Towards an ecological theory of personality

For a long time, the mere formulation of the title of this chapter might have seemed contradictory and, in any case, it would have been unimaginable from within the systemic territory which, wholly taken up with the exploration of the relational, refused to focus on personality, seen as a dangerous intrapsychic trap.

Now that those dichotomies have happily been left behind, it is today not only possible but doubly tempting to bring the two concepts into contact, in the certainty that the individual and relational systems are complementary and not antithetical. A reflection on the relational dimension of personality is, from this point of view, an indispensable first step towards exploring the relational bases of psychopathology, and a contribution to the task of endowing the human mind with an ecological coherence.

5.1. A definition of personality

There is no doubt that individuals are conceivable only as integrated into relational systems, the first and most immediate of which is the family of origin, and the broadest, though not the least influential, society. But neither systems nor, still less, abstract relationships pose problems by themselves or ask for psychotherapeutic help. Those who ordinarily do so are individuals in relationship, which is why every psychotherapeutic model must develop conceptual instruments, coherent of course with its epistemology, capable of meeting that challenge.

Gold and Bacigalupe (1998) carried out a meticulous review of interpersonal and systemic theories of personality, and were hardly able to find anything other than Harry Stack Sullivan’s interpersonal theory (1953) as a specific proposal, one that inspired many systemic authors. Among its many theoretical merits is that of having invented the term “self system”, to designate a personality shaped in the gaze of others. But Sullivan went on practising therapeutically in a dyadic relationship with patients, and the family therapists who came after him lost interest in personality as an intrapsychic concept.

What is personality from a relational point of view? Here is one possible definition: personality is the individual dimension of accumulated relational experience, in dialogue between past and present, and framed by a biological substrate and a cultural context. It is worth examining its ingredients one by one.

Individual dimension

It is necessary to accept that this is an individual concept. Otherwise, we would go on thinking in terms of relational schemas or patterns, but not of personality.

Accumulated relational experience

This is a re-edition of the old Batesonian concept of schismogenesis, which, as we know, underlined the idea – revolutionary in its time – that people are shaped and defined by the relationship (Bateson, 1956), rather than the other way round. In reality, it seems sensible to state that individuals and the relationship define one another reciprocally in a recursive – or, better still, helicoidal – way.

Dialogue between past and present

We are the product of a history and, from this point of view, the past in which relational experience took place defines personality. But history is continually rewritten or reformulated in the present, from which it is possible to redefine the past.

A model mechanically dependent on the past is, for example, a hydraulic dam: so many hectolitres lost, so many hectolitres to be regained in order to return to a given level. And if we conceived of personality as an energy phenomenon, the metaphor would be valid for understanding how it works. Therapeutic intervention would then have to adapt its rhythms to the requirements of recovering the potential energy needed.

But personality is a communicational concept, closer to a computing model, where a single click on an icon immediately and spectacularly fills the whole screen with a new image. That is why it is also possible, from the present, to induce spectacular changes in the past, and why the dialectical tension between past and present is such an important element in the definition of personality.

Biological substrate

The human organism, and most particularly the central nervous system, are the hardware of personality. Genetics surely plays an important role in transmitting certain predispositions to develop particular personality traits, and recent research on mirror neurons (Rizzolatti et al., 1996) opens up an unlimited horizon on the capacity of the relationship to activate the human brain.

But, in addition, the body, which is biology, plays a fundamental role as a vehicle of relationship. Physical traits such as height, weight, bodily harmony or disharmony, the colour of skin, hair and eyes, and so many others, define – sometimes decisively – the degree of confidence with which one faces the gaze of the other, and can prove determining in the configuration of personality.

Cultural context

Culture frames and overdetermines personality, decisively influencing its definition (Falicov, 1998). Being an extravert does not mean the same thing in a Nordic country as in the Caribbean, nor even, within one and the same country, in the Peruvian sierra as on the Peruvian coast. Cultures amount to social mythologies that privilege certain personality traits over others, conditioning their inscription in the psychological patrimony of their members.

In other words: in individual personality, the subject’s relational history plays a fundamental role, a subject who nevertheless manages to escape the condition of slave to the past thanks to an almost infinite capacity to redefine it from the present. And biology and culture, interacting closely, take a decisive part in the process.

But with what material is personality built? And in precisely which contexts?

5.2. The narrative

By narrative we mean the attribution of meaning to relational experience. It is something the human being does without interruption throughout existence, in a process of progressive complexity, from intrauterine life until late in adulthood. Only in old age, and probably not in every case, may a moment come when that complexity freezes, or even diminishes. That is why, and given that the narrative is – let us say it straight away – the constitutive magma of personality, it is legitimate to state that the process of building the latter lasts practically a whole lifetime.

The existence of prenatal psychological activity is well known, since the foetus reacts to all kinds of sensory stimuli in its welcoming amniotic habitat. A glimmer of light, a noise, a pressure or an abrupt movement of the mother, or even an intense smell, are enough to bring it out of rest and lead it to make certain movements. The process of attributing meanings is surely under way, and the foetus begins to put together stories that fill its existence and give it meaning: lights, sounds, movements and smells that come and go, that stimulate or sedate, that unsettle or soothe. And that push it to withdraw quietly, to make intrepid incursions or to stretch its limbs energetically. It is likely that certain traits of the baby’s personality – above all those that prove hardest to understand with the available “extrauterine” coordinates – have their roots in that mysterious foetal relational universe.

But, given the infinite complexity of what happens after birth, it does not seem indispensable to speculate about what precedes it. The baby, without any doubt, and the child overwhelmingly so, are authentic narrative machines, which build infinite stories of tenderness, of solitude, of joy, of sadness, of fear, of consolation and… of as many nuances as may come to mind. To these they react with trust or with mistrust, with abandon or with hostility, bringing into play the cognitive, emotional and pragmatic components of the narrative in a fascinating and motley panorama where ideations, affects and behaviours combine.

The stories that make up the narrative therefore include a thinking, a cognitive framework that gives a coherent structure to the attribution of meaning; a feeling, an affective resonance that makes it vibrate, conferring on it a specific relevance for the subject; and a doing, which brings it an indispensable pragmatic dimension at the relational level. It is only because they are thought, felt and acted that stories become psychologically operative narratives and go beyond the merely literary plane.

There are times when children go through a stage of “mummy-itis”. They cling to their mother and reject anyone who presents themselves as a threat to their privileged relationship with her, the father included. This is fed by their perception of the mother as an unconditional attachment figure, wrapped in gentleness and tenderness, as against the rougher nature and the fluctuating presence of the father and the other interlocutors. Not to mention siblings, with whom the treasure has to be shared. If circumstances are favourable, this “family of origin” narrative will grow richer and more complex, incorporating recognition of the father’s unconditionality from positions that may be physically more distant, and recognition of siblings’ solidarity in defending common interests or in sharing the pleasure of play.

This growth in complexity proves fundamental as a guarantee of future balance, maturity and mental health, which are assured only if the individual has at their disposal a wide range of narratives offering multiple descriptive options for their relational reality. We can state that the more abundant and varied the narrative, the richer and healthier the personality.

5.3. Identity

But, alongside the proliferation of the narrative, a second process that is decisive for the constitution of personality also develops from the very beginnings of relational activity: the construction of identity.

The subject chooses certain narratives as defining them and, with these, they certainly accept neither bargaining nor negotiation: this is who I am, take me or leave me, but do not try to convince me that I am someone else. Such is an individual’s relation to their identity: a closed and absolute defence. And this is understandable, for what is at stake is their psychological existence, that is to say the integrity of their personality. Idem ens, the same being, that is, what does not change: such is the Latin etymology of identity, expressive enough in itself of the concept we are proposing here.

Not that identity cannot change at all; but, at best, its changes will occur slowly and, most certainly, not in response to any direct confrontation. Faced with external pressures, identity behaves like a stubborn adolescent who closes ranks and entrenches himself behind a wall of rigid self-affirmation. Moreover, as we shall see in due course, identity is very vulnerable to certain negative relational situations, capable of damaging it decisively.

Some important consequences follow from this definition. On the one hand, it becomes clear that identity does not possess, unlike the narrative as a whole, an absolute value. In other words, one cannot claim – contrary to what popular language may suggest – that the more identity there is, the better. In fact, we may be closer to the opposite claim. Identity must be limited to a very few narratives, clearly defined and delimited, generally corresponding to themes such as gender and sexual orientation, national belonging, political and religious affiliation… and hardly anything more. The opposite, that is to say an excessively identity-bound individual, is either a psychotic, as we shall see further on, or a dangerous and rigid fanatic who stakes his whole being on any one of his narratives.

Be that as it may, the narratives the subject selects as identity-bearing are never so a hundred per cent, any more than the remaining narrative is devoid of a certain identity-bearing tinge. In fact, the identity narrative – that is another name we can give identity – serves as a mooring or an anchor for the personality as a whole, and most especially for the non-identity narrative, by means of the subtle extensions through which it secures a slight presence within it. The result is that the subject recognises themselves in all their narratives, but throws themselves fully only into defending some of them, the identity-bearing ones of course (figure 3).

It is clear that, from this point of view, identity is not favourable ground for therapeutic intervention. The therapist will have to go around it, on pain of meeting head-on rejection of any suggestion liable to be interpreted as a challenge.

And let us not lose sight of the fact that, as an agency of personality, identity is an individual concept. The identity of peoples does not exist, and what is usually meant by it is nothing other than culture and, hence, mythology. Nationalisms are identity-bearing not because nations would be so, but because the individuals who profess them have incorporated that ideology into their identity.

Figure 4 represents more faithfully the relation that exists, within the narrative, between stories and constructs that are overwhelmingly identity-bearing (black circles) and non-identity-bearing (white circles). There are multiple shades of grey which express, in intermediate positions, the infinite complexity of the situation. For practical purposes, we shall nevertheless go on using figure 3, which is much simplified.