More on Teacher Strategy 321Those who live within the intellectual sphere of the Teacher person
may in turn be controlled by a form of emotional dictatorship. In the same
way that the Mercy person can use emotional manipulation to set the
standards for „love,‟ so the Teacher individual may restrict the flow of
ideas as a way of controlling „understanding.‟
Mercy dictatorship works best with family and close friends. This is
because a Mercy person can only use emotional pressure to manipulate the
behavior of another individual when there are personal ties of love and
friendship between them. Those
who are emotionally attached to
the Mercy person experience the
internal twisting and turning of
approval being given and withheld.
Those who are outside of the
family often wonder how a certain
Mercy person could be viewed as
a „dictator‟: “But she is such a nice,
loving person; so kind and
considerate.” A
Similarly, the Teacher
„dictator‟ only has control over
intellectual partners—individuals
who have had the emotional Teacher pleasure of exchanging general
Teacher theories with the Teacher person. Once this Teacher link of
feeling has been established, then the Teacher person who senses double-
mindedness can manipulate his partner by withholding the flow of
concepts, just as the Mercy person manipulates his „friends‟ by restricting
the flow of „love.‟ The intellectual partner who attempts to hold on to his
own ideas without bowing automatically to the latest general concepts
from the Teacher person may find himself cut off completely from verbal
interaction.B
Historians indicate that this process happened several times, for
instance, in the life of Sigmund Freud.C When members of his inner circle,
such as Adler or Jung, came up with their own version of his ideas, then
A This manipulation is a form of conscience; it therefore requires some sort
of emotional „hook‟ to be effective.
B A Teacher „dictator‟ does not always have Teacher instability—he may
just be very set in his ideas. It is when the Teacher person uses the force of
his personality to mold understanding that he turns into a „dictator.‟
Similarly, I suggest that any person turns into a „dictator‟ when he tries to
use conscious processing to control the thinking of others.
C Freud was a Facilitator person and not a Teacher person. However, the
conflict still involved Teacher thought and intellectual interaction.