(Why You Can’t Communicate With Some People)
Crazymaking is an act of communication sabotage, usually done unconsciously. We all practice it from time to time whenever the conversation begins to make us feel uncomfortable or trapped. We have a way of derailing the conversation or diverting it in such a way as to thwart the ultimate aim of the communicator – to pin us down or trap us. Sometimes we crazymake simply because we don’t like the subject matter being discussed, and it’s a way of moving it away from something that makes us feel uneasy.
Bach and Bernhard, in their book Aggression Lab, define crazymaking as a “subtle yet persistent strategy of one person or a group to upset the composure of psychological equilibrium (‘having your head together’) of another individual or group of individuals”. We actually sabotage the communication process by doing something to those who are trying to communicate. We upset their composure or equilibrium. We do something that keeps them from communicating in a way that gets results. The victim of crazymaking actually leaves the scene with his mind in confusion, actually feeling that he’s going crazy.
Crazymaking, however, cannot be accomplished by the crazymaker alone. He needs a willing victim.
An example of this is the wife who wants to talk with her husband about a problem, but whenever she brings it up, he explodes. His explosiveness is a crazymaker known as “Short Fuse”. The result is that she will not talk to him about the problem because she is afraid of his short fuse. She has become the willing victim of his crazymaking. He sabotages communication by threatening to blow up. She obliges by not saying anything that will cause him to blow up.
If you’ve been victimized like this, you’re probably wondering what to do about crazymakers. I’ll get into this a little later in the section on how to fight crazymakers.
“Crazymaking”, according to Bach and Bernhard, is the most subtle and camouflaged of the many forms of passive-aggressive hostility. The passive-aggressive person does not do his damage openly, like the soldier in uniform who charges with fixed bayonet. The passive-aggressive person is the saboteur who tries to do his dirty work without being caught.
Methods of Crazymaking. How does someone crazymake? How do they sabotage good communication by upsetting the composure or equilibrium of the victim?
1. Violation of Context. When we are with other people we unconsciously agree on how we should behave in any social situation or social context. It comes automatically as a result of the way we are socialized as children. We come to expect certain behavior in a certain context. We have a contextual commitment, and we expect others to honor the same commitment. Being agreed on the rules of behavior in that context, we can get on with the business that brought us together. The crazymaker, however, will attempt to get everyone to behave inappropriately in the context so as to disrupt things and thwart the transaction of any meaningful communication.
I often have resistant clients who try to use this crazymaking on me. When a couple or family comes for counseling, the normal assumption is that a context of good will prevail in the counselor’s office. They and the counselor are there to solve problems and not to attack and destroy. Even when hurtful materials are discussed, it is done with the purpose of healing, and therefore the context is one of good will. The crazymaker will attempt to violate or change the context when hurtful materials come up and will accuse the counselor or spouse of attacking him. Sometimes he will try to get the spouse and the counselor into a verbal brawl and get them to behave inappropriately in the context. I counter this move by explaining to the client that he is in a context of good will, and he knew it when he came. I refuse to redefine the context or go along with his attempt to switch the context.
A variation of this is a switch of assumptions. This happens when the premises or the assumptions are suddenly invalidated by the decision of the crazymaker. This leaves the victim with no launching pad for further discussion. The assumptions they started with suddenly become irrelevant by decree of the crazymaker. It’s another passive way of avoiding constructive impact.
I experienced this with a couple that had come in because of the infidelity of the husband. Halfway through the second session, he declared that his infidelity was immaterial to their poor relationship. The real reason they were there, he declared, was their financial situation. He was a poor money manager. That was a true statement, but by switching assumptions, he was able to get himself off the hook concerting his infidelity, and he got his wife on a less painful subject.
2. The Double Bind. This style of crazymaking puts the victim in the place where he is wrong if he does and wrong if he doesn’t. I sometimes have clients who try to double bind me. They know that I must talk about painful things if I am to do my job. But they let me know that if I do, they won’t come back for counseling. If I don’t talk about what’s hurting them, I can’t do my job. But if I do talk about these things they won’t come back.
My solution is to say, “I feel like I’m in a double bind.” I explain it and try to get a contract from them to take away the threat of not coming back. The super crazymaker will avoid giving me such a contract by using other crazymaking techniques to keep me from pursuing the issue. He will try to derail, overload or switch context or assumptions.
3. The Set Up. This crazymaker is used by the passive person to get people off his back. Suppose a husband wants to have sexual relations with his passive wife. She won’t say no, because she does not want to take the responsibility for being unresponsive. So she sets him up. She will do something she knows will provoke him, like using the newspaper to line the garbage can before he has read it. He blows up and is ugly about it. Then she goes for the kill and says that she couldn’t possibly be sexually responsive to such an ugly man. She doesn’t have to have sex or the blame for refusing her husband. She sets him up to do it for her.
4. Identity Denial. Every person has his own feelings that are his perception of reality. When a spouse or a child reveals feelings and the other spouse or parent insists that the feelings are not proper, the effect is to throw that person off balance psychologically and perhaps even make him doubt his ability to be accurate about his interpretation about anything. The crazymaker is then able to substitute his interpretation of reality. The facts about any matter may be argued. But how a person feels about what is happening cannot be argued. He knows how he feels better than anyone else, whether or not those feelings may be justified.
A variation on this is the crazymaker’s attempt to make the victim feel guilty or ashamed of his feelings or to repeat the feelings back in a modified form. The crazymaker may say, “You mean you really feel that way?” The victim can resist by saying, “You better believe it!”
Another form of identity denial is what Dr. Bach colorfully calls “mind-rape.” Here the crazymaker insists that his victim is not really thinking and feeling what he says he is thinking and feeling, but is thinking and feeling something else. This is not to be confused with mind-reading in which one person asks the other for permission to read his mind or to check out nonverbal signals. When a person does mind-read (with permission) accurately and his perception is denied, this is crazymaking in reverse. The person who denied the accurate perception continues to deny while giving the opposite message nonverbally.
5. Derailing. In this operation the victim is developing his thought when the crazymaker breaks his line of thought by interrupting verbally or physically through distracting movement or facial expressions.
6. Blamesmanship. This crazymaker has to do with assigning blame to the victim for the lack of communication. It usually starts with the crazymaker doing something inappropriate. When the victim reacts in anger, the crazymaker recoils as though he has been unjustly attacked. He says that it was just a “little thing” or that he didn’t know it would be “misinterpreted” or “taken so hard”. The crazymaker’s refusal to accept blame usually makes the victim step up his blaming attack. Then he seems to be the one who is creating the disorder. The crazymaker is similar to the Set Up.
Varieties on this are “crisis making”, in which the crazymaker is always doing or saying something to bug the victim into reacting. Children are great at doing this to each other. Another is “contract tyranny”, in which the crazymaker carries an agreement to a ridiculous extreme and forces the victim to appear to violate the contract. Still another is “trivial tyrannies” that arise out of a context of dependence. A man depends on his wife for many things. As her forgetfulness adds up over the days and weeks to missed appointments and a very uncomfortable, tense way of life, he has experienced a very effective passive-aggressive crazymaker.
7. Bugging. Bugging is any behavior, verbal or nonverbal, that the crazymaker engages in to throw his victim off balance but refuses to take the blame for. The crazymaker may make the victim cry but will say, “You’re too sensitive”. Refusal to take responsibility is a mark of his operation. Again, children are great at bugging each other.
8. Switch of Assumption. This is similar to violating the context as mentioned in number one. This one confrontation starts with a definition of the issue. When the crazymaker sees it going badly for himself, he either tries to switch the assumptions that your discussion is based on (the issue as it was originally defined) or he may introduce materials that drastically alter the assumptions.
9. Overloading. There are a number of ways the crazymaker can do this. “Command overload” happens when orders or demands for change come too fast. They all cannot be handled at once. “Idea overload” happens when the crazymaker is losing ground and introduces more ideas than can be handled, bogs down the communication process and then says that the whole issue is just too complex and is beyond solution.
Another is “volume overload”. The crazymaker uses more words than the victim can possibly feedback. Verbal people are very skilled at overload crazymaking.
10. The Double-Whammy. This is constant, intensive attention – like a fixed gaze that emotionally overwhelms the victim. It so rattles him that he can’t get his ideas together.
11. Moving the Beltline. Most people have an emotional beltline that is easily located. You know what kind of communication is considered “hitting below the beltline” and what areas are safe. The crazymaker who uses this one always keeps you guessing about his beltline. Whenever he gets in a tight place, he can claim that you’re hitting below the beltline, or he keeps you off balance by always making you guess where his beltline is.
12. The Stickler. This is used by the crazymaker who, having learned the rules of good communication, crazymakes by sticking to the letter of every rule. He bogs down communication this way.
13. Being Flip. This used by the crazymaker who is the opposite of the stickler. He goes along with the rules of communication with a condescending, and possibly dismissive, attitude.
14. The Short Fuse. This style of crazymaking is used by the crazymaker who lets you know verbally or nonverbally that he is unhappy and likely to blow up at any time. This makes the victim walk carefully so as not to do anything to make the short fuse blow up.
Sometimes short fuse uses the set up. He will provoke the victim to say something that may hurt or offend him and then he will blow up when it happens.
How to Fight Crazymakers. Crazymakers are sneaky. Their hostility is always camouflaged so they need not take the blame for any communication disaster. Even the short fuse, though he blows up, takes the approach, “You knew that would make me blow up. You are responsible for the explosion.” This tactic is designed to make you even more careful about not doing anything to make him blow up.
The best way to stop crazymaking is to confront it. When you recognize the pattern, stop and say, “You’re crazymaking me!” Then, if you’re permitted, describe to the crazymaker what is happening to you.
Having been called on his game of crazymaking, the crazymaker will reach into his bag of tricks and just use a different one. You must be willing to call him on every one of his tricks. Only when crazymaking is exposed does it become ineffective.
The supercrazymaker, seeing his games destroyed, will most likely try to keep you from talking about it. The double bind is often used or he may even declare that talking about his crazymaking is hitting below the belt.
The best way to break crazymaking patterns is in communication workshops, in which the group can bring its collective feelings to bear. Private counsel is also helpful. A skilled counselor can usually spot crazymaking in conjoint and family counseling. I say, “usually” because even the best counselors are beaten by this crazymaker. I had such an experience even while I was preparing this manuscript.
One of my clients was a man who is an absolute tyrant. He tyrannized his wife at home, and in my office he would intimidate and crazymake me by alternating between the Short Fuse and withdrawal or Overload and withdrawal. He and his wife had been in counseling several months, and I was working on contracts for change in their marriage. He was really feeling the pressure. He had difficulty making contracts because a tyrant doesn’t negotiate with anyone.
One week they came in and the wife, who prior to this looked like a washed out rag, was positively radiant. He was quiet. She felt that they had a good week, even though the contract they had made the previous week didn’t work. In fact, the day after they made the contract she told him that it wouldn’t possibly work, so he agreed to drop it and make no demands on her at all.
Having freedom, she came alive and stopped fighting with her husband and children. Even he had to admit that it was a good week, but then came the crazymaker. He shouted at me, “Last week we made a contract! I paid $25 to get her into counseling and made a contract with her that she broke the next day!”
By the time I was tired of his intimidation and complaints about my fee. I asked him if he wanted to drop out of counseling. He said he did and that was that.
Later I realized what he had done. First, he used the Stickler – she had broken the contract. It didn’t matter that the week was the best one they had in years. He was a stickler on keeping the contract. Second, he set me up with a complaint about having paid me for a wasted session. He knew I would react to his complaint, and I did. He set me up because he saw that his game of tyranny was being effectively challenged by me, and he got out from under the pressure by crazymaking.
Andre Bustanoby, M.A., Th. M Director Metropolitan Psychotherapy Group Psychotherapy, Marriage, and Family Counseling
