Underlying personality differences between alcohol/substance-use disorder patients with and without an affective disorder

How addiction happens, how change happens, and what social workers need to know to be effective facilitators of change

During the last two decades, neuroscience research has proliferated examining brain mechanisms that explain why some people are compelled to pursue drugs and alcohol. The findings suggest that addiction is independent of pleasure, and that drug seeking can be triggered outside of conscious awareness (Berridge, Robinson, & Aldridge, 2009; Goldstein et al., 2009; Kalivas, Volkow, & Seamans, 2005). The observations and conclusions from this research can be used to advantage in treating addiction. The use of social psychological principles, in the context of motivational interviewing, offers a platform for taking advantage of these new insights. After a brief sketch of the latest understanding of the physiological forces operating in addiction, the author examines those ways to interact with substance dependent clients that promote change without provoking resistance in this article. Action plans are later described that can supplant automatic, addiction-induced behaviors (Gollwitzer, Fujita, & Oettingen, 2004). Mechanisms such as building coping skills are discussed, that help in maintaining new behaviors. Some of these mechanisms are efficacious because they bolster the brain's self-regulatory capacity (Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007; Littrell, 2010). Thus, for every step in the change process, from resistance to change maintenance, validated guidelines for altering the outcome from addiction will be provided.

Myers Briggs Type indicator personality profiles in unipolar depressed patients

OBJECTIVE

The current study was designed to compare the distribution of Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality types in patients with Unipolar Depression compared to normative data.

METHOD

The MBTI divides individuals into four dichotomous types: Extroverted and Introverted, Sensing and Intuitive, Thinking and Feeling, and Judging and Perceiving. This yields eight single-factor and sixteen four-factor types. One-hundred-thirty Unipolar Depressed patients were administered the MBTI-Form F.

RESULTS

Unipolar Depressed patients were significantly more often Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving single-factor types respectively, and Introverted-Sensing-Feeling-Perceiving, and Introverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Perceiving four-factor types. The male Introverted-Sensing-Feeling-Perceiving four-factor type was the most dramatically over-represented.

CONCLUSION

The MBTI effectively discriminates a patient group with Unipolar Depression from a normative population.

Introversion and extroversion: implications for depression and suicidality

A growing body of information suggests that core or underlying personality is a significant concomitant of depression and suicidality. Introversion (ie, low extroversion) is especially promising in its relationship to the phenomenology and outcome of depression, and may represent an underlying heritable trait of etiologic significance. Furthermore, the presence of introversion has implications for differentiating unipolar and bipolar depression. It is likely that introversion acts in concert with other core personality variables, including neuroticism and having a feeling-type personality to influence depression. Considering depression from the perspective of core personality allows for novel psychotherapeutic approaches based on targeting underlying personality variables.