Original_To:  BITNET%"PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 22:00:00 EDT
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         ADLIN@UTKVX.BITNET
Subject:      Three Issues on Personality

        A few issues have been troubling me for a while now and I thought it
would be a good idea to present them to the users on this list.  I'm hoping
that they stimulate discussion (I'm certain they will).  I will give each
issue a title for easy reference.

"Personality":

        I was speaking to a professor the other day who made a comment to the
effect that no personality variable exists that hasn't been accounted for by
genetics, the data primarily from twin studies.  I've read about this before
(I'll have to dig through my files) but I never confronted the issue.  I
mentioned to this professor that adult attachment researchers have proposed
many personality variables to be related to attachment style (with some
support, if I remember correctly).  Attachment style IS strongly influenced
primarily by the quality of caregiving.  He maintained that the qualities of the
caregiver merely interact with an already existing personality structure
(presumably temperament or other latent personality charactersitics that will
evetually blossom from a biological predetermination).  Furthermore, he said
that an adult attachment researcher (possibly Bretherton) wrote a book and
stated that adult attachment researhers have had a hard time relating
personality variables from attachment style.

        Lately, I thought of self-esteem.  It hardly seems that self-esteem
can be accounted for by genetics.  I'm not aware of any twin studies on
self-esteem.  Self-esteem, although I'm not well acquainted with the research,
is highly related to environmental and personl history variables.  Moreover,
self-esteem is highly related to attachment style; security is related to
high self-esteem and insecurity to low self-esteem.  Attachment style, and
self-esteem I presume, are related to different kinds of coping styles
(eg, support-seeking, problem oriented, avoidant).  It hardly seems that these
variables, which are so much a part of personality, can be accounted for by
genetics.  So, please comment or add to this argument.  What I'd really
appreciate is some information on twin studies.  Are there possible confounds?
I'm aware that none of the concordance rates obtained were ever perfect, but
I'm inclined to believe that "nurture" has more to do with the developing
individual than "nature."

"Rorschach":

        On one of the anima replies someone made a comment about the utility
of Rorschach's despite being psychometrically weak.  I've read a paper that
summarizes very well the weaknesses of projectives.  What comes to mind is
that any measure that shows signficant differences (and that the effect is
replicable) between groups, determined a priori, is tapping into something.
It is true, I believe, that how those differences are interpreted is another
matter and might not be exactly reflect the inferred constructs that
projective testers think they do.

"Memory":

        My advisor had us read a paper he presented titled, "Retrieval of
Childhood Memories in Psychotherapy: Clinical Utility and Historical
Veridicality are not the Same Thing."  The title is an adequate summary of his
thesis: The traumatic memories that a client reveals cannot be taken as
authentic, nor can they be taken as false; there is no way of knowing whether
they are true or not, nor does it matter.
        Regardless of their authenticity, it is therapeutic to help the client
construct a narrative that includes the traumatic "memory" to make sense of it.
        It has been a dictum in psychodynamic therapies that the truth will set
you free.  The paper also presents a case in which the client believed that he
was abducted by aliens and examined.  According to the client, the aliens
attached a peculiar machine to his penis to obtain samples of sperm.  This
was believed by the client to be the cause of some presenting symptoms
(difficulty sleeping and working).  My advisor told him that it was operating
hypothesis that the abduction did not actually happen.  Nevertheless, he
treated him in regard to his own passive-dependent longings, suggested by
some of the symbolic manifestations of the abduction material.  According to
the paper, the client "returned to his usual level of interpersonal
engagement, and his productivity at work improved."  He writes further, "What
we did, worked."  Nevertheless, the client walked out of my advisor's office
utterly convinced that he had been abducted, just as when he came in.  I find
this amazing, but mostly disturbing.  It is difficult to accept that a cure
can be effected by allowing an individual to continue to support such
"delusions," and that the truth doesn't "set you free."  All this harks back to
Freud's seduction hypothesis.  WHen a client reports a memory, should the
authenticity of it be considered, or is it the therapist's job to assist the
client in constructing a narrative that helps him or her make sense of it?

Now that I've inundated all of you with these issues, I look forward to
reading your reponses.

Rich Adlin
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
ADLIN@UTKVX
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