Now you can finally learn the truth about the manipulative, aggressive, narcissistic, and other responsibility-challenged people in your life.  These are the people who are content with themselves but who make everyone around them miserable.  After several unavoidable delays, orders can now be placed for Character Disturbance: The Phenomenon of our Age.

The international success of my first book, In Sheep’s Clothing:  Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People, told me that people were hungry for understanding not only about manipulators, but also about all the problem characters in their lives.  In Character Disturbance, I present a framework by which almost anyone can understand all the major personality types, what makes them the way they are, how they think, how they conduct their relations with others, and what a reasonable person has to do to avoid being abused or exploited by life’s most unsavory characters.  I even give examples of therapeutic encounters with such types to illustrate the futility of traditional intervention methods and what really has to happen to make a difference in the disturbed character’s modus operandi.

Advance orders for the book should be filled in a couple of weeks.  So order early because demand will be high.

“My boyfriend and I have lived together for nearly 5 years. He doesn’t fit the accepted profile of an “abuser.”  He isn’t jealous and doesn’t seek to isolate me or control my money.  Still, he is verbally insulting to me, and his temper is genuinely terrifying (he frequently throws/smashes things).  He hit me once, and I called the police.  To this day, he says I’m to blame for the whole episode. He’s aggressive to others, as well and he never apologizes, or sees fault in his behavior. He is manipulative and criticizes any emotions I dare show as a sign of my own weakness. I often don’t tell him how I really feel to avoid argument or being put down.

My boyfriend also has alcohol abuse problems that have nearly cost him his job. When he is drunk he is usually even more aggressive and not just toward me. Most of the time, I walk on eggshells, trying not to upset him.  He is extremely impulsive, but that has a positive side.  He is a genuine wit; very creative; and occasionally brilliantly insightful (others share this view).  I believe that if he disciplined himself, he could be a successful writer. It’s occurred to me that he might be bipolar, or suffer from adult ADHD. He is hostile to the idea of therapy, however.  I’ve read a load of self-help books on abuse, alcoholism. He doesn’t seem to fit any of these profiles, exactly. His various struggles make it difficult for me to write him off in black and white terms. I don’t feel I can end the relationship, but I’m having trouble thinking about it with any clarity. I need to decide whether to end this and build my life in earnest, or stay and try to help make things better.

I wish I could say that the example above represents a rare circumstance.  In fact, it’s an all too common scenario.  Victims in abusive relationships will often try so hard to understand (it’s part of their neurosis) that the end up enabling all sorts of destructive behavior and entrapping themselves further in a no-win situation.  Here is my response:

You might have read a lot of self-help books, but I’m fairly certain you haven’t read my first book In Sheep’s Clothing (which has been recently revised) or my new book Character Disturbance (now available for advance orders from Amazon!).  I’m fairly certain of this because both books not only account for your boyfriend’s behavioral profile, but also your pattern of putting yourself in positions that further erode your already damaged sense of self-worth.  Both books emphasize how self-defeating it can be to try far too hard to “understand” as opposed to finding and standing on principles necessary to foster healthy relationships.

Your boyfriend alone is responsible for his behavior and the fact that he is unwilling to seek help to correct it speaks volumes about his character and the likely future of your relationship. And the fact that you’ve tolerated what you have in an effort to better “understand” (despite the insight you already have is a reflection of your own misplaced priorities.  Neither party in an abusive relationship ever finds the motivation to change the status quo unless the principles of responsible behavior take precedence over understanding. Best advice:  Stop musing about possible explanations and start enforcing limits and boundaries.

Having given literally hundreds of workshops on the topic of character disturbance, my audiences (helping professionals and lay persons alike) always seem to want to know how the various disturbed characters came to be the way they are and what can be done to help them change. I get similar questions from readers of my writings and blog articles as well.

You can boil down many of the underlying assumptions of traditional schools of psychological thought about how people become disturbed and how you help them heal in this way: People are inherently good and geared toward health. They become unhealthy because bad or “traumatic” things happen to them. They develop fears and insecurities as a result of the trauma they experience and learn to cope in less than optimal ways. With unconditional positive regard, empathy, and support, they can heal their wounds, overcome their fears, and become naturally inclined once again to lead healthy, loving, compassionate lives.

Some schools of philosophical and religious thought adopt an opposing view: Man is basically a “fallen” or evil creature, inherently defective. Without sufficient guidance from a higher power, and left to his own devices, man will naturally tend to descend into all types of decadence, indecency and depravity. His greatest need is to be “saved,” especially from himself.

There is also the “nature vs. nurture” argument. For a long time, behavioral scientists argued that we’d all be the same were it not for the fact that we are subjected to very different environmental influences and contingencies. But these days there is plenty of evidence that certain behavioral tendencies are strongly influenced by genetic, temperamental, and other constitutional factors.

As is almost always the case, it appears the truth about human nature lies somewhere in the middle of the various extremes expressed above. Man is neither inherently good nor evil. And he is neither at the mercy of his genes and biochemistry nor is he a mere robot, fated to behave solely as his environment has programmed him to act. He is also not inherently defective. And although he’s basically an animal endowed by nature with some very primitive instincts, he has the remarkable capacity to learn and grow in awareness, which makes it possible for him to become ever so much more than a mere animal. That’s what the processes of socialization and character development are all about. And it’s a difficult, painful, complex, and generally life-long process.

In my book In Sheep’s Clothing [Amazon], I define the process of character development this way:

Character-building is the lifelong process by which we instill self-discipline and develop the capacities to live responsibly among others, to do productive work, and above all, to love. …[And] loving is not a feeling, an art, or a state of mind. It’s a behavior, and precisely the behavior to which the two Great Commandments exhort us to commit ourselves.

Similarly, I define a philosophy for responsible living:

Even though a person might begin life as a prisoner of the natural endowments he was given and the circumstances under which he was raised, he cannot remain a “victim” of his environment forever. Eventually, every person must come to terms with him or herself. To know oneself, to fairly judge one’s strengths and weaknesses, and to attain true mastery over one’s most basic instincts and inclinations are among life’s greatest challenges. But ultimately, anyone’s rise to a life of integrity and merit can only come as the result of a full self-awakening. A person must come to know himself as well as others without deceit or denial. He must honestly face and reckon with all aspects of his character. Only then can he freely take on the burden of disciplining himself for the sake of himself as well as for the sake of others. It is the free choice to take up this burden or “cross” that defines love. And it is the willingness and commitment of a person to carry this cross even to death that opens the door to a higher plane of existence.

In my forthcoming book, Disturbances of Character, I make the point that “ours is an extremely interconnected and interdependent world,” and as such the need for people of sound character could not possibly be greater. I also note that “my personal mission for the last several years has been to call attention to the significant social problem (of character disturbance) and to inspire people to address and overcome it.” And in one chapter of the book, for the first time I offer some core principles for successfully guiding people (especially children) through the process of socialization and character development. I’ve already posted one article on one of the “ten commandments of character” [See: The Ten Commandments of Character] I discuss in my new book.  I’ll be posting some articles on other of these “commandments” in upcoming posts and hope they will spur a robust and fruitful discussion.

The main character, Dexter, is an intriguing study. He is no doubt a psychopath, and he is also a ritual serial killer who has managed to elude detection for his heinous acts. Because I’ve dealt with so many psychopaths in the past, I’m not of a mind to become invested in this series. But the writers certainly have captured many of the essential features of psychopathy in Dexter.

While so many things are chillingly accurate, there is one thing that bothers me about the portrayal of Dexter’s character. Psychopaths do lack normal human empathy and a sense of “connection” to others. They can feign emotion and fake normal human empathy-based interaction patterns. And they have an uncanny ability to read others, to know what makes them “tick” as it were. But they’re not really bonded to the rest of us. That fact makes them potentially so very dangerous. The depictions of Dexter as a person who has to feign almost every aspect of normal human relating are so accurate, it can and should make your skin crawl. But it’s the way the writers seem to explain how such people get to be the way they are that bothers me more than a little.

People have long assumed that persons who are so heartless and do heinous things to others must have come from backgrounds that were filled with abuse and neglect. And in the case of “Dexter,” his childhood trauma is remarkable. He witnessed his mother murdered by drug dealers and was tutored by his police officer adoptive father to bring justice to evil-doers who escaped sanction by killing them in a ritual manner. “Is it any wonder Dexter is the way he is?,” a person must ask him or herself. This portrayal is great for the series because it makes the main character endearing in a way, which is one likely reason the series is so successful. But the reality about psychopathy is even more chilling. That is the fact that many psychopathsdon’t have horrendous histories in their past that “made” them the dangerous folks they are. So as chilling as it is to watch the character Dexter, knowing the realities about psychopathy is even more chilling. We know how different they are, but we’re only beginning to learn why they are so different. And what puts most people at such risk to be victimized are two assumptions we’ve long made: that most of us are essentially the same, and that people who do cruel things to others must have been severely mistreated in their formative years. Psychopaths know very well how most people think and respond, so it’s easy for them to manipulate others into making false assumptions about them and into a false of sympathy for them when they exhibit their heartless behavior.

Those seeking to understand psychopathy and sociopathy will not be disappointed for a lot of reasons by the character portrayals in Dexter. But those really seeking to understand the origins of this strange condition will not be done any real service by continuing to assume that childhood trauma explains what’s so different and so dangerous about these predators among us. As chilling as that thought is, the whole truth, once finally uncovered, is likely to be even more chilling than that.

I present a framework for understanding psychopathy in both my first book, In Sheep’s Clothing and my soon to be released book Character Disturbance.

Here’s a brief, edited portion of one of the commandments excepted from the book:

You are neither an insignificant speck nor are you so precious or essential to the universe that it simply cannot do without you. Know where you fit in the grand scheme of things and keep a balanced perspective on your sense of worth. Thinking too much of yourself is as dangerous as thinking too little of yourself. Do not dismiss your accomplishments, but don’t laud yourself or lord over others any position or good fortune you’ve managed to secure. Avoid pretense. Keeping a balanced sense of self and being genuine will help you stay humble and avoid false pride.

Remember, you are not synonymous with your talents, abilities, or physical attributes. They are all endowments (i.e. fortunate accidents of nature, “gifts” of God, the universe) entrusted to you. Recognize where things really come from and give credit and recognition where credit and recognition are truly due. Who you are and how you are defined as a character are in large measure determined by what you do with what you’ve been given. The credit for your life and innate capabilities belongs to nature or, ultimately the creative force behind nature. The credit for what you do with all you’ve been given goes to you. This is the essence of merit. Honor the life force within you as well as all who might have nurtured your potential by using your gifts for the good of all. It’s not so much the outcome of your actions that matters either, for that’s also not entirely in your hands. It’s the effort you make that matters most. Judge yourself on your merits. Having appropriate reverence for what you’ve been given and honoring the creative force through your actions is the essence of both genuine humility and healthy self-respect.

Character Disturbance is the culmination of years of working with irresponsible individuals and those in relationships with them.  In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting other excerpts in advance of the book’s wide release this summer.

I am in love with someone I believe must be a “commitment phobic.” I am not a psychologist nor am I in the medical field. But when my boyfriend flipped out on me for no apparent reason, I knew something must be wrong with him.

My boyfriend always wears sunglasses and has about ten pairs of them. He won’t even go into certain establishments with out them, even if wearing sunglasses is prohibited. I believe he must do this because he is afraid to make direct eye contact with people. He also avoids certain social situations, so perhaps he is socially phobic as well. I think he must be uncomfortable in a group of people he doesn’t know.

Now, my boyfriend has, on many occasions, especially while under the influence, told me that he loves me and wants to marry me. Yet, when I remind him, of this and suggest that we actually do it, he becomes angry.  He says things to insult me and hurt my feelings.  I don’t understand this because he can be so sweet, caring and playful. It’s really confusing. Every time we start to get close, he sabotages it. I believe what he does and not what he says, so I don’t let the things that he says bother me so much. However, I also believe that I am letting him take control of my life. I thought it out and have decided to confront him with what I believe his problem is. I feel if I tell him that I know he’s being mean to me because of his underlying fears and insecurities, perhaps I can take the control away and he’ll stop because he’ll know that it’s not affecting me. But then again I fear that it might make him go deeper into his shell and never speak to me again. That’s where I need your advice. Do you think that I should tell him?

I replied in the following manner:

One of the tools of personal empowerment I’ve written about in prior posts and which is expounded upon in my book In Sheep’s Clothing [Amazon-US is to judge actions, not Intentions. You need to be really cautious about making interpretations about what you think have to be the “underlying reasons” for your boyfriend’s inappropriate behavior. You have already conjectured that your boyfriend has a fear or “phobia” of commitment that causes him to “sabotage” things when you start to “get close.” Such presumptions and interpretations have often been among the reasons people allowed themselves to enter or stay in abusive relationships. But in fact there numerous other reasons that can prompt an individual to behave in an abusive, narcissistic and exploitive manner, not all of which are rooted in insecurity or fear.  Instead of kidding yourself and maintaining the “illusion” of control by thinking you have the power to know and expose your partner’s motives and therefore take away his “reasons” for his dysfunctional behavior, take actual control of your own life by setting limits, expectations, enforcing boundaries, and most especially by paying attention to people’s behavior as the best predictor of what they will do in the future.

In my soon to be released book, Character Disturbance, I explain how some of the most commonly accepted perspectives on human behavior actually set people up for victimization in their relationships.  The book is set for wide release by Parkhurst Brothers at the end of July.

Around 16 years ago, I published my first book, In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People. I did so because I was working with many people who had been victimized in some way by a manipulator.  Knowing how many people had been subjected to various control tactics, back-stabbing, underhanded maneuvers, subtle abuse, etc., and the host of problems (e.g., depression, internal turmoil, relationship confusion, etc.) was eye-opening.  I also came to appreciate that several of the notions about human behavior the victims held - many promoted by traditional psychological paradigms - were actually making it harder for them to understand and deal with the behavior of their manipulators.  After working closely with manipulators, various other disturbed characters, and relatively healthy individuals victimized by the responsibility-challenged people in their lives, I decided a radical new approach could help people protect themselves from the harmful things disturbed characters are prone to do.  In Sheep’s Clothing was the result of utilizing this new approach to help people understand and deal with the disturbed characters in their lives, especially manipulators.  For the first time, it allowed people to understand what was really going on with their abuser, how they managed to get hoodwinked, blindsided, and manipulated, and what they could do to keep such things from happening again.

In Sheep’s Clothing started out as a small, independent publication, targeted toward a relatively small market.  Yet it was received by the public in a manner I could barely have imagined.  After several revisions, numerous online reviews and testimonials, and unprecedented word-of-mouth, it became a bestseller and has been translated into several foreign languages.  It has been revised a few times, but its basic content has remained as stable and as timely as its subject matter.

Just a few weeks ago (March 31, 2010) a brand new edition of In Sheep’s Clothing was released by Parkhurst Brothers Publishers.  This edition contains some new content and provides a suitable introduction to my new book, Character Disturbance, which takes an in-depth look at the disturbing phenomenon of our age.  Character Disturbance is also published by Parkhurst Brothers and is scheduled for wide release on July 31, 2010.  It is my sincere hope that both of these works cast a needed new light on a societal problem that appears to be becoming ever more prevalent in our age of permissiveness, entitlement, and irresponsibility.

Dear Dr. Simon,

I just finished reading your book, In Sheep’s Clothing. No words can express the gratitude that I have for this obvious manifestation of your love and hard work.  From your introduction onward, I sensed that you were, not only enlightened about this subject, but that you had a sound, moral and ethical motive for writing the book.  That’s what drew me to you.

I’ll spare you the details of my life, but as you have probably heard thousands of times, I am a victim of a covert-aggressive, manipulating person.  And to make matters worse, I now realize that I am a very neurotic individual.  I didn’t know that before seeing myself in your book.  And I’m not ashamed of it, but I see how it made me vulnerable all my life.  Now, I think I am on the way to reclaiming my life, and finding self-respect and confidence.  Your book has equipped me to do that and to take on the challenges that still lie ahead.

The person who manipulated me for years was incarcerated last year for a serious crime that came to light 2 years ago.  At first, I played my typical role of the sympathizer/empathizer, and offered to get this person “help” him and to support him.  But I finally realized that I’d been enabling him to be irresponsible all his life and to get away with all the things he’d done to cause me pain throughout my life!  When I finally drew the line, he used all the tactics you explained in your book.  In the past these tactics have left me completely depressed and my family and business suffered.   But now I am aware of the tactics and also aware of myself enough to know that I need to be more assertive and rid myself of the burden of his irresponsibility.

To the point:  Your book helped me understand why I am such an “approval junkie,” how I got manipulated, why I always hated confrontation, and why I had so little confidence and self-respect - even though I have done so many good things in my life and achieved a measure of success in my pursuits.  I intend to spend many days meditating on the new perspectives your book offers and connecting them to my life experiences with people of all different characters.  And I will strive to no longer sabotage myself by allowing the disturbed characters I encounter to manipulate me.

You may not ever fully know the overwhelming feelings your work is helping people like me to experience.  But I wanted to let you know how much your work has meant.  I wish you the best, and thank you again.

M.K.  Virginia

I have only recently realized that my elderly father is a covert-aggressive personality.  I spent so many years hating myself and feeling that others didn’t like me, including family members.  Knowing how I’d been duped has been a really hard realization to come to.  I always thought I had the “Leave it to Beaver life” yet I was never happy.  But I thought it was me, or my mother, or anyone but my Dad who was the problem.  Somehow, he always came out “smelling like a rose”.  I almost divorced my husband because of him and his manipulations.   When my Mom died, my Dad wanted me and wanted my husband gone from his life.  I spent many sleepless nights trying to figure all this out and I’m not sure I understand it completely even now.  I have to read and re-read Dr. Simon’s book to remind me what has happened to me and how it happened.  I know the truth about him now, yet I find it easy to blame myself.  My question is, if I confront a my Dad, covert aggressive personality that he is, with the facts as outlined in Dr. Simon’s book, would he see himself?  Would he know that I’ve “got it” with respect to what he’s really like or would he look at me like I’m crazy?

Perhaps this woman did not read or possibly didn’t understand some points I made in my book In Sheep’s Clothing about covert-aggressive personalities generally being much more character-disturbed than neurotic and how different disturbed characters are from neurotics with respect to the level of insight they have about themselves.  So, in part I replied this way:

If your dad is the kind of personality I describe in my book, the likelihood is that he already sees himself just fine.  And, if he looks at you like you’re crazy when you confront him, it’s more than likely a tactic to keep you under control.  So, it’s far more important that resist trying to get him to see things and simply take charge of your own life by setting firm limits with respect to his involvement in your affairs.

On March 31st, Parkhurst Brothers will release a brand new edition of In Sheep’s Clothing, already a 15-year international bestseller.  On June 30th, Parkhurst will also release Character Disturbance, my new book on all of the problem characters that can make your life difficult.  Both books point out that when it comes to covert-aggressive personalities or any other disturbed character, “they already see, they just disagree.”  That is, they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and they know how other people want them to behave. They simply refuse to do things differently and use various tactics to manipulate others into backing down or backing off.  My new book goes into much greater depth about this and explains how not to get caught up in the trap of trying to get them “to see.”

Dear Dr.Simon,

Thank you for your blog articles on Disturbed Characters. I just got out of a relationship with someone who I believe to have a character disorder. Often he would play the victim in everything that had happened to him (even when something that happened was clearly his fault). He was very manipulative, and aggressive at times as well. When we first started dating, I misinterpreted everything he did, thinking that he was really the victim of many unfortunate events, I would almost pity him, and the things that happened to him. My family noticed a change in me, and only put up with him because they knew I loved him, and we were engaged to be married next year. I would often be blamed for the things he did, whether it meant he got too aggressive and hurt me (he would blame it on the fact that I might take a stance that “looked like” I was about to attack him).  Inevitably it would end up being my fault for all of his short comings and problems. Although I can not completely understand some of this, I can relate to it, finding certain things in his behavior which lead for me to look up these series of articles. A lot of the things mentioned in these articles fits him very well. I am just glad to know that it wasn’t me causing all of his problems, and it wasn’t entirely my fault for the downfall of our relationship.

Again, thanks for the blog posts.  I’m looking forward to the release of your new book.

Dorothy’s comments are typical of emails and notes I receive every week.  It heartens me to know that the material I’ve been posting is helpful to people trying to understand the disturbed characters in their lives.

I’ll continue to post articles addressing various issues related to character disturbance.  I’m also pleased to announce that after many unavoidable delays, Parkhurst Brothers Publishers will be putting my new book Character Disturbance into wide release in July of this year.  This book is the culmination of many years of dealing with the many different personalities whose character defects are so pronounced that they bring misery, pain, and hardship into the lives of many.  Naturally, I will continue to post articles on all my blogs.  These blog posts will complement my new book Character Disturbance and help you deal with the disturbed characters in your lives.