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Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Conflict Stages and Derivative Behaviors


By: Henry Kellerman and Anthony Burry

The bridge between intrapsychic conflicts in the early development of identity and the resulting needs and traits that govern interpersonal behavior is presented. The early, formative stages of development from which needs and traits typical of the person are derived are considered.

Accordingly, issues of dependency and independence, control and dyscontrol, assertion and passivity, competitiveness, rivalry, and ambivalence are discussed. The central characteristics deriving from such conflicts in each of these stages are related to a variety of emerging interpersonal tendencies and diagnostic dispositions with a focus on derivative interpersonal functioning.

Interpersonal behavior: identity.Current behavior is linked historically to psychosexual stage derivatives:
Psychosexual Stage
Developmental Theme
Oral
Dependency
Anal
Control
Phallic
Assertion
Oedipal
Competition



Derivative oral traits:

• The need for immediate gratification.
• Hostile-dependent behavior: petulance, deference, depression, and rage reactions.
• Lowered self-esteem.
• Magical strivings, grandiosity, and compensatory behavior.
• Diagnostic syndromes include attitudes of the depressive type or the mood of the grandiose manic type.
• Hostile-dependent behavior: petulance, deference, depression, and rage reactions.
• Lowered self-esteem.
• Magical strivings, grandiosity, and compensatory behavior.
• Diagnostic syndromes include attitudes of the depressive type or the mood of the grandiose manic type.

Derivative anal traits:

• Demands to perform are experienced and control and mastery are sought.
• The need for autonomy.
• Behaviors and attitudes appear related either to cleanliness, rigidity, righteousness, and reduced empathy or to acting-out, impulsivity, argumentativeness, and impatience.
• An objective, controlling approach, or an impulsive, manipulative approach contribute to interpersonal strains.
• Self-esteem is lowered by an accumulation of anger and resentments.
• Diagnostic syndromes include the overcontrol of the obsessive-compulsive or the dyscontrol of the acting-out or psychopathic type.

Derivative phallic traits:

• Needs for assertion are denied, passivity emerges, and anger may be expressed inappropriately. • Goals are sensed as inaccessible, contributing to lowered self-esteem and feelings of impotence. • Diagnostic syndromes include a passive-aggressive approach, and narcissistic exhibitionism.

Derivative oedipal traits:

• Conflicts regarding loyalty and sexual acting-out with an experience of guilt in relation to disloyalty.
• Ambivalence protects against involvement and commitment.
• Competitive strivings and a sense of rivalry are overdeveloped or denied.
• Diagnostic syndromes include a paranoid critical stance in which competitive strivings are overdeveloped or a hysteric mode in which an agreeable, suggestible stance denies competitiveness.

References

Henry Kellerman and Anthony Burry, Handbook of Psychodiagnostic Testing, Fourth Edition, 2007, Springer ScienceBusiness Media, LLC.

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