The Basis Of Good Mental Health Is A Well-integrated Personality
Why are we the way we are? Each one of us is unique and different. We have different ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving reality, the world, relationships… different ways of acting and reacting.
Personality is the set of traits and qualities that make up a person’s way of being and differentiate them from others. How to distinguish when our personality is healthy and when we may present a pathology?
Melanie Klein, psychoanalyst and founder of the English school of psychoanalysis, tells us that: “The basis of mental health is a well-integrated personality.” The mental health qualities that Melanie Klein highlights have a strong ethical component : love, respect, loyalty, trust, and good intentions are factors of mental health.
Starting from this idea, let’s see what the keys are to integrating our mental health:
1. We need to develop emotional maturity
This means accept that throughout our lives we can lose personal relationships : as a couple, loved ones, friends… and that we will not be able to satisfy all our fantasies to the extent we would like. For example: when we cannot tolerate that someone does not want to break the relationship with us, or that they do not like us, or when we believe that our expectations have to be met by others, such as when we believe that our partner is going to read our minds and will to know what we want.
The strength of character It is shown in loyalty in relationships, in commitment to values, and the capacity for perseverance and perseverance in maintaining these values , even if we experience losses and frustrations. Like when there is a divorce, not losing our values and despite feeling frustrated, doing well with the ex-partner.
3. Ability to manage conflicting emotions
Conflict will always be present in life. Denying conflict is denying reality. The ability to manage and tolerate conflict is an essential factor in mental health. Many people have problems in relationships with others by expressing a lack of anger control or inappropriate anger Also, we have at the other extreme, people who avoid conflict at all costs and disappear from relationships or remain silent, generating passive aggressiveness and generating frustration and helplessness in the people to whom they do not communicate their anger. Something very common today like ghosting, or wanting to leave a relationship when there is conflict.
4. The balance between internal life and adaptation to reality
It is based on not avoiding conflict and not avoiding freedom of thought and the ability to dream. If we do not develop our internal world and our fantasies, it is not possible to develop creativity. On the other hand, do not live self-absorbed and isolated from the world. But to maintain a balance between being “inward”, in our fantasy world, and living “outward”, that is, being present in the earthly world.
5. Successful fusion between the different parts of the personality
Tolerance of impulses, and acceptance that we have undesirable parts of our personality. Idealizing these traits, justifying them or making them up, denying that they exist, does not lead us to have an integrated personality. It is a sign of humility to recognize them and work on them Also a sign of empathy, keeping in mind that we can harm other people with these negative traits.
What characterizes a mentally unhealthy or unintegrated personality?
These are the most distinctive aspects of a personality that is not properly integrated and gives rise to problems:
1. Has restriction in any of these capacities
Psychologists’ consultations are full of people who suffer because either they have not developed these capacities in an adaptive way, or, on the contrary, they relate to others who do not engage in self-criticism and do not work psychologically. We could talk about abusive relationships, traumas…
2. Decreased flexibility and freedom
Black or white polarized thinking, mental rigidity , dominance, control. All of this entails establishing unequal power relations. In healthy relationships there is mental flexibility and the ability to adapt.
3. A repetitive, restrictive, inflexible and obligatory pattern
That is, when there is a personality disorder, the person thinks, behaves and feels the same way in most situations, regardless of the context types of people you interact with, your chronological age… Example: a narcissistic or histrionic personality will want to stand out in all social situations, regardless of whether it is appropriate or not, and whether other people are the ones They have to be the center of attention at that moment.
What are the warning signs to detect these personality problems? When people manifest these behaviors:
AND when they express subjective discomfort which manifests itself in the following ways:
The objective of this article is not self-diagnosis, but if you feel identified or recognize these traits in people around you, ask a mental health professional for help.
