What Are the Characteristics of a Healthy Person?

• Long before Abraham Maslow made the concept of selfactualization popular, Gordon Allport hypothesized in depth about the attributes of the mature personality.
• • Concept that presupposes that people are capable of consciously acting upon their environment in new and innovative ways, which then feed new elements into the system and stimulate psychological growth.
  • This is not merely directed at reducing tensions but also at establishing new ones

  Proactive Behavior
• mature personalities are more likely than disturbed ones to be motivated by conscious processes, which allow them to be more flexible and autonomous than unhealthy people, who remain dominated by unconscious motives that spring from childhood experiences.
• • experienced a relatively trauma-free childhood, even though their later years may be tempered by conflict and suffering.
  • age is not a requisite for maturity, although they seem to become more mature as they get older.
  • not without the foibles and idiosyncrasies that make them unique

  Psychologically Healthy People
• 6 criteria for Mature Personality

  1. Extension of the sense of self
  2. Warm relating of self to others
  3. Emotional Security or Self Acceptance
  4. Realistic Perception
  5. Insight and Humor
  6. Unifying Philosophy of Life
• • Mature people continually seek to identify with and participate in events outside themselves.
  • They are not self-centered but are able to become involved in problems and activities that are not centered on themselves.
  • They develop an unselfish interest in work, play, and recreation.
  • Social interest (Gemeinschaftsgefühl), family, and spiritual life are important to them.

  Extension of the sense of self
• • They have the capacity to love others in an intimate and compassionate manner
  • Warm relating, of course, is dependent on people’s ability to extend their sense of self.
  • Only by looking beyond themselves can mature people love others non-possessively and unselfishly
  • Psychologically healthy individuals treat other people with respect, and they realize that the needs, desires, and hopes of others are not completely foreign to their own.
  • they have a healthy sexual attitude and do not exploit others for personal gratification.

  Warm Relating of Self to Others
• • Mature individuals accept themselves for what they are, and they possess what Allport (1961) called emotional poise.
  • are not overly upset when things do not go as planned or when they are simply “having a bad day.”
  • They do not dwell on minor irritations, and they recognize that frustrations and inconveniences are a part of living.

  Emotional Security or Self Acceptance
• • They do not live in a fantasy world or bend reality to fit their own wishes.
  • They are problem oriented rather than self-centered, and they are in touch with the world as most others see it.

  Realistic Perception
• • Mature people know themselves and, therefore, have no need to attribute their own mistakes and weaknesses to others.
  • They also have a nonhostile sense of humor, which gives them the capacity to laugh at themselves rather than relying on sexual or aggressive themes to elicit laughter from others.
  • closely related and may be aspects of the same thing, namely self-objectification.
  • see themselves objectively
  • able to perceive the incongruities and absurdities in life and have no need to pretend or to put on airs.

  Insight and Humor
• • Healthy people have a clear view of the purpose of life.
  • Without this view, their insight would be empty and barren, and their humor would be trivial and cynical.
  • The person with a mature religious attitude and a ? ? ? ? has a well-developed conscience and, quite likely, a strong desire to serve others.

  Unifying Philosophy of Life