Disturbed character
Personalities with disturbed character are unencumbered by qualms of conscience and passionately pursue their personal goals with indifference to - and often at expense of - the rights and needs of others, and cause all sorts of problems for others and society at large. Character-disordered personalities lack self-restraint when it comes to acting upon their primal urges. They have too little conscience or in extreme case no conscience at all. They typically resist making concessions to societal demands, may have some antisocial tendencies and have diminished capacities for experiencing genuine shame or guilt. Erroneous thinking patterns and attitudes underlie dysfunctional behaviors they display. These problematic behavior patterns may be habitual and automatic, but also they are conscious and deliberate. The distorted characters resists changing their attitudes and core beliefs despite they have plenty of insight and awareness. What they need and can benefit from are:
- limits
- confrontation
- an most especially correction.
- Cognitive-behavioral therapeutic approaches are the most appropriate in this regard.
When dealing with disturbed characters, it is however also important to craft win-win scenarios so that they do not feel like they have to lose.[1][2]
Brief Summary of Problematic Patterns of Thinking of Disturbed Characters[1]
- Self-focused/self-centered thinking
- Possessive thinking
- Extreme 'all-or-none' thinking
- Egomaniacal thinking
- Shameless thinking
- Quick and easy thinking
- Guiltless thinking
The aggressive personalities
Among the most character-disordered personalities are covert-aggressive personalities, the more extreme cases of which are[1]:
- the tele-evangelists,
- cult leaders,
- political extremists,
- Sunday night TV "success" peddlers and
- militant social activists
- They use the tactics of manipulation in their overall modus operandi and seek to rise to position of substantial power and influence. They gravitate toward and exploit the excellent opportunities for self-advancement and the wielding of considerable power under the guise of service available in such endeavors.
Examples
Science
In his historical lecture at Sorbonne University in 1864, Louis Pasteur denounced the doctrine on spontaneous generation, supported by evolutionists of his day, as error. Since then, Georges Clemenceau was among those who instead of accepting the new scientific discoveries by Pasteur had never forgiven him for this and he became his fierce opponent. For twenty years the future Tiger had been waiting for opportunity to thwart Pasteur and his methods. What was at stake here was the very future of the vaccines. In 1886 he joined Pasteur's adversaries who tried to discredit his method of antirabies vaccination whenever a death of patient occurred and who were ready to unleash hostile campaigns in the French press that was always looking for scandal and in the scientific press, that had gained an important position in society since the first half of the nineteenth century. Pasteur however had no doubts about the effectiveness of his vaccine and made sure that every last hostile article based on manipulative, aggressive and false accusations, whether in the general press or in specialized journals, received his response in which he defended his findings and conclusions he had drawn from them. Instead of using underhand means, Pasteur showed science in action, personified the march of progress and at the same time his aggressive adversaries were consumed by envy and "cast into the shadowy realm of the wicked", along with archaic opponents of Pasteur's method.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 George Simon (1996, 2010). "8 The Manipulaive Child", In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and dealing with Manipulative People. Little Rock, USA: Parkurst Brothers, 34-35, 55, 66. ISBN 978-1-935166-30-6.
- ↑ George K. Simon. Dealing with manipulative people: Disturbed character. Retrieved on December 8, 2013.
- ↑ Patrice Debré (1998). Louis Pasteur. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 454-456. ISBN 978-0801-865299. “Pasteur...went up to ... offer his criticism:...Analogy cannot serve as proof.”