In several of my prior posts, I’ve explored the nature of character disturbance in general and outlined the most severely disordered of all characters, most recently the Aggressive Personalities.  Truly understanding such individuals can indeed be quite challenging. But attempting to help them change through therapeutic interventions is even more challenging. These days, when it comes to understanding and dealing with individuals of disturbed... 

Covert-Aggressive Personalities are the archetypal wolves in sheep’s clothing that I introduced in my first book, In Sheep’s Clothing [Amazon-US | Amazon-UK]. These individuals are not openly aggressive in their interpersonal style. In fact, they do their best to keep their aggressive intentions and behaviors carefully masked. They can often appear quite charming and amiable, but underneath their civil façade they are just as ruthless... 

I’ve been posting a series of articles on the “aggressive personalities.” This group of individuals is among the most seriously disordered in character of all the various personality types. Despite the fact that official diagnostic literature neither recognizes the inordinate predisposition for aggression as the core problem for such personalities nor recognizes the distinct differences between aggressive personality types, I have... 

This post is the second in a series about some personality types that are the most disordered in character - the aggresssive personalities. In an earlier article, I presented some of the characteristics all the “Aggressive Personalities” share. In my last post, I described the “unbridled aggressive” personality type (see “The Unbridled Aggressive Personality”). This type of aggressive personality is frequently involved in law-breaking... 

In a prior post, I addressed the general characteristics of aggressive personalities.  I also mentioned that there are several aggressive personality subtypes.  Among these perhaps the type most studied and written about has been the type that I prefer to label the “unbridled aggressive.” Historically, unbridled aggressive personalities have been more commonly labeled antisocial. I often hear the term antisocial used inappropriately... 

  Researchers in the areas of personality and character disturbance have long recognized that there is a fairly substantial group of highly disturbed characters at the center of most abusive relationships and who pose the greatest threat to social order.  These are the pathological fighters among us who resist all attempts to socialize them.  There are several different aggressive personality types.  Yet, until very recently the official... 

These days one hears and reads a lot about sociopaths or psychopaths.  The main reasons for this are that there appears to be somewhat of an increase in the prevalence of this very disturbing personality disorder and interest in such problem characters has grown in recent years.  Yet there are some misconceptions that persist not only about the disorder itself but also about the meaning of the terms used to describe it.  Further, there... 

As I have indicated in a prior post, Lying is one of the many tactics by which a person avoids taking responsibility for behavior while simultaneously attempting to manipulate or manage the impression of others.  It’s one of the most common, habitual tactics used by individuals with a disorder or disturbance of character.   In my prior posts, I’ve talked about what my experience working with disturbed characters has taught... 

First of all, having a disturbance (alt. “disorder”) of character is not the same as having a personality disorder, although many (including mental health professionals) erroneously use the terms synonymously. But before we can adequately explain what disturbances of character are all about, we have to define some terms. The word ‘personality’ is derived from the Greek word persona, which means “mask.” In the ancient theater,... 

I’ve been getting more mail than usual lately from across the globe from people who have found my book In Sheep’s Clothing, workshops I have done, this blog, other blogs for which I write helpful to them in understanding some of the difficult characters they’ve had to deal with in their lives.  As always, this kind of feedback is both edifying as well as informative.  One dedicated woman in Sweden used her experience...