Maladaptive Personality Style

A relatively recent area of interest has emerged with the focus on personality style. Falling between clinical syndromes and personality disorders, maladaptive personality style refers to enduring personality qualities that, under certain circumstances, may become dysfunctional and generative of stress problems. Personality style refers to enduring patterns of self-perception, interpersonal relations, approach to work tasks and other involvements, which limit the individual's adaptability and capacity to cope with stress.

For example, the person who is inclined to be obsessive, meticulous and rigid may develop stress problems in a workplace undergoing change or where job role boundaries are unclearly defined. The individual with this personality style, which may not be pathological in itself, will tend to become highly stressed because of the interaction between pre-existing personality features and these situational factors. This personality style thus constitutes a risk factor for stress in certain occupational settings.

Another example is the person who is habitually over-involved in their work, emotionally intense and overly sensitive to the distress of others. These features constitute a personality style which is a risk factor for stress problems in public contact positions.

Among the occupational overuse syndrome group there is a personality style that can be relevant in both the causation and maintenance of some overuse problems. This personality style may be characterized in terms of self-pressuring and perfectionistic traits, and a constricted (overly black and white) cognitive style. Individuals with this personality style often do not respond well to physical reconditioning treatments and require psychosocial interventions to modify their personality style and enhance their responsiveness to physical treatments.

Personality style is also a risk factor for cardio-vascular disease in the same way as smoking and cholesterol. Termed the Type-A or coronary prone personality, the original formulation focused on features of impatience, competitiveness and excessive achievement strivings. (Friedman & Rosenman 1974). More recently the coronary-prone personality type has been revised to focus particularly on excessive hostility feelings in reaction to unmet expectations (Contrada, Leventhal & O'Leary 1992) as being more strongly related to the onset of heart disease.

Issues of personality style are important to clarify in intervention planning and for the appropriate allocation of treatment and rehabilitation resources. Stress management approaches are typically not sufficiently focused to alter ingrained aspects of personality style. The successful modification of personality style generally requires systematic and targeted psychological interventions, together with a commitment to change from the individual concerned.

There may be a role in some occupational settings for specific skills training in staff induction programmes to reduce the risk of stress associated with certain personality styles in particular jobs. For example, in high volume public contact positions, training in developing and maintaining an appropriate sense of personal responsibility and self-debriefing strategies may serve a useful preventive role.