Thanks for the heads up.
“And the RCC will stand mute for as long as it can to protect them.”
That’s a good point. I wonder what our own “Dr Phil” thinks of this phenomenon?
A tip off for PDs is the obvious need to control.
This is why I tend to lump Substance Abuse problems with PDs, though I suspect the genetic component to Substance Abuse problems may be more important. But they both involve profound demonstrations of the need to control and to avoid anxiety and they both IMHO require extensive group work if any recovery is to be possible. I suspect the recovery form S-E and other PDs is lower that than from substance abuse problems.
Anyway the need to control so that anxiety can be avoided leads to an urge to prevent real dialog. Real dialog requires a willingness to think new thoughts. More robust personalities can entertain new ideas and even enjoy doing so. More fragile personalities find new ideas anxiety provoking and consequently resist them very strongly. And the standard that this forum is not "ecumenic" provides an arena in which the urge to use control to avoid anxiety can be 'free to act', so to speak.
One of the things that tips one off that what is going on is more than an everyday benign psychopathology is the almost ritual nature of the exchanges. One could almost say it was time for the sex-scandals to be brought up, and predictable that sensational, rather than thoughtful, references be provided.
This not just the perseveration noted before, but the way certain topics are used as "gambits" to prevent the kind of conversation where the S-E sufferer is not in the driver's seat. So the characteristics which present themselves here are a kind of ritualistic rigidity.
It took me quite a while to see what was going on. I finally got the image of a defense which was "a mile wide and a foot deep". The S-E fires a shot. The target tries to deal with the shot in the ways of conversation and dialog. That would involve "depth", in my metaphor.
But instead of engaging in the mutual examination of the "Shot", the S-E fires another shot, from another cannon. The target, a little frustrated, tried to deal with the second shot.
So the S-E fires from yet another cannon.
AS a variation, the S-E will misconstrue the attempts at dialog made by the target.
So, when things go the S-E's way, the target is noticeably frustrated and angry, while the S-E drives the target around the dialectical field.(As Go players might say, The S-E sufferer has "sente".) THAT is precisely what the S-E sufferer needs - affirmation of his or her self derived from controlling others and causing them pain. If the target gives up, the S-E claims a victory. (Note that When Quix announced the possibility of some vaguely defined absence from this thread, he invoked Divine Threats and Curses on any who might interpret his departure in any way that he might not like.) But often the S-E sufferer will not leave the target alone. The need for further predation requires that the struggle continue.
Well I'm not ready to give the full paper on S-E, but that should present an outline of some of it.