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Healthcare Training Institute - Quality Education since 1979CE for Psychologist, Social Worker, Counselor, & MFT!!
Section
9
Addiction: Personality Types
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In the last section, we discussed the blame game, in which
placing blame on other family members keeps focus away from the addict’s
addiction.
In this section, we will discuss the mirroring of symptoms in the
addict’s family, and the four character defect personality types: the
caretaker, the perfectionist, the procrastinator, and the rageoholic.
♦ Mirroring of Symptoms
During the course of addiction, addicts and their family
members begin to mirror each other. The disease of addiction changes both
in surprisingly similar ways. The decline of the family’s physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual health runs parallel to the addict’s
deterioration due to their drug.
As you know, addiction to any substance causes a somatic
illness, directly affecting the body organs and tissues. Family members of
addicts often suffer psychosomatic illness; their emotional changes directly
cause changes in their organs and tissues. As you know, these are not changes
that are "all in the family’s heads"; they are real physical
symptoms caused by mental and emotional changes.
Many of these physical and
emotional problems are the same problems suffered by the addict. Common problems
occurring both in the addict and the family members include hypertension, anxiety,
irritable bladder, peptic ulcers, and gastritis. These health problems caused
by the stress of having a relationship to an addict are very serious, and can
in fact be fatal. Do you have a client who needs to be reminded that their
psychosomatic illness is as serious as a somatic illness, and needs to be addressed?
I find that family members of addicts are also prone
to somatopsychic disorders; changes in the body which change the way an individual
thinks and feel. Depression is a good example of this condition. Living under
ongoing stress, such as living with an addict, results in high levels of
the hormone cortisol. Cortisol physically affects the brain,
leading to depression. An alcoholic’s body, fighting the toxic effects
of alcohol, also releases high levels of cortisol, leading
to depression in the same way.
In my experience, the emotional states of addicts and
their family members also begin to mirror each other. Both experience feelings
of anger, resentment, withdrawal, distrust, dishonesty, anxiety, depression,
and untrustworthiness as a result of fear. Both addicts and their families
try to control their fear with character defects. These defects
are so well practiced over time that they become a relationship worldview.
Family members of alcoholics often unknowingly seek out relationships with
people who fit their character defects.
Marie, age 43, told me "I’ve been
married four times to four alcoholics. After each divorce I’d swear I’d
never marry another alcoholic. Then I’d find this great guy, we’d
get married, and it was only after the blush of the honeymoon wore off that
I discovered I’d married another alcoholic. It’s
taken doing this four times for me to realize it’s not all about them;
it’s about me too."
I find the hardest thing for most family members of addicts
to admit to is untrustworthiness. They can easily see how the addict is untrustworthy,
but they see themselves as taking care of everything, as the responsible
ones. It is hard for these family members to understand that it is not "taking care of everything" that
is the problem, it is the way their learned character defects
cause them to do it. Each character defect is a breach of trust; it is not
intentional, but the emotional contortions necessary for surviving a family
member’s addiction result in these behaviors.
4 Character Defect Personality Types
♦ 1. Caretakers
Earnie Larsen describes four ways family members become
untrustworthy. The first are caretakers. A caretaker needs a ‘baby’ to
take care of, so they tend to do things that keep others from growing up. Caretakers,
also, as you know, called enablers sometimes subtly
and unknowingly sabotage an addict’s recovery to keep
them in the caretaking pattern. As you know, if someone else is taking care
of the addict, there is no reason for the addict to take care of herself.
♦ 2. Perfectionists
Perfectionists are untrustworthy by constantly sending
out the message that others need to do better. Perfectionists are never content,
and treat mistakes like they are the end of the world. These individuals degrade
others by letting everyone know they are not performing up to the perfectionist’s
expectations.
♦ 3. Procrastinators
Procrastinators breach trust by making promises to do
things, and consistently backing out. They are terrified of commitment. Procrastinators
try to please everyone all the time, even if it means not telling the truth.
When asked "what do you think", the procrastinator will answer "It
doesn’t matter. Whatever you think is fine by me." Procrastinators
are untrustworthy because they are always avoiding responsibility.
♦ 4. Rageoholics
In addition to caretakers, perfectionist, and procrastinators,
rageoholics use anger to control others. Feeling superior makes them feel
safe, and they tear others down to build themselves up. Sometimes a rageoholic
will play the role of the martyr, accusing others of taking advantage of
them. Rageoholics are untrustworthy because they can always find a rationalization
for why someone else is to blame, and rarely hold themselves accountable.
Children growing up with an addict in the family adopt
these same character defects. They begin life at a disadvantage, but their
developing character defects usually go unnoticed. Emily, the wife of an
alcoholic, told me about her 13-year-old daughter. "Julie is so responsible,
and she’s always on the honor roll. She’s perfect… she
acts just like a little adult, helping me around the house." Emily
did not realize that Julie was becoming a perfectionist, spending all her energy
pleasing others, and rarely asking for what she needed.
Julie was also playing
the hero role, as described in Section 4, carrying the weight
of her father’s alcoholism and trying to bring respectability to the
family through her actions. I told Emily that Julie was likely to marry an
alcoholic to continue the role she had learned to play. Julie was also likely
grow up to be plagued by feelings of inadequacy, never letting
other people close enough to really know her.
♦ 4-Part "Trust Yourself
First" Exercise
I asked Emily to work through the "Trust Yourself
First" exercise
with me. I asked her to answer four questions, and rate herself on a scale
of 1-10, with 1 representing "not at all" and 10 representing "all
the time".
Part 1 - How well do you honor your needs? Do you sleep when
you’re tired,
eat when you’re hungry, or take a break when you’re feeling stressed?
Part 2 - When you make promises to yourself, do you keep them? If you promise yourself
that you’ll spend a quiet evening alone reading a book, do you cancel
when an unexpected invitation comes along?
Part 3 - Can you trust yourself to make tough choices? For example, would you walk
away from a relationship that weakens your self-esteem, or from a job that
pays the bills but leaves you feeling unfulfilled?
Part 4 - Do you stand up for yourself when someone steps over your boundaries or
acts in inappropriate ways? Can you tell a friend that it’s not okay
to criticize or tease you?
After answering these questions, I asked Emily to rate her level of trustworthiness,
and to journal about the changes she needed to make to become more trustworthy.
We agreed that she would start by making a weekly appointment with herself
to have a cup of tea by herself on her porch.
In this section, we have discussed the mirroring of symptoms
in the addict’s
family, and the four character defect personality types: the caretaker, the
perfectionist, the procrastinator, and the rageoholic. In the sect section, we
will discuss the five different negotiation styles found in the families of
addicts: Adversaries, aggressors, appeasers, avoiders, and analysts, as well
as the constructive form of negotiation, the ambassador.
Reviewed 2023
Peer-Reviewed Journal Article References:
Kok, T., de Haan, H., Wieske, E., de Weert, G., & de Jong, C. (2017). Screening for personality disorders in outpatient substance use disorder patients. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 33(3), 166–172.
Montag, C., Flierl, M., Markett, S., Walter, N., Jurkiewicz, M., & Reuter, M. (2011). Internet addiction and personality in first-person-shooter video gamers. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 23(4), 163–173.
Roy, A. L., Isaia, A., & Li-Grining, C. P. (2019). Making meaning from money: Subjective social status and young children’s behavior problems. Journal of Family Psychology, 33(2), 240–245.
Ruiz, M. A., Cox, J., Magyar, M. S., & Edens, J. F. (2014). Predictive validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) for identifying criminal reoffending following completion of an in-jail addiction treatment program. Psychological Assessment, 26(2), 673–678.
Rusby, J. C., Light, J. M., Crowley, R., & Westling, E. (2018). Influence of parent–youth relationship, parental monitoring, and parent substance use on adolescent substance use onset. Journal of Family Psychology, 32(3), 310–320.
Sprunger, J. G., Hales, A., Maloney, M., Williams, K., & Eckhardt, C. I. (2020). Alcohol, affect, and aggression: An investigation of alcohol’s effects following ostracism. Psychology of Violence. Advance online publication.
QUESTION
9
According to Larsen, what are the four character defect personality types
of family members of addicts?
To select and enter your answer go to .
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