welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. grande today's question asks if I can identify some of the beliefs and thoughts behind the behaviors associated with antisocial personality disorder so answer this question by looking at 10 antisocial behaviors and the thoughts that cost them now I've done many videos like this for example the thoughts behind narcissistic behaviors the thoughts behind borderline personality behaviors and I've talked about how one popular conceptualization of
how behavior originates is that stress or other environmental factors combined with beliefs and this is what leads to the thoughts and the thoughts lead to the behaviors cognitive behavior therapy CBT is really based at least in part on this principle now this idea applies to antisocial person is order which I'll refer to as a SPD but one of the interesting differences is that there is a lack of forethought associated with a SPD that is this disorder is associated with impulsivity so sometimes people look at this particular disorder and say we really can't think of the
behavior as coming from distorted thinking because individuals with this disorder don't have the same thought processes as somebody with borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder they just do things without thinking at all and we have some evidence that supports this theory in a way like you'll hear people with a SPD who have just committed an assault say I just hit the person without thinking I was feeling disrespected or they looked at me a certain way often they say that they have no control the behavior was automatic or the temptation was irresistible so again there's
this idea that there's no mediating thought process when working with a SPD the person goes straight from the stressor to the behavior now I can certainly appreciate this argument there definitely seems to be a highly reactive component with a SPD like being aggressive all of a sudden or being angry all of a sudden but the reality is that we see this with all of the cluster B personality disorders so not just antisocial with water line narcissistic and histrionic Personality Disorder z-- for example one of the symptom criteria for BPD is intense anger or difficulty controlling
anger and another symptom is impulsivity in at least two areas that cause self-harm also we know that's not unusual for individuals with MPD to have moments of rage when their ego is threatened so just because we see impulsivity that doesn't really change the way we conceptualize how stress beliefs and thoughts relate to one another the cycle might be sped up a bit if somebody's highly reactive but the structure of the cycle is still the same so I'm going to go through the list of ten behaviors and then list the thoughts that somebody with a SPD
might have right before they engage in the behavior or as they're engaging in the behavior for comparison for each of the behaviors also discuss a thought from another personality construct for example paranoid borderline or avoidant personality disorders this will provide an idea of how the cognition patterns might be different when looking at other types of personality pathology so I'm offering a conceptualization here a theory about what could be happening what's actually happening in any particular case could be quite different as I go through the list of behaviors I will alternate between using a man and
a woman in the example as the person with a SPD so let's get started with behavior number one we see a man commits a crime that he evidently was going to get away with but then he brags to his friends giving them details of that crime this is actually fairly common with a SPD so looking at the thoughts behind this this will make my friends fear me so we see kind of an element here where the man is trying to get respect and be feared among his peers next thought I enjoy reliving criminal behavior so
sometimes just by talking about the crime again the individual gets some sort of satisfaction he can relive a moment of that and kind of connect with his original motivations for committing the crime in the first place the last thought I have no chance of getting caught I've seen this quite a few times the individual believes there's really no possibility that they could get caught for their crime they never even really consider that component it never enters into the equation now taking a look at the same behavior from the point of view of narcissistic personality disorder
I want people to admire me so this is a little different but it's worth noting that NPD and ASP D are highly comorbid so somebody has one of those disorders it's not unusual that they would have the other moving to behavior number two a woman catches another woman with her boyfriend and attacks her with whatever she has at hand so she just picks up an object and assaults the other woman the thoughts here if I let the romantic rival get away with this she will try to take more from me later so this really connects
back to the idea of respect and dominus through force as opposed to using finesse the second thought I wanted to hurt this person anyway and this gives me a reason right so sometimes individuals with this disorder are aggressive that's actually one of the symptom criteria so they want to be in combative situations so if somebody gives them a reason they might be all too happy to engage in that level of violence the last thought here attacking people is exciting so this is kind of similar to the second thought this is tied in with high sensation-seeking
which we know is associated with a SPD now moving over to borderline personality pathology with the same behavior I need to attack this romantic rival to preserve my romantic relationship so we see a fear of abandonment here behavior number three a man is arrested for stealing a car the thoughts here the problem with the situation is that I got caught right so we see a lack of insight here the problem is getting caught not committing the crime in the first place right there's really no remorse about that there's no worry about actually committing the crime
they're not worried about depriving somebody of the use of their car they're upset at themselves for getting caught next thought next time I steal a car I'll be more careful right so we see no plans for changing again a lack of remorse the last thought I can talk my way out of this when I get to court I think this is common because individuals with this disorder tend to believe in their reasons who are committing the crime in the first place and they think that other people will connect with those reasons as well it's like
the idea other people must think like I think they can't appreciate that there are differences and that they're thinking maybe outside of what's normal so the same behavior stealing a car from a paranoid personality perspective I took the car so that I can search for evidence that the owner was spying on me so again we see a much different motivation as we move from one personality disorder to another behavior number four a woman is kicked out of a shelter for not following the no-smoking rule so she smokes when she should not have and they remove
her from the shelter the thoughts here unfair rules don't have to be followed so we see a disregard for society's norms second thought the people in the shelter don't understand that I wanted to smoke right so we see a lack of insight here people should be making exceptions for her that's how she thinks about it she doesn't understand that other people don't necessarily care about how she feels the last thought I can't believe they caught me right so again we see this mentality somebody really believes that they can't get caught they're not even factoring that
in to the equation looking at the same situation from a borderline personality perspective if I didn't smoke I would lose control my feelings so the individual realizes that when they lose control their feelings other people don't like that and they believe that justifies breaking whatever rule they choose to break moving to item number five behavior number five a man is given a longer prison sentence for assault because he would not show remorse the first thought nobody ever cared from me so why should I care about anybody else so this is really the sense of being
a lone warrior in a hostile world and this is really general defiance right so again no one ever cared for me why I care about anybody now if we move to the second thought we see a more specific level of defiance I've been attacked plenty of times and nobody's ever apologized to me when my attackers apologize to me I'll apologize to this victim so we see it's kind of similar to the first one but again more specific the last thought the victim deserved to be attacked so this is just attributable to a lack of insight
which is very common with the SPD moving over to narcissistic personality disorder again the same behavior no remorse the victim should apologize to me I've actually heard this many times this is wrapped in with the sense of entitlement we see with narcissism behavior number six a woman attempts to manipulate a man who has correctly identified her personality features so he's on to her but she still wants to try with the manipulation the thoughts here I can easily fool this person right so no recognition that that man is aware of her traits she still believes she
can move forward and manipulate him quite easily the second thought this person distrust me because somebody else warned them about me so she's seeking to blame somebody else she can't admit that her manipulation skills are not always effective she believes they're perfect the last thought if manipulation doesn't work I can always get aggressive so we see the woman is pushing to get what she wants regardless of the risk for others so with antisocial personality disorder often people with this disorder view themselves as having different options on this continuum of aggression they can simply get more
aggressive until they get their way looking at the same manipulation example from the point of view of histrionic personality when this man told me about my characteristics he only proved he was attracted to me so we see with this disorder somebody assuming that relationships are more intimate than they actually are moving to behavior number seven a son repeatedly lies to his parents and eventually alienates them because of that behavior the thoughts hear the truth is what you make it right I've heard this many times working with cluster B personality pathology and other types of personality
traits we see no respect for the concept of truthfulness and a strong belief in their talent for deception the next thought the truth is irrelevant so this acknowledges the concept of truthfulness but the individual can't see how that relates to them so truthfulness is an abstract kind of foreign distant concept that doesn't really affect them the last thought everybody lies so what's the problem so again kind of seeing the world as a cold hostile place where everybody's just trying to get what they can from other people now looking at this behavior from the point of
view of narcissistic personality disorder I have to lie to people otherwise it will take them too long to understand how great I am moving to behavior number eight we see a woman stops talking to her brother one day kind of all of a sudden and then never talks to him again so a sudden rejection of his sibling the thoughts here I asked him for money and he wouldn't give me any so I have no more use for him the next thought this relationship was getting boring so again we see the sensation-seeking component here the last
thought I'll talk to him again if I ever need him so we see a failure to understand how relationships actually work and we see a failure to consider long-term consequences looking at this from the point of view of paranoid personality pathology my brother committed some offense against me and I'll never forgive him so we see someone who's willing to hold a grudge for a long time if not for the rest of their life behavior number nine a man gets a large sum of money for example inheritance or proceeds from a lawsuit and he starts spending
it recklessly the thoughts here I can easily double this if I take it to a casino sounds pretty common next thought now I can finally have some fun even though with the personality we see with a SPD having fun is something they attempt to do regularly right there's not a lot of sacrifice there's not a lot of delayed gratification yet still when they come into some money they believe now is the time for they kind of forget what they've been doing up to that point the last thought if I didn't spend it quickly it would
disappear anyway so really just justifying the behavior and of course we see poor money management skills this situation from the point of view of borderline personality pathology if I buy a lot of stuff for myself it'll take away from the feeling of emptiness we know at chronic feeling of emptiness is a key symptom with borderline personality disorder now moving to the last item behavior number 10 a daughter is asked by her parents to find work and stop sitting around the house all day the first thought that's not fair you never made my brother get a
job so we see this appeal to fairness and really trying to dodge the whole issue the next thought am I supposed to work all day for a few dollars right so this kind of attitude of I'm too good to work the last thought my big break is coming and I'll make a lot of money when that happens so we see an unrealistic evaluation of her own abilities and also just this belief that someday perhaps magically or randomly somebody will discover her and give her a lot of money for an undisclosed or unknown talent right it's
not really clear what the skill is or what the person is going to contribute but they believe that someday things will go their way highly unrealistic we also see not wanting to put the work in but still wanting the reward right so again no delayed gratification no long-term planning those things just aren't very common with an individual with a SPD now looking at this from the perspective of avoidant personality disorder I will work as soon as I can find a job where I don't have to be around people this is fairly common with avoidant personality
disorder it's also common with schizoid person i disorder so really either one of those person I disorders might have this particular thought featured this idea of just trying to find a job where someone can be isolated so those are ten behaviors linked to antisocial personality and some thoughts that are behind them I know whenever I talk about disorders like antisocial personality so it there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic
to be interesting thanks for watching
