The “problems” neurotics experience often stem from emotional conflicts that rage deep within their unconscious minds.  They’re typically unaware of what’s at the root of the “symptoms” they report.  If a woman already knew that the unexplained funk she’d been in lately was related to her suppressed feelings of grief and loss that just happened to be re-surfacing on the “anniversary” of her mother’s... 

Disordered characters don’t feel shame like neurotics do.  Although pop psychology has given shame a bad name, the ability to feel it is a mark of good character.  I wrote recently about how neurotic individuals and disturbed characters differ greatly on the issue of guilt.  Guilt and shame are related.  Guilt is the bad feeling we get about something we’ve done.  Shame feeling badly about who we are.  It’s when... 

People often get manipulated because they misjudge the character of their manipulator.  We have a tendency to want to see everyone else as basically pretty much like us.  We want to think that they think the same way, care about the same things, and feel the same way we do.  But individuals with disturbed characters are very different from most people, especially those who tend to be neurotic.    In prior posts, I’ve highlighted... 

Neurotics have well-developed and overactive consciences (i.e. superegos), whereas disordered characters have consciences that are under-developed and impaired.  Neurotics have a huge sense of right and wrong and always want to do the right thing.  They often set standards for themselves that are so high they’re virtually impossible to meet, causing themselves a significant amount of stress.  They tend to judge themselves overly harshly... 

                  Neurotics are very different from individuals with a character disorder on the dimension of anxiety.  Anxiety is that primal emotion (i.e. fear response) that we get when we feel threatened in some way.  When our fear is attached to a specific, identifiable circumstance, such as being in a room filled with a lot of people, having to take a test, or coming face to face with a snake, we call it a phobia. ... 

Recently, a woman was complaining about how an ex-boyfriend was badmouthing her around town because she broke up with him.  The friend she was talking to replied:  “Oh, he’s just being passive-aggressive.”  In fact, in his anger the boyfriend is deliberately trying to hurt this woman by smearing her reputation.  You can call it passive-aggressive, but this game of indirect get-back is anything but “passive.”  I also frequently... 

Recently I came upon a blog post by “Jennifer” who rightfully complained that parents or separated or divorced partners will frequently use children as pawns in their covert wars with one another.  She wrote: Some parents get blinded by their own emotions and stuff going on in their lives that they fail to see the affects, hurt and damage caused by their actions. One of such examples is a parent who use and manipulate their... 

  In the “jargon” of mental health professionals one frequently hears the term “acting-out.” It is amazing how frequently this term is misused. As was the case with “denial” true acting-out is an unconscious ego defense mechanism. Without knowing it, persons who act-out engage in some kind of behavior (as opposed to a psycho-physiological or other kind of “symptom”) that serves to ease the emotional pain and anxiety... 

Anyone familiar with the “jargon” of mental health professionals of all persuasions has undoubtedly heard the term denial.  What you may not know is that it’s fairly common not only for professionals but also for others to use the term improperly or in a poorly defined or over-generalized manner.  In classical (psychodynamic) psychology, denial is an unconscious ego defense mechanism.  Basically, that means that a...