Style One

The Critic

Style One has a chief characteristic of trying to make everything better. When they are healthy, they are morally heroic, making sacrifices for the greater good, balanced in their judgments, uncompromising in their principles. They are concerned about what is right in morals, sometimes in esthetics and sometimes in other things like literary or movie criticism or even manners. They are objective in the judgments and utterly clear about what is right and wrong. They are prophets and reformers.

If they become unhealthy, the vision narrows and their concerns diminish. The begin to moralize, they can get picky about little rules and they always go by the book regardless of consequence or circumstance. They develop either/or thinking and pay little attention to anyone's emotions.

Ones you may know: Judge Judy on TV, Laura Schlesinger (Dr. Laura on talk radio), Hilary Clinton, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Barack Obama, St Paul, Martin Luther, Harrison Ford, Tom Brokaw, Pope John Paul II, The Lone Ranger, Martha Stewart and Miss Manners.

Recognizing Style One

  1. They may shift attention by comparing.
  2. They may display a cold anger while denying it.
  3. They may ask for criticism and take it seriously. It is a familiar form of love.
  4. They may criticize themselves even more than others.
  5. They may be quite sure their responses are appropriate.
  6. They may resent the expectations of others they take so seriously.
  7. They may be darkly suspicious of sensual pleasure.
  8. They may have a black/white view of many things.
  9. They may live in a small perfect world.
  10. They may be unable to discriminate between big rules and little ones.

How you can help

  1. Challenge notions of perfection. (Does it include forgiveness?)
  2. Find out why it is so important that others follow all the rules.
  3. Bodywork is unusually helpful.
  4. Poetry and art should be included in their prayer-forms.
  5. Help them integrate pleasure into their lives.
  6. Help them criticize their habit of criticism.
  7. Help them relativize their important norms/rules/obligations.