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signs of their character disturbance. They generally come to the attention of professionals under pressure from someone else. They're happy with who they are and how they operate. The symptoms of their dysfunction primarily cause distress to those around them. There's an adage in clinical circles: If they're making themselves miserable, they're probably neurotic. If they're making everybody else miserable, they probably have a character disorder. There's a lot of truth to that adage.
Response to adverse consequence. Neurotics question themselves and strive to make changes when things go wrong. They tend to become unnerved easily and to blame themselves all too readily. Disturbed characters, by contrast, tend to be relatively unfazed when their actions invite negative consequences, and even if they are perturbed to some degree, it's generally a short‐lived reaction. Some of them more severely impaired characters even become more emboldened and determined in their manner of coping as consequences mount. They blame others, not themselves when things go wrong anyway, and as a result, they don't appear to profit from experience.
Nature of self‐presentation. The traditional conceptualization of personality as a “mask” a person wears to hide the true (often unconscious) self is still a reasonably valid perspective when it comes to understanding and dealing with neurotics. And for far too long, all personality styles have commonly been considered, as David Shapiro aptly titled his landmark book, “neurotic styles.” But certain personality manifestations tend to lie more toward the character‐disturbed end of the neurosis – character disturbance spectrum, so it's not only inaccurate but sometimes even dangerous to view such individuals within the neurosis framework. For example, the ego‐inflation associated with narcissism has been commonly viewed as an outward and unconscious “compensation” for underlying feelings of inadequacy and deficient self‐esteem. We used to think similar things about bullies as well. But research is proving these assumptions mistaken most of the time. There are folks who are just exactly as they appear. When such folks act like they're all that, it's because they really sincerely believe they are. It's neither an act nor pretense. Sometimes, there's some objective basis for their beliefs about their greatness, and sometimes there's not. But even when there isn't, that fact isn't necessarily proof that the person must be “compensating” for anything. Some people simply tend to overestimate their value regardless of the objective realities. Even those narcissists with substantial resumes will still tend to believe they know more than they actually know or can do more than they actually can do. When you're dealing with character disturbance, most of the time what you see is what you get. If they're presenting a façade, it's usually done consciously and deliberately as part of the game of impression management or some other confidence scheme.
Needs in therapy. The emotional conflicts causing neurotics distress are mostly unconscious to them. In insight‐oriented therapy, we establish a trusting relationship that facilitates mindful reflection to help bring these conflicts into greater conscious awareness. Neurotics both need and generally benefit from insight‐oriented interventions. Character‐disturbed individuals need something entirely different in any therapeutic encounter. Already having insight but lacking in motivation to change course, they need “confrontation” and therapist‐facilitated “correction” of their maladaptive ways of thinking, attitudes, and behavior patterns. And if change is ever to occur, it will happen in the here‐and‐now moment of interpersonal interaction when the therapist benignly but firmly shines a light on a dysfunctional attitude, way of thinking, manipulation tactic, or other responsibility‐avoidant behavior and both proposes and reinforces appropriate alternatives.
Now, there are many, many more dimensions on which neurotics and disturbed characters differ, and in my book Character Disturbance, I outline several more than I've mentioned here. But there are even more than the additional ones I mention in the book, and it would be fair to say that just about everything you've ever learned about what goes on inside a person and why folks do the kinds of things they do probably doesn't apply when it comes to dealing with an impaired character. Narcissists, antisocial personalities, covert‐aggressors, and other manipulators are simply a different breed for the most part, and the rules for dealing effectively with them are very different, too. It's when folks (professional and lay persons alike) refuse to accept that fact that they put themselves at a distinct disadvantage in any encounter with such individuals.
16.3 Aggressive Personalities
At the heart of most manipulation is covert‐aggression (i.e. aggression “under cover”). Now, you'll notice I did not say “passive‐aggression,” and there's a very big reason for that. The kind of aggression that underlies most manipulation is anything but passive. Human aggression can be expressed in a number of different ways (i.e. directly vs. indirectly, overtly vs. covertly, reactively vs. predatorily, etc.), principle among them actively or passively. And by “aggression,” I don't mean violence. Rather, I mean the forceful energy we all expend in pursuit of a goal. Aggression is different from assertiveness because when someone is aggressive they don't take deliberate care to place limits on their aggressive quests out of respect for the legitimate rights, needs, and boundaries of others.
Not only is covert‐aggression the major vehicle for manipulating others but also most folks who manipulate as a lifestyle can be conceptualized as covertly aggressive personalities. They're part of a group that I and others (c.f., for example, Millon, Personality Disorders in Modern Life) prefer to label the “aggressive personalities” (all of whom can be viewed as aggressive variants of the narcissistic personality). And in Character Disturbance, I outline five major subtypes of this group: the unbridled aggressive (those who habitually break the major rules, are often in trouble with the law, and whom we've traditionally labeled antisocial personalities), the channeled‐aggressive (ruthless individuals who for purely practical reasons keep their behavior within the confines of the law unless they're confident they can get away with breaking it), the sadistic aggressive (whose primary objective is not merely to “win,” control, or dominate, as is the case with the other aggressive personalities, but rather, to inflict pain and relish both in that pain and the power they exerted over the victim), the covert‐aggressive (manipulative) personality, and the predatory aggressive (the severely empathy‐devoid, without conscience, malignantly narcissistic individuals who view all “lessor” creatures as their rightful prey), whom we have variously labeled as psychopathic or sociopathic in the past, and many of whom also show features common to the other subtypes (especially the sadistic and manipulative features).
As mentioned earlier, there are many ways to aggress. One can aggress by not doing (i.e. passively) or by doing something actively to injure, exploit, hoodwink, or control another. And one particularly effective way to aggress is to do it so subtly, or to disguise your behavior in such a manner that your intended target can't readily detect the victimization you have planned for them. That, in a nutshell is what covert‐aggression is all about, and it's at the heart of most manipulative behavior. Hopefully, you will not join the already swelled ranks of folks (professionals being among the worst offenders) who mistakenly use the term passive‐aggressive to describe covertly aggressive behavior. Covert‐aggression is decidedly active, albeit veiled, aggression.
Covert‐aggressors rely on certain behaviors I call power tactics to manipulate and control. Some of the common ones were mentioned earlier and some others will be mentioned a bit later. These tactics are effective because they put you on the defensive while simultaneously cloaking the aggressive nature of and intent behind the behaviors. At the very moment when a person is employing these behaviors, they're attempting to get the better of you, look good while doing it, and stiffening their resolve not to do as they know society wants them to do all at the same time. This is really important to remember, because many of the behaviors I'm talking about have been traditionally conceptualized as defense mechanisms. But when you have a strong gut feeling that someone is doing you wrong, and then when you confront them they offer an excuse for it, rather than assume that they're “rationalizing” (unconsciously as a way to assuage feelings of guilt), you might want to consider that they simply don't want you to keep your guard up, to recognize what kind of person they really are and what they're really trying to do, and, ultimately, making a statement that they believe they have a perfect right to keep