146 Dr. Jerald Kay & Dr. Joel Yager: Ambition and Psychopathology

In this episode, Therese Markow, Dr. Jerald Kay, and Dr. Joel Yager discuss the various forms of ambition. They discuss lack of ambition, mismatched ambition, and delve into some of the potential negative consequences of Machiavellian ambition and how to deal with malignant narcissists. 

 Key Takeaways:

• There are biological underpinnings to ambition, but much of what we know about ambition is built on repeated interactions as children. 

• Not everyone who is Machiavellian is ambitious. Not everyone who is ambitious is Machiavellian. But when you have people who have dark triad characteristics it can mean trouble for those around them. 

• There are levels of narcissism. Some are treatable. The last division of severe narcissistic personality is called malignant personality disorder and is relatively untreatable.

"It’s both nature and nurture. We know ambition runs in families. And we know kids that are adopted into families with ambitious parents turn out to be more ambitious than if they weren’t adopted into those kinds of families." —  Dr. Joel Yager

Episode References: https://journals.lww.com/jonmd/fulltext/2023/04000/ambition_and_its_psychopathologies.1.aspx

Connect with Jerald & Joel:

Dr. Jerald Kay Professional Bio: https://people.wright.edu/jerald.kay 

Dr. Joel Yager Professional Bio: https://som.cuanschutz.edu/Profiles/Faculty/Profile/1789 

Email Dr. Jerald Kay: [email protected] 

Email Dr. Joel Yager: [email protected] 

Connect with Therese:

Website:  www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: [email protected]

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