Immature Personality

Would you know how to recognize these types of people? Is there anything I need to do when I see this type of behavior?

Recently in one of the therapy sessions working with a couple, the woman spontaneously commented that her husband was a “surfer”, what is surprising is that he had never owned a surfboard. In talking to her and learning more about what she was referring to what she explained was an attempt to define a personality type, which was actually an immature personality.

One of the personality traits little considered by both psychiatry and psychology is the immature personality. Perhaps the very concept itself leads to confusion, that is, downplaying the importance of this type of characteristics in human beings.

An immature personality is defined by a mismatch between chronological age and psychological age. As a consequence, there is suffering that affects both the person themselves and those around them. Normally people who are close to them justify them, trying to cover up the shortcomings by saying “it’s good that he will mature, he hasn’t realized it, deep down he didn’t do it with bad intentions, etc.” or they try to make them aware of it by being very on top, controlling that behavior. With all this, what is achieved is to reinforce this behavior and cause greater frustration in them, because they really lack the knowledge of how to do things properly. Some of the characteristics of the immature personality are:

• Whimsical
• Impulsive
• Irresponsible
• Little constant
• Impatient
• Lack of vital projects
• Frustration intolerance
• Trouble seeing your own mistakes
• Dependents
• Feeling of self-sufficiency
• Poor in social skills
• Etc.

We don’t want to go on long but… do you know someone who is a “surfer” or do you recognize yourself as a personality like that? It is important to work on it since it affects all aspects of daily life. Waiting on these types of things doesn’t help.

All the best

Lola and Lourdes