 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to the next episode of The Therapy Show with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones and we're following on looking a little bit more around personality traits and the one that we're doing in this week's episode is the passive-aggressive personality trait. That's right and I think, off camera you're talking about that book you like, but I personally had adaptations by Ian Stewart and Paul Wern and they talk about different styles of character. I think they call this person if I'm like, is it the playful resistor? Yeah. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm right. Good. Which is a really clue into how to work with these styles, if you like, and these are the people who present quite passive and in their passivity quite aggressive or may appear like that. Of course, beneath all that is the child that's not been heard or not been attuned to and the child in an attempt to be seen often says silently, if not overtly, fuck off. Yeah. Go away. Quite regularly in the therapy room as well. In their family of origin, it might have been a different story. They might have had said fuck off silently and you have the birth of what would be called an oppositional character. Yeah. And that's the way they've survived. That's the way they've attempted to get recognition. Unfortunately, usually negative recognition from their parents of origin. Yeah. But any recognition is better than nor recognition for human beings. Well, that's certainly true because otherwise they're shriveled up and die. So in this character, it's an attempt to get their needs met, a desperate attempt to be seen, a desperate attempt to be understood, a desperate attempt to really explain this. I suppose I've explained it quite well, to get their needs there to be understood. And for the parents just to turn around and say, well, you did a really good job. So in other words, to get validation. But the way they choose it, the way they attempt to get their needs met, the way they attempt to make connection, the way they attempt to be intimate, if you like, actually may result in pushing them, pushing other people away. Yeah. Because it's they, their attempts to get connection are often quite aggressive or can be seen as aggressive. Yeah. Yeah. And leaving the other person not wanting to make that connection. Yeah. That pushing all again type of thing. Yeah, leaves them not wanting to initiate. Yeah. Now the levels of passivity are high. Now, again, if we talk about traits, rather than personality disorders again, they're still high. So procrastination, for example, not doing anything, expecting to other people to think for them, and then they disagree with them. Yeah. Possibly. Often seen as oppositional characters to the most one of the most main features is the attempt by the client to get the therapist to do the thinking for them. And then when they do the thinking for them to disagree with them aggressively. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does. It does. In a way, I was just wondering. Is that identification again? Yeah, well, this, I don't have the passive aggressive thing, but it doesn't. Your clients, you think. Oh, yeah, understand that completely. This kind of like that learned helplessness, but then they come out on the attack. Yeah. That's the phase. Come out on the attack. Yeah. You know, it's a way, it's a desperate attempt, though, to make connection and to let the other person know I'm here. You know, I am here. I want you to meet me. But actually what they do pushes people away in most cases. Again, you know, in touching on what you said in the last episode, I think it's really important as the therapist to not take it personally. That's the bit. Not to take it personally. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to, you see, you know, for most clients, the therapist will represent the authority figure. Yes. Yeah. Now, the passive aggressive client will go into battle with the projected authority figure. And if the projected authority figure then goes into battle with them, it's the same as going to battle with a paranoid that we talked about in the other podcast that will go nowhere. In fact, they'll be repeat of history. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. So, you know, I've always spoke about it quite early on about the pacing of the therapy sessions and things. And I think sometimes you can tell by the response or the atmosphere in the room, whether the pace needs to slow down a little bit, whether they're feeling under attack or I don't know that you can see straight through them. You need to just tread water for a while in the therapy room. Sometimes I think. Yeah. Because they will seek out what is called in TA negative strokes with recognition because that's been their diet as a childhood. Yeah. So, they will scorn authority. They will be resentful authority. They will go into sulky behavior. They will induce the parent, i.e. the therapist, in some way to push them away by this so-called inadvertent commerce bad behavior. Yeah. Which again is a protection mechanism. Yeah. And you're right. Passive aggressive clients who have grown up with that way of an attempt to get strokes or recognition are very good at promoting these battles with their therapists. Because if you trace it back to their history, that's exactly what they did with their parents. Because they didn't get the validation, they weren't met, they weren't understood. So, fuck you then, I'm going to act out and then you will bloody see me. Yeah. And you'll bloody see me and then I won't actually take these strokes in the first place. Yeah. Because I don't want them. Because I don't want them. Yeah. So you go around in this sort of, you know. That's a wonderful example of it, what you just did then, Bob, is literally that the arms crossed, whatever it is, that is literally what I think you would see in a therapy room. It's, yeah, I don't want it anywhere. Don't want it anywhere. That's exactly it. And that's their frame of reference. So they play these battles to get validation, etc., etc. And when they get it, they push it away. Because they don't need it and they don't want it. And then you've got the whole process goes around again. So you've got these repetitive behaviours, which we call games and transaction analysis, which, you know, is an attempt maladaptively to get their needs right. It doesn't actually work. But it actually works to a certain level in their childhood, where they got some levels of recognition. Yeah. And they attempt to enact the same process out in life. And of course in relationships, then the problems really start. Do you find that sometimes there's a fine line in the therapy room of buying into it, into the adaptation and playing that part, and not buying into it? Is there a point where we need to play the game up to a certain stand so that the client stays in the room and keeps coming back? Well, it's interesting about this, because if you talk about games and behaviours, repetitive behaviours, there's many ways we can do that. One is what you've just talked about, where you may stay in the game and play the game out and then see what's the script, the payoff that they actually take, and then actually do a bit of educative therapy and take it back to their early history. You can do that. You can actually do some educative therapy before the games actually begin. But what you're talking about is staying in the behavioural. It is a fine dance, because the problem without moving to some educative therapy is that you may reenact its history. Yeah, but it is a fine line in playing it out so that it's familiar to them and they feel comfortable in the situation somehow, and refusing to do it, and them up in the ante, playing an even bigger game somehow. You can do that, because it's a bit of a trap though, because there'll be better at it than you. So I'll tell you a good way to work, I think, clinically with people with this type of ways of defending is through humour. Because if you can get to their playful child, this is why I think Ian Stewart and Van Joys nicknamed this type of character playful resistance, is because if you can use your own humour to bypass those defences of resistance and get to the child which has been not validated or not met, then I've always found that a really good channel. Now, I've naturally got good humour, but I don't think of using it as a technique, but I do think, interestingly enough, clinically, that with this type of client, using my humour as a way to, or a channel if you like, to get to the energy which is often quite blocked in the child part of the person, is a useful and a technique that is effective. I can see that, yeah. If you go the other way and get caught up in that sort of battle you were talking about earlier, you've lost. Yeah. If you can get to the part of the child, in other words, the part underneath the coping mechanisms or defences, in a way they'll allow you in and a way they'll engage with you, you're more likely to get to the part of them which is being so hurt. In a safe way, yeah. Yeah, he's in quite a safe way. Yeah. You know, the paranoid might feel tricked by humour, which isn't, I didn't say that in the last podcast, but I think the style of character comes from this sort of passive-aggressive process often feels engaged by humour. They don't go quite to the same levels that the paranoid person does. Yeah. I've always found that a good way to work with these people in a safe way to reach what often is called in the books the inner child. Yeah. Which really means the vulnerable, the younger part of the self. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can see that working. I can also see you doing that in a therapy room as well. Yeah. Yeah, because humour, I like humour. Yeah. It's an interesting one, humour. Just sort of touching on that this moment, because you know, you're on a fine line again because you're after engaging with the child that's been so hurt. That's why they pull these defences up in a safe way, quite correct. But if they feel in some way that you're laughing at them, rather than being with them. Yeah. You'll reenact history. Yeah. If they feel like they've been ridiculed or made fun of or anything. Yeah. So humour is okay, I think, from a thought out place, if that makes sense. Yeah. People call that technique, maybe. But I think with these types of people, using humour, I've always found very effective to engage their child, because that's where the trapped energy often is. If you can come alongside the vulnerable child, you're more likely to move towards a more power to process therapeutically than moving to some sort of battle with them. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. You know, just looking at where all this stuff comes from, you know, often what is played out in the therapy room is reenacting exactly like you say, something from the child and something that's happened that made perfect sense at the time. It's just in the therapy room, adult-to-adult interactions, it's not helpful. No. They're level procrastination. They're level sullenness, they're level of resistance, they're level of aggressiveness. Often... That phrase, cut off your nose despite your face, comes to mind when I'm working. Yeah. If you think about where all this comes from, to me, it's the battle with the parent in the individuation stage. So in other words, they are attempting to be seen, to be loved, to be validated from the significant other people, person. Now, if that doesn't happen, then what they could withdraw and shut down, like the withdrawn clients we talked about in the podcast, they could go into a tap, blame, and control that we talked about in another podcast. In this style, what they do is they attempt to get the validations, the strokes, and the love by actually acting out negatively. And then interestingly enough, when perhaps the therapist, sorry, the client could put the therapist later on, sorry, the parent rather than the, you know, the parent in their earlier history has, does then attempt to meet them, they then push them away because it's like it's too late in the framework. Yeah. Yeah, you've had your chance and you missed it. Yeah. They don't allow the parent to even go anywhere near their places because it's too late. Yeah. And then they go around in a circle, talked about earlier. Yeah. So it's, it's a very sad tragic tale, I think, because it's an attempt to get a different type of parenting. However, when that different type of parenting came along in their early history, it was too late for them. And they pushed them away from a very heard place. Yeah. So for the therapist to get to that child and, and engage with them and validate them, so they got a different imperative experience has to be done with patience, gentleness, and in a safe place. Yeah. Not straightforward therapy, this isn't, because if the problem is, if you buy into their attacks or their control mechanisms, or their procrastinations, or their passive behaviors, or their aggressiveness, and move into that sort of control battle, you'll lose out, you'll repeat history, you have to, and that's like, this is why humans, I think, quite a safe option. Find a way to engage with her child. And, and that's, that's, that's easier said than done. Yeah. But again, you know, as you're talking, I'm visualising what I would do with my kids or my grandson, if he's having a strop and, you know, sat quite close with his arms, but it is that, that tickling that bringing them out of themselves to get the mood that you're in, let's look at this over here and that, you know, distracting them somehow. That's how I see that connecting with the humour bit, it's a distraction, let's get away from the heavy stuff and let's, let's look at something less deep. Let's engage, yeah, let's engage that hurt part somehow. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, it's, if you see the therapy as the client's vain attempt to get a different type of, you could even look it like this, a different type of permitting, which attunes to them, counts to them, counts for them, and attempts to understand them, then I think you're on to more of a winner. The problem is what we said earlier on the podcast is that if you get, if you combine to their negative threats, their intimidation, their passive resentment, their solidness, you'll reenact history for that. Yeah. Which again, is why it's really important, a lot of the time, for, for therapists to have supervision, to, to talk about the impact of seeing certain clients on them. Again, I talk a lot about fine lines. There's a fine line in not taking it personally and not being invested in the therapy. If we're invested in the therapy with the client, then sometimes we do take things personally. Well actually, that is true because we're all human, however, or stroke and if we have enough therapy and supervision ourselves, I hope the investment isn't exactly the opposite. In other words, the investment is staying out of these power battles. Yeah. But of course, I think we often need our therapy to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And when I say the investment, I meant, you know, the investment in the therapy session and wanting the best for the client. I am invested in each and every one of my clients in one form or another. And in doing that, I open up the potential for taking things personally. Yeah. And the other thing of course is they don't, they want you to be invested and they don't want you to be invested. Yeah. So, you know, one thing, when we talk about passive, the passive part of this type of the character we talk about, I want to go back to something which is really fundamental and that is they will want to manipulate you or hypnotically manipulate you to do the thinking for them. So they then can reject it. Yeah. Now that's a really interesting one because it's very important in the end that they do empower themselves and grow up and don't stay infantilized and caught in this passive aggressive battle they often are. So how does the therapist do that? How does the therapist go to a place where they're encouraging the person to think in a safe way? In other words, they encourage them to think without the crowd being so afraid that the work is going to be taken away from them or they can enact out this aggressive place because in the end of the day, you do need to get to a place where they start thinking for themselves and not manipulating you to think for them because if you go down that line, they'll just throw back in your face again. Yeah. So it's an interesting, I think the way through it is to get to the child, like I've said before, and help the child's scare about thinking. Yeah. Do you think particularly with passive aggressive clients that the way maybe to do that is through activities? Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's often a very good way to do it. Yeah. Rather than the thinking and the feeling business to get them doing something. Yeah, because if you think about it, they're invested in in passivity. Yeah. So they can induce the parent in and then they can of course then spit them out again. Yeah, yeah. So if you can move to behavioural activities or that is a safer way, I think, to go and certainly through the behaviours you might get to their feelings and then their thinking. Yeah, without, I don't know, hitting the trip wire that can get the defence mechanism up. It's, yeah. I think that's where I feel less challenged in a room when we're doing something activity based behavioural stuff. Rather than trying to outwit each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it also therapeutically confronts the passivity. Yeah, yeah. They need to move and get unstuck or something. But you know, if you think of this, as I said before earlier in the podcast, it's a tragedy their history because they're attempting to get connectedness, nurture, intimacy. And when it comes, they throw it back again. And that's the whole game. Yeah. Somehow you need to cut across that. And I, again, I think playing with them is a really good way. Yeah. Gaze the child. Yeah. Which, again, you know, the humour side of things can be used as, you know, behavioural and making that connection that way. Yeah. Fascinating. Fascinating. It's a wonder any of us come out of there alive sometimes, Bob. Well, of course, with the passive aggressiveness, and I think with many of these characters, especially the passive aggressive part, I don't really like, I much prefer playful resistance. I like that. I much prefer that. It's often seen as a battle to the death. Yeah. And of course, we need to find a way where they can honour life and we have a different reparative process. And as I said, I've probably said the fourth time this podcast, I think engaging humour and playfulness to connect with their inner child is the way forward. Yeah. So they can learn to connect in a different way. Safe way. Yeah. Yeah. So, what we're doing next episode, Bob, do we know? Well, you've got your list off. I've got my list. We're going to do the histrionic. Let's move on to histrionic. Let's do the histrionic and the narcissistic client. Okay. Because they sort of go together in many ways. But quite often the features of the histrionic client is similar to the features of the narcissistic client. And often the narcissistic client and the histrionic client get mixed up. Interesting. So I think that'll be interesting. Right. We're grouping them together then. Right. So until the next one, where we'll be doing histrionic and narcissistic. Yeah. That's, as you said earlier on, you know, narcissism often is the flavour of the day. But there's a great call for healthy narcissism, which is a genesis, of course, for self-esteem. It'll be a great podcast. And again, it's a sliding scale. We all have narcissistic tendencies. We're human. We are. Yeah. I can think of many well-known figures for next week we can talk about, but I'll have to be careful. But I can think of many of them. And they are on the right side of this spectrum. But I do think we can put them together, histrionic and narcissism to certain extent. And they often get diagnosed the wrong way round. Maybe that's something we could do in future, Bob, with these personality traits is pick somebody in the public eye that we can say that's what they are. That's that. Well, obviously in a lot of social media, you know, Trump is often seen as an arch narcissist. You know, I think one of the ways that I got to grips with these when I was doing my training was to look at EastEnders and Coronation Street and Emmerdale and look for characters that were displaying certain behavior types. Yeah. I mean, it's a very, very good one. Unfortunately, they're full of narcissists. But we're not talking about the actors or the characters. So we can't get done for libel or anything. I meant the characters. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I shall see you on the next episode, Bob. You will see on the next episode. Take care. Bye. 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