[Music]
Hi everyone and thank you for taking
time to watch this video. I'm Dr. Peter
Serno and before we begin I want to be
clear. I am not speaking in pjoratives
or insults. I am a professional not a
lay commentator. I earned my doctorate
in psychology and earned my license as a
clinical practitioner. I've subsequently
retired my license to focus more on
education. But throughout my clinical
career, I received specialized training
from some of the world's top experts in
the field. And when I say expert, I am
not referring to pop psychology
celebrities. I mean the people who
conduct the research, the people who
wrote sections of diagnostic manuals and
the people who treated these individuals
in clinical and forensic settings. Like
any medical specialist, an oncologist
talking about cancer, or a cardiologist
talking about heart disease,
professionals like myself have the right
and the responsibility to speak openly
about what we've studied and what we've
witnessed. A quick caution, I welcome
thoughtful, collaborative discussion,
including disagreements, but it's always
obvious when a comment thread is working
well and then one or two people's anger
and reactivity hijacks it. those
comments stick out like a sore thumb.
So, I'm kindly asking that anyone who
leaves comments, please be respectful to
everybody that's involved in the comment
thread. It's really important to be able
to have these discussions to get the
right information out there without
constantly having to worry about being
harassed, threatened, devalued, or
demeaned. This video is about the
deliberate cycle of abuse that is common
in combative personalities. Combative
and abusive personalities rely on very
predictable cycles of abuse. One of
these cycles, which we're going to
highlight in this video, is belittling,
intimidating, threatening, and self
victimizing. When someone tries to
belittle you, they are trying to lower
your confidence with constant put downs.
They might say things like, "Wow, that's
the best you can do." Or, "God, you're
so sensitive." Over time, these messages
stockpile and erode self-worth. Next, we
have intimidation. Intimidation makes
you afraid through power displays or
implied menace. It can be a glare across
the room, a slammed fist, even hostile
silence. You know what could happen even
if it's not said. But intimidation goes
far beyond physical displays. A common
intimidation tactic in abusive
personalities in clinical settings, for
example, is when a combative or abusive
personality perceives that they have
been slighted by their mental health
professional and they make little
comments like, "I wonder what your board
would have to say about this." There's
an implied menace in a comment like
that. Obviously, the person is using an
intimidation tactic to try to make the
clinician feel as if they're going to be
reported. And the reality is people who
have a justified reason for reporting a
mental health professional don't stoop
to that tactic. It's a clear indicator
that the person is combative and
abusive. This type of intimidation can
also be seen in romantic relationships
when somebody's trying to intimidate
their partner, alluding to the idea that
they're going to spend time with
somebody that they may or may not be
attracted to. This is a way of
destabilizing a partner into thinking
that they might be cheated on or that
they pushed the person away and so now
there might be some retaliation. And
then we have threatening. Threatening
makes consequences explicit.
Essentially, do this or else. This might
mean threats to your safety, your
children, or your reputation. Self
victimization completes the cycle by
flipping the script. After the
belittling, intimidation, and explicit
threats, now all of a sudden the
combative or abusive personality becomes
the victim. Sometimes these are
blatantly obvious, immature comments
like, "Look what you made me do." Or, "I
wouldn't have had to do that if you
didn't push me so hard. What are you
trying to do to me?" Suddenly, they are
the victim and you're the one
apologizing. Now, at this point in the
video, I want to make something else
clear. I'm not limiting this cycle to
cluster B personality pathology. While
narcissistic, antisocial, borderline,
and histrionic personalities are often
the most visible in conversations about
abuse, severe cluster A and cluster C
personalities can also be highly
combative, resistant, and abusive. They
can be equally as destructive. I'll be
posting a separate video on cluster A
and cluster C disorders to break that
down in more detail. For now, just know
that the cycle of belittling,
intimidating, threatening, and self-
victimizing is not unique to one
cluster. It's a broader abusive pattern.
One of the most common excuses you'll
hear from these individuals is related
to dissociation or amnesia. I don't even
remember what I did or said. I blacked
out. Here's what clinicians know. In
actual treatment settings, many of these
individuals actually admit to pretending
to forget. Why? Because claiming a
blackout or dissociation isn't usually
contested even by professionals. and it
provides a shield and an excuse for the
abusive behavior. I want to be clear,
while some people do in fact dissociate,
what I am saying that's related to this
video is that some people also pretend
to dissociate for manipulative purposes.
During my years of clinical practice, I
had patients admit to me, saying things
like, "If I say I forgot, they drop it."
Or, "Blacking out is easier than
apologizing for me." So, while
dissociation is very real in psychology,
in these cases, it's often exploited as
an excuse. And when you immerse yourself
in the clinical world of personality
disorders, you see so many exceptions to
the cultural myths. Not everyone has a
trauma history. Not everyone is lashing
out unconsciously. In fact, many will
openly acknowledge in moments of rare
clarity how calculated their
manipulation tactics are. It's important
to emphasize this. Not all abusive
personalities have trauma histories,
despite what the most popular narratives
suggest. Some do, but trauma is neither
necessary nor sufficient to explain
these cycles. And when you listen
closely to patients in clinical settings
for years and years, they sometimes
describe in blunt detail how purposeful
their tactics are. I belittle her
because it shuts her up. If I stay quiet
and stare, he gets scared and backs off.
I threaten because it works. People
listen when they're afraid. These are
not slips of the unconscious. They are
strategies, conscious, repeated, and
reinforced over time because they work
for these people. So, what's the
takeaway? Combative and abusive
personalities across all clusters rely
on cycles of belittling, intimidating,
threatening, and self- victimizing
because these tactics achieve the
results they want and they maintain
control. The danger comes when we excuse
these behaviors as unconscious or reduce
them to trauma reenactments. Research,
clinical experience, and even the
admission from these individuals
themselves show otherwise. They know
very well what they are doing. They
repeat these patterns because they work,
not because they lack choice. Abuse in
these cases is not unconscious. It's
deliberate. And if you've been caught in
this cycle, the responsibility lies
entirely with the person who chose it,
not with you. The more clearly we see
these patterns, the less power they have
to confuse us. And that clarity is the
beginning of freedom. Thank you for
watching. Please be respectful to me and
to everyone else in the comments. And if
you found this video helpful, please
take a look at some of my other videos
on this channel. I'm Dr. Peter Serno,
and until next time, thank you for watching.
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