Also, what is "normal, healthy" behaviour and what is indicative of conflicted behaviour, "issues", and "personality disorders"?

The question always gnaws at me: Is a person's odd behaviour just a normal variation in his personality, or is it indicative of a conflict/problem (or what we affectionately call "issues")?

To me, personality is those traits we are born with (eg, the Big 5) and the natural condition which Rogers describes (generally sociable, warm, responsive towards others and respectful, self-directing, accepting towards others, self-actualising, etc.).When there is odd behaviour (or behaviour which seems against the Rogerian grain), it's probably because of a conflict with others or with the self (ie, the person "has issues"). For instance, shyness is more a normal variation in personality and doesn't itself seem odd (shy people are bashful, but they still go ahead and make the effort to be kind, warm, socially responsive). Shyness, in other words, is a normal personality trait. Significant or extreme shyness, social phobia, aloofness, or rudeness is probably due more to conflict (conflict with oneself and/or with others; aka "issues"). In these cases, the person is unable/unwilling to express his natural warmth, kindness, or social responsiveness, which I think most of us have and naturally express, despite traits like shyness. This is not a normal personality trait. In fact, I reserve the word "trait" for normal personality characteristics—normal being any characteristics which are part of who a person really is... and I think that anything that is part of who a person truly is is positive and prosocial in nature; anything else is not a "trait"... it is just bad/odd/bizarre/troubling behaviour indicating that the person isn't being able to be who he truly is, usually because he is in conflict with himself or others. To us another example, quirkiness is one thing (much like shyness). Oddity/bizareness is another (something that signifies conflict more than natural variation in personality). We can double-check to see if it's really conflict in play by asking the person the following:

• are you happy, self-actualised? (see http://www.performance-unlimited.com/samain.htm
• is this who you feel you truly are? are you living a split self? (for what I mean on "self", see 22 July 2003 entry
• were you always like this? or did the behaviour start to change after a given point in time?
• honestly, do you feel troubled, or do you feel everything is fine?

If you dig a little with the person with odd behaviours, you will probably find that the answer to some (or all) of these questions is no. If you are unsure whether odd/bizarre behaviour is signifying the presence of a conflict or difficulties in self-actualisation, ask the above questions.

Is conflict (and the subsequent odd behaviours) considered a part of the personality? I don't think so. Personality refers to "characteristic ways of dealing with the world". Characteristic means, to me, one's normal, natural ways of being that are generally inherent of the person (ie, inborn), unimpeded by conflicts (externals). In general, these "normal, natural ways of being" are positive in nature (see my next diary entry—6 May 2003—to see the difference between these normal, positive traits and what I think are abnormal ones indicative of intrapersonal or interpersonal conflict). While external, environmental factors always interact with inborn traits to produce personality (nature and nurture work together), if the external factors (eg, conflict with people in the environment, such as parents/teachers) have greater control than the inborn traits (and hence overpower them), then I think that the person's true personality (which is generally positive in nature) isn't coming through. Behaviour that is conflicted is not representative of the person's true personality. Extreme personality traits (again, see May 6 entry above) is indicative that something is awry; they do not appear to be "normal". In fact, I don't even consider extreme personality traits to be "traits" per se. I reserve the word "traits" for inborn, healthy, positive personality characteristics. Everything else I just consider bad behaviour indicating that a person is no longer who he really is (in fact, when this bad, conflicted behaviour gets really bad, we start seeing what are termed "personality disorders".

Freud considered personality to be shaped through conflicts and their resolution/irresolution early on in life. But surely he realised that the "conflict" was that between what the infant really wanted and felt was good/right and what others felt was good/right. Take toilet training—we all respond differently to this based on our disposition (or, shall we say, personality). But how a parent deals with this activity (eg, punitively vs. warmly) determines whether there is a conflict. If the kid doesn't like using the toilet and the mother is punitive as a result, conflict occurs. If she accepts that he doesn't like it and doesn't punish him for this, but instead accepts him and rewards him when he goes to the bathroom in the toilet, then no conflict occurs and the natural personality remains intact. Also, when she threatens to withdraw love/affection, conditions of worth are in play—and the minute conditions of worth come into play, the personality starts to become clouded, bit by bit.

How do we reconcile all this with Freud? He said that personality is shaped through conflicts and their resolution when we are young. That was the basis of this theory. To me, what his theory explained was, instead, how behaviour comes to be conflicted in the first place (ie, how we come to live a split self in the Rogerian sense). In other words, Freud explained abnormal behaviour only, and indeed, he thought that at least under the current conditions we live in, we're all abnormal anyway and can only ever hope of containing/minimising/living with the abnormality instead of avoiding it in the first place. Personality, to him, was inherently conflictual—the healthy person is one who simply is able to develop the best defences to deal with the conflicts that life imposes on him. Indeed, how could a person express normal, healthy traits like sociability when society always tells us to be less sociable in the aims of, say, doing well in school or business or "being civil". Society always asks us to quash parts of our natural selves—both good and bad parts. In the healthy person, both good and bad are freely expressed and accepted as a whole, hence no conflict. For Freud, both good and bad are repressed since birth and, hence, conflict and odd/bizarre/unhealthy behaviour occur throughout life (and, indeed, are so long-standing that they seem "natural" and something the person was "born" with; they seem to be the person's "personality"; but, really, they're not). My perspective differs from Freud's, in that it sees people in a more positive light and does not assume that conflict is an inevitable and permanent part of the human condition.

See entry of 6 May 2003 for a distinction on "normal" variations in personality vs. "abnormal" personality traits.