Notes on Theodore Millon's evolutionary model and personology Dear colleagues, after several articles with the help of which I wanted to open the name of Theodore Millon for you and introduce you to the facts of his scientific biography, the time has come for the most difficult thing - to present in a condensed form his program for creating a new integrative discipline based on the analysis of personality and its disorders - personology, and on the basis of this theory - a personalized approach in the field of psychopathology and psychotherapy. But first, I will allow myself some kind of “lyrical” digression. Our science - psychology, like all social sciences, has, unlike the natural sciences, very fuzzy and blurred boundaries even in the description of its very subject. Its definition has always depended on what representatives of a particular school of psychology understood by it. Perhaps that is why, until the 19th century, it was not an independent scientific discipline, but was an integral part of philosophy. The only thing that allowed psychology to separate itself from abstract philosophical reasoning, in my opinion, was the question of the human personality, the principles of its organization and functioning. One way to explore the content of a term is to study how its meaning and use have evolved over time. The word Personality comes from the Latin term Persona, which originally denoted theatrical masks used by ancient dramatic actors. Like the mask chosen by the actor, the persona implies a feigned image, that is, the possession of traits different from those that actually characterize the person behind the mask. At some time, the persona lost its coloring of pretense and illusion and began to represent not a mask, but the visible or obvious features of a real person. The third and final meaning of personality acquired when it was possible to penetrate beyond the surface impression, directing the spotlight on the internal, very infrequently shown and secret psychological qualities of the individual. Thus, through history, one can trace how the meaning of the term has shifted from external illusion to surface reality and, finally, to vague or veiled internal features. This last meaning is closest to the modern understanding. Today, personality is viewed as a complex structure of deeply rooted psychological characteristics that are expressed automatically and in virtually all areas of psychological functioning. That is, personality is considered as structural characteristics that permeate the entire matrix of the person. In this sense, we can say that a person is a “pure” prototype of a person. So, Millon, strictly speaking, is not the “father” of the term “personology”, which was introduced into scientific use back in 1938 by Henry Murray. Let us leave to Theodore his title as the “grandfather” of personality theory. However, it was Millon who filled personology with new, modern content. I will try to illuminate it with the help of understandable analogies. Intuitively, it is clear that if a personality includes many adaptive traits and relatively few maladaptive ones, then its ability to cope with psychological conflicts, such as the death of loved ones or divorce, increases. However, when a personality includes many maladaptive traits and only a few adaptive ones, then even minor stimuli can cause the appearance of various disorders. In this sense, personality can be considered the psychological equivalent of the body's immune system. Each of us lives in an environment potentially infected with bacteria, and it depends only on the strength of our defenses whether these microbes will take root in it, whether they will be able to spread and, ultimately, whether they will turn into a disease. Strong immune activity easily neutralizes most infectious organisms, while a weakened immune system results in disease. Psychopathology can be seen as a reflection of the sameinteractive model. Here, however, we are not talking about our immunological defense, but in general about the personality model - that is, about the ability to cope with situations and its adaptive flexibility. These qualities will determine whether we can constructively confront the surrounding psychosocial environment or fall under the influence of its destructive elements. Viewed in this way, personality structure and characteristics become the basis of an individual's ability to function in a mentally healthy or unhealthy manner. Therefore, each personality style is a coping style, and personality becomes the fundamental organizing principle through which psychopathology is to be understood. The idea that personality is an immunological matrix that determines our overall psychological health was introduced by Millon, in order to break the ingrained idea of ​​the origin of psychopathology syndromes as one or another variant of the disease, that is, as some “alien” entities or damaging factors that insidiously invade a person in order to undermine his so-called “normal” functions. The archaic concept that all mental disorders are the consequences of external invasion or internal disease processes is an echo of ideas of the pre-scientific era, such as demons or spirits that take over the body of a person or cast spells on him. Personality is a copy of characteristics from the entire matrix of a person. Rather than being limited to a single trait, personality encompasses the entire configuration of a person's characteristics: interpersonal, cognitive, psychodynamic, and biological. Each trait reinforces the others to provide stability and behavioral consistency to the overall structure. The clear goal of any perspective is to expose different aspects of a single phenomenon for study and understanding. But a single element cannot represent the whole. By definition, each point of view provides only a partial view of the internal structure, and the personality is an integrative embodiment of these points of view, a general model or gestalt. Each perspective refers to the study of aspects, or areas, of personality, but personality itself is greater than the sum of its parts. Each of the theories presented must be based on principles, and these principles are supposed to determine the content of the entire personality. Thus, any other approaches are considered peripheral or derivative. And therein lies the problem with such a theory: it tends to explain in detail certain parts of the personality in isolation from others. In order not to lose their dominance, all major psychological concepts are constantly fighting around the personality. Models launch a frontal attack on taxonomic organization, reassembling extraneous variables taken from various other perspectives to create competitive constructs from other personality domains. The variables inherent in this direction are central; others are peripheral. Freud, for example, argued that human nature can be reduced to sex and aggression, viewed in the context of restraint by social forces. Leary was influenced by the psychodynamic view of levels of consciousness, but nevertheless believed that interpersonal principles were central, and that personality data could be organized at a level that he called "primary symbolization", including projective tests, fantasies, artistic works, desires, dreams and free associations. Kesler, for example, moved his 1982 interpersonal circle to the level of behavioral interactions. Benjamin adapted her model of statistical analysis of social behavior to be able to cover both affective and cognitive domains. However, the analysis suggests that we are left with a patchwork quilt that does not allow us to completely wrap up the complexidea of ​​personality. I myself “came out” of the psychodynamic concept, and during my studies and internships in the country and abroad, I developed a strong “patriotic” attitude towards this point of view, based on constantly emphasizing the “striking” differences and advantages of this particular approach . And I was really proud and proud to belong to the chosen direction, the effectiveness of whose methods I experienced myself. But as I “grew up,” I increasingly began to be drawn “to the side” - to study the typology of personality, its prototypes and subtypes, which was persistently required by the practice of conducting therapy with patients. It seemed to me that, logically, some new theory should be created that could eliminate the contradictions between all these points of view, which have many supporters and bright minds. But it shouldn’t have become just another “point of view”! But for a long time I did not allow myself, as Griboedov said, “to dare to have my own opinion,” and there were no prerequisites for such revolutionary changes. However, fortunately, I was wrong, such work was actively carried out under the guidance of Doctor of Philosophy, by the way, Millon and his colleagues from the Institute for Advanced Study of Personology and Psychopathology. Can you now understand the reason for my admiration for him and his legacy? The key to constructing such a theory, he said, lies in finding organizational principles that are beyond the boundaries of the individual. Rather than moving forward by overthrowing other approaches, such a theory would be defined by a set of holistic constructs that exist “above” any individual viewpoints, thereby allowing their integration as parts of a whole. The alternative is the unacceptable eclecticism of various incompatible approaches. Views of personality are a product of the evolutionary history of our species, which is why evolution is a logical choice as the basis for an integrated science of personality. The polarities of Pleasure - Pain, Active - Passive and Self - Others form the necessary framework applicable wherever survival, adaptation and reproduction exist as evolutionary imperatives. These imperatives correspond to three stages of development - Sensitivity - Attachment, Sensory Motor - Independence, Subcortical - Reproductive Identity. Just as ontogenesis is a repetition (recapitulation) of phylogeny, the character and sequence of development are the same parallels of the basic elements of evolution. The parallels in the Evolution – Development pair were called “neuropsychological stages” by Millon. On this theoretical basis, Millon formulated an evolutionary-neurological approach to personality development, which formed the basis of a general scheme for integrating different types of activities of clinicians and personologists, personality theorists. Even the outlines of such a program in 2002 were awarded by the American Psychological Association “For Outstanding Professional Contributions.” There is a direct connection between this theory and the practice of psychotherapy, defined as a personalized assessment, on the basis of which a personalized approach to the treatment of a particular patient is built. With its help, a unique constellation of patient personality traits is brought to the fore for the purpose of assessment. Only after a thorough assessment of the nature and manifestation of these personal qualities can one proceed to think through what combination and sequence of procedures and methods of one direction or another will be used. Similar to the comparison of personality with the human immune system, the personalized approach can be compared with physical recognition methods in that area, which is called “genomic medicine”. Here, medical scientists have long begun researching the patient's specific DNA in order to decipher and correct existing, missing or damaged genes, thereby allowing the doctor to build treatment entirely in a personal manner, that is, in a special manner that meetsunderlying, or underlying, genetic defects of a particular patient. Anomalies that were imprinted in a patient's unique DNA were tracked and assessed to determine their source, the vulnerability associated with them, and the likelihood of death for the patient due to the specific diseases identified. Millon's clearly articulated eight components or domains of personality form what might be called "psychic DNA," a system that provides conceptual parallels with the four chemical elements of biological DNA. Deficiencies, excesses, damage, or dysfunction in these mental domains (e.g., mood/temperament, intrapsychic mechanisms) are effectively operationalized across a spectrum of 14 distinctly distinct personality style variants and pathologies (e.g., avoidant style, borderline disorder) in the same manner in what vulnerabilities in biological DNA are embodied in variations in various diseases that arise on a gene basis. The unique constellation of vulnerabilities that finds expression and leaves its mark in one or more of these eight potentially problematic mental areas becomes the object and focus of personalized psychotherapy. Whether we are talking about working with the “partial functions” of a clinical syndrome expressed in behavior (social isolation), cognition (delusional belief), feeling (depression) or in a biological disorder (loss of appetite), or about contextual systems related to the wider environment (family or group), or socio-economic and political conditions of life, at the point of their intersection, at the place where the varieties of clinical manifestations of an individual are connected with the social context will be the person. A person is the intersection of all functions and systems. However, a persona is more than just points of intersection. It is an exclusively and organically integrated system in the psychological field, initially, from birth, created as a natural entity. Moreover, this is the person who lies at the heart of the assessment process. Integrative assessment requires appropriate tools. It must be emphasized here that Millon's team did not leave aside this practical aspect of their theory. At the risk of being accused of bias, I can, based on my own, albeit not very extensive, experience with this instrument, confirm that no other instrument that, in principle, can be offered for conducting a comprehensive assessment of problematic personality styles and classical mental disorders , does not do this better than the MCMI-III (Millon Multiaxial Clinical Instrumentation, third version). And it is certain that no other instrument is as consistent with the official taxonomy of personality disorders included in the DSM, or as conceptually related to the logic of the multiaxial model that underlies it, as the MCMI-III. In fact, MCMI-III is only one (but essential) link in what has emerged as an integrative framework for conceptualizing both personality and abnormal behavior. This literally extraordinary theory is at a higher level of formulation than the individual dimensions that make up the “original data" for evaluation. Thus, the “noose” from ideographic individuality through nomothetic community and nomothetic individuality is tightened: nomothetic individuality clearly requires the reintegration of the individual, who at this time lies disassembled into segments along various scales and dimensions. The question is whether psychotherapists today have a clear idea of ​​how to do this. Therefore, an integrative assessment does not begin to live on its own, it must be built, and the confirmation of its reliability will be associated with the way it is constructed. Ideally, the diagnosis should work as a means of narrowing the endless field of therapeutic methods to the size of a small set of options. This small set includespersonal factors along with alternative methods, or the order in which these methods can be applied. Treatments that define clinical disorders from only one perspective, be it psychodynamic, cognitive, behavioral or physiological, may be useful and even necessary, but are not sufficient on their own to effectively treat the patient. Integration must be more than the coexistence of two or three previously separate approaches or methods. It is not possible to simply connect the ends and ends of several theoretical frameworks, each internally following and tuned to evidence from different fields. According to my observations, such a mixture will only lead to an apparent unification, which cannot be durable and will not give the desired effect. Efforts of this kind, in some sense even commendable, are more reminiscent of the work of peacemakers, but not of innovators or integrators. Integration is, of course, also eclecticism, but it is still more than that. The results of the work of Millon and his co-authors are intended to show that a number of methods - drug therapy, cognitive therapy, family therapy, intrapsychic therapy - can be combined and integrated to achieve an additive, if not synergistic, effect. To briefly summarize what has been said, we can come to the conclusion that personology as a science includes a theory of personality along with the history of its development and various points of view, which is considered on the basis of an evolutionary-neurotic approach, as well as personalized assessment and diagnosis using appropriate tools, which are conceptually built on the basis of a multi-axis model and areas of personality . An integral part of personology is its section devoted to the modality of psychopathology, the selection and construction of methods for treating complex syndromes or personality disorders. As an example of the modal design of psychotherapy, one can cite the so-called “potentially possible pairs” and “catalytic chains”, which are essentially therapeutic activities and their time sequence that can be used to eliminate imbalances in polarities and achieve positive changes in clinical areas that are unlikely to be achieved through the use of several inconsistent methods. Of course, placing unbalanced or disturbed polarities at the forefront of therapy is a new approach, and it is only in its first trials. But already today, in the clinical areas in which syndromes/disorders are expressed, a wide range of therapeutic methods are used, for example, numerous cognitive-behavioral methods aimed at developing self-confidence can be fruitfully used to create a greater sense of autonomy or an active attitude instead of a passive attitude towards life. Likewise, pharmaceutical methods will be especially effective in reducing the intensity of pain (anxiety, depression) when there is a noticeable imbalance in the Pleasure-Pain polarity. In the polarity of Passivity - Activity, increasing the abilities and skills of patients to take a less reactive and more active position in solving problems arising in their life path (- Passivity; + Activity) will be the main goal of treating schizoid, depressive, dependent, narcissistic, masochistic and compulsive individuals. In the Others-Self polarity, imbalance is found, for example, in narcissistic and antisocial individuals, which suggests that the main goal of treatment will be to reduce their dominant automatic focus on their own needs and correspondingly increase their sensitivity to the needs of others (+ Others; - Self) .In conclusion, I want, as always, to thank you, my interested readers, for your attention and patience, necessary when familiarizing yourself with rather complex theoretical constructs, which, moreover, are presented in my reading and in an extremely condensed, abbreviated and even