On one of the international blog sites that features my work, a woman commented: 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... 

I recently received a note from a woman we’ll call “Dorothy” who found various blog posts I’ve written on disturbed characters helpful to her as she tried to understand a destructive relationship.  She wrote: 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... 

Recently, I received a question from a young woman that typifies similar questions I’ve been asked over the years.  I posted my answer on one of the international blogs featuring my work.  Here’s the post, including the question and my answer: I am a 21-year-old female, and I have a 19-year-old boyfriend. We have been together a little over 7 months. We are also in a long-distance relationship at the moment until he can get... 

I’ve been posting some articles on the erroneous ways that disordered characters tend to think. Prior posts have covered such “thinking errors” as possessive thinking (see:  The Possessive Thinking of the Disturbed Character), egocentric thinking (see: Egocentric Thinking), and combative thinking (see: Having to Win:  The Combative Thinking of the Disturbed Character).  One of the more insidious thinking errors common to disturbed... 

I’ve been posting a series of articles on the ways persons with disturbed characters tend to think. Prior posts have addressed their penchants for egocentric thinking and possessive thinking. (See: Egocentric Thinking and The Possessive Thinking of the Disturbed Character).  Disordered characters also tend to perceive things in terms of black-and-white or all-or-none. They might take the position that if they can’t have everything... 

This article is part of a series of articles the thinking patterns common to individuals with disturbed or disordered characters (see “What Were They Thinking?” and “What Were They Thinking - Pt. 2″).  We’ve already discussed Egocentric Thinking.  The next distorted thinking pattern we’ll be talking about is possessive thinking. Disordered characters tend to view those that they have any kind of relationship... 

As I described in my last post (see “What Were They Thinking? - Part 2”), persons with disturbed characters don’t act the way we do largely because they don’t think the way we do.   Stanton Samenow was among the early researchers to catalog the distorted thinking patterns or “errors in thinking” which some of the most severely disturbed characters (those with criminal records) display. Over the years, I’ve adapted and modified... 

One of the central tenets of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is that there is an inextricable relationship between a person’s core beliefs, the attitudes those beliefs have engendered, and the ways the person’s attitudes prompt him or her to to behave in various situations. Each element of the triad of thinking patterns-attitudes-behaviors generally has a reinforcing effect on the others and contributes greatly to an individual’s... 

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...