached,

it must be a psychopath, right?

(Laughter)

Indeed - so must be a cardiac surgeon.

Indeed.

But it is a very positively
and constructively channeled psychopathy.

The gifts of this skill are splendid,
and the contribution to humanity is vital.

We need it exactly this way.

Psychopathy is defined
as complete shutdown of feeling function.

When we completely
shut down feeling function,

we are capable of doing pretty odd things.

Through deeper psychological prism,

I would like to introduce
the most explicit example

of wounds and contribution:
schizoid personalities.

Schizoid shouldn't be
confused with schizophrenic -

that's a different thing.

Schizoids are those

who not only manage to harvest
some of the gifts of wounds,

some of the diamonds,

but they're actually those

thanks to whom - and I would dare
to say only thanks to whom -

the entire civilization progressed.

What made them capable
of contributing so much?

If you think of 10
most prominent scientists,

nine of them will be
either schizoid personalities

or very high on the schizoid continuum.

Imagine you're playing
a role-playing game,

and imagine that just as it is
in a role-playing game,

you have certain amount of skill points

and you need to dispose them
into different skill bars

in order to constitute the character
and the attributes of the character,

and imagine you put all these skill points
into one particular area,

which in the case
of schizoid personalities

most frequently happens to be
intellectual capacity.

As a result, you have an individual

who is elevated to the level of genius
in one particular area

but is pretty miserable
in the most basic aspects of life.

(Laughter)

But as a result, this person
can climb to the top of the skill bar

and share the gifts
from the top of the mountain

that harmoniously developed individual
wouldn't be capable of climbing.

When we research personality disorders,
we will come across symptoms,

and symptoms are very incomplete

when it comes to understanding
the whole complexity of it.

What's really revealing are causes,

causes that expose the machinery
behind the drive of the psyche.

And when it comes to causes,

we learned that schizoid personalities

were wounded the deepest
among all the personality disorders

in the earliest
and the most critical stage

of personality development -

in the infancy.

And as a result,

the access to the most
basic aspects of life is denied.

If it was a role-playing game,
we will talk about adventure skills,

but because it is life,
we are talking about life skills,

such as connectedness, intimacy, bonding,

sexuality, physicality, emotionality.

And lack of possibility to initiate
development in these particular areas -

and they are denied
because they either triggered the wound

or they threatened the ego,

so it's not safe to go there -

is overcompensated to overdevelopment

in one area that is safe
and allows this development to happen.

Among many intriguing features,

schizoid personalities

often happen to choose difficulty
as preferable lifestyle

because it helps them
to reenact the difficulty of the origin

that is perceived as native
so it psychologically feels homey.

And if another aspect of life
is chosen for overcompensation -

something slightly more physical
than intellectual capacity -

then this person will be climbing this top
of the skill bar that I mentioned,

free solo.

(Laughter)

Next swing of the life blade:
OCPD personalities.

OCPD shouldn't be confused with OCD.

These are different things.

OCD is a person who compulsively
washes hands 30 times a day;

OCPD, obsessive compulsive
personality disorder,

is a person who is characterized
by compulsion to perform

and being completely and constantly
task and goal oriented

and having no access to leisure mode,
among many other attributes.

If you think of 10
most prolific entrepreneurs,

eight of them were
either OCPD personalities

or very high on the OCPD continuum.

What made them capable
of creating this impressive enterprises?

Imagine that all the love, care, passion,
time, attention, energy, focus

that you dedicated to your dear ones -

to your family, to your friends,
to your children -

imagine you dedicated
all to your enterprise.

It's an incredible amount
of passion and potential,

and individuals fueled by this passion
can work 16 hours a day

and may happen to manage
to elevate this enterprise

to the rank of international empire.

But again, causes will be
more revealing than symptoms,

and when we look at causes,
it is that OCPD personalities

deploy this strategy of being
constantly busy and work oriented

in order to avoid connecting

to something that's perceived
as frightening, painful, or difficult,

usually in the emotional realm
of past or presence.

It is a very effective strategy;

to put it simple,

if we don't want to feel
or think about something that hurts,

we make ourselves constantly busy.

Each of us must have done it
a couple of times in life, right?

It works.

But it is again very positive,
productive and constructive strategy

because dark version of the same strategy
deployed for the same agenda

could be addiction.

For a reason,

even when it comes to semantics,

alcoholic and workaholic
share common denominator.

And further into semantics,

the word "business" indicates
one's choice to be rather busy,

and it's very relevant here.

Next swing of the life's blade:
narcissistic personality.

What I've learned during my expeditions

is that narcissism is very well defined
by self-preservation,

and self-preservation is defined

as effort to protect oneself
from being destroyed or harmed.

We all need certain amount
of self-preservation.

That's absolutely necessary
for healthy functioning.

It could be labelled
as "healthy narcissism."

When we have no
self-preservation whatsoever,

as some claim they have
no narcissism whatsoever -

and some really do -

then they fall on the other end
of the continuum:

dependent personality traits,
deficiency of self-preservation.

Neither is better

because either you harm others
or you allow others to harm you;

in the end, somebody's being harmed -
the overall balance is the same.

As an explorer, you need
excessive amounts of self-preservation

to maintain yourself
for a lengthy amount of time

in a completely uninhabitable
environment without injury,

period.

It's an unavailable skill
for regular people.

But where science went wrong

is where it assumed
that this excessive self-preservation

needs to manifest itself
as excessive careful looks,

as it was in the case
of mythical Narcissus,

who fell in love with his own reflection,

and from where the name
"narcissism" was derived.

This excessive self-preservation

typically is a response to excessive
devaluation in the childhood,

among environmental factors.

And it's not even the only one,
but it's the main one -

I'm simplifying it -

or the common one,

and it can be processed
in different aspects of life,

such as fame, power, status, wealth.

And these individuals

are not necessarily obsessed
about their physical appearance,

but they properly cultivate narcissism,

and therefore,

I would like to postulate renaming
"narcissistic personality disorder"

into "excessive self-preservation,"

just like "borderline"
was properly renamed

into "emotional instability"

because it would help in two ways:

One, it would help
to indicate the right context

when it comes to grasping the complexity
and the background of it.

Two, it would help
to initiate the healing process

because it would help one understand

that "okay, I was excessively devalued,
and I decided to overprotect myself.

I raised my guards up.
I never managed to put them down.

I decided to attack others, abandon,
or devalue them before they devalue me

because these are the ways
of cultivating my self-preservation" -

it gives valid clues.

Now, I mentioned
where OCPD or schizoid people

contribute to our humanity,

but where do narcissistic
people contribute?

Well, most likely, they would
want to end up in the places

where you shine the most
and you do the least,

(Laughter)

but sometimes they also
often master, as a result,

the art of presenting themselves.

And it's pretty pleasant
to listen to them and look at them

because admiration
coming from the outside

increases self-preservation
and the power aspect,

and that builds an industry
called entertainment industry,

for example,

which is one of the biggest
industries that we deploy -

we pay for it, we need it,
and it is a valid contribution.

They also happen to be political leaders.

Sometimes personal aspirations

may happen to be aligned
with national ambitions,

often for bad, but sometimes for good.

They also may happen
to become entrepreneurs,

but nothing like OCPD entrepreneurs
looking for a compulsion for work;

quite the contrary, they will be
the most opportunistic entrepreneurs

looking for the shortest way to success,

they will climb the ladder
of success in the cruel way -

cut the corners, break rules, break law -

and their biographies will be interlaced
with pretty massive amounts of hedonism.

Lastly,

(Laughter)

the dark diamonds of narcissism:

income.

Today, narcissism
is the main pillar of fame,

and attention is nothing
unless it translates itself into income.

If you look at the most followed
Instagram celebrities,

they harvest ginormous income
fueled by, most of all, narcissism,

and this is not a gift to humanity,
but it's a gift to ourselves:

We all care about income; it matters.

Sadly, this particular dynamics
often inspire others.

Last swing of the life's blade:
dependent personality.

Analogically,

I would like to postulate redefining,
renaming "dependent personality"

into "deficiency of self-preservation"

because, again, it would indicate
the right direction

when it comes to grasping
the complexity of it.

Dependence may make us
assume intuitively

that it's related to maybe somebody
depending on another person financially,

which may rarely be the case,
but it's often quite the way around.

The dependence is very complex;

it's more like they depend on others
depending on them.

Let's keep the complexity apart.

What defines these personalities
deficiency of self-preservation?

Narcissists was someone

who, as a reaction to devaluing
our critical parents in the childhood,

took a power path

and decided to overcompensate,
overprotect, and fight back.

Dependent person decided to comply

and decided to give away
self-preservation to compliance path,

and as a result, gave away time,
energy, space, feelings -

in the future - also money.

And often a strategy
to cultivate compliance is care,

and this care defines
this dependent personality very well.

And I would like to focus

on the most touching and explicit example
of a personality disorder,

when this care is elevated
to extra orbital level

and we are facing the phenomenon
of parentification.

Parentified child is a child

who at the very early age
assumed parental duties

because it decided
to take into its little hands

the mess that the family environment
was objectively perceived to be

and take it to a better place,

and as a result, this child
lived the duties of three lives.

I say duties because there were
no pleasures left.

Duties of a child: continued education.

Duties of the head of the house:

make sure that the food is on the table
and that everybody is well -

siblings, parents -

not always because parents failed,

often so,

but sometimes they were sick
or, sadly, they died.

And lastly, duties of adult:

generating income, working.

All of it, simultaneously,
as early as even at the age of eight -

seriously.

As a result, this child develops
superhuman capacity and skills,

and in the future also often creates
incredible enterprises,

not because of, like schizoid people,
they need to validate basic birthright,

not like OCPD people,
because out of compulsion to perform,

not like narcissistic people,

out of need to increase the power aspect
and self-preservation,

but because nothing
will ever feel difficult again

in comparison to the hell
the childhood was.

And I would give you an analogy to it.

When I come back from all
those journeys lasting two months

and holding ores in my hands
with pretty tight grip on them

nearly continuously

and I stand on the dry land
and I touch my hair,

to my desensitized sense of touch,
this hair doesn't exist -

each time I hope it exists -

(Laughter)

because on the continuum
of the state of matter,

it doesn't make it to solids,

it is perceived to my desensitized
touch, this softness,

as something between liquids and gases.

So it is for a parentified child
in the adulthood

when it comes to the perception
of optimal workload:

what for most of people

is perceived as optimum,
next to overloading,

for this child, it is
just a prelude to work.

Also, as dependent personalities
happen to choose this care

as one of the main strategies
for cultivating compliance,

they also, professionally,
often end up in places or professions

where you can cultivate this care,

and this care can be directed
towards humans, animals, or nature.

There's their major contribution.

They also often happen to be the engine
behind the career of another person,

but due to their deficiency
of self-preservation,

they will not claim rights
of recognition or exposure.

There is this famous statement
dating to prior to gender-equality times,

"Behind every great man,
there is a great woman" -

today, outdated -

that indicates these dynamics
very accurately.

And also, as they offer this care
excessively easy

because of the deficiency
of the preservation,

many will take advantage on them -

unfair advantage,
personally or professionally -

but there, of course, will be also people
who will genuinely benefit.

We know stories of orphaned children
who were raised to become presidents -

thanks to somebody's
genuine care like this.

Now, the question arises:

What to do with all these individuals?

To heal them while
they contribute so much?

Or to let them contribute

while they suffer
and their nearest circle suffers?

There is no definite answer to it.

We all have to answer ourselves.

Today, I would like
to encourage each of us

to contemplate our own scars and diamonds

and think how we can relate to them
and how we can harvest them,

but also to contemplate
the scars and diamonds

of those who lived before us.

Thank you.

(Applause)