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Solutions for Passive Aggression
Covert Hostility © Martyn Carruthers

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Covert hostility (passive aggression) is a relationship disease. Over time, passive aggression damages friendships and partnerships and increases the risk of alienating children and team members. Passive aggression is shown by covert hostile behavior and is driven by repressed or suppressed anger.

Passive Aggression & Covert Hostility

Have you noticed that some people are passive in your presence, and later, when they feel safe, they may ridicule or insult you? Some people may promise you something, and later forget or procrastinate. Or perhaps you do this to others?

Would you use the words passive aggressive to describe these people? These words summarize the suffering of people who react to demands with hidden fear and later rebel with hidden anger. As secrecy and silence are common passive aggressive behaviors, these people may be unable to say why they act this way - and be creative genius at denying, justifying or rationalizing their behavior.

Too Scared to be Angry

Passive aggression is unconscious. If a person consciously pretends to be passive as a tool or as a weapon, then the words diplomatic, strategic or even covertly hostile may be appropriate. Passive aggressive behavior hides fear and masks anger ... and can create chaos in relationships and in life.

These people act passively or as victims as a way of dealing with problems. They may respond to tasks with excuses, complaints, procrastination and forgetfulness. They may avoid completing tasks, perhaps claiming to be sick when a task is due. They may blame others to avoid responsibility.

Passive aggressive behavior not only abuses other people. It is also self-harm. It is a way to avoid forming and fulfilling deep human bonds. Relationships with passive aggressive people may feel emotionally frozen. Yet they don't deliberately hurt you or others - they fear the consequences of expressing their true emotions - even to themselves. And their justifications can cause other problems.

You may see some characteristics of passive aggression in people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, antisocial disorders and avoidant personality disorders. (Note that all these disorders are opinions that cannot be confirmed or denied in any laboratory.)

Many children are taught to hide their emotions by immature or over-demanding parents. These children may appear subdued, appearing to lose vitality. Even as children, their lives may not make sense. Later in life, these hidden emotions may be triggered by or projected onto other people - often authorities such as teachers, police and team leaders, and later onto their partners.

We hear many such stories during coaching. Often these people had unstable parents, or parents who demanded that the children do things beyond their ability. The children learned to hide feelings, goals and tasks, until they excelled at avoiding confrontations, responsibility and success. They are stuck.

Passive Aggression in Relationships

Passive aggressive people can be charming but they move through life like knights on a chessboard—two steps forward and a step to the side. They may want company but avoid commitment. They may act childishly in the presence of people who remind them of a parent, and they may be unable to end inappropriate or even unpleasant relationships, especially with people who are somehow like a parent.

Submissive resistance to performance often damages teamwork, partnership, parenthood and other responsible relationships. Passive-aggressive people may have problems saying "No", and not finish tasks that they committed to do. They rarely show anger but are envious of other people's success.

They an be abstract, vague and philosophical - other people often ask them what they are really thinking about. They may encourage others to think that they have failed. Then they can relax enough to 'open up'. They may feel that they are so special that societal and other rules don't apply to them.

Help for Passive Aggression

Psychotherapy for passive aggression can take a long time. Some therapists told us that they avoid accepting clients with passive aggressive symptoms because such people do not respond well to their cognitive techniques.

Our coaching tends to move rather quickly. We find passive-aggressive behaviors to be ways of coping that can be replaced, once the suppressed emotions are experienced and resolved. We find that unconscious aggression is often driven by childish anger, and often suppressed by childish fear, a complex conflict between childish personality parts. (This inner conflict often seems to originate in or be worsened by emotional incest.)

As many people who seek our coaching have already given up on therapy, we quickly identify and discuss their goals, behavior and unwind any therapy damage. If they have tried to resolve passive aggression with incompetent practitioners, they may believe that their situations are hopeless. They may be unable to assess their own behavior, and they often rationalize or justify it, or communicate that they are helpless victims of their parents, partners, managers, etc.

During systemic diagnosis, we expect to find split-off, age-regressed 'personality parts' . We coach people to accept and resolve their conflicting parts and then dissolve any underlying fears of showing emotions, many of which will likely be based on childhood abuse or perceived abandonment.

We expect conflicts - the aggressive side of passive-aggression often arises from childhood anger, and the passive side from childhood fear. The childish need for love and attention and the parents' rejection of their children's emotions, made anger a risk to be hidden. But the anger didn’t go away - it just went underground - a little like the depressive side of bipolar disorder.

Success comes when people who were labeled as passive-aggressive can define and achieve what they want - when they can calmly say to authorities, “No, I won’t do that!”, or say to inappropriate people, "My relationship with you is over!", or start relationships based on honesty and candor.
 

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Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2008-2010 All rights reserved

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2010 All rights reserved. Soulwork Systemic Coaching was primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers. We help people define and achieve goals, resolve emotional blocks and improve relationships. This information is for general knowledge only. Consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing any medical treatment. Don't steal ... ask Martyn for permission to post or publish his work.