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A control freak is a person who has an obsessive need to control other people or situations. Sometimes a control freak is a bully who wants power. Often a control freak will accuse others of having this character trait when he or she feels that their power is in decline or brought into question. Often they resort to the use of backhanded compliments, and this is also an often used strategy, and possibly even a personality trait among control freaks.

In psychology-related slang, control is the attempt to impose excessive predictability and direction on others or on events, often associated with lack of trust or insecurity, especially in a parent/child, partnership/relationship, manager/project, responsibility/dependency, or boss/subordinate context. In this context the term is a derogatory slang term sometimes used for extreme cases.

Control Freaks in Fiction

TV

• Monica Gellar from Friends
• Judy Gellar, mother of the above
• Susan Harper from My Family
• Bree Van De Kamp, from Desperate Housewives
• Sissy, from Code Lyoko
• Marik Ishtar, from Yu-gi-oh!
• Lois from Malcom in the Middle

Slang | Social psychology

Sociology