What are the natural rights of the personality? They are the rights that would seem to go without saying, simply because we are born and we grow. They were derived by Alexander Lowen, and Sergey Shishkov and his team developed them further.
The rights of the personality are the right...
- to be,
- to provision,
- to autonomy,
- to independence,
- the right to want and
- the right to achieve.
Some ethereal ideal person without a single violated right would know for certain that the very fact of being born gives him the right to life (1), and that the very fact of living gives him the right to live provided for (2): to have all the resources he needs. He can act separately from his parents (3) and knows that his pleasure depends on nobody but himself (4). And finally, he knows exactly what he wants (5) and that he can get what he wants (6). Alas, in reality no such ideal people exist.
In reality every one of us has one of these rights violated, and that violation is guaranteed to shape the way we act in comparable situations.
When can rights be violated?
Look closely and there are three basic situations in which a right can be violated:
- Questions of survival
- Questions of socialisation
- Questions of getting what you want.
Why are there three situations and six rights? Simply because introverts and extraverts react differently to one and the same situation: an introvert is loaded up with ideas and sensations, an extravert rather with outward signs. It is hard to predict which child will react more sharply to which situation: one will get stuck on survival, another will not even notice a problem. What can be said for certain is that that particular situation will colour every decision that follows. And naturally, each of the four temperaments will produce its own specific reaction to each of the situations.
And a note for the especially advanced. However wise, psychologically savvy and enlightened you may be, there is simply no way of avoiding the violation of one of the rights. The child will find someone to violate that right anyway, even if everyone around him does everything correctly. So breathe in, breathe out and read on.
Survival: to be and to eat
Of the whole range of instincts an infant has, only one, the sexual one, is not directly linked to survival. But even that one depends entirely on the presence of the mother, or of whoever plays that role for the infant. So an infant who feels no warmth and no care, who is unwanted, who nobody has the time or the strength for... does not feel safe.
And in an introvert this absence of a sense of safety leads to the conclusion that the infant has no right to be, while in an extravert (remember, they are "tuned" from birth more towards outward signs) it leads to the conclusion that although he is alive, keeping that existence going is very much an open question.
To this a second, practically innate factor is added: activity. An active reaction means doing too much, at times aggressively, loudly and expansively. As against the more passive, peaceable and at times dependent reaction, where an order of magnitude less gets done.
An active introvert will say: "So I can't be?! But I am! I'm alive! Look how I can do this and that! I exist! Only me! And you don't..." A passive introvert, on the contrary, will say: "If I can't be, then I don't exist...". Extraverts are sure that they do exist, and that being takes resources. So an active extravert will say "Give me two! Three! All of it, at once, and to me!", while a passive one will be afraid there won't be enough for him and will start weaving schemes to make sure there is.
So, an active introvert will say: "So I can't be?! But I am! I'm alive! Look how I can do this and that!" Not in infancy, of course, but later, with age. Yet it is precisely in infancy that this drive to prove his right to be to everyone takes shape. With age the drive is confirmed many times over, because that was the approach that came most easily in childhood. And the person grows up very active, cheerful, curious, savouring every moment of life. He will sweep aside every obstacle and barrier in his path, be it a wall, a rockfall or a human being. And if the obstacle happens to be, say, your personal boundaries, he will sweep those aside too, and without much of a pang of conscience.
A passive introvert, on the contrary, will say: "If I can't be, then I don't exist...". And he will grow up quiet and diligent, very logical, incredibly attentive and caring. He will always be there, dependable and predictable, now and then trying to show himself and speak up, yet still preferring to watch. And he will have no sense at all of his own boundaries: he does not exist, so neither do they.
An active extravert will say "Give me two! Three! All of it, at once, and to me!". And the most valuable thing you can give him is attention, because with that many spectators nobody starves. With that many spectators you can put on a real show and get all the resources you need.
A passive extravert, on the other hand, will be frightened of direct attention. He will also be afraid that there won't be enough for him and will start weaving schemes to make sure there is. And at that he has no equal, because he will provide for himself, for his family and even for his grandchildren.
The people around us: society and rules
If the little one has slipped past the questions of survival without getting stuck on them, then the next question put to him point-blank is this: what he wants suddenly starts being set against what other people want, and against what society wants from him. Society is those strange outsiders who insist that their strange rules be followed. A new word appears — "no" — and if you don't obey it, even your parents somehow turn angry. It suddenly turns out that you can no longer relieve yourself whenever you like: there is a potty for that. And screaming isn't really on either. And altogether the idyllic world of anything-goes collapses somewhere.
And again, each temperament reacts in its own way. An introvert will try to work out the rules of the game, the inner attitudes he can follow afterwards, while an extravert will focus more on the opinion and the approval of the people around him.
An active introvert will try to set his own rules, a passive one to recognise the existing rules and fit in with them. A passive extravert will try to earn the approval and love of others by giving everything he has, while an active extravert will prefer to reach his goals by charming whoever he is talking to and by a demonstrative independence from their opinion.
So, a passive introvert will try to recognise the existing rules in order to fit in with them, and at that he has no equal. If anyone can come to terms with everybody, take care of everything and get it all right, it is him. True, this way of acting takes an incredible amount of effort, but it comes easier to him than swimming against the current and taking responsibility for his own life. So in every later situation of dealing with people the choice will fall on tradition, morality, rules and whatever people might want from him.
An active introvert will try to set his own rules of the game and will demand that everyone keep them. To be fair, he will also take responsibility for those rules, and for those who keep them. Because the rules exist for their sake, for the sake of the people around him. So an active introvert like this is always right, and always ready to fight for his point of view. After all, it is not for his own sake.
A passive extravert will try to earn the approval and love of others by giving everything he has. A passive extravert will do for everyone what he would like for himself, but may not have for himself, because that would be selfish and no approval comes of it. He will sincerely believe that happiness has to be earned through backbreaking work and hardship, and he will try so hard to seem better than he is that he may end up trapped in an illusion of his own making, which then has to be kept up.
An active extravert, on the other hand, will not curry favour. He will prefer to reach his goals by charming whoever he is talking to and by a demonstrative independence from their opinion. He will do it all differently, against the grain, but so beautifully and so strikingly that everyone gasps — and that gasp is what he values most. He will build himself from nothing, build himself into an ideal, a work of art that can only be admired, and then he will sigh quietly that he is not like everyone else: in the crowd, and yet alone.
Setting goals and reaching them: I want and I can
By about the age of three children already realise that their parents look after them and will not let them perish, which means survival is not a question worth getting stuck on. Children also learn to negotiate, to come up with options and to compromise, and, ideally, they have got used to the potty — the anal phase is over too. And then the questions of a "higher order" begin: what else do I actually want, and how do I get it? And here a very simple everyday example will do.
There is a chocolate cake on the table and the child badly wants it. But mum says he can't have it, because it is meant for somebody else. Here is a let-down that cannot be settled by negotiating or by anything else. What reactions are possible?
Again, an introvert will be loaded up with his own sensations — namely, did he even want that cake — and an extravert with outward signs, that is, could he have got the cake, could he have achieved it.
An active introvert will decide that never mind the cake, he didn't much want it anyway. A passive one will announce that it wasn't him who wanted the cake. An active extravert will offset the thought of the let-down with the thought that at least trying was fun, while a passive extravert will decide that if you're going to be let down anyway, what is the point of trying at all.
An active introvert will decide that never mind the cake, he didn't much want it anyway. And later on he will probably consider himself too grand for such everyday desires, and in most cases will avoid competing with anyone. Rather than wait for a let-down it is easier to step aside at once, because he never even wanted to start. With age this also means that he will sometimes find it hard to tell what he wants at all, unless the goal is a truly great and worthy one. And to offset these emotions he will bet on intellect, logic and rationalization.
Passive introverts have a similar "trouble". First the passive one will announce that it wasn't him who wanted the cake. You wanted it, you take it. Why? Because wanting something yourself is dangerous — you get let down, and it is hurtful, painful and bitter. And anyway the world is a dangerous place, where let-downs sometimes cost you not just frayed nerves but something dearer. Spotting dangers and trying to protect himself leads to a peculiarly anxious view of life, to a tendency to keep his head down and to manipulate from behind the scenes. Even saying "no" outright will be hard, because that too can be dangerous. It is safe to be "in the den" — and even that is not guaranteed.
An active extravert will offset the thought of the let-down with the thought that at least trying was fun. And gradually the road itself becomes the goal in life, while the goal itself starts to frighten him subconsciously, because reaching it is almost the same as a let-down. How do you avoid reaching it? Easily: start so many new things that there is no time left for the old ones. Extraverts like this have a pile of half-read books at home and a queue of half-watched videos on YouTube. Personally I suspect it is because of them that films stopped putting "Happy End" at the finish, because if it is the end then that's it, everything has stopped, and what comes next — brrr, better not even to think about that.
And a passive extravert will decide that if you're going to be let down anyway, what is the point of trying at all. And the search for a point, as a mental exercise, develops their strategic thinking enormously. They delegate superbly, because let other people run around and be let down. They will "hang" and plunge head-first into unimportant research, because if it isn't important then a let-down doesn't hurt. But they will not spontaneously start anything new and important — first you have to work out whether there is any point in starting it at all, so as not to be let down.
Epilogue
Naturally, the question suggests itself: what if a child slips past all three phases? I know of no such people. Sometimes the violated right shows itself less vividly, but show itself it certainly will. Up to the age of 16 or 18 a person may well try to act against it and try other approaches, but once he has fixed on one of the three questions — survival, socialisation or reaching goals — he will go on hanging on precisely that one and dwelling on it more and more.
And in which of the questions, and in which of the reactions, did you recognise yourself?
