Healthy Personality For Your Child

This work explores the differences between temperamental traits and psychological disorders. What is the difference between a child who is temperamentally sad and one who has depression? Can a child be angry by temperament without being mentally ill? Here, the author discusses the factors that can propel children with particular temperamental tendencies towards or away from more problematic trajectories.

What are the elements upon which a healthy personality is built? This fascinating book identifies the key components and shares vivid case studies that demonstrate what happens when those elements are missing. What is "normal" when it comes to human personality? And is it possible to achieve emotional health through intended effort, just like physical health? Clinical psychologist Camay Woodall, PhD, addresses these complex questions and many more in this work that cogently discusses the parameters of emotional health. This book covers historical concepts; examines personality at its formative stages and beyond; explains how "normal behavior" varies widely, yet emotional symptoms are definable; and pinpoints the common aspects of normality in human personality, such as the need for social connection, the struggle for realism, and the ability to come to terms with guilt. Covering topics that include anxiety; self-esteem; depression; food (and the abuses of it), sex, love, and intimacy; shame and guilt; and spirituality, this book identifies common sources of dysfunctional personality traits and stresses the importance of individual responsibility in each area. Each chapter is richly illustrated by actual case studies from the author's 30 years of experience. The book will be of interest and highly useful to undergraduate or graduate-level students of psychotherapy, individuals undergoing therapy, parents who are concerned about their own or their family's behavior, and general readers.

"The Midcentury White House Conference on Children and Youth bases its concern for children on the primacy of spiritual values, democratic practice, and the dignity and worth of every individual. Accordingly, the purpose of the Conference shall be to consider how we can develop in children the mental, emotional, and spiritual qualities essential to individual happiness and to responsible citizenship, and what physical, economic, and social conditions are deemed necessary to this development. To do this the Conference shall: (a) bring together in usable form pertinent knowledge related to the development of children and indicate areas in which further knowledge is needed; (b) examine the environment in which children are growing up, with a view to determining its influence upon them; (c) study the ways in which the home, the school, the church, the law, health and welfare agencies, and other social institutions, individually and cooperatively, are serving the needs of children; (d) formulate, through cooperative efforts of laymen and specialists, proposals for the improvement of parental, environmental, and institutional influences on children; (e) suggest means whereby these proposals may be communicated to the people and put into action"--Book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).