Hope for Aggressive Personality Disorders

Do you find that the people you see in pastoral counseling lose hope? Like when someone stuck on the Assertion compass point with too much aggression feels there is no way out of reacting with anger or deception? 

Losing hope

You can offer them some good news. The Paranoid Arguer and the Antisocial Rule-breaker personality disorders do offer hope. Here is how you might say it:

There is a curious paradox rooted in your personality pattern. Every personality pattern possesses a particular virtue unique to that pattern. Yet it is only accessible by embracing your whole Self Compass. 

Compass Virtues

Arguer—virtue of courage. 

• A master of debate and rhetoric. Not intimidated by anyone.
• Able to hold up under stress.
• Good at confrontation and challenging unfairness.
• A fearless negotiator.

As a recovering Arguer, you shed the angry chip-on-the shoulder and discover what love is all about. Drawing on the virtue of courage, you find ways of asking for forgiveness and making amends to those you have harmed (Love and Weakness compass points). Instead of ventilating explosively when you feel mad, you ask God and others for help in handling anger. Combining caring with the ability to assert, you stand up for others' rights as well as your own.    

Recovering Arguers turn suspicion of people’s motives into a discerning trust of others. Because your Assertion compass point is balanced by with the Love compass point, you can now upgrade your negotiating skills to include less competitive tension and more concern for overall fairness.

Finding more pleasure in relationships, you laugh or hug more readily. When arguments or emergencies occur, you use the ability to handle stress by holding steady, while working out a solution for the common good.  

Arguer & Rule-breaker Self Compass Growth

Rule-breaker—virtue of creativity.

• Inventive and imaginative.
• Non-conforming.
• Risk-taking.
• Knows how to cut through red tape.
• Gives novel responses to new or difficult situations.
• Is not intimidated by threats or punishment, which only makes for more resourcefulness. 

There comes to be a good feeling about doing the right thing. About researching guidelines for doing tax forms and following them to the letter. About paying for everything you take from a store, even if there’s an opportunity not to. About establishing an inner code of conduct where you care about God’s opinion of your actions. You like the inner security that comes with having integrity.   

When you humbly ask God to be part of your life (Weakness compass point), God can use your creativity to bring innovation and needed changes to the status quo.

Because you are not rule-bound, you can ferret out inventive but workable solutions to problems. A recovering Rule-breaker’s sense of adventure and fearlessness allows you to live on the edge where others would fear to tread.

Creativity takes on an altruistic dimension by incorporating empathy from the Weakness compass point with caring service from the Love compass point. 

As rigid patterns fall away, in their stead comes the harvest of your labor: Compass virtues. Virtues that can now sprout forth as fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22). Why? Because you are surrendering your patterns to Jesus Christ. 

For more, read: 

THE SELF COMPASS: CHARTING YOUR PERSONALITY IN CHRIST 

The Self Compass