Character Disorder

Character disorder types are hung up around the issue of defining themselves as separate individuals. This is done mainly through opposition to convention and authority. Where depressive and manic individuals have reached the point of identifying with others and discovering what they have in common with them, character disorder type individuals are involved with the next step which is discovering what sets them apart and makes them uniquely different. People do not usually run into their differences as long as they are agreeing with the group; it is their disagreements with the group that brings them into focus. While individuation is an important developmental step and always involves resistance to authority and pressures to conformity, the character disorder adult has become fixated ar this developmental level and is stuck, more or less, in a posture of exaggerated rebelliousness and anti-authoritarian, aggressive acting out. People who are variably called sociopaths, antisocial personalities, oppositional disorders, conduct disorders, and the like fall into this broad category. They are the ones who are most likely to be at odds with the rules, regulations, and laws that most people live by and, hence, the ones most likely to end up doing criminal acts and being sent to jail or prison.

Typically, the character disorder has little tolerance for frustration, especially frustration resulting from barriers that other people put in the way of his satisfactions. Although he usually tries to project a cool, calm, non-anxious, laid-back, superficially charming manner, he is quick to react aggressively to anyone who gets in his way and tries to stop him from doing what he wants to do. He hates being told that he can't do this or that he must do that, especially when the person doing the telling is an authority figure, and his usual response is resistance or active opposition. His main defense in life is aggression. He always manages to let people know that if they behave in ways that makes him feel too anxious, tense, or uncomfortable, they risk becoming the object of his aggression, which because it is usually discharged impulsively can be dangerous. The message is, "Back off, man! Don't get in my way!"

Another major defense is the suppression or repression of conscience. Conscience, after all, is the internalized voice of authority and demand for conformity, and this is what the character disorder individual is always trying to overthrow. When conscience is defensively dulled down or deadened, the character disorder's impulses have freer rein. He tends not to concern himself very much with considerations of what has gone on in the past, nor is he very attentive to likely future consequences. Guilt resides too much in the past, and anxiety and apprehension stake too strong a claim in the future. The character disorder, therefore, lives almost wholly in the here and the now. It is the present moment that matters most to him. People who do not profit from past mistakes or alter their behavior in light of probable future consequences are, of course, at very high risk of repeating behavior that society abhors and punishes.

In this image, the character disorder individual is depicted as in a tug-of-war struggle with authority, or "The Man," as symbolized by the giant arm. He is dressed in tight, muscle-displaying clothes, since character disorders tend to be very bodily oriented and having a strong, muscular physique is one way of warning people not to mess with him. The large, red button sticking out of his back symbolizes the same thing. Character disorders have many buttons which they let people know they had better not push if they do not want to risk an explosion of impulsive aggression (the lightning symbol on the button). The hazy edifice on the horizon represents the jail, prison, or other institution for social deviants that may be in the character disorder's future. The toppled, broken hourglass is meant to symbolize the character disorder's penchant for living too much in the here and now, where considerations of the future, the top of the glass, or the past, the bottom of the glass, so not enter in. The gun in the foreground represents the character disorder's characteristic penchant for aggression and violence. The whole scene is set on barren plain, since there is usually not much social warmth in the lives of individuals who always put their needs first and whose main preoccupation in life is looking out for old, "Number One," himself.