Hi, Frank.
Hi! Do I detect a lack of sparkle in your voice?
Yep, I am a little despondent at the moment. Tell me, though, how are you?
I am well, thank you. Allways finding fascinating things, and finding things fascinating… So what is bugging you, if I may ask?
Well, I am in a bit of a predicament. One of the senior people I work for often throws out barbed comments. You know, I can’t stand it when my competence or performance is attacked.
Mmm , that sounds interesting. So how did you react?
I’m afraid I flared up. There are some battles not worth fighting because they will just do more harm than good. I forgot that.
True. Flaring up may have devastating consequences, for yourself but also for the system you are part of.
I know. I am really peeved at myself for slipping up, but it seems that I have some deeply ingrained programming I have not gotten rid of yet. I hate feeling that I am not in control of my actions, acting as a matter of habit or conditioning and not through intelligent choice.
You have a point. No thing like coincidence here… so the synchronicity of my recent discoveries and your predicament is pretty amazing. So if you don’t mind, let’s build a bit of self awareness and at the same time some awareness of others and the systems we participate in.
Sure.
Let’s start with a very high chunk – a huge generalization: Behaviour is always driven by our needs, programming or habits, and decisions. If we are faced with a situation similar to or in the same state as others in the past, we are bound to react in more or less the same way as we reacted to those situations in the past. If we are faced with a new situation, a bit of confusion is natural and conscious choice plays a role, or we may react inappropriately by falling back on a habitual response. How does that sound so far?
It makes sense, go on.
Another high chunk… animals have six main behavioural modes: Hunt/eat, play, mate, fight or flight, and rest. Sometimes the mode is a purely expressed, and sometimes they are a little mixed. Humans have the same modes, but let’s call them slightly different names: work, play, mate & relate, fight, flight, and rest. I add a presupposition that all these behavioural modes have one thing as their aim – to preserve the organism and its kind to be able to procreate. We work to get money to pay for our house, car, holiday, kids education, food… We play to learn and relax to be better at working, relating… We fight or run away to preserve ourselves or the ones in the system whose well-being we feel responsible for. We have friends and work together in organizations because relating is one of the ways we create an environment that is friendly to ourselves and our families.
Phew! I would really like to replace my fight or flight responses with relating, playing or just good old work.
Not so fast. Sometimes fighting or fleeing are the sensible things to do. Now let’s look at the third high chunk. There is another quality to our behavior – it more or less follows one of three unresourceful patterns or one of three resourceful patterns. Using the metaphor of archetypes explains this well. The unresourceful, unholy trinity of human interaction is the Victim-Perpetrator-Rescuer game…
You know, this is exactly what I’ve been thinking about. I feel like a victim here and I clearly responded like someone that was cornered, threatened… I am being told to toughen up and get out of my ‘victim-consciousness’. In other words, feeling slighted, attacked, or belittled is all in my mind and was not meant like that by the perpetrator.
That may be so, but it may also be the perpetrator’s way of denying that it is a perpetrator. Is this a battle you could win?
No, absolutely not.
Then, if I may give advice, don’t make the perpetrator into a monster by attacking it, flaring up, defending yourself or positioning yourself with other people around it. Those are recipes for disaster. Sit it out – your survival is at stake.
OK, so you say that there may be truth in that I have reacted like a victim where it may not have been warranted. So please tell me what the Perpetrator archetype looks and acts like.
Do you want to be right to act like a victim when a perpetrator is doing its stuff?
Well, yes.
Hang on to your horses – from acting like a victim to being a victim is a small step. So let me tell you what to look out for first. Later I’ll give you insight into how the resourceful archetypes would react to a perpetrator. While I am talking, see which of the characteristics and behaviours are applicable to you too. OK?
Fire away.
The Perpetrator is a typical bully, or gangster, likes blaming others, shifts blame, is never responsible, finds fault, criticizes, intimidates and coerces. They are anything from covertly (passively) aggressive to openly vicious – the main thing is everyone knows you tread carefully around them. Their feedback is often abusive – they don’t put the fish on the table, they clobber you with it through the face. They may label their aggressiveness as assertive, but don’t know the difference, or how they are experienced. In some cases they don’t care. They may use authenticity as an excuse for bad manners. Perpetrators are easily offended. They may be seen as ruthless, cruel, savage. They shout, point fingers, or fold their arms, and lean forward. In extreme situations they may move from verbal to physical assault. They may also be manipulative – as sweet as treacle – but watch your back. They may be the Perpetrator only when provoked, or all the time, needing no provocation. Some people have the Perpetrator as their default persona. The bad news is that all of us sometimes go into thug mode. You could recognize many of the Perpetrator actions and attitudes in yourself – sometimes loud and clearly expressed and sometimes only a blip.
Mmmm – makes me think my reaction to the barbed comments and unthoughtful feedback made my inner Perpetrator act up. Down boy! You say there are other ways of dealing with Perpetrator behavior? I don’t want to go into this mode again.
Absolutely – we’ll get to that. Remember that in extreme cases Perpetrator archetypes destroy the system. People don’t want to work for or with them and leave, leaving them unable to achieve anything. Their behavior stifles creativity and progress and their services become obsolete and irrelevant; they find their competitors in business that are nicer people getting ahead. They are linear thinkers and don’t think beyond a couple of steps and only about things that will make them look good – very self focused.
That’s not good, and as I said, this is not the type of behavior I would like to live out.
Good. Let me tell you about the Victim archetype.
Poor me!
Yes, indeed. That is the motto of the victim. Everyone is so cruel to me! This is as good as it gets… Victims tend to band together and form troops of negativity, complaining how hard life is, how unfair. They blame themselves – I deserve all that comes my way. I’m not good enough. They easily feel done in. They want others to feel sorry for them. They may gossip and muddy the water, but they never stand up for themselves. Roll over, play dead. Keep your mouth shut and do your job. They believe that they are incompetent, inefficient, not worthy, helpless and hopeless. Victims don’t sustain the system and is also very self focused. As with the Perpetrator archetype it is also easy to slip into the Victim role, and all of us do that from time to time. Sure, many people refer to themselves as a ‘survivor’ – as in I’m an abuse survivor. It indicates that the abuse has stopped and I am no longer in the victim position, but it does not let the offense or offender off the hook.
I notice three things from the situation I told you about. I am touchy about competence and performance – wanting to always be acknowledged or at least for the feedback to be of the fish on the table type; I took comments and actions personally and in victim mode and then flipped into perpetrator mode. Fascinating – in a strange kind of way. So there is hope?
Yes, but let me finish with the Rescuer first. They think they have seen the light and are neither Perpetrators nor Victims. They give advice and tell people how they should act, think and be to be happy. They would rush to anyone in distress and console them, and savagely fight against injustice and other predators. They are peace makers, and they tell the parties involved how the peace should look like.
Mmm… I guess that these people are also self centred and that all of us have a bit of this archetype in us too.
Spot on. So which one of the three do you think is the bad guy in this unholy triangle?
Oh, it must be the perpetrator. Grrrrrr!
Nope! It’s the Rescuer. They are manipulative and keep the game alive. As long as they can rescue they have a mission in life – it makes them feel important. They stir things up and bring the perpetrator’s attention unnecessarily to victims. They easily tell victims: “I told you so”, and so keep them in victimhood, being Perpetrators themselves. Thing is, they easily get blasted by the Perpetrator – eaten alive – and then they act the Victim. Naturtally.
Enough already! I get the picture. These dynamics are negative, unhealthy and unsustainable and it seems inescapable.
It can be overcome. See the three negative archetypes as one side of a coin. The other sides of the coins are: the Lover (instead of addict or victim), the Warrior (instead of Perpetrator) and Healer (Instead of Rescuer).
How do these archetypes behave?
Well, firstly, as a collective they sustain, nurture and develop the system, not deplete it. They don’t think linearly but in terms of interdependence and cause and effect sometimes reversed. The lover bring a playfulness, gentleness and n deep appreciation of all things beautiful and harmonious. The Warrior defends when the system (not self) is threatened, and does not launch campaigns to punish, pilfer and vindicate. The Healer does not offer remedies but he is approached for healing and all he does is create a climate where the healing can happen, done by the one who needs it. He also understands that sometimes something needs to be amputated to save the person. So here you have the playful wisdom you have told me once you like so much, plus a bit of well-placed fierceness.
This is more like it! I know many people like this and I strive to be like this, consciously. But why does my ‘programming’ then still run my life? Why do I have to go volatile and destabilize a system around me?
May I offer a gut insight?
Sure.
You talked about having your competence and performance criticized makes you throw the Molotov Cocktail. Would you point to another man’s penis and go: “Na nana naaa-na, little dick, little dick”?
Hell, no! That is perhaps the ultimate insult to a man.
And to a woman belittling her nurturing nature would be the same… the ultimate insult. Let’s for the moment link competence, performance, nurturing ability to sexuality… and suppose that insulting these things of a man or woman is as good as saying they are worthless as human beings – they can’t fulfill their role in terms of contributing to and maintaining the species…
Hectic!
You may have heard that that which peeves us about other people is a good mirror for our own weaknesses… in other words, you may have triggered an attack because of something you lack – your weakness mirrors the other person’s weakness and they respond strongly because they don’t like that to be shown up. Or vice versa.
Sure, I’ve encountered that in the past. This is different though – the person I am talking about more or less consistently digs at everybody.
So you react and they don’t?
Challenge and you are eaten alive.
As I said earlier, this is not a battle you should fight – you will not win. However, remember this: You are perfectly capable and perform well – at work, at play and… in bed. You don’t need to defend when your values are attacked and you don’t need to fight back – your ego is not that fragile and inflated. Remember that wise playfulness and fierceness… Remember that the part in a system with the most flexibility has the most influence. And above all remember that, if one part of the system changes, the rest will follow suit, after some initial resistance. If you want the ‘bully’ to stop you will have to change the system’s dynamic... But if you jump in and want to change the system, the system is going to spit you out. Or you may destroy the system if you are not careful.
So how do I avoid that? How do I avoid behaving like one of the negative archetypes?
Practice and awareness. For the next two weeks, check all the communication coming your way and filter for ‘attacks’. Check your reaction. Will you be a Healer, Lover and Warrior in your response and sustain the system or are you going to flip into monster mode?
Remember to breathe, huh?
Yep. Now, it’s time for me to go. Rest well!
Thanks, you too.
