2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Author: YANINA BREYDAK
This is an article based on the book "Psychoanalytic Diagnostics" by Nancy McWilliams, which tells about the main psychological defenses, different personality types, how these individuals apply these defenses, and what can be done about it in therapy.
Before we start looking for all the diseases in ourselves and diagnose others by avatars, it is important to understand what the level of personality development and the type of character organization is.
Personality development levels
The level of personality development is of 3 types:
1) neurotic level (conditionally - the most "healthy")
2) borderline (already more serious)
3) psychotic level (most severe)
In a neurotic, the connection with reality is not broken, in a psychotic, the connection with reality is broken (a person may have delusions and hallucinations). A neurotic can be aware that he has a problem and a problem in himself, a psychotic cannot be aware of this and believes that the problem is not in him, but in the world or in other people. The borderline person is on the border between these two levels. His condition is not as serious as that of a psychotic, but also not as careless as that of a neurotic …
Personality types
And the types of organization of character (or - types of personality) are as follows:
● psychopathic (antisocial) personality
● narcissistic personality
● schizoid personality
● paranoid personality
● depressed and manic personality
● masochistic personality
● obsessive and compulsive personality
● hysterical personality
● dissociative personality
What does it mean when a person has a certain personality type?
This means that he has his own special way of interacting with the world: his reactions to anxiety, his patterns of defense mechanisms and his own type of relationship with people. Under good conditions, this is nothing more than the "character" of a person. However, in the case of trauma or retraumatization, all these reactions can become very strong and rigid, and then we are already talking about a personality disorder that needs correction.
In the book, Nancy McWilliams quotes the words of her friend, who intelligently says: "There are only two categories of people: the first are crazy, the second are not crazy," and she jokingly answers him, they say, everything is correct, therefore, if we we are talking about "crazy", it is important to understand: 1) "How crazy?" and 2) "What exactly are psychos?"
The question "How crazy are you?" - about the level of personality development.
And the question "What exactly are psychos?" - about the type of organization of character.
Which personality at which level?
The question arises: is each personality type tied to a certain level of personality development? Partly, but not quite.
And although a tendency can be observed that personality types with more primitive and rigid defenses (schizoids, manic, antisocial, paranoid, narcissistic, dissociative personalities) are more inclined to fall on the borderline and psychotic level, but not all and not always. Therefore, the statement that, for example, a narcissistic or paranoid person can be both on the neurotic and on the borderline, and on the psychotic level will also be true.
Can levels change and how?
They can. With the help of psychotherapy. There are psychologists who have a talent for pulling borderline and even psychotic clients into the neurotic level of organization. It is generally believed that during therapy the client becomes more and more neurotic, where “neurotic” is not name-calling, but rather bragging and achievement.
Does your personality type change? Psychoanalysts believe that the type of personality, as “the deepest core of a person,” does not change.
And finally: is it possible to accommodate the best of different personality types? Can you be both paranoid and schizoid at the same time? And depressive and masochist?
Answer: you can. Then it will be, respectively, paranoid-schizoid and depressive-masochistic personality.
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