Int J Ment Health Addiction
DOI 10.1007/s11469-012-9403-4
Linking Gambling and Trauma: A Phenomenological
Hermeneutic Case Study Using Almaas’ Transformation
of Narcissism Approach
Gary Nixon & Jason Solowoniuk & Lauren Julia Boni &
Ruth Grant Kalischuk
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract The purpose of this article is to examine the phenomenon of pathological gambling and addiction from the perspective of writer and teacher A.H Almaas. By drawing on
his Diamond Mind approach we trace the origin of addictive behaviors and pathological
gambling to narcissistic wounding, which constitutes the loss of connection with the
Essential Identity. A phenomenological hermeneutic methodology was applied in the research process in which Penny, the subject of this case study, willingly shared her life
journey through addiction. A thematic analysis clustered into 5 themes revealed a link
between her experiences of childhood trauma, addiction, pathological gambling, and the
manifestation of fundamental narcissism.
Keywords Childhood trauma . Being . Narcissistic wound . Great betrayal . Pathological
gambling . Empty shell . A.H Almaas
Trauma and the Female Problem Gambler
There is a paucity of research that addresses the connection between trauma and female
pathological gambling with issues of trauma being raised but the explicit connection not
being illuminated (Boughton and Brewster 2002). For example, in a study of 22 families,
Grant Kalischuk and Cardwell (2004) developed a grounded theory that situated trauma as a
factor in problem gambling for both males and females. Similarly, in a sample of 111
pathological gamblers, (Kausch et al. 2006) identified a relationship between gambling
and trauma, however the role that trauma played in the development of pathological
gambling was not determined. Meanwhile, (Atifi et al. 2010) found that “dating violence,
marital violence and severe child abuse victimization were associated with increased odds of
gambling problems” (Atifi et al. 2010).
Petry and Steinberg (2005) studied childhood maltreatment in male and female treatmentseeking pathological gamblers, recruiting participants from seven treatment sites (N0149;
G. Nixon (*) : J. Solowoniuk : L. J. Boni : R. Grant Kalischuk
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
e-mail: [email protected]
Int J Ment Health Addiction
77 females and 72 males). Measurements included assessing gambling behavior, childhood
trauma, and psychiatric symptoms. The authors found that gender was specific to the
intensity and types of childhood maltreatment experienced (Petry and Steinberg 2005).
For instance, female gamblers had higher scores related to sexual/emotional abuse and
physical neglect. In addition, childhood maltreatment was associated with age of onset
and severity of gambling problems.
According to Strachan and Custer (1989) and Lesieur and Rosenthal (1991), gambling
has been categorized as a means for dealing with trauma and trauma-related abuse (via
escape), especially among females. Interestingly, among 365 females gamblers from across
the province in Ontario, Boughton and Brewster (2002) found that 46 % of women reported
experiencing physical abuse as adults and 28 % reported experiencing sexual abuse as an
adult, while another 30 % of married participants reported current physical abuse in their
relationships. Despite determining that gambling was a means for the individual to escape
from life stressors, the mechanism by which trauma played a role in the development of
problem gambling continues to remain under-investigated (Boughton and Brewster 2002).
An obvious gap exists in the current literature with respect to the role that trauma may
play in the initiation, development, and progression of pathological gambling among women
(Petry and Steinberg 2005). Some illumination into the exact role trauma plays however may
be gained by also exploring the writings and concepts of A.H. Almaas in relation to
experiences of narcissistic wounding and disconnection from essential being occurring
through trauma (Almaas 2001). Thus, this article will examine the association between
trauma, gambling, and narcissism via an in-depth case exploration supported by Almaas’s
transformation of narcissism theory.
Woundedness and the Development of Narcissism
Almaas (2001) argued that, as human beings, we have a natural desire to be to truly,
authentically ourselves. Although this drive may be conscious or unconscious, we
value the experience of being able to express ourselves spontaneously and authentically. However, in Almaas’s (2001) view, the moment we lose this sense of being
centered in who and what we are, we become anxious and egotistically preoccupied
with ourselves. Under these conditions, we then crave an inordinate amount of
approval and failing to receive such recognition we become prone to intense feelings
of unworthiness (Almaas 2001).
On the one hand, the desire to be authentically “oneself” has been described as a state of
self-realization which “is a manifestation of a certain human development, a development
tantamount to the full maturation of humanness which a human being may attain or arrive
at” (p. 5). On the other hand, the failure to be recognized as “oneself” or the failure to know
oneself intimately leads one to become narcissistically disturbed perpetually leaving the
individual in a state of arrested development (Almaas 2001).
Almaas’s (2001) work focuses on the phenomenon of narcissism—specifically, its development and resolution. Narcissism, according to Almaas, originates in early childhood
and is a common factor in the psychological make-up of most human beings. It develops
through the feeling of alienation that occurs as one begins to lose sight of one’s essential
identity and identifies with relatively superficial aspects of the self. Almaas (2001) attributed
this primarily to involve two capabilities of the self:
The first is the capacity of the mind to form concepts and structures of concepts in
response to experience. The second, is the capacity of the self to identify with different
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aspects of experience, particularly with images in the mind and with habitual emotional and physical states. (p. 15)
Almaas (2001) stated that the root of narcissism is the soul’s estrangement from its true
nature; hence an understanding of narcissism is necessary in order to resolve this issue of
estrangement. Borrowing from Object Relations theory, ego structures are said to be based
upon identification with impressions from the past. Almaas (2001) observed that the
experience of ego can never be entirely free of narcissism:
The conventional dimension of experience, which is deeply patterned by these structures (whether healthy or pathological), includes an intrinsic narcissism. Everyone
knows that he has some measure of selfishness, self-reference, a need to be seen and
appreciated, a deep wish for esteem and admiration from others, and some distortion in
his self-concepts. (p.26)
Almaas (2001) referred to this condition of everyday life as fundamental narcissism. In
working toward self-realization, this fundamental narcissism, which stands in the way of
realizing essential presence, becomes increasingly exposed and may intensify for a time as it
is confronted.
In understanding fundamental narcissism, Almaas (2001) stressed that certain environmental factors are at play as a child matures. For instance, as a child grows, he or she may
not be seen or related to, may be misunderstood and alienated, the loving quality of relating
might be missing, there may be a lack of or inadequacy of support, inappropriate demands
may be made, or there might be a lack of parental or primary caregiver attunement. So, there
can be a spectrum of abusive circumstances. As a result of these circumstances, characteristics which are common to all forms of narcissism develop and progress throughout early
development, proportionate to the individual’s overall history. Consequently, in more favorable circumstances, narcissism may take the form of fundamental or everyday narcissism,
while under less optimal conditions more severe forms may manifest, ranging from a
narcissistic personality disorder to borderline, to paranoid/schizoid states.
The Transformation of Narcissism
Almaas’s (2001) described a method of inquiry that leads the individual to realize, through
direct experience, that one’s identity is not a permanent independent self. Almaas further
explained that the process leading to the realization of the essential being, naturally applies
increasing pressure on the conventional self-identity, the central narcissistic structure.
Furthermore, he also observed a general sequence of experiences of realization through
which the individual progresses. Each of these movements involves an increasing awareness
into the false structure of the narcissistic self and subsequent natural arising of presence free
of memory or image.
Almaas (2001) broke this process into 18 distinct steps, but for purposes of this paper, the
first five steps will be summarized with the remaining steps only briefly expounded upon.
Working through self-images (our identity) reveals to awareness that our held notions of
who we claim to be is merely a “psychic structure patterned by images from past experience”
(Almaas 2001, p. 303). Here, the person realizes the first two steps of the Almaas process,
firstly, he or she has been a “fake”—a phony having sold out in an effort to win the approval
of others—and, secondly, is the discovery that the self is an “empty shell.” Almaas (2001)
explained that the awareness of the empty shell is “the direct awareness of the structure of
self-identity when it is not being defended against” (p. 306). As the process of working
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through issues of narcissism unfolds, a third phenomenon, which Almaas (2001) calls the
narcissistic wound is revealed. The dissolution of narcissistic structures increases the
individual’s awareness of vulnerability, bringing about a greater reliance on what Almaas
(2001) has termed mirror transference (influence and projections from the external world) in
an attempt to maintain the familiar sense of self. This exposes and threatens the integrity of
the shell resulting variety of intrapsyhic responses, including heightened anxiety, an inexplicable feeling of dread, and a preoccupation with irrational fantasies of ill health or injury.
It is here, we see Almaas’s fourth major phenomenon narcissistic rage. The individual may
literally lash out in rage and hatred, all in a desperate attempt to resurrect the rapidly
disappearing narcissistic self.
According to Almaas (2001), an individual literally feels wounded, both emotionally and
physically, as though there were an actual physical cut or gash in the heart. The sensation of
this physical pain is inseparable from that of the emotional distress, culminating in a single
profound emotional rip. This gash, Almaas explained, is a cut in the shell, the structure of
self-identity, as it begins to disintegrate. In the normal experience of identity, experiences of
narcissistic injury are defended against, however in the process of exposing the structures of
self-identity these defenses are not available, permitting a “tear in the being of the self”
(Almaas 2001, p. 312). If we continue to surrender and not resist, the tear will expand until
the shell dissolves, shattering our usual sense of identity, and affording a glimpse into the
vast fundamental presence of our essential identity.
Here we are led to Almaas’s fifth process the Great Betrayal (Almaas 2001). Initially, as
this betrayal comes into our consciousness, we construe it as a betrayal by the idealized or
mirroring other—either in the present by our spouse, children or friends, or in the past, by
our parents, and teachers, and we may respond with indignity, anger and rage at having been
treated unfairly and abandoned. Given a glimpse into our essential identity, however, we
humbly recognize that we turned away from ourselves. In doing so, we began to act and
eventually created a self-based on how we believed others wanted us to be and or we walled
ourselves off hiding our presence away from the light because our environment and those
inside it were toxic and injurious.
The recognition of the Great Betrayal sets up the fall into the Black Chasm of
Being in which the person learns to embrace life from a place of essence (Almaas
2001). This serves as the transition point into embracing Being, and potential selfrealization. The journey beyond this milestone calls for a discussion beyond the
scope of this study. For our purposes, it is significant to learn how Almaas’s (2001)
insights into the development and transformation of narcissism (leading up to Great
Betrayal) provide a theoretical link between childhood trauma, narcissistic coping,
and the development of pathological gambling. We will now turn to look at our
phenomenological-hermeneutics approach to research.
A Phenomenological-Hermeneutics Case Study Approach
For phenomenology’s founder, Husserl (1973), phenomenology was a method of research
that returned to the lived world, the world of experiences, which he saw as the starting point
of all science (Jardine 1990). Phenomenology asks, “What is this or that kind of experience
like?” Phenomenology can further be described as the explication of phenomena as they
present themselves to consciousness, as consciousness is the only access human beings have
to the world (Van Manen 1990). Phenomenology is not focused on finding the causal
relations of phenomenon, instead, phenomenology attempts to describe phenomenon.
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Phenomenology is a way to explore our human nature to become more aware of who we are
(Van Manen 1990).
The core of phenomenology is the intentionality of consciousness, in seeing that consciousness always has an object (Osborne 1990). Husserl believed the phenomenological
researcher’s task was to analyze the intentional experiences of consciousness in order to
perceive how a phenomenon was given meaning and to arrive at its essence. In Husserl’s
eye’s, phenomenological research was focused on finding the pure description of lived
experience (Van Manen 1990). Husserl referred to phenomenological reduction as the
fundamental resource that allowed for a pure description of a phenomenon. Here, the
researcher attempts to articulate predispositions and biases thorough a process called bracketing (Osborne 1990). As a result, the object of phenomenological description is fully
achieved through a direct grasping (intuiting) of the essential structure of phenomena as
they appear in consciousness (Van Manen 1990).
The phenomenological aspect of this approach focuses on the lived experience of the case
study participant’s experience of trauma, and the resulting narcissistic response including the
development of a gambling addiction. As stated above, a key component of the phenomenological approach is intentionality, and here the intentional object will be the experience of
trauma and the subsequent development of pathological gambling behavior (Osborne 1990;
van Manen 1990).
Hermeneutics
The research approach used in this study acknowledges the hermeneutical refinement
of phenomenology. Heidegger (1962, 1982) is accredited with developing a form of
hermeneutics to clarify under what conditions understanding occurs. Whereas Husserl
advocated for ‘bracketing’, which is the suspension of all biases and beliefs regarding
the phenomenon being researched prior to collecting data about it, Heidegger suggested that presuppositions are not to be eliminated or suspended as he rejected the
possibility of and necessity for a transcendental standpoint that grounds knowledge
and experience (Palmer 1969). We are already each one of us a “being-in-the-world”
(Heidegger 1962).
The hermeneutical phenomenology perspective recognizes that all understanding,
phenomenological and natural science, is interpretive (Madison 1990). Hermeneutics
does not mean interpretation in terms of correctness and agreement; instead hermeneutics carries its deeper traditional overtones of bringing out a hidden meaning, of
bringing out what is unknown into the light of day (Palmer 1969). Interpretation is
not a matter of sticking a value on a naked object, for what is encountered arises as
already seen in a particular relationship (Palmer 1969). In support of Heidegger this
research refutes Husserl’s claim of presuppositionless interpretation, as Heidegger
believed that interpretation was never the “presuppositionless grasping of something
given in advance” (Palmer 1969, p. 136).
Further to this notion of interpretation, Ricoeur (1970, 1981) pointed out that
interpreting text is not to realize or understand the intentions of the narrator, but to
understand the meaning of the text itself. When following text beyond the situation
and the intentions of the author, the text discloses possible modes of being in the
world that can be appropriated. Utilizing this approach, we can come to new understandings as we understand the text in a way that dramatically changes our perspectives. Understanding a new perspective is impossible unless we are able and willing
to abandon our positions and risk our assumptions (Madison 1990). In doing this
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research, we were surprised by how the following case study seemed to mirror
Almaas’s transformation of narcissism, calling for an interpretation of the case using
his theory.
Case Study Method
The use of the case study method is recognized as a valid research approach when a
thorough, in-depth study of a phenomenon is of interest (Patton 1990). This is particularly
fitting when the experience of that phenomenon has not been rigorously researched (Polit
and Tatano Beck 2008) as is the case with the interplay of trauma and the development of
female problematic gambling behavior. It is also seen that one person’s experience may be so
fertile and rich with meaning that it stands alone as a powerful, unique expression of the
phenomenon under study. This unique expression can pave the way toward illuminating
unrecognized aspects of the larger phenomenon. Thus, reliance upon a single case is highly
appropriate when the individual under study represents a “revelatory” case (Yin 2003) and
when that case can maximize what can be learned about the phenomenon (Stake 1995). It is
believed that we have such an illuminating case, that we will now turn to discuss the
experiences of study participant.
Penny: The Case Study
Penny is the central figure in this study. She is a very dynamic, animated and charming 58year-old woman who has lived most of her life in central and southern Alberta. Penny grew
up in a very abusive household, and suffered immensely from neglect and trauma as a child.
She witnessed alcoholism and addiction in family members who were close to her. Incest
and sexual molestation were also present in her early environment and were acted out on her
by older male caregivers and contemporaries. The bulk of Penny’s adolescent and adulthood
years were spent preoccupied with a variety of addictions from alcoholism, sex addiction,
work alcoholism, and finally to pathological gambling. Penny described her gambling
addiction as the most “cunning and powerful disease”.
Narcissistic Wounding and Loss of Basic Trust
In the first theme we examine Penny’s key childhood experiences that contributed to her
narcissistic wounding and loss of basic trust. This theme captures her ego development from
infancy to adolescence in years 0-12. (Almas 2004) identified narcissistic wounding as the
disruption of normal ego development during childhood. He explicitly identified eight
factors that disrupt normal ego development. Three of the eight factors identified by
Almaas are prominent in Penny’s lifeworld and will be discussed at this time. They are:
(1) inadequacy of early holding environment (2) caretaker’s narcissistic blindness, and (3)
trauma and abuse (Almas 2004).
Inadequacy of the early holding environment denotes a “lack of a supportive and
nourishing human environment” (Almas 2004, p.157). When there is a lack of
responsiveness, love, and care from primary caregivers, there is inadequacy of psychological nourishment to the child. A healthy holding environment is crucial as the
child cannot yet “depend on its own resources to feel supported and upheld in regard
to his [or her] sense of being himself [or herself]” (2004, p. 195). The child requires
a secure environment in which there is an “external solid presence of confidence,
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certainty, strength and reliability” (2004 p. 195). Penny did not have a secure early
holding environment and often felt vulnerable or under threat. She recalled:
I can remember the screaming and yelling…I know that my dad drank a lot, partied a
lot, chased women and my mother drank back then, too… there was a lot of…how can
I say…I think I was afraid of my dad… and there was a lot of tension…. I know there
was…between my mom and dad. And I would look at my father and I wanted to
impress him and I always thought my sister was more pretty than me and he loved her
more than me. I was jealous at a very young age. And he was like a stranger from afar
to me somehow. I wanted his approval so bad and I was kind of scared of him, too.
Penny’s early environment was unstable and fraught with volatility. Penny described her insecure attachment to her father as a tension between desperately wanting
his attention and feeling unsafe in his presence. Her narrative revealed her longing to
win her father’s approval and to receive her father’s love and attention freely and
without condition.
In addition to her difficult relationship with her father, Penny described herself in
childhood as “a loner”. She was unable to “connect” with her brother and found herself
“estranged” from her sister. She remarked: “I just remember feeling very alone.” Almaas
(2001) provides a description on the effect of the inadequacy in one’s holding environment
that mirrored Penny’s experience. He wrote, “when our environment betrayed us and
abandoned us, with varying degrees of insensitivity, we felt alone and abandoned with no
one relating to us” (p. 319). It came to be, that Penny’s young identity was constructed
through the experiences and interactions she had with her parents and family members. She
internalized the “good” and “bad” images of her object relationships and these images
became part of her own self-representation.
A second barrier to Penny’s healthy ego development was her caretaker’s narcissistic blindness. Caretaker’s narcissistic blindness refers to the caretaker’s inability to
see the child’s essential identity, their presence, or more accurately, see the actuality
of the child as Beingness. Almaas (2001) described Being as the whole self, or the
soul. For Almaas (2001) the loss of soul is equivalent to the loss of an authentic self
and the loss of wholeness. Almaas (2001) used the term soul to mean “the dynamic,
alive presence of the self as distinguished from the structures of the self which pattern
this presence” (p. 14). Almaas’s (2001) perspective was that when the soul is
identified with anything other than essential presence, it is bound to acquire narcissistic traits.
In contrast to the narcissistic traits developed in adulthood, Almaas (2001) described infants as having primary self-realization, which is “undivided, uncompartmentalized and whole” (p. 38). Primary self-realization is the optimal unconscious
state of Being. The state of unconscious self-realization is an undifferentiated matrix
in which the child is more in touch with the ground of Being. Since the child’s ego is
at the beginning stages of its development, and because it has not completely
solidified, the child is not conscious of its own self-realization. With the development
of the psychological ego the child might begin an unconscious movement away from
Being, depending on what the guardian recognizes and reinforces in the child. If the
child’s essential identity is not acknowledged, the child might begin to disassociate
from essence, at which point it will adopt or develop superficial self-representations
that are mirrored by its parents, constituting its narcissistic wounding. To this point,
Almaas (2001) wrote that when a part of the soul is not “recognized, acknowledged,
related to, and valued, when it is not positively seen, it will not develop” (p. 281).
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In Penny’s case, her caretakers did not acknowledge her essential identity; it was not
modeled or mirrored to her. This lack of mirroring constituted her parent’s narcissistic
blindness, which was their inability to recognize Penny’s essence. Almaas (2001) wrote:
The manifestations of the soul that are inadequately mirrored remain in the dark
recesses of unactualized potential. The child tends not to experience them as part of
her self, or not value them. She might even view them as a threat to her connection to
her parents. (p. 285)
Thus Penny sacrificed the wholeness of her Being in order to remain aligned with her
parents. Penny lamented: “I saw a cute little rat in the woodpile and he [Penny’s father] and
my brother went out and killed it with a shovel… I hated them doing it, I did it anyway
because I wanted my dad’s approval.”
The final of the three factors in Penny’s childhood that contributed to narcissistic
wounding are abuse and trauma. Abuse and trauma are devastating and damaging occurrences in any child’s upbringing and they can disrupt healthy ego development. With respect
to fundamental narcissism, abuse and trauma can entrench the effects of an already poor
holding environment and intensify pain associated with caretaker blindness. Almaas (2001)
maintains that the soul is incapable of tolerating the direct impact of traumatic experiences.
He argues that the soul will dissociate from the experience as a way of coping with the
trauma. This disassociation is a defense mechanism and is achieved by “totally blocking it
[the trauma] out of consciousness or by retaining the memory while becoming numb to its
emotional and feeling significance” (2004, p. 171).
Penny experienced the sudden and tragic death of her father in a car accident when she
was 8 years old. Here is the following account:
…this thing with my dad was just too big to handle and I just…it was just too much.
And already I don’t think I was very good at feeling my feelings and that was it. That
was an owie. I didn’t want to feel.
Penny further reports:
I went over to this gal’s house to play and her father said to me, what does your daddy
do for a living? And I remember freezing again. And I can still remember my fists
clenching and I just said, my daddy’s dead. And I remember tightening up my whole
body so I wouldn’t cry. Like I had made the decision never to cry.
According to Almas (2004) disassociation of the latter kind, impacts one’s “inner ground
of the soul” (p. 171), as repression limits and lowers the intensity of one’s awareness. It was
as if Penny’s soul has been disturbed cementing narcissism into her emotional body, which
acted to cut herself off from the fullness of her Being. Penny did not only experience the pain
of her father’s death, but she also endured sexual abuse from an older male figure in her life,
as well as physical abuse from her mother. Correspondingly, Penny discussed her disappointment from the lack of positive and protective father figures in her life. She remarked,
“My father left me. And my next father went to jail. And my next father was a pervert. And I
had never had love and protection from a man.”
In the aftermath of Penny’s trauma and abuse, it appears evident that Penny’s narcissistic
wounding left her with a loss of basic trust. Loss of basic trust is the position where we view
the world as cold, hostile and alien (Almaas 2001). Such a defensive posture leaves the
individual to identify with increasing contents churned up from a fissured mind. Adding
greater burden to a self who is already fragile and its remaining trust in the world dims, held
behind a mask of suspicion.
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Narcissistic Supply: Adulation, Addiction and the Need to be Seen
The second theme in Penny’s narrative captured her life from young adulthood until her late
thirties between the ages of 13–37. During this period, Penny struggled with a variety of
addictions and attention seeking behaviors in an effort to gain narcissistic supply. According
to Almas (2004), Penny’s insatiable need to be seen and appreciated resulted from a “shaky
identity” requiring “an inordinate amount of attention to support and stabilize it” (2001, p.
117). The abuse in Penny’s early environment had disrupted Penny’s “inner homeostasis”
(Almas 2004, p. 159), which was her ability to regulate her inner dynamics such as
frustration, fear, danger, and most importantly self-worth. To compensate for this vulnerability, Penny turned to her environment to elicit praise, adulation and regulate her self-worth.
She recalled:
I always felt that nobody really liked me. And I would try and try and try to get
attention by doing crazy things like…by being funny or even by…like I remember I
caught my hand in the spokes of a bike one time… Like any way to get attention.
At the core of the narcissistic personality is extreme self-hatred, self-directed aggression
and ultimately self-destructive yearnings (Almaas 2001). Penny projected onto her peers a
sense of hostility and brokenness because that is what she felt at her core, and at the same
time, she had a deep wish to be admired by others (Almaas 2001). Here lies the narcissistic
paradox, where the individual oscillates between hating oneself, while equally projecting
outward an identity that demands admiration. Penny reported:
In school, I would hold my arm up… I would throw it in the air; almost put my
shoulder out of joint, because I knew the answer. I wanted to make sure they asked me
so I could show everybody that I was smart because I felt like nothing. I was dying for
attention. My intelligence was one thing I got noticed for.
In the forthcoming passage, Penny reveals the simple but important dimension to gaining
validation, this time by being the winner at family games.
I just liked to win. I really liked to win. And even playing games, like Monopoly and
that, and I am remembering…I liked winning. I did not like losing. It [winning] made
me feel superior. You know, it gave me a big rush.
Despite this seemingly innocent disclosure, it is perhaps a foreshadowing to her gambling
addiction and provides an insight into the power and adulation she later experienced from
gaming.
Another narcissistic trait Penny exhibited in her youth was narcissistic envy. It began with
jealousy Penny held towards her sister for receiving less attention from their father. She
remembers, “My dad used to always put her on his knee. I hated her because I thought he
loved her more than me. I was really hung up on looks. The prettier one got the attention”.
Individuals who had more power, who were more attractive or had greater status and
achievement were targets for Penny’s bitterness; in effect one might conclude that Penny
hated people because she envied them. Almass (2001) wrote, “one hates anyone who has (or
seems to have), a rich inner life or external acclaim and feels pain about not having what the
other has” (p. 163).
To stave off feelings of jealousy, envy, and the pain of not being seen, Penny began
drinking in her youth. She boldly remarked, “I would drink to get obliterated.” During her
adulthood years, Penny’s drinking took on new a meaning. She drank to not only feel
“fabulous” but also “omnipotent” compensating for a lifeworld that was desolate inside and
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out. Following her addiction to drinking, Penny upped the ante and her love affair with
alcohol shifted toward an adoration for men, single or otherwise. Penny remarked, “Sex was
a power trip”. The act of dominating others sexually perpetuated the omnipotent image
Penny had of herself. As a result, Penny was able to reassert control over her inner emptiness
and for a short while, placate the haunting memories brought about from early childhood
neglect and abuse.
In her mid-twenties, Penny became a successful music manager for a number of
popular rock bands in Alberta and western Canada. As the self-professed “rock queen
of Alberta” she exerted a high level of control in her work and exuded a desperate
need for security in her work role. She commented that the power and success was
like no other high she ever felt. The authoritative position Penny held, as well as the
popularity and esteem she received from others, became a very addictive form of
narcissistic supply. She noted:
I started to become successful I started to get on a high like I had never been on in my
life… it was a frantic, crazy pace. I was working 24–7. I got a full-time housekeeper
for my kids and I had…it was like [gambling in a lot of ways]. I was just going 24–7.
Worried that she could lose her highly lucrative job and the material security it provided
Penny desperately clung to her work. She stated, “I just didn’t dare take a break”. Penny
appeared to have an obsession with becoming. Understood from the perspective of gambling
Penny was caught in the vertigo of seduction or more aptly she was enamored with being in
the action.
According to Almaas (2001) Penny had a fixation with her externally defined identity.
This external identity was dependent on her success as a rock agent. The more severely
attached to our identity the more we will deny our underlying feelings of helplessness and
negate our need to connect with other human beings (Almaas 2001). As result, the self
becomes more heavily dependent on its projections of grandiosity to keep its specialness
alive, all the while, warding off feelings of being invisible and apparently unlovable. Penny
remarked:
I just thought that if I could get enough money… I would never need anybody again. I
could just sit at the top of my little castle and tell everybody to go screw themselves…
and the grandiosity. I wanted people to know I didn’t need them. I showed no fear.
Narcissistic Emptiness: Empty Shell and the Black Chasm
Our third theme captures Penny’s life between the ages of 37–41, during which time she lost
her identity as a revered rock agent. The terms “empty shell” and “black chasm” are the
subject of introspection and refer to the narcissistic emptiness Penny experienced once her
makeshift identity was threatened and began to be brought into the light of day. Narcissistic
emptiness is a term that describes a moment or moments of insight in which the individual
glimpses the falseness of their entire self-system. These insights bring about the experience
of “existential dread and terror” (Almaas 2001, p. 315), which can lead to the rediscovery of
Being. It must be noted that Penny is in the initial stages of identifying and dissolving the
empty shell and thus her insights, although impactful, remain ongoing. Quite literally the
empty shell is the “self-emptied of its essential core” (2001, p. 306). The narcissistic
emptiness experienced when the shell begins to dissolve, is referred to by Almaas as “the
black chasm” (2001). The black chasm is the space between our identity that was developed
through historical time and the essential self. In this space the illusions of our constructed
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identity collapse and we feel torn asunder, thrown into a vacuous space of emptiness and
nothingness.
Penny first began to feel the disintegration of her identity when she lost her vocation as a
revered music executive. She was left with no choice but to give her company over to the
“big corporate giant.” Within months of resigning she experienced another devastating blow,
the death of her sister. Penny’s world was shattered, the trauma from her sister’s sudden
death was destabilizing and her identification with being a “somebody” in the world began
to crumble. She reflects,
I got a lot of status, a lot of reputation; I did have the best bands in the province. I
really did. I had a lot of respect. I was very, very successful…I remember writing
suicide notes. I was absolutely devastated, as devastated as I’ve been with any
addiction, because I was losing it and I knew that I couldn’t do it anymore…I was
just being swallowed up.
As an empty shell, Penny was without an inner life. After all, the shell comprised all of
Penny’s admiration and reverence from external sources. Penny’s job loss severed a main
artery rendering the shell thin and brittle giving rise to Penny’s experience of existential
dread. Essentially, the dissolution of the shell reveals a disconnection of the self from its
essential core. It is in this black emptiness that Penny began to feel lost, disorientated,
without purpose and meaning. Almaas describes this state as “purgatory” or a “transition inbetween stages” it is the “gap between our essential nature and who we take ourselves to be”
(Almaas 2001, p. 334). In the next passage Penny discloses her return to alcohol as a means
to sooth her depression and feelings of emptiness. Penny remembers:
I left the bar that night and I had been so depressed and so down and the drinking
wasn’t even helping anymore and I just wanted to sleep or go out at night and drink…I
was just in terrible, terrible shape. I was lost. I was no longer the rock and rock agent…
inside of myself, I felt nothing of myself.
The nothingness Penny experienced is an indication that her soul is “becoming aware of
its inner existential emptiness” (Almaas 2001, p. 225), however Penny could not tolerate the
fall into the black chasm of being and stand face to face with who she wasn’t. Instead she
turned to gambling, as alcohol could no longer repair the thinning shell nor could it help her
escape the haunting feelings that threatened to drown her into Being.
Narcissistic Rage and Gambling Pathology
Our fourth theme captures Penny’s descent into pathological gambling, which was fueled by
her ongoing collapse of identity, thinning of the empty shell, and subsequent rage at not
being able to control the trajectory of her subtle plunge into and out of the black chasm of
Being. The years of Penny’s gambling span a 12-year period.
According to Almaas (2001) narcissistic rage is an intense reaction that stems from the
inability to derive an adequate supply of mirroring from one’s environment to maintain a
sense of identity. In other words, narcissistic rage is a “defense against narcissistic vulnerability” (p. 328). Penny experienced the disorienting state of narcissistic emptiness in the last
theme and the not so soft touch of the black chasm as her self-structures began to thin. The
simple lack of non-identification (I am not a revered rock agent) caused Penny to feel
psychologically empty. It is here where Penny serendipitously found gambling.
For Penny, gambling began innocently; but soon after hitting 7’s on an electronic gaming
machine (EGM), she learned she could feed her fragile and vulnerable identity. The money
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Penny incurred from gambling gave her both power and security: “The money was more
security to me than anything. But I have to admit… All these people are fussing over me and
these lights are going off…I loved letting them see me win.” Penny’s early wins were
deceiving and despite realizing that she could not make a career out of gambling, gambling
remained a powerful an elixir for recognition and admiration.
Traditionally, chasing losses in gambling is a means by which the gambler attempts to
recover their losses from previous gambling ventures. However, in Penny’s case, she was
chasing after wins and losses in an attempt to regulate her self-worth and or stave off
devaluation from on looking gambling patrons. “I remember people would wait behind me
and I was just…like I just hated them seeing me lose”. Driven by the rush and the attention
she received Penny’s frequency of gambling ventures exponentially increased from week to
week. She noted losing an average of “twenty grand a month.” In less than a year, Penny’s
gambling had become an obsession and she was unable to do anything but gamble. She
remarks:
I gambled weekends…. I would go sometimes at ten in the morning and not get home
until three the next morning. I was bleary-eyed, hated going to the bathroom. I’d run in
there and spray all over the bathroom because I was afraid somebody would steal my
machine. And I would sit there and sit there and sit there and sit there and just…I
remember at first I had a little limit for myself of eight hundred dollars a day. And I
remember the first time I lost seventeen hundred dollars in a day.
Gambling became a vicious circle for Penny offering her intrapsyhic security when she
won while perpetuating her narcissistic vulnerability when she lost. Regardless of which
direction the pendulum swung, it served to keep Penny’s gambling in full tilt. Eventually the
euphoric and dysphoric cycle depleted Penny’s psychological resources and she spiraled into
a narcissistic depression. Penny attempted to quit gambling on a few occasions and reported
staying “straight” for a couple of months at a time. Penny eventually found her way to
Gambler’s Anonymous (GA) and for a short time her narcissistic striving and life seemed to
stabilize. Penny went about taking care of bills and paid off larger creditors by remortgaging
her home, but the “beast” she had created inside was insatiable. Wincing, Penny reported:
“The second I got that mortgage…my wheels couldn’t spin fast enough to get me there… I
went through about twenty thousand dollars of that thirty-five thousand in real short order.”
In the forthcoming vignette, Penny addresses the destructive origins behind her drive to
gamble, narcissistic rage, revealing it’s macabre nature:
Part of my gambling was to annihilate myself. Part of my gambling was that hate
inside of me… I was so prone to anger, and I had a lot of violent dreams. I couldn’t get
past the hate and my rage. Even people, I would push them away. I pushed everybody… the gambling, which at first was so attractive just turned into a nightmare of
self-abuse.
At the lowest and most vulnerable point in her gambling addiction Penny reports being
“dragged off” to a psychiatric ward by a friend, “I was barely conscious.” She continues:
Big Al came up and dragged me off a machine one night and they put me in the psyche
ward. I said I was going to kill myself. I remember dreaming that night that I was
putting quarters in the bedposts at the end of the bed. The poles that stick out they have
slots in them and I was putting loonies in the slots. I remember waking up that
morning and realizing where I was and going, ‘oh my god, oh my god.’ I stayed for
a week.
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Narcissistic Helplessness and the Great Betrayal
The final theme captures Penny’s shift toward healing, and her recognition of what
Almaas refers to as “the Great Betrayal” (2001), occurring between the ages of 55
and 58. The Great Betrayal is the betrayal of one’s true self as essence. At the most
essential level, this betrayal entails the loss of Being, when the most “fundamental
truth of the soul has been betrayed and abandoned” (Almaas 2001, p. 319). In the
case of Penny, significant “objects” (i.e. parents, guardians) betrayed and abandoned
Penny in childhood. She, in turn, betrayed herself by not fully being herself. In other
words, by abandoning her essential identity Penny aligned herself with what others
expected of her, wanted of her, and rewarded her for, instead of attending to
innermost Being (Almaas 2001). Thus in this theme, we will explore Penny’s conscious movement into Being, where Penny acknowledged the need for help and how
she began to take responsibility toward recovering her primordial presence.
The first milestone toward healing occurred when Penny disclosed the details of her
gambling addiction to her doctor. Her confession is a symbolic surrender, a sign that Penny
was ready to address her narcissistic helplessness and allow the empty shell to reveal its
hollowness. During this time, Penny returned to GA in an effort to bring her gambling under
control, however, her recovery from gambling addiction is still a matter of concern to this
day. One difficulty has been her narcissistic pride. For instance, Penny reported that despite
group meetings offering some support she perceived herself as more “troubled”. Feeling that
other members would not possibly understand the depth and devastation of the losses she
suffered. Penny recalled being discouraged, “I remember distinctly thinking that nobody in
that room had ever lost more money than I had and if they even had a friggin’ clue, like how
much worse I was than them, they wouldn’t believe it.”
In her difficulty relating to the rest of the group, Penny requested a private session with
the meeting leader to vent her frustrations. Penny warmly remarked:
I went in for the one on one and I ranted and raved about my mom and how she didn’t
love me enough. She beat me. And how my dad had died. And for an hour all I did
was scream and yell and cry and carry on and on and on.
Penny’s emotional release was an opening for transformative possibilities. She was able
to challenge her deeply rooted pain and dive into the shame and disappointment from her
past. She was able to get in touch with the emotional depth and complexity of her wounding.
Here Penny moved into a new way of being reconnecting with her emotional body. A far cry
from her past where her tendency was to “lick her wounds” when confronted with painful
emotions.
As Penny continued to work on processing her Great Betrayal, she revisited her painful
childhood and began to take responsibility for how her addictions impacted her family.
Deeper inquiry led her to explore the walls that held her Great Betrayal in place and she
spontaneously experienced a series of dreams, which she called “visitations”, visitations of
young child.
It took me two full years to realize that that child wasn’t actually a little two year old
on the end of my hand—that was me. Scared, bony, pathetic and so afraid. That was
me. And here I thought I was a big shot and grandiose and all this and I was a scared
little kid.
Drawing on the theoretical framework of Almaas, the child might be understood as her
souls’ return and request for healing. The child brings Penny many gifts, including
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forgiveness for others. She says “this child came to me and she ended up taking me on a
journey of forgiveness for my mother.”
Having begun the journey in reconnecting with essence, Penny was now ready to explore
the deep sadness over the loss of her father that she had been carrying since the age of 8.
I don’t think I had ever cried as an adult over my dad dying. And the tears just kind of
jumped off of my cheeks and I had been in recovery for a little while and …I was just
so shocked that I could just cry—just like that. And I went home and I was laying there
in the bed downstairs and I was thinking about my dad and all of the sudden it was like
this big vortex…I slipped into it. And whoever I was… Was gone and I was just love. I
get goose bumps telling you about it because it was the most…I don’t know how long
it lasted. It could have been ten seconds; it could have been five minutes…all I felt was
this incredible love.
Through the release of Penny’s buried pain over her father’s death she is led to have what
Almaas (2001) referred to as an “essential experience”. Penny describes slipping into a
“vortex” where she experiences “incredible love.” It is in this experience that Penny taps into
her essential identity and her soul tastes its experiential significance. Almaas identifies these
transcendent moments of pure love, bliss and healing as essential experiences wherein one
experiences “selfless inner spaciousnesss” (p. 303).
Spaciousness is experiential and psychologically it is “the space which allows the
essential presence to surface into consciousness” (Almaas 2001, p. 69). In this moment of
selfless inner spaciousness, letting go arises spontaneously as does healing. Here, Penny is
returning to her “pure condition” (Almaas 2001, p. 25). She recalls:
I remember that night was the first time I ever felt any kind of tenderness toward
myself and I was very aware of that. I was like, you know, maybe I could learn to love
myself. Maybe, just maybe. That kindness to myself, it felt like it was the first time in
my life I had ever been kind to myself. And I realized that I needed to do more of that
and I needed to get open more but it was like pulling teeth. It was the hardest thing I
had ever done.
The self-love that was ignited in Penny is the precise medicine for the narcissistic wound.
The narcissistic wound, which severed her from the ground of Being, is repaired through
love. The intimacy she feels with herself and the kindness towards herself are characteristic
of the effects of this presence. Almaas (2001) writes, “When we experience ourselves
directly we experience ourselves in its primordial purity, without veils, without obscurations
(p. 25).
The sojourn into and out of the Great Betrayal is centered on a fundamental shift in
consciousness, what some call a “spiritual awakening”. The effect of which has helped
Penny dismantle and begin to transform her addictive patterns. It has kindled a genuine
feeling of self-worth and has redefined the way Penny sees herself in the world. Almaas
(2001) poignantly notes, “The more we know the truth of who we are, the more we can be
authentic and spontaneous, rather than merely living through self concepts of ourselves”
(2001, p. 8).
Conclusion and Discussion
The chief implication of this research is to inform health care practitioners and counsellors of
an alternative approach to understanding and addressing pathological gambling and
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addiction issues in clients. By considering the theoretical and philosophical assumptions
proposed by A.H. Almaas, we learn that addiction is symptom of fundamental narcissism
and loss of Being. Therefore one might approach and treat clients from a unique vantage
point that requires rethinking current treatment methods and interventions. A noteworthy
therapeutic implication for counselors revealed through Penny’s case study is that healing
comes from essential experiences. It is revealed in Penny’s narrative that she is able to
connect to herself at a fundamental level and discover genuine self-love through essential
experiences. Consequently, counsellors are encouraged to educate themselves with respect
to Presence and Being and approach resolving addictions issues by exploring these experiences with their clients. The inquiry into essential experiences might aid to thin the shell of
the ego-structured personality (the empty shell), in order that the client might experience his
or herself as presence; involving a far deeper reality of the self than the contingent identities
one holds onto in the world. In Penny’s narrative she concludes, “Gamblers have to really
get with the program and have a spiritual awakening before they realize that they can’t do
any form of gambling.” For Penny, it was the spontaneous arising of presence that helped her
realize what drove her addictive behaviors and how gambling provided both an escape and
mirroring of falsity that drove her further in oblivion.
The final implication of this work, that is perhaps the most profound and necessary
consideration, is transforming the lens through which health care professionals and counselors view clients who suffer with gambling and addiction issues. By adopting the perspective
of A.H. Almaas (2001), one might then view every human being as having an inherent drive
towards healing and a desire to discover their true self in Being:
In every soul there is an inherent drive toward truth, an inherent desire to feel fulfilled,
real and free. Although many people are not able to pursue this desire effectively, the
impetus toward the realization of the self is in all of us it begins with the first stirrings
of consciousness and continues throughout life whether or not we are directly aware of
it. This impetus spontaneously emerges in consciousness as an important task for the
psychologically and spiritual maturing human being. As maturity grows into wisdom
in an optimally developing person, this task gains precedence over other tasks in life,
progressively becoming the center that orients, supports and gives meaning to one’s
life, ultimately encompassing all of one’s experience. (p. 16)
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