THE PERSONALITY FACTORS: PERSONALITY DRIVERS

A practical and sensible perspective on personality and coping patterns is called transactional analysis. This theory proposes, in part, that most of us can characterize our old-brain coping patterns as revolving around one or more of the following six themes. These patterns become so familiar and habitual that they seem to drive our perceptions, our behavioral choices, and our corresponding emotional reactions in day-to-day living. These six drivers become especially influential in shaping our reactions during stressful times. As you read on, try to identify your own and your partner's most typical style of reacting to stress.

1. Being Strong. Individuals driven by this personality theme were taught to cope with life by being stoic and strong. Burdens are shouldered without complaint. Tasks are done without requests for help. Feelings of vulnerability and neediness are numbed or blocked from awareness. At the same time, selective attention is paid to "powerful" feelings, such as anger. When faced with life situations that overwhelm them with feelings of fear and need for help, such people experience shame and discomfort. These uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability interfere with the Being Strong person's ability to ask for openly or to accept graciously emotional support from others.
2. Being Perfect. Anxiety and guilt fill the lives of people who are stuck in efforts to be perfect, because perfection is never attained. But the old brain of a Being Perfect personality does not know this, and it is as though such people have been taught that if they can just "do it perfectly," then their internal anxiety will go away. The "it" can be anything: cleaning the house, exercising, getting information about one's medical condition, or straightening pictures on a wall. Living life this way creates a gut-wrenching trap: the less perfect the outcomes, the more guilt and anxiety drive renewed efforts to quiet the pain by further pursuing perfection.
3. Trying Hard. These people have learned to feel valued for their ability to try harder than the next guy. It is as though their self-worth is based on fatiguing themselves by struggling longer and harder than others. Life is seen as filled with tasks and obligations. Trying Hard personalities have difficulty determining when they have worked hard enough to deserve a rest. They feel anxious if they try to relax or play. The more anxious they feel, the harder they work, often to a degree that proves detrimental to their own well-being.
4. Pleasing Others. These people live as though they had been put on earth to take care of others. They have difficulty being appropriately self-focused and self-nurturing without feeling guilt. They therefore have much difficulty with setting appropriate limits for responding to the needs of others and giving clear expression to their own needs. Indeed, such people have trouble identifying their internal needs accurately. They often give to others the kind of attention and nurturance they would like to receive, but they have difficulty asking directly for gifts of love and attention.
   Because they do not take appropriate care of themselves within relationships, Pleasing Others personalities often end up feeling drained and martyred by others. Periods of exhausted withdrawal (perhaps into depression) often result. But the old brain then kicks in with guilt- and fear-generating messages that Pleasing Others is the safest way to be. Then the old patterns of self-sacrificing caretaking return.
5. Hurrying. Some of us do not know how to feel comfortable with a reasonably paced life-style because we have always been taught to rush. Throughout childhood many of us were told repeatedly to hurry up, usually by parents who were overstressed by busy schedules. The Hurrying message continues in adulthood as we fill our lives with more to do than time allows. It is therefore understandable that an old-brain message driving many people is that hurrying is necessary to survive. People who are driven by a Hurrying message grow accustomed to an internal sense of urgency. They experience uncomfortable frustration, agitation, and anxiety if forced to slow down.
6. Being Careful. Some people learn that living is a frightening proposition at best. Constant old-brain warnings about being careful stir free-floating anxieties (fears that are not attached to any specific stimulus). Being Careful people particularly experience obsessive worrying and distressing anxiety in reaction to life changes, big or small. They are therefore likely to monitor their own and others' reactions excessively during times of transition. This is because they have learned to doubt their own or others' abilities to cope with the consequences of events that change the status quo. Because they are constantly on guard, Being Careful people have difficulty relaxing and enjoying themselves. Their anxieties can grow to interfere with most aspects of their life.

Most of us can identify with parts of each of these coping patterns. Indeed, each of these ways of being is an appropriate and adaptive response to some life situations some of the time. The problem is that our old brain does not tell us when it is safe not to use these coping strategies. We all get stuck sometimes in extreme versions of these patterns and have difficulty trusting the intellectual message coming from our new brain, telling us it is safe to try an alternative coping strategy that is more appropriate. Our fear and discomfort with the unfamiliar propel us back into the already overused coping strategies. In this way, our very efforts to cope become a source of—not a solution to—our stress. The driver that got us here leads us still deeper into pain-filled territory.
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