Intrinsic Personality Theory

This is another paper I wrote In College.

THE INTRINSIC PERSONALITY THEORY 

 

My theory is called, “Intrinsic Personality Theory”. I decided to focus on auditory hallucinations and the people who have them. The big question I started with was, “Are auditory hallucinations real or part of a disorder (e.g. schizophrenia) as we like to think of it today?” I pondered that question all night and came up with my theory. I must state that I am not much on scientific thinking and believe that although science may have given us much in the way of answers, it has failed us in many ways as well. Like Fromm, I am not much of a believer in “scientism”. 

            As I thought about what happens to the egg in the uterus and how we have learned how the egg, chromosomes, genes and hormones interact together to create a life, I also thought about what we have learned regarding the “disastrous” things that have happened within this process. We know that certain, if not all, mental illnesses have a genetic link and can run in families as is true with birth defects and twins, so can this be a birth defect that is genetic and not a mental illness or could it be both together? The twists of what may or may not be bring about many more questions that could only be answered by research.

We have seen twins, triplets and so on as well as Conjoined twins and babies born with extra limbs and other body parts. While digging into this idea and all that comes with it, I also asked myself if this could be part of why one may have a secondary personality (for the purpose of this report I will identify the personalities as primary and secondary), if you will. Could it be that the egg did not split in the womb, yet, while in the development stage the fetus actually had a split happen within itself? Could the brain have had a split that has produced one or more personality’s trapped within itself? Could the auditory hallucinations young adults suffer hearing and become labeled as mentally ill actually be caused by a secondary that was trapped within the brain? This, if possible would be no different than being born a twin. The difference being that your twin is trapped deep within your neurological web. Now I say that I am not talking about all auditory hallucinations. I do acknowledge that there may be some that can be seen as negative self talk, sounds thought to be voices or instances that some coin as the old tapes playing out in our minds. The last one I mentioned refers to people in our lives from the past that have said something that has stuck within our minds and we can clearly recall that discussion and hear that person saying it as if it were a present event. We can also rule out the situations where we hear our own voices as we self talk. We all do this from time to time and can clearly hear our own voices.

            If this were to be true, then what changes in mental health services would this bring about? Would we use counseling instead of drugs? If one were to foster the growth of the secondary would they be more intelligent and better able to accomplish life’s more difficult tasks? Imagine the potential that has been seen in many individuals in our history that have been labeled with a personality disorder or mental illness that had heard voices. Could we foster this potential by way of self actualization in these individuals? Yet, there are so many questions that I have placed within my report that may never be answered. Just imagine if there was validity to this theory. Do not discount it so quickly either. Remember that some theorize that the book of God was written by men, that in today’s society would have been labeled schizophrenic, yet, today it is the number one book that is shop lifted, is also the most published book as well as possibly the first book ever published by the printing press in 1455 (Wikipedia) and used to help spiritually heal people. Look at how many people in our history heard voices, yet, they changed the way we looked at our world.

When we look at the idea of personality and the struggles that have come to define it, we find that it will always be the one thing that will be surrounded by controversy. Well I am going to bring another view into this picture that will add to this controversy. The following theory will bring some to ponder the validity of it as well as bring some to laugh. The truth of the matter is neither one that is concrete nor liquid. It is a matter that has been in the textbooks since its first inception to the human thought. I will attempt to bring biological, physiological and analytical ideas into this theory of mine and wrap what we have learned in this textbook into the discussion.

            My theory is one that I do not believe anyone has thought of before. I have not read anything about it nor heard anyone ask the questions pertaining to it, yet some have said things that have been very close, such as Carl Jung. It is the theory of the “Intrinsic Personality”. My definition of this is: A secondary (or more) personality (‘ies) within the primary one that thrives for equality. Carl Jung saw the structure of personality as one of, “a complex network of interacting systems that strive towards eventual harmony” (pp 71. Engler; 2006). This is not far from what I am theorizing, yet, he does not see his complex network as two personalities entangled within one brain.

We have already heard of people suffering from personality disorders and clinical disorders such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), Borderline Personality Disorder, Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder (WebMD, 2007) and many other disorders that are flying around out there. The main element to these disorders is the voices they hear that seem to not be their own. I am left to question this whole aura that surrounds this topic. Is it that these people truly hear voices that are not of themselves or could those voices actually be a part of who they are? Could it be a whole separate personality that is actually within them, as believed in DID? I am not talking about the one we see as a hallucination, but the idea that they could actually have another separate personality within them.

            You may think this whole idea is just absurd, yet, is it really? Let’s look at what happens within the womb. Hormones, chromosomes, and genes are the main drive behind which we become when we are formed. They are now finding in research that hormones and genes may be directly related to the whole homosexual issue. We also have had many Conjoined twins born in this world and we know that the egg splits in the uterus to make twins, triplets, quintuplets and so on. So, why couldn’t there be a child born with a secondary personality within their brains? Why couldn’t they truly be hearing that secondary speak? All of the medications that we are doling out to subdue these “auditory hallucinations” may not be necessary and are they truly hallucinations? It may be that we must use the counseling theories that we have used with our primary on the secondary one to bring them into one common interest if that is possible.  

            The one thing we must keep in mind throughout this report is that the brain is still uncharted territory. We think we have some ideas as to what parts do specific jobs; yet, we are not 100 percent sure. We have a multitude of information on the brains connections, processes and much more, but there is so much more that we may never truly understand for many generations to come. While we are still struggling with defining personality, one must ask if we have discounted anything. Could it be that since we see those who are hearing voices as acting in a “mad” or “insane” way, and we have no answers as to why, that we have decided to label this as a mental illness? We know that in our past, we found it easier to label something a disease or illness when we had no way of explaining where it came from. I now think it is time to look at this subject as an option. Yes, allowing this to be an option could throw our whole thought process right out the window. We would be forced to look at mental illness in a whole new light as we had too many years ago. Today we define it by a structural or functional irregularity that can be observed in the brain by way of a PET scan, MRI or other tests. With schizophrenia, they also do an autopsy after the subject is deceased and clearly see abnormalities in the structure of the brain. Could this not explain the secondary may have ownership of part of the cranial space?  

            Now that I have brought up some things in the above paragraphs to think about, let’s look at some more in depth ideas to this theory. The question I had about the secondary was, “why does it wait until certain ages to hit in most people”? I believe the answer to this is best described in Erikson’s psychosocial stages. First we must remember that hormones and genes play the biggest part of who we enter this world as. What sex we become depends on the influences of the X/Y chromosomes we receive and the environmental influences our mothers are subject to also play a big part in our form and functions as we develop within the womb. Now with that revisited we can continue on with how I see the developmental stages could be a big part of this theory.

As we ourselves grow up and are influenced by the environment; socially, environmentally and socioeconomically we go through stages in our development. Some of us thrive and some do not because of crisis, trauma, attachment and social impacts as well as many other influences. As our bodies change while growing up, our biological chemistry also changes. We know that with these stages, we have to have certain needs filled in our lives in order for us to move forward in a healthy manner. If those needs are not met then we do not move to the next stage in a healthy manner. This leaves me to wonder that if we move through stages and have biological changes within our bodies, could it be that with those two parts as well as the “life crisis” that Erikson says happens during these stage progressions, could this trigger the secondary to emerge. As Erikson states, the stages are “epigenesist”. This means that they are much like building blocks laid one on top of the other. With this complexity of life and the stressors of our environments this could effect the growth of the secondary. This could explain why the secondary is either more mature and intelligent or less than the primary. The personalities seem to never be of the same age or maturity. This could help explain why the secondary is less developed in most cases.

            As we go through puberty our bodies change dramatically and we start to see, feel and experience great shifts in our process of thinking, feelings and how we deal with situations. When this happens, many of those people experience difficulties in their ability to deal with life. With schizophrenia happening in the early adult stages of life, we must ask why it waits until that time. Could it be that it is the chemical change within the brain that causes this? Maybe it is a biological trigger. No one truly knows what causes it, yet, is it a mental illness? Could it be that the people who suffer from this really have a secondary entity within their brains? Could this entity have been kept silent because it needed a chemical or biological trigger to be tripped? Many times we hear of the voices being that of a young child or another sex. Well if it is a younger child, could that secondary have been kept from going through the stages of life and only got some information to allow it to grow to the point that it has? This could be the person’s Conjoined twin that just didn’t develop as we normally think it would.

There is also what is known as “Vanishing Twin Syndrome (VTS)” (about.com, 2007), where one of the twins absorbs the other while in the womb, usually within the first trimester. This can also happen in later trimesters in which there tends to be some remnants of the twin left either within the mother or within the surviving fetus. These remnants can be things like fetus papyraceous, a tiny paper-like, flattened fetal remnant or a tertoma tumor containing bone, hair, teeth or tissue fragments. They have stated that the surviving fetus can have some side emotional and/or psychological effects that seem to be related to this such as, reporting feelings of longing, guilt, or grief or problems with relationships or sexuality. With this knowledge I am left to wonder just how far off am I with my theory?   

Could this help explain part of my theory? I do believe this could apply to my theory and answer some of the questions I have come up with. If one fetus can be absorbed and leave some sort of emotional and psychological effects then why couldn’t it also be a reason for voices being heard within? Since they state in many articles that this phenomenon is estimated to occur in 50% of all assisted ovulation pregnancies I have to wonder how many of those could be proven to have a connection to those who have auditory hallucinations.

You may be asking yourself about those with multiple personalities. Well, this could explain that as well. While in the womb the child was subject to many influences that, in a normal circumstance, would have created multiple fetuses. In this case that didn’t happen and when the brain developed, the split that would have normally happened in the beginning of the development started. This would leave me to believe that it would have missed the biological split and waited until it happened in the neurological phase. If VTS happened and that has an emotional and/or psychological component to it as suggested then couldn’t this lead to hearing voices within ones brain as well? If this is so then we have to start looking at ways to foster the secondaries growth and to help the primary deal with the secondary in an acceptable manner.

            Now that we have come to the idea of the secondary being a real personality and wondering how this can be dealt with, we must cover this in ways that doesn’t hurt the person that is dealing with this issue. One way to look at this is Freud’s approach, psychoanalysis. Can the secondary be psychoanalyzed like the main entity can? Is there a way that we can bring the secondary into a counseling session and work on it as if it were the primary? Can a counselor create or help foster change and growth within the secondary? I feel Alder and his Social interest idea has something that could come into play within this theory even though he may not have envisioned it used in this way. In his Social Interest concept he discuses how human nature has an urge “to adapt oneself to the conditions of the social environment” (pp 95. Engler; 2006). Could it be that the two personalities could be striving to adapt to the others environment? Could it also be that the stronger of the two is trying to impose him/her on the weaker one and take over? Just thinking about this one idea makes me wonder if one of the many styles of family therapy would work to bring the two to a life of one that’s harmonious.

There are a multitude of questions that will never be answered if we do not take an approach to better understanding this possibility. If a secondary can be psychoanalyzed and it can be helped in a counseling approach then can we bring it to a level of equality or harmony, as Jung thought, with the primary? Just imagine if this were able to happen. How many people could we get off from medications that have serious side effects and back into life as we all know it? The way we look at mental illness will change so dramatically that a whole new world of research would have to be incorporated. A whole class of medications could possibly be wiped off the face of the earth. Schizophrenia and all the other diagnoses that deal with auditory hallucinations could possibly have to be taken out of the DSM or restructured to fit the new findings. Our whole world of human services would have to change in order to help those who want to get counseling for the secondary within them. Imagine the millions that would have to be spent on research. Would this also open the eyes of many that would now look at other issues in mental health that could be dealt with in a non-medicated fashion?

            When it comes to a secondary personality, can we bring the two into a realm of equality? What if we bring the secondary, with counseling, to an equal cognitive, social and behavioral level with the primary? At the same time counsel the primary in a way that the person can understand what is happening and bring them to a level that they can effectively deal with this new development. Could we bring in some of Skinners behavioral approach? Is it that the secondary has not been influenced by the same operant behaviors as the primary? It would seem to be so; yet, in most cases it would seem that there are less of societies restraints on that entity. So if this were to have some validity to it could we use shaping to bring about the desired effect we want from the secondary or would we approach it with operant conditioning to bring about a slower change in which may create less of a power struggle? One is left to ponder that it may already be taking place with the medications we use to quiet the voices. Is this not a form of operant conditioning? The behavior is what the voices make us do, think or feel and the reinforcement is the medications effects on those voices. If the person no longer wants to hear the voice then the medication is truly a form of behavior modification. Yet, could we do this in a non-medication way? Could we modify the behavior of the secondary to conform to the needs or wants of the client? I also wonder if Maslow’s Hierarchical Theory could shed some light on this subject. Does the secondary just need certain needs met in order to bring it to a harmonious level with the primary? If we allowed the secondary time enough to experience life as it is and not as a trapped entity, could we also fulfill its needs and allow for social learning to help its growth? Would this lead to teaching both the primary and secondary to a role of self actualization or self concept as Carl Rogers theorized? If there were a true entity trapped within the mind could these ideas help it to become its own self as well as empower it to see that working as one would actually benefit the whole person?  Would this not stop the madness that comes to those who may have this affliction?

            Since, as they suggest, we only use 10 % of our brains anyway, there should be a way to allow both to work together. Could this pairing of the personalities create a more intelligent person? If they could combine their abilities and work together, would that open a new world to understanding the brain? Would this make a person more efficient, with critical thinking and more able to work on life’s more complex problems? Imagine a super human with a duality that can take on a world of dual thoughts and processes. This would be much like the “Core Duo” processors in computers. On the other hand this could also complicate the person’s life. The two entities could clash and have power struggles between themselves. The mental break would probably look just like it does with people that are diagnosed with schizophrenia or Borderline Personality, for that matter. Yet, can we turn the tied of this affliction with the counseling we discussed earlier? What if the secondary is more intelligent than the primary? Would this bring that entity to take over the primary? If it did would this be a bad thing, or could this become a positive? Either way, we already know that we can subdue some of the “voices” with medications.

            One thing that would have to be looked at deeply is counseling. If we were to find out that this theory had validity we would have to rethink how a person with this would be counseled. Would the entities be able to have the same counselor and methods? What if the primary needed a psychoanalytic approach and the secondary needed a reality approach? Could it be that Carl Jung had come close to what I am theorizing about here and would his analytical approach work better than Freud’s? Would it work to have sessions with one style and one personality? Would it work with the other, or would it be workable for both counselors to be present and deal with both personalities within one longer session? The worry I would have with that is the personalities playing the counselors and the counselors not being able to keep their styles separate and agreeable. One other thought is could the personalities be brought to a scheduled level so each could get the time they needed to get their needs met so they can live in a harmonious level?

            Even if this theory was proven to be totally false, would the ideas mentioned in this report be able to help those who suffer from the illnesses that are associated with auditory hallucinations? Could it be that we as a society are too quick to reach for medication as the patch that mends the broken mind? Are we so tied to the old ways of thinking that this theory will be quickly judged as aimless and with no merit? And yet with so many questions and ideas placed on these sheets of paper there are so many other things we must ask ourselves. Have we done enough research to make sure what we are doing to those who have this affliction the right thing? Have we given up on other ideas as to why so many with this affliction are so intelligent and why so many have become so famous? Do we not have an obligation to find out if there is another way to help these individuals live as productive a life as they can without being labeled as mad, insane or crazy? Yet, are they truly insane at all or are they blessed with a gift that we as scientist and doctors failed to empower within them?

            No one will know the answers to the many questions this theory brings up until we look at this and see if it is a valid theory. I am not a scientist nor do I have the education to back any of my ideas in this. I do feel this theory has enough to warrant a study. Yet, how do we study this? We must get volunteers that have not been on medications as well as those who have. The many age levels that this “affliction” comes to and open minded people that will give this an honest try will be hard to come by. There will have to be a lot of clinical people doing medical background checks as well as checks for substance abuse, medication, co-morbid and mental health issues. Understandably this will have to be a longitudinal study, yet, I do feel that there are too many reasons not to look into this theory. We have had people throughout history that have made history themselves and had these issues. Does this mean that the co-personalities had something to do with the intelligence of these people and their ability to create history? 

            You may be sitting there reading this and thinking that I am off my rocker. Yet, I ask you to look back in history and ask yourself how many people that have come up with life changing ideas were actually diagnosed, or could have been diagnosed, with something that could be seen as “psychologically unusual”? If you look at the biggest book in the world, the bible, you would come to realize that the people who wrote the books within it would have been labeled as schizophrenics in today’s society. With that in mind, I think this theory has much more of a chance of being real than we might want to admit.

           

Famous People with Schizophrenia:

• John Nash - Mathematician/Nobel Prize Winner, Lionel Aldridge: A defensive end for Vince Lombardi’s legendary Green Bay Packers of the 1960’s, Tom Harrell - Jazz Musician, Meera Popkin - Broadway Star, Andy Goram - Scottish Soccer Player/Goal Keeper,  Peter Green - Guitarist for the band Fleetwood Mac, Syd Barrett of the band Pink Floyd, Alexander "Skip" Spence and Bob Mosley - both members of the 1960's rock group Moby Grape (and Jefferson Airplane for Skip Spence), Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson - of the Austin-based 1960's group TheThirteenth Floor Elevators, Joe Meek - 1960's British record producer, James Beck Gordon (Jim Gordon) - James Gordon had been, quite simply, one of the greatest drummers of his time, Charles "Buddy" Bolden - Jazz Musician, Antoin Artaud - Dramatist, Artist, Mary Todd Lincoln - wife of Abraham Lincoln (past-President of the United States), Vaclav Nijinsky - Famous Russian Dancer,

 

People suspected to have schizophrenia in our history:

 

Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Henri Charriere, Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Erich Fromm, Dalai Lama

Work Cited

 

“Famous People with Schizophrenia.” schizophrenia.com.  http://www.schizophrenia.com/famous.htm, 2004.

 

Grunder, Charles. Personal input. June 2007.

 

Gutenberg, Johannes. wikipedia.org. 

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes _Gutenberg, 12 June 2007.

 

Kasevich, Mike. Minister. Personal information. Island Falls, Maine, 11 June 2007.

 

Personality Theories. 7^th Edition. Barbara Engler. HoughtonMifflin Company. 2006.

 

Psych Central. “Famous People with Schizophrenia.”  psychcentral.com. http://psychcentral.com/resources/detailed/4964.html, 15 June 2007.

 

“Schizophrenia Through History.” user.tninte.se. http://user.tninet.se/~yge389p/schizophrenia.htm, 7 July 2006.

 

“Schizophrenia and Psychology.” user.tninte.se.

            http://user.tninet.se/~yge389p/index.htm, 7 July 2006.

 

Vanishing Twin Syndrome. “Parenting of Multiples.”  about.com. http://multiples.about.com/cs/medicalissues/a/vanishingtwin.htm, 2007.

 

WebMD. “Auditory hallucinations.” http://www.webmd.com/search/search_results/default.aspx?query=Auditory%20hallucinations&sourceType=undefined, 2007.

 

 

 

 

THOUGHTS

 

Mental Illness: In the definition; Mental-of or in the mind, Illness-sickness; disease. Put together it would read; an illness of the mind.

            Is the definition a real truth in its meaning? Is there really a mental illness behind the diagnosis? I ask this because we once thought homosexuality was a mental illness and we found out it wasn’t. We now understand that it seems to be a part of the genes and/or hormones within a person that creates this. In this wake of thought, could it be that we truly have no mental illnesses, yet, we have biological abnormalities that are born within us that are parts of reality that we have stopped caring how to deal nor want to spend the time looking at them as anything other than an illness? It has been known since science has been around that we are great for labeling something we have no understanding of an illness or abnormality. Could this be another wake of historical change?

 

Reviews

[LuLuIcey]

It is great! I hardly find writings about MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). Sad to say, I am kind of one, but I totally believe that MPD exist in our minds. In my thought, everyone have multiple personality but the matter of finding it/them or not.

I like your writing. XD

PS.I will have some mistakes about it as I am a Secondary...sorry...

[Jessica R.]

This is interesting, though may I recommend not using Wikipedia as a source? It's not very reliable..

[Il est moi!]

I do not think you're off your rocker at all...I think your theory should be studied further. The idea of having a twin trapped deep within your neurological web is very interesting and fascinating.