ASSESSMENT: Over-Compensation Questionnaire

There is distinction between addressing a false accusation and the habitual ruminations and imaginings in which one sees oneself responding to harsh judgment or false accusations. The harsh judgment is often about worthiness rather than something criminal. Much of this maladjusted activity occurs in one ís mind, thus it can happen recurrently without much notice. The coping mechanism Being Innocent is a form of vigilance against anticipated or vague indictments. In the rumination or fantasy one may be considered suspect. There is continual rehearsing of ones defensive strategy. Sometimes one will imagine an actual court scene in which a compelling and dramatic defense is stated publicly. Other times one imagines conversations or exchanges with important people where one is recognized as blameless.

The person who relies on this coping activity thinks: If I am recognized as blameless, I’ll be OK. But if I am not seen as blameless, then Iím not OK. This means that one will seek vindication, even though no fault or offense occurred. This activity compensates for feelings of guilt or unworthiness. This behavior is costly in that it imposes itself on day to day interactions with people. It is associated with symptoms of social anxiety. This maladjusted coping activity may cluster with other compensatory modes like seeking to redeem honor and, ironically, judging others.

A distinction needs to be drawn between our healthy intention to honorably succeed in our endeavors and the maladjusted intention to prove oneself and win admiration. This maladjusted coping mechanism habitually seeks to redeem oneself from dishonor or underestimation. The conditional assumption associated with this compensatory theme is: "if I am triumphant, then I will be OK. But, if I am not triumphant, then I am not OK." This coping mode may compensate for feeling dishonored, underestimated, or abused. Thus being "OK" means avoiding dishonor.

The person using this coping mode will habitually imagine him or herself being honored for heroism or achievement. These rumination are not harmless. They validate the idea that we require redemption from dishonor. So in daydreaming about redemption, we reinforce a false and deprecating notion. The anxiety attacks occur when the mode is frustrated. In other words when we try to come out triumphant, or especially smart and end up exposed as limited and insecure.

This mode sometimes clusters with other Other-Directed compensatory modes. These modes focus excessively on the opinion others have of us. In other words, a person using this mode may also seek vindication, recognition and admiration. The conditional assumption associated with this compensatory activity functions as an imperative. It is as if one must triumph or be condemned. This leaves the personality in a brittle condition.

The intent to triumph can become almost compulsive. Sometimes people who rely on this coping mode enter professions that are not fully suited to their personality. They may misguidedly enter professions that suggest their ideal. Once in the profession, they find that they are not fully confident and integrated resulting in confusion and ironically dishonor.

A distinction needs to be made between the occasional lying one might do to hide guilt or advance one’s professional interests and the habitual lying one does because they feel chronically insufficient. The person who relies on this coping mechanism will present him or herself falsely to gain acceptance or admiration. They might suggest they have skills or a status they actually do not have. Lying and Fabricating can at times cluster with other modes like Redeeming Honor or Being Someone Else.

Lying and Fabricating suggest a short-term way of succeeding interpersonally. It is as if the possibility of having a successful long-term relationship is beyond the achievable. People who rely heavily on this mode may live very nomadic or isolated lives. Sometimes this compensatory activity is done in very impersonal settings like a hush-hush sexual encounter.

Since the encounter suggests that there will not be an ongoing relationship, one might think that there is no real harm in lying. However, this is not true. The misguided idea that we are innately insufficient is inadvertently reinforced.

The conditional assumption associated with this mode is: “If I present myself falsely, then I will be all right. If I present myself as I am, then I will not be OK.” Feeling all right or being OK in this instance may simply be to feel accepted. One can see in this conditional assumption that the person practicing lying and fabricating essentially rejects and invalidates his or her own state of being.

Getting Over is a maladjusted coping mechanism that suggests that it is necessary to con or fool someone into supplying our needs. Getting Over seeks a symbolic victory rather than an equitable transaction. The equitable transaction, unlike the Getting Over mode, fails to suggest having the advantage or being dominant. This coping reaction further suggests that getting needs met is a battle. There is a winner and a looser.

The person who heavily relies on this mode may at times prefer to feel that his or her legitimate accomplishments are forms of “getting over.” This reframing is done in one’s mind. Thus, the maladjusted coping mechanism, Getting Over, becomes the norm. There is a high cost for this activity. In a sense, Getting Over can smear or spoil our true successes. Getting Over suggests contention with others. There is no peace. This coping mechanism will at times cluster with other maladjusted coping mechanism like Lying and Competing.

The coping mechanism Getting Over may compensate for feelings of being hated, abused, or excluded. Getting Over functions more like a survival mechanism than a preference. The conditional assumption associated with this mode is: "If I can get over, then I'll be alright. But if I can not get over, then I will not be alright."

Being “alright” in this case may be staying on top or preventing getting exploited. The equitable transaction does not achieve the desired end. It is seen as inherently costly.

The compensatory coping mechanism Getting Back is distinct from the intention to seek justice and fairness. This maladjusted coping activity is typified by habitual ruminating about punishing people for their actual or possible transgressions against us. At times a person who depends on this mode of coping may slip into violent acting out. However, violence is not always present.

Getting Back is mostly in oneís mind. The acting out can be covert like non-cooperation or slandering. Sometimes there is no overt acting out, but the cost continues to remain high. One of the worst aspects of this coping mechanism is that it can make you sick. Getting back is antithetical to inner peace. The wretched ruminations trap the person in chronic stewing. Habitual anger can compromise the immune system.

The person who relies on Getting Back typically struggles with feelings of resentment and perhaps depression. The intention with Getting Back is generally to reclaim dignity. A person caught in the throes of this maladjusted reaction may ruminate a great deal about power differentials and past insults. That means that there is chronic sense of being victimized from malice, jealousy, discourtesy or indifference.

The person thinks: If I can get back, Iíll be OK. But, if I can’t get back, then I won’t be OK. Being OK may mean not having to play the victim.

This coping activity may compensate for feelings of defectiveness, or victimization. Sometimes this coping mechanism will cluster with Being Innocent or Redeeming Honor.

There is a measurable difference between leading people who have sanctioned our authority and the intention to lead others so that we may feel secure.

When we insist on controlling others we can become inadvertently oppressive. The intention is generally legitimate--to have one’s needs met. However Directing and Controlling is fraught with interpersonal problems. Sometimes, practitioners of Directing and Controlling are thought of as “impossible people.” Intimate friends and family are sometimes left very frustrated, wishing they could get along.

Directing and Controlling is a maladjusted coping mode that is driven by a sense of insecurity. All people endure insecurity, thus insecurity is not what must be eliminated to feel and behave differently. The compensatory coping mode, Direct and Controlling, forms from an intolerance to insecurity. It is an irony that this intention to generate order and predictability results in its opposite.

The coping mode compensates for various fears like being abandoned or emotional deprived. Sometimes people who develop a Self-sacrifice Schema will become unconsciously controlling as well. They will insist on taking charge on the premise that this will help. Their relationships suffer and they ironically endure the very thing they fear—Emotional Deprivation and Abandonment.

The conditional assumption associated with this mode is: “If I can keep control of others, then I’ll be OK. But if I cannot keep control of others, then I will not be OK.” Thus, people who rely on this coping mode set themselves up for chronic anxiety and anger when they lose leverage and control of others. It is, however, critical to understand that using control as compensatory coping means that you are already driven by your anxiety. You are in fact having a mini anxiety attack. This coping style may at times cluster with other maladjusted coping modes like I’ll Never Policymaking, Getting Back, Being Entitled or Being Judgmental.

A distinction needs to be drawn between being chronically aloof and the healthy intention of maintaining self-reliance. Radical Independence is a fear driven coping mode. People who rely on this coping mechanism secretly long for connectedness. However such connectedness triggers feelings of imminent disappointment.

Some people who practice Radical Independence fear being “smothered” or controlled and others anticipate rejection or emotional deprivation. The conditional assumption associated with this behavior is: “If I can remain independent then I’ll be OK. If I cannot remain independent, then I’m not OK.” Being OK in this instance might be to be free from disappointment or free from criticism about being emotionally insufficient.

Sometimes this coping mode will cluster with other compensatory modes like Being Innocent. For example, the person who relies on Radical Independence will inevitably emotionally deprive important people. The guilt then triggers the desire to be found blameless. When the person frustrates and disappoints others the coping mechanism gets triggered and the behavioral cycle is then often reinforced: “This would not have happened if I would have remained aloof.”

The cost of practicing Radical Independence is that it obstructs being cared for. The person is so afraid of being emotionally deprived or victimized that he or she would rather suffer loneliness.

A distinction needs to be made between Acquiring as a compensatory coping mode and the common interest to secure status, lucrative employment, good investments, essential properties and luxury goods. The compensatory coping mode Acquiring is driven by a fear of rejection or personal defectiveness. In other words, Acquiring seeks to prevent feeling bad about ourselves. This mode also tends to magnify the importance of issues surrounding social status.

This type of compensatory activity is related to “workaholism” and hoarding. It is different from the intention to anesthetize bad feelings by overspending on stuff you want rather than need. On the contrary, those who depend on Acquiring are generally frugal. The person who practices Acquiring is subjugated to money and status. The practitioner of Acquiring will think: “If I can hold on and acquire more, I will be OK. But, if I can not hold on and continue to acquire, I will not be OK.

This activity functions more like a survival mechanism than a preference. Thus, when the coping mechanism is frustrated the practitioner can become seriously threatened and consequently hostile. Power or influence becomes a commodity. Practitioners become acutely aware of political realities. Some enter politics inappropriately because the intent to Acquire is not necessarily related to leadership.

This coping mechanism might be appropriate in harsh and depressed cultures. Some immigrant groups may sanction the behavior. In these cases it is not necessarily maladjusted.

The problem with the coping mode is that it is driven by the fear that we are innately alien, disconnected or defective. These unhealthy core beliefs are inadvertently validated as they drive our behavior. The compensatory activity is a form of anxiety. The person practicing Acquiring believes that the compensation is the cure when it is ailment.

This coping mode can cluster with other modes like Redeeming Honor or Lying and Fabricating. The practitioner of Acquiring is essentially invalidating his or her own natural state of being.

A distinction needs to be made between socially or contractually sanction rights and the maladjusted intention to avert deprivation by exploiting opportunities. The maladjusted coping mechanism Being Entitled is fear driven. The person who depends on Being Entitled becomes opportunistic to prevent the sense of deprivation. Somewhere in the past the practitioner endured a wounding deficit of empathy, nurturance or protection. The coping mechanism forms as an opposition to deprivation.

Unfortunately the practitioner of Being Entitled actually thinks that his or her opportunism is legitimate. This of course strains relationships and makes the person difficult to transact with. The practitioner thinks: "If I can get what I want then I'm OK. But, if I cannot get what I want, then I'm not OK. Not being OK means being deprived. The sense of being deprived for a practitioner of this coping mode is generally measurably more painful than for others without the wound of Emotional Deprivation.

It may also help our understanding to draw a distinction between entitlement that is learned and this form of entitlement that forms as overcompensation. The behaviors can look similar but the intention is different. Learned entitlement is more difficult to change because it was sanctioned and encouraged by authority figures. When Entitlement is completely entrenched and presumed it must then be considered as a maladjusted schema.

There is one other form of behavior that resembles the coping mechanism Being Entitled. There is an avoidant coping mechanism Anesthetizing which like drug addiction can render a person blind to appropriate limits. Anesthetizing is a desperate quest for pleasure to avert pain and frustration. People can anesthetize their painful insecurities by overspending, hyper sexuality and limits crashing.

Being Entitled can cluster with other maladjusted coping modes like Acquiring and Being Judgmental. When the coping mode Being Judgmental is very active, it may suggest that Being Entitled has become an entrenched maladjusted schema. The judgment then serves as justification. In this case the judgmental coping mode needs to be mindfully interrupted to penetrate and process the entitlement.

Using our judgment and being judgmental have critical differences. Discerning right from wrong requires judgment. Being Judgmental loads another factor on to judging. Being Judgmental proposes to establish whether a person is worthy or valid. This coping mode requires that one presume some degree of moral or tactical superiority. The presumption of superiority suggests the source of the compensatory behavior. Being Judgmental forms in opposition to the misguided idea of possibly being inherently unworthy, guilty or inferior. In other words, practitioners of Being Judgmental are anxious about being proved somehow defective or shameful. This may be hard to swallow for those who regularly practice the coping mechanism. The coping mode is readily normalized in a social setting that encourages being classy rather than ill-bred, being rich rather than poor and being well informed rather than unaware. The practitioner of this mode might argue: “How could someone possibly be harmed by being right or superior?” Those who fail to meet the valued status are covertly condemned. There is indeed a subtle punitive element in the practice of Being Judgmental. A critical comment, for instance, from a person who practices this coping mode characteristically fails to motivate or inspire. The judgment is not meant to be constructive; it is meant to prevent the loss of a valued status. The intention in Being Judgmental is primarily to validate oneself. The conditional assumption associated with the mode is: If I am right, then I am OK. However, if I am not right, then I am not OK. In this instance being OK would suggest that one is indeed superior, moral or worthy. Consequently, this coping mode may cluster with other compensatory modes like Being Innocent or Getting Back. People rely on this coping mechanism in varying degrees. In the most extreme cases the judgmental behavior is compulsive or ritualized. Constant judgmental criticism is used to protect against the possible surfacing of anxiety. In this case the person thinks: If I can remain constantly right, then I’ll be OK. Thus, the ritualized behavior serves as a safeguard. The more common use of Being Judgmental does not reach this level of dependence on the mechanism. The cost of practicing Being Judgmental can be personal and interpersonal. At the personal level it perpetuates the underlying fear that drives the activity. The practice promotes worry or generalized anxiety. Practitioners are trapped in the dichotomous terms of the mode’s conditional assumption. Either one is blameless or guilty, worthy or forsaken, commendable or contemptuous. At the interpersonal level the coping mode fails to contribute constructive input. Finding fault in order to feel righteous is the standard agenda during a dispute. Problem solving and collaboration with partners or associates can be seriously obstructed. The practitioner of Being Judgmental tends toward chronic defensiveness and tends to forgive grudgingly.

Fixing Others is a maladjusted coping mode in which a person habitually attempts to fix the problems and the troubled relationships of others. The behavior which at times can be altruistic is intended to avoid personal deprivation by maintaining the well-being of the family or friends. The distinction between the maladjusted coping mode and healthy benevolence is that the former attends the needs of others to the detriment of attending personal needs. In other words the person who practices Fixing Others will sacrifice personal fulfillment in some fashion to attend other's needs. This is distinct from healthy benevolence which though being generous is not self-depriving. Fixing Others is a mode of coping with uncertainty about having one's own needs met. It is related to the fear of deprivation. Ironically the person already practices self deprivation to insure the well-being of significant others. Thus the mode manifests the very thing that is feared.

A person who uses this maladjusted mode will characteristically fail to overtly assert their own needs. Often their own needs are mistakenly deemed selfish or detrimental to others. Thus, practitioners of this mode may feel it necessary to be covert about finding self-satisfaction. The person who relies on this mode will vigilantly look for things to fix in others.

This mental action is interrupted in the healing process. Time spent thinking of other peopleís problems is time lost in manifesting personal fulfillment. Sometimes practitioners of the mode will prefer to see other as more troubled and incompetent than they really are. The bias towards seeing people in an unflattering light can be annoying and a source for interpersonal strains. They might unthinkingly give advice when advice may not be necessary.

In some instances, practitioners of Fixing Others may want to take over. They justify their intrusion by identifying mistakes or errors made by others. Thus, the mode can lead a person to behave presumptuously. In this case the mode clusters with Controlling and Directing.

The practitioner of Fixing Others will think: If I can fix peopleís problems, Iíll be OK. But, if I can not fix other peoples problems, then I will not be OK. Not being OK would mean being part of a dysfunctional and depriving family or social system.

A distinction needs to be made between worry and habitual worry; between realistic anticipation and anticipatory anxiety.

Worrying is a coping mode and a survival mechanism that leads us to form negative scenarios in our mind. These negative scenarios help us form contingency plans and response strategies to possible or imminent calamities. Thus worry may provide some comfort.

Healthy worry is not habitual. Nor, is there a tendency to “catastrophize” disappointments: “Life works” in spite of setbacks. On the other hand, maladjusted worry is habitual.

The intention may be to both gain a degree of control over the future and to feel better.

People may develop a reliance on worry to reduce stress. Thus, people who depend on worry for comfort may slip into searching for things to worry about. This tendency may be a response to an overarching pessimism born from early disappointments. Thus, worrying about “one thing or another” is never seen as ill-guided in a fragile world. In a world fraught with disappointment, worrying sometimes becomes a way of self-soothing.

The cost of chronic worry may be profound. The person who relies on worry continues to validate the idea that life is not trustworthy. This view of Life characterizes the Negativity Schema. Using worry requires a threatening or foreboding scenario: Something is always going wrong.

This coping mode may cluster with other maladjusted coping modes like Fixing Others, Being Outstanding or Being Innocent.

The chronic worrier distinctively thinks: “If I vigilantly attend the possible calamity then I’ll be OK. But if I do not vigilantly attend the possible calamity then I will not be OK. Not being OK means being helpless in the face of misfortune.

Healing from chronic worry means that we need to respond differently to our own Negativity. We must accept the emotional wound that darkened our world view and begin to function through the more realistic idea that life tends to work in our favor.