Stress Reduction for Distress Tolerance & Emotion Regulation

"I'm freaked out; what do I do?"

Because the same question is asked so often, here's a rundown of the techniques I have used successfully since 2003.

My No. 1 immediate go-to now is the Reverse Ratio Breathing I learned from Robert Sapolsky in his Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, and for which he credits Joseph Wolpe's work from the 1950s. Often, btw, I do RRB while I go for a walk away from the site where I was triggered.

But I also remember that The Feeling is Always Temporary, and sometimes use the 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing, Benson's Relaxation Response, the "Count Down" (though one will need a written prompter for it), Stan Block's Mind-Body Bridging System, and the Go Limp Drop Drill. The Drop Drill is a very fast-acting form of Progressive Muscle Relaxation developed from Benson's, Ogden's and Porges's work that allows gravity to "draw down" the neck, shoulders, facial and jaw muscles to trigger the vagus nerve to summon the action of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system towards homeostasis. And, PMR is itself one of the best ways to get out of a state of depressive anxiety I know of.

Levine's Pendulation is another useful technique for dealing with sudden stabs of the fight-flight-freeze response to "threat" or recall thereof.

Lately, btw, I have been using an ancient yoga pose that is strongly supported by Ogden's and Porge's discoveries: I lay on the floor on my back and slowly bring my outstretched legs up over my body until my toes touch the floor "above" my head. It stretches the back muscles that get compressed under stress, which feeds back to the brain as per Porges's "polyvagal theory." (Virtually anything that stimulates the vagus nerve reduces the activity of the sympathetic branch of the ANS.) 

I've also begun to use a mechanical distraction technique I picked up from Shapiro's Eye-Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing psychotherapy and old Yogic Hindu practices. I close my eyes partially and then move the eyeballs back and forth, left to right to left to right for about ten to 15 seconds, stop, repeat, stop, repeat, and stop... just as is done in EMDR. If the anxiety or stress loading I was experiencing is not unduly great, that little exercise seems to reduce it for a while, though I may need to do it again in a few minutes. It does not seem to work rapidly for me if my SUDS level is too high, however. BUT... done over time (like every night for a week while I was out walking), I noticed a considerable reduction in body tension and emotional reactivity. 

Beyond that, I continue to stay in touch with the "distress tolerance" and "emotion regulation" skills I learned from Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and the "mind-body bridging" technique I acquired from Mind-Body Bridging Therapy.

Everything listed above is in accordance with recent research on the operations of the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system during the fight-flight-freeze response. This includes very new information on acute sympathetic activity during what many with PTSD and CPTSD experience as "overload," "overwhelm" or "freak." Major (usually neuroleptic antipsychotic) or minor (benzodiazepine) tranquilizer medication is usually required if the "freak" becomes chronic and turns into "fry," because the neurotransmitters required to bring the ANS back to balanced homeostasis are "used up." 

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Comment added 12-01-2018: See my addition of a long quotation from Alan Watts's The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Memoir for an Age of Anxiety in "Interoception vs. Introspection."  

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Comment added 06-08-2018: This is what works for me. But I'm not sure one can acquire these techniques while in extremis. I had to do it while I was relatively "right-side-up" for a while to make sure it worked when I wasn't.

If the recycling of a fight-flight-freeze response from earlier trauma continues without abating for a day or two, I would get to the ER for a low, nightly dose of a sedating, major, neuroleptic tranquilizer like Seroquel quetiapine, Zyoprexa olanzepine or Clozaril clozapine... as opposed to self-administration of any minor tranq like Klonopin clonazepam, Ativan lorazepam, Xanax alprazolam or any other, potentially dependency-inducing benzodiazepine.

The main thing is to use a mantra like the first eight of those 10 StEPs to dis-I-dentify with and distance from the FFF recycling until it runs its course. And if one can do the interoception in StEP nine, StEP ten just sort of "arrives" by itself.

(I have tried trauma expert Pete Walker's methods, btw. They're not "all bad," but they don't get the job done for me.) (Some of us are -- as they say in AA and NA  -- "sicker than others," I guess.)

Related Article
Treat Autonomic And Cognitive Conditions in Psychopathology? 

References & Resources

Benson, H.: The Relaxation Response, New York: Morrow, 1975. (Early MBSR)

Block, S.; Block, C.: Come to Your Senses: Demystifying the Mind-Body Connection, New York: Atria Books / Beyond Words (Simon & Schuster) 2005, 2007. (MBBT)

Block, S.; Block, C.: Mind-Body Workbook for PTSD, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2010. (MBBT)

Block, S.; Block, C.: Mind-Body Workbook for Stress, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2012. (MBBT)

Block, S.; Block, C.: Mind-Body Workbook for Anxiety: Effective Tools for Overcoming Panic, Fear & Worry, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2014. (MBBT)

Chapman, A.; Gratz, K.; Tull, M.: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety: Breaking Free from Worry, Panic, PTSD & Other Anxiety Symptoms, Oakland CA: New Harbinger, 2011. (DBT)

Chapman, A.; Gratz, K.; Tull, M.: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anger: Using DBT Mindfulness & Emotion Regulation Skills to Manage Anger, Oakland CA: New Harbinger, 2015. (DBT)

Knaus, W.: The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anxiety, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2008. (CBT)

Marra, T.: Depressed & Anxious: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Workbook for Overcoming Depression & Anxiety, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2004. (DBT)

McKay, M.; Wood, J.; Brantley, J.: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2007. (DBT)

McKay, M.; Fanning, P.; Ona, P. Z.: Mind and Emotions: A Universal Treatment for Emotional Disorders, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2011. (all of the above)

Ogden, P.; Fisher, J.: Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment, New York: W. W. Norton, 2015. (SP4T)

Pederson, L.; Pederson, C. S.: The Expanded Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training Manual, Eau Claire WI: Premier Publishing, 2012. (DBT)

Porges, S.: The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation, New York: W. W. Norton, 2011. (SP4T)

Sapolsky, R.: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases and Coping, 3rd Ed., New York: Holt, 2004. (MBSR)

Stahl, B.; Goldstein, E.: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Oakland CA: New Harbinger, 2010. (MBSR)

Van Dijk, S.: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder: Using DBT to Regain Control of Your Emotions and Your Life, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2009. (DBT)

Van Dijk, S.: Calming the Emotional Storm, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2012. (DBT, ACT, MBCT)

Van Dijk, S.: DBT Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide to Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2013. (DBT)

Wolpe, J.: Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958. (Early MBSR)

Yau, J. B.: The Body Awareness Workbook for Trauma, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2018. (Mind-Body, MBSR, SP4T, ACT)

Kicking Shame

I have added links to a lot of new material on this topic through September of 2021, including:

Running Away from Shame (in my reply to the original poster on the Reddit thread; probably the one truly "essential" piece here)

Pairing Abuse with Survival, Developmental Stunting & "Intolerable" Shame (which also gets into "trauma bonding")

Recovering from Shame due to Misplaced Responsibility (in my reply to the original poster on the Reddit thread)

Books on Shame & Recovery Therefrom

The original post begins here:

Shame is increasingly referred to as "spiritual abuse" nowadays. And it is definitely one of the upshots of having been discounted, disclaimed, rejected, invalidated, confused, betrayed, insulted, criticized, judged, blamed, embarrassed, humiliated, ridiculed, denigrated, victimized, demonized, persecuted, picked on, dumped on, bullied, scapegoated, and/or otherwise abused by others upon whom any child depended for survival in early life.

It was commonly believed for decades that shame was just about the most difficult of the sources of anxiety and depression, as well as reactive defense mechanisms, to excise from the human psyche. Child abuse experts all the way back to Pierre Janet about a century ago (including Judith Lewis Herman, Ono van der Hart, John Briere, Bessel van der Kolk, Christine Courtois, June Tangney, Peter Levine and Patricia Ogden; see below) have asserted that this is because shame was so often embedded in children before they had the physiological capacity to 

1) use conceptual and analytical "problem solving" language... and 

2) embed complete -- rather than only fragmented -- memories of the etiological experiences they had suffered.

Which is a major reason why modern memory retrieval and re-processing techniques are vital for the healing of shame.  

Here are ten really good (and progressively more sophisticated, detailed and therapeutically effective) books on shame and the treatment thereof:

1) Miller, A.: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child Rearing and the Roots of Violence, London: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979, 1983.

2) Miller, A.: Prisoners of Childhood / The Drama of the Gifted Child, New York: Basic Books, 1979, 1996.

3) Forward, S.: Toxic Parents: Overcoming their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life, New York: Bantam Books, 1989.

4) Forward, S.: Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You, New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

5) Bradshaw, J.: Healing the Shame that Binds You, Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1988.

6) Fossum, M.; Mason, M.: Facing Shame: Families in Recovery, New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

7) Tomkins, S. (Sedgwick, E.; Frank, A.; editors): Shame and It's Sisters: A Silvan Tompkins Reader, Durham, NC: Duke U. Press, 1995.

8) Kaufman, G.: Shame: The Power of Caring, 3rd. Ed., New York: Schenkmann, 1993.

9) Tangney, J. P.; Dearing, R.: Shame and Guilt, New York: Guilford Press, 2002.

10) Kaufman, G.: The Psychology of Shame: Theory and Treatment of Shame-Based Syndromes, 2nd. Ed., New York: Springer, 1996. (Beltline up, the best book ever written on the subject, albeit one that is hard to find and expensive if one can find it... but worth every penny.)

The common threads in all of them, however, are:

1) "I am not responsible for my 'disease,' but I am responsible for my recovery from it."

2) No one else can do the work for me. They can show it to me, but I will have to do it.

3) Shame is always the result of having been conditioned, socialized and normalized to moral beliefs, ideals, rules and requirements stored in the brain's default mode network.

4) One digs out of that conditioning, socialization and normalization -- or perhaps more accurately, over-writes the conditioning -- with a combination of cognitive restructuring, memory retrieval and emotion processing (see all of Item 7 in this earlier post on reddit).

I am not talking out the side of my neck here. I have done the work exactly as described above and in that article... and I have helped a lot of others do it, as well. The only question remaining for most people confronted with the process is one Don Henley asked about 30 years ago, "How bad do you want it? NOT bad enough!"

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Added material from Gabor Mate's (say "Mah-TAY's") Scattered Minds: 

"Shame becomes excessive if the parent's signaling of disapproval is overly strong, or if the parent does not move to reestablish warm emotional contact with the child immediately -- what Gershen Kaufman calls 'restoring the interpersonal bridge.' ... The small child does not have a large store of insight for interpreting a parent's moods and facial expressions. ... Some parents... convey disapproval without rejection. Other parents, especially those with self-regulation problems of their own, may react with... rage, punishing coldness or dejected withdrawal...

"Each time this happens, shame is evoked in the child, especially [if] the parent believes -- and makes the child believe -- that whatever the parent's reaction is, the child is responsible for it."

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A Related Post: Rebuilding Competence (in my reply on a Reddit thread)

References

Briere, J.: Therapy for Adults Molested as Children: Beyond Survival (Revised and Expanded Edition), New York: Springer, 1996.

Courtois, C.: Guidelines for the Treatment of Adults Abused or Possibly Abused as Children (with Attention to Issues of Delayed or Recovered Memory), Washington, DC: The Psychiatric Institute of Washington, 1997.

Herman, J. L.: Trauma and Recovery, New York: Basic Books, 1992.

Kaufman, G.: Shame: The Power of Caring, 3rd. Ed., New York: Schenkmann, 1993.

Kurtz, E. Shame and Guilt, self-published (iUniverse), 2007. 

Levine, P.: In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2010.

Mate, G.: Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder, Toronto: Vintage Canada, 1999. 

Ogden, P.; Minton, K.: Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. 

Ogden, P.; Fisher, J.: Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment, New York: W. W. Norton, 2015. 

Tangney, J. P.; Dearing, R.: Shame and Guilt, New York: Guilford Press, 2002.

Van der Hart, O.; Brown, P.; and Van der Kolk, B.: Pierre Janet’s Treatment of Traumatic Stress, in Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1989. 

Van der Hart, O.; Friedman, B.: A Reader's Guide To Pierre Janet: A Neglected Intellectual Heritage, in Dissociation, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1989.

Van der Hart, O.; Horst, R.: The Dissociation Theory of Pierre Janet, in Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1989.

Van der Kolk, B.: The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma: Re-enactment, Re-victimization, and Masochism, in Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1989.

Van der Kolk, B.; Hopper, J.; Osterman, J.: Exploring the Nature of Traumatic Memory:  Combining Clinical Knowledge with Laboratory Methods; in Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2001.

Van der Kolk, B: Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society, New York: Guilford Press, 1996 / 2007.

Van der Kolk, B: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, New York: Viking Press, 2014.

Dangerous Diagnostic Dualism

Are people always or totally "sick" or "well" with whatever diagnosis they have received? 

I'm not suggesting that diagnosis has no place and should be abandoned, but asking readers to consider the following and decide for themselves if the totalistic / absolutistic / all-or-nothing and permanent & pervasive notions of diagnosis serve professionals and patients alike.

Of the thousands of ostensibly "healthy," "functional," "well-adapted" (adapted to what?) adults I've ever encountered, I've only ever met less than a half-dozen who displayed consistently & reliably alert, aware, mindful, conscious, capable and competent behavior without ever regressing to earlier, less competent and effective behaviors under stress. Which is not to say that most people are "asleep," "sensorily challenged," "mindless," "unconscious," "incapable," and/or incompetent." Just some of them. And mostly only *some* of the time. (Does everyone display their defense mechanisms at *all* times? Or do they tend to do so when they feel threatened and/or stressed?)

Is anything -- including a diagnosis -- really an either-or deal. Or is it a spectral deal? (Running from "totally" functional on one end to "totally" dysfunctional on the other on one spectrum... and from "totally" present and observable right now to "totally" not present and observable right now. Isn't it true that "under stress we may regress?")

Isn't the presence or absence of CPTSD, bipolar, some personality disorder like borderlinism -- or any other collection of traits that suggest one diagnosis or another -- the same thing? The DSM and ICD were orginally built on medical models of pathology. In medical models, one is either "sick" or "well." In the 1990s or so, noise began to emerge about exactly that during the evolution of the DSM IV. Hagop Akiskal et al led the charge for a spectral notion of the manic-depressive "bipolar" disorders that was widely resisted then, but largely accepted now.

Moreover -- and here's the Big Deal in all this -- isn't one "sick" or "well" at the moment they are diagnosed... but possibly "sicker" or "weller" at other times?

Is all-or-nothing, black-and-white, either/or, dualistic, dichotomistic thinking (see Beck, Dyer, Ellis, Meichenbaum, Ruggiero and Young) so deeply conditioned, socialized and normalized into the human brain's, largely binary and ambiguity-intolerant default mode network by dint of the common cultural consensus trance that most of us are at least somewhat blind, deaf and senseless to what actually is (including CPTSD as a range of intensity of reaction to abuse)?

Resources & References

Akiskal, H.; Pinto, O.: The evolving bipolar spectrum, Prototypes I, II, III and IV. North American Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1999.

American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR, New York: APA, 2000.

Beck, A.: Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders, New York: Penguin-Meridian, 1976.

Beck, A.; Freeman, A.: Cognitive Theory of the Personality Disorders, New York: Guilford Press, 1990.

Dyer, W.: Your Erroneous Zones, New York: Avon Books, 1977, 1993.

Ellis, A.; Harper, R.: A Guide to Rational Living, North Hollywood, CA: Melvin Powers, 1961.

Ellis, A.; Becker, I.: A Guide to Personal Happiness, North Hollywood, CA: Melvin Powers, 1982.

Ellis, A.; Dryden, W.: The Practice of Rational Emotive Therapy, New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1987.

Ellis, A.: Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors: New Directions for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, New York: Promethius Books, 2001.

Meichenbaum, D.: Cognitive-Behavior Modification: An Integrative Approach, New York: Springer, 1977.

Ruggiero, V. R.: Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking, 4th Ed., Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 1995.

Young, J.: Cognitive Therapy for the Personality Disorders: A Schema-Focused Approach, 3rd Ed., Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press, 1999.

Confronting Abusers & Handling Rage Effectively

Abusers do not work alone. They operate in family systems built on Karpman Drama Triangles. Any disruption of the Triangles has a potential for upshots for everyone on them.

I would never "confront" an abuser without a posse and a plan. Nor if the traumatee has less than a year of therapeutic recovery (and even then...).

Any therapist who suggests so doing is either still stuck in that wretched (and very damaging) Courage to Heal, "trained" by fools, or just plain stupid. I have been around recovering traumatees for more than 30 years now. And I have known at least 20 who were seriously damaged by such ill-conceived, truly codependent (and to use trauma recovery expert Pete Walker's term, "fawning") nonsense. And several who became complete pariahs to the rest of families that needed desperately to maintain their codependent delusions and Karpman Drama Triangulations. 

Ask yourself, "What do I expect to get out of this?" and "Why am I doing this?" If the answer is -- honestly -- "Because I am angry," there are (believe me) a bunch of better ways to treat that understandable rage than to make a target of your innocent, already victimized inner children One More Time. (See the workbooks and psychotherapies listed below.) If the answer is, however, "To do what I can to prevent the abuser / perpetrator from victimizing others of the next generation," I strongly endorse seeking qualified, experienced and dispassionate legal assistance before making any public statements.

Because one who confronts must be prepared for the most vicious and egregious reactions, including setting the entire family against the accuser if -- as is so often the case -- the abuser has more financial and political power in and/or over that family. (I have they seen too many survivors wind up "doing the time for someone else's crimes" because they lashed out directly or indirectly without due consideration before so doing.) 

Finally, in my personal experience with both, trying to pry anything like "taking responsibility" out of a narcissistic and/or sociopathic abuser is like trying to talk a guru's passionate devotee out of his cult.

Block, S.; Block, C.: Mind-Body Workbook for Anger, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2013.

Chapman, A.; Gratz, K.; Tull, M.: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anger: Using DBT Mindfulness & Emotion Regulation Skills to Manage Anger, Oakland CA: New Harbinger, 2015.

Eifert, G.; McKay, M.; Forsyth, J.: ACT on life not anger: The New Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Guide to Problem Anger, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2006.

Harbin, T.: Beyond Anger: a guide for me: How to Free Yourself from the Grip of Anger and Get More Out of Life, New York: Marlowe & Company, 2000.

McKay, M.; Rogers, P.: The Anger Control Workbook: Simple, innovative techniques for managing anger and developing healthier ways of relating; Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2000.

McKay, M.; Rogers, P.; McKay, J.: When Anger Hurts: Quieting the Storm Within, 2nd Ed., Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2003.

Simpkins, C. A.; Simpkins, A. M.: The Tao of Bipolar: Using Meditation & Mindfulness to Find Balance & Peace, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2013.

Stahl, B.; Goldstein, E.: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Oakland CA: New Harbinger, 2010.

I use Ogden's Sensorimotor Processing for Trauma (SP4T) as the "interoceptive" 9th of The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing to manage any rage bombs that turn up nowadays, but got good results over the years with

. . . a) Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT, the long-time gold standard for trauma symptom management), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mind-Body Bridging Therapy (MBBT), and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR); and the

. . . b) "deep cleaners" like Eye-Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFST), Trauma Focused Therapy (TFT), Hakomi Body Centered Psychotherapy (HBCP), Somatic Experiencing Psychotherapy (SEPt), Sensorimotor Processing for Trauma (SP4T), and the Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM).

Related Articles

On Bullies, on Reddit

Expectation of Abuse, in my reply on this Reddit thread 

Why we Tolerate Abuse, in my reply on this Reddit thread 

Hurt People... Hurt (other) People, on Reddit 

Why Memory Retrieval is So Important, on Reddit

Resources & References

When Trauma Survivors Act Out with Therapists & Intimates

One of the awarenesses I pieced together from old "professional" psych books (mostly from the '70s and '80s) and using those 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing is that many of us (very much including "younger" or "earlier" parts of my own psyche, and especially those parts that were serial traumatized by family members) have difficulties knowing where and when to set boundaries with other people who suddenly seem to be threatening, abusing or attacking.

Additionally, my "older," more educated and "recent" parts can see how the "younger" or "earlier" ones see some people as invalidating, insulting, criticizing, judging, blaming, embarrassing, humiliating, ridiculing, denigrating, derogating, victimizing, demonizing, persecuting, or otherwise abusive to me when in fact they're either not at all, or their abusiveness is really targeted at other people.

Further yet, my "older" more "recent" parts can see that many of us have boundaries that flip suddenly from "way too trusting and thin" to "way too distrustful and overly thick" with little or no space in between. Other people are either "all good," "wonderful," "trustworthy" and "allowed in," or they are "all bad," "awful," "never to be trusted," and "forced out."

Sometimes it's a matter of mistinterpreting their intentions or objectives. For example, I had parents who had been conditioned, socialized and normalized to be "righteously authoritarian." So whenever I saw others who were authoritarian, I was sometimes attracted (even to the point of being "anxiously attached" the way I was to some of my schoolmates, teammates, squadron peers and superiors, coworkers and bosses, lovers, spouses, etc.)... and then suddenly flipped to being suspicious, distrustful, and even hostile towards them... or (more recently) was just suspicious, distrustful and/or hostile right from the git.

My "older," more "mature," "recent" parts see this same phenomenon in others who sometimes react with hostility towards people who are truly educated and "authoritative" as opposed to authoritarian.

People who have been relentlessly abused by "righteous authoritarian" parents often think they see that in others who are as "right" about things as their parents claimed to be but so often weren't. They may instantly associate that "righteousness" with threat. And then project their reactions toward their parents into these new people they encounter, often at university in the form of professors and smarter, more accomplished students.

I see this occur a lot on some Internet forums. (It's almost epidemic on r/BPD at times, for example.) So, if you spot it here, don't be surprised I guess, because Hurt People... Hurt (other) People especially when they have an Expectation of Abuse (see my reply on this earlier thread) but may not be able to see that in themselves.

Anyone who conducts incest survivor recovery groups, btw, observes, notices, recognizes, and experiences this a lot.

Can one observe to notice to recognize to acknowledge (what has been recognized) to accept (what has been acknowledged) to own (one's part in it) to appreciate (the underlying causes and dynamics) to understand to digest to discharge the "sting" of being successfully baited by the righteous, authority-fearing (and -loathing) abuse survivor or a certain type?

(The unprocessed survivor -- as opposed to at least somewhat processed recoverer -- may be a righteous anti-social, drug abuser on "Live PD" who got stopped for driving erratically inside a car full of marijuana fumes... or an unprocessed, serial sexual abuse victim who cannot let go of her understandable hostility toward anyone who doesn't agree with her "right" to spray her rage about.)

Having...

1) decided that the very word "borderline" (whether spoken or not) is not "politically correct,"

2) that there are "rules" in the universe that the word should never be used as a label, and

3) "mastered" the fine art of "Look What You Made Me Do!" (see Berne's Games People Play) manipulation with hotly denied, you-hit-me-so-I'll-hit-you-back-to-make-you-hit-me-back-so-I-have-a-right-to-hit-you-back-again, reciprocal reactivity in an attempt to shame the other person just as the survivor was manipulated and shamed as a child,...

the "sting" will be set up and executed sooner or later.

The "petulant" and "impulsive" types in combination are widely observed to use this manipulation of the therapist's Level II, Stage 3, Kohlberg morality development to transfer the dynamics of his or her objectives with the original abuser onto the therapist, rationalize his or her right to react, and act out. The P&I-type borderline often does this with any intimate (including a therapist) he or she sees as "similar" to the original abuser (whether that person is or isn't) but one who can be shamed in a way his or her narcissistic and antisocial / sociopathic abuser could not or still cannot be.

I don't think I know any therapist who has worked with P&I-type borderlines for more than a week who has not been baited and bitten in such fashion.

Double-bound into seeking and repeating the abuse as children (on Karpman Drama Triangles with parents who have DSM Axis II Cluster B personality disorders), the budding P&I-type borderline will imitate his or her (usually P&I-type) abuser to attempt to project the intolerable shame and guilt he or she ingested again and again as an abused child into anyone who...

1) refuses to cosign his or her beliefs, ideas, assumptions, convictions and presumptions, and

2) especially those who challenge -- or are considered likely to challenge -- those beliefs, ideas, assumptions, convictions and presumptions.

The P&I-type borderline who uses this particular "emotional blackmail" technique may enjoy success with intimates -- including therapists -- who have not been properly trained, and will be rewarded by seeing the intimate's or therapist's triggered shame, guilt, worry, remorse, regret and even morbid reflection and self-accusation, just as the original perpetrator or abuser demonstrated his or her enjoyment of the borderline's own shame during the original abuse. But when confronted with an intimate or therapist who may have been manipulated into some infraction of the "moral rules" who then refuses to buy into the shaming ploy, the P&I borderline will act like a dog with retrieved ball in its mouth.

All this said, committed intimates and therapists have to learn to...

1) not beat themselves up for being baited and then bitten (it's simply impossible to avoid this kind of stuff if one sets boundaries the P&I borderline sees as authoritarian),

2) do their best to process the abuse with some mindfulness scheme like the 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing,

3) get back to empathy and compassion for the abuse survivor who is still unprocessed, and

4) re-acquire the delicate balance between vulnerability and adequate boundary setting which must be utilized to demonstrate over time to such pts a "way of being" that is more functional and effective than baiting and biting, something like, "I bear you no malice, and I even understand why you need a punching bag, but it's not my job to be one."

Resources & References: A BPD Library, in one of my replies on the thread at this link\