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Allow me to present an intriguing perspective on human misconduct, one that I am compelled to impart, drawing inspiration from the inimitable James Baldwin. In the depths of my explorations, I stumbled upon a captivating notion nestled within the pages of “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield. Amidst the book’s multitude of profound concepts lies an enchanting theory posited by Redfield himself, aptly termed “control dramas.” It signifies our innate ability to siphon vitality from one another, a notion I find both riveting and thought-provoking. Redfield identifies four archetypes of these control dramas: The Intimidator, The Interrogator, The Aloof, and Poor Me.

The most aggressive one is the Intimidator, who steals energy from other people by dominating them and making them feel inferior, either with physical or verbal aggression, so the intimidator gets to feel better and the other people feel worse.  This is similar to being aggressive, which we’ve talked about already.

Next is the Interrogator, who gets to feel good by asking questions that are borderline aggressive, certainly they are aimed at making the other person feel small so that the interrogator can feel superior to them.  

Questions like “Have you thought about going on a diet?”, “Why don’t you do that differently?” and “Why are you so hopeless?” and “Come on, TALK to me!” are not nice questions are they?  And questions like “You know why that happened don’t you?” are tricky because whatever you say they are going to say “Oh no no no, you’ve missed the point”.  That’s the interrogator.

Then there’s the Aloof, which is a common response to an Interrogator parent or an interrogator partner – the Aloof copes with other people by acting distant & hiding what they really think, and either not answering at all or answering evasively, maybe with short non-committal answers like “Maybe” or “I don’t know really”.  

They might drop vague hints, which in turn may mean that you ask even more questions in order to engage with them. You can imagine how an Aloof person could use this as a defensive strategy, but also you can see how the aloof will encourage others to interrogate them to try to find out what they really think.  The Aloof encourages the Interrogator, and the Interrogator encourages the Aloof. 

Interestingly my dad is an aloof and my mum is an interrogator, so they each encourage each other to get worse, …and they each make ME become the opposite of them! When I interact with my dad I try to interrogate him, to find out what he really thinks, usually unsuccessfully, and when I interact with my mum she tends to try to interrogate me so I try to be aloof and hold her back – again usually unsuccessfully because she’s so good at it after years of practice!

Finally there’s the fourth way to control others and that’s the Poor Me.  These people take the victim position, saying their life is awful and it’s all unfair, and they use guilt or pity to manipulate you.  They might say “It’s fine, I’ll just carry on, I’m used to doing everything by myself” or even “After all I have done for you, you let me down like this.”

Do you tend towards one of the four control dramas?  And if you, are you an Intimidator, an Interrogator, an Aloof, or a Poor Me?  Or maybe you live with someone who is one of those, in which case do they bring out one of the other behaviours in you? Maybe now it’s time to break the loop!

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