Are You a ‘People-Pleaser' or an ‘Injustice Collector'?

"‘People-pleasers’ and ‘injustice collectors’ tend to suffer from the same basic problem: a lack of self-esteem. Trevor Dickinson explains these different personality types and how they fit into the larger family business."

- By Trevor Dickinson

You cannot overcome the effect of a family rift, or begin to heal from any hurt, if you don’t acquire a good sense of the underlying reasons it occurred in the first place. Most people have only a dim idea of their family dynamics, and few think to question what gave rise to their family’s unique way of interacting.

One way to make this discovery is to look at your family as if it were a play to understand the larger meaning of the story, and how the characters behave in relation to each other. You’ll need to pay attention to your own role, of course.

Here’s something you can count on: every family plays out its own particular drama. And when that drama involves a rift, every player tends to enact (to a greater or lesser extent) one of two roles: injustice collector or people-pleaser. If you don’t become aware of your own role, you could play it for years.

THE INJUSTICE COLLECTOR

‘Injustice collectors’ are people who tend to see injustices in many, if not most, things that happen to them in life.

They misperceive small slights and turn them into major events and may accumulate these injustices for years. Their response to these injustices, whether real or perceived, can be highly disproportionate to the original grievance.

Here are some characteristics of injustice collectors:

1. They are never wrong. How is this possible? Simple! They’re always right.