End-Game Thinking
Disturbed characters tend to feel so entitled to whatever they desire that they believe the ends always justifies the means they employ to secure their wishes.
Some of the “thinking errors” I’ve addressed already in this series on the erroneous ways disordered characters tend to think include unreasonable thinking, possessive thinking, combative thinking, and prideful thinking:
- “The Unreasonable Thinking of Disturbed Characters”
- “Possessive Thinking and the Disturbed Character”
- “Having to Win: Combative Thinking and Character Disturbance”
- “Impression Management and Arrogance: The Prideful Thinking of the Disordered Character”
Disordered characters also are forever thinking about outcomes. For the most part, they are very goal-oriented. That in itself is not so bad. The problem is that they don’t give much thought to how they’re going about getting the things they want. They tend to feel so entitled to whatever they desire that they believe the ends always justifies the means they employ to secure their wishes. End-game thinking is like tunnel-vision. As long as a person confines his thinking solely to achieving a goal or effecting a certain outcome, he’s likely to give insufficient attention to the right or wrong way to go about it.
Because of their other characteristics, disordered characters will often con, cheat, steal, and manipulate to reach their objectives. The way they see it, if others are so gullible or so weak that they can be easily taken advantage of, they consider it a fair victory. After all, for the disturbed character, it’s all about winning.
End-game thinking is just one of the thinking errors that over time promotes the development of an antisocial attitude. Thinking only about what one wants and not giving enough thought to how it’s best to go about it or who might be impacted is a sure prescription for antisociality.
Other articles by Dr George Simon, PhD
This article was last reviewed by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on Monday, 12th January 2009. You can leave a reply below.
The URL of this page is:
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2009/01/12/end-game-thinking/
5th July 2009
Yes Doctor
End Game thinking is so typical of the Alpha personality. I call it self defeating.
My partner for the last 5 years has so tried to dominate the relationship that all her theoretical plans for us have gone south because her aggressive and vindictive temper and spitefulness has got in the way of calm, realistic, empathetic thinking.
For my part, I have been too passive in the face of her hail storms of interrogations, accusations, retaliation and just plain old back stabbing abuse.
Not to mention her sudden lapses of memory regarding the disappearance of some of my property items when I return to her, after ‘cave dwelling’ for a month, to get away from all the distress she has created. Like a good Yves Saint Laurent suit, digital camera, vintage overcoat, shoes, phone power supply, digital video camera power supply, etc. Where the vintage 1940’s, brown herringbone, Harrods of Knightsbridge, ‘Humphrey Bogart’ style overcoat was concerned – it went into the loft, initially, over a year ago, then was thrown out when she had another of her obsessive clear outs. Irreplaceable. She knew that would hurt.
Inevitably, my reaction is disdainful contempt at her cowardly vindictiveness and the erosion of any respect for someone who back stabs in this nature.
I have got to the point now where I care less and less about her personal emotional distress, when, for example, her carefully planned business strategies go pear shaped because she hasn’t set aside enough for the tax man and I’m suddenly expected to bale her out after being repeatedly kicked in the teeth – then stamped on for mumbling!
She calls me a cold, glass-eyed fish and a parasite one moment and treats me like a romantic knight in shining armour the next. Then wonders why the hand brake doesn’t work when the back wheels are dangling over the edge of the cliff as we slide backwards?
Nothing solid to cling to Dorothy!
And I’m suffering from emotional vertigo!
Remember that scene in Jurassic Park III where they are dangling over the cliff in a motor home and clinging on for dear life? The woman falls on to the cracking rear widow, then the cursed satellite phone falls and breaks the window she’s lying on…? A bit like our relationship – it’s just one unbelievable, self inflicted, emotional disaster leading to another. Get off the island Dorothy, you shouldn’t be there in the first place! You and I are both trying to deal with primal forces way beyond conventional understanding or any normal coping strategies.