(This represents the summary conclusion of an online discussion with a good friend) The”adabists”(fervent believers in social étiquette) have it all wrong.Although social niceties have their place in our daily lives they are no substitute for real virtue-like generosity,not bearing grudges and learning to set aside our emotional reactions and not be constantly acting them out.For the Muslims who may be reading this ,they should look at the meaning of the Prophet’s “sublime character”(akhlaq al atheem) mentionned in the Quran. He manifested much ,much more than superficial politeness.He demonstrated ALL of the virtues mentioned above.May Allah send His blessings down upon him sal and all of us through his transmission.Salaams,Ibrahim
Category Archives: Modern Living
The Concrete and the Subtle
The most common mistake people make in managing their lives is that they get stuck on the material plane. Whether it is about money, or the qualities of their houses and cars or even about personal health, it is all in some way part of the illusion that what is important is what is concrete. A powerful illusion, indeed!
Whenever the locals in my region of Quebec give me greetings on New Year saying” I wish you good health.!Health is the most important thing , if I feel they can handle it I respond”If health is the most important variable , we are all scr—-d, since we are all condemned to bad health and death at the end of the process.” No, health as vital as it may be, is not the end goal. In fact, God often tests people with bad health. What really counts is our relationship with Him, not our relationship with our body.But health and longevity has become a new form of idolatry in obvious opposition to the inevitable experience of deteriorating health with age. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It just means it shouldn’t become our religion!
Borderline Personality explored Further
As most psychiatrists I have often been dismissive of the “borderline” appelation. It seemed to be mostly a creation of the psychoanalysts eager to confirm their model separating the neuroses from the psychoses and justifying their initial lack of success with this category of patients.
However,over time,with considerable observation of these people in both my professional and personal life,I now understand better how close they can be to this “border”.In fact, much of the literature on this subject makes short shrift of the psychotic aspects involved.Yes,there is mention of the “brief psychotic episodes” in DSM5 and the psychopharmacologists recommend using atypical antipsychotic meds in some cases.But generally the psychotic aspects are minimized in favour of the “interpersonal sensitivity” and “emotional dysregulation”.
In fact,I believe that, in most cases, there is a wellspring of “paranoia’ lying under the surface which may well be responsible for much of the symptomatology and it is usually not being addressed properly in treatment.So even the best of therapies like DBT(Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) may be ignoring the depth and instead focusing on surface symptoms such as emotional intensity and dysregulation.Although DBT has definite benefits for this form of psychopathology this feature may ,in fact,be limiting its effectiveness.
Now “paranoia’ itself is no easy matter to treat.The key to its detoxification is to be aware of the illusory character of its affect and thought content but again this is no simple task.However, awareness of its presence by both the patient and the people around them should be a vital tool in its management.A judicious and temporary use of low-dose anti-psychotics may be a viable option in some cases.Let us explore together where this new perspective can take us.
Aspergers ( cont’d)
Aspergers disease is a very subtle phenomenon. Having practiced psychiatry for over fourty years when I evaluated a new patient I often knew what the diagnosis was within a few minutes! However almost every time I didn’t know what it was, it turned out to be Aspergers. That’s because they appear so normal , people assume they are acting in bad faith. Actually there is a neurophysiological pathology involved, one that is not easy to spot and even more difficult to treat. The essential symptom is that “they don’t get it” especially when it involves other people. So we need to adapt to them rather than chastise them. Salaams
“Productivity” And Stress
Such a pleasure flying with Caribbean Airlines compared to Air Canada. None of that” maximum efficiency at all costs” vibe! Someone should start factoring in “stress-induction” in their calculations instead of always thinking “cost-cutting” and “productivity” as the administrators are taught to do in MBA school!
The Power of Social Conditioning
If you don’t believe in the power of social-conditioning, and I didn’t really myself in my younger days, then re-analyze the lives of the three Prophets we know best. Mohammed sal Jesus a.s.and Moses a.s. Almost all the opposition they faced came from socially-conditioned responses!
The Quraish , as the Arab tribes of the time, were socially-conditioned to be idol-worshippers; the Jews who opposed Jesus were socially-conditioned to follow the letter of the Law rather than the spirit; and the Jews who objected to Moses were conditioned by the Egyptians around them to worship animals, thus the Golden cow. So beware.
Although I personally don’t like their approach, I now understand the Hasidim and the Deobandis and certain Christian sects who protect their children from outside influences. How to manage this problem is not clear to me, at this point, but being fully aware of it is a good first step. May Allah help us in this Jihad of values.
Theory vs. Reality
The biggest problem in the modern world,besides a wrong conception about our relationship to our Creator-a whole other subject, is that we are taught to put theory before Reality.And we can see that on every level of societal actions -in politics,in the legal system and even in Science which has become more like theology than about the experimental methodology from which it began..
Businessman and Lawyers
And so”yes” maybe the cut-throat world of business IS the best preparation for the presidency! The lawyer types have been coddled for years by a judicial system that protects itself and its agents(the lawyers and judges) far more than it protects the rights of victims and the perpetrators of crime-which it falsely claims to do.So the lawyers are more like pampered children than responsible adults!
Shaytan , anyone?
In the modern world , the use of the term ‘devil’ or ‘Satan’ or ‘Iblis’ is seen as a sign of fanaticism and backwardness . I shared that point of view when I first entered Islam. Although I recognize that there are certain evangelical sects of Christianity that overuse and even abuse the term, I have come to see over time that the forces of evil in the world are real, and I can often see them in action all around me. So when Sheikh Nazim said to us over 30 years ago that Shaytan (Satan)now has hegemony in the world, I now see what he meant. Here is ImamGhazzali talking about the same phenomenon hundreds of years ago.
This is Sheikh Hamza Yusuf quoting Imam Ghazzali speaking to the ‘debaters’,the ‘reflex disagreers’ “If you are not fighting shaytan and he has your heart, he has occupied your heart and he’s the worst enemy you have and he’s calling you to your own destruction and you are preoccupied with debating other people and your own heart is in peril… then you are a joke to shaytan and a wondrous lesson to the people of sincerity” So please beware. The time of the flower-children is over!
Borderline Personality-Three Other Characteristics
Ever since Elizabeth Zetzel published her ground-breaking article “The so called good hysteric” in 1968, there had been increasing interest in what we now call Borderline Personality Disorder. When we factor in the distraught psychiatric personnel trying to deal with their frequent visits to the E.R., the advent of the film “Fatal Attraction” and the frequent experience of male partners trying to deal with their over-wrought female companions, we can begin to understand the bandwidth that this diagnosis has taken on in the public mind.
Because of this, it has become incumbent on us to try to understand what is going on with these people and how we can cope with their ‘emotional dysregulation’ as Marsha Linehan likes to call it. In that spirit and in an attempt to go beyond the empirically-based DSM5 I have discovered three mostly unmentioned characteristics that may help us to better understand and deal with these people.
1)An excess of pride that makes it almost impossible for the Borderline to admit their mistakes. This characteristic is well-known in the sister diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality -a diagnosis that has taken on a life of its own since the advent of the Trump presidency. For some reason its’ presence in the Borderline has gone largely unnoticed. Perhaps this is because other characteristics like suicidality and angry outbursts are so much more dramatic.
However, in dealing with these people, the fact that they almost never say, like the stereotypical alcoholic”I’m so sorry for losing it.. I’ll never do that again” makes it all the more difficult to make any progress. Perhaps it is the presence of such low self-esteem that makes the admission of guilt so problematic. It’s as if admitting one more error would be too crushing to their sense of self-worth.
2)Consistent bad decision- making. I think this is related to the power of the forces of desire and aversion which regularly overpower both their reason and theirintuition. So in a way this is also a derivative of emotional intensity and dysregulation.
3) An overconcern with the opinion of others. This is often counter-productive as these ‘others’ are often out of touch in their opinions and certainly, in most cases, not a good source of advice. In fact, these opinions may not even be those of the imagined ‘others’ but rather projected ones of the borderline themselves. This aspect can probably be traced back to the identity diffusion of the borderline pathology. The borderline typically has a weak sense of self. They do not have well-supported opinions of their own. So they become reliant on others points of view -regardless of the level of wisdom or ignorance of the other. In fact, borderlines tend to choose the least wise advisors the same way they often choose the most inappropriate partners.
This is by no means the definitive answer to dealing with this problematic phenomenon. But hopefully it will add to our capacity to cope in a relationship-context-both for the partner and the borderline themselves.
Salaams,Ibrahim