Thanks for your enlightening post, I feel like it helped me kind of build a broad outline of therapy. I have a question about how much info a non-therapist should have about therapy: Do you think there’s educational value in reading patient case studies as a lay person? And a more specific version of that general question: could reading case studies on a particular pathology help me better understand and empathize with my friends, acquaintances, and other people I meet who have a trait which is a less severe form of that pathology?
From my subjective experience:
I have a high school friend, Bob, who is well known—among both our mutual friends and his friends whom I’ve only met rarely—as a habitual liar and over-exaggerator. Throughout high school and for many years of knowing him afterwards I would more and more often respond to his lies with scorn, and occasionally gossip with others about him, and in general had a lesser opinion of him than I would have had otherwise. Within the past year I read a few case studies on pathological lying and it’s actually helped me empathize with him quite well.[1] I had heard about and had a rough definition of pathological lying before, but I wasn’t quite able to internalize that knowledge until I read the case studies.
I saw many of the same behaviors described in the pathology in Bob. But the most important takeaways for me from those case studies are the proper ways to peacefully coexist with Bob and a greater ability to empathize with him now that I have non-malicious theories to explain his behavior. Overall it’s improved my opinion of him significantly and allowed me to speak with him again with significantly less tension.
A similar thing has happened with one other friend and reading case studies on a different pathology.
I want to be clear that I am not predicting that any of my friends have disorders; Bob’s propensity to lie hasn’t negatively affected his life too badly from what I’ve seen beyond him losing a few friends because they were very sensitive to lying. But I’ve heard that you can view pathologies as the extremes of personality traits.[2] If so then it would stand to reason that studying a personality trait at one extreme can give you a glimmer of a similar personality trait in moderation.
I still see a non-negligible chance that my behavior here could be a mistake and that reading a case study and viewing a friend as a less extreme version of the patient in that study is just as bad as pathologizing.
I’ve seen it referred to as “pseudologia fantasia” as well. Apparently it’s not a listed disorder, but still treated as one by some psychologists? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12108140/.
Good questions. I think that there’s definitely value that comes from reading case studies, especially for learning to live with someone who has the same diagnosis. I’m particularly thinking of things like addiction or trauma or anxiety/depression, but it applies to personality disorders as well.
But yes, the risk of pathologizing is there if the person hasn’t actually been diagnosed. To counteract this, noticing what’s working in the client’s life can help, as noted in the hypothetical case study above.
Thanks for your enlightening post, I feel like it helped me kind of build a broad outline of therapy. I have a question about how much info a non-therapist should have about therapy: Do you think there’s educational value in reading patient case studies as a lay person? And a more specific version of that general question: could reading case studies on a particular pathology help me better understand and empathize with my friends, acquaintances, and other people I meet who have a trait which is a less severe form of that pathology?
From my subjective experience:
I have a high school friend, Bob, who is well known—among both our mutual friends and his friends whom I’ve only met rarely—as a habitual liar and over-exaggerator. Throughout high school and for many years of knowing him afterwards I would more and more often respond to his lies with scorn, and occasionally gossip with others about him, and in general had a lesser opinion of him than I would have had otherwise. Within the past year I read a few case studies on pathological lying and it’s actually helped me empathize with him quite well.[1] I had heard about and had a rough definition of pathological lying before, but I wasn’t quite able to internalize that knowledge until I read the case studies.
I saw many of the same behaviors described in the pathology in Bob. But the most important takeaways for me from those case studies are the proper ways to peacefully coexist with Bob and a greater ability to empathize with him now that I have non-malicious theories to explain his behavior. Overall it’s improved my opinion of him significantly and allowed me to speak with him again with significantly less tension.
A similar thing has happened with one other friend and reading case studies on a different pathology.
I want to be clear that I am not predicting that any of my friends have disorders; Bob’s propensity to lie hasn’t negatively affected his life too badly from what I’ve seen beyond him losing a few friends because they were very sensitive to lying. But I’ve heard that you can view pathologies as the extremes of personality traits.[2] If so then it would stand to reason that studying a personality trait at one extreme can give you a glimmer of a similar personality trait in moderation.
I still see a non-negligible chance that my behavior here could be a mistake and that reading a case study and viewing a friend as a less extreme version of the patient in that study is just as bad as pathologizing.
I’ve seen it referred to as “pseudologia fantasia” as well. Apparently it’s not a listed disorder, but still treated as one by some psychologists? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12108140/.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4125199/ I’m not sure if this is widely accepted or up to date.
Good questions. I think that there’s definitely value that comes from reading case studies, especially for learning to live with someone who has the same diagnosis. I’m particularly thinking of things like addiction or trauma or anxiety/depression, but it applies to personality disorders as well.
But yes, the risk of pathologizing is there if the person hasn’t actually been diagnosed. To counteract this, noticing what’s working in the client’s life can help, as noted in the hypothetical case study above.