1) Sanguine - extroverted, very social people. Sanguine can also mean very sensitive, compassionate and thoughtful. Not very dependable.
2) Choleric - this person is a doer. They have a lot of ambition, energy and passion.
3) Melancholic - a thoughtful ponderer. Kind, considerate, perfectionists.
4)Phlegmatic -self-content and kind. Prefer stability to uncertainty and change. Can be dependable.
Temperament is something that partly influences the way we behave, react to other people and situations. Can it also influence our chances of getting depressed or struggling with anxiety disorders? As some research shows, apparently temperament is something that can be noticed even on the newborn baby and does not change much through all our life. And these research tell us that some people with certain type of temperament are more likely to struggle from anxiety and depression than the others.
Jerome Kagan, a professor of Psychology at Harvard, started his research in 1989 and had gathered enough notices to draw some conclusions. He performed a major longitudinal study of temperament and its effects. Kagan was researching temperament from the simplified dimension while seeing whether babies were easily upset then exposed to new things. This dimension was chosen because it was easily measurable and actually reflects adults behavior: as some of us get excited about every new thing in life and the others prefer stability as something new is always something threatening. Kagan suspected, extrapolating from a study he had just completed on toddlers, that the most edgy infants were more likely to grow up to be inhibited, shy and anxious. All the babies were captured on the video while looking for the irritable behavior. 18 out 19 babies were calm toddlers than the number 19th seemed to nervously react to all new things, smells, people, colors.
Kagan was (is) actually tracking all these babies through their lives. And 15 years later it appeared that they all stayed true to their temperaments they revealed as babies. Baby number 19th, a 15 years old teenager at the time appeared to be different than the rest of the 18 kids on the research. She admitted to be terrified of how people see her, afraid to make fun of her self in public, anxious about her future and lacking self confidence.
For the past 20 years, Kagan and his colleagues have been following hundreds of such people, beginning in infancy, to see what happens to those who start out primed to fret. Now that these infants are young adults, the studies are yielding new information about the anxious brain. And as the research revealed temperament highly indicates the chances of anxiety in the future.Kagan's researches have also demonstrated that some of us, like Baby 19, are born anxious - or, more accurately, born predisposed to be anxious. As it appeared from 15-20% of babies have high reactivity to new people or things and these babies are more likely to grow up anxious due to they inborn temperament. However research showed that even when temperament remains, behavior associated with it might change. Most of us have certain fairs but some of us just yield into them and the others learn how to resist them and develop a defense mechanism which would not allow our fairs to affect us. So some of us develop mechanisms which help as to deal with the issues we naturally have exaggerated reactivity to.
Not only anxiety but as well depression is strongly related to the temperament of the person. Here it is necessary to come back to the above mentioned types of the temperament. As research shows some of them tend to have a higher chance to get depressed while exposed to the same circumstances as the others. First type to discuss should be phlegmatic as most of the people wrongly believe that these are naturally depressed people. It is actually wrong.
Phlegmatics are the ideal type to discuss first as people tend to see them depressed and unmotivated. Actually, they are simply the people who like moderate and low-key lifestyle. These people are naturally calm and not too much expressive. Their needs are fulfilled in this simple and quiet life; in fact, most phlegmatics are completely happy until someone comes along and complains that they are "depressed too much" or that they "lack ambition" or that "something is wrong because they sit around too much." Then, they may end up sitting around considering that they just might be depressed. They will soon have themselves convinced that they are, and may even come up with some very valid reasons as to why.
Than it comes to the sanguine type, it is the type you would consider to be least depressive due to their pro activity and energy. However, this influences the fact that these kind of people sometimes get tired trying to do everything at the same time and fit everywhere. Sanguine are prone to seasonal depression and mood swings because they are highly influences by such outside stimuli as weather, other people's moods, even food etc.
Melancholic types tend to get depressed more easily than any of the others. Phlegmatic may always seemed depressed- even they are not, but melancholics are actually the ones to suffer from almost constant self-induced depression caused by their over-evaluation and reflection on life. These are the kind of people who have troubles letting things go and often see a problem where it does not actually exist.
Choleric types rarely get depressed even they naturally like drama. Then they get depressed it is because of some significant loss or someone really hurt them. Then they will let all the world around to know that they are depressed but as soon as they will see something interesting to do they will get over it.
While treating depression it is pretty important to figure out the temperament of the person as sometimes something that is inborn might be tried to damage. It is important to understand in self help as well, that somethings you can not change. You can only learn to adapt them the way you want so they would not disturb you anymore. It is something like developing a certain mechanism which is very unique and exactly fits your natural inborn character.
To sum up, even there are so many discussions going on about the causes of anxiety and depression, it is a fact that many secrets are still not revealed. There are many researches waiting to be done in order to figure out the best self help techniques and therapies. The truth is that each individual is so unique that it is difficult to summarize the reasons and possible treatments of depression or anxiety. Each self help therapy, even the most effective one, still needs to be adopted to the very individual requirements of the person.
Kagan's research:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html?pagewanted=1 r=6no interstitial
0 comments:
Post a Comment