Character lore

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With characterology , character analysis or characterology a psychological is typology described by character shapes. Character studies took place in psychology until the 1960s. a. through the work of Ludwig Klages , Philipp Lersch and Robert hot considerable space. Today the term personality psychology is used for this in contrast to the popular knowledge of human nature and character interpretation. However, in psychoanalytically oriented (social) psychology the concept of character (e.g. social character in the sense of Erich Fromm ) and the term authoritarian character originally coined by Wilhelm Reich (often synonymous with authoritarian personality ) are used.

The description of character and traits is still of great importance for writing , i.e. the craft of the writer for the book and the stage, as well as in everyday psychology . This is one of the reasons why the term personality, which Ludwig Klages already used identically in his character studies, is preferred in scientific psychology today.

history

Character studies have long developed outside of the psychology taught at universities . In Germany, Julius Bahnsen is considered the pioneer with his book Contributions to Characterology (1867). Carl Huter achieved great popularity with his teaching, which mainly related to the individual shape of the face and skull and thus followed Johann Caspar Lavater and his physiognomics as well as Franz Joseph Gall and his phrenology (see character types ).

The psychoanalytic character analysis differentiates types mainly according to their affectivity and drive structure or according to neurosis, while in personality psychology biological (genetic) bases, temperament, learning, self-concepts and other perspectives are also important. It was only through the development of differential psychologies and new scientific methods to describe individual differences at the beginning of the 20th century that the foundations of today's personality psychology and the various personality theories emerged .

Psychoanalytic character theory

Alfred Adler's program , as he developed it in 1912 in his study on nervous character , is fundamental for approaches in depth psychology-oriented character studies in the 20th century . Unlike Sigmund Freud , he is not interested in speculative models of the drive structure, but in strengthening character traits such as courage, patience and the like.

Fritz Künkel developed Adler's individual psychology further into what he called the "applied character studies" theory, which he presented in a monograph in 1928. For him, “character” means “the sum of the reactions of the individual to the physical and social conditions found”.

In 1928 Franz Alexander spoke of the "neurotic character"; this affects the environment, while neurotic symptoms are only temporarily present and affect the ego or are repelled by it.

In 1933 Wilhelm Reich wrote a monograph on character analysis. In contrast to Alexander, as he had already postulated in 1925, Reich did not want to distinguish between symptom neuroses and neurotic character; rather, the character is shaped by continuous instinctual defense. Reich's approach is to relate different character types or “character neuroses” to specific types of conflict situations in childhood as their causes and to free the corresponding suppressed emotions through “sex-economic” therapy. Reich developed this into a body therapy that he called " vegetotherapy ".

Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos modified Reich's character and vegetotherapy therapy into their own concepts. Lowen and Pierrakos describe 8 character structures that are more closely related to the character types in psychoanalysis and depth psychology. In today's current body psychotherapeutic schools Hakomi , bioenergetics , biodynamics and core energetics , this character theory is represented in different weightings and variants.

Erich Fromm had developed the concept of social character ( social character ) in the 1930s and specified the idea of authoritarian character in Die Furcht vor der Freiheit (1941) . The analysis of different forms of aggressiveness and destructiveness in his work Anatomy of Human Destructiveness led to a typology of character structures: spontaneous destructiveness, sadism and necrophilia . Fromm portrayed Josef Stalin as a clinical case of non-sexual sadism, Heinrich Himmler as a clinical case of anal hoarding sadism, and Adolf Hitler as a clinical case of necrophilia.

In 1961, the psychoanalyst Fritz Riemann developed a character theory that was not initially oriented towards the neurotic case, but conceived as normal psychology. He starts from four basic fears: fears of self-giving, self-becoming, change and necessity; accordingly there were four basic types of personality structure: compulsive, hysterical, schizoid and depressive, which according to Riemann also z. B. more delicate can be distinguished in combinations of two.

In 1987/1989, the specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy Gerda Jun formulated a character theory similar to Riemann, which differentiates between four “bipolar potentials (fields of possibility) of the psychological basic structure”: the archical - the dynamic - the emotional - the contemplative. Going beyond Riemann, it shows in a bio-psycho-social individual concept with new knowledge of context (perspective of evolution) a living order found within the variety of characters, the variety of individual mixtures, a principle of meaningful mutual additions: complementarity. (Further development: 2006/2009)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sabine Siebenhüner: Fritz Künkel's contribution…. In: Alfred Lévy, Gerald Mackenthun (Hrsg.): Gestalten um Alfred Adler: Pioneers of Individual Psychology … Königshausen & Neumann 2002, ISBN 3-8260-2156-8 , pp. 133–156, here 137.
  2. ^ A. Lowen: The Language of the Body. New York 1958. (German: body expression and personality. Basics and practice of bioenergetics. Munich 1981, ISBN 3-466-34041-1 ).
  3. ↑ Andreas Sartory: Overview of some variants of body psychotherapeutic character theory. In: Gustl Marlock, Halko Weiss (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Körperpsychotherapie. 1st edition. Schattauer-Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-7945-2473-X , Chapter 29, p. 331. (books.google.de)

literature

  • Julius Bahnsen : Contributions to characterology. (2 volumes, edited by Johannes Rudert) Barth, Leipzig 1867/1932.
  • Jean-Baptiste Delacour: Lexicon of character studies. Knowledge of human nature at a glance. Pawlak, Herrsching 1980, ISBN 3-7205-2520-1 .
  • Erich Fromm : The fear of freedom. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-548-35178-6 . (1st edition 1945; English orig. Escape from Freedom. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York 1941)
  • Erich Fromm: Anatomy of human destructiveness. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-499-17052-3 .
  • Robert Hot : The doctrine of character. Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin 1949. (1st edition 1936)
  • Sven Olaf Hoffmann, Gerd Hochapfel: theory of neuroses, psychotherapeutic and psychosomatic medicine. 6th edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-7945-1960-4 .
  • Ludwig Klages : The basics of character studies. 14th edition. Bouvier, Bonn 1969. (1910, before 1926 principles of characterology. )
  • Gerda Jun: Character. 2nd Edition. Verlag Volk und Gesundheit, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-333-00420-8 .
  • Gerda Jun: Our inner resources. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, Göttingen, 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-45373-5 .
  • Karl König: Character and behavior in everyday life. Notes and help. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1995, ISBN 3-525-01428-7 .
  • Karl König: Character, Personality and Personality Disorder. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-608-94369-2 .
  • Karl König: Small psychoanalytic character studies. 7th edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-45864-9 .
  • Fritz Künkel: Introduction to character studies. 18th edition. Hirzel, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-7776-1025-9 .
  • Philipp Lersch : Structure of the person. 11th edition. Johann Ambrosius Barth, Munich 1970.
  • Josef Rattner: Mental weaknesses. Mental strengths. Knowledge of character and knowledge of human nature. Krummwisch, Königsfurt 2001, ISBN 3-89875-029-9 .
  • Wilhelm Reich : character analysis. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-462-01982-1 . (1st edition 1932)
  • Fritz Riemann : Basic forms of fear , a depth psychological study. 37th edition. Reinhardt, Basel 2006, ISBN 3-497-00749-8 .
  • Hubert Rohracher : Character studies. 13th edition. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-541-02383-X .