The will-temperament and its testing / by June E. Downey.

  • June Downey
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The will-temperament and its testing / by June E. Downey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/360 page 9
    ups of personality which are in the domain of the normal. Here we deal with brilliant but unevenly en¬ dowed individuals with artistic inclinations. They delight us with their nimbleness of spirit, their ver¬ satility, their multiplicity of ideas, their alert open- mindedness and spirit of enterprise, their artistic abil¬ ity, their kind-heartedness, their gay, sunny disposi¬ tion.” In the asylum we find the “exalted” person of grand notions, “wild flight of ideas,” and utter ir¬ responsibility. (6) The depressive make-up. In the depressive make-up there exists, on the contrary, from youth “a special sensitiveness to the cares, troubles, and disappointments of life. They take all things hard and feel the little unpleasantnesses in every occur¬ rence much more strongly than the elevating and gratifying aspects of unconcerned and happy enjoy¬ ment, of unreserved surrender to the future.” In its exaggerated form we get the “melancholiac,” sunk mentally and physically in deepest despair. (c) The irascible make-up. The irascible make¬ up is characterized by extraordinarily fluctuating emotional equilibrium. Irascible persons are hot¬ headed, easily offended, given to violent scenes, with rapid changes in emotional coloring. This type may develop into the “maniac” as popularly conceived. {d) The unstable make-up. Persons with emo¬ tional instability “swing back and forth between the two opposite poles of emotion, now ‘shouting with joy to heaven,’ now ‘grieved to death.’ ” In the asylum this individual runs the gamut from mania to
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3