The Normal Personality

ISBN-13: 9780521881067 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 212 str.

Steven Reiss

Opis

Many Psychologists regard personality and mental illness as closely related. The shadow of Freudian analysis looms over modern psychopathology, driving many psychologists to try to understand their clients' personal troubles and personalities using constructs developed to study mental illness. They believe that dark, unconscious mental forces that originated in childhood cause personality traits, personal troubles, and mental illnesses. Steven Reiss thinks problems are a normal part of life. In The Normal Personality, Reiss argues that human beings are naturally intolerant of people who express values significantly different from their own. Because of this intolerance, psychologists and psychiatrists sometimes confuse individuality with abnormality and thus over-diagnose disorders. Reiss shows how normal motives, not anxiety or traumatic childhood experiences, underlie many personality and relationship problems, such as divorce, infidelity, combativeness, workaholism, loneliness, authoritarianism, weak leadership styles, perfectionism, underachievement, arrogance, extravagance, stuffed shirt-ism, disloyalty, disorganization, and overanxiety. Based on a series of scientific studies, this book advances an original scientific theory of psychological needs, values, and personality traits. Reiss shows how different points on motivational arc produce different personality traits and values. He also shows how knowledge of psychological needs and values can be applied in counseling individuals and couples. The author describes new, powerful methods of assessing and predicting motivated behavior in natural environments including corporations, schools, and relationships.

Recenzje

'… In a time when children, and even household pets, swallow Prozac, Reiss revives a neglected diagnosis for worrywarts, wallflowers, daydreamers, pessimists, and eccentrics alike: normal. He broadens normality by outlining how abnormal behaviors can arise when life motives are obstructed or personal values contradicted. Reiss lists how various combinations of 16 basic desires lead to dilemmas that eventually bring people to counseling. He offers a way to manage personal problems, without cracking the medicine cabinet or the skeleton closet.' Science News

Spis treści

1. My wife thinks something is wrong with me; 2. The sixteen basic desires; 3. Intensity of basic motivation; 4. Normal personality types; 5. Overcoming personal troubles; 6. Six reasons for adolescent underachievement; 7. Self-hugging and personal blind spots; 8. Relationships; 9. Reinterpretation of Myers-Briggs personality types; 10. The sixteen principles of motivation; Appendix A. Dictionary of normal personality traits; Appendix B. Reiss Motivation Profile Estimator; Appendix C. The sixteen basic desires at a glance.