Saturday, November 30, 2013

Personality Clusters



Personality Clusters are groups of distorted and self-defeating beliefs, what behavioral scientists call schemas, which form challenging parts of our personality with their habitual emotional and behavioral reactions. Many of these Personality Clusters are the residual effects of trauma and ineffective emotional upbringing. We see examples of these clusters in persons suffering from early emotional abandonment, abuse, deprivation, and parental perfectionism. Often these Personality Clusters or groups of beliefs reside just outside of awareness. We may notice the impact of Personality Clusters when they abruptly emerge in our lives with periods of painful emotions, distorted and self-defeating thoughts, and behavior that pulls us into trouble such as addictions or feeling very remote from others. These clusters of beliefs may powerfully steer our lives in directions we'd rather not go.