Who are you?

Our personality is created through a combination of nature and nurture. Our genes play a role in determining who we are; for example intelligence is a strongly inheritable trait. Environmental factors also have an effect, how we are brought up by our parents, families and the events we experienced in our childhood are very important to the development to our personality.

We all have a personality that is made up of; a character, our behaviour, what our temperament is like, emotional, social and mental traits that are special to us. Our personality influences our thinking and behaviour in all kinds of situations and how we see ourselves.

To gain understanding of ourselves and how we created our limiting beliefs and how we maintain them it is necessary to look at the different parts of our personalities. This helps us to become aware of the parts of us that have been contributing to our limiting belief systems so we can change something that is working against us to working with us.

Every single human being could be described as a combination of the following three personality types. No one is 100% of any one of these three – but most people can identify themselves as predominantly one of the types with some of the other two types hanging around in the background.

These basic three personality types are taken from the IAPH Pure Hypnoanalysis course, which is borrowed from traditional Psychoanalysis.

The Loving Carer

This first personality type has a character that is very compassionate with a loving nature. They tend to be rather introverted and reserved.

These people tend to be self centred (as is everyone in some sense-as we are important to ourselves) but certainly not selfish or obsessed with self gain.

They refer everything inwards (they view every single experience in relation to their own self) therefore have a strong tendency to self blame. They are willing to see their own failings and admit to mistakes and blame themselves for anything that goes wrong. Loving carers can become easily hurt and readily affected by the emotions of others.

Loving carers can have a great imagination and spend a lot of time day dreaming and fantasizing. Building up forthcoming events they then overreact with despair when reality does not live up to their expectations. They give things an inner value that other people cannot see and, if anything, take things too seriously as a consequence.

Having a natural talent of creativity, they are quite often artistic, but just as often failing to find any means of expressing themselves.

In their emotional life they are capable of a great intensity of feeling, but it is seldom that they can find the words to adequately express their feelings.

They have a good understanding of other people and can be very tolerant and empathetic. They are not preoccupied by financial gain or self-aggrandisement. They are basically honest and sincere and a person who would not exploit other people. As they care about other peoples feelings and would not like to cause any harm.

Loving Carers see themselves as being somewhat set apart from others.

They are somewhat over sensitive, and nostalgic about the past.

The most noticeable characteristic are their mood swings. They have what is known as the 'all or nothing' reaction to life. Switching in an instant from being happy and bright and cheerful to being miserable and depressed the next. Look at the mood variations of a little baby – smiling when well fed, cuddled, and secure. Then screaming when tired, lonely and hungry. Like Babies the Loving Carer lives very much in the present moment, responding emotionally to their current situation and unable to take any other factors into account.

Loving Carers often feel very strong emotions but regularly struggles to express these emotions to others resulting in not receiving the same kind of support and empathy that they give out to others.

Basically, this person just wants to feel loved and happy – today! They don’t spend too much time thinking about tomorrow, next month or next year, because they tend to live life ‘in the moment’.

Consequently, they usually find it difficult to defer a pleasure for more than a few hours (which is why they never stick to diets or New Years resolutions!). ‘Compulsive’ is the adjective that best describes their emotional state, and the drive behind a compulsion is ‘I want to feel happy/good/safe/relaxed/loved RIGHT NOW!

Needless to say, weight issues, bulimia, drinking problems, nail-biting and smoking are very common symptoms among these ‘loving carers’.

There is also a predisposition towards a depressed state – which is a result of them blaming themselves for everything going wrong in the word!

Their supporting and loving nature (their ability to easily give unconditional love) is often taken for granted by the more ruthless and selfish ‘Closed Brooder’. We all know opposites tend to attract.

If you were to think of this person as an animal, you would probably think of them as a big cuddly panda (nursing a baby panda on their lap!).

The loving carer is (understandably) usually found to be working in one of the caring professions: nursing, caring, primary-school teaching, counselling, therapist etc.

The Closed Brooder

Closed Brooders are the opposite of the ‘loving carer’… They spend far more time thinking and worrying about their own life, than other people.

Rather than compulsively making themselves feel better right now, the Closed Brooder can offset his pleasure a long time into the future – in fact, he gets pleasure out of being able to defer his pleasure. Their own long-term happiness and stability is the thing that is most on their mind, and their thoughts don’t tend to be contaminated with worries about how others are feeling: it’s all about them. Focussed and driven, this person can spend hours, days and even weeks pondering and worrying over some small decision.

‘Closed brooders’ are responsible for 99.9% of all inventions in the world – nobody else would spend days locked in a room with a computer trying to make – for example – a wind turbine blade with 0.3% better efficiency than any other on the market.

‘Closed brooders’ are not driven by emotions like the ‘Loving Carer’, their most important needs are; safety, security, health, money and power.

They are not motivated to fit nicely within their society, but to rise above it and feel secure in their position of authority and power.

‘Brooding’ is a short stop away from ‘obsessing’, and, if stressed, the tendency to brood and ruminate will likely develop into a full-blown obsessional disorder where the sufferer is absolutely plagued with stressful recurring thoughts 24/7.

As with any ‘normal neurotic state’, when the person gets stressed, the drives towards meeting their main needs in life get stronger and more determined.

It’s no surprise then that the most common obsession - and the starting point for most obsessive disorders - is hand-washing (not ‘compulsive hand washing’ as the medical professional describes it – there is nothing compulsive about it, as there is no reward for doing it).

The ‘Closed Brooders’ preoccupation with health, cleanliness and hygiene (the opposite of ‘feeling dirty!) turns into a very VERY focussed attempt to remove ALL contaminated matter (dirt and grime) from their hands. Sometimes washing them many times every hour. Basically, they become even more ‘closed’ (locked inside their own head, shutting out the outside world) the ability to shut out annoying things like ‘feelings’ are very useful in the business world.

These people are often seen as: manipulative, cold, possessive, ruthless and selfish, whereas they are really just good at making decisions not based on their current emotional state!

Because the ‘closed brooder’ tends to be more detached from his/her emotions, they tend to FEEL more emotionally insecure under the surface, and therefore less validated…this in turn creates a jealous, suspicious and sometimes paranoid side to their nature because they assume that everyone else thinks and feels the same way they do.

A lot of effort is spent attempting (and usually succeeding) to always be in control, in charge, on top of things…. They like to have everything organised, tidy, packed away in their own little drawer (with a label on the drawer explaining the nature, and date of the contents).

They tend to hoard things, because everything has a financial value - and they wouldn’t want to waste money or feel they have had to ‘let go’ of something. In order to stay in control of their environment (their house, job, health, family, money etc) they early-on develop ‘skills’ which help them to achieve this level of control: a strong ego, a focussed sense of purpose, a holier-than-though attitude, a methodical approach to life and self-discipline.

Due to their ‘black and white’ thinking, and, perhaps, a disconnection from their emotions, closed brooders generally score very highly on the ‘Revised Paranormal Belief Scale’ (Tobbacyk, 2004), and is therefore the type most likely to have strong religious or spiritual beliefs (as they are the type most likely to hold ANY strong beliefs).

The lack of open emotional connections to other people (and therefore the lack of these connections coming back) makes it easy to dismiss how other people might be affected by their actions, when they take out their frustrations on other people… couple this with a sense of ‘might is right’, and a strong sense of self-importance and you can see how easy it is to get to a state of ‘my needs are greater than yours’. This person is able to give themselves totally in a relationship (as all three personality types are) but there are always conditions to be met – the love is usually conditional.

Most of their decisions are made egocentrically - it’s all about what they want and need – as opposed to the ‘loving carer’, who tends to base their decisions on what their friends and family need from them.

If the loving carer is grateful for any of their needs being met, the closed brooder is only ever disappointed that it took so long, or cost so much.

If this person were an animal, they would be the squirrel running around collecting all the nuts up and hiding them away for winter…. All the other animals in the forest are playing around and basking in the sun, but the squirrel is focussed on the long cold winter ahead.

The ideal vocations for the closed brooder include: teacher, police officer, scientist, doctor, academic, prison officer, pilot, armed forces, accountant, surveyor etc

Drama Queen

Drama Queens are first and foremost an actor and the world is their stage! Always needing to be the centre of attention and feeling quite ‘empty’ when attention is not forthcoming they feel quite empty and insignificant. They tend to be very extraverted.

Bright, bubbly and exciting people to be around, the Drama Queen is the ‘Life and Soul’ of any party or the ‘Star of the Show’. These people tend to push the boundaries of accepted social norms with their outrageous language and behaviour – even sometimes pushing it a bit too far.

Loud and gregarious, these people impress you with their (apparent) self-confidence. In reality, however, this show of confidence is usually just that: a show. Drama Queen needs constant attention (external validation – locus of control) of others in order to feel good and do not seem to have an inner self-confidence.

People who have this personality type tend to be over-reactive to criticism (over reactive to anything), they are emotionally and physically dramatic.

Everything about the way they act is over exaggerated: to Drama Queens, life is either completely fantastic or unbelievably awful and their behaviour displays that.

This person tends to be very suggestible, and is therefore very prone to reacting to ‘environmental suggestion’. Factors such as the weather and other people are likely to impact upon their current emotional physical state. A rainy cold day may result in misery, where as bright sunshine is more likely to result in a buoyant mood.

Additionally Drama Queens are very susceptible to responding strongly to self-suggestions. As soon as they think about or imagine something happening in a certain way they are likely to respond in a certain rapidly, both emotionally and physically. For example; a drama queen who thinks; ‘I hope I don’t get ill’ and imagines that occurring…may suddenly find themselves feeling rather unwell.

If that is not bad enough they are usually very passionate and demonstrative lovers and tend to be very good at making other people feel relaxed, secure and happy.

This is the personality type who finds themselves most easily to convert emotion in to physical symptoms (we call this: ‘conversion hysteria’). Such as hysteria blindness, hysterical paralysis, globus hystericus (lump in the throat) and other sudden-onset (catastrophic) type symptoms.

If this person was an animal, they would be a peacock.

Obvious vocations for this personality type are: actor, teacher, presenter, singer, ‘healer’, media, and fringe complementary therapies.

Everyone has aspects of each character type within their personality. You can probably see parts of your self within each type and most people have a predominant side to their personality and can identify with one type more strongly than another.

E-mail: stephen@spalding-hypnotherapy.co.uk