All these flavours blend to make up a whole human being, able to relate to the world in a rich, complex and flexible way. This balance is constantly shifting as the circumstances of our lives put more or less pressure on our capacity to cope. Then there is the mixture and balance of each segment with every other segment, creating a complex unity which expresses that person's unique style of being in the world. The first thing to do, always, with this unique character structure is to celebrate it, as a brilliantly successful strategy for surviving a threatening environment. If we then start to help someone question their strategy, highlighting ways in which it limits their potential for growth and pleasure, then this is not to belittle the achievement, or the often astonishing beauty and strength of that human being.
Character is a way of growing.
Therapy exists only to support and to extend that capacity for growth - not to undermine what someone has already created in themselves. It remains true, though, and must emerge clearly from all that we have said in the last two chapters about the individual character positions, that character is also a way of not growing. It is a brilliant way of surviving an environment which is, let us face it, appalling.