Psychodynamic Research
Personality can generally be thought of as relatively stable individual differences in thinking, feeling, and behavior. The most common model of personality in mainstream academic psychology is based on the lexical and factor analytic traditions, and it consists of a hierarchical model of traits that can be assessed by questionnaires. Psychodynamic perspectives on personality are congenial with this perspective in some ways but elaborate the definition of personality to emphasize how representations of self and other develop over time and are influenced by early developmental processes for shaping personality, unconscious processes for driving individual differences (and thus limitations of self-report approaches), and dynamic processes (e.g., impulse-defense dynamics) for shaping transactions with the environment. Within clinical assessment, a psychodynamically informed definition of personality propagates the idea that to understand symptoms of psychopathology more generally, one needs to know something about the person who hosts them (Lingiardi & McWilliams 2017). Capacities to understand and regulate the self and empathize and maintain relationships with others are placed front and center in the definition of personality and personality disorder, highlighting “who a person is” rather than “what (trait or disorder) a person has”. In this way, personality functioning becomes a transdiagnostic treatment target.
For research on personality from a psychodynamic perspective
Individual differences in personality are influenced by genetic dispositions that are shaped via the environment. Early attachment bonds play an important role in adult personality (Fraley & Roosman, 2019; Khan et al 2020). The early caregiving environment provides important developmental antecedents for the core features of personality functioning including the development of self-concept, self-esteem, self-appraisal, self-monitoring, self-directedness, moral decision-making, identity coherence, empathy, mentalizing, perspective-taking and quality of relationships (Aldrich, Chen, & Alfieri, 2021; Deneault, Hammond, & Madigan, 2023; Fonagy et al., 2002; Zeegers, Meins, Stams, Bögels, & Colonnesi, 2019; Zhang, Wang, Liu, Feng, & Wei, 2022).
Personality is relatively stable over time, but there are normative increases in adaptive traits, particularly during young adulthood (Bleidorn et al., 2023; Graham et al., 2020). Personality disorder symptoms tend to decline among individuals who present in clinical settings, even in the absence of intervention (Grilo et al., 2004; Zanarini et al., 2012).
Personality is generally understood across theoretical perspectives as a dynamic process that operates at different time scales and the outcome of which is multiply determined, in a manner that is compatible with psychodynamic theories (Baumert et al., 2017; Kuper et al., 2021).
Unconscious processes are widely understood to influence attitudes, motives, and decision-making (Hassin, 2013; Norman, 2010).
Personality organization, defined in terms of self and other functioning with roots in psychodynamic theory, is diagnostic of personality disorder in the DSM-5 and ICD-11 (APA, 2013; 2022; ICD-11; 2022; Kernberg, 1967; Kernberg & Caligor, 2005; Morey et al., 2022; Sharp & Wall, 2021). This reflects findings suggesting that impairment in self and interpersonal functioning represents the common core of personality pathology shared across different manifestations of personality pathology (Hopwood et al., 2011; Bender et al., 2011; Sharp et al., 2015; Beeney et al., 2019). Personality functioning can be assessed across diagnoses within clinical samples and is determined by how well individuals negotiate major developmental tasks across the lifespan (Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2011; McWilliams, 2011; Fonagy et al., 2002). Clinicians view the assessment of impairment in self and interpersonal functioning as useful in identifying core deficits of personality pathology for treatment planning in both adults and adolescents (Morey et al., 2019; Morey, Skodol, & Oldham, 2014; Morey, 2018; Heltne et al., 2022; Nelson et al., 2017; Garcia et al., 2018).
Personality traits change in psychotherapy, and people in non-clinical samples can change their personalities to some degree with effort (Kvarstein et al., 2023; Roberts et al., 2021; Stieger et al., 2021).
The following questions are open to further research:
Can developmental features of personality that determine the overall capacity to adapt and function (i.e., personality organization or functioning) be distinguished from stylistic features of personality that determine the way functioning is expressed (i.e., traits or dynamic processes that distinguish individuals at the same level of functioning) (Garcia et al., 2021; Kernberg, 2004)? Currently, these two domains reflect the major components of personality diagnosis in the DSM-5 and ICD-11, but the distinctions between these domains is controversial.
What are the differences in terms of etiology, stability, dynamics, and correlates between normal range personality functioning, clinical personality disorder, and other types of mental health problems?
How do genetic, phenomenological, and environmental factors transact to produce stable individual differences in personality in adulthood (Briley et al, 2018; Wagner et al., 2020)?
What can a dynamic understanding of individual differences add to a descriptive account of personality for understanding individual differences, psychiatric diagnosis, etc. (Wright et al., 2023; Zimmermann et al., 2012).
To what degree does personality organization and functioning relate to the likelihood to regress under stress?
How do cultural, contextual, and environmental factors impact the expression of personality?
What role does neurobiology and pathophysiology play in psychodynamically defined personality? Is a full account of personality functioning across levels of analyses possible and if so, what does it look like?
How do developing representations of self and other interact during childhood through adolescence and adulthood to influence an individual’s position on the continuum of healthy to unhealthy personality?
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