Attitudes Within the Family and at Work

Recognize him! Bulldozer, potato-milk, authentic, orderly, manipulative, or challenging?

THE BULLET-IN: the aggressive dominator

 He is the one who asserts himself by crushing everyone. He is the one who says, "There is a place, and this is mine. I take into account my needs, not yours. I am right, you are wrong." He never agrees with anyone else's opinion. "I don't agree" is his favorite answer.

He blames them, judges them, and blames others, is authoritarian, autocratic, even tyrannical. Doing so eliminates others. He often takes the attitude of a head of the family: pater familias. This attitude is also found in the case of the behavior of the employer towards his secretary, of the doctor towards the nurse, and, especially, of the politician about his opponents.

He is the "Critical Father" of transactional analysis. When everyone plays this role, they tend to be an "atomized family." No decision is possible. Each for himself. The family ends up exploding.

"MILK POPE": the passive dominant

The dry bread, soaked in milk loses its consistency and breaks into pieces. It is exactly the image of the one who eclipses himself in front of others. His favorite phrases are: "Okay, as you wish, you're right, I'm wrong, there's a place, and that's for you, not me, I care about your needs, not mine."

He removes himself, blames himself, judges himself, blames himself. He pleases others without regard to his own needs. The needs of parents or others take precedence. This is the depressive position. When everyone does this, they end up in a deadly family, "dead in the core": no decision is possible "as you wish". This is most often the position of the secretary, the nurse, the mother who sacrifices herself for the family, the older sister.

THE AUTHENTIC: the one who asserts himself autonomously

There is a place for me, but also one for you. I consider my needs, but also yours. Here is my opinion. What is our opinion? He expresses his opinion by listening to others and moves in the direction of making a decision. Don't eliminate anyone.

His attitude is democratic and mature. Maturity develops when you rely more on yourself than others. There is no need to dominate or judge critically. In a healthy family, genuine parents develop genuine children. The healthier families are, the more mature and authentic a population is, the more it can develop and maintain democracy and respect the decisions of the majority.

This role is often played by the child who is afraid of family tensions and who draws attention to the outside world to reduce the conflict: he breaks something, he misses school, he hurts the meowing cat. In the extreme, he is the type of psychotic child, seemingly disconnected from reality.

THE COMPUTER He is the one who labels the others.

He sees everyone as being left or right, he sees what is wrong with the food (chemicals), he is the ecologist who throws away all medicines, he looks at everything in a new age, he rejects the present (in my youth …). He eliminates himself and eliminates the others.

THE MANIPULATOR

The one who has been overprotected relies on the other and does not have self-confidence.

He has not developed the ability to respond to his needs when he inevitably faces them. Due to this, to be able to solve them, he has to manipulate the others, trying to make them act in his place. If successful, the manipulator can remain indefinitely a prisoner of passivity and addiction. Thus, an overprotected boy will look for a wife-mother.

A "well-educated" woman will take second place, will wait for the man's initiatives, and will choose a husband to protect her, "authorizing" her to remain a dependent girl. Such marriages have a less manipulative option: I marry you (without knowing very well why) so that you can react in my place. If things do not go as expected, the manipulation will become more explicit.

The overprotected boy will become angry if his mother-in-law did not prepare his shirt, tie, socks; the "well-educated" girl will burst into tears if her husband does not countermand the reception she does not want to go to. We find other means by which addiction and passivity are maintained, such as fear and panic in the face of action, the classic revolt or the manipulative one: "Oh! You accuse me of not washing the dishes well … well, then wash them you".

This type of person is often a disguised bulldozer or an orderly. He transforms reality to be right. He criticizes those who do not share his opinions … His are correct. "The right position is where I am.

The others are too left or too right." The manipulator redefines: he interprets the events according to his criteria so that the other ends up giving them

Justice.

He often accuses him of being wrong, of not understanding well, or of drawing attention to the inconveniences of his behavior without looking at the positive aspects. It is the temptation of some therapists to use the client's interpretation and unconsciousness (which, by definition, he is unaware of his unconsciousness) to cause him to accept his opinion, which may be influenced by his projections.

When I am thus criticized for such a mistake, I try not to answer defensively and to consider the truth part of what the other person is telling me. Sometimes it is painful, but instead of believing that this humiliates me, I often come out of such situations more successfully.

This kind of manipulation is common in couple conflicts: "You are the one who …" or "So you …" and in debates between two political opponents. The manipulator eliminates the others for his benefit. He criticizes religion by glorifying Jesus. He lowers his opponents in the eyes of the voters, valuing those he admires: "At least he … while you …". He even tries to make his opponent an ally by emphasizing him and glorifying him: "you are wonderful when …". It can threaten and frighten.

The appellant The "appellant" is the persecuting and tyrannical appellant

Constructive challenge proves the shortcomings of a system, its perverse effects, its abuses. She proposes appropriate remedies and acts in the right place, within the professional, family, neighborhood, or through a political or religious commitment. It is a healthy approach, desirable and necessary.

It has every right to exist in the West (newspapers, consumer associations) as well as in Eastern countries, where it was reduced to zero. I visited a collective farm in Czechoslovakia. The divided annual benefits brought two thousand crowns per person to the workers and sixty thousand to the farm chiefs, at the same time party leaders.

The "challenger" aspires to gain power or domination (through his car, through television …). He feels guilty about this. He cannot recognize desire as such and project it on someone else, on the consumer society, or the bourgeoisie.

He is the one who destroys the car of others symbolically or even literally (in some riots). He eventually challenged what he could not achieve without blaming himself. The abundance offered by the consumer society did not bring happiness to man, especially to those who were accustomed to it.

Let us add that this "challenger" is often in conflict with his family, school, or professional environment; he feels neither relaxed nor in harmony with himself. When the manipulator or challenger has power, he often creates conflicts around him, because he has as associated with other objectors like him. He thinks of making the revolution and provokes the revolt.

These roles are caricatured. It is interesting to attribute them to a role play as in exercise. Ideally, it would be in a group of four (or three) people.

It is a fiction that allows you to recognize yourself, to identify the predominant role that you and your family play in your family or at work. In doing so, you will find it strange to notice how much it resembles reality.