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... 

I’ve been posting a series of articles on the problematic ways disturbed characters tend to think.  These erroneous ways of thinking lead to dysfunctional social behaviors and patterns of irresponsibility.  Some of the “thinking errors” I’ve addressed already include unreasonable thinking, possessive thinking, combative thinking, and prideful thinking: “Unreasonable Thinking” “The Possessive Thinking of the Disturbed... 

I’ve been posting a series of articles on the erroneous ways disordered characters tend to think that lead to significant behavior and relationship problems. Some of the “thinking errors” I’ve addressed already include unreasonable thinking, possessive thinking, combative thinking, and prideful thinking: “Unreasonable Thinking” “The Possessive Thinking of the Disturbed Character” “Having to Win: The Combative Thinking... 

This post continues a series on the distorted thinking patterns displayed by disordered or disturbed characters.  Earlier posts have dealt with the distubed character’s penchants for thinking in distorted ways (see: What Were They Thinking - Pt. 2), thinking of others as objects to possess and control (see: The Possessive Thinking of the Disturbed Character), thinking of themselves to the exclusion of others (see: Egocentric Thinking)... 

This post is another in a series on the erroneous thinking patterns common to persons of disturbed or disordered character.  Persons with character disorders tend to think in ways that lead to problem social behaviors. Some of the thinking errors I’ve already posted on include possessive thinking (see: The Possessive Thinking of the Disturbed Character), egocentric thinking (see: Egocentric Thinking) and extreme thinking (see: The... 

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...