Want to share with others some of your own experiences with men's Self-Destructiveness? (Men as well as women are encouraged to respond)

Click here to email your experience and how you dealt with it. Your story may be included in a collection of readers' reactions to If Men Could Talk to be published at a future date. Note: in such a publication your name and all other names you may mention will be changed to protect your privacy. Also, what you write will be edited for style and/or content.
 

What is Self-Destructiveness ?

When men are fundamentally and completely incapable of expressing aggression toward others, they turn on themselves. This is what the sixth male attribute, Self-Destructiveness (I'm such a loser), is all about. If this makes no sense, think of the power an unhappy child has over his parent's happiness-self-destructiveness is a way of getting back at the other by depriving oneself. If I have a vision problem, how will I guide my patient?

When a parent administers a punishment, say, no Nintendo for a week, the child clearly loses something. But if he is willing to tolerate some extra loss, he can win something else, something even more gratifying than Nintendo, - the chance to punish the parents back, big time. "Here's your Nintendo and all the toys you ever gave me - I don't need any of it!" he can thorw it all away and hang tough, knowing that it won't be too long before his parents practically beg him to play Nintendo.

This powerful dynamic is often at the center of the psychology of such self-destructive conditions as addictive and compulsive syndromes, professional failure, accident proneness, and high-risk, reckless behavior. But it is also to be found in less dramatic problems such as making poor financial decisions, being in a dead-end job, arriving late for job interviews, bouncing checks, speaking without thinking, lying and getting caught, not paying attention, burning the toast, burning the kitchen towel-and, as anyone who has ever dealt with men knows, the list goes on and on.

How can I learn more about Self-Destructiveness?

Click on the back arrow and buy the book now. Read about The Idiot, The Road to Hell, Invisible Man, Winning by Losing, Actions Speak Louder than Words, and Putting Actions into Words; and find out how to avoid being destroyed by the self-destructive man-which, don't forget, exists inside every man.