Cultivating Nature Verses: Can Psychotherapy Change Our Personality?

Cultivating Nature Verses: Can Psychotherapy Change Our Personality?

Personality development

Theorists have similar and sometimes opposing ideas about how and when an individual's personality develops. The influences of development may include the influence of parents, the influence of society's values ​​and traditions, and/or the environment in which an individual grew up. Personality can be innate, develop only in the first three years of life, or continue to develop into adulthood. Some theorists tried to discover the nature of personality and created theories from their observations and research. Theorists such as Freud, Jung, Adler, Fromm, Rogers and May have different thoughts and ideas about how an individual's personality develops. So which theory is correct?

What do the theorists say?

Freud believes that it is the parent's responsibility to pressure the child to progress through the developmental stages. For Adler, the child's relationship with himself and the environment will not develop normally without the initial bond with the mother. When a child's innate needs are not met, this is the determining factor for normal development in Jung's theories. For Fromm, parents are essential to the normal development of social interest, love and independence. Similarly, Rogers thought that family facilitated the individual development of self-esteem. Parents are also the mediator for an individual's development as an independent entity in May's personality theory. All of these theorists emphasized many influences that can potentially lead to poor personality development at a young age.

Early development

We know that in order for a child to become physically and mentally normal, this is the initial connection and attachment the child needs or future development will be compromised. A child needs to receive food, touch, and exercise, including holding, caressing, and human contact, to build trust and connection with the outside world. A child needs to create a secure base from which to relate to the world outside himself. And what about the needs of a teenager or an adult? Are these connections and bonds necessary throughout a person's life to ensure normal development and the maintenance of a normal personality? Is personality development isolated from childhood in its development and growth, or does it actually develop throughout a person's life, beyond childhood and well into adolescence and adulthood?

Is it nature or is it food?

It seems that many factors influence an individual's personality development and one cannot examine one factor without examining the importance of another. Is it nature or the nurture we receive that determines our personality? It may be that the first few years of life ultimately affect a person's entire life, but what about as we get older? How can we disentangle the intricacies of the development of an individual's personality and its formation in the first years of life and throughout a person's life? How long will this debate last among theorists in the field? Only time will reveal this decision.

The role of psychotherapy

Regardless of this ongoing debate, psychotherapy can be a great way to support, strengthen and even transform one's personality. Often clients come into my office complaining about certain personality traits they like and dislike and some traits they would like to get rid of together. Therapy can be a way to understand and deepen awareness of how we came into being in the world and how we operate in the world. “I sound just like my father,” is what people often say in my office. Psychotherapy can be a way to change habits, old ways of thinking and acting, and ultimately be more authentic to who we really are.

Alternative practitioner psychotherapy

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