What Kind of Control Freak Are You?

Source: mohamed_hassan/Pixabay

Often, we hear about “control freaks,” a term that arose in the late 1960s. They are people who compulsively seek to direct, manage, or otherwise be in charge of someone or something. Such people strive to be in the driver’s seat of decision-making that affects themselves or others. Other labels for controlling people are tyrants, dictators, and oppressors.

Wikipedia says that controlling people “attempt to dictate how everything is done around them.” Underneath the desire for control can be anxiety, insecurity, or fear. Some control freaks are suffering from clinical conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorders, or personality disorders.

In their book Controlling People: The Paradoxical Nature of Being Human, psychologists Richard S. Marken and Timothy A. Carey observe that everyone has a desire to control—a paradox of human life. They advise that each of us discover how to live with the desire to control.—and point out that when we try and control the things and people we cannot, we wind up losing control.

Self-Control Freaks

Some people are masters of intense and exact control over themselves. They are super organized, compulsive in style, and try to do all things with precise management. They cross every “T” and dot every “I” in the ways they navigate their lives. They expect themselves to perform perfectly and without error. We find people like this in our families, among friends, and in places of work. I refer to such people as being in omnipotent roles. They learned their super-human role early in childhood by a process of emotional conditioning.

Other-Control Freaks

Some other people are skilled at controlling other people. They have an autocratic, demanding style of interacting. They like to command others to behave according to their wishes. These may be changing whims––one thing one minute, another the next. They commonly want gratification by other people of their own needs or desires. These people are in impotent roles. They are dependent on others to carry out their wishes and demands. They learned their helpless but demanding,role of relating in childhood.

Source: mohamed_hassan/Pixabay

The Dance of High Self-Control and Low Self-Control

People who are ardent self-controllers manage their decisions and behaviors with precision. They may also expect themselves to act as "control agents" for others who are out of control in their behaviors and reactions. This creates a dance of control––one person exerts control for a helpless other person, who is often out of his own self-control.

Psychological Projection as the Mechanism for Control

The control dance takes place by way of projection. Unconsciously, out-of-control people project their helplessness in managing their lives onto others. These others are skilled at guiding their own lives—the highly self-controlled, omnipotent people. They also believe and behave as if they can control others. The high self-control, omnipotent person accepts the projection––also unconsciously–– and tries to fulfill the emotional needs of the low self-control, impotent person.

Such a pattern of behavior can be seen in marriages when one spouse attempts to pick up the pieces for an out-of-control spouse. He or she makes excuses or rationalizes the spouse's rude or incorrigible actions toward others. They “remind” or “urge” their spouses to behave better or act differently. They direct them in some way. They attempt to control or manage them because their spouses expect them to control what they have no desire to self-manage.

Why Being a Controlling Person Fails

Of course, it does not work. As Marken and Carey point out, one person cannot control and act as another’s management agent. To be psychologically healthy each person must oversee himself or herself.

When we hear of control freaks and inspect further, we may identify these two types in our relationships––omnipotent and impotent controlling people. Carried to extremes, both are psychologically unhealthy. They create relationship problems and leave holes in being the best person possible.

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Such coercive, manipulative roles absolve one person of self-responsibility and overburden the other partner in the relationship––the one who attempts to oversee life for two people. It is a combination that ill serves both people. Only by discovering what type of control you seek, and of whom, can you make necessary changes in yourself for your own betterment.