Disordered characters are prone to seeing things as they want to see them, not as they are. Two of their core characteristics — the ease with which they lie and the resistance they have to acceding to demands placed on them by their environments — prompt them to distort the reality of situations. Sometimes they live in a world of their own fantasy, adhering to the belief that “thinking makes it so.” They lie to themselves with the same ease that they lie to others. They alter their perceptions and distort the reality of situations so that they don’t have to change their point of view or question their usual way of doing things. Their determination to make reality be what they want it to be breeds a pervasive attitude of disdain for and disregard of the truth.

Self-Deceptive thinking is not the same thing as the “defense mechanism” of Denial.  That kind of denial is an unconscious defense against unbearable emotional pain.  Deliberate, self-serving twisting of the facts and misrepresentations are bad habits for sure, as well as ways to avoid responsibility, but they’re not the result of an altered psychological state.  Many times, self-deceptive thinking accompanies the responsibility-avoidance and manipulation “tactic” of denial (i.e. deliberate denial of responsibility or malevolent intent for the purpose of manipulating or impression-managing others).  But that’s an entirely different kind of denial.

When doing the research for my first book, In Sheep’s Clothing, I counseled many individuals of disturbed character who initially balked at the notion that they had any real problems to deal with. For example, a person referred for Anger Management Training (which, by the way, I always translate into aggression-replacement training) might assert “I’ve really thought about this doc, and if you want to know the absolute truth, I really don’t think there’s a problem here.” He might make this assertion despite a virtual mountain of evidence to the contrary presented by those who pushed him to seek counseling in the first place.  He might even maintain the assertion despite a litany of problems in relationships dating back many years that testify to the his lack of emotional self-control. This kind of thing always raises the question in the minds of others: “Does he simply not see the problem?” Actually, most of the time he sees it just fine but isn’t really motivated to deal with it or change it, so he tries to justify himself and to get others off his back. Other times, he’s lied to himself so long and so often that he has begun to believe his own lies. Then again at other times, he has so twisted and so distorted so many aspects of the realities of his life that it’s really become hard for him to tell what’s real anymore.

One of the benefits of counseling disturbed characters within the Cognitive-Behavior Therapy paradigm, is that by focusing on behaviors that can be objectively verified as issues of concern, a person’s distorted beliefs automatically become evident.  Once the problem behaviors are identified and out in the open, attention can be given to the erroneous ways of thinking that led to those behaviors in the first place.

The term psychopath was used early in the 20th century by some researchers and authors to describe individuals who appeared extremely deficient in conscience and who presented a fairly serious threat to the social order.  Later, the term sociopath began to be used more frequently to describe this type of personality as attention moved away from descriptions rooted in psychoanalytic explanations of its causes to descriptions of its impact on society.  Late in the 20th century the term “antisocial” (literally, in opposition to society) became the most popular way to label such individuals and the focus shifted even further to those individuals of deficient conscience who frequently engage in criminal activity.  In fact, for a long time, the official diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association pretty much equated the Antisocial Personality Disorder with the career criminal.  

Hervey Cleckley introduced the concept of psychopathy in his book The Mask of Sanity.  He was struck by the fact that the personality of some individuals was marked by a remarkable lack of the qualities that make us human, namely the capacity for conscience and an emotional bond or feeling of connectedness to others of our species.  He was particularly struck by the fact that these individuals could “mimic” hallmark human behaviors and concerns but lacked any genuine empathy or conscience.  He regarded their false self-presentation to be so extreme that it bordered on the insane.  

Robert Hare has written several scholarly articles as well as some popular books like Without Conscience.  He has been a primary advocate for the notion that the antisocial bahavior patterns (parasitic lifestyle, criminal behavior, etc.) sometimes observed in psychopaths do not represent the core of the personality disturbance.  Rather, he notes that the heart of the problem appears to be this personality’s callous, senseless, and remorseless use and abuse of others, rooted in their lack of empathy and absence of conscience.  

Some authors such as Marsha Stout suggest that psychopathy is much more prevalent these days.  She does rightfully note in her book The Sociopath Next Door that some of the darkest characters among us are capable of presenting a convincingly civil and charming facade.  Many researchers note that there are more psychopaths among us than just those that make headlines or spend time incarcerated.  Some even suggest that it’s only the unsuccessful psychopaths who get caught while the more skilled “cons” go undetected (hence the apt title of Stout’s book).  But Hare cautions that we need to be careful about how and when we brand others with the label.  And he notes that not all who we would label as “antisocial” are in fact psychopathic.  Psychopathy is an extremely serious condition Individuals with this disorder are the most severely disturbed in charcter.  Further, there are many other problem characters besides psychopaths who create legal, moral, and interpersonal problems.  

In many of my posts on this site, and on some of the international blogs for which I write, such as Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, I have made a concerted effort to bring to light the vast spectrum of character disturbance and where exactly the psychopath fits along that spectrum.  I have also laid out a much more detailed framework for this in my book In Sheep’s Clothing.  But more than this, in the book I describe how the psychpath fits into a class of other disturbed characters that I call the aggressive personalities.  Indeed, I prefer to use the label “predatory aggressive” to describe the psychopath because I believe that at the root of what Hare describes with regard to their abuse and exploitation of others is a markedly malignant narcissism.  You see, the psychopath or predatory aggressive personality knows that he is different from most others (because he knows others posess this entity called conscience and that they have emotional connections to others that keep them from doing certain things) and he thinks he is a superior being to common man because he is not encumbered by these traits.  Seeing himself as a superior creature and viewing conscience-laden and emotionally vulnerable others as inferior beings, he regards such underlings as rightful prey.  

I’ll be doing making some additional posts on this topic.  A greatly expanded discussion on the topic will be included in my upcoming book Disturbances of Character (tent.)

So, just what is “passive-aggression?”  Well, as the name implies, it’s aggressing through passivity.  It’s passive-resistance to cooperating with someone you don’t feel like cooperating with (generally because you’re angry with him or her for some reason).  It’s not talking or pouting when someone is trying to engage with you.  It’s not-so-accidentally “forgetting” to do something for someone who you didn’t really want to do that something for in the first place.  In extreme forms, it can take the form of a sit-down strike, hunger strike, or some similar act.

Passive-aggression is not a very effective strategy generally speaking (a notable exception would be the passive mass resistance of Ghandi and his followers in their nonviolent opposition to British rule) because it usually inflicts a higher cost on the person resisting than it inflicts on the person who is the target of the resistor’s anger. 

Lay persons are not the only ones who misuse the passive-aggressive label.  Professionals often misuse the term, also.  In fact, there is a particular personality type, the passive-aggressive personality, which was removed from the official diagnostic manual in large measure because of the often contradictory and unclear descriptions clinicians in the field provided.  Most of the time, when people use the term “passive-aggessive” they’re generally trying to describe someone’s active but covert-aggressive behavior.  In Sheep’s Clothing provides a comprehensive definition and makes a very clear distinction between passive-aggressive and covert-aggressive behaviors and passive-aggressive (ambivalent, negativistic, and often self-defeating) personalities and their covert-aggressive (deceptive, conniving, and manipulative) counterparts. 

So remember, if someone’s trying to hurt someone else, get the better of them, or play “get-back,” and is deliberately trying to conceal their intentions, there’s nothing “passive” about their aggression.  Remember also that getting to know all of the subtle, hard to detect ways people can beat you into submission without you knowing how they managed to do it (i.e. learning the tactics of covert-aggression) is the secret to never being manipulated again.  You can find the most common manipulative tactics and the best ways to respond to them discussed in my book In Sheep’s Clothing. 

Thanks to everyone for the great response to my request for psychobabble you love to hate. Here are the best 30 submissions (including a few of my own)….

4. “Every time I hear someone misuse the term acting out, I begin experiencing homicidal ideation. Of course ‘acting out’ is a psychoanalytic term denoting the enactment of an internal dynamic in the external world. You can’t recognize the internal feeling states and so it is necessary to ‘act it out.’ But even among fully trained, licensed clinical psychologists this term has come to mean ‘behaving badly’ — which of course makes it a useless term.”
David Godot

6. “I’m not a drug addict, I’ve been self-medicating.”
Ron Frederickson

9. “I’m stuck at denial (without a paddle, ha ha). A reference to Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ ‘five stages of grief’ which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. Dr. Kubler-Ross never suggested one stage had to be completed before the next and there’s little evidence for these stages anyway.”
Me

10. “Since I am not a native English speaker I didn’t come across someone calling me anal until I started to study in England. At first I was shocked, since I didn’t immediately understand my friend was not referring to my anus, but to my personality. I don’t think many people realize that they are referring to one of the personality traits emerging from the failure to successfully complete one of Freud’s developmental stages.”
Anon

15. “In every mental health job I have worked, the real pain in the ass clients are referred to as borderline. Borderline has now ceased to be a disorder; it’s psychobabble for ‘this client is so annoying and needy I would gladly chew off my own foot to escape’.”
Danny

16. “What annoys me most is conversational psychoanalysing - when someone you know (outside of a therapeutic context) frequently tells you that you don’t really mean what you’re saying, that you’re in denial about your true feelings or ignoring what is going on at a subconscious level. Particularly annoying is when they then go on to tell you what you’re really feeling!”
Lirone

17. “The most irritating one is the word schizophrenia which is wrongly used whenever someone refer to split personalities. I just can’t hold myself back from being a besserwisser and telling them that they have no idea what schizophrenia is.”
Violette

In some future posts about misused psychology terms, I’ll be expanding upon some of the other complaints mentioned above.

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 associated with an unconscious conflict between their primal instincts and their conscience. A good example would be an overworked and underpaid worker who slaved all night to finish a project and when he placed it on his boss’s desk, the only thing this taskmaster had to say was “Well, it’s about time!” On his way back to his desk, the worker mutters under his breath “That SOB!.” He then enters the washroom and begins to wash his hands. He washes, and washes…..and washes. He washes until his hands turn red. He’s not aware of it, but he seems to engage in this compulsion whenever he feels bad inside about thinking ill toward another. That’s not right, after all. On the one hand, he wants to tell his boss where to go. On the other hand, he’s grateful to have a job and he’s been taught well that bearing ill feelings toward another is the work of the Devil. He feels so unclean when he “slips” and says those things under his breath. His compulsion is an instance of displaying through an action the conflict that rages within him. It helps relieve the anxiety he feels to some degree, but it doesn’t really solve the problem. Yet it gives him enough relief that he does this over and over again in similar situations, with no insight into the “dynamics” of the situation. In the end, we have a behavior (handwashing) that is a “symptom” (called a “compulsion”) that represents an unconscious way to mediate underlying emotional pain. This is what the term “acting-out” has historically meant to describe.

Acting-up, (i.e. conscious, deliberate misbehaving) is NOT acting-out. It is truly appalling how many times people use the term acting out to refer to someone who’s simply exhibiting undesirable behavior. I hear TV commercials by behavioral therapists offering to fix your child’s “acting-out” behaviors, and see rules in psychiatric hospitals and residential centers forbidding “sexual acting-out” or other inappropriate conduct. One online psychiatric glossary even gave two definitions for acting-out, one correct, the other being the mistaken notion that has so deeply crept into the popular lexicon that it’s made a correct understanding of the concept almost impossible.

The real danger in misusing this term is that one can make a disastrous presumption that every time someone acts in an inappropriate manner, they’re necessarily and unconsciously playing out some kind of inner conflict (i.e. unresolved “issues”), when the fact may be that they’re simply engaging in immature, irresponsible behavior which they’re aware they shouldn’t be doing and that’s completely within their ability to control. Misperceiving the nature of circumstances is a major way people end up being abused by irresponsible characters. It’s also how clinicians inadvertently enable irresponsible behavior instead of fostering real change. Words mean things. We can’t communicate effectively unless we use words correctly. To do that, we have to know what the words actually mean. Acting-up is not acting-out.