Character Strategies ‘Tough Generous’ and ‘Industrious Overfocused’ (Part Five)

This is the fifth of our series of blogs on ‘Character Strategies’.

I am very grateful to Dr Janina Fisher, world expert on the treatment of trauma and Assistant Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, who is joining me to reflect on how these strategies can assist therapists to find appropriate therapeutic interventions for their clients and better appreciate the role of the body, not just the mind, in our psychological issues and habits.

The founder of Sensorimotor psychotherapy, Dr Pat Ogden, describes nine ‘Character Strategies’ that unconsciously shape our perceptions, beliefs, and ways of relating to others. These ways of being are ‘survival’ strategies: i.e., reflections of underlying, usually unconscious, limiting core beliefs that once enabled us to explain or conform to parental expectations, needs for safety, and/or unmet emotional needs.

Although first introduced in the psychotherapy world by Freudian colleagues Reich and Fenechel, the character strategies were further elaborated by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s and then brought up to date by Dr Pat Ogden as she synthesised the neuroscience and attachment research into her therapy model, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Experienced practitioners of neurobiologically-informed psychotherapies like Sensorimotor become highly attuned to not only listening to the spoken word but also observing body language: patterns of structure, posture, movement, gesture, and tension. They are alert for patterns of emotional expression, relational styles, posture and structure, and core beliefs. Keen observation of all these data can often tell us more about an individual’s story than the events remembered, allowing a better understanding of the core beliefs stemming from our earliest needs and fears.

Last time we looked at two of the ‘Character Strategies’ – ‘Burdened Enduring’ and ‘Charming Manipulative’ – that arise out of the challenges faced by the preschool child, and today we are giving a little more focus to another two of the nine strategies that develop in the latency years, also called by Erik Erikson the stage of “Industry versus Inferiority” :-

Tough Generous strategy is one adaptation to the central dilemma of this stage: mastery. Latency-age children have a strong drive to master their environments, to feel competent, to successfully accomplish new skills. Yet during the years from 6-12, children still want and need help—help that is attuned to their need for feel successful and competent. When instead they are controlled, bullied, or ridiculed, when their needs and vulnerability are used against them, children feel overwhelmed, weak and shamed. When caregivers are critical or ridiculing, unable to tolerate having a competent successful child, or when the peer group is bullying or humiliating, feelings of inferiority can become unbearable without parental support. The Tough Generous strategy provides a way to protect the child’s vulnerability while increasing feelings of mastery. He or she can create an internal sense of safety by appearing invulnerable, by generously taking care of others, by learning to ignore their own feelings, by avoiding being ‘one-down’ and by guarding carefully their sense of having power and control. This pattern can appear opportunistic or superficial when it means rapid changes in interpersonal style (think of politicians, for example), but the strengths of this strategy include its tendency to seek the leadership role, to have a vision, to be competent and articulate, driven to accomplish, and cool under fire—unless made to feel vulnerable in some way. Then the Tough side of the strategy emerges as anger, rage, or controlling behaviour.

Industrious Overfocused strategy results from a different type of parental environment, one in which love or attention is dependent upon the child’s performance, whether ‘performing’ means being a precocious ‘little adult’ or a young athlete, scholar, or musical/artistic prodigy. Love in this kind of family is conditional on performance. Parents may be demanding, withdrawn, narcissistic, or too busy and preoccupied with their own lives to focus on the child’s healthy needs for attention and support, but when the child is competent or successful, these caregivers respond positively. While discovering performance is an effective way to get attention, the child may always feel not quite ‘good enough,’ not appreciated for ‘being’ without ‘doing’. Because the underlying issue is connection and feeling valued, individuals with this strategy strive for a perfection that rarely can be met and never feel quite satisfied, no matter how much they have achieved or how much they are admired for their achievements.

The Impact on Relationships

A deep understanding of all these nine strategies offers therapists a paradigm for observing not only their clients’ relationships to others but also to us in the context of the therapeutic relationship.

For example, individuals with ‘Tough Generous’ as a dominant strategy like to be in a ‘one up’ position, and find it very hard to form equal relationships. They feel anxious or threatened when others have intellectual, emotional, financial, or situational power over them—which motivates them to give generously of themselves but interferes with receiving easily from others. The fear of being overpowered and overwhelmed and the need to feel in control of whatever idiosyncratically makes them feel vulnerable can lead to either toughness or generosity. ‘Receiving’ help, support, compliments, even accolades, make all of us feel more open and vulnerable, which is highly triggering to this strategy. While this strategy can be loving and generous in relationship, the inability to be vulnerable leaves them open to being easily wounded, a tendency to ‘go tough’ when triggered, and difficulty taking responsibility for their anger or aggressive behaviour. Ironically, individuals with this strategy are often afraid of being hurt and long for tenderness but, when feeling challenged, they are easily angered, often appearing bristly or overbearing. In therapy, they are likely to get triggered by the inherent power differential in the relationship and by the invitation to make themselves vulnerable, leading to competition with or devaluing of the therapist. It is very important for therapists to understand this behaviour as a strategy rather than as a symptom of a personality disorder and to allow the Tough Generous client to be generous in giving advice, expertise, or praise.

Those with ‘Industrious Overfocused’ strategies can find it difficult to take the time to relax in relationships and open up their hearts. They are able to form healthy relationships unless compromised by earlier strategies, but they are constrained by the distractions inherent in the need to perform and accomplish in how much they can be authentically connected. Although the restlessness and dissatisfaction with themselves and others comes from the underlying need to be loved, conscious awareness is on the job, project or goal. Like the Tough-Generous, this strategy takes naturally to a leadership or ‘alpha’ role but is more likely to work harder than anyone else rather than control the process.

One of the hardest strategies to modify because it is rewarded in our culture, Industrious-Overfocused individuals are best reached by the therapist who appeals to their sense of fairness and goal-orientation. When it becomes a therapeutic or relational goal to spend more time with family or to leave projects unfinished/imperfect and let others complete them, they are more willing to put energy into change.

Case Studies

By the time he reached 35, Michael had founded several multi-million biotech companies, employed his mother and brother, stayed close to his university buddies, and was a motivational speaker in the business world. He was known for his vision, drive, fearlessness, as well as his impatience, controlling behaviour, and arrogance. But the loss of a girl friend turned it all upside down: to his surprise, he suddenly lost the passion for conquering the business world ‘mountains’. Not knowing what to do with a vulnerability he’d never felt before, his first instinct was suicide—alarming his family and friends who quickly found him a therapist—and then another and another as the first two didn’t pass muster.

At our first visit, Michael was ‘missing in action.’ He didn’t call, or text, but then suddenly appeared at my door a half hour late. Caught off-guard and babbling a bit, I invited him to sit down -only to have him look at me with disgust: “Oh my God, why did I come at all? I can already see you’re one of those ‘types’—just another ‘phony therapist’!” In retrospect, my spontaneous response was just right for this strategy: I started laughing. “Phony?! That is hysterical! I love it—phony. . . And what tells you I’m just another phony? What are you noticing?” Of all the names I have been called, in over thirty years of private practice, ‘phony’ is probably the worst fit. As I kept shaking my head and laughing, Michael started to laugh, too. In retrospect, I can look back and see that being late had made him feel ‘one down,’ and his strategy needed a quick ‘one up.’ My ability to laugh allowed him enough time to recover and connect to his generosity or what I call his ‘authentic self.’ Many times, in the two years since I first met him, he has thanked me profusely for saving his life—probably as often as he’s put me down as ‘just another therapist.’ We have mutually agreed he can and should give me advice in many areas but not on the topic of psychology!

As his Tough Generous strategy began to ‘relax,’ as we say in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Michael’s Industrious Overfocused strategy became more apparent. Now married, it has been hard for him to find time to spend with his new wife, to tear himself away from work and make her a priority. His business career is indeed very demanding, and the strategy exacerbates the time demands by driving him to be more thorough, better prepared, spend more time rehearsing his speeches, and to seize responsibilities from his employees when he feels he would do a better job. The impact of his Tough Generous father is apparent in his fear of being anything less than the best, just as it was in his fear of being vulnerable and humiliated. At times, the two strategies reinforce each other: for example, when his Industrious Overfocused Strategy makes it difficult to give up control of projects or tasks to staff who will not do as perfect a job as he might, Michael sometimes gets triggered into an explosion of Tough Generous rage. At those times, it’s difficult for him to hold on to the perspective that it’s his strategy that makes him better, faster, and more driven than his staff, not an inherently better moral fibre. In the Industrious strategy, he can maintain a broad perspective; in the Tough Generous strategy, everything is black and white with no shades of grey.

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Character Strategies – Part Four

Dr Janina Fisher presenting her ideas

This is the fourth of our series of blogs on ‘Character Strategies,’ a concept developed by Ron Kurtz and elaborated by Dr Pat Ogden.

I am very grateful to Dr Janina Fisher, world expert on the treatment of trauma and a Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute faculty member, who is joining me to reflect on how these strategies can assist therapists to find appropriate therapeutic interventions for their clients.

The term ‘Character Strategy’ emerged in the 1970s as a way to describe habits of perception, belief, and relating to others which had historically been described, in pathological terms, as ‘characterological’ patterns, suggesting that they were fixed, maladaptive, and secondary gain-oriented. In the neurobiologically-informed psychotherapies that have gained prominence in the past 10 years, such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, there is a different assumption.

The assumption is that these patterns represent ‘survival strategies’ that are not so much defensive in nature, as Freud suggested, but represent ‘best possible’ adaptations to particular family environments at a time when our physical and emotional survival is dependent upon our caretakers. When parental ability to provide optimal attachment is compromised, infants and young children have only their own bodies to rely upon. They must maintain some degree of connection to caregivers, while also finding ways to protect themselves from danger, hurt, disappointment, or rejection. Individuals’ habits of emotional expression, relational style, posture and structure can often tell us more about an individual’s story than the events remembered, allowing a better understanding of the core beliefs stemming from our earliest needs and fears.

An experienced therapist can help her/his client to acknowledge the presence of a dominant strategy, a secondary strategy or one that emerges when the client is under more stress, and often another that is there but has never been acknowledged.

Last time we looked at two of the ‘Character Strategies’ – ‘Dependent-Endearing’ and ‘Self Reliant’ – you can read about them in the blog, and today we are giving a little more focus to another two of the nine strategies :-

Burdened-Enduring and Charming Manipulative strategies reflect the developmental challenges faced by 3-5 year old children that Erik Erikson described as ‘initiative versus guilt.’ We know from the developmental psychology literature that the expression of will first emerges in two-year-olds, making famous the expression, ‘the terrible two’s.’ But little is written in the popular media about how children continue to negotiate their drive to assert will and mastery in the context of their dependence on adults. In families in which children are not allowed to express will directly, nor encouraged to learn how to negotiate with adults, children must find alternate ways of developing a sense of mastery.

Burdened-Enduring strategy directly reflects coercively controlling environments in which it is ‘my way or the highway.’ The parents’ word is law, and the child must obey. Any attempts at resistance are thwarted and/or punished, forcing the child to become covert in the expression of will or what is negatively labelled as ‘passive-aggressive.’ By shutting down, obeying mechanically, and avoiding conflict, the child can create short-term safety— at the cost of becoming stuck in inaction or resistance to action. The ‘Burdened-Enduring’ adult is often very responsible, hard-working, and reliable but at the cost of feeling resentful, controlled, and unable to change.

Charming Manipulative strategy represents a solution to environments in which a child’s desires are not recognized, understood or satisfied — or are unsafe if revealed (i.e., expression of desire or will is used against the child).

Unlike the coercive environment of the Burdened-Enduring child, the Charming Manipulative individual has the option to create safety by avoiding direct expression of will, or need, and instead communicating his or her wants indirectly through innuendo, charm, deception, indirection, or manipulation.

The Charming Manipulative individual is often charismatic, entertaining, and appears genuinely caring, yet those qualities can be deceptive when he or she has a hidden agenda.

The Impact on Relationships

A deep understanding of these strategies can help us better understand our clients’ relationships to others, and can also of course reveal much about the therapeutic relationship.

For example, those with ‘Burdened-Enduring’ Character Strategy often convey an attitude that life is disappointing and burdensome and that they can only be close to, or accepted by, others if they serve their needs.

Though outwardly compliant, the suppressed irritability and resentment often erodes relationships, including the therapeutic one. Having learned to silently, and indirectly resist the will of others as children, they are apt to resist their own will as adults: “I want to stand up for myself,” “I want to go to the gym,” “I need to be more positive,” is what they say but then they experience their own resistance.

Those with ‘Charming Manipulative’ character strategy might appear to be consummate con-artists, using charm and manipulation to get what they want, they might be the ‘life of the party’ but somewhat superficial in relationships with a lack of genuine commitment. Even though they may be fundamentally longing for intimacy, the vulnerability hidden under the charm is often difficult to see. They often appear to be relationally cooperative but are, in essence, doing what they want indirectly. In close relationships, they are at risk of being seen as ‘betraying’ or ‘manipulating’ when their lack of genuine mutuality and reciprocity becomes apparent to their significant others.

Case Studies 

Carl’s earliest memory as a little boy aged 2: he is playing with his toys in a big room when his mother enters and puts down at his side a kitchen timer and a paddle. She says, “I’ve set the timer to 2 minutes. When it rings, all your toys should be picked up or you’ll get the paddle”—then she leaves. He recalls to this day how, left alone, he watched the timer tick, carefully waiting until the last possible moment, and then racing to get all the toys in their places just in time. He always complied in the end— there was no other option—but also found ways to resist, dig in his heels, and exert his will indirectly. As an adult, about to turn 50, he is now a lonely man, stuck in the first job he found after university, who has come to therapy because his OCD symptoms have become worse as has his hoarding behavior. In his flat, there are now only narrow paths between carefully stacked piles of books and boxes, and he is isolated because he can no longer have people to his home. He has one close friendship, with a female colleague, but, not seeing what she has to put up with him, he only bitterly resents that he has ‘to take care of her.’ In therapy, he expresses a wish to change — to overcome his OCD and hoarding — but resists even his own efforts, a clear description of ‘Burdened-Enduring’ strategy. His last therapist became irritated with him after numerous attempts at change and ended up with no gain, and he remains deeply hurt that he trusted her only to be ‘chastised and sent packing.’ Once his character strategy could be understood, by his current therapist, as automatic rather than intentional, she could have realistic expectations for the therapy, avoid putting pressure on Karl, and help him accept his symptoms rather than judge himself.

Kurt was a middle child in a family with harried, overwhelmed parents preoccupied with the care of his younger sister born with severe developmental delays. His older sister, burdened by her role as caretaker for her younger brother, took advantage of every opportunity to take out her hurt and rage on Kurt and to undermine his relationship with their parents. Direct attempts to engage his parents failed because of their exhaustion and focus on his sister, while being open and vulnerable with his sister invariably backfired when she humiliated him, told tales on him, or destroyed the toys most precious to him.

A very handsome, intelligent child with an engaging smile, Kurt soon found another way: charming his teachers, his friends’ parents, neighbours and extended family. Ignored by his parents and tortured by his sister, he was the centre of attention elsewhere, and he carried this Charming Manipulative pattern into his relationship with a ‘Burdened-Enduring’ wife. Although her steady, loyal, reliable presence created safety for him, he had difficulty appreciating her or attuning to her needs. To avoid conflict, he would promise her to be home on time, to call if he was away, to spend time with her and their children—and then ‘something would come up’ that allowed him to bask in being the centre of attention socially or at work. As much as Kurt wanted his family to be happy with him, his need to charm his way into the emotional spotlight everywhere he went interfered with his being genuinely present. In couples therapy, understanding the ways that their strategies exacerbated each other was a first step in each being more genuinely connected to themselves and eventually to each other.

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Character Strategies Part Three

This is the third of our series of blogs on ‘Character Strategies’. I am very grateful to Dr Janina Fisher, world expert on the treatment of trauma and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute faculty member, who is joining me to reflect on how these strategies can assist therapists to find appropriate therapeutic interventions for their clients and allow us to begin to consider how they can deepen our understanding of the stories revealed by our bodies as well as our emotions.

The founder of Sensorimotor psychotherapy, Dr Pat Ogden, describes nine ‘Character Strategies’, first described by Ron Kurtz. He believed that we develop patterns of body structure, movement and gesture, emotional expression, perception, and meaning-making in childhood that unconsciously shape our future perceptions, beliefs, and ways of relating to others. These ways of being are ‘survival’ strategies, reflections of underlying, mostly unconscious, limiting core beliefs that once enabled us to explain or conform to parental expectations and/or unmet needs.

Experienced practitioners of body based psychotherapies, like Sensorimotor, become highly attuned to not only listening to the spoken word but also observing body language. They observe patterns of structure, posture, movement, gesture, and tension. They are also alert for patterns of emotional expression, relational styles, posture and structure, and core beliefs. Keen observation of all these data can often tell us more about an individual’s story than the events remembered, allowing a better understanding of the core beliefs stemming from our earliest needs and fears. An experienced therapist can help her/his client to acknowledge the presence of a dominant strategy, a secondary strategy or one that emerges when the client is under more stress, and often another that might be present, in subtle ways, but has never been acknowledged.

Last time we looked at two of the ‘Character Strategies’ – ‘Sensitive Withdrawn’ and ‘Sensitive Emotional’ – (you can read about these particular strategies in the blog) and today we are giving a little more focus to another two of the nine strategies: ‘Dependent-Endearing’ and ‘Self Reliant’.

Dependent-Endearing and Self Reliant strategies reflect adaptations to the failure of caretakers to meet the child’s emotional, relational or even physical needs. 

The Impact on Relationships

A deep understanding of all these nine strategies offers therapists a paradigm for observing their clients’ relationships to others but also to their ‘caregivers’, in the context of the therapeutic relationship.

For example, individuals with ‘Dependent-Endearing’ as a dominant strategy have usually experienced deprivation of physical contact, emotional attention, and other forms of nourishment necessary for healthy development. In environments that provide little needs-meeting but also little independence, the child is caught in a bind: with no way to meet his or her own needs and not able to express needs directly, s/he has to become dependent and helpless as the only way to communicate the wish for care. While feeling helpless to meet their own needs, there is also doubt and distrust that their needs will ever be met by others. The result is a personality style that others often perceive as “dependent” or “needy” but which is also non-threatening and open, very affectionate, tender, sympathetic and easy to trust and talk to. Feeling so intensely the yearning for someone to understand and care and the doubt that anyone will, it can be difficult for this strategy to appreciate what others offer rather than feel that the glass is chronically half-empty. Both loved ones and therapists can misinterpret the irritability and neediness of this strategy as evidence of being ‘spoiled’ and so it is important to keep in mind the situation for which it was once adaptive. Individuals with ‘Self Reliant’ character strategies also reflect having had to adapt to emotional and/or physical deprivation in the first three years of life. In families for which this strategy is necessary, however, neglect or deprivation is not accompanied by prohibitions against independence. In fact, precocious self-reliance is often encouraged directly, or indirectly, by the family—whether because overwhelmed parents need the child to be self-reliant or because it is a quality highly valued in the family culture. Whatever the cause of the neglect, the Self Reliant child becomes a very self-sufficient adult who asks for little and is often a very willing caretaker of others. Those with this strategy can appear unreachable and may not connect deeply, or consciously seek intimacy, in relationships. They also have a tendency to isolate and depend on themselves to meet all their needs: “as long as I can do it myself, why bother anyone else?” is their philosophy. Unlike the Sensitive Withdrawn individual, the isolation of the Self Reliant does not relate to a fear of contact with others but rather to how he or she assimilated missing experiences of closeness, support, and interdependence.

Case Studies 

Leslie, a 40-year-old psychologist, grew up as the caretaker of her depressed, moody mother who vacillated between states of helplessness, withdrawn, inaccessible states, and rage. She could recall clearly how hard she tried to win her mother’s love without success: not only were her needs for attention and comfort threatening to her mother but so was autonomy, success in school, and peer relationships. In her 40’s, she still had the body of a 13 year old girl: short, slim, childlike. But despite professional success, Leslie felt perpetually failed: she felt that she always gave more than she got back, that her friends, family and therapist expected her to be self-reliant and didn’t understand that she couldn’t meet her emotional needs. “I don’t expect them to comfort themselves when they’re upset—why do they expect that of me?” In her career, her therapy, and in her personal relationships, things always started out on a promising note, but then Leslie would begin to feel “failed” again and collapse in hurt and anger. In her career, that usually meant failures of confidence in herself; in relationships, including therapy and failures of confidence in others.

In contrast, Samantha grew up without a stable physical or emotional home, much less parents: plagued by creditors and business failures, her parents moved once, if not twice, a year in the dead of night, leaving everything behind. Sometimes they lived in the family car, sometimes shared a motel room, then might have a house or apartment for a little while before inability to pay the rent led to another move and another new school for their children. Samantha was expected to endure the living conditions, whatever they were, and to care for her younger brother, like a nanny, while her parents were at work. By her 20s, she was financially, physically and emotionally competent, owning her own business and in a long-term relationship with a somewhat dependent partner. Had it not been for their couples therapist, Samantha would probably not have entered therapy at all. It would never have occurred to her that her feelings of aloneness and anxiety about the future might be a by-product of her childhood. It certainly would not have occurred to her that her partner’s complaints that she was cold and unaffectionate, too preoccupied with her business to be emotionally ‘present,’ had any merit at all.

For Leslie’s therapy to be helpful, her therapist had to communicate understanding of the little girl who literally had no option other than to be sweet and helpless and to remain disconnected from her competence. Samantha needed a therapist who could validate her competence and self-reliance without seeing it, pathologically, as ‘schizoid.’ In both cases, the therapist’s attunement and empathy for the strategy is a necessary precursor to work on ‘relaxing’ or modifying strategies.

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I am very grateful to Dr Janina Fisher, world expert on the treatment of trauma and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute faculty member, who is joining me to reflect on how these strategies can assist therapists to find appropriate therapeutic interventions for their clients, and allow us to begin to consider how they can deepen our understanding of what our bodies reveal.

By Dr Janina Fisher and Penny Boreham

The founder of Sensorimotor psychotherapy, Dr Pat Ogden, describes nine ‘Character Strategies’ outlined last time in our blog Character Strategies introduction that unconsciously shape our perceptions, beliefs, and ways of relating to others. These ways of being are, in essence, ‘survival’ strategies, reflections of underlying, mostly unconscious, limiting core beliefs that once enabled us to explain or conform to parental expectations and/or unmet needs.

Experienced practitioners of body based psychotherapies like Sensorimotor become highly attuned to not only listening to the spoken word but also observing body language: patterns of structure, posture, movement, gesture, and tension. They are alert for patterns of emotional expression, relational styles, posture and structure, and core beliefs. Keen observation of all these data can often tell us more about an individual’s story than the events remembered, allowing a better understanding of the core beliefs stemming from our earliest needs and fears.

As we outlined last week it is essential that we don’t simply ascribe a single character strategy to one individual. An experienced therapist can help her/his client to acknowledge the presence of a dominant strategy, a secondary strategy or one that emerges when the client is under more stress, and often another that is there but has never been acknowledged.

Today we are giving a little more focus to two out of the nine strategies: ‘Sensitive Withdrawn’ and ‘Sensitive Emotional’.

‘Sensitive Withdrawn’ and ‘Sensitive Emotional’

What Dr Ogden describes as ‘Sensitive-Withdrawn’ character can best be understood as a response to the failure of basic safety in the first year of life, while ‘Sensitive-Emotional’strategy is often a response to loss, abandonment or abuse in the first year. Both relate to the earliest fundamental issues of ‘existence, safety, security and embodiment’.

If the behaviour or availability of primary caregivers in that crucial first year results in the experience of fear, threat, danger, or overwhelm, a baby has only two options – to constrict and withdraw inside or to cry for help.

‘Sensitive-Withdrawn’ Character Strategy develops under the impact of abuse or what is termed, “frightening or frightened caregiving.” Caregivers may be depressed, withdrawn, dissociated, addicted or chronically angry–frightening rather than comforting to the infant. The result is that child’s basic trust in the world is shaken. Those of us with this strategy tend to be internally frightened, extremely sensitive, often suspicious or on guard, finding it difficult to make contact because it feels as if the only safety is withdrawal far inside.

‘Sensitive-Emotional’ Character Strategy reflects an almost polar opposite approach to safety: cry for help and never stop crying—the only safety lies in making sure you are heard. Thought to be the outcome of some days, weeks or months of good attachment followed by sudden loss, death, separation from or rejection by caregivers, the child’s trust in the world and relationships is also shaken. Panic, frantic attempts to communicate the need for help, intense separation anxiety, and yet difficulty feeling soothed by those who do try to help—all these responses are inherent in the strategy.

In both cases, it is as if the individual is still ‘there,’ still not safe, still abandoned and panicked, still trying to survive in the only ways young children have available.

The Impact on Relationships

A deep understanding of these strategies can of course offer huge insights into our relationships to ourselves and others. The concept of the character strategies offers therapists a paradigm for observing their clients’ relationships to others but also to us in the context of the therapeutic relationship.

For example, those with ‘Sensitive Withdrawn’ as a dominant strategy can sometimes leave others baffled as they tend to shut down, retreat, avoid closeness and remain distant. Feeling endangered by others, they are hypervigilant, easily perceiving others as rejecting or hostile. Their loved ones can feel abandoned or misunderstood. At the same time, there are benefits to a strategy that takes us deep inside: this is a strategy shared by innovative thinkers and individuals who are imaginative, perceptive, creative and analytical.

Those with ‘Sensitive Emotional’ character strategies often make contact through emotions rather than understanding. They crave to have their intensity mirrored and met, have anxiety about separation and loss of intense contact, and often have a tendency to blurring of self/other differentiation which can lead to enmeshment with others. But again, there is a positive reward to this strategy: these are individuals who can tolerate intensity, seek and enjoy close relationships, and are passionate, enthusiastic and creative.

Case Studies for ‘Sensitive Withdrawn’ and ‘Sensitive Emotional’ by Dr Janina Fisher

Emily and Paul came for couples therapy after dating for just ten months. Already, their relationship was in crisis, and it had barely begun. “Actually, we broke up after four dates and just got together again four months ago,” Emily explained, “because I can’t be in a relationship with someone who can’t feel anything!” Her voice was accusatory, eyes brimming with tears, hurt and anger in her facial expression and body language. Paul said nothing—just put his arm around her shoulders and looked adoringly at her. It was clear he loved her but also that he was a man of few words. As the session proceeded, Emily alternated between childlike hurt, a therapeutic analysis of Paul’s behaviour (“he obviously has issues if he can’t express his feelings”) and angry accusations that put him down. Yet Paul was clearly trying hard to ‘show up:’ “This is all very new to me, and Emily doesn’t realize I can’t turn my feelings on like a faucet. I don’t even know what I feel sometimes—it’s not that I’m refusing to tell her.”

Without using the words ‘character strategy,’ I described for them how each had come to the relationship with a different survival strategy. Emily, I observed, was hypervigilant and on guard for signs that Paul wasn’t truly there for her, and she automatically assumed the therapist/expert role when something he said or didn’t say triggered her. On the other hand, Paul’s survival strategy was to ‘retreat first, ask questions later.’ He said he felt safer saying nothing versus trying to express himself and observed that Emily’s criticism fed into his strategy because he felt as if he was ‘walking on eggshells,’ trying not to upset her.

When I asked them both, “How was this survival strategy helpful to you as children?” they at first were puzzled by my assumption. Using a quotation from Frank Sulloway, I told them, “Personality is a way of getting out of childhood alive. How did these strategies help you do that?” Paul’s description of his childhood made that point: “the only place I was safe was in my room, and it looked more like an office than a kid’s room—everything had a place and was in its place, exactly the opposite of the rest of the house. That was chaos—we were a big family and my mother was a scary lady—the only safe place was away from her. Now, when Emily gets upset or I can tell she expects me to do or be something, I just go away. I don’t mean to—it’s what happens.”

“So the ‘office’ is now inside you, huh?” I commented. “And what kind of going away is it? Is it a panicky retreat? Or going numb and fuzzy?” Emily at this point tried to interrupt to tell me: “He’s passive-aggressive.” I responded by setting a limit, something that would not be helpful with a Sensitive Withdrawn individual but often necessary with Sensitive Emotional: “Well, Emily, that really doesn’t tell me much—that’s just language we use when we’re frustrated with people whose survival strategy is to go away. I need to know what takes him away and where he goes.” “You’re coddling him,” she said angrily.

“Is confronting him working, Emily?”

“Well, no—but you can’t let him off the hook.”

“Emily, when you were young, how did this ‘family therapist’ strategy help you survive?” “My mother was a trauma survivor, and I was her whole world—which meant there was no room for me to be a child and have needs. I always had to take care of her—it was suffocating. Whether she was angry or needy or normal or depressed or scary.” “And how did it help to be her therapist?” “It was my way to differentiate myself—to tell her that what she was doing wasn’t right—without pulling away and freaking her out.”

It made sense: for Emily, the Sensitive Emotional patterns allowed some control: she could maintain a connection to her mother but still fight for recognition that she was a separate person. However, her mother’s moodiness always left her feeling anxious: what was going to happen next? Would the loving mother show up—or the scary one? Was she loved or would she be abandoned? For Paul, the Sensitive-Withdrawn strategy allowed the creation of an internal safe place where he didn’t feel the overwhelm of what was happening around him. With no way to have an impact on his abusive mother, it was the only possible option. But now that he wanted to reach out to Emily, to make her feel safe, he couldn’t control the automatic retreat and disconnection from his feelings. It was easier for Paul to understand his strategy but harder for him to change it. For Emily, the challenge was to accept that her responses were equally the byproduct of a strategy rather than a sign of being the more emotionally healthy of the two.

The next steps for both will be to understand their strategies and to see them as the problem, not the relationship. In working with character strategies, we do not seek to change them or eliminate them. Our goal is to ‘relax’ them so that other strategies can grow and a more authentic self flourish.

 This is part of our series of blogs in which Dr Janina Fisher has joined Penny Boreham to write about ‘Character Strategies’, and it is itself part of a wider series which is telling the story of trauma treatment, how it has developed and is still developing every day. In this series our expert practitioners will be sharing their knowledge with you, we will be finding out what recent scientific breakthroughs are teaching us all about the nervous system, and we will be keeping you in touch with the latest news about the life transforming therapies that are becoming more sophisticated and responsive every day. 

If you would like a weekly email about new posts on our blog please sign up for our mailing list in the box above right. 

The post Character Strategies (Part Two) – ‘Sensitive-Withdrawn’ And ‘Sensitive-Emotional’ – Dr Janina Fisher’s Insights appeared first on Khiron Clinics.

by Penny Boreham, Intake Manger

Over the next few weeks we will be exploring some of the fascinating intricasies of Pat Ogden’s ‘Character strategies’ and hearing from the eminent Sensorimotor therapist and trainer, Dr Janina Fisher, about how observing and reflecting deeply about these strategies can assist therapists to find appropriate therapeutic interventions for their clients.

I am very grateful to Dr Fisher for her support both in writing this blog and for her invaluable assistance in the following weeks. Today’s blog has been written with her and the case study below has been shared by her.

by Janina Fisher and Penny Boreham

Pat Ogden’s ‘Character Strategies’

The concept of character strategies was first conceived by Reich, Fenechel and other followers of Freud but then elaborated by Ron Kurtz and incorporated into Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Reich’s term for these was “character armour,” making him the first to incorporate the body as well as the psyche into psychological theory. “Character armour” describes how the body adapts to the positive and negative forces in the environment in such a way that it both protects us and also allows us to adapt, defend against parental anger or rejection, and maximize whatever crumbs of love or attention available to us. Dr Pat Ogden sees these as survival strategies but also reflections of underlying, mostly unconscious, limiting core beliefs that help us to explain or conform to parental expectations and/or unmet needs.

Those experienced in body based psychotherapies become highly attuned to looking at the body and identifying the strategies that show up in patterns of structure, posture, movement, gesture, and tension. Like the groundbreaking psychologist, Erik Erikson, Ron Kurtz believed that we develop character strategies around childhood wounds experienced at critical periods of development. Although this model is not based in research, anyone who has raised children will immediately recognize these developmental stages! Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, like Erikson, sees the character strategies as a response to the environment’s success or failure in helping the child master each developmental task, keeping in mind that no one strategy is generally sufficient to handle all the challenges a child faces. Most of us will need a mixture of strategies.

Here are the nine character strategies as outlined by Dr Ogden:-

Character Strategy/Developmental Task To Which It is Related

Sensitive-Withdrawn is a response to the failure of basic safety in the first year of life.

Sensitive-Emotional is another strategy for responding to fear, loss, abandonment, and abuse in the first year.

Dependent-Endearing is when the toddler’s needs are not met by attuned parents, s/he must adapt in some way.

Self Reliant is a different approach to the failure of needs meeting.

Burdened-Enduring – between 2-5 years, the child’s developmental task revolves around the expression of will: can I have an impact on my environment?

Charming-Manipulative – this strategy and Burdened/Enduring are a response to environments that do not allow children to express their will, to have age-appropriate power.

Tough-Generous -as children become more independent, are they still allowed to be vulnerable?

Industrious-Overfocused – are they loved for themselves? Or for how they perform?

Expressive-Clinging – what do they have to do to get attention? Or is it given freely by parents?

All of these strategies are associated with particular physical signs, styles of emotional expression, relational styles, and core beliefs. The more therapists can read from these data, even without knowing the family, or early environment, the more they can understand what those core beliefs are and how they relate to our earliest needs and fears and affect our whole outlook and ability to deal with relationships. For example the first two strategies, Sensitive-Withdrawn and Sensitive-Emotional are very early preverbal strategies. The idea is we start developing these strategies shortly after birth or even in utero in response to feeling unsafe and unwelcome in the first weeks and months of life, and they relate to ‘existence, safety, security and embodiment’. If primary caregivers have not been able to provide these basic ingredients of secure attachment, a baby has few options: either to constrict and withdraw inside or to cry for help. Those are the two choices reflected in the two strategies.

Multi Faceted Strategies

It is important to remember that you cannot simply ascribe one character strategy to one individual. Many of these strategies are at play at one time in one individual client and come to the fore in different contexts and out of different experiences. An experienced therapist can help her/his client to acknowledge the presence of a dominant strategy, then another that emerges when the client is under more stress, and of course another that is there but has never been acknowledged.

Eliza was the youngest in a very violent family with three brothers and an older sister born with developmental delays. Her exhausted, shut down mother couldn’t welcome her, and there was no way for anyone in the household to feel safe. Her earliest response and strategy was sensitive-withdrawn: she was a very quiet, almost mute child. As she got to toddlerhood, old enough to express her needs, she encountered unresponsive or angry, demeaning parents, forcing her to become more indirect: to never express her needs/wishes directly but always be indirect, to charm rather than ask. By the time she was 10, Eliza was a talented ballet dancer and gifted student, but her vulnerability and emotionality were still the object of their scorn and sometimes even abuse. “Look, Eliza is crying again—what a baby! Wah, wha, baby!” Another strategy began to take form: Tough-Generous. Eliza would no longer show her feelings; she would be above these people who had hurt her. She would be better than they. Instead of withdrawing in the face of the verbal abuse, she began to lecture them, growing angrier and angrier when they didn’t listen to her. As an adult, Eliza’s internal terror of getting close to anyone or being out in the world could not be seen. Her Tough Generous strategy, whether she was generously supportive or angry and judgemental, hid the vulnerability and interfered with the successful use of her ability to be Charming Manipulative.

Strategies can be revealed in certain body patterns, such as holding and tension (sensitive-withdrawn strategy) or a military posture with a puffed up chest (tough-generous strategy), as well as patterns of emotional expression (fear for sensitive withdrawn or anger for tough-generous) and beliefs (“It’s not safe” or “I can’t let myself be vulnerable”). Someone with a particular strategy may not be able to perform some physical movements or express certain emotions or endorse certain beliefs, so often observing what actions and feelings are missing and developing these new patterns of movement can have a beneficial effect on someone’s emotions and thought processes.

Therapists Learning About Their Own Character Strategies

In Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, the therapist herself/himself is also asked to be aware of his/her own character strategies. Understanding these can help the therapist attune at a deeper level to clients with the same strategies and explore their responses to clients with different character strategies. For example, a therapist with dependent/endearing or sensitive/withdrawn patterns may find a tough/generous client very difficult to deal with. The charming/manipulative client might come over as untrustworthy or slippery to some therapists whereas another therapist will be entertained by the same client. The process of understanding a character strategy will reveal much to a therapist.

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at these individual character strategies in more detail, and will see how they provide another way for therapists to understand ‘the wisdom of the body’.

This is part of our series of blogs which are telling the story of trauma treatment, how it has developed and is still developing every day. In this series our expert practitioners will be sharing their knowledge with you, we will be finding out what recent scientific breakthroughs are teaching us all about the nervous system, and we will be keeping you in touch with the latest news about the life transforming therapies that are becoming more sophisticated and responsive every day. 

If you would like a weekly email about new posts on our blog please sign up for our mailing list in the box above right. 

The post ‘Character strategies’ (Part One) – Dr Janina Fisher’s insights appeared first on Khiron Clinics.