Online IOP for College Students and Emerging Adults in MA & VT
Educational Events
Passive Aggression: History, Theory, and Practice
April 2, 2027 at 6:30 PM to April 3, 2027 at 8:00 PM Eastern
FREE / 1.5 CE/CME Credits
Dr. Kafka's presentation traces the history of passive aggression from its origins as a military diagnosis to its broader cultural and clinical influence, examining it as both an interpersonal pattern and a transference/countertransference dynamic in psychotherapy.
2026-27 Friday Night Guest Lecture Series
Presenter: Ben Kafka, PhD, LP
Continuing education information to follow
In 1944 a team of military psychiatrists, led by Brigadier General William Menninger, set out to investigate an epidemic of "pouting, stubbornness, procrastination, inefficiency, and passive obstructionism” that had broken out among the soldiers. The results of their research were unveiled the following year, in U.S. War Department Technical Bulletin, Medical 203. Alongside "Psychogenic Asthenic Reaction” and “Involution Melancholia,” a new condition was identified: Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder. The idea of “passive aggression” very quickly escaped the confines of TB MED 203 to become one of the first fad diagnoses of the postwar era—a fixture, even a fixation point, in the way we make sense of any number of maddening situations. As for TBD MED 203, it went on to become the first version of the DSM. This talk will consider passive aggression as a historical phenomenon, as a theory of interpersonality, and as a transference/countertransference dynamic in the consulting room.