The Unconscious Victim in a Work Group

It's been a long time since my last entry and a great deal has happened in the world. I have let world events recede and have been reading and writing articles about family of origin dynamics replicated in the workplace. Among the impersonal events I have been exploring was the behavior of a classically 'personality disordered' manager. The manager was known to have distorted boundaries with employees and to choose one employee per distinct era to be her chosen best friend at work. For example, one she chose as her handy man and he was favored during renovation at her home. Another was a young woman in whom she routinely confided information about the woman's teammates. Another yet, was a woman that she made sexual remarks to such as "If we had met somewhere else, we would have done it by now".

Whenever she 'elevated' an employee to 'parentified' status, she also demeaned another. These chosen would also rotate as her cycling of needs and interests would change. Her moods were decidedly cyclic, too. Gregarious laughter, touching employees as she talked, making 'joking' comments about race, religion and sex. At other times, she would brood, have a flat facial expression and 'go underground' in her collusions and divisiveness. She had a habit of discussing her non-favorites of the moment in private meetings with employees. The employees shared these among themselves as a way of protecting each other and consequently, ourselves. She also would cyclically have angry outbursts about issues like addiction, religion and parenting. She would switch when others disagreed with an intervention she took with a client or her evaluation of a client's needs. Just as she chose favorite employees and scapegoat employees, she did the same with clients--at times relentlessly attempting to trap her clients and prove them incompetent.

Little was known about her personal history although she would drop hints over time. She was especially triggered by men, targeting them with her disregard and disdain, but also with intense anger if they disagreed with her. She was competitive with women and discussed women who disagreed with her as crazy and sick. Given these dynamics, it makes sense that she would choose her "peers" from among her subordinates. Male employees would be targeted if they did not please her. Female employees would be targeted if they challenged her. As manager, her power differential insured that most would suppress whatever came naturally that would displease her. This made subordinates the perfect "peers".

It occurred to me that she replicated the dynamics of her family of origin rather directly and unconsciously. This included grooming of the children to meet their 'manager's' needs, parceling out of affection to the children by the caregivers, controlling children with affection withdrawal and verbal and emotional abuse. The incestuous quality of her interactions with subordinates also suggested that there was sexual abuse in the family. Not only was it present, but it was the dynamic through which one gained favored status. Those who did not participate in the sexualized power dynamics were ostracized and specific efforts were made to isolate the 'out of control' member among the 'family'.

Psychosis, Borderline Personality Disorder and Psychic Gifts

Deep in the interiors of psych hospitals, long prior to the new generations of anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers and anti-depressants, many patients spent a great deal of time in active psychosis. This still happens, of course. Many people have simply had disrupted brain chemistry for so long they cannot return to anything like a normal and stable state. Also, 'treatment' facilities are not set up to resolve issues, but rather, to medicate them and reduce harm--thereby reducing liability to the facilities.

Interestingly, if you were to talk to the psychotic people who had been 'successfully treated', you would find that a great majority of them simply learned to keep certain things to themselves.

Many, many psychotic patients are medicated and functionally frozen in a deteriorated state and live there until they are discharged back to a lifestyle that will deteriorate them further and in other ways. Granted, there is more fluidity once non-compliant with medication or injured again from substance use, but even this florid psychosis cannot resolve as we have seen in a pure holding environment with good resources, proper structure and the permission to let the ego rebuild itself naturally. These luxuries--resolutions of a psyche that dismantled its incompetent self--are things of the past for most. True holistic psychiatric treatment is hard to come by. I doubt we are interested as a body politic in supplying the street people with it.

All of this is to say that quite strange things happened in those hospitals and with those patients. Not the least among them are the psychic experiences I witnessed. For example, I was late to a group one morning--only by a minute or 2--and came rushing in to meet my patients already gathered together for me by the psychiatric ICU nurse. We met daily at 8 a.m. Among my patients were those who were suicidal, delusional and hallucinating. Generally, we had a pretty good run of it. We kept it light and highly structured as well as short. Basically, it was a rather successful 20-30 minutes to start the day with as much orientation and grounding as possible.

So, this one particular day, the woman I had referred to as severely borderline and chronically suicidal said I am so glad you didn't die in that car crash this morning.

It had indeed been a car crash that had delayed me that morning, but I had not spoken of it to anyone. I was just a few cars behind a horrible crash at an intersection. I had started out unusually early that morning, wanting to take care of some lingering paperwork. My early start gave me just enough time to witness the crash and to be stranded by it for some time.

I thanked her for her expression of gratitude for my safety and we continued with group. Not far into it, however, she offered a second and surprisingly out of character statement. She said, Marie, I think I should slash my throat.

Other events that I think best described as 'psychic'--for lack of better explanations--have occurred through the years like that. Sometimes I was the recipient of the psychic information and many times it came from borderline patients. Once I felt a woman whispering in my ear. It was brief and very real in my perception. She said I'll see you soon. She did indeed. She was re-admitted to the hospital after several months of no contact following her previous admission.

Another time I dreamed that a teenage girl called me to say This is Shauna. I'll be there tomorrow morning. I didn't know Shauna, but she did indeed arrive in the flesh the next morning for her admission.