DOCTORS' LOUNGE
reserved, role model and self-centered. who are more likely to respond to counseling therapy.
Apparently, the average people are high in neuroticism and
extraversion, low in openness to new experiences, and female more
than male. They outnumber everybody else. I am thinking they are
the people who designed billing codes: they are fanatically obsessive
about initial/subsequent, right/left and controlled/uncontrolled -
make them stop. Just make them stop. T. R. Miller, writing in the Journal of Personality Assessment
December 1991, felt that the neuroticism score reflected the intensity
and duration of the patient’s distress; the other scores influence the
patient’s openness to interventions and willingness to do the work
of psychotherapy. Career counselors can use these traits to better
match occupational choices to the person’s aptitude and outlook
on life. Psychologists and psychiatrists have learned that high or
low scores in one domain can predict response to medications as
well; there are studies that show connections with certain genes
with these traits, which adds another layer of useful information.
The reserved person can be agreeable, conscientious and stable
but not open, extroverted or even neurotic. (They sound unexciting,
but productive. They might design bridges.)
The role model scores high in every category except neurotic,
and therefore is likely to be old, not young, and is both dependable
and open to new ideas. In their data, women outnumber men; this
type scored high at taking charge. (In the world of doctoring, this
type sounds familiar.)
The self-centered are very high in extraversion and score low in
all the other categories. This sounds like a contradiction, at first. But
the facets of extraversion are warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness,
activity and excitement seeking, and positivity. (Apparently, I
conclude, they need an audience; a big parade might do.)
So aside from the simple pleasure of sorting people into boxes
(akin to that of organizing your closets, I’ve heard, although I haven’t
had time for that since the EMR), what is the usefulness of these
categories? Essentially, they can direct therapy and predict those
I am not sure what you and I can do with them. Pattern
recognition is, along with listening, intuition and one’s medical
knowledge base, the foundation of diagnosis. They might be helpful
in sizing up political candidates, for there are bunches of them
coming our way. No one is just one type of course; humans are far
too complicated for that. But if someone wants my vote and I get
any whiff of the ICD-10 type, I’ll be out of there fast.
Dr. Barry practices internal medicine with Norton Community Medical Associates-
Barret. She is a clinical associate professor at the University of Louisville School of
Medicine, Department of Medicine.
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