Oldham John - The New Personality Self-Portrait: Why You Think, Work, Love and Act the Way You Do

THE NEW PERSONALITY SELF-PORTRAIT

A Bantam Book / September 1995

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted works: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. By permission of the American Psychiatric Association; 1994. Of Weirdoes and Eccentrics by Pico Iyer. Reprinted by permission; copyright 1988 Time, Inc. Richard Harris. Reprinted by permission; 1987 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Back in the High Life by Ron Rosenbaum. Used by permission of the author, copyright 1988. Abnormalities of Personality; Within and Beyond the Realm of Treatment by Michael H. Stone. By permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright 1993 by Michael H. Stone.

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1995 by John M. Oldham, M.D., and Lois B. Morris
The New Personality Self-Portrait test copyright 1995
by John M. Oldham, M.D., and Lois B. Morris

Book design by MM Design 2000, Inc.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oldham, John M.
The new personality self-portrait : why you think, work, love, and act the way you do / John M. Oldham and Lois B. Morris.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: The personality self-portrait. 1990.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-0-307-81869-0
1. Typology (Psychology) 2. Personality disorders. I. Morris, Lois B. II. Oldham, John M. Personality self-portrait. III. Title. BF698.3043 1995
155.264dc20

95-12233
CIP

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

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v3.1

For Karen
and
For Susan and Gene

Grateful thanks to all our test subjects. By volunteering their time and allowing us to peer into their personalities, they helped us to develop the test that serves as the basis for this book. To Michael First, M.D., and Peggy Gallaher, Ph.D., we offer heartfelt appreciation for their assistance in gathering and interpreting the data that helped us to refine the test and thus to proceed with this new edition.

In 1984, it first occurred to us to devise a system ofand test fornormal personality styles based on the new system for classifying personality disorders that had recently been developed by the American Psychiatric Association, which had never been attempted. We believed then, as now, that the disorders of personality that psychiatrists have identified can be seen as extremes along a continuum of normal, adaptive, individual personality differences. Thus we set out to identify and describe these normal personality styles. Six years later, in 1990, The Personality Self-Portrait was published. Little did we imagine how well it would be received and how eagerly it would be applied by researchers, clinicians, human resources departments, teachers, students, individuals wishing to know more about themselves, and even dating services!

We have prepared this new edition of both the book and the test for two principal reasons. For one, the system upon which we had based our first edition has changed. The personality styles represented in our first edition corresponded to the categories of personality disorder published in the American Psychiatric Associations DSM-III-R: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Third Edition-Revised). The 1994 publication of the fourth edition of the manual, the DSM-IV, brought with it some changes to the personality disorder classifications and diagnostic criteria, which we have reflected in our own schema and revised test in The New Personality Self-Portrait.

Changes in this edition also reflect the data we have collected since the original publication. The earlier test was devised primarily as a descriptive tool. Its almost immediate adoption into formal settings necessitated information as to its scientific validity, which was begun at several sites. This new test incorporates results of that initial work, and the process of data collection continues. In addition, we have received valuable feedback from researchers, readers, and mental health professionals throughout the world, to whom we are extremely grateful.

We encourage continued involvement of and reactions from those who wish to use this system. Although the test that appears in this book is intended only for personal use and may not be copied, additional test booklets and software, plus research permission, is available from: Multi-Health Systems, Inc., telephone toll-free 1-800-456-3003 (U.S.) or 1-800-268-6011 (Canada).

J OHN M. O LDHAM , M.D.
L OIS B. M ORRIS

In this book we present a system for defining your personality style and understanding the particular ways it affects six key domains of your life: your relationships and love life; your work; your self-image; your emotional life; your self-control, impulses, and appetites; and your sense of reality and of spirituality.

The fourteen normal personality-style categories that we present, and the test to determine your individual personality pattern, are derived from the importantsome say revolutionaryclassification system of personality