Hello, Dr. Peterson. Hey, there we go Tonight, I'd like to ask you about two different psychological disorders the first being Borderline Personality Disorder So, two lectures ago somebody asked you about it, and you gave a very sparse answer I can't remember exactly what you said, but it seemed like it was it was too much complexity to just answer it right there and then and then somebody else also asked you about the same disorder in your patreon livestream recently And when they asked you that, you kind of you kind of stopped for a moment and something, I don't know, something kind of flicked on in your head it seemed like, and you and you thought for a couple of seconds, and then you said you know what, I don't think that I can answer that right now because it's just too it's just too bloody complex, and I was wondering just like many young men have gravitated towards your lectures do you think that there's something about this particular disorder that there's something about people with this particular disorder that might gravitate to your insights and your lectures? Okay, okay, so no I would say probably no to the second one but I could comment more about Borderline Personality Disorder I think I have enough mental energy to do that tonight so, technically speaking it's often considered the female variant of Antisocial Personality Disorder So it's classified or it's classified in the domain of externalizing disorders; acting out disorders And I think what happens We don't understand Borderline personality disorder very well, and it's characterized by tremendous impulsivity radical confusion of identity and then this pattern of idealization of people with whom the person afflicted with the disorder is associating with. Radical idealization of those people and then radical devaluation of them And then there's another theme that sort of weaves along with it, which is the proclivity of people with Borderline personality disorder to presume that they will be abandoned and then to act in a manner that makes such abandonment virtually certain And so, it's a very complicated disorder, but that I think gets at the crux of it One of the things that's interesting about people with Borderline Personality Disorder in my experience, is that they're often quite intelligent and you see in the person with Borderline Personality Disorder something like the waste or the squandering of tremendous potential They seem capable of thinking through the nature of their problems and analyzing them and discussing it, but not capable whatsoever of implementing any solutions and Technically, there's no relationship between IQ and conscientiousness It's very weird because if you read the neuropsychological literature and you read about the functions of the pre-frontal cortex, they're usually conceptualized in intellectual terms and they're associated with planning and strategizing and so forth and that's what conscientiousness is, is planning and strategizing and implementation but the correlation between IQ and conscientiousness is zero and so is the correlation between working memory and conscientiousness, zero and zero is a very low correlation, right? I mean, really it's hard to find things in psychology that are correlated at zero Things tend to be correlated to some degree. They tend to be interrelated The Borderline seems to be able to strategize and to abstract, but not to be able to implement And so, the intellect per se seems to be functional, but it's not embodied in action It's very, so it can be frustrating to be associated with someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder because they can tell you what the problem is and even tell you what the solution might be, but there's no implementation So, maybe something went wrong developmentally we don't know exactly how these sorts of things come about The other thing that seems to be characteristic of Borderline people with Borderline Personality Disorder is that they they remind me very much of people who are 2 years old and in some manner like people with Borderline Personality Disorder can have temper tantrums, in fact they often do and you know, now and then you see a temper tantrum and they're usually thrown by 2-year-olds, right? Most people grow out of temper tantrums by the time they're about 3 They're very rare at 4, which is a good thing, because if they're still there at 4 that is not a good diagnostic predictor That's a.. it's actually a good diagnostic predictor, but it's not the kind that you want and, you know, it's funny the way that we respond to 2-year-old temper tantrums because the 2-year-old will throw themselves on the ground and beat their hands and their legs on the floor and scream and yell and turn red or even blue I saw a child once who was capable of holding his breath during a temper tantrum 'till he turned blue which was really an impressive feat. You should try that right? It's really hard you really have to work at it and you see that in adult Borderlines, they'll have temper tantrums, and the funny thing is when a 2-year-old does it it's like, it's you know, it's a little off-putting, but when an adult does it it's completely bloody terrifying and it happens very frequently with Borderlines and so, I would also say to some degree they didn't get properly socialized between that critical period of development between 2 and 4 And you see the same thing with adult males who grow up to be anti-social because a large proportion of adult males who grow up to be antisocial are aggressive as children, as 2-year-olds So there's a small proportion of 2-year-olds who are quite aggressive, they'll kick and hit and bite and steal if you put them with other 2-year-olds It's about 5% of the of the males, smaller fraction of the females but most of them are socialized by the time they're 4, but there's a small percentage who aren't and they tend to stay antisocial and they tend to turn into long term offenders and the critical period for socialization development seems to be between 2 and 4 and it seems to be mediated by pretend play and Rough-and-Tumble play and those sorts of mechanisms and if it isn't instantiated by the age of 4 it doesn't happen, and it doesn't look like it's addressable Now, there are dialectic behavioral therapies that have been developed for people with Borderline Personality Disorder and they're purported to be successful
I dated a woman who I'd known for 25 years who has this. Once I finally figured it out I simply didn't know how to help her. Once she knew that I knew she did everything possible to avoid me. It's a perfect storm of dissociation with a splash of sadness. Heartbreaking!
I’ve heard him speak eloquently before about the emotional pain of betrayal and hearing him talk here, there’s a definite hesitancy in the flow of what he’s saying.
Like he’s picking his words super carefully.
I’m willing to bet he’s been done over by a borderline himself.
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Every time I hear him speak I’m impressed.