The Negativistic Passive Aggressive Personality

Some people just seem unsure of which way to turn in life. Ever ambivalent, they vacillate between uneasy feelings of dependence and an equally uneasy desire for self-assertion. Simultaneously needy and independent, they agree to conform to requests for performance, but nevertheless have strong issues with authority and resent external control. Inevitably, they feel misunderstood, unappreciated, and disillusioned. As their discontent deepens, they begin to find fault with the way others treat them and engage in indirect or passive forms of behavioral and emotional protest. On the surface, they agree to follow through but then sabotage the expectations of others through procrastination, intentional inefficiency, shoddy workmanship, and subtle obstruction. Stubborn, uncooperative, contrary, nitpicking, sulking, pouting, and pessimistic, they dampen the spirits of those around them. Though they sometimes make genuine confessions of remorse, eventually they become sullen and oppositional once more. All despise and defy authority and seek to avenge their disillusionment by undermining anyone who would require something from them.

Such individuals are often called passive-aggressive personalities. In this chapter, negativistic is the preferred designation, a newer label that captures the broader elements of the total pattern. The pattern is perhaps best understood as being both similar and opposite to the compulsive. In terms of the evolutionary model, both are ambivalent patterns that struggle mightily with issues of obedience and defiance (Rado, 1959). The negativistic pattern, however, is actively ambivalent, whereas the compulsive is passively ambivalent. As such, compulsives follow a strategy of containment, suppressing their conflicts to appear self-controlled, perfectionistic, orderly, and morally scrupulous. In contrast, negativists work out their resentments on the surrounding world, but only in indirect ways, thus symbolizing their inability to break free of ambivalence and pursue a strategy of overt opposition.

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