Written by Alycia Dort
One of the greatest things I've ever done as a part of my therapy was to take a couple of psychology courses in light of educating myself on my diagnoses. To educate myself was to empower myself with the knowledge of the 5 W's; Who, what, when, where and why.
Who gets diagnosed with these illnesses? What is it? When does onset begin? Where does it come from? Why does it exist?
These are all questions I found myself asking after diagnoses, but never could truly answer. It's difficult to battle an invisible daemon, especially when you're armed with nothing but what you don't fully understand. And truth be told, every mental illness is far more complex than "a chemical imbalance" or a statistic on a webpage.
And so we're going to attack what I've learned head on, starting with Personality.
What is personality? When does it begin to form? Where does it originate? Why do we become the people we are today?
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PART ONE
When asked what one values the most in another person, people often answer with "a great personality". But is there really such a thing? When we think of describing someone's personality, we use a whole array of descriptors; Honest, kind, outgoing, hard working- and there are literally thousands of adjectives we could use to convey a personality. Throughout these Personality 101 articles, we're going to break down the concept of personality, what it is and how it is formed; What factors come into play, and the many theories surrounding how we become who we are today.
THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS
In Psychology, a personality is defined as being a pattern of behavioural traits that are relatively consistent across both time and situations.
With so many traits to choose from, however, it can be daunting to try and compare and contrast personalities for the purpose of predicting and changing destructive patterns, which is one of the many reasons the Five Factor Model (otherwise known as The Big Five) was created to assess a personality.
Given that, in the English language, we've so many synonyms for the same type of adjectives, those thousands of traits were funneled down into a final five major traits. You can remember them by using the acronyms CANOE or OCEAN. They are as follows:
- Openness to experience
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
***I'd like to take a moment here to identify that there is no negative connotation surrounding neuroticism; Rather, it represents emotional vulnerability and lability (moderate to severe fluctuation).
The concept behind The Big Five is that each individual will obtain a score in each category. Some of these scores may vary widely, and others may be quite similar. These scores are obtained by filling out a self-evaluation questionnaire, where your responses to a set of questions calculate overall scores in each category.
Having your scores to The Factor Five Model allows your medical team to better predict your behaviour in various situations and contexts. This, in turn, allows us to identify areas we may need to improve upon, or behavioural tendencies we need to work on decreasing in frequency.
For example, those who score high in Neuroticism often benefit from Emotional Regulation Therapy skills. In contrast, someone scoring high in Agreeableness may better benefit from Assertiveness Training.
Let`s take a look at what category embodies:
Openness to Experience
-Abstract and Complex Thinking
-Creative, Intellectual types
-Interest in art and culture
Conscientiousness
-Self discipline and control
-Organized and Determined
Extraversion
-Inclination to seek stimulation from the outside world
-Engage actively with others
-Power, Status
Agreeableness
-Empathetic
-Trusting, Forgiving
-Tendency to put others`needs ahead of own
Neuroticism
-Tendency to experience fluctuating and moderately negative emotions, including fear and sadness
-People rating high in Neuroticism are often ones who also suffer from a mental illness.
-Strong reactions
-More realistic about issues and overcoming them
As you can see, each Major Trait carries with it characteristics that we are able to see in ourselves. Perhaps not to the extent that it is a huge part of who you are, but at least to an extent. This is why we will have a score in each and every category. One trait could never sum up the entirety of who we are.
Better understanding your patterns and reactions makes for huge enlightenment on what may be holding you back, or where you find yourself stuck.
Such a test could never define you by any means, but knowledge is power and educating yourself is empowering.
Alycia
