September 21, 2020

Yesterday Rebecca and I waited on line to get our extra strength flu shot in the drive through at Castle Medical Center. This morning I woke up very tired, mostly sitting on comfortable chairs or lying down. I napped periodically throughout the day feeling more myself in the later afternoon. 

So who is this that I call myself?

I'm drawn to the subject of personality and our current understanding of this term. My training has been in psychiatry so I'm more familiar with the DSM V a book of diagnoses and definitions published by the American Psychiatric Association. The personality disorders are grouped into three clusters where cognition defined as ways of perceiving and interpreting the self, others, and events, affectivity defined as the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional responses, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control are enduring patterns over time impairing social, occupational, and other important areas of functioning. I trust that most of my readers and myself do not have such diagnoses. In my discussions with friends and colleagues over the years there is more interest in our personality since we recognize that our personalities differ. Through the course of our lives many of us have taken various popular personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs. From Wikeperdia "Jung's typology theories postulated a sequence of four cognitive functions (thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition), each having one of two polar orientations (extraversion or introversion), giving a total of eight dominant functions. The Meyer-Brigg is based on these eight hypothetical functions, although with some differences in expression from Jung's model." Myers-Brigg utilizes these functions through a questionnaire approach giving the recipient some picture of where they can find themselves in these eight functions. Some of us may have taken the Rorschach Ink Blot test which is a projective test in which ours responses to ambiguous standardized ink blots leads to various interpretations about our personality functioning.  The MMPI-2 is also a standardized questionnaire which then has various factors which can indicate certain personality issues of the test taker.

The five factor Model is now accepted by some giving a handle on how we can categorize our personality. Openness to experience is a dipole describing our approach to experiences in our lives from inventive/curious to consistent cautious. Conscientiousness describes the dipole from efficient and organized to extravagant and careless. Extraversion dipole has characteristics of outgoing and energetic to solitary reserved. Agreeableness dipole varies from friendly compassionate to solitary reserved. Finally neuroticism varies from sensitive nervous to resilient and confident. 

When I became more interested in Child Psychiatry I liked the concepts of temperament that had some good empirical data to support this concept. The research of Stella Chess and her colleagues did impress me and helped me in dealing with some of the difficulties with families and children. The issues of temperament are complex but deserve some attention since the child's temperament may greatly differ from one or both parents leading to significant difficulties in child rearing. Here are the observed traits I copied from Wikipedia for our interest.

"Observed traits:

• Activity: refers to the child's physical energy. Is the child constantly moving, or does the child have a relaxing approach? A high-energy child may have difficulty sitting still in class, whereas a child with low energy can tolerate a very structured environment. The former may use gross motor skills like running and jumping more frequently. Conversely, a child with a lower activity level may rely more on fine motor skills, such as drawing and putting puzzles together. This trait can also refer to mental activity, such as deep thinking or reading—activities which become more significant as the person matures.
• Regularity: also known as rhythmicity, refers to the level of predictability in a child's biological functions, such as waking, becoming tired, hunger, and bowel movements. Does the child have a routine in eating and sleeping habits, or are these events more random? For example, a child with a high regularity rating may want to eat at 2 p.m. every day, whereas a child lower on the regularity scale may eat at sporadic times throughout the day.
• Initial reaction: also known as approach or withdrawal. This refers to how the child responds (whether positively or negatively) to new people or environments. Does the child approach people or things in the environment without hesitation, or does the child shy away? A bold child tends to approach things quickly, as if without thinking, whereas a cautious child typically prefers to watch for a while before engaging in new experiences.
• Adaptability: refers to how long it takes the child to adjust to change over time (as opposed to an initial reaction). Does the child adjust to the changes in their environment easily, or is the child resistant? A child who adjusts easily may be quick to settle into a new routine, whereas a resistant child may take a long time to adjust to the situation.
• Intensity: refers to the energy level of a positive or negative response. Does the child react intensely to a situation, or does the child respond in a calm and quiet manner? A more intense child may jump up and down screaming with excitement, whereas a mild-mannered child may smile or show no emotion.
• Mood: refers to the child's general tendency towards a happy or unhappy demeanor. All children have a variety of emotions and reactions, such as cheerful and stormy, happy and unhappy. Yet each child biologically tends to have a generally positive or negative outlook. A baby who frequently smiles and coos could be considered a cheerful baby, whereas a baby who frequently cries or fusses might be considered a stormy baby.
• Distractibility: refers to the child's tendency to be sidetracked by other things going on around them. Does the child get easily distracted by what is happening in the environment, or can the child concentrate despite the interruptions? An easily distracted child is engaged by external events and has difficulty returning to the task at hand, whereas a rarely distracted child stays focused and completes the task at hand.
• Persistence and attention span: refer to the child's length of time on a task and ability to stay with the task through frustrations—whether the child stays with an activity for a long period of time or loses interest quickly.
• Sensitivity: refers to how easily a child is disturbed by changes in the environment. This is also called sensory threshold or threshold of responsiveness. Is the child bothered by external stimuli like noises, textures, or lights, or does the child seem to ignore them? A sensitive child may lose focus when a door slams, whereas a child less sensitive to external noises will be able to maintain focus."

Well, we all have characteristics in which our ways of problem solving, our emotional reactions to events and interactions, our ability to adapt to changes in our environment, our sensitivity to others emotionality and out abilities to empathize, our sense of self and others, our independence or dependence, etc. can be different. 

My journey through life has been associated with my personality and temperament but as I travel through this life I appreciate more that other friends and neighbors differ sometime greatly in personality characteristics. Some people I find very consistently function in ways that are uncomfortable for me so my associations with them are more limited. Fortunately most of my associations are pleasant, fulfilling, and I learn and share with them with delight.    

Leonard