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This continues a new series of posts excerpted from Monkeytraps in Everyday Life: A Guide for Control Addicts (in press).  It’s about psychological monkeytraps: what they are, how they work, and how recovering control addicts can learn to notice when they’ve trapped themselves by trying to control what cannot or should not be controlled.  Read the introduction to the series here.

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Okay, calling this an encyclopedia is an overstatement.

Encyclopedia* implies inclusiveness, and an all-inclusive list of monkeytraps would be impossible.

Why? 

Because

(a) the number of monkeytraps is limitless, as infinite as the craving which creates them,

and

(b) a monkeytrap isn’t a thing — it’s a dynamic, an emotional pattern that springs into being whenever someone tries to control something that can’t or shouldn’t be controlled.

That said, there are scores of readily identifiable examples of this dynamic that torture us daily.

So it’s worth taking time to understand and remember them.

Below is a table of contents.

Note, please, that this is a work in progress. 

I may add more entries later, as my grasp of monkeytraps expands.

(And if you have any to suggest, please do.)

But here, friends, are the first fifty:

1. 1. Addiction

   2. Anxiety

   3. Annoying

   4. Approval

   5. Avoidance

   6. Blame

   7. Changing me

   8. Changing you

   9. Character

   10. Child, anxious

   11. Child, dishonest

   12. Controlling

   13. Crying

   14. Defensiveness

   15. Denial

   16. Drinking, mine

   17. Drinking, yours

   18. Failure

   19. Family

   20. Family, dysfunctional

   21. Feelings ~ trap #1

   22. Feelings ~ trap 32

   23. Guilt ~ trap #1

   24. Guilt ~ trap #2

   25. Guilt ~ trap #3

   26. Helpfulness

   27. Help-seeking ~ trap #1

   28. Help-seeking ~ trap #2

   29. Help-seeking ~ trap #3

   30. Hope

   31. How people treat me

   32. Introjection

   33. Mourning

   34. Neediness

   35. No

   36. Parents

   37. Perfectionism

   38. Productivity

   39. Projection ~ trap #1

   40. Projection ~ trap #2

   41. Pursuit

   42. Relationships

   43. Secrets

   44. Self-acceptance

   45. Self-improvement

   46. Self-care

   47. Shame

   48. Stupid

   49. Transference

   50. Trust

   51. Victimization.

Stay tuned for explanations of each.

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Next:

Trap 1: Addiction

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*Encyclopedia: A book or set of books giving information on all or many branches of knowledge, generally in articles alphabetically arranged.  (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1980.)

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Monkeytraps: Why Everybody Tries to Control Everything and How We Can Stop

is available here.