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SummaryIn this episode, Emily O'Brien explores personality disorders and how they pertain to cult leaders. She discusses the three clusters of personality disorders: odd and eccentric, dramatic and erratic, and anxious and inhibitive. Emily provides an overview of each disorder within these clusters and highlights examples of cult leaders who may exhibit these traits. Understanding the psychology of cult leaders can help identify red flags and prevent individuals from getting involved in harmful groups.
Keywords: personality disorders, clusters, cult leaders, red flags, psychology, borderline, paranoid, narcissistic, narcissist, true crime, cults, depression, psychotic, schizoid, jim jones
or something wrong with you. You have a disorder that affects who you are. You think you're okay, and others should just adapt to how you live your life. In fact, you know the answer to everyone's problems. Why not start a movement to improve people's lives? Welcome to How Did We Get Here. The podcast will read, dive deep, and dissect the world of infamous and current cults, and on our fed and psyche of their leaders. My name is Emily, and every week I will examine the often overlooked alert of the macabre that has lured countless individuals into their fault. I offer my experience in education as a psychiatric nurse as I lead you on this quest for knowledge. Together, we will delve into infamous cults like the Manson Family of the People's Temple, and lesser known ones that might just be springing up in your neighborhood. On this week's episode of How Did We Get Here, we will explore a psychological phenomenon crucial to understanding the dynamics of cults. Personality disorders. Let me give a disclaimer here and say that I am not diagnosing anybody with anything when I talk about these personality disorders, and if you feel like you have the symptoms of the disorders I'm going to talk about, go see a mental health professional, or talk to someone you trust. This is going to make kind of like a little study session for me because I'm actually in psychiatric nurse practitioner school. So let's get into it. What exactly is a personality disorder? It's not a condition like I'm not talking about schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder here. I'm talking about a complex disorder that fundamentally alters the way someone relates to others, how they react emotionally, and how they control themselves. It's a diagnosis that requires careful consideration and understanding, and you got to be about 18 to get it. So teenage listeners, you don't have it if you're like 13 or 14. You might have traits of it, and that might come up when you're 18, but again, talk to somebody about it. So for this episode, my best resources were the DSM-5TR, which my loving husband got for me when it got accepted to school, along with articles on psychiatry.org and Johns Hopkins Medicine. So the DSM-5 classifies personality disorders into three subgroups called clusters, each cluster similar traits. So the first one is cluster A, known as the odd and eccentric set of disorders, and that consists of paranoid, schizoid, and schizotype personality disorders. Again, this is not schizophrenia or even schizoaffective disorder. So the first disorder is paranoid personality disorder. It's characterized by pervasive mistrust and suspicion of others' motives, and it begins in adulthood. People usually believe that others are trained to deceive, harm, or exploit them without any evidence to support these beliefs. They are constantly wary of the loyalty and trustworthiness of others, and they're reluctant to confide in people due to fear of betrayal. They may interpret ambiguous or march the threatening whole grudges and react aggressively to perceive slights. It's important to note that these disorder symptoms have to come in a context that can't be explained by schizophrenia, bipolar, or depressive disorder with psychotic features. Schizoid personality disorder is characterized by a persistent pattern of disinterest in social interactions and a limited range of emotional expressions of various settings beginning in early adulthood. People with this disorder prefer solitary activities and show little interest in forming close relationships, including familial ones. They don't really feel any pleasure from activities. They don't really have friends, and they may appear indifferent to others' opinions. So this is someone who wants to be in a cabin in the woods away from people, and that's it. They just want to be by themselves. Then there's schizo-typal personality disorder. It's marked by odd behavior, unusual beliefs, and social anxiety. These two also prefer solitary activities and have and people have a few close friends outside of their immediate families. They have peculiar beliefs or superstitions and experience illusions or odd sensations, and they have limited or inappropriate emotional responses. They may dress or speak kind of eccentricly. And again, the presentation of these symptoms cannot really show up in a way that could be explained by autism. So then there's cluster B, personality disorders, which is known as the dramatic erratic scent, and that consists of borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, and social personality disorders. Borderline personality disorder is characterized by frantic efforts to avoid real or imaginative abandonment, unstable and intense interpersonal relationship, identity disturbance, impulsivity, and self-injurious behavior, suicidal behavior, effective instability, feelings of emptiness, inappropriate fierce anger, and transient stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms. Histrionic personality disorder is diagnosed when an individual exhibits a compulsion to be the center of attention, inappropriate sexual seductive or provocative behavior, shallow and rapidly shifting emotions, use of physical appearance to draw attention, dramatic and impressionistic speed, exaggerated emotions, and is easily influenced by others and assumes relations are more intimate than they are. So this is the gold standard of what I consider for cult leaders. This disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, includes traits such as a grandiose sense of self-importance, fantasies and unlimited success, belief in one's extraordinary nature, craving for unwarranted admiration and sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, and resentment of others. Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by disregard for violations of other rights, including failure to obey laws and norms, lying, deception, manipulation, and pulse behavior, irritability, aggression, disregard for safety, irresponsibility, and lack of remorse. Typically, to get this disorder, a kid should have a history of conduct disorder and usually they just kind of graduate to antisocial personality disorder. And again, these symptoms must present in a way that can't be explained by a psychotic disorder. Cluster C personality disorders are known as the anxious and inhibitive set of disorders. This is made up of dependent, obsessive, compulsive, and avoidant personality disorders. According to the DSM-5, dependent personality disorder is characterized by an excessive and pervasive need to be taken care of, which leads to submissive, clingy, and needy behavior due to fear of abandonment. This need for care may be expressed through difficulty making a receipt, decisions without input, reassurance, and advice from others, and requiring others to take on responsibilities that they should be attending to. People with this disorder fear disagreeing with others and risking disapproval. They may have difficulty starting projects without support from others. They exhibit an excessive need to obtain nutrients and support from others, even allowing others to impose themselves rather than rejection or disapproval. They feel vulnerable and helpless when alone and desperately seek another relationship when one ends. There is also an unrealistic preoccupation with the fear being left alone and unable to care for themselves. And that's coming from the American Psychiatric Association. Obsessive, compulsive, personality disorder, there are two separate things. There's OCD and obsessive, compulsive personality disorder. I am talking about the personality disorder. I'll get into the difference in just a minute. Obsessive, compulsive, personality disorder is characterized by a persistent pattern of preoccupation with order, perfectionism, and control of self-others and situations. The pattern is demonstrated by the presence of one or more of the following symptoms. Preoccupation details, rules, and schedules, organization, and lists, striving for perfection that interferes with task completion, devotion to work, and productivity, leading to the neglect of leisure activities and friends. Excessive, conscientiousness, fastidiousness, and inflexibility regarding ethical and moral issues and values, a willingness to describe with its objects, reluctance to delegate or collaborate unless things are done exactly as the person wants, a frugal approach to spending for themselves or others, because money is a safeguard for future disasters and rigidity and stubbornness. Additionally, these symptoms must start by early adulthood. So the difference between this and OCD, OCD is more like ritualistic behaviors aimed at obsessive thoughts in their head. So this is the person who turns the door now three times before they go outside, because they think that will prevent their mom's head from exploding. The final disorder I'm going to discuss is avoid impersonality disorder. So these people tend to avoid occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact because they fear criticism, disapproval, or rejection. They're only willing to engage with people if they feel confident in their acceptance. They show restraint and intimate relationships due to fears of shame and ridicule. These individuals are preoccupied with the fear of criticism and rejection in social situations and feel inhibited by new interpersonal settings due to feelings of inadequacy. They consider themselves in fear, socially inept or personally unappealing, which makes them unusually reluctant to take personal risks or engage in new activities that may prove embarrassing. Okay, that was a lot. So now that we know the different types of personality disorders, let's discuss how they pertain to cult leaders. In one of my first episodes, I mentioned that Charles Manson was diagnosed with antisocial traits and that was perfectly made up from his time in prison and children's facilities. And his actions, he was a pimp, he was picking up young girls, and he allowed for the murder for pregnant women because he had no regard for anybody, not even his young followers. He just means to an end and he had no remorse in court. And again, when I think cult leaders, narcissistic personality disorders, the one that stands out to me. So Jim Jones, Father Yod, and Joseph de Mombro are examples of that come to mind when I think of cult leaders with this disorder. There's that inflated sense of importance, exploitation of people, other money, and there's sense of being the only one to help humanity that really puts this disorder together for these guys. On a more unusual note, I would consider diagnosis of schizo-typal personality disorder for Marshall Applewhite or Del, the leader of Heaven's Gate. He had difficulties developing relationships with others as manifested by his failed marriage and his inability to form committing loving relationships, whether to males or females. And then there's his beliefs and behaviors that he was an alien, Jesus person. And he also liked to be an isolation term society. Understand the things that could affect the psyche of the cult leaders to understand the cult itself. We can learn what goes to the mind of these cult leaders so we can learn to find red flags so we do not get sucked into these groups. Thank you for listening to this episode of How did we get here. Tune in next week for a big episode. It's finally time to talk about Heaven's Gate, this is my favorite cult. So it got me into this whole mess. You like the series, like it, and follow it on Spotify, I Hurt Radio, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcasts. Follow me on X, Instagram, and TikTok at EmmyCast 2018. That's E-M-I-C-A-S-T 1018. Until then, stay informed, stay aware, and stay safe. Thank you.
