The basis of good Mental Health is a well-integrated Personality

Why are we the way we are? Each one of us is unique and different. We have different ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving reality, the world, relationships... different ways of acting and reacting.

Personality is the set of traits and qualities that make up a person's way of being and differentiate it from others. How to distinguish when our personality is healthy and when we can present a pathology?

• Related article: "The main theories of personality"

How to integrate our mental health?

Melanie Klein, psychoanalyst and founder of the English school of psychoanalysis, tells us that: "The basis of mental health is a well-integrated personality." The mental health qualities highlighted by Melanie Klein have a strong ethical component: love, respect, loyalty, trust, and good intentions are mental health factors.

Starting from this idea, let's see what are the keys to integrate our mental health:

1. We need to develop emotional maturity

This means accept that throughout our life we ​​can lose personal relationships

: of a partner, loved ones, friends... and that we will not be able to satisfy all our fantasies to the extent that we would like. For example: when we do not tolerate that someone does not want to break the relationship with us, or that they do not like us, or when we believe that our expectations have to be met by others, such as when we believe that our partner is going to read our minds and know what we want.

2. Strength of character

strength of character It is shown in loyalty in relationships, in commitment to values, and the capacity for perseverance and perseverance in maintaining these values. valueseven though we experience losses and frustrations. Like when there is a divorce, not losing our values ​​and despite feeling frustrated, doing well with the ex-partner.

3. Ability to manage conflicting emotions

Conflict will always be present in life. The denial of the conflict is to deny reality. The ability to manage and tolerate conflicts is an essential factor in mental health. Many people have problems in relationships with others by manifesting a lack of anger control or inappropriate anger.. Also, we have at the other extreme, people who avoid conflict at all costs and disappear from relationships or they remain silent, generating a passive aggressiveness and generating frustration and impotence to the people to whom they do not communicate his anger. Something very frequent nowadays like ghosting, or wanting to leave a relationship when there is conflict.

4. The balance between inner life and adaptation to reality

It is based on not avoiding conflict and not avoiding freedom of thought and the ability to dream. If we do not develop our internal world and our fantasies, it is not possible to develop creativity. On the other hand, do not live self-absorbed, and separated from the world. But to maintain a balance between being "inside", in our fantasy world, and living "outside", that is, being present in the earthly world.

5. Successful fusion between the different parts of the personality

tolerance to impulses, and the acceptance that we have undesirable parts of our personality. Idealizing those traits, justifying or putting makeup on them, denying that they exist, does not lead us to have an integrated personality. It is a sign of humility to recognize and work on them. also sign of empathyKeep in mind that we can harm other people with these negative traits.

What are the components of a healthy personality?

• Capacity for recognize internal needs and express them appropriately in relationship with significant others.
• Ability to adapt to the different situations that life presents to us, and to the different people we meet.
• Capacity for healthy dependence on others and be independent. interdependence.
• Ability to integrate sexuality with tenderness: intimacy. There are people who manifest inability to express tenderness.
• Capacity for self-awareness.
• Ability to work, enjoy and have a rewarding social life.
• Capacity for identify with values ​​that guide our personality and our way of living.

What characterizes a mentally unhealthy or unintegrated personality?

These are the most distinctive aspects of a personality that is not properly integrated and gives rise to problems:

1. Has a restriction in any of these capacities

The psychologist's office is full of people who suffer because they either have not developed adaptively these capacities, or, on the contrary, they relate to others who do not make self-criticism and do not work psychologically. We could talk about abusive relationships, traumas...

2. Decreased flexibility and freedom

Black or white polarized thinking, mental rigidity, dominance, control. All this entails establishing unequal relations, of power. In healthy relationships there is mental flexibility and adaptability.

3. A repetitive, restrictive, inflexible and mandatory pattern

That is, when there is a personality disorder, the person thinks, behaves and feels the same way in most situations, regardless of context, types of people with whom he relates, his chronological age... Example: a narcissistic or histrionic personality, he will want to stand out in all social situations, regardless of whether it is appropriate or not, and whether other people need to be the center of attention in that moment.

What are the warning signs to detect these personality problems? When people display these behaviors:

• Recurrent suicidal acts or suicide threats.
• Frequent unstable relationships. Idealization of the person and devaluation. Lack of continuity in relationships. Example: one day you are in love, and the next day you are not.
• extreme impulsivity. Excessive spending, addiction to sex, substances, reckless driving...

AND when they express subjective discomfort It manifests itself in the following ways:

• Chronic feelings of emptiness (permanent feeling that something is missing; general demotivation; not finding meaning in life or what one has; permanent boredom; not finding satisfaction in anything, social isolation; unsafety; when doing things causes anxiety).
• Intense and inappropriate anger and difficulties in controlling it. * Triggered mainly when rejection and inattention is perceived by people who are considered important.
• emotional instability. Emotions are changeable in a short period of time, not due to a specific cause.
• Efforts to avoid abandonment. Because of the fear of abandonment, you can also react with inappropriate anger. For example, getting very angry with someone because they are a few minutes late or because they had to cancel an appointment.
• Transient paranoid ideation. You suspect that you are being persecuted or treated unfairly when there is no real or rational evidence that this is the case.

The objective of this article is not self-diagnosis, but if you feel identified with or recognize these traits in people around you, ask a mental health professional for help.