Issues In Forensic Psychology - Theories of Personality

ISSUES IN FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
Theories of Personality

Theories of personality have long enjoyed a position of prominence in psychiatric and psychologic thinking. Nevertheless, the very term "personality theory" reflects its basic thrust: above all else it is theory - long on rhetoric and short of evidence. Nevertheless, the extent to which psychologists and psychiatrists prefer unverified theory over scientific fact should not be underestimated.
Psychotherapy, for example, frequently leads patients into issues that are irrelevant to their problems - but which correspond to the theoretical convictions of their therapist. As a result, therapy can respond more to a therapist's preferences than to a patient's welfare.
There are as many personality theories as there are values about the meaning of life. Freudians advocate that we live most effectively via the pursuit of insight, which supposedly enhances our capacities for rationality. Humanists promote introspection and awareness of feelings for increasing self-acceptance. Behaviorists insist that individuals function most apppropriately as empiricists attempting to maximize positive experiences and minimize negative experiences. Basically, personality theories can be defined as innumerable theorists engaged in many speculations resulting in minimal consequences.
Given the substantial divergencies between personality theories, and the obvious consideration that they cannot all be valid, one must conclude: (1) some of the theories are riddled with profound inadequacies, or (2) many of the theories are partially inadequate, or (3) both conclusions (1) and (2) are correct.
Any discussion of personality theory is incomplete without considering Freudian (or psychoanalytic) theory. For more than 40 years, legions of critics have dismissed as pretentious the claims that psychoanalytic theory is a scientific theory. A 1985 overview of psychoanalytic theory characterized it as scientifically untested, and indicted it for an excessive reliance on the intuitive impressions gleaned from its case studies.
Because of how poorly defined it is as a theory, psychoanalytic thinking provokes unbridled conjecture and wild speculation from its disciples. As a result, Freudian theorists regularly distort data to conform with their theoretical convictions.
Freudian theory moreover assumes that emotional and behavioral problems typically originate as a result of some significant childhood experiences. These assumptions presume that maladjusted adults are inevitably struggling with the "tyranny of their own past." In fact, however, the relevant research supports neither this thinking nor its related assumptions.
A review of the relevant literature finds only modest relationships between early childhood experience and later development. This review concurred with previous findings demonstrating that life-span continuity does not imply developmental inevitability.
Personality theories, and the psychologists who too often embrace them, commit what is known as the "Fundamental attribution error." This error corresponds to overemphasizing individual characteristics when explaining behavior, and underemphasizing situational influences. Cross-examining attorneys, for example, frequently respond to witnesses in a harsh and challenging manner. As a spouse or parent, however, that same attorney is likely anything but harsh or challenging. In other words, personality theories overlook the manner in which people's behavior changes enormously depending on the situation in which they find themselves.

If you want to know more about the many shortcomings associated with personality theories, you may want to order any, or all, of the following publications by Dr. Campbell.

Beware The Talking Cure: Psychotherapy May Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health. Social Issues Resources Series (SIRS), Upton Books, Boca Raton, FL., September 1994. Order from Amazon.com.

Smoke and Mirrors: The Devastating Effect of False Sexual Abuse Claims. Insight Books division of Plenum Publishing, New York, NY, September 1998. Order from Amazon.com.

Systemic therapies and basic research. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 1996, 15 (3), 15-39. (Order article #12, Cost $12.00).

"Cross-Examining Psychologists and Psychiatrists as Expert Witnesses." This is a 79-page, single-spaced outline, containing 214 footnoted references. This outline is bound. (Order article #15, cost $59.00).

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