Janine* had been working as a post office clerk for 25 years. Whenever she felt inadequate, she would tell herself that she really was destined for more prestigious work, but circumstances had always gone against her. She had been born to a single, impoverished and abusive mother who discouraged Janine from even finishing high school. Then, her brief marriage to a sadistic man produced a son who lived off her salary, smoking crack whenever he could.
At the post office, customers complained that Janine was the slowest, most unpleasant clerk on the floor. No matter how many times supervisors reprimanded her, she knew she was in no danger of losing her job, so she maintained a dawdling pace.
"I'm not going to kill myself working," she'd say.
Janine was angered by all the demands customers made of her throughout the day. Instead of expressing her anger directly or trying to help herself, she passively resisted routine tasks. When someone approached her window at the post office, she would purposely ignore the person for several minutes while she straightened papers, placed paper clips in a drawer, sipped coffee. Then, when she finally accepted the customer's package or letter, she would grab it, throw it on the scale and scowl at the customer.
Janine liked making people uncomfortable and was generally perceived as punitive. When coworkers asked for help, Janine was sullen or argumentative, alternating between hostile defiance and contrition. Or, she would delay her appearance at a coworker's window or misplace documents that the person needed. Janine was quick to criticize authority and voice resentment at those more fortunate.
When her son went into a drug rehab program, the counselor asked her to join a family therapy session once per week. At first she resisted, since she didn't want anyone telling her what she had done wrong with her son.
Her son, who had been able to maintain sobriety for the first time in several months with adherence to the program, slipped back into crack use when he learned his mother refused to attend family sessions. He promised her he would stop again if she would be there for him. Janine felt manipulated and wanted to retreat into her old behavior of failure and feeling misunderstood and unappreciated, but there was something about seeing her son looking so healthy and handsome when he was sober that stopped her. She reluctantly went with him to a meeting.
The counselor understood what kind of individual he was dealing with when he met Janine and heard her exaggerated complaints of personal misfortune, instead of concern for her son. The counselor did not become enmeshed in trying to assuage Janine's claims of unjust treatment, as many clinicians do with people like Janine. Instead, he tried to get Janine to express her anger at her son's drug use. He was successful, since she exploded with rage at one point in the session. She was surprised at herself, but then agreed to attend sessions for several weeks. Her son kept his part of the bargain and maintained his sobriety for several months.
Janine had passive-aggressive personality disorder (PAPD), which consists of a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in social and occupational situations. Passive-aggressive behavior is especially harmful in the workplace as a non-active way of showing aggression. The passive-aggressive individual expresses covert hostility by procrastinating, dawdling, being inefficient and "forgetting." She refuses to adapt fully to the work given to her and instead acts out. This behavior is usually shown by employees who are powerless, although it may also be used by employers who feel this way.
Not that many people with PAPD present themselves for treatment. Instead they are busy acting out by procrastinating, complaining, resenting and generally being resistant. In Janine's situation, her desire to help her son led her to help. Co-existence of major depression or an anxiety disorder can also lead a person into treatment.
Opposition to authority is a typical symptom in PAPD, and this may be accompanied by envy and resentment of peers who succeed and who don't have problems with authority. The ambivalence and lack of ability to express anger directly leads passive-aggressives into constant disappointments and arguments. Then they complain of being misunderstood and unappreciated.
Psychotherapy should be supportive. Therapists must be careful not just to fulfill the demands of people with PAPD, because this bolsters the pathology. However, to simply refuse the demands of people with PAPD can be interpreted by them as rejection. Passive-aggressives have two opposite and conflicting needs. One is their intense need for dependence on others, and the other is a desire for independence and self-assertion. Of course, these contradictory desires make therapy difficult. Anger is turned against the self masochistically, although others may view people with PAPD as sadistic. Passive aggression is best dealt with by trying to get these individuals to ventilate their anger, since simple expression of anger and active aggression can release the imprisoned PAPD.
*Janine is not this person's real name.
Carol W. Berman, M.D. is a writer, psychiatrist and artist who lives and works in New York City. When she's not listening to patients, she's writing or painting. As an undergraduate she attended the University of California at Berkeley; she went to medical school at NYU Medical Center. Presently she is an Assistant Clinical Professor at NYU. She has practiced psychiatry for 25 years and is a member of the APA, ASJA and NWU. Her two books, "100 Questions and Answers About Panic Disorder" and "Personality Disorders," have helped thousands of patients deal with mental disorders. Read her blog on Red Room.
Dennis Merritt Jones: How Aware Are You of the Words That Come Out of Your Mouth?
Claire Gordon: The Narcissism Myth
Ronit Herzfeld: The Three Faces of Anger: Which One Is Yours?
Passive–aggressive behavior - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What is Passive Aggressive Behavior?
Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder - NYU Langone Medical Center
Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder - Symptoms, Diagnosis ...
Do You Have A Passive Aggressive Personality | Lifescript.com
Now they ignore our phone calls and blame their mistakes on others and robo signing.
Since a corporation is a person under the constitution-I think they qualify for psychological help.
I was taken by the characteristic of being anti-authority and angry at anyone who isn't anti-authority. That explains a lot about the PA's in my life - and American society as a whole.
I am one of those people who falls in line. I do what I'm supposed to and very rarely question authority. Besides preventing a lot of grief in my life, I find that picking one's battles frees up a lot of time and energy for things that really make a difference. (Like volunteerism)
I've met people whose behavior matches the description above. My first instinct tells me they just don't have the nads to honestly say what's really going on. Further, they seem to sabotage those around them, as a means to justify their attitude.
Not a disorder, just an aversion to becoming accountable for one's own life.
Give me a break. Nobody works a job for 25 years that they hate. Yeah, it's not the most prestigious job in the world, but United States Postal employees make good money, especially considering that it's largely unskilled work. And the benefits are top notch. As a result, turnover at the USPS is very low. People get those high paying jobs and keep them for decades. That's probably why the USPS is in such bad shape financially and has been for a long time.
The problem wasn't that she has Passive-Aggressive disorder, but the fact that she earned good money and couldn't be fired from her job, despite the fact that she was a lousy worker who seemed to resent having to work. You put anyone in a situation where they can't be fired and don't be surprised when their quality of work goes down.
GOOOD bless america my home............................
BZ.
:)
This was for Clinton going vegan. I guess the article got moved as I turned my head.... Dang.
BZ.
Says it all, methinks!
I fought this all my life and still feel worthless after a good career as a software developer for major corporations and proud of my son. Those cold cruel remark and put downs as a child and young adult stay with you all your life and I was one of the lucky ones. Depression, aniety, hypertension, along with the high blood pressure, collesteral, cancer survior and what ever else awaits me.
The child gets a slave mentality and being young, the pattern sticks as the preferred method of coping. I know what it's like. Reading this article is like looking in a mirror of how I was when I was younger. I can still find traces of this in myself even today. While these people are annoying to others, they deserve at least some pity because they lead truly miserable, unfulfilled lives. They don't know what makes them happy and don't know how to resolve their issues.
Another painful aspect of this is that they don't know how to take charge of their lives, (or anything for that matter.) They know only how to be told what to do, but they resent when that happens. They end up in service jobs with little control over their lives. While the case presented was extreme, many people have this issue to some degree or another. It is particularly true for highly sensitive people.