Synergic associate Marguerite Hampton forwards the following article.
Jay Earley, Ph.D.
The Pattern System is a way of understanding interpersonal behavior patterns and their underlying psychological issues. It provides insight into how you relate to others in love, work, family, and other relationships, and how to change those patterns that don’t work for you. It also helps you to understand why other people act as they do and how to relate to different types of people.
This system involves various dimensions of interpersonal relating, such as power, self-perception, intimacy and autonomy, and support. Each of these brings out subtle factors that are operating when we interact with each other which determine how satisfying our relationships are.
Healthy Capacities. In each dimension, there are two complementary healthy capacities. For example, in the Power Dimension the two basic capacities are cooperation and assertiveness. For healthy functioning in a given dimension, you need to have both capacities; that’s why they are considered complementary. In the Power Dimension, you would like to be able to assert your own desires and also cooperate with others. Some people will be more developed in their assertiveness and some will be more developed in the ability to cooperate. Most people have a preference for one or the other of these capacities even if they are capable of both.
Patterns. Ideally you would be strong in both healthy capacities. Most of us, however, are more developed on one side and perhaps weak on the other. This leads to what I call patterns. In addition to healthy cooperation and assertiveness, there are problematic versions lead to the difficulties we have in relating to others. A pattern represents a style of relating where you over-react or respond in a way that causes problems. You react in a rigid, distorted way that may not be warranted by the situation. When you are reacting from a healthy capacity, you tend to respond in a flexible, creative way that is appropriate to each situation.
When you are weak in one of the capacities, you tend to have a distorted, extreme version of the other. For example, in the Power Dimension if you are weak in assertiveness and can only be cooperative, you might have the compliant pattern. Similarly, if you are weak in cooperation and can only be assertive, you might have the controlling pattern. We can show these relationships as follows:
| Pattern1 | Capacity1 | Capacity2 | Pattern2 |
| Controlling Defiant |
Assertiveness | Cooperation | Compliant Passive-aggressive Deceptive |
The controlling pattern is place to the left of assertiveness because it is a problematic version of assertiveness, as is the defiant pattern. The compliant pattern is placed to the right of cooperation because it is a problematic form of cooperation, as are the passive-aggressive pattern and the deceptive pattern. When you are working on a changing a problematic pattern, you need to develop the complementary healthy pattern. Thus, looking at the above chart, we see that cooperation is the capacity that a controlling person needs to develop in order to change, and assertiveness is the capacity that a compliant person needs to develop.
The Power Dimension
Here are fuller descriptions of the patterns in the Power dimension:
Healthy Capacities
Cooperation: Ability to be receptive and work well with others
Assertiveness: Ability to exert power to get what you want, protect yourself, or make things go a certain way
Patterns
| Pattern | Behavior | Conscious Statement | Unconscious Motivation |
| Compliant | Tries to be what others want, pleasing | I am a nice person. | You are in charge of my life.
It’s not safe to exert power. |
| Passive-aggressive | Tries to please and fails, in order to express anger and defeat others | I want to please people but I can’t do it. | I am angry at being controlled, and I will fail, to preserve my autonomy. |
| Deceptive | Consciously deceives others, lying, secretive, manipulative, lacking ethics | I will get what I want any way I can. | There is no meaning to life beyond getting what I want. |
| Controlling | Dominating, bullying, competitive, demanding | I’m in charge.
Let’s do it my way. |
If I control others, then I won’t be harmed or controlled. |
| Defiant | Rebels against power and authority, oppositional; rigid boundaries | Don’t tell me what to do. | If I allow anyone else to be in charge, I will be harmed. |
The Dimensions
The following table shows all the interpersonal dimensions with their healthy capacities:
| Dimension | Relatedness/Openness Pattern | Individuality/Power Pattern |
| Power | Cooperation | Assertiveness |
| Self-Perception | Self-awareness | Self-esteem |
| Intimacy/Autonomy | Connectedness | Autonomy |
| Support | Vulnerability | Self-support |
| Perception | Empathy | Perceptiveness |
| Social | Authenticity | Extraversion |
The Self-Perception dimension has to do with how you perceive and feel about yourself and your degree of self-understanding and ability to explore yourself. The Intimacy/Boundaries dimension involves your ability to be close to others and to maintain your individuality. The Support dimension has to do with how you feel and express vulnerability and need, and your ability to support yourself and be responsible for yourself. The Perception dimension represents how accurately you see others and how much you perceive them with your heart. The Social dimension involves how outgoing and authentic you are in social situations.
Understanding Patterns. You can analyze yourself (or another person) by examining your behavior in each dimension. You can look at how you deal with power, how you handle intimacy and autonomy, and so on. You will have at least one pattern in each dimension. You may also have a combination of two or more patterns (from the same or different dimensions) that produces a particular way of relating. For example, if you have both the needy and entitled patterns you may feel that you deserve to have all your needs met, no matter how extreme they are.
A pattern may be activated all the time or only under certain conditions. For example, you may feel ego-protective around men but not women, while someone else might feel this way with everyone. One pattern might be activated only by authority figures and another only in love relationships. Sometimes a pattern may be activated only with one particular person or one job situation.
Using the Pattern System. As you begin to know your patterns, the system provides much information about each pattern which you can then use to better understand yourself and improve your relationships.
The Pattern System describes each pattern’s usual underlying psychodynamics and where it probably came from in childhood. For example, the controlling pattern often derives from a family situation where you were controlled or harmed; it is an unconscious attempt to prevent that from happening again. The insecure pattern often derives from a situation where you were rejected as a child.
When a pattern is activated, it tends to distort your perception of yourself and others. For example, if you have an prideful pattern, you may see perceptive people as unhealthy because their perceptiveness may threaten your need to be seen in a positive light. One the other hand, if you have a self-judging pattern, you may see everyone as better than you.
Patterns have typical ways of reacting to each other. For example, someone with a with needy pattern will often be attracted to someone with a codependent pattern (and vice versa), but the people may then come to resent each other later on in the relationship. On the other hand, people with needy and isolated patterns are not likely to be interested in each other. Each pattern also tends to elicit certain specific behavior in others. For example, the controlling pattern tends to elicit defiance, while the charming pattern tends to elicit idealization.
The Pattern System also describes how you can work on yourself to change each pattern. For example, compliant people can grow by learning to assert themselves, set limits, and take initiative.
Other Personality Systems. The Pattern System is different from systems of character types, such as the enneagram, which attempt to capture your entire personality in one type. Each pattern describes just one aspect of your interpersonal behavior, and you will have at least 6 different patterns, one for each dimension. In fact, the richness of the pattern system fosters an attitude of looking deeply into a your behavior and motivation with the goal of understanding your uniqueness, rather than just giving yourself a label. The Pattern System is similar the Myers-Briggs test in being based on certain dimensions of personality, but the Myers-Briggs system has little to say about interpersonal issues except for the introversion/extraversion dimension.