The Non-Integrated Self

The typical sociopath gets caught in an affair, a financial scandal, or just a lie. Their response? How do I wiggle my way out of this? A pragmatic, amoral decision.

The typical narcissist gets caught in an affair, financial scandal, or just a lie. Their response? Attack the person that exposed them. Make that other person suffer.

A regular, everyday person gets caught in an affair, financial scandal, or just a lie. Their response? Guilt and shame; a wish to make amends. The need to do something because it feels terrible.

Now, our heuristic categories are weak. The pure narcissist, sociopath, and even that hypothetical healthy soul are ideas, with many normal people exhibiting traits found in each one. So, for the purposes of this article, let’s break the concepts down into pure categories.

What can we learn here?

The Interior Landscape

We are far less integrated than we would like to think.

What I mean by this is that our notion of self is somewhat of an illusion, although one with practical value. It is useful to believe that you are in charge of yourself when the truth is less reassuring.

We think we are in charge. We think we know what we’re doing.

Unless we do a lot of internal work, we tend to operate on the surface, often under the influence of internal factors; what I like to call our "internal landscape".

Yes, internal landscape. Consider the mind like a huge swath of territory. The self we value so much only has a partial view of it. We may choose not to see the whole territory, or some may be blocked off to us, but that territory within is still there. In this regard, I believe Sigmund Freud was correct about the existence of the unconscious.

Examples of places in an internal landscape:

• A little boy within was hurt.
• A little girl inside who feels displaced in her family.
• A traumatized place within that goes into flight/fight/freeze when activated.
• A powerful sense of self that “believes” it’s in charge.
• A powerful sense of helplessness that “believes” things never work out.

There are endless spots on the landscape. All within. Some remembered. Some forgotten. Ancient archaeology, modern history. All there.

In good psychotherapy, these places get exposed. We make friends with them. They’re not going away, but they can be rearranged and minimized the more we understand them and navigate around them.

Mouse Eye/Eagle Eye

Consider an ancient piece of wisdom exemplified by the term "mouse eye". Seeing things close up, they appear huge and overwhelming. Mouse eye sees without perspective and with overwhelming immediacy.

We live our lives very much in mouse eye.

Then consider another idea: "eagle eye." Seeing things from up above, the big picture. Eagles have precision sight to accompany their advantage in height. To see with eagle eye often takes psychotherapy or intense self-reflection.

What we’re trying to do as we gain wisdom is to have an adult relationship with ourselves and with the outside world. I like to think of it as "Adult Mind," the capacity for a larger self to hold the internal landscape, knowing you never really have it.

It’s not that we’re multiple personalities but that different aspects of ourselves take over in different settings. You feel it when you’re acting one way in the social crowd and another way with your family. Or another way perhaps when away on business.

We all lead secret lives, often contradicting our own stated beliefs and values. We break diets while pretending to adhere, engage in gossip we condemn, feign knowledge, and seek attention while denying vanity. Greed subtly influences us, and addictions may lure us despite family love.

This clandestine existence thrives as we ignore our internal conflicts.

Unresolved traumas can also manifest in overreactions—an aspect of our behavior we often overlook or dismiss.

What Narcissists and Sociopaths Teach Us

Individuals with narcissistic or sociopathic traits often lead secret lives. Narcissists, with their brittle egos and sense of entitlement, use others for personal success. Similarly, sociopaths can contribute to their communities while exploiting them. Their ego is more robust, but they lack a sense of responsibility, focusing solely on winning without guilt or shame.

When a narcissist's secret life is exposed, they feel intense shame, leading to an aggressive response as they can't reconcile guilt internally due to their brittle ego. They are intolerant to criticism, causing them to react viciously when exposed.

On the other hand, sociopaths are aware of their actions and indifferent to guilt or shame.

They view people as pawns to achieve victory and can examine their internal landscape, rationalize their behavior, or simply not care. They can display narcissistic grandiosity if it serves their agenda. Their lack of guilt and focus on winning make them challenging to treat in therapy.

The adult mind is the idea of developing the capacity to observe one’s internal landscape, to have an adult relationship with this landscape—and with who you really want to be.

The mind is incredibly complex and beautiful. 80 billion neurons. Years of personal experience. Parenting. Love, loss, trauma, success and failure. Everybody’s landscape is different. It’s what makes us so interesting.

So, do regular people have secret lives? Absolutely. Probably small ones. Occasionally big ones. Underneath is an understanding that it’s not consistent with your values. When confronted or caught, there’s a flood of shame. And a wish to make it right.

The narcissist and sociopath cannot tolerate the parts of themselves that have been exposed. The first is triggered by shame to attack what the ego cannot hold. The second is triggered to survive, not feeling shame at all. No need to make right, unless it serves.

Conclusion: We have a vast internal landscape. Think of the ocean. Think of space. There are many places to visit, some more hidden, some more accessible. Some repressed. Some right there.

We believe in a self that knows what it’s doing. This is functional, providing a sense of agency in the world. Just know there’s a level of falseness to this.

We don’t know what we don’t see. And we don’t remember what we prefer not to remember.

So next time you’re in a secret life, accept yourself failing to be your best self. Then ask yourself whether this behavior is consistent with who you want to be.

You’re triggered to anger. It may not be what you want for yourself. You’re preoccupied with money. You’re addicted to food, gambling, alcohol, gaming. It’s all well and good, but on a parallel track with who you want to be.

I would argue for kindness and intelligence.

Develop an adult mind that sees the complexity of the mind as terrain to deal with rather than as a spot on the map that assumes that the whole world is right there.

The map is right in front of you.

Now open it.

To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.