Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

It's heart-rending when a child loses a parent, isn't it? And it's infuriating when a kid's been abused. The general feelings these circumstances evoke are quite obvious (even if there are more subtle reactions as well). So, why is it so hard to predict the personality attributes that will likely develop based on these experiences? It is common for therapists to meet clients who have endured extraordinary loss or abandonment and have developed profound dependency and sadness. But it's equally common for these clients to become angry and controlling. We've also all met victims of significant abuse (both episodic and serial types) who become seriously angry and aggressive people. But it's equally frequent for these victims to become passive and fearful.

When disparate lines of personality development occur, in spite of similar experiential circumstances, it seems like perhaps there is no reliable way to understand the effects of experience on personality. Notice, however, that development does seem to have a relationship to experience. That relationship is an aversion to the vulnerability caused by trauma. That is, when people have been traumatized, they avoid the feelings of vulnerability associated with the trauma.

For example, when a child experiences profound loss, life in this world is proven unpredictable and out of control. Thus the child looks for ways to prevent loss and to maintain some semblance of control. It may seem strange, but this child actually makes a choice. The choice is an unconscious choice, of course. That is, the child has no idea that they are making a choice. But nevertheless, there is a choice. The child can become a person who tends to take control within relationships, and will brook no efforts at control by others. Or, the child can become someone who is endlessly pleasing others within relationships with hope that no one will want to leave. Both relational tactics work to prevent loss. If the loss is of a severely abandoning type, it is also relatively common to become a person who alternates between a need for total control and a clinging dependency. That style, too, which tends to be much more severe and less stable, also prevents the experience of vulnerability associated with the initial trauma, since the violent swings from clinging to controlling never allow one to experience those vulnerable feelings that occur in between.

For the sake of increasing clarity, an example of the abused child can also be instructive. For the abused child, the world is dangerous and unsafe. As they develop, these children also make an unconscious choice. They must maintain safety for themselves and there are two primary ways to do so. They can become a person most others fear, or they can become a person who avoids real contact with others. That is they can become aggressive in their general style or they can become avoidant or distancing in their general style. Unlike the last example, there are very few people who alternate back and forth between these two styles since acting fearful does not fit with acting aggressive. It can be said, however, that both aggressive and fearful types avoid real relationships with others, since even the aggressive style makes emotional intimacy impossible.

These are two oversimplified explanations of a complicated psychological process. Nevertheless, they do demonstrate a point. Personality develops in relation to trauma. The more traumatic an experience is, and the more protracted that trauma is, the more likely that the personality will develop in exaggerated and/or unstable ways.

The direction of exaggerated choice seems to depend on a variety of factors, including genetics and family roles. Some people, it seems, simply do not have a genetic temperament that fits with being aggressive. On the other hand, some people simply do not have a genetic temperament that fits with being passive...

For the remainder of this article, please buy The Emotional Toolbox book.