Tiaksur Personality and Personal Illness
- Author:
Foulds
in collaboration with T. M. Caine
Tavistock Publications, 90p Issued in the Social Science Paperback series by Tavistock Publications, this book is by two clinical psychologists who are both involved in practical work and research. In discussing their main thesis?that it is important to distinguish between personality traits and attitudes on the one hand, and symptoms and signs of mental illness on the other ?they report on research work undertaken by using schemes such as the Hysteroid-Obsessoid Questionnaire and the Symptom Sign Inventory. So, it is not a general book directed to the layman, but rather those professionally involved in psychology and psychiatry. (This paperback edition is a rework of a book originally published in 1965, but it is not clear as to whether there is only a change of format, or of content as well.)
The layout of this edition is good because it falls into clearly defined sections, and each chapter has a summary of conclusions and findings at the end. There is a total summary at the end of the book. It is very easy, therefore, to see the argument taking shape as the authors go along. There are useful appendices laying out the HysteroidObsessoid Questionnaire, the Five Punitive Scales and the Symptom Sign Inventory. There are very full reference sections so that other workers in the field can usefully use this as a reference and source work.
The authors deal with important topics currently being discussed in psychiatry such as the inadequacy of existing systems of psychiatric classification, and the importance of distinguishing between personality characteristics and what is called personal illness. They hope that the ‘instruments’ they have designed will serve to resolve these difficulties and present experimental evidence to support their value.
Some people may find the use of such terms as ‘hysteroid’ and ‘obsessoid’ confusing, thinking more often of the terms ‘hysterical’ and ‘obsessional’, but the authors hope thereby to make the important distinction between hysterical personality traits on the one hand and hysteria as an illness on the other; and likewise between obsessional character traits and obsessional neurosis. Throughout the book they are careful to give precise definitions when they introduce new terminology.
In their theoretical presentation they distinguish personality traits and attitudes as emphasising the continuities of behaviour, while the symptoms and signs ol personal illness emphasise the discontinuities. Traits and attitudes are universal, and relatively enduring, whereas symptoms and signs of illness are non-universal, distressful and relatively transient. Later they use the capacity to determine one’s own actions as the hallmark of health. When we talk about types of people we ask ‘Why did he do that?’, whereas when we talk about illness we ask ‘what made him do that?’.
The chapter which will cause most interest is the one dealing with the aims and methods of a therapeutic community approach. Using their ‘instruments’ they give examples of an attempt to measure changes in symptoms, attitudes and character traits in a group of chronic neurotics in a. therapeutic community. While few significant changes were recorded at the end of one year, they felt there was support for the ‘mirror process’ of Foulkes and Anthony?that ‘we learn about others through ourselves and conversely’ (Asch) and that the patients in their study attributed favourable change more to interaction with each other than with staff members.
I felt that this book was worth reading carefully, and that important ideas and concepts were to be found if the reader read carefully between the pages devoted to the results of experimentation which are for the professional rather than for the layman. It is not overpriced at 90p and is a welcome addition to the library shelf because it attempts to bridge the gulf between psychological experimentation and investigation on the one hand, and the daily clinical practice of psychiatry on the other.
Mitchell
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