The Age of Entitlement (Part 2)
The Age of Entitlement - Part 2
Hi All,
For this week’s session let’s consider what may be a biological response driving the “Age of Entitlement”: Where is the central nervous system in all this? And how believing our inner voice is tangled in this (a hint to not blindly trust those inner voices).
First of all, you have probably heard of Deb Danner, the person who brought into plain English “Poly Vagal Theory”, she coined a wonderful phrase “Cues of Safety”. (For those who don’t know about Poly Vagal is about the central nervous system (CNS) and how it responds to threats despite them being real or not, and how the CNS can go a little haywire).It seems we may have lost a lot of our usual “Cues of Safety” in the world, especially post covid. The traditional media over accentuates the bad news – we have all seen the headlines “BREAKING NEWS” … and it’s about a snail that tried to cross the road (that is a true story by the way). We hear bad news so often that it feels like we are desensitized to it – or are we? Our CNS can’t detect the difference between a real and perceived threat, so being bombarded with “threatening news” sends our nervous system into overdrive.
Also, we have all seen someone’s being “cancelled” maybe it has even happened to you? ….. to the reptilian brain that expulsion from the group means potential death, now it just means that you may miss a good night out, however, the brain does not know the difference. A threat is a threat, and the brain reacts!
My Yoga Therapist teacher was telling me earlier this year that he had been in Switzerland helping an organization researching organ inflammation, apparently the citizens of the world are having enlarged organs. To support this, we know that when under constant threat the emotional regulation part of the brain, the amygdala gets enlarged. Our bodies are speaking to us loudly it seems – are we listening?
Entitlement on the rise.
And where in all this comes our theme of the “Age of Entitlement” you ask? With over activated threat responses (both emotionally and physically), and our bodies jumping at shadows, this is where Entitlement gets fertilized. Entitlement is a protective behavior against threats (and there is little room for passengers or self-awareness when someone is in that state).
Entitlement/Narcissistic personality disorder: This personality profile was based on Count Dracula, a real person called Vlad the Impaler, from Romania in the 15th Century. Early trauma left him with the only survival mechanism being sucking other people’s blood. Why did Vlad think it was ok to suck the blood of others? - because he needed it to survive! When we are in survival mode, we generally become entitled, hence Vlad put his needs (needing others’ blood to live) above the people who actually owned the blood. Remember narcissists are generally formed by early childhood trauma, unlike Psychopathic behaviours that don’t have a trauma basis (yep, they can look alike!)
So, with an increase in trauma and threat (real and perceived, as the body can’t distinguish), it is little wonder that Entitlement is on the rise. With continued exposure to trauma this has a twofold effect. Firstly, people display greater “survival” behaviours, thus “high self-interest”, and secondly, there is the normalization and praise of narcissistic behaviors, reinforcing them as Ok, so the lines get blurred. We often reward poorly behaved celebrities, for example, we are saying “hey, it’s ok to drink my blood”.
Now, post covid, alongside perceived economic turmoil, it seems the globe is a hot bed for increasing behaviours of high self-interest, and often only when the harm is done do we call it out as exploitative.
Are you a victim of an entitled person?
Think about the state of your workplace? Think about how some of your friends behave? I am not suggesting you have to wear garlic around your neck, quit work and dump your friends, but consider your boundaries and interactions. Next week in Part Three, I will outline some ways to identity the vampire, and also how to protect yourself.
See you next week!
Dr Trish
Consulting Psychotherapist
BA/GD Psychotherapy
MA/GC Psychology
LLM, MEd/DEd
Accredited: PACFA, Certified Practising
Clinical Somatic Psychotherapist, USABP
