The Self Compass and Personality Disorders

How does the Self Compass help you understand personality disorders?

Here's how. The LAWS of personality and relationships form four universal compass points of Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength.

A personality pattern is a set of manipulative behaviors stemming from unconscious assumptions that directly affect how you perceive, think, feel, and act. Whether you became this way through how you were parented or other factors, you can only change a personality disorder through accurate insight and new choices.

There are primarily nine patterns that hamper personality growth, shown as they are located on the Self Compass. They are serious enough to undermine your attempts for love and happiness. But you can change them more easily than most people think. Self Compass knowledge is the key.

These descriptors are psychologically accurate, yet easy to remember because in the compass model, we pair the clinical name of the disorder with a descriptor that anyone can understand. You can think of these terms as temporary descriptions of a person’s behavior until that you make new choices that reflect personality balance and constructive change.

• Those stuck in the Dependent Pleaser and Histrionic Storyteller personality patterns exaggerate the Love compass point. Too much love makes them compliant or attention craving. They don't realize that they lack a stable identity within themselves.
• Paranoid Arguer and Antisocial Rule-breaker patterned people are stuck on the Assertion compass point. Too much assertion makes them argumentative or exploitive. 
• Avoidant Worrier and Schizoid Loner patterned people are stuck on the Weakness compass point. Too much weakness makes them withdrawn or detached. 
• Narcissistic Boaster and Compulsive Controller patterned people are stuck on the Strength compass point. Too much strength makes them arrogant or compulsive.  
• Borderline Challengers flip-flop from the Top Dog patterns of Strength and Assertion into the Underdog patterns of Weakness and Love and back again. This unstable volatility makes the borderline person believe that everyone else is responsible for their troubles, when the truth is their own personality pattern is to blame.

Most people lay claim to several of these patterns at some point in their lives. But the Self Compass both diagnoses the problem and shows you how to fix it. Whatever compass point your personality is stuck on determines your path for getting unstuck. If you are stuck in the Worrier pattern on the Weakness compass point, you take growth stretches primarily toward the opposite compass point: Strength. Over time, you move from self-defeating thoughts like “No one feels as scared as I do. I may as well give up,” to “I might blow this, because I’m human. But I’m doing it anyway.”

In our book The Self Compass my wife Kate illustrates the Controller Pattern this way:

I hand Dan my printed-out chapter to edit. He picks up the red pen and starts in, crossing out here, adding words there, deleting whole sentences. I bite my tongue to keep from protesting. My shoulders tighten, my jaw clenches, and I watch him like a hawk, ready to swoop down in defense of a brilliant phrase that must be kept just so. 

Even though I know objectively that Dan’s editing greatly improves my writing, when the Controller pattern has the upper hand, I feel driven to present him with a draft so perfect he won’t need to change a thing. 

Without a compass correction, this inner tension would spill over into our relationship, making it difficult for Dan to give honest feedback for fear of upsetting me. Then we’d both be held hostage to the harsh taskmaster of perfection.

Personality patterns left unchecked can undermine and even destroy relationships. They hamper your ability to love God and others as yourself, keeping you from fulfilling Christ’s purpose for your personality. 

To find out more, read:

THE SELF COMPASS: CHARTING YOUR PERSONALITY IN CHRIST

12 Ways to Increase Romantic Love

Romantic love can be increased or destroyed. Increasing what deepens love and removing what damages it will make your romantic love connection endearing and enduring.

A specialty of mine over 35 years of doing therapy is romantic love in heterosexual relationships. This includes dating, engagement, and marriage. I'm going to give you a quick tour of how to increase rather than destroy the love of your life. Follow these principles by using the Self Compass and your couples relationship will definitely improve and flourish!

First, here is what the Self Compass looks like. Notice that the complementary compass points are Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength. These are the LAWS of personality and relationships. Each compass point exists in your personality. The healthy expression of each compass point is required to sustain a loving relationship. When one or more compass points are ignored or distorted, romantic love deteriorates into hurt, sadness, anxiety, and anger.

Let's move through the compass points one by one as I share principles drawn from each compass point that contribute to growing and staying in love:

LOVE

1. Clearly express your love, admiration, and awe for your partner into words, actions, and emotions. Many people fear giving their partner too many compliments or being too demonstrative. They starve the relationship of the emotional nutrition it needs. Get over your fear of going over the top, especially if you are a man. Show love without reservation.
2. Find something every day that you can do to help your partner have a better day. Do an errand for them. Give a surprise gift. Take them on a spontaneous date. Even go with them to the grocery store so that you can enjoy each other's company.
3. Encourage them to keep sharing their life story, drawing them out with interested questions. Express empathy for the pain they have known. Help them feel visible to you, that they really matter. This is one of the greatest gifts you'll ever give, and you can keep giving it throughout life.
4. Don't let your sexual life become mechanical and routine. The whole body and the whole personality are part of one's sexual identity. Build your sensual pleasure bond through kisses when you meet. Hold hands in movies. Sometimes in bed, touch each other with no expectation of intercourse. Caress with the eyes to let your partner see how attractive they are to you, their soul included!

 ASSERTION

1. Keep on developing your personality with the full use of your Self Compass. Assert yourself to challenge old habits that irritate your love-mate. Exert yourself to develop an interpersonal psychology that supports, rather than frustrates, romantic love.
2. When you experience unfairness, bad treatment, or hurtful behavior from your partner, say so. But make sure you use diplomatic assertion, not explosive anger, pouting, and nagging. With diplomatic assertion you remain calm while describing what has hurt or offended you; then you wait patiently as your partner explains their perspective. This back and forth conversation is the heart pulse of keeping romantic love alive.
3. Remember that your partner can never read your mind or guess your feelings correctly. Everything that you want your partner to know you must tell them, clearly and sincerely. Remove all traces of sarcasm (even sarcastic humor) or putdowns from your speech, so that your sincerity will always register as trustworthy and true.
4. Do not on any account lapse into harsh language, name calling, cursing at your partner, or slamming them with verbal blows, as these rupture communication and sow seeds that can destroy intimacy. 

 WEAKNESS

1. When you have purposefully or inadvertently hurt your partner, an apology is in order. Many people don't know how to apologize, but good lovers must learn to apologize often and well. Simply state where you overstepped your bounds or whatever you did wrong. Express regret. Say that you're going to work on this so that you can make improvements. "I'm sorry that I criticized your driving on the way to the movie. I'm sorry I used the word 'lunatic driver.' You are really a good driver and I had no right to make you self-conscious. I'm going to work on my criticalness so that I don't keep doing this." Now the incident can be forgiven.
2. Take time to tell your partner about your life before them: your childhood, your family of origin dynamics, how you felt toward your mom and dad, how your family handled emotions and self-esteem for family members. All of this can be spread out over the years, but it provides vital information for your partner to understand you better, and even help to heal certain psychological wounds. 
3. Be careful about sharing too much about a past boyfriend or girlfriend, especially if it's positive. This can trigger jealousy in your partner, and understandably so. They want to feel they are number one in your heart with no existing rivals.
4. Be transparent about current anxiety, depression, or anything else that can confuse your partner if they don't know about it. In a good romantic relationship, you both have freedom to express your real feelings, so that you can help each other understand and process them as part of healthy living.

STRENGTH

1. You want just the right amount of strength in a love relationship. Too much makes you an arrogant know-it-all who is emotionally aloof and even superior to your partner. Too little strength will trigger a helpless neediness where you overly rely on your partner to make you happy.
2. Use your Strength Compass point to express confidence that the two of you can talk through any problem and overcome any obstacles. Show perseverance to keep conversations going on controversial topics, instead of insisting that you are always right.
3. Use your personal power in the relationship to make sure your partner is treated fairly. Go out of your way to hear your partner's point of view and restate it to them to their satisfaction. That way they will trust that you aren't using your strength against them or to always get your way.
4. Apply your strength to have spiritual faith in God to guide and bless your romantic love as opposed to thinking only you know what is best.

Here is a good book for couples who want romantic love to flourish over the years: The Self Compass: Charting Your Personality In Christ. I often invite couples in Compass Therapy to read the book together. Far better, though, to read it and apply its principles so that you'll never need therapy!

For more about staying in love, see:

STAYING IN LOVE: 

DR. DAN & SIGGY'S GUIDE TO COUPLES LOVE

Why Your Personality Matters to Jesus

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts.

—Ps 51:6 NIV

The sun has arced to its highest point in the desert sky as the wind sculpts patterns in the sand, which is all the eye can see in any direction, save for a white-robed man seated by the edge of an ancient well, and a Samaritan woman standing nearby, a water jug by her side. 

She is asking questions. And giving replies.

Surface replies, that bat away insight. Openness. Transparency.

The man persists.

Still there is avoidance. Refusal to go deeper.

Again, he persists, now with home truths about this woman.

Truths that shock. Truths about her real self.

Her response?

Not defensiveness. Not resistance.

But honesty.

And surrender.

To the Son of God.

“Come,” the Samaritan woman entreats the townspeople, “come, see a man who told me everything I ever did” (Jn 4:29 NIV).

Come, invites Jesus. Open yourself to me. Your interior self. Your personality and behavior. Your person-hood matters to me. 

Why is that, Lord? Why is my personality important?

Knowing the truth about your inner self allows you to “do what is true” Jesus says. This self-knowledge will set you free so that you can better love God and others as you love yourself (Mk 12:30-31).

As you examine and refine thoughts and actions, behavior and feelings, you develop the loving connection God desires with you. And build satisfying relationships with other people that flourish, and do no harm. For “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (Mk 7:14). Only when you take action concerning the truth about your inner self can you “come to the light” (Jn 3:21).

What sort of action, Lord? How do I grow in the ability to love you and other people as I love myself?

To discover more, read:

THE SELF COMPASS: CHARTING YOUR PERSONALITY IN CHRIST 

Notre Dame Professor Commends New Christian Personality Theory

The concept of moral psychology was unheard of in Freud's day, and even under the early influence of the behavioral psychologists. This is because, for Freud, human behavior was an offshoot of neurology, or the study of the nervous system, and the human mammal had no soul. 

Likewise, for behaviorists like Thorndike, Pavlov, and the American B. F. Skinner, the human being was a black box of stimulus/response reflexes that could be conditioned by the environment, but possessed no "self" or "free will" within.

Young Child in the Famous "Skinner Box"

This heritage is why modern advertisers for cars, lip gloss, and life insurance all utilize extensive testing programs where market researchers calculate statistically how to control a consumer's psyche through words, promises, and images.

Market Research

But there is a higher realm of human functioning that makes human persons greater than the sum of their physiological reactions or unconscious conditioning. And this is studied in a field called Moral Psychology.

Moral psychology seeks ways to integrate the mammalian instinct, drive, and urges that characterize human behavior with the aspiration, motivation, and inspiration within every person. In other words, like isn't just about what you're made of, but who you are and what you're making of life.

For this reason moral psychology has re-opened the doors to philosophy and theology that psychoanalysis and behavioral psychology had previously slammed shut. These doors had been opened in the history of Western civilization by the presence of Christianity as a worldview within which philosophy and science operated.

However, in the nineteenth and twentieth century many scientists wanted more objectivity to study nature and human nature without the influence of religious beliefs. This was indeed needed to gather data about human behavior and social psychology, but has led to a new conundrum, that we have now assembled a vast amount of information of human anatomical, metabolic, intrapsychic and interpersonal behavior, but are pretty much devoid of a metaphysical overview with which to find meaning and purpose in life.

"Who Am I?"

Compass psychotheology, compass therapy, and the self compass are contemporary concepts and tools designed to aid people in developing a moral compass that holds. This allows for a Christian personality theory that stands alongside Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality and the behaviorist's learning theory of personality.

In bringing Christian personality theory forward into modern discourse, I naturally wanted it evaluated by professors in the field of moral psychology. 

So I was delighted to receive the following commendation:

Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D.
Developmental and Moral Psychology
University of Notre Dame

"I love the systematic and creative thought that went into Dr. Dan and Kate Montgomery's new book on Christian Personality Theory. 

"I am fascinated by the Self Compass. It has an intuitive resonance and it synthesizes what we know about the human psyche, its pitfalls and redemption. 

"The growth orientation of the Compass Model offers a transformation mindset that can benefit any reader. Well done!"

Christian Personality Theory: A Self Compass for Humanity

Empower Christian Discipleship with The Self Compass

Traditionally, Christian discipleship has involved taking the truth and principles Jesus taught and seeking to make individuals think and behave like Jesus did.

It's hard to imagine a worthier goal than growing more Christlike. And worth questioning how to help people do this. If we mechanically stamp the image of Christ onto people the way we rubber-stamp an envelope, we risk creating superficial Christian behavior that is not integrated with the depth dimensions of their personality.

What if we start with Christ's behavior as revealed in Scripture and place Jesus at the center of a personality model? One that helps Christians grow psychologically and spiritually, not as Jesus' clone, but as a unique individual in Christ. 

Dan and Kate Montgomery propose that such a process of Christian discipleship can emerge from using the Self Compass: an empirically validated growth tool that promotes healthy personality and relationships, while reflecting Jesus' behavior in the Gospels.

The Self Compass equips Christian discipleship with a personality model that enables Christians to understand inner conflicts, thoughts, feelings, the unconscious, and healthy versus unhealthy communication. Through this knowledge Christians can more effectively love God and others as they love themselves.

Utilizing the LAWS (Love/Assertion; Weakness/Strength) embedded in the Self Compass allows individuals to intuitively cooperate with Christ's transforming power in their personality. This process of discipleship combines biblical fidelity with psychological maturing.

Employing the Self Compass growth tool means that Christians express both tender care and diplomatic assertion. They are competent and strong, yet at the same time humbly aware of their weaknesses, maintaining free and equal access to all four compass points. To study how Christ's Self Compass is the definitive model for thinking, feeling, and acting with compass balance, read Compass Psychotheology: Where Psychology and Theology Really Meet.

Love lets individuals care for themselves and others, drawing out their potential for nurturance, compassion, and forgiveness. Love provides the bridge of intimacy that connects them to people in caring ways. But no one remains loving all the time. There are times to stand up for yourself and negotiate for what is fair and just. Assertion allows people to do just that: express their point of view with diplomacy.

Weakness helps Christians accept as normal the times when they feel uncertain or anxious. When they admit these vulnerable feelings into awareness, they can freely acknowledge their clay feet and ask for help when needed. On the other hand, Strength provides a sense of competence, confidence, and personal power. Healthy strength encourages Christians to achieve their best, while humbly acknowledging their weaknesses.

Christian discipleship can effectively help Christians become like Christ, each in their individual way, especially with the compass points of Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength up and running. Jesus’ behavior in the Gospels reveals this personality balance and flexibility, and modern research on personality affirms these attributes as crucial for mental health.

The correlation of Jesus’ personality with the Self Compass combines a psychological and spiritual understanding of Christ, with trust in the Holy Spirit to indwell and influence a Christian's personality and relationships.

For the definitive book connecting the Self Compass with 

Christian transformation and discipleship, read:

Christian Personality Theory:

A Self Compass for Humanity

Jesus Christ's Self Compass

A pastoral counseling colleague at Harvard Divinity School told me that, "Jesus Christ had no personality as we know it today. He has nothing in common with modern conceptions of personality. And there is no similarity between his behavior and ours."

I disagree. Jesus' behavior in the Gospels reveals what personality is all about—motivation, perception, learning, memory, emotion, cognition, and spirituality. The Son of God became fully human precisely so we can relate to him through our personalities. And in Christ's behavior we see God's personality wholeness, as well as a model for becoming more whole ourselves. 

Biblical names of Jesus Christ reveal crucial aspects of his personality. Four names in particular illustrate the complimentary dynamics of  Christ’s Self Compass. 

Christ's Self Compass

Jesus as the Good Shepherd reveals the Love compass point. He watches over his sheep and calls them by name. As he lays his life down for his sheep out of love, so he commands: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (Jn 13:34). Jesus shows us how: In caring service Christ taught the disciples, and healed and fed the multitudes. He formed close friendships that revealed loyalty and emotional fulfillment, yet cared for himself by taking time to pull back from his ministry and restore his energies.

The Lion of Judah reveals the Assertion compass point of Jesus’ personality. A fierce opponent of injustice, Jesus rebuked the self-righteous Pharisees and drove the moneychangers out of his Father’s temple. Though tempted by Satan, he resisted and affirmed the Father's will, and will return to judge the living and the dead. And Jesus challenges us all to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation" (Mk 16:15). It is from Assertion that we find the courage to live out Christ's commands, imperfectly, yet courageously.

Growing Christlike

The Lamb of God reveals the Weakness compass point of Jesus' personality when he gives his life to save people from the inseparable breach that sin creates between them and God. And he knows, too, that "since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you" (Jn 15:20 NLT). Through Jesus' suffering we draw comfort from him who shares in all human suffering; our God who stands with and for us in both adversity and need.

The Prince of Peace reveals the Strength compass point of Jesus' personality. As God’s reigning Messiah who overcomes sin and the devil to inaugurate the kingdom of God, Jesus alone can say, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (Jn 14:27).  Jesus is the source of a believer's Strength, a confidence balanced by trust in the Lord and sensitivity to others.

Jesus gifts humanity with a redemptive psychology of personal and relational transformation, and lives within us to empower our healthy personality transformation throughout the lifespan.

For more on how the Self Compass forms a dynamic living connection between you and Christ, see:  

Compass Psychotheology:  

Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet.

Catholic Cardinals Commend The Self Compass

In my seminary years I received prayerful guidance to the effect that someday I would construct a personality model acceptable within a broad spectrum of Christianity. This came as an inner impression, bringing with it a compelling urge to read widely in personality, including the writings of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, the Old Testament prophets, the Gospels, the apostle Paul, among others.

"Dan, don't just read Protestant theologians, philosophers and psychologists," coached the interior voice, which I perceived as the Holy Spirit. "Include great Catholic thinkers like St. Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila, Gabriel Marcel, Adrian van Kaam, and Thomas Merton."

I followed these marching orders, completing both Masters and PhD degrees. The central theme was integrating psychology, philosophy and theology around personality transformation in Christ. However, any connection to the Catholic Church lay dormant for the next 20 years—until the editor of Pauline Books and Media called and ask if I would write a book for them integrating depth psychology and Catholic spirituality. 

My wife Kate and I wrote the manuscript for God and Your Personality and received a ratifying contract almost immediately. Sister Mary Mark confided in the accompanying letter, "Dan, I want you to know that our convent had been in prayer for a month, asking the Lord who should write this book. The Holy Spirit impressed us to contact you."

Now twenty years have passed since the book was published. By the grace of God, it has become in the words of the Daughters of St. Paul, "a modern day spiritual classic." I feel awe and gratitude, having seen the book translated into ten languages, and a newly revised and expanded Kindle edition.

I bring this up because Catholic Cardinals keep a watchful eye out for what personality theories they commend to lay readers, and which ones—like the Enneagram—are judged as heretical.

This is prudent and necessary, since any personality model not only puts forth assumptions about human personality, but by implication judges the Nature and Person of Jesus Christ. This in turn affects whether the model rings true to Christian faith and doctrine.    

The Self Compass growth tool helps your understand how the Father moves through your personality, conforming you into the image of the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I am especially gratified that Cardinals from five countries have written me letters commending the Self Compass and Compass Therapy as doctrinally sound growth tools for facilitating personality wholeness and spiritual holiness.

And that God and Your Personality has been selected for inclusion in the Vatican Library,  as well as endorsed by the Secretary of the Vatican Council for the Evangelization of Peoples, Archbishop Robert Sarah.

I am posting several of these letters for the benefit of my dear Catholic readership, to give assurance that the Self Compass and Compass Therapy not only incorporate empirical studies from personality research, but beyond this, these tools of transformation ultimately derive from the Nature and Personality of Jesus Christ.

The letters are as follows:

                                                          

PAUL CARDINAL POUPARD, THE VATICAN: “God & Your Personality is no New Age influenced waffle clouded in a mystique of blurb, but a useful tool for all those who seek to address personality issues and quench their innate spiritual thirst with the living-water which truly satisfies!"
 

RICARDO CARDINAL VITAL, PHILIPPINES: “God & Your Personality is a noble accomplishment and a gift to individuals who seek wholeness and holiness.”

ERDO CARDINAL PETER, HUNGARY: "God & Your Personality is a fine achievement and wonderful contribution to the healing ministry." 

STEPHEN CARDINAL KIM, KOREA:  "I am now reading Dr. Montgomery's God and Your Personality and find it very enlightening."

ROGER CARDINAL MAHONY, USA: “The Catholic tradition has long affirmed the value of the human sciences in leading us to a deeper understanding of the human person in relation to God and others. Dr. Dan Montgomery’s work, drawing as it does from the riches of psychological investigation and insight, will prove most helpful for those striving to grow and develop in the Christian life.”

To read more, click the title below for the print or Kindle edition:

GOD AND YOUR PERSONALITY: REVISED AND EXPANDED CATHOLIC EDITION

God and Your Personality

Top Personality Model for the 21st Century

Hi. I'm Dan Montgomery. Welcome! I've been a Psychologist and Marriage Therapist for 35 years, and a Christian theologian for about as long. Related to this integration of psychology and Christian faith,  my wife Kate and I have devoted our lives to the development and practical application of the Self Compass, a simple yet sophisticated growth tool for navigating life in the 21st century. 

Tell me. Would you enjoy having a trustworthy way to understand your personality and relationships, whether at work, at home, or in times of stress? Would you like to parent your children in a way that helps them develop a balanced personality? Would you like a way to grow more connected with God, feeling his love for you more strongly as life progresses? 

The Self Compass offers these benefits and more. Just as the discovery of the physical compass opened a new era in humanity's ability to travel from place to place, and navigate the earth, so the Self Compass opens a new era for finding your way to personality health and relationship fulfillment.

I assure you that by becoming a faithful reader of these postings, your knowledge of self and others will grow exponentially. What used to baffled you about your own or other people's behavior will make sense. You'll gain x-ray vision into people's real motivations, even when they are trying to conceal something from you.  

Most of all, you'll learn the art of growing psychologically and spiritually more whole, a treasured legacy you can pass on to those you love.

So Kate and I invite you to join our blog adventure. Take a moment to enjoy a brief video about our Compass Series books. The next posting I'll show you the Self Compass and how it works.

Dr. Dan Speaking About the Compass Series Books