Book review : The Temperament God Gave You
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Have you ever wondered why some children seem to have been born neat, while others leave a tornado in their wake? Why are some people always upbeat and optimistic, their glass “half full,” while others seem to be enveloped in a black cloud, their glass always “half empty”? For some, no passing thought goes unexpressed, while others need to weigh every word. And why is it that some people view every statement of opinion as a declaration of war, yet others seem to be able to shrug off major insults without skipping a beat? Quick-tempered or even-keeled” “Strike while the iron is hot” or “let’s wait and see”? Laid-back or prone to flying off the handle? The answer begins with our temperament.
Here is a book that can be a huge help in understanding others, and yourself. According to the Sophia Institute website, Art Bennett is a licensed marriage and family therapist and director of the Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Centers, Catholic mental health clinics currently established in Maryland and Virginia. He is also the host and co-producer of Healthy Minds/Healthy Souls, a Catholic radio show in the Washington,D.C., area. His wife Larraine is a freelance journalist. Together the authors provide a fascinating outline of the four classic temperaments already identified centuries ago by Hippocrates (370 BC); choleric, sanguine, melancholic and phlegmatic. Everyone is born with one of these basic tendencies, and will always react in accord with this hard-wired disposition. Though one can change and acquire dominion over oneself, that basic tendency will always be there, ingrained in us like our own DNA. I found the descriptions of each temperament very illuminating, and one can see that the book is clearly the result of many years of thought and experience. Chapter 2 gives a good overview of the four temperaments.
The descriptions used to identify your own temperament are helpful. Imagine, sirens begin to whirl behind you and you realise that a police car is pulling you over. You think of one of these things:
1) His radar gun couldn’t possibly be correct. I was hardly going over the speed limit. The cars in front of me were speeding.
2) Oh, no! I’ve heard of people getting arrested for this!
3) Was I driving fast? What’s the speed limit on this road, anyway?
4) Do I have my wallet? And where did I put the car registration!?
Different responses to the same situation; the first is typical of the choleric temperament, the second the melancholic, the third the sanguine, and the fourth, the phlegmatic. Now which one do you fit in?”
If you reacted with the smooth assurance of yourself with decisive poise as in number 1, then you’re a choleric. If you immediately fretted and worried about the worst thing they might do to you, as in point 2, then your a melancholic. If you were less concerned with the fact that you were speeding and more concerned about just getting on with it and drive where you planned, then you’re likely a sanguine. Finally, if you’re able to calmly focus on the situation at hand and with a cool head get the needed information in order to diffuse the situation in a non-confrontational manner, then for sure you’re a phlegmatic.
I recommend this work to anyone involved in spiritual direction of souls or anybody who wants to come to have more dominion over his own temperament. Which is everybody. But it is also for spouses who are trying to understand why their spouse consistently reacts in the same way. It reminds us of the fact that often our reactions are not due to bad will, but simply due to deep seated inclinations that we are born with. Knowing how to accept the temperament of a spouse or a child and working with it, can bring about stunning combinations.There is also a temperament indicator at the end to help you figure out your own temperament.
The Temperament God Gave You by Art Bennett and Laraine Bennett (Sophia Press 2005)
Excellent review Fr. Eric. I’ve slowly been realizing that I have probably been too suspicious of biological differences (reacting against those damn naturalistic darwinians) and thus neglected very real and inherent temperamental differences that each one of us bring to the table, so to speak. I also think it’s because it has been difficult for me to hold two seemingly mutually exclusive truths in tension: 1) That, as C.S. Lewis put it, our wills are “bent” and so we are supposed to fight against our concupiscence; and 2) That Jesus Christ does not abolish human nature, but instead fully reveals, fulfills and perfects Man in Himself (i.e., the Saints are not cookie-cutter clones, but are more fully who they were meant to be). It would seem that one falls into error is either of the two is denied, and to make matters more complicated, the role of temperament adds yet another mysterious dimension!
This one psychologist on guidetopsychology.com doesn’t believe in temperaments and believes we just need to get over ourselves, if I understand him correctly. The site is much more than that and discusses disorders with the help of a psychologist he admires. I don’t know anything about the psychologist he admires, though. I don’t know what kind of Catholic the guy is, but his posted stuff is free.
I think temperament-adherents believe one can change your behavior. If you’re Christian, you would believe it’s God’s grace and you responding well to it (the grace)–and you’d be correct. Still, I think temperaments are basis from whence to work on overcoming the vices and improving the virtues that come with our respective temperaments. We are responsible for not sinning, especially mortally, whatever temperament we have. Thus, we pretty much have to improve ourselves using temperament knowledge to know into what traps we can more easily fall and from what virtues we can gain merit and serve God at the same time.
That’s my take. I would, however, like to see them do a dark side of temperaments follow-up. I think sanguine-something or something-sanguine mixes are ok unless pulled into the center of a situation that puts them in a internal conflict–maybe like in a situation where you must choose one side of the family over another or a woman or man you want to marry and a disapproving family (I’m not thinking of the one you want to marry being of the same sex, but maybe one who seems to have no winning characteristics or of an ethnicity whose ancestor’s homeland your father fought in a war). What happens when one of certain temperaments or mixed temperaments is under stress? That might help the scrupulous even more to know better if something he/she did was likely a mortal sin. I know you shouldn’t psychoanalyze yourself, but if you don’t know which priest to trust, you’ve got something of a guide until you get over the who to trust issue. Actually, when I psychoanalyze myself, I usually end up laughing at myself and I am scrupulous–but that’s me, so you shouldn’t do that. Maybe I shouldn’t either, but I do. It’s probably a bit narcissistic in a bizarre way.