Category Archives: controlling behavior
(THE BOOK) Chapter 23: Five weeds
After the workshop described in chapter 13 — the one where I redefined codependency as control addiction — I went back to doing therapy with clinic clients.
Mine was still a typical outpatient caseload, filled with the same problems every therapist faces.
But now something was different.
Did you ever buy a new car — a new Honda, say — and take it out on the road, and wherever you drive you see other Hondas? Suddenly the world is filled with Hondas you never noticed before.
That’s what happened to me.
Suddenly my caseload was filled with control addicts.
The clients hadn’t changed, of course. I had. It’s like I’d put on new eyeglasses. My vision had refocused or sharpened or something, and now I couldn’t help seeing how relentlessly and self-destructively controlling they all were.
They? I mean we. Everyone.
Controlling, I realized, was a universal addiction. It was everywhere I looked. Not just in clients I’d labeled codependent, but in every client. Not just in clients, but in colleagues, and friends, and family, and on the nightly news, and in whatever I read or watched on tv or in the movies.
And, of course, in myself. (I’d discovered Bert.)
Like a red thread in a carpet, the idea of control snaked through every problem, every motive, every personality, every life.
Most surprisingly, I noticed that the five most common problems clients brought to therapy all had compulsive controlling in common.
Anxiety, depression, addiction, relationship problems and problems with parenting — all seemed to grow out of the same dysfunctional urge to control what either couldn’t or shouldn’t be controlled.
Like five weeds growing out of the same root.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 22: Lessons and rules
So the first thing to remember about Plan A is that we learn it and follow it unconsciously.
And the second thing is that every Plan A has the very same goal:
Control over emotional life.
Do this, it tells you, to be safe and avoid pain. Do this to win love and acceptance.
This becomes clearer when you examine the lessons and rules which are Plan A’s component parts.
I, for example, grew up in an alcoholic family. Alcoholics are addicts, and as noted earlier, addicts are people who can’t handle feelings. So I spend my childhood with people who reacted to my feelings with hurt and guilt, anxiety and anger. And the Plan I evolved (essentially the same Plan evolved by every kid in that situation) reflected all that.
One important lesson was, “Feelings are uncomfortable at best, dangerous at worst.” This lesson grew into a rule: Feel as little as possible. Think your way through life instead.
Another lesson was “You’re responsible for other people’s feelings.” This grew into a second rule: Never be yourself around other people.
These two lessons were the foundation stones of my Plan A.
They also called my inner monkey into being.
Bert was born to take control of my chaotic emotional life. He set out to accomplish that by doing things like burying his feelings, developing an acceptable image, and becoming painfully oversensitive to the emotions, perceptions and opinions of others.
Interestingly, it was Bert who convinced me to become a therapist. Attending to others’ feelings while disguising my own seemed a natural fit to my original Plan.
Little did either of us suspect that becoming a healthy therapist would mean I’d have to outgrow Bert and develop a Plan B.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 20: Me and my monkey
By now you may have noticed the most interesting thing about monkeytraps:
They’re not really traps at all.
They’re just invitations to trap yourself.
They succeed because of a part of the human personality I call the inner monkey.
This is the part dominated by monkeymind, the addicted part, the compulsive part. The scared part that grabs on, and panics, and then can’t let go.
I have an inner monkey.
We grew up together.
I call him Bert.
It was my lifelong relationship with Bert that led me to create Monkeytraps: A blog about control.
In one of my first blog posts I invited Bert to introduce himself to my readers.
He wrote this:
I entered Steve’s life early, probably well before kindergarten. Probably before he could even talk.
My mission?
To protect him.
From?
Everything.
Scary situations. Painful feelings. Discomfort of every sort.
Rejection. Failure. Disappointment. Frustration. Rejection. Conflict. Sadness.
(Just noticed I listed “rejection” twice. Sorry. I really really hate rejection.)
I did it mainly by searching relentlessly for ways to change things, things both outside and inside him. To somehow move them closer to what he wanted, or needed, or preferred.
I also taught him tricks. Coping tricks, like avoiding feelings and emotional risks. And relationship tricks, like hiding who he really was and pretending to like people he hated. Even perceptual tricks, like selective memory and trying to guess the future or read other people’s minds
None of these works over time. But they gave him temporary comfort, and we grew close quickly.
I became his constant companion, trusted advisor and, he thought, very best friend.
I meant well. And at times I’ve been useful, even helped him out of some bad spots.
But in the end ours has been an unhealthy relationship.
Why? Because in the end my need for control set Steve at odds with reality, instead of teaching him how to accept and adapt to it.
And because, instead of making him feel safer and accepted by other people, my controlling left him scared and disconnected.
It’s like that with us inner monkeys.
We mean well. We really do.
But we’re also, well, kind of stupid.
Some of you already know that the title of this blog refers to a method used to trap monkeys, where fruit is placed in a weighted jar or bottle and the monkey traps himself by grabbing the fruit and refusing to let go.
That’s what I do. I grab hold and refuse to let go.
I do this all the time, even when part of me knows it’s not working.
I can’t help myself.
One last word:
I’m betting you have one of my brothers or sisters inside you.
You have it as surely as you have fears, and a monkeymind that whispers and worries and scares you.
You may not have noticed this secret tenant before.
But look anyway.
Because monkeytraps are just invitations.
They work only because of what monkeyminded humans do:
Set traps, then reach into them.
Build cages, then move in and set up housekeeping.
For a detailed description of the traps and cages, read on.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 18: Survival
All the factors just described — family, trauma, socialization, culture — combine in the human mind to drive controlling behavior.
And the ultimate goal of that behavior is the most primitive and stubborn of all human goals:
Life itself.
I refer here not just to physical survival, though certainly much of our controlling (like when we’re driving a car or battling an illness) has that as its aim.
I mean emotional, psychological, and social survival as well.
We cannot help but believe control is essential to these, too.
Thus it is emotional survival that forces children to appease their narcissistic parents, since on the deepest level they know they need parental love, nurturance and protection in order to live.
It is psychological survival that demands trauma survivors limit their exposure to threatening triggers, since the alternative — constantly recurring states of fight-or-flight — would lead to intolerable stress and the disintegration of their minds.
And it is social survival that requires each of us to absorb and obey the dictates of the society to which we belong, since – again, on the deepest of levels – we know that we cannot last long without acceptance by the tribe.
For all these reasons we each come to believe that control is essential to our lives.
This conviction is so unconscious and inescapable that it makes getting control feel like a matter of life and death. It’s why even the idea of losing control can produce anxiety, and why control addiction plays like a silent soundtrack behind every human experience.
And where does it come from, this conviction that we must control or die?
Mainly from the structure of our minds.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 14: Family
You need not be in relationship with an addict to develop a codependent approach to life.
There are plenty of other ways.
One of the most common is to grow up in a narcissistic family.
Narcissistic families are those unconsciously organized to meet the needs of the parents, not the children.
This description covers a wide range of possibilities. It includes families that abuse children physically, sexually or emotionally; families fixated on addicted or mentally ill members; families stressed by poverty, racism, or chronic illness; those where the parents are strict, rigid and demanding; those where the parents are not present, physically or emotionally; and those which teach their children to be seen and not heard.
Kids in narcissistic families have no choice but to adapt to their emotional environment. To protect themselves by trying to control the big people on whom they depend, mainly by pleasing and appeasing them.
Such kids typically experience at least some of the symptoms of codependency: guilt, shame, anxiety, depression. They see their own feelings and needs as at best inconvenient, at worst inappropriate — even dangerous. So they go into hiding. They become pleasers and appeasers and rescuers, better at taking care of others than themselves. And they tend to carry those symptoms into adult life.
And since no family is perfect, and no parent is perfectly healthy, every family is at least slightly narcissistic.
Which means nearly all kids grow up at least slightly codependent.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 13: Codependency
A camel is a horse designed by a committee.
~ Old joke
Codependency is a camel of a word.
It was cobbled together in the 1970s (from “coalcoholic” and “chemical dependency”) to describe a cluster of symptoms clinicians were finding in family members of alcoholics, and later popularized by self-help writers like Melody Beattie.
What’s it mean? Good question.
“Codependency” has been defined, but in so many different ways that there is no commonly accepted meaning.
This I discovered while researching a talk I was once asked to give on the subject. I found not one but six definitions of “codependency.” Each contained a piece of the truth, and yet none seemed entirely adequate on its own.
So I decided to share all six with my audience. Which I did.
When I’d finished, a man raised his hand and asked,”So what the hell is codependency?”
And in a burst of insight I answered: “Addiction to control.”
That has been my working definition of codependency ever since.
It’s also the best explanation I know for why family members of alcoholics experience the chronic emotional problems they face: guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, painful relationships, even their own substance abuse.
Here’s how it works:
Living with an addict is unpredictable and scary. Inevitably you wish, if only to protect yourself, that you could control their behavior or its consequences.
It’s a short step from wishing that to actually trying to do it.
Thus a codependent wife may hide her alcoholic husband’s liquor, or pour it down the sink, or lie to his boss about why he’s not working, or to his kids about why he’s not home, or to her family about why he never attends birthday parties, or to the neighbors about how she got her black eye.
She may try to persuade, nag, beg, guilt, or threaten the alcoholic himself. Or manage his moods by avoiding conflict, never complaining, never speaking up, never expressing her own thoughts, feelings or needs.
Over time this way of coping becomes second nature to her. A way of handling all experiences, all feelings and all relationships. An approach to living rooted in the belief that survival depends on controlling people, places and things.
This is the codependent approach.
It infects wives, husbands, children, grandchildren, parents, friends and coworkers of addicts.
Nor does it end there.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 11: Heart
About addiction:
More people talk about it than understand it.
That’s because most people don’t know the secret at addiction’s heart.
That secret is (surprise) this book’s subject.
Because all addicts are control addicts.
And every addiction is an addiction to control.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 10: Choiceful and compulsive
There’s one more distinction to make.
It is closely related to the last one, but essential to understand in its own right:
Controlling may be choiceful or compulsive.
Choiceful means both conscious and freely chosen. Compulsive means driven by anxiety, to where a person essentially loses the ability to choose.
Most dysfunctional controlling is compulsive.
Compulsive controllers are people who see no other way to feel safe or secure than by trying to control people, places, things and themselves. And who keep on controlling despite all evidence that the control they seek is an illusion.
Another word for compulsive is addictive.
Compulsive controllers, then, are addicts:
People who feel driven to control.
Who are unable to stop, even when their controlling is inappropriate, unhealthy or impossible.
Who’ve lost control of their need for control.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 9: Functional and dysfunctional
Perhaps most importantly:
Controlling may be either functional or dysfunctional.
Functional controlling is in some way necessary, appropriate or need-satisfying.
Dysfunctional controlling — a.k.a. dyscontrol — is none of those things.
Distinguishing the two can be tricky. Dysfunctional control often seems, in the moment, to be an effective way of coping.
Remember the list of controlling behaviors I offered in Chapter 7? Do you ever lie? Go along to get along? Hide your true thoughts and feelings? Most of us find it impossible to never engage in some of that stuff.
But eventually all forms of dyscontrol fail.
That’s because, where functional controlling represents an attempt to face and solve a problem, dyscontrol is a fear-based response whose main goal is to avoid anxiety or discomfort.
We’ll examine specific examples of this in Part 2: Dysfunction. They include anxiety, depression, addiction, and most relationship problems.
For now it’s enough to define dyscontrol as any controlling that ends up frustrating needs instead of meeting them.
Even Edith Bunker came to recognize this. Eventually she saw she needed to stand up to Archie, to stop appeasing him and simply say No.
(Haven’t seen that particular episode? Please do.* And notice the studio audience’s reaction.)
________________________
*All in the Family, Season 6, Episode 8: “Edith Breaks Out” (YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Q0IYPJiFM
Jump to 12:00.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 8: Conscious and unconscious
Controlling can be conscious or unconscious
Conscious controlling is the sort we notice ourselves doing. Unconscious controlling operates outside our awareness.
Archie probably knew he was trying to control Edith. Edith, though, may not have realized she was controlling him back.
One way we hide our controlling from ourselves is by calling it something else:
Niceness. Politeness. Respect. Helpfulness. Protection. Loyalty. Love.
That’s not to say all unconscious controlling is dishonest or unhealthy. But it’s also true that the vast majority of compulsive controllers are relentlessly “nice” people unaware of their driving need for control.
They’re also unaware of how much their need for control controls them.
It’s easy to identify such people. Just place them in a situation beyond their control and see how uncomfortable they get.
(On the wall behind my chair there’s a picture of flowers. I once tilted it so that it hung crooked. Then I spent the day watching my clients’ eyes flick back and forth between my face and the crooked picture. Most were unaware they were doing this. All seemed increasingly restless or irritable. Two finally felt compelled to ask permission to straighten it.)
We’re still forming two Skype-based study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time. One is for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work. Both groups will be small, six members at most, and meet weekly. Fee is $50 per session, and group members may purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price. Interested? Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 7: Overt and covert
Controlling may also be overt or covert.
Overt controlling is observable or obvious. Covert controlling is hidden or disguised.
When I tell my son to take out the garbage, that’s overt controlling. When he forgets and I retaliate by ignoring him, that’s covert.
Remember All in the Family? Archie Bunker’s treatment of his wife (Stifle, you dingbat) was overtly controlling. But Edith controlled Archie right back – by shutting her mouth, agreeing with him, bringing him a beer. She manipulated Archie, and manipulation is another name for covert controlling.
Most of our controlling is covert.
Do you ever lie? Go along to get along?
Hide your true thoughts and feelings? Tell people what you think they want to hear?
Laugh at jokes you find unfunny? Act politely towards people you hate?
Take better care of others than of yourself?
All covert controlling.
Covert controlling is, in fact, the universal social lubricant.
It’s how socialized human beings relate to each other.
Whether they know it or not.
Whether they like it or not.
Universal. Inevitable. Inescapable.
Like a psychological ocean in which every one of us swims.
We’re still forming two Skype-based study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time. One is for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work. Both groups will be small, six members at most, and meet weekly. Fee is $50 per session, and group members may purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price. Interested? Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.
(THE BOOK) Chapter 6: External and internal
Let’s start by distinguishing different types of controlling.
Controlling, to begin with, may be external or internal.
External controlling focuses outside the individual, on people, places and things. Internal controlling focuses inside the individual, on his or her own thoughts, feelings and behavior.
Cleaning my garage, disciplining my kids, selling anyone anything, and steering my car out of a skid are examples of external controlling.
Dieting, memorizing French verbs, learning to meditate, and hiding my true feelings are examples of internal controlling.
This may seem an obvious distinction. It isn’t.
Because people addicted to control often lose the ability to distinguish between external and internal.
For example, as a control addict I may well believe that the only way to accept myself (internal) is to get you to like me or love me or give me money (external). So I try to control you in order to control how I feel.
But I may also be convinced that in order to control you (external) I must control myself (internal) – hide what I really think of your haircut or your politics, for example.
So I control you to control me, and control me to control you.
And if you’re a control addict, you do the same.
And the boundary between us gets impossibly blurred.
(More on this confusion later, in Part 2: Dysfunction.)
We continue to collect members for two Skype-based study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time. One will be for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work. Both groups will be small, four t0 six members at most, and meet weekly.
These groups have two purposes. One (the study function) is to help members understand and relate to the ideas in Monkeytraps, which are new to most people and feel counterintuitive to many. The other (the support function) is to help members integrate these ideas into their lives and relationships. For therapists this would include their relationships with clients.
The first step to joining is an introductory Skype consult with me, so we can meet each other, I get a sense of your interests and needs, and you can ask questions about the group, the book, and whatever.
The Skype consult fee is $50, payable in advance via PayPal. That is also the fee for each group session. Group members may also purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price when it’s released next spring, and will be the first to be informed of any related projects or services.
I’ve already met some cool people through these consults, and am excited to see the new groups unfold.
I expect we’ll learn a lot from each other.
Interested? Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.
Steve & Bert
COMING SOON: An expanded 2nd edition
CLICK HERE TO ORDER MONKEYTRAPS (THE BOOK)
Follow the conversation:
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BERT’S IN THERAPY. To listen in, click on his nose.
