How Compass Therapy Reduces the Power of Personality Disorders

Why are personality disorders/patterns so alluring to individuals who cling to them? I agree with Gordon Allport that a disorder exists as an autonomous complex within the personality. It functions much like a tapeworm within its host, taking energy and usurping what would rightfully belong to the host, and giving nothing back but its own waste. This is the mystery of iniquity, identified even in the Bible, which troubles people from one generation to the next and defies rational explanation.

The Power of Personality Disorders

From the view of Compass Therapy, every personality pattern has the power to speak, think, feel, and act as though it is a living person. The truth is that these patterns are neither living nor responsive to life, yet they act with a purposeful autonomy. Often when counselees try out a creative new thought, feeling, or action, the personality pattern will assert itself as if to say, “Don’t you dare change or something bad will happen!” Sullivan called this the defensive alarm mechanism of patterned behavior. It is just as predictable as the patellar reflex which occurs when a doctor taps a patient’s knee.

Though Freud documented the resistance levied by defense mechanisms, a personality pattern’s ego-syntonic autonomy goes way beyond the theory of transference. More often than not, the pattern makes repeated bids to take over the counseling dialogue, and without vigilance a therapist and counselee can sit there powerless to intervene. 

Personality Disorders Self Compass

Yet for Compass Therapy, the form this resistance takes provides vital information about how a counselee thinks, feels, and acts in everyday life. For instance, the histrionic pattern leads to non-stop talking that drives a counselee to perform rather than communicate. The therapist can gesture for a “time-out” (as officials do in an athletic game) to help move through this resistance and make relevant points.

Or, in the case of the avoidant-patterned counselee, the therapist can point out the psychology of the obvious by saying gently, “It’s like your unconscious came up with a solution to anxiety long ago: ‘If I just sit here and say nothing, then nothing bad can ever happen.’”

By knowing in advance where patterns and their concomitant styles of resistance reside within the Self Compass, the therapist can impart new information throughout the therapy, gradually strengthening counselees’ resolve to escape from the pattern by challenging their own resistance. 

Resistance to Personality Change

This process of pattern identification, and the forming of a compass conception of what life could be without the pattern, works even when there are pattern combinations involved. Just as all colors on an artist’s palette originate in the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, so all personality patterns and their combinations originate in exaggeration or avoidance of Love and Assertion, or Weakness and Strength. The LAWS of personality and relationships link together the potential for actualizing growth with manipulative trends, personality patterns, and psychoses.

For instance, someone who combines both compulsive and dependent patterns will not only compulsively set about seeking other’s perfect approval, but will experience an inner conflict between controlling everyone’s reactions while needing others to control them in an authoritarian way. This neurotic conflict is like prizing your new car so much that you are afraid to drive it, while at the same time offering the keys to anyone who needs a ride. In this particular case, you can see the neurotic dilemma in which the counselee’s unconscious resentment of people (compulsive control) co-exists with an unceasing quest for people’s approval (dependent pleasing).

When counselees learn to discriminate between the false voice of their pattern and the true voice of their spiritual core, the pattern loses its allure. The therapist’s clear vision into the nature of these patterns is passed on to the counselee as though through a vaccination that gives them immunity toward the pattern. 

Personality Growth

In this manner, patterns are gradually flushed out, brought into consciousness for constructive reflection, and increasingly discarded in favor of new behavioral experiments that yield more satisfying results. Otherwise, therapy will bog down or last forever with only marginal results. No wonder therapists can burn out and not know why.

As a therapist, you know you’re making progress as you illuminate these ineffective coping strategies and watch counselees replace them with signs of an integrated Self Compass. Many pseudo-problems and wild-goose chases fade away 
as substantial personality growth occurs. 

For more, read:

COMPASS THERAPY: 
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION

 

Curing Personality Disorders in Compass Therapy

Why are personality disorders so alluring to individuals who cling to them? I agree with Gordon Allport that a pattern exists as an autonomous complex within the personality. It functions much like a tapeworm within its host, taking energy and usurping what would rightfully belong to the host, and giving nothing back but its own waste. This is the mystery of iniquity, identified even in the Bible, which troubles people from one generation to the next and defies rational explanation.

Any one of the personality disorders has the power to speak, think, feel, and act as though it is a living person. The truth is that these patterns are neither living nor responsive to life, yet they act with a purposeful autonomy. Often when counselees try out a creative new thought, feeling, or action, the personality pattern will assert itself as if to say, “Don’t you dare change or something bad will happen!” Harry Stack Sullivan called this the defensive alarm mechanism of patterned behavior. It is just as predictable as the patellar reflex which occurs when a doctor taps a patient’s knee.

Though Freud documented the resistance levied by defense mechanisms, a personality pattern’s ego-syntonic autonomy goes way beyond the theory of transference. More often than not, the pattern makes repeated bids to take over the counseling dialogue, and without vigilance a therapist and counselee can sit there powerless to intervene. 

Yet from the view of Compass Therapy, the form this resistance takes provides vital information about how a counselee thinks, feels, and acts in everyday life. For instance, the histrionic pattern leads to non-stop talking that drives a counselee to perform rather than communicate. The therapist can gesture for a “time-out” (as officials do in an athletic game) to help move through this resistance and make relevant points. 

Or, in the case of the avoidant-patterned counselee, the therapist can point out the psychology of the obvious by saying gently, “It’s like your unconscious came up with a solution to anxiety long ago: ‘If I just sit here and say nothing, then nothing bad can ever happen.’”

By knowing in advance where the personality disorder pattern and their correlated styles of resistance reside within the Self Compass, the therapist can impart new information throughout the therapy, gradually strengthening a counselee's resolve to escape from the pattern by challenging their own resistance.This motivates clients to participate in their growth toward freedom and health, a decisive gain for successful therapy.

This process of pattern identification and the forming of a compass conception of what life could be without the pattern, works even when there are pattern combinations involved. Just as all colors on an artist’s palette originate in the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, so all personality patterns and their combinations originate in exaggerating or avoiding of one or more compass points: Love and Assertion, or Weakness and Strength. 

The LAWS of personality and relationships link together the potential for actualizing growth with manipulative trends, personality patterns, and psychoses. To learn more about these LAWS of personality read Christian Counseling That Really Works: Compass Therapy in Action.

For instance, someone who combines both compulsive and dependent patterns will not only compulsively set about seeking other’s perfect approval, but will experience an inner conflict between controlling everyone’s reactions while needing others to control them in an authoritarian way. This neurotic conflict is like prizing your new car so much that you are afraid to drive it, while at the same time offering the keys to anyone who needs a ride. In this particular case, you can see the neurotic dilemma in which the counselee’s unconscious resentment of people (compulsive control) co-exists with an unceasing quest for people’s approval (dependent pleasing). 

When counselees learn to discriminate between the false voice of their pattern and the true voice of their spiritual core, the personality disorder loses its allure. The therapist’s clear vision into the nature of these patterns is passed on to the counselee as though through a vaccination that gives them immunity toward the pattern. 

In this manner, the patterns that underlie personality disorders are gradually flushed out, brought into consciousness for constructive reflection, and increasingly discarded in favor of new behavioral experiments that yield more satisfying results. Otherwise, therapy will bog down or last forever with only marginal results. No wonder therapists can burn out and not know why.

As a therapist, you know you’re making progress as you illuminate these ineffective coping strategies and watch clients replace them with signs of an integrated Self Compass, with all its benefits of personality health and fulfilling relationships. 

To master how to successfully treat the nine most common personality disorders (Narcissistic, Compulsive, Histrionic, Dependent, Antisocial, Paranoid, Borderline, Avoidant, and Schizoid), read several times through:

COMPASS THERAPY: 

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION

Compass Therapy on Personality Disorders

The term "personality disorder" -- described in DSM-IV and DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) -- captures the chronic and rigid inflexibility of a personality pattern. Unfortunately, this term can also have a side effect of diminishing a person's self-esteem and creating futility about the future. Even therapists can feel pessimistic about treating personality disorders.

Compass Therapy changes this by using the term "personality patterns," thus emphasizing that rigid patterns are merely growth deficiencies that can be replaced with healthy personality growth. People are familiar with the concept of laying aside old patterns, such as eating too much or driving too fast. They quickly grasp that growth stretches into unused compass points makes their behavior more resourceful and their life happier.

Therapists can remember nine major personality patterns by their location around the Self Compass. Each pattern is stuck on one or two compass points to the neglect of the others. Compass Therapy guides the expansion of personality into rhythmic use of all four complimentary points.

Personality Patterns Self Compass

*The dependent and histrionic patterns are located on the Love compass point, where the dependent trend intensifies into chronic pleasing and placating (dependent) or the melodramatic craving for attention (histrionic). Both patterns share intense needs for approval and affection, as well as a fixated focus on others that blocks access to the spiritual core.

*The paranoid and antisocial patterns are stuck on the Assertion compass point, where the aggressive trend develops into edgy suspicion (paranoid) or impenitent exploitation (antisocial). These two patterns frequently co-vary as personality mixtures, and share an undercurrent of hostility. They consider others as adversaries over whom they must triumph.

* The avoidant and schizoid patterns are located on the Weakness compass point, where the withdrawn trend intensifies into fearful loneliness (avoidant) or isolated detachment (schizoid). Both patterns create flat affect, a lack of motivation in personal development, and massive deficiencies in interpersonal skills.

* The narcissistic and compulsive patterns are lodged on the Strength compass point, where striving for superiority pushes the controlling trend into either the grandiose entitlement of the narcissist or the judgmental perfectionism of the compulsive. These two patterns share a common preoccupation with issues of adequacy, power, and prestige. Both patterns are quite comfortable taking control and dictating. Both patterns share the demand for perfection, the narcissist seeking the glory of ambition and the compulsive enforcing the status quo.

*The borderline pattern blends elements of the top and bottom halves of the Self Compass, flip-flopping in rapid swings from one extreme to its opposite. A built-in ambiguity within the pattern makes unpredictable whether the person will come across as a “top dog” (Strength and Assertion compass points) or an “underdog” (Love and Weakness compass points). This oscillating fluctuation forms the “rigid fluidity” of the borderline pattern.

I've taught students at several universities how to understand and treat these personality disorders. When I first used the material found in the Diagostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, my students remained puzzled, because they could never remember what distinguished one disorder from another, let alone how to construct an effective treatment plan based on each pattern's unique needs.

However, when I started using the Compass Therapy model, based on the user-friendly model of the Self Compass, students and veteran therapists alike said they could finally locate each disorder relative to the others, and understand the rationale regarding the facilitation of therapeutic growth toward a healthy and balanced personalty.

Here's what Lallene Rector, Professor of Psychology of Religion and Pastoral Psychotherapy, Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, Northwestern University, writes about the Compass Therapy perspective on Personality Disorders: 

"One of the real gems in the Montgomerys’ work is a systematic analysis of 'personality patterns' following DSM descriptions of the personality disorders. Attention is paid to the pattern’s interior, its origins, cognitive self-talk, emotional dynamics, and impact on others, as well as its way of relating to God."

To connect the diagnosis of a personality pattern
with a successful compass treatment, read

 COMPASS THERAPY