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... 

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... 

When you confront a manipulator or any disturbed character about their behavior, they will often attempt to sidestep the issue or to avoid the subject altogether.  They want to keep the spotlight off their problematic behaviors.  They also don’t want their true character to be exposed or to be put on the spot (i.e. caught momentarily without a good offensive strategy for taking advantage of another).  So, they are quick to dodge... 

Manipulators and other disturbed characters sometimes like to openly threaten or brow-beat someone else into giving-up or giving-in to their demands.   They like to terrorize others into submission.  They use fear as a weapon, whether it’s fear of the known or unknown.  People in relationships with disturbed characters are generally familiar with their track record of behavior, thus they know what the disturbed character is not... 

The most severely disordered characters will often make direct threats or even carry them out as a way of keeping others in line.  Skilled manipulators, however, are expert at making more subtle, implied or veiled threats to intimidate others into seeing or doing things their way.  Sometimes a veiled threat can be no more than a particular “look” or a glance.  Sometimes it’s imbedded not so much in what someone says or...