Healthy personality: toward a unified theory.

Abstract

It is argued that healthy personality is potentially as identifiable a pattern as is any diagnostic category and is not equivalent simply to "normality." In moving toward a theory of psychological health one needs to examine structure and dynamics with respect to the functions of instigation, regulation, meaning, and style. Psychoanalytic theory is taken as a point-of-departure. Viewed as a theory of neurosis, psychoanalysis does not provide an adequate treatment of ego-constructive functions, components of the superego (aside from conscience in a negative sense), or human motivation. Humanistic theory helps by focussing on health, although it falls short with regard to motivation. The essential properties of healthy humanness emerge as integration among the structures of personality and progression in the dynamics of personality functioning. Four major pathways in development are outlined to highlight how health differs from other patterns.