Please see this list of the 13 standard and established underlying pathologies. As explained in Foundations, when they are combined together, they constitute pathogenic parenting and cause the following unique harm to children: developmental issues (attachment), personality disorder traits, and fixed false (delusional) beliefs .
The following material comes from Dr Childress Blog, from [Millon 2011 pg 407-408] :
A. Delusional processes of NPD/BPD (decompensation into persecutory delusions) [Millon 2011] “Delusional Syndromes (DEL). Under conditions of unrelieved adversity and failure, narcissists may decompensate into paranoid disorders. Owing to their excessive use of fantasy mechanisms, they are disposed to misinterpret events and to construct delusional beliefs. Unwilling to accept constraints on their independence and unable to accept the viewpoints of others, narcissists may isolate themselves from the corrective effects of shared thinking. Alone, they may ruminate and weave their beliefs into a network of fanciful and totally invalid suspicions. Among narcissists, delusions often take form after a serious challenge or setback has upset their image of superiority and omnipotence. They tend to exhibit compensatory grandiosity and jealousy delusions in which they reconstruct reality to match the image they are unable or unwilling to give up. Delusional systems may also develop as a result of having felt betrayed and humiliated. Here we may see the rapid unfolding of persecutory delusions and an arrogant grandiosity characterized by verbal attacks and bombast. . Rarely physically abusive, anger among narcissists usually takes the form or oral vituperation and argumentativeness. This may be seen in a flow of irrational and caustic comments in which others are upgraded and denounced as stupid and beneath contempt. These onslaughts usually have little objective justification, are often colored by delusions, are often colored by delusions, and may be directed in a wild hit or miss fashion in which the narcissist lashes out at those who have failed to acknowledge the exalted status in which he or she demands to be seen" pp. 407-408; emphasis added.
B. Perverse triangles [Haley 1977]:
a. “The people responding to each other in the triangle are not peers, but one of them is of a different generation from the other two” (Haley, 1977, p. 37; emphasis added)
b. “In the process of their interaction together, the person of one generation forms a coalition with the person of the other generation against his peer. By ‘coalition’ is meant a process of joint action which is against the third person.” (Haley, 1977, p. 37; emphasis added)
c. “The coalition between the two persons is denied. That is, there is certain behavior which indicates a coalition which, when it is queried, will be denied as a coalition.” (Haley, 1977, p. 37; emphasis added)
d. Haley refers to a cross-generational parent-child coalition as a “perverse triangle”,
e. “In essence, the perverse triangle is one in which the separation of generations is breached in a covert way. When this occurs as a repetitive pattern, the system will be pathological.” (Haley, 1977, p. 37; emphasis added)
C. Projection of core/primal fear of inadequacy (NPD) or abandonment (BPD). Also projective displacement
D. Splitting [American Psychiatric Association 2000] “Splitting. The individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by compartmentalizing opposite affect states and failing to integrate the positive and negative qualities of the self or others into cohesive images. Because ambivalent affects cannot be experienced simultaneously, more balanced views and expectations of self or others are excluded from emotional awareness. Self and object images tend to alternate between polar opposites: exclusively loving, powerful, worthy, nurturant, and kind — or exclusively bad, hateful, angry, destructive, rejecting, or worthless.”
E. Victim, Perpetrator, Rescuer, Bystander reenactment [Pearlman, Courtois 2005] “Reenactments of the traumatic past are common in the treatment of this population and frequently represent either explicit or coded repetitions of the unprocessed trauma in an attempt at mastery. Reenactments can be expressed psychologically, relationally, and somatically and may occur with conscious intent or with little awareness. One primary transference-countertransference dynamic involves reenactment of familiar roles of victim-perpetrator-rescuer-bystander in the therapy relationship. Therapist and client play out these roles, often in complementary fashion with one another, as they relive various aspects of the client’s early attachment relationships” (p. 455; emphasis added).