Sick personality

1. Sick personality is one in which there is break down in the

personality structure resulting into poor personality. Like
physical illness, the person does not behave as he does
normally. The difference in behaviour is due to deviation
from normal that is when the person’s behaviour is not in
confirmation to expected norms.
2. Ex: If a person is anxious only for favourable judgement,
he tries to appear normal which does not work in the
state of stress.
3. Throwing tantrums, inconvenient behaviour or behaviour
not expected as per the age fall in category of abnormal
behaviour. When a child has overabundance of such traits
at one time, it can be termed as personality sickness.
4. The person best suited to determine whether a personality
pattern is sick or healthy is the personologist. There can
not be a single standard of judging a healthy personality
pattern. When the behaviour is not in conformity with the
expected social norms, sickness in personality is evident.
5. There are more psychological illness than physical illness.
Personality sickness is more due to behaviour disorder
amongst children or young people compared to adults / old
people. In the early years, the person is more susceptible to
adolescence changes, stresses & strains. The feeling of
insecurity occurs in the minds during adolescence. Body
changes do take place.
6. Causes of Personality Sickness: There are two changes:
physical & Psychological. Self rejection includes self
disapproval, self distrust, feeling of being unworthy, not
being deserving reward or success.

7. Common Causes: Unrealistic expectations, Unfavourable

social attitude, Unrealistic expectations, personal
limitations, emotional stress, lack of motivation, repeated
failures, poor childhood training, lack of perspective,
Identification with maladjusted people.
8. Major categories of Personality Sickness: There are five
categories of socially unacceptable behaviour –
hyperactive reactions - restlessness, implusiveness,
Withdrawing reactions – detachment, inability to form
close interpersonal relationship, Overanxious reactions –
chronic anxiety, Runaway reactions – Inclination to steal,
Unsocial zed aggressive reactions - destructiveness,
hostile teasing of children.
9. Common Danger Signals:
a. Immaturity- A person is judged immature if his
performance in some areas of behaviour falls below
the standard set by his peers. Immature people are
aware of their immaturity & so they feel inadequate.
They are unable to conform to the standards expected
at their age. Ex: Irresponsibility, homesickness are
examples. Ex: Early marriages.
b. Regression: Regression is an attempt to return to
the earlier stage of development. Ex: when a new
baby enters the family, the elder one feels
uncomfortable & tries to imitate the younger one
& seeks attention. It is an attempt to go back or
slide back to the old state. Feeling of good old days
affects the person.
c. Cruelty: All young children are cruel at their age.
They take pleasure in hitting or hurting others.
Children resort to cruelty to compensate for their
inadequacy in doing certain things due to their size,
height etc.
Forms: Bullying – inflicting physical pain on an
animal or person. Bullying is replaced by teasing.
Whereas bullying is more physical oriented, teasing
is psychological. Discrimination is another form of
cruelty towards person. Self rejection is the outcome.

Defence Mechanism:
Rationalization: The person gives account of his
conduct in such a way as to protect his ego &
refrains from telling anything of his intention. Many
times the person explains lack of success in a
manner to justify his failure or unfulfilled desire only
for the purpose of maintaining ego.
Projection: It is the poor workman who blames his
tools. The person tries to explain or excuse
behaviour that falls short of his & other’s
expectations by thrusting the blame onto something
or somebody. In projection, the person shifts the
blame on specific person which he uses as scapegoat.
Projection is more satisfying than Rationalization as
in this the person shifts blames on others for his
doing.
Displacement: In displacement, the person directs
his resentment due to inadequacy or inferiority,
against a person, object or situation which is
unrelated to the cause of resentment. The object of
displacement is usually against a smaller or
helpless person or animal or object. Displacement is
poor sportsmanship that leads to disapproval or
rejection by members of social group. Ex; gang
attack on innocent victim, cracking joke on family
member knowing well that others will approve.
Fantasy: When fear, frustration & anxiety prevent
active adjustment or actual realization of wishes, the
person gets into day daydreaming mode for the
maintenance of ego. Young people create imaginary
companions with whom they play or talk when they
are actually in the state of loneliness. Day dreaming
falls into two types of categories – hero creation &
martyr creation. Borrowed fantasies are also
embraced to reduce self devaluation. These fantasies
are resorted to as defence mechanism.
Compensation: This is an act of channelling
energies into an activity in which one can achieve
success & eliminate some self rejection attitude &
also diverting attention of others from the activity in
which he failed to the activity in which he succeeded.
Repression: This is convenient forgetting. The
person forgets those things which remind him of his
inadequacies. This way he eliminates some of the
psychological distress that has led to self rejection.
Devaluation: One of the common causes of self
rejection is unfavourable social judgements; one way
to defend the ego is to devalue their source. This can
be done by minimizing the judgements or by proving
to others that those who made the judgement were
actually not competent. This act of devaluing the
opinion or judgement of others amounts to poor
sportsmanship.
Sour Grapes Mechanism: Some people devalue
anything which they don’t get or fail to get by
pointing out faults & defects in that thing. This
pattern of defence mechanism is based on the same
story of fox that was not able to jump high enough to
get the grapes.