Personality disorders are a type of
mental disorder that arises when one has a rigid and unhealthy way of thinking,
functioning and behaving. People usually have troubles relating to people
and/or situations which lead to problems in social relationships. A kind of the
same is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The hallmarks of Narcissistic
Personality Disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people,
and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described
as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also concentrate
on opulent fantasies (e.g. their own success, beauty, brilliance) and may be
convinced that they deserve special treatment. These characteristics typically
begin in early adulthood and must be consistently evident in multiple contexts,
such as at work and in relationships (Psychology Today, 2018).
People with this disorder, tend to
feel that they are superior or special, and tend to enhance their own self
esteem but are fragile underneath the surface. They continue to seek excessive
admiration, approval and validation for their own selves, and hence have
difficulty in accepting criticism or failure. I found a unique adaptation of
this disorder, portrayed through the evils of modern society in an episode of
the show Black Mirror, and through
this post, I will use the episode to highlight the understanding of
Narcissistic Personality Disorder as a consequence of one’s environment.
Black
Mirror is a British science-fiction anthology television series, that
focuses on the unanticipated consequences of technological advancements in
modern technology. The episodes focus on the influence of technology, and gives
us space to question whether technology is really a boon or just mere dependence,
or worse so addiction.
Season 3, Episode 1 of the show, “Nosedive”
creates a dystopia where it uses technology as a possible cause of personality
disorders, which lead to obsession with the physical portrayal of oneself in
the society. The episode follows the story of Lacie, who is living in a society
where everyone I ranking each other on the basis of every social interaction
they have through an app which is synced with reality. This creates a hierarchy
of social standing based on the rankings one has out of five. The consequence of
this technology is that people try to pretend, try to change their own
behaviour and try to be more likable in order to bump up their own ratings.
Therefore, those with lower ratings are ostracized and not considered as being worthy
of any kind of interaction. What this episode highlights is that there is
nothing about the self that is left to it’s original, everything is determined
by what others think of them specially with our protagonist.
Though it does not say explicitly,
but many analysis of the episode say that the protagonist, Lacie does show symptoms
of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Lacie, is shown to be preoccupied with
fantasies of her own success, power, beauty and intelligence by gaining a
higher ranking from other. She fights with her brother, Ryan over the fact that
she can’t be understood by him, and only the society understands her and has no
empathy towards those who are at lower ranks. She is seen to require constant
attention and admiration from others, to seek which she goes extreme lengths of
faking social media updates about her life, pretending to know people and is envious
of those who have a better social media face. She is portrayed as arrogant and
wants to use her best friend’s wedding to get a higher rating for herself so
that she can a be accepted in a higher rated residential area.
What is unique about the portrayal of
this disorder is that it is shown as a system in the society rather than just something
an individual is diagnosed with. It creates a dystopia where everyone, at a
lower rank is going through the same thing as Lacie does, the obsession with
self and disregard for others. The causes for disorders like this can be
biological but environment and life experiences do play out in the case of such
mental illnesses, and in Lacie’s case her entire environment functions on this
system, reinforcing the idea to function in a conceited way. They show the
great deal of grandiosity and at the same time the high number of
vulnerabilities that each person in this society posses and hence becomes a
live manifestation of the disorder in the form of a social structure.
In a clinical setting individual
and group psychotherapy focusing on transference and schemas is usually
encouraged to help individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder relate to
others in a more compassionate way. This dystopian fiction uses acute social
satire to show how our environment, especially social media, technology and
increasing self occupancy can lead to since adverse effects on the self.
(Remedial Blog Post for Quiz 10)
(Remedial Blog Post for Quiz 10)
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