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Dealing With Neurotics

By Charles Euchner

When you think of neurotic people, you think of someone who compulsively sponges down a clean kitchen counter, or who asks a dozen questions about an issue that’s already been settled, or someone who hovers over kids with all kinds of concerns about classes, teachers, other kids, camp, lessons, friends.

You think of someone who cannot let go of things that need to be let go. You think of someone so nervous and insecure, that he doesn’t let anyone else be calm and secure.

At least a quarter of all Americans — and maybe as many as half — are neurotic in some way.

How do you define neurotic. Albert Ellis offers this pithy definition in his book How To Live With a “Neurotic” at Home and At Work:

Neurotics, according to Ellis, display many of the following traits:

• Indecision, doubt, and conflict
  
• Inadequacy feelings
  
• Guilt and self-blame
  
• Hostility and resentment
  
• Ingratiation
  
• Inefficiency and stupidity
  
• Self-deceit and lack of realism
  
• Defensiveness
  
• Rigidity and compulsiveness
  
• Shyness and withdrawal
  
• Psychosomatic symptoms and hypochondria
  
• Depression
  
• Self-centeredness and an inability to love
  
• Overexcitablity and manic tendencies
  
• Overambitiousness and compulsiveness striving
  
• Alcoholism and drug abuse
  

Yikes! What a list! What in the world can you do to cope with someone displaying even a handful of these traits?

Ellis has some tough words of advice. There’s not much you can do to reason with these kinds of people. Logic and rationality don;t have much to do with their everyday habits. You can’t say, in the words of Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together.” Any reasoning is met with defensiveness, denial, even aggression.

Instead, you need to coax a neurotic out of his or her embattled and confused state. This is beyond the capability of most people. It requires a Christ-like patience and wisdom that most of us lack.

Here’s the toughest part of Ellis’s analysis (found on page 89 of How To Live With a Neurotic):

“One central rule in dealing with a ‘neurotic’: do not criticize! As we have pointed out previously, ‘neurotics’ arrive at their state largely form taking criticism too seriously. Because they make themselves oversensitized, they take further criticism badly. If you down them (or even their traits), you may contrbute to increasing their feelings of worthlessness.

“‘Neurotics,’ in particular, tend to react poorly to appeals that take this kind of criticism. To tell them that they should, for their own good, go from point 1 to 2 equals: ‘Look here, you fool! You know damned well that you harm yourself by remaining at 1 instead of going to 2. Now why don’t you stop acting like a dunce and do the right thing?’ To almost everyone that will sound like censure.”

In dealing with a neurotic — or someone with neurotic tendencies — you have to have amazing patience. You cannot react to every irrational, defensive, or stubborn action. You can’t say, “Hey, pal! You’re not getting it! Try this way!”

Instead, you have to find what works and coax it out of your friend (or spouse, coworker, children, parents, or whatever). You need positive reinforcement of what works, not negative reaction to what doesn’t work.

Nothing could be harder. But it’s the only way that works.

The Beat Goes On

Inside the scene is the smallest element of structure, the Beat. … A Beat is an exchange of behavior in action/reaction. Beat by Beat, these changing behaviors shape the turning of a scene.

—Robert McKee, Story, p. 37

Life doesn't imitate cinema, so take this post as a metaphor. But it's a very telling metaphor.

Think back on the scenes in your life—and in books and movies, even in songs and sports—that riveted your attention. Think about how people interacted in those scenes. One person acted, the other reacted, the first responded, a third entered the fray, the first two responded. Back and forth, the characters hit ideas back and forth like Ping-Pong balls. Each hit created new possibilities, some suspense. The longer the exchange, the greater the stakes and the tension.

Hollywood has a term for this rat-a-tat-tat exchange—beats. A beat is any action, however small, that changes the story or argument and moves it forward. A good scene includes a series of beats, small interactions that add up to a complete portrait of people doing something together.

Consider a famous scene in "Casablanca," in which the German officers and French ex-pats each sing their national anthem. The dueling songs show us many important qualities of the characters and their struggles. Let's look at the scene, beat by beat:

1. Nazi officers stand up and begin singing the German national anthem
2. Camera pans across the bar to Rick and Victor watch from a distance, get irritated by the spectacle
3. As the camera pans the bar, an employee looks expectantly to Rick, who does nothing
4. Victor leaves Rick to walk across the bar
5. Victor passes Ilsa, who looks both proud and scared for her husband
6. Victor makes a request to the band leader
7. The band leader looks to Rick for direction
8. Rick nods, signaling that the band may play La Marseilaisse
9. The band begins playing
10. The head Nazi officer, irritated, tries to get his men's singing to drown out the French anthem
11. The ex-pats sing even louder, as people all over stand up to join in the song
12. The Nazi leader realizes he has been defeated and sits down
13. A woman sings loudly, tearing with pride
14. Ilse looks worried (at several moments around this time)
15. A woman plays a guitar and sings loudly (at several moments around this time)
16. The whole bar swells with patriotic fervor, everyone standing to sing (at several moments around this time)
17. Victor stands stoutly, singing loudly, clearly exposed (at several moments around this time)
18. A woman yells "Viva La France!"
19. The rest of the crowd yells and claps
20. The German office orders an underling to close the bar, despite the underling's protests

Every beat changes something, moving the story forward. In Beat 4, Victor’s decision to walk across the room signals his move into the battle against the Germans’ boorish display of patriotism. Rick’s nod in Beat 8 gives the band permission to play the French anthem—tantamount to a declaration of war against the Germans. Ilse’s worry in Beat 14 shows the audience how conflicted she is about her husband and his work.

As I said before, life isn't as snappy as a great scene in a great movie. We have lots more ahs, ums and ers in our conversation. We stammer and look away, searching for the right words. We go off on tangents, don't hear everything people say, and don't always respond clearly.

But, in life as in cinema, even casual words and gestures can change the direction of a conversation. Pay close attention to your conversation. Look for those moments when a word or gesture can turn the dialogue in the good or bad direction.

The Hardest Way is the Only Way

When you think of a neurotic, you think of someone who compulsively sponges down a clean kitchen counter, or who asks a dozen questions about an issue that’s already been settled, or someone who hovers over kids with all kinds of concerns about classes, teachers, other kids, camp, lessons, friends.

You think of someone who cannot let go of things that need to be let go. You think of someone so nervous and insecure, that he doesn’t let anyone else be calm and secure.

At least a quarter of all Americans — and maybe as many as half — are neurotic in some way.

How do you define neurotic? Albert Ellis offers this pithy definition in his book How To Live With a “Neurotic” at Home and At Work:

“Basically, an adult who consistently acts illogically, irrationally, inappropriately, and childishly. … ‘Neurotics,’ then, make themselves unreasonably or unnecessarily bothered or bewildered. They bring on more pain or anxiety than they, theoretically, need experience. many of them have more than enough wherewithal — good looks, high intelligence, fine talents — to get along successfully in this world. But somehow they don’t. (pp. 18, 19)

Neurotics, according to Ellis, display many of the following traits:

• Indecision, doubt, and conflict
• Inadequacy feelings
• Guilt and self-blame
• Hostility and resentment
• Ingratiation
• Inefficiency and stupidity
• Self-deceit and lack of realism
• Defensiveness
• Rigidity and compulsiveness
• Shyness and withdrawal
• Psychosomatic symptoms and hypochondria
• Depression
• Self-centeredness and an inability to love
• Overexcitablity and manic tendencies
• Overambitiousness and compulsiveness striving
• Alcoholism and drug abuse

Yikes! What a list! What in the world can you do to cope with someone displaying even a handful of these traits?

Ellis has some tough words of advice. There’s not much you can do to reason with these kinds of people. Logic and rationality don;t have much to do with their everyday habits. You can’t say, in the words of Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together.” Any reasoning is met with defensiveness, denial, even aggression.

Instead, you need to coax a neurotic out of his or her embattled and confused state. This is beyond the capability of most people. It requires a Christ-like patience and wisdom that most of us lack.

Here’s the toughest part of Ellis’s analysis (found on page 89 of How To Live With a Neurotic):

“One central rule in dealing with a ‘neurotic’: do not criticize! As we have pointed out previously, ‘neurotics’ arrive at their state largely form taking criticism too seriously. Because they make themselves oversensitized, they take further criticism badly. If you down them (or even their traits), you may contrbute to increasing their feelings of worthlessness.

“Criticism, moreover, rarely moves people to constructive action. Helping humans change their ‘poor’ behavior for ‘better’ behavior involves inducting them to go from point 1 to point 2. But most of us, when told that we should move from 1 to 2 or that we behave like idiots for not so moving, balk or go backward. We resent any pushing or pressuring even for our own good.

“‘Neurotics,’ in particular, tend to react poorly to appeals that take this kind of criticism. To tell them that they should, for their own good, go from point 1 to 2 equals: ‘Look here, you fool! You know damned well that you harm yourself by remaining at 1 instead of going to 2. Now why don’t you stop acting like a dunce and do the right thing?’ To almost everyone that will sound like censure.”

In dealing with a neurotic — or someone with neurotic tendencies — you have to have amazing patience. You cannot react to every irrational, defensive, or stubborn action. You can’t say, “Hey, pal! You’re not getting it! Try this way!”

Instead, you have to find what works and coax it out of your friend (or spouse, coworker, children, parents, or whatever). You need positive reinforcement of what works, not negative reaction to what doesn’t work.

Nothing could be harder. But it’s the only way that works.