I just got an email from a young therapist asking what I do with people suffering from ADHD and social anxiety. Having been engaged in psychology for 60 years, I am familiar with these diagnoses and psychological problems, but I told this “newbie” that I actually don’t approach people from a pathology-based (problem-based or mental health-based) basis but rather from an understanding of the person and then work to help that individual adapt to the world, whether people, property, work, or education. I doubt that she understands this point of view because almost all of psychological treatment these days is based on some kind of mental health diagnosis. So, if we don’t work from a pathology-based diagnosis, what is the foundation of our approach? Good question. In a nutshell, it is from a positive standpoint, i.e., what is “right about people,” not what is wrong them. What we find in this approach is people strengths, abilities, passions, gifts, and interests. Then we proceed to find ways to help people use these strengths to adapt to the world. You might remember that we did a blog on adaptation a while ago[DB1] . We find that people haven’t effectively adapted to the world for many reasons, but the most prominent one is that they use their strengths to a fault. What does that mean?

Strengths to a fault

What does this mean? The expression “to a fault” has been used in English for at least two centuries but is not a common expression these days. Simply, it means that what is considered to be a good characteristic or good behavior from a person may somehow be less than good. I remember hearing the expression from a friend when he said my father was “generous to a fault” because he always paid the restaurant bill when we were out to eat. My dad was a generous person, and there is clearly nothing wrong with being generous, but the oddity of his generosity to a fault is that sometimes his generosity actually hurts, offends, or even harms another person. In the case of our joint dinner dad’s generosity hurt my friend who wanted to treat us to dinner. Situations where someone does something to a fault are very difficult to manage because the person doing a good thing probably does not know that his/her action, however good in origin and in content, has caused offense, hurt, or disappoint in another person.

All strengths to a fault start with some trait, personal nature, words, or action which are good in their origin. They are usually good in their content as well. But they may not actually be good for the other person, which is where the rub comes. Here are some strengths to a fault that I have seen and the deleterious effects that they have had. As you will see, some of these bad effects are on the person, him/herself, sometimes on another person or entity, and sometimes not good for the environment:

• Helping: this is perhaps the most common strength to a fault, namely when one person seeks to help another person, which does not go well
  • This morning I heard a man talk about how his wife and he were entertaining his son and his girlfriend, and they were preparing a homemade pizza. While this man and his son were at the counter, he noted that his son had kneaded the pizza dough sufficiently and told his son that the dough didn’t need any more kneading. This man was simply aware that if you knead dough too long, it can become weak and not work properly. His son got upset when dad advised him of the need to lessen up on the dough. The man said that he couldn’t understand why his son was upset and “defensive” and evidently told his dad to “stop criticizing him.”
  • Another man, when still married to his former wife who was alcoholic, for years helped her to bed when she did come home late, continually cleaned up the messes she made of property, finances, and the care of their daughter. Technically we could say that he enabled his wife. In his mind, he was just doing what “every spouse should do for the other spouse: take care of them. His helping her didn’t help, she eventually abandoned the family, and reportedly died of alcoholism a few years later.
  • Taking over when a child doesn’t know how to do something, like hanging clothes on the line, using a hammer, or swinging a golf club can fall into this category of helping to a fault. Many parents help their children do things instead of waiting until the child finds a way to do something, perhaps by trial-and-error. It is good for children to work at something, fail, and try again. Too much help leads to children being too dependent and ultimately not developing confidence in doing things that they don’t want to do or are hard. I admit to having been that kind of parent occasionally.
• Talking too much. Extraverts tend to do that, and often dominate the conversation with an implicit disregard for what someone else might say
• Talking too little. Introverts tend do to that, often waiting for the right moment to speak, which never comes, or musing to find the exact words before speaking
• Kindness. How can it be “wrong” to be “too kind?” It is not wrong but kindness to a fault can lead to the kind person feeling resentful that their kindness is not returned
• Selflessness. Do you know people who always put the other person ahead of themselves and may not actually take care of themselves?
• Selfishness. On the other hand, some people are so good at “taking care of themselves” that they fail to find a balance of self-care and other-care
• Working. Such people are often so tired that they crash in bed after their 16 hours of working. Maybe they got a lot of things done but they ended up not having time for play, for friends, or for rest. They might also suffer physical or medical problems for lack of proper rest
• Playing. There are people whom we call “players” by temperament. These folks seek excitement and experience and are generally fun. They can fall into addictions because such behaviors are instantly excitement and experiential. Additionally, they may play so much, so hard, and with such abandon that they may physically harm other people in their play
• Planful. These are the people who plan their day, their week, their year, or their lives. Planning is always good, but these folks may miss the opportunity for spontaneous fun, learning, or experience because there is always something on the to-do list
• Spontaneous. Are you a person who is good at seeing something and then just doing it? This can be very rewarding, good for you, and maybe good for other people. Often spontaneous people never get to the list of things that need to be done, tend to be late for events, and make promises that they forget about
• Spiritual. How can spiritually ever be to a fault? Perhaps your understanding of the universe is the power of God, or maybe the opposite, that God doesn’t exist. There is a danger of having such a powerful belief that you fail to consider how other people experience spirituality
• Rational. Jack is very objective in how he sees the world. He values honesty, truth, and justice. Because of his strong belief system, he tends to ignore the emotional impact of his statements
• Emotional. Sally is quite aware of her feelings and the feelings of other people and always seeks harmony. She tends to feel hurt and say that she is hurt giving people the impression that they “can’t say anything to her” that doesn’t hurt her
• Quality. Are you a person who wants to do things right? You may also find that you are never quite satisfied with something that might be good enough because of the kind of perfectionism that you exude
• Quantity. Maybe you’re good at doing a lot of things, doing something quickly, and getting a lot done. You may suffer from doing things in less than an adequate way, which may lead to disregard for quality and possibly disregard for quality-oriented people
• Intelligent. Do you know that there may be as many as seven different kinds of intelligence? You may be good with words, math, music, art, beauty, nature, or relationships. It is possible, however, to think that people who might not have the gift you have are good at a different kind of intelligence. In a literary scholar smarter than someone who is musically talented? No, just smarter in one arena

How to moderate the “to a fault” tendency

1. Take look at your strengths, whether intelligence, quality, quantity, introversion, extraversion or whatever. Note that you might simply be better than people, even most people. See your skill, strength, ability, or passion as a gift that you can treasure.
2. Be confident in who you are and what you’re good at. Engage the world with this strength and do your best to be of service to the world.
3. Realize that your gift or gifts might be substantially different from others’ gifts. See if you can see other’s gifts as remarkable, if different from yours. Do you admire, as I do, people who have artistic or musical talent, while I have very little? Admiration is a kind of envy but not jealousy or resentment, much less any kind of denigration of the other person’s ability.
4. Use your gift or ability as much as possible. It can serve the world.
5. Note that occasionally you may be better at something, smarter at something, or more informed. This does not make you a better person, just better at something.
6. Note the times that you might overrun someone because you are so good at something. You might hear some negative emotional reaction from someone because you hurt them with what you said or did.
7. Apologize honestly and frequently…but not to a fault. A genuine apology is not a statement that you are wrong or should be ashamed. It might have been simply a time when you were so excited about something that the other person felt hurt, inferior, afraid, or angry.

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