Right Man Syndrome – Depressive Thinking Patterns

These patterns serve to shield The Right Man from the effects of his own behavioural patterns.  He tends to negate feedback from other people in relation to his own behaviours.  The relationship that this establishes is as follows:

“I get to behave however I want to – with impunity – and you are the one that has to make the adjustment and just accept me for what I am.”

And the blaming position of...

“My anger/depression is a direct response of your behaviours; whilst your behaviours are nothing to do with me.”

The Right Man adopts the position of: "You make me angry."

The Reasonable Man adopts the position of: "I get angry at you."

The effect upon the third party often takes the form of exasperation, hopelessness, helplessness and depression.  The Right Man often manages to leave a trail of anxiety, despair, self-doubt and depression everywhere he goes.

Pattern #1 – “There Are No Shades of Grey” - Black and White Thinking.

With this pattern we see that moderation and mediation are not permissible.  Everything is either one thing or another, anything in between is simply not allowed.

Thus The Right Man will often be an alcoholic or will abstain completely.  He either loves someone totally or hates them emphatically; you are either completely on his side or you are against him totally, and so on.  Yet oddly in spite of all the obvious behaviours to the contrary, he will often claim to not have a view on the matter at all.

Nearly everything in The Right Man’s world is an extreme position and his communication with other people tends to force them to choose such a position also, something they may live to regret doing.  Failure to conform to this way of thinking is usually interpreted - and thus exploited - as a weakness.

For example, when asked to moderate his aggressive tone, one such Right Man replied aggressively, “Fine! Then I will stop speaking to you altogether.” 

This pattern is both a spontaneous thinking pattern and can often be employed effectively as a mechanism to control other people.

To The Right Man mentioned above, the author simply replied, “thank you.”

Pattern #2 – “You Have Ruined Your Life” – The Rule of Permanency.

In The Right Man’s world, nothing is transitional or temporary.  Nothing is permitted to be a flux or a developmental stage or process that people work through. 

In The Right Man’s world everything becomes permanent.  One first hand example witnessed by the author was that of one such Right Man informing his 40-year-old son that he ruined his life the day he failed his O-Level school exams – at age 15 (taken a year early).  The fact that this 40-year-old was happily married, had two children, a holiday home in Spain, a successful and fulfilling career, and a fairly decent social life were all ignored by his Right Man father.  The Right Man knew better because he knew the “right” way his son really wanted to be living, i.e. according to the rules and wishes of the father that were projected out to be the desired rules and wishes of the son.

In the eyes of his wife, friends and colleagues, the son was happy, successful and lucky.  But in the eyes of his father, he was a still a failure.

Another example witnessed by the author was of one Right Man describing the real character and personality of his son (aged 38 and also possessing a high life-success index).  Two examples cited were from infancy, and the third “proof” that was cited was from an event that occurred on the son’s 5th birthday party.

The Right Man’s slogan here is, “A leopard never changes his spots.” 

Similar to the “No shades of Grey” pattern, following a minor disagreement with a relative, one Right Man declared, “That man is never welcome in my house again. Ever!”  Twenty years onward, his position still had not changed. 

“That man” happened to be his brother.

Pattern #3.  “You Have Ruined Your Life” – Catastrophisation.

In NLP terms, this is an extreme form of “chunking up”.  For example, a small event is blown out of all proportion to become a catastrophe.  For example, one 8-year-old daughter of a Right Man did badly on her Monday morning spelling test at school – this was met with the declaration from the father that, “You will fail everything if you can’t even pass a single bloody spelling test.” 

Another scenario involved someone known to myself declaring that his adult son had “ruined his life” for getting a tattoo.

Catastrophisation doesn’t require a verbal depiction of the catastrophe – a “silent” catastrophic emotional reaction over a relatively minor event can be sufficient to fulfil the pattern when placed in context of all the other Right Man patterns.  

Pattern #4.  “I Know You Better Than You Know Yourself” – Superior Knowledge.

In her excellent interpretation of Gregory Bateson’s double bind model, Patrice Guillame offers the following example of “superior knowledge.”

The child protests, “But I get on with everyone.”

The mother responds, “With everyone, Cathy?” as though she has superior knowledge.

With The Right Man, he knows the truth - i.e. the “real” character of a person - the character that the person manages to hide from everyone else, including themselves!

One of the popular games of The Right Man is to “put people in their place” – this “place” is decided by The Right Man himself.  He does this frequently should anyone attempt to “rise above their station” or to manoeuvre themselves around in the social hierarchy so well dominated by The Right Man.

Thus, someone can actually be quite successful and happy, but if The Right Man has decided otherwise, he will always regard this person as an unhappy failure and there is nothing that person can do to change their position with The Right Man.  The Right Man always knows him better than he knows himself.

 Pattern #5.  “I’m Only Doing This For Your Benefit” – Acts of Selfless Duty.

The pattern triggers the secondary event of “guilting.”  It usually occurs as a result of Pattern #4 (“Superior Knowledge”) where The Right Man claims to be doing an action for the sake of another person.  The action may be unnecessary or undesired, it may even annoy the person for whom the action is being done, but the recipient must be display an overt sign of gratitude to avoid punishment with guilt, depression, or aggression.

The actions are usually well intentioned, but usually "far off the mark" in terms of what the recipient of the action really wants or needs.

One example that springs to mind is of the wife who was saving to buy herself a car – she wished to gain her own means of transport and independence.  The second hand car she wanted was an estate car that meant that she could take the children and friends out and about.

Just before she bought the car, she arrived home to find a brand new, small, bright green “city” car sat on the drive.  Knowing of her intentions, the husband has bought it for her.  He meant well, he really did, but the car stood out, was smaller than she wanted and was more expensive than she and her husband could actually afford.

In short he bought her a bright green emotionally charged and laden white elephant. 

This kind of scenario happens in the best of relationships and here is only significant when placed into the context of the other Right Man patterns.

In this example, the wife’s choice was to reject the car and thus face the trauma of a full-blown Right-Man-in-indignation attack, or drive around conspicuously in the white elephant.

And yet he only bought it for her benefit.

Pattern #6.  “Just Deserts.  Trapped By Your Own Words” – Linguistic Wizardry.

The Right Man is adept at tracking another speaker’s words and will look for the slightest contradiction and then exploit it.  The Rule of Permanency is also invoked, so any contradiction expressed over time is also exploited.  So something expressed last year that is contradicted today will quickly be jumped upon.  Thus, the other speaker cannot have a change of mind, opinion, or desire where The Right Man is concerned, unless of course The Right Man grants his permission.

All this of course comes as quite a surprise to the attackee, who had long since given up the notion of trying to get The Right Man to actually act as though he were indeed listening to a word that the attackee ever said anyway.

A common thing with observers of Right Men is the issues how just where the Right Man gets his information as he so rarely appears to be listening.

The Right Man is very skilled in subject-changing, not listening and ready distraction when someone else is speaking. This gives the impression to the speaker that the Right Man doesn't actually ever listen. This is also a trap.

Pattern #7. “The End of The Matter” – Finalisation.

This is easily identified in The Right Man by a number of catchphrases that all exhibit the same characteristic. 

The right Man has the habit of ending conversations.

Essentially the catchphrases dictate that, “I have the final word here and you and the subject at hand are therefore dismissed.”  If challenged, The Right Man simply repeats the catchphrase with greater emphasis.  If challenged further, an escalation will ensue invariably leading to aggression with indicators of threats of violence (see Pattern #9.)

Common catchphrases that shut down communication and ensure that the last word is maintained take the form of:

“...full stop!” 
“…period!”
“…and that is the end of the matter!”
“…end of story!”
“…there is no further discussion!”
“…that’s it!”
“…I have spoken!”

These phrases are often accompanied with a fist banging down and/or a sideways slicing motion with the palm of the hand downwards.

Pattern #8 - "Shutting Down Conversation - Movement To Closure."

This one is difficult to describe without demonstrating it with vocal tonality. In this pattern the Right Man continuously seeks to shut down another person's communication.

This is achieved with a combination of gestures, body postures and tonality - essentially it looks like a man about to end the conversation by walking away, the tone that says he suddenly needs to be somewhere else and so forth.

From the moment the speaker starts talking, he is given the impression that he needs to be quick as the Right Man has to be somewhere else.

As one client told me, "I only ever have 20 seconds to say anything to my father before he leaves the room, changes the subject, shouts me down, or simply changes the subject."

Pattern #9. “I’m Warning You!”  Indicators of Violent Threats.

Gregory Bateson gives a great analogy when referring to dogs at play and adult dogs cautioning pups: “The playful nip denotes the bite, but it does not denote what would be denoted by the bite.”

You might need to read that a few times before it makes sense.

The Right Man rarely gives violent threats, but will often to be seen giving an indicator of a violent threat.  For example, rather than waving his fist in the face of another person whilst shouting, “Shut up or I will thump you!” he is more likely to be seen in normal conversation utilising dominant body posture and tonality and adopting the pointed finger. 

The whole demeanour is characterised as, “I am dominant and will not be crossed by you.”

To paraphrase Bateson, “The pointed finger denotes a fist, but does not denote that which is denoted by a fist.”

This position enables The Right Man to deny ever being aggressive and enables him to experience other people’s fear or submission as a weakness emanating from them, rather than as feedback to his own demeanour.