Your Personality

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 785, 6 August 1954, Page 24

Your Personality

How much do you know about your personality? Do you appreciate that it is your personality that distinguishes" you from all other people; that .makes you in yourself unique; that there is in the world. no one else just like you. As used by psychologists, personality means what the individual has become through the interaction between inborn qualities and association with others. Thus there are broadly two factors in shaping what is to become the you whom people either like or dislike, that determine whether you shall be happy or discontented, successful or just moderately so. Take, for example, the problem of failure. There is probably no greater single cause of unhappiness than the feeling of being a failure. ck of success by other people we can bear with equanimity. Our own cuts us to the ‘quick. What is there, we ask ourselves, that makes us fail where we feel we should succeed? "What is wrong with my personality that I do not get on with people?" is the question of the person who feels a failure. The answers are various. It may be the goal set_was too high; that one is a "round peg ina square hole,’’ but most likely that one is carrying around within oneself hidden conflicts that warp the personality. Somewhere in the course of life seeanltilee happened to give a twist to what otherwise would have been a perfectly normal personality. It may have had its origin in an unsatisfactory home life, an unfortunate experience as a child, or over-ambitious parents. Consequently, the defect became interwoven in the pattern of the individual’s life. Like a malignant growth it destroys what it feeds upon. e person does not understand what is happening. All he knows is that there is something wrong with him that affects his relations with other people, and that he is not a "success." Thoughts turn inward. A brooding upon the sense of failure, of unworthiness, or being somehow the victim of circumstances takes possession of the person. The next step is all too often a ‘nervous breakdown." In earlier days the person would in polite terms be said to suffer from ‘‘a mysterious visitation of Providence," and by the vulgar to be a "lunatic.’"" Psychological research, with its feet firmly rooted in human behaviour, sees merely a form of mental sickness that has its origin in the life pattern of the individual. The progress of remedial treatment of mental illness is little short of revolutionary. It has torn down the cobwebs that gave gruesome form to fear, superstition and hoodoos of the past. There is no excuse today for propagating the stigma formerly associated with mental sickness. It is merely a form of illness. Like any other indisposition to which we humans are subject it is easily cured if treated early. If neglected, as a scratch on the finger sometimes is, then remedial measures are longer, more complex. The simple, commonsense thing to remember is — mental sickness can be treated successv. New Zealand probably leads the world in modernising her mental hospitals. Old buildings’ are being renovated. New ones are built on the villa system to provide a maximum of sunlight, comfort and an atmosphere of tranquillity. A pointer to this new deal is that in 1913 only 39 _ people voluntarily entered mental hospitals. In 1953 there were 1178 voluntary admissions, and 987 were discharged as recovered Medical and psychological research has made tremendous advances towards an undering of personality problems. It has made clear that the maijoritv of causes of mental breakdown arise out of the pattern of our lives. There is nothing to be ashamed about a lity disturbance. The important thing to know about vourself. To remember that personality is a compound of emotion, spirit, and a complex set of social attitudes (whet vou think about people and things), developed in a highly competitive and complex social organisation. Woven into your social attitudes are the ridiculous and old-fashioned notions abovt mental illness and the institutions in which it is treated. These notions no more belong to 1954 then does the belief that witches ride broomsticks. (Published by arrangement with the Department of Health)