Fortunately, psychiatry has begun moving towards a bio-psycho-social approach (see Dr George Engel) and Clinical Psychology have begun to adopt Positive Clinical Psychology to better account for context (right-hemispheric thinking). Nonetheless, the necessity of accounting for self-deception is something only the existentialists (and their corresponding clinicians) have really tackled. Although to some degree so did some of the psychoanalysts like Freud and Jung.

An example of the sort of self-deception classic medical perspective rarely accounts for is what I call ‘Immoral habitual deception’. What I mean by this is that when we first do something we feel deeply to be wrong, or that there is something not morally right about it at least, but by the second or third or fourth time we lose touch with that feeling of immorality in our action. We deceive our self by normalizing our immoral behaviour. Let me give you an example: two men are talking degradingly about women in a sexual or misogynistic manner, at first you want to refute them, but you don’t, and you regret it and feel like a coward. You come across these two men again and they continue their misogynistic jokes and perverse objectification, this time you completely ignore them, you don’t even have the feeling of regret for not standing up. Even worse you may join in or smile.

This immoral habitual deception (it’s also similar to the ‘sin of comission’) is so common. Here is a story of how extreme this thing can get from Peterson.

“This is what happened to her, she has one of these families that is so bloody pathological that it is nightmarish. It’s partly because of social influences because in her culture the rule for women is ‘shut up and be useless’ and that’s not a very good if you want people to develop healthily, although it’s a very common rule in many cultures… and the rule in her family at the moment, because she’s tangled up with her mother and sister, is something like nothing that happens to you can be furthered by your own efforts and he’ll deliver no matter what. So that means if you ever try to do something you’re just being foolish, and if you ever do something we should punish you half to death because you’re trying to disprove our existential theory. So, this poor girl has been punished non-stop since she was born every time, she did something that was useful, it’s just unbelievable. Doing something in this household is so difficult that it’s a miracle, you just couldn’t imagine it.

So anyways, we had been trying to get to the bottom of this bloody horrible mess for years really and she’s never been able to stand up to her mother or her sister. But she finally did two weeks ago, and they told her that they had been involved in this collusion that was designed to make her the source of all pathology in the whole family and that had been going on for about 40 years... I felt pretty good after even though it was so awful, but she’s having a rough time because she finally used the term abuse… so there’s all this cloud of things that happened to her that’s not so good…

So, she had this dream, she dreamt that she was out in the field with her sister and this invisible boy who was like a ghost, her mother wanted a boy not her. So, she’s out in this Pasteur like field with her sister and this boy and two holes opened up in the landscape and the older daughter got to pick the first hole, you look through the hole and there’s like a landscape that was even more beautiful it was like a paradise she [her sister] got to put her arm in that hole and another hole opened up and there was a pretty good landscape in that hole too, the invisible ghost boy got to put his arm in that one and a third hole opened up and behind that one was a hellish landscape and she [herself] got to put her arm in that one.

And that’s exactly right that’s what happened to her, her whole life. The reason I’m telling you this is because she has her mother and her sister, and she loves them because there her mother and her sister and their kind of all she’s got. But then she hasn’t had a very good time with them, so it’s not so easy to decide that someone you love, and need has also consciously ground you up for 40 years, you can see that cause a bit of stress that realization. So she finally put the word to it she said it was what the UN deciding what happened in Rwanda was genocide, it wasn’t genocide until they said it was genocide, it was just a bunch of people killing each other, as soon as you name it the whole situation changes.

So, she named it and then she said now what do I do? I have to redo all my memories because yesterday I had all the memories of someone who wasn’t abused and now, I do. So, I have to fix all those memories and reinterpret them because she thought she was just crazy. I kept talking to her and this girl is not as crazy as people think, I mean she was a real pain in the neck because she behaved so badly and its no wonder. But fundamentally she wasn’t that crazy and the more I got to know her the more I thought if I was you, I’d be crazy too. Then she had to reconceptualize herself in the present because instead of thinking that she’s been mentally ill since she was 10 she started to have to think that well no she was more like the victim of this evil conspiracy and then she has to reconceptualize her future and I don’t know if she can handle it.”

At one point her mother and her sister knew what they were doing and on first glance it was wrong. It is this reinforcement, this habitual immoral deception that blinded themselves and this poor woman, corrupting the social structure. When we lie, when we are deceitful, we don’t only hurt ourselves but everyone around us.

There are quite a few similar ways this deceit also manifests itself abhorrently. Betrayal, that works like a charm, like have you fall in love with me then cut you at your most vulnerable (marry you then you find out I cheated on you for example). Another way is I can fill you with lies from the day I meet you. I could also do any of these immoral things whilst doing all I can to not be aware of what I am doing (so I don’t have to deal with it). Another way for example if you’re my child, pay no attention whatsoever to your misbehaviour (that’s a good way to set you up for failure) and even worse punish you for everything you do that is helpful and rewarding. On top of that I can do all these things whilst telling you that I love you or covering it up in a cloud of compassion and rely on you being stupid enough not to see through. This happens way more often than people think and it’s no wonder the medical or clinical community don’t like to think about it, let alone normal people.

There is also the self-deception of humility and humbleness, that I pretend to be much weaker than I am to others like that of the Covert (Vulnerable) Narcissist. This type of Narcissist wears a mask of vulnerability, on the surface he is weak, anxious, self-deprecating, depressed. Behind this mask he harbours the outcome of his superficial powerlessness, a swelling of envy, resentment and inferiority. Trampled on enough he switches to the grandiose rabid Primary Psychopath (See Sam Vaknin’s Doormat Covert Narcissist). The Covert Narcissist is far more dangerous than the Grandiose Narcissist as Vaknin says, one is the wolf, the other the fox and it is the fox that is far more cunning by hiding his motives.

The Covert Narcissist on the surface rejects life, the will of life, he betrays himself but only glanced at the surface this is a psychological misunderstanding. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this rejection of life had grown out of the denial of immoral behaviour, or that he is a poor weak puppy or that he is only a victim! No, the opposite is true, this rejection of life grew out of his love for hatred of others; remember he would be a tyrant if only he had power!

It is in this self-deception, this surface level weakness that often hides motives. A similar notion occurs in that of the Judaeo-Christian Cultures here is a joke from Slavoj Zizek (originally from Derrida) about a group of Jews in a synagogue:

“First, a rabbi stands up and says: ‘O God, I know I am worthless. I am nothing!’ After he has finished, a rich businessman stands up and says, beating himself on the chest: ‘O God, I am also worthless, obsessed with material wealth. I am nothing!’ After this spectacle, a poor ordinary Jew also stands up and also proclaims: ‘O God, I am nothing.’ The rich businessman kicks the rabbi and whispers in his ear with scorn: ‘What insolence! Who is that guy who dares to claim that he is nothing too!’.

Precisely, here is how humility, humbleness and weakness can be abused on the social level to hide the discrepancies within hierarchies. Be cautious of those who act overly weak on the surface, they often hide themselves like a curtain of shades and when provoked reveal themselves in the most poisonous manner. As Nietzsche rightfully said, “nobody else’s spirit stands a change against the spirit of priestly revenge.”