Balanced Personality

By Ahmed K. Nazir

Balanced Personality, in addition to purely physical, deals with psychological, sociological, and spiritual aspects of human life. Besides being an interesting read, this book can be useful to anyone motivated to improve the self and interested in devloping and maintaining harmonious and healthful relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Aug 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426991202

Ahmed K. Nazir

Ahmed K. Nazir, MD, is the author of four books in English and one in Urdu. He has served as a physician in Pakistan and England. He has practiced psychiatry in America for about twenty-five years. His writings, mostly on psychiatric problems and concerning Islam, have been published in different newspapers and journals.

Book preview

Breathtaking

Event

SEVERAL years ago, I had placed a mail order for a watch and it had arrived, as advertised, immersed in a bottle of water. It was running and keeping the correct time. For me, that timepiece had remained a conversation piece for a long time. I would enjoy talking with my friends about the unique packaging in which the watch was delivered. I am sure that if this mode of watch delivery is made a routine procedure it would soon become a thing taken for granted, like a spouse after marriage, and we would no longer pay due attention to it. Perhaps, we are hidden from ourselves behind the curtain of familiarity. We seldom wonder at the splendid packaging in which we are delivered into this world.

WE stay gift-wrapped respectably in three layers of darkness, i.e., a double-layered silken bag of water strategically anchored in a gift box with velvety lining and a smooth shiny outer surface which in turn is encased securely hooked in another shock-resistant magic box. In scientific terms, we are enclosed in a membranous wall, the uterine wall and the abdominal wall, respectively.

OUR sustenance in the form of the breast-milk is assured even before our arrival. Armed with the imperial weapon of Omnipotence of Helplessness, we arrive alive in this world quite loudly announcing our accession. Indeed, our delivery into this world is simply magnificent and a breathtaking event.

Developmental Milestones

CHILDREN vary so much in making progress that when it comes to dealing with a particular child the standard developmental milestones may have to be ignored, at least in some respect. The following is a very brief table of a normal child’s developments at different levels:

1 to 3 months

a) Head erect and steady in sitting position

b) Ability to swallow pureed food

c) Quieted when picked up

d) Eye movements or body activity changes when bell is rung close to the child’s head

e) Infant desires whatever is pleasant and wishes to avoid unpleasant situations

4 to 8 months

a) Transfers toys from one hand to the other; plays with own body

b) Feeds self cracker, hands to mouth motion

c) Repeats activities he/she enjoys; may utter: da-da or ma-ma

d) Crying can be differentiated for discomfort or hunger as reported by mother

e) Beginning to grasp objects and bring to mouth, but unable to differentiate safe from hazardous items

9 to 12 months

a) Stands alone; creeps or crawls

b) Holds own bottle

c) Puts objects in and out of containers

d) Ceases activity when name is pronounced or no-no is said

e) Beginning to test reactions to certain parental responses during feeding and may become choosy about food

13 to 18 months

a) Walks a few steps without support

b) Lifts cup and drinks well, turns pages of book

c) Throws and picks up objects, throws again

d) Indicates wants by naming object such as cookie

e) In learning mastery over impulses and self-control child begins testing out limit setting

f) Cooperates in dressing by extending arm or leg

19 to 30 months

a) Imitates building tower of four or more blocks

b) Inserts spoon in mouth correctly; rides tricycle

c) Enjoys rhymes and singing (TV programs)

d) Names object in picture, e.g., cat, dog, man

e) Begins simple reasoning – asks questions Why

f) Can undress, runs, walks up and down stairs (one step at a time)

31 to 48 months

a) Walks downstairs (alternating feet)

b) Serves self at table with little spilling

c) In playing with others, beginning to interact, sharing toys, taking turns

d) Gives first and last name

e) Displays more interest in conforming

f) Can button; points to additional body parts

49 to 52 months

a) Copies square; feeds self well

b) Social and talkative during meal

c) Fond of cutting and pasting

d) Asks questions

e) Understands reasoning

f) Dresses and undresses with care except for tying shoes

TOILET TRAINING

9 to 12 months – Interval of dryness does not exceed 1 to 2 hours

13 to 18 months – Indicates wet pants. Will have bowel movement if put on toilet at appropriate time

19 to 30 months – Anticipates need to eliminate, requires assistance (reminding, dressing, wiping)

31 to 48 months – Takes responsibility for toilet if clothes are simple, may have occasional accident

IT CANNOT be overemphasized that on achieving any developmental milestone, no matter how small, the child should be appreciated and then prepared for the next one.

Personality Development

A CHILD feels sad or may show temper tantrums when away from his mother but on seeing her comeback would quickly run to meet her joyously. Another child, as soon as the mother is about to enter the house, may half-seriously hide himself. Still another might show anger at the mother on her return after her being away for a length of time. We see that the first child forgets the past and immediately becomes happy on his mother’s return, whereas, the second child just tries to be playful but perhaps also to give the mother a momentary touch of the feel of missing him, and the last mentioned one, instead of showing happiness, manifests anger on her return. This child remembers the feeling due to his mother’s leaving him behind and is now probably more interested in safeguarding self from going through the pangs of such separation in future.

PERSONALITY development is quite an engaging subject. Different people have tried to understand the person according to their own observation, experience and understanding, and as such, there have come out various theories of personality development

ACCORDING to Melanie Klein, child comes to see his mother as bad breast and good breast. The former, because the mother had deprived him of his anxiety free state by delivering him on to the harsh world of outer reality, and the latter, because she now nourishes him and takes care of his needs. On realizing that destructive attacks on the bad object will also destroy the good and the needed object, the child develops a conflict that leads to depression in which the aggression is directed toward self rather than the object. Thus, the guilt associated with destructive wishes against the object becomes the precursor of conscience.

Wilhelm Reich saw character formation as an attempt to resolve conflicts over incestuous wishes. He viewed character as a defensive structure, armor for the ego, against both internal instinctual pressures and external environmental stimuli. Character armor becomes an automatic pattern of reaction which retains a certain flexibility in healthier but becomes rigid and unyielding in the neurotic personality. One’s characteristic ways of acting and reacting are exemplified by traits such as Passivity, Arrogance and Argumentativeness.

Karen Horney formulated a holistic notion of the personality as an individual unit functioning within a framework and caught up in interaction and mutual influence with its environment, i.e., Biological needs and desires > < Dynamic influences of cultural and social factors. She emphasized current interactions and motivations rather than infantile libidinal derivatives operating through the repetition compulsion.

Ed. Sullivan concentrated on interpersonal relations and turned away from biological and instinctual bias of classic psychoanalytic theories. He highlighted the need for security, which could only be satisfied through meaningful, gratifying interpersonal or social relationships. He believed that intra-psychic conflicts were derived from interpersonal conflicts by the internalization of external objects and conflicted relationships.

Ronald Fairbarn has stressed that instincts are inherently object seeking, rather than concerned with energy reduction or tension discharge.

Erik Erikson stated that a person has to pass through eight critical phases from infancy to old age, and each one needs to be fulfilled and resolved successfully:

1. Basic Trust versus basic mistrust (birth to 1 year). When the mother consistently comes back to the infant to feed him and take care of him, the child develops trust. He remains comfortable when she leaves, and develops hope in later life. A frustrated infant would develop mistrust and will have difficulty in making intimate relationships in his/her later life.

2. Autonomy versus shame and doubt (1 to 3 years). A kind firmness employed during toilet training gradually leads one to develop a sense of control over self. Too strict approach would likely cause power struggle between the parent and child, and too permissive approach would bring up a sloppy child.

3. Initiative versus guilt (3 to 5 years). Child starts doing things and asking questions. He becomes interested in sex. A boy wants to become like his father and a girl would like to compete with her mother. Parents should be understanding of such changes in their children, and should take interest in them, answer their questions and involve them in play activities.

4. Industry versus inferiority (5 to 12 years). During this phase, child’s sexual feelings go under the surface. His attention goes more to doing things and accomplishing tasks. Role of teacher becomes very important at this time. If not properly encouraged and guided the child will develop a sense of inferiority.

5. Identity versus role confusion (12 to 18 years). The child who passed through the previous stages of development successfully will not have much difficulty in establishing a positive identity of self. A difficult issue for the adolescent is that of choosing a career.

6. Intimacy versus isolation (18 to 25 years). A healthy person would be able to develop mature love and make intimate relationships with others. Erickson has made a distinction between intimacies and intimacy. The former means getting involved in immature passionate sexual closeness, and the latter deals with sharing a mutual trust.

7. Generativity versus stagnation (25 to onset of old age). During this stage a person leads life to his/her full capacity. He/she becomes productive and helpful to others. One who would make no progress would stagnate.

8. Ego integrity versus despair (65 to death). A person who on looking back at his/her life when sees more accomplishments made and the number of successes more than failures, he/she would have achieved ego integrity. On the other hand, one who has led a non-giving selfish life when finds out that one’s failures far outweigh one’s achievements then, other than despair, there is little else left in one’s life.

Sigmund Freud had suggested that the ego (not as its common usage implies but as a conscious part of the psyche) was formed through gradual modification of the id by the impact of the external reality on it, as a result of which, the pleasure principle was gradually replaced by the reality principle. Id is seated in the unconscious, independent of a sense of reality, logic, and morality, but actuated by fundamental impulses toward fulfilling instinctual needs. On the other side, unconscious superego also tries to dominate the ego principally in the role of conscience and critic. An immature or un-conscientious person would be guided by the pleasure principal rather than by the reality principle.

Heinz Hartmann has developed the concept of ego autonomy (relatively independent from the demands of the id as well as from the demands of the environment). According to him it is the autonomous ego functions that bring about a balance of controlling forces that is required for optimal functioning of the organism. His point of view is that of adaptation.

Gordon Allport envisioned personality as an open system in constant interaction with its environment, not subject to the laws of entropy (a measure of uncertainty of knowledge; an index of the degree in which the