PTypes - Personality Types

Self-Sacrificing Personality Type

The Masochistic Idealized Image

Idols

Compulsive attachment: being needed
Compulsive aversion: being unappreciated

more...

Idols of the Types

Strategy

Strategy: submission

Goals tagged "altruism" on 43 Things

I now see Dr. Oldham's Self-Sacrificing Personality Style construct from a Christian perspective, whereby it represents an attempt to find our source of security in a strategy rather than a trust in God (Cooper); or, in Karen Horney's terms, it represents a search for glory.

Dr. John M. Oldham has defined the Self-Sacrificing personality style. The following seven characteristic traits and behaviors are listed in his The New Personality Self-Portrait.

Generosity. Individuals with the Self-Sacrificing personality style will give you the shirts off their backs if you need them. They do not wait to be asked.
Service. Their "prime directive" is to be helpful to others. Out of deference to others, they are noncompetitive and unambitious, comfortable coming second, even last.
Consideration. Self-Sacrificing people are always considerate in their dealings with others. They are ethical, honest, and trustworthy.
Acceptance. They are nonjudgmental, tolerant of others' foibles, and never harshly reproving. They'll stick with you through thick and thin.
Humility. They are neither boastful nor proud, and they're uncomfortable being fussed over. Self-Sacrificing men and women do not like being the center of attention; they are uneasy in the limelight.
Endurance. They are long-suffering. They prefer to shoulder their own burdens in life. They have much patience and a high tolerance for discomfort.
Artlessness. Self-Sacrificing individuals are rather naive and innocent. They are unaware of the often deep impact they make on other people's lives, and they tend never to suspect deviousness or underhanded motives in the people to whom they give so much of themselves.

Source: Oldham, John M., and Lois B. Morris. The New Personality Self-Portrait: Why You Think, Work, Love, and Act the Way You Do. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam, 1995.

Idealized Image

I did conceive of "character strengths and virtues" in a positive way as Martin Seligman does in his Positive Psychology, but now see them as images of perfection that inflate the idealized self theorized by Karen Horney.

Character Strengths and Virtues (what the Masochistic type is proud of)

The "Character Strengths and Virtues" are attributes of the idealized self, or ego ideal. As "conditions of worth" they are idols.

Generosity
Service, helpfulness, deference, non-competitiveness, non-ambitiousness
Considerateness, ethics, honesty, trustworthiness
Acceptance, nonjudgmental-ness, tolerance, never harshly reproving, loyalty, faithfulness
Humility, modesty, self-effacement
Endurance, long-suffering, responsibility, patience, stoicism
Artlessness, naivety, innocence, trustfulness

Signature Strengths*

"Love: Valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated; being close to people

"Kindness [generosity, nurturance, care, compassion, altruistic love, "niceness"]: Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them

"Social intelligence [emotional intelligence, personal intelligence]: being aware of the motives and feelings of other people and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick"

"Citizenship [social responsibility, loyalty, teamwork]: working well as a member of a group or team; being loyal to the group; doing one's share"

"Persistence [perseverance, industriousness]: Finishing what one starts; persisting in a course of action in spite of obstacles; "getting it out the door"; taking pleasure in completing tasks

"Forgiveness and mercy Forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting the shortcomings of others; giving people a second chance; not being vengeful

"Humility / Modesty Letting one's accomplishments speak for themselves; not regarding oneself as more special than one is" (Peterson & Seligman, 29, 30).

* Selected from Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman, (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Self-Sacrifice

Self-sacrifice: "Sacrifice of one's personal interests or well-being for the sake of others or for a cause." (AHD)

Sacrifice: "To forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value." (AHD)

Synonyms: "abnegate, forbear, forgo, eschew" (MW, 707)

"Forgo, forbear, abnegate, eschew, sacrifice are comparable when they denote to deny oneself something for the sake of an end. One forgoes for the sake of policy, expediency, or the welfare of others something already enjoyed or indulged in, or within reach ... Often the word implies surrender or abandonment ... One forbears, through motives of prudence, kindness, or charity, doing or saying something one wishes or is tempted to do or say. Forbear usually implies self-restraint ... One abnegates what is intrinsically good but not consistent with one's aims, principles, or limitations ... Often abnegate implies renunciation or self-effacement, but this distinction is not as commonly maintained in the verb as in the derivative noun abnegation ... One eschews ... something tempting, sometimes on moral or aesthetic grounds but more often because abstention or self-restraint is necessary for the achievement of a more significant desire or end ... one sacrifices something highly desirable or in itself or great value for the sake of a person, ideal, or end dearer to one than the thing or person involved; the term typically connotes renunciation and self-denial and a religious or ethical motive comparable to that of self-immolation ... " (354-55)

Analogous: "renounce, abdicate: surrender, yield, resign, relinquish" (707)

Antonyms:

Contrasted:

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1981, c.1969). William Morris, Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Merriam-Webster (1984). Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.

Careers and Jobs for the Self-Sacrificing type

Google Answers: selecting the right career for me

This list represents careers and jobs people of the Self-Sacrificing type tend to enjoy doing.

nurse
social worker
caterer
flight attendant
bookkeeper
medical/dental assistant
exercise physiologist
elementary school teacher
minister/priest/rabbi
retail owner
officer manager
telemarketer
counselor
special education teacher
merchandise planner
credit counselor
athletic coach
insurance agent
sales representative
massage therapist
medical secretary
child care provider
bilingual education teacher
professional volunteer

Source: U.S. Department of Interior, Career Manager - ESFJ.

Noteworthy examples of the Self-Sacrificing personality type

Many people (and not just those of the Self-Sacrificing personality type) have self-sacrificing traits or behave in a self-sacrificing manner. But the traits and behaviors of the Self-Sacrificing personality type are not so inflexible and maladaptive or the cause of such significant subjective distress or functional impairment as to constitute

Masochistic Personality Disorder
The noteworthy examples of the Self-Sacrificing personality type listed below are examples of a *type*, not of a disorder. It is my opinion that the ideal type which is described above is best characterized as self-sacrificing, and that the Self-Sacrificing personality type represents the pervasive and enduring pattern of the personalities of the people listed below better than any other type.

Famous persons on this list may serve as ego ideals, idealized images, and idols for individuals of the Self-Sacrificing type.

Noteworthy examples of the Self-Sacrificing personality type are: Index of noteworthy examples

Reik (1941) perceives the masochistic character as a composite expression of aggressive, ambitious, revengeful, defiant impulses revealed in fantasy or circuitously in action and directed against an actual person or persons, though often with what is termed a "reversed sign." He emphasizes the importance of the sadistic fantasy, citing it as the "soil in which masochism grows." Far from feeling , as Reich did, that in masochism we see an "inhibited exhibitionism," he maintains that the "demonstrative" quality in parading one's harmlessness, generosity, ineptness, or suffering is, indeed, actual exhibitionism, with the aim of concealing something else: "hostile, stubborn, vain-glorious tyranny." "Victory through defeat" is his summation of this construct.
Shirley Panken, The Joy of Suffering.

Reik, Theodor (1941). Masochism in Modern Man. New York: Farrar and Strauss.

Weblogs

HonieBucket - Self-Sacrificing/Devoted.
Thanatos Totem - keywords are: attic, chickens, neurosis, psychoanalysis, symbiotic family, teacher, computer sciences, philosophy, black and icebather.
megnut.com - a weblog by meg hourihan
All Feet on Deck - the weblog of Bob Monsour - Ramblings on web technology, learning CSS, volunteering at my son's school and getting my feet on deck.
The Doc Searls Weblog
Not A Dollarshort

"Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir" - Friedrich Nietzsche.

I hypothesize that the personality theories of personality theorists best describe themselves and those of their own type.

Sandor Ferenczi

Review of The Legacy of Sï¿½ndor Ferenczi by Michael Maccoby, Ph.D.
In ["Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child"] Ferenczi argued that abuse, both seduction and punishment, can be psychological as well as physical. It can lead to identification with the aggressor and "traumatic progression" or precocious maturity in which the child becomes finely attuned to the abusive adult and feels compelled to try and alleviate the adult's suffering. Ferenczi maintained that this attitude is transferred to the analyst. The patient represses unconscious criticism and anger and expresses an "exceedingly refined sensitivity for the wishes, tendencies, whims and antipathies of their analyst, even if the analyst is completely unaware of this sensitivity"
El Web de Sandor Ferenczi [Spanish language]

Love is Masochistic

Amazon.com: buying info: Moravagine

Love is masochistic. These cries and complaints, these sweet alarms, this anguished state of lovers, this suspense, this latent pain that is just below the surface, and almost unexpressed, these thousand and one anxieties over the loved one's absence, this feeling of time rushing by, this touchiness, these fits of temper, these long daydreams, this childish fickleness of behavior, this moral torture where vanity and self esteem, or perhaps honor, upbringing and modesty are at stake, these highs and lows in the nervous tone, these leaps of the imagination, this fetishism, this cruel precision of the senses, whipping and probing, the collapse, the prostration, the abdication, the self-abasement, the perpetual loss and recovery of one's personality, these stammered words and phrases, these pet-names, this intimacy, these hesitations in physical contact, these epileptic tremors, these successive and ever more frequent relapses, this more and more turbulent and stormy passion with its ravages progressing to the point of the complete inhibition and annihilation of the soul, the debility of the senses, the exhaustion of the marrow, the erasure of the brain, and even the desiccation of the heart, this yearning for ruin, for destruction, for mutilation, this need of effusiveness, of adoration of mysticism, this insatiability which expresses itself in hyper-irritability of the mucous membranes, the errant taste, in vasomotor or peripheral disorders, and which conjures up jealousy and vengeance, crimes, prevarications and treacheries, this idolatry, this incurable melancholy, this apathy, this profound moral misery, this definitive and harrowing doubt, this despair - are not all of these stigmata the very symptoms of love in which we can first diagnose, then trace with a sure hand, the clinical curve of masochism? - Blaise Cendrars, Moragavine (quote from Love Is....).

Charles Dickens

The Blacking Factory and Dickens's Imaginative World
For more than a half century, students of Dickens have emphasized the crucial importance of the traumatic period in his life when his parents suddenly removed him from school and their middle-class, more-or-less genteel environment, made him live apart from the family, and forced him to work at Warren's Shoeblacking factory and warehouse. As Walter Allen points out, this experience had crucial influence on (1) the writer's emphasis upon orphans and abandoned children, (2) the self-pity that permeates many of his works, and (3) their fairy-tale plots:

Bishop Desmond Tutu

Lycos Multimedia Search: desmond tutu

Bill Cosby

Lycos Multimedia Search: bill cosby

Reel People: Cinema's Psychological Personalities

Screenplay Systems : Reel People: The Masochistic Personality - REEL PEOPLE

Children's TV show host

Salon Brilliant Careers | Fred Rogers [via Robot Wisdom]
"The whole idea," Fred Rogers recently told Jeff Greenfield in a CNN interview, "is to look at the television camera and present as much love as you possibly could to a person who might feel that he or she needs it."

Authors

Scarlett O'Hara

Re: Scarlett O'Hara
Right from the first appearance of Scarlett O'Hara, it has been common to see psychiatrists type her as the hysterical/histrionic personality. John M. Oldham, in The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons complete home guide to mental health, 1992, diagnoses her with Histrionic Personality Disorder. But Charles E. Wells, in Comprehensive Psychiatry, XVII (1976), 353-359, in my opinion, convincingly refuted this idea. His conclusion was:
Scarlett O'Hara, as the prototype product of this environment [southern plantation society], has been studied to evaluate (1) to what extent she represents the hysterical personality as generally understood today and (2) to what extent she represents the typical feminine character resulting from the social forces of her age and culture. While by appearance and behavior Scarlett fulfills almost perfectly our requirements for being labeled a hysterical personality, she does not at all fit our understanding of the hysterical personality in terms of favored defense mechanisms, psychodynamic forces, and cognitive style. Scarlett's appearance and outward behavior (her hysterical carapace, that is ) are clearly presented as the product of social forces then extant. Social forces, however, failed to mold in her the other features typical of the hysterical personality.Indeed, they failed to mold in Scarlett even the expected features of femininity below those apparent on the surface. In fact, the study of Scarlett suggests, in answer to the third question posed at the outset, that while social forces may produce the appearance of feminine character or hysterical personality (which might be confused), appearance is the sole result, not the rigid underpinning, of character structure.

One of her biographers believes that Melanie Hamilton Wilkes and Scarlett O'Hara are characters drawn from two sides of Margaret Mitchell. But that she idealized both sides: Melanie has *all* the good (but weak) qualities and that Scarlett has *all* the bad (but strong) qualities. I would say that Scarlett is a "Two gone to Eight."
To me, Blanche DuBois is a hysterical personality and Scarlett O'Hara, like Margaret Mitchell, is a masochistic personality.
MMPI-2 Notes
"Scarlett O?Hara V," "Passive-Aggressive Valley," or the "Victim?s Valley": Scales 4 and 6 are above 65T and scale 5 is below 35T (40T?).

Women are angry and hostile, but unable to express these feelings directly. They manipulate others into attacking them and then revel in complaining about how others mistreat them. They are excessively demanding, dependent, and in need of attention and affection. Usually present with marital difficulties, family problems, and sexual dysfunctions.

These women are particularly adept at enraging others (even professionals) and deny their involvement in the process. They are demanding, manipulative, hostile, and passive-aggressive, yet they are submissive, yielding, and over-identify with the traditional feminine role.

Look for a history of early sexualization, sexual abuse, or physical abuse.
Scarlett Fever! is happily suffered by Gone With The Wind Fans - Fan Forum.

TV co-host

Kathie Lee Gifford [via AltaVista]

Submission

What a Slave Needs By David Stein

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