Christian Personality Theory Interprets Boasters and Controllers

Strength-stuck persons are forced to live a lie that is apparent to all around them. They do make mistakes, do show errors of judgment, and do miss the mark of their own high standards. It’s just that they never admit it.

Scripture makes a prediction about strength-patterned people: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

Haughty Spirit

When Boasters and Controllers really grasp the good news about the grace of Jesus Christ, they can lay down the burden of pride and begin enjoying life and people. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Though it is hard to believe and doesn’t have a counterpart in other world religions, the Gospel proclaims that individuals are made right with God and equipped for service to others through the redemptive atonement Christ has provided in his death and resurrection. There is no self-merit involved.

Saved by God's Grace

To the Boaster, God declares, “But let those who boast, boast about this: that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight” (Jeremiah 9:24).

Boasters can invite Christ’s love to shine through their personality and human nature, surrendering the need to gain everyone’s admiration, and praying for forgiveness about the many times they slighted others when striving for superior status. Over time, their self-importance is transformed from self-glorification into glorifying Christ and serving others with a humble heart. “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:10).

Persons outgrowing the Boaster pattern can enjoy a new connection with humanity, one based on empathy instead of condescension, humility instead of hubris. Now the door of the heart can open to concern for others' well-being, consideration for others' feelings, and helping others rather than feeling competitive toward them. 

Helping Others

Controllers face a different set of growth challenges, since their proneness to legalism renders them resistant to grace and love. They want to impress God with their meritorious achievements. Grace seems to diminish what they are most sure of: how conscientious they are. 

But Jesus sees deeper into their hearts, understanding how Controllers must smash the illusion of their good intentions and perfectionist rule-keeping in order to let go of their judgmental attitude. 

So Christ says to the Controller, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:1-2).

Repentance takes the form of giving up the need to always be right, to control every situation, and to constantly prove one’s capability—all preludes to developing a more humble personality, whose spiritual core expresses an interpersonal, rather than egocentric sense of self.

In an invitation that seems tailored to the Controller, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

"Come to me, you who are burdened"

And now there is room for the Lord to introduce play, enjoyment, laughter, and fun into the lives of former Boasters and Controllers, the Holy Spirit helping them to feel God’s extravagant love, and Jesus showing them firsthand the unforced rhythms of grace.

For more, read:

CHRISTIAN PERSONALITY THEORY:

A Self Compass for Humanity 

Compass Therapy and Christian Psychology

All theories of counseling include underlying assumptions and core beliefs about God, human nature, personality, and healthy versus unhealthy behavior. Compass Therapy holds that people are related to the personal, holy, and loving Creator known through the Christian faith.

This does not exclude other perceptions of God or other ways of construing human values within the therapeutic setting. It simply underscores the fact that since cardinal values of Christianity include compassion, empathy for those who suffer, and motivation to heal and transform persons who have lost their ways, Christian psychology offers a viable worldview from which to practice counseling and psychotherapy.

Compass Therapy weds faith and science. The facets of psychology pertinent to the healing of persons include motivation, sensation and perception, learning and memory, personality and social integration, and lifespan development. All are grounded in a God who understands and utilizes counseling and therapy as yet another means of calling people to exercise freedom rightly and benefit from the identity, intimacy, and community he has invited them to know.

From a Christian perspective, Christ embraces people in need, seeking to transform their personal crises through the power of the Holy Spirit present within the alliance of therapist and counselee (Montgomery, 2006, pp. 71-74).

It's as though the Holy Spirit says to any therapist who is open, “Come. Let us work together with your counselee. Let me inspire you with insight and direction to help tame your counselee’s anxiety and heal their pain. Have courage in guiding them to give up the patterns that are defeating them: the manipulations of pleasing, placating, seducing, calculating, controlling, arguing, intimidating, avoiding, or withdrawing. Through a therapeutic bond that draws upon My wisdom, help them find a pathway that leads to flexibility, discerning love, and personal power without guile.”

If your therapeutic experience is anything like mine over the past thirty years, you may have noticed that the Trinity comforts and heals beyond religious category or human constraint, and that the Holy Spirit does indeed enhance your effectiveness as a healer of the soul.

To learn more, see:  

Compass Therapy: Christian Psychology in Action

Philosophical Underpinnings of Compass Therapy

As the founder of Compass Therapy, I'm occasionally asked why I choose a Christian worldview as the philosophical foundation of this approach to counseling. The obvious answer is that I am a Christian by faith and choice, though in coming to this experience I did try out atheistic and agnostic perceptions of reality. 

Beyond my personal faith, I want to take a stand as a professional psychologist who believes that spirituality is essential to human nature and vital to mental health. I agree with many world religions that are rooted in a community of faith, where people find purpose in suffering, hope in times of loss, and meaning in their sacred scriptures and traditions.

So why am I selective about making Christianity the foundation upon which Compass Therapy arises? Because the Trinity, the core teaching of Christian faith and doctrine, reveals a spiritual reality that underlies all human experience: the reality of One God in Three Persons. In other words, human life and history, deriving from being created in the image of God, is fundamentally interpersonal, just like the divine Trinity is fundamentally interpersonal: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

But aren't these religious assertions a far cry from modern psychology and psychotherapy, and shouldn't there be a permanent barrier that separates what happens in a house of worship from what happens in a therapist's office?

I think not.

Whether we like it or not, we are born into a social context of Life Together. Therefore our mental health is linked to the progress we make in getting along with God and other people. No person is an island, and alienation from community (ie. the inability to give and receive love) is a sure mark of psychopathology.

Compass Therapy suggests that developing a healthy personality and fulfilling interpersonal relationships are primary aims of good therapy. Toward that end a therapist uses techniques of psychotherapy to relieve symptoms of anxiety, depression, relationship dysfunction, addiction, or a host of other disorders and psychological disabilities. Yet let's never forget that the primary aim remains the development of personality health and social integration, a pursuit that lasts a lifetime.

For more about this, see

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY:
 Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet

Welcome to Compass Therapy!

   

The Compass Therapy approach integrates a model of counseling and therapy with Christian orthodoxy. I pray that it enhances your counseling practice or quest for self-knowledge.

   I recall the years in which I studied or received supervision in different approaches to counseling and therapy. Psychoanalytic. Psychodrama. Existential. Gestalt. Transactional analysis. Family systems. Cognitive-behavioral. I read theory and learned techniques, while searching Scripture and praying for a viable integration with my Christian beliefs. Some theories and techniques enriched my way of understanding and helping others. Others didn’t. I kept what worked, and what proved compatible with Christian orthodoxy. 

 For instance, while I found aspects of Freud’s theory of value, I had to leave other parts behind. The belief in the unconscious as a dark and pervasive instinctual force contradicted my experience of people’s resiliency and resourcefulness in the counseling process—not to mention the ingenious ways I sensed the Holy Spirit helping people rebound from terrible pain or loss.

 Gradually, I evolved the bedrock assumption of Compass Therapy: the positive gains of good counseling are an amalgamation of therapeutic principles empowered by Christ’s healing love. Ultimately, therapeutic psychology and the Lord work together in the counseling process, whether or not there are overt references to Christianity. The Holy Spirit blesses people who humble themselves in seeking a greater wholeness.

 Whether you are a veteran therapist, student of counseling, or person undergoing therapy, I invite you to explore and enjoy the benefits of Compass Therapy provided in future posts.   

To view the Compass Therapy book, click:

COMPASS THERAPY: CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION