How Your Temperament Predisposes You To Mental Health Problems.

Our temperament is the fulcrum of all our actions and reactions as humans. Almost everything we do, actions we take, as well our reactions to things revolves around the particular temperament we are born with. There's no force that's as powerful and its influence more profound than those of our inherited temperament. From how we act, react, behave, work, relate with others, love and express our love, handle pressure, to our choices and preferences and almost everything we do in life is to a very large extent influenced by the temperament type we are born with. Therefore, if you know and understand the four basic types of temperaments, you can categorize anyone you frequently relate and interact with into any of those four just by watching at how they do things. So, let's come down to the basics;

What Is Temperament?

Straight off, temperament is simply the inherited traits we took from our parents and much more from our grand and great grand parents as a result their genotypical genes and chromosomes that were  passed on or transferred to us during our conception. We never had a choice or chance to choose what temperament we inherited, but we yield unconsciously to its influence as we get older. It resides in the blood (deoxyribonucleic) acid, hence can influence majority of what we do in life. It does not change, and we can't outgrow it, so it follows us from cradle to adulthood. 

However, some factors like educational background and attainment, societal and environmental influences, child training or parental upbringing, peer pressure or other types of human influences may attempt to tweak or modify it, but they really do not completely change our temperament nor change us from acting and behaving the way we are naturally designed to. As a result of this, we'll often be seen yielding unknowingly and unconsciously to its overwhelming influence on us.

A certain Greek physician Hippocrates, was the first to conceptualise the theory of temperament so many decades ago during his theory of humorism. In this theory, he made use of some relatable nomenclature like air, fire, earth and water to describe the four basic temperaments of sanguine, choleric, melancholy and phlegmatic respectively with their innate respective strengths and weaknesses. But long before the conceptualisation of this theory by Hippocrates, temperament has been present since the creation of humans on earth. But not much was known about it until the ancient Greek physician thought about it. It dates way back to the foremost humans that were created by God (Adam and Eve). 

I honestly think that it is what qualifies humans as smaller gods (Psalm 82:6) that are higher in the hierarchy of all of God's creatures especially since it's inundated with some innate strengths that can make us be as perfect as the Almighty God, as well as corresponding weaknesses that limit us in so many areas. So while human beings are  emotional creatures with some considerable limitations clearly because of our inherited temperament, the Almighty God is not. Therefore, our temperament weaknesses limits us and sometimes overwhelms our strengths and capability to be as perfect as God. Romans 7:15-21.

And I also believe that it is the main culprit in the disobedience of Adam and Eve to God's instruction in the garden. The four basic temperaments of sanguine, choleric, melancholy and phlegmatic which controls and influences human behaviours possess some innate oddities and weaknesses that usually impacts their carriers negatively in life. And until these weaknesses are dealt with, humans will continue to fail God, fail themselves, and as well encounter some health challenges of natural causes. This post is not about getting into details of some of these weaknesses, perhaps they may be discussed in subsequent post. But let's continue with our topic about how our temperament predisposes us to mental illness.

How Your Temperament Type Exposes You To Mental Illness: 

There are basically four temperament types and twelve blends of temperaments which everyone one of us is under their influence. Each one of them is inundated with various natural strengths as well as corresponding weaknesses that reflects our personality. While the strengths often enables us to go through life seamlessly and unconquered, the weaknesses tends to deny us the chance of living a happy, healthy, and prosperous life. But little did we know that majority of the things that affect our mental health are natural and they're a product of the particular type of temperament weaknesses we're under its influence. Anything that affects our mental health or causes mental illness cannot be severed from our emotions. Our emotion is the centre of all human activities, and since it is so closely connected or related to the temperaments, it is not uncommon for the weaknesses associated with that temperament to often predispose us to some mental health issues.

Take for instance, it's not uncommon for a highly emotional person, or someone who often battle with fear and anger which are weaknesses associated with the four basic temperaments to have their mental health negatively impacted when their emotion is on the negative trajectory. This is because fear and anger negatively affects our emotions, thoughts, reasoning, and feeling, and of course influence our actions and reactions during those times. If not dealt with in time or controlled, they lead to depression, worry, anxiety, negative thoughts, as well as reactions to some rather unfavourable situations which of course results in mental health problems. But our focus is not on the causes of mental illness but how our temperament predisposes us to it.

Temperament And Mental Illness:

Every human being regardless of the type of temperament we're under its influence do sometimes experience mental health challenges because of some negative or unfortunate life experiences which could get us emotionally depressed. However, some people battle more frequently with this adverse social situation than others because they are under the influence of temperaments that has more weaknesses that predisposes them to it than others. Each of the four basic temperament has fear and anger problem even though the extent to which both exists in them varies. Temperaments like sanguine and choleric are more anger-prone than phlegmatic and melancholy. Though a choleric battles more frequently with it, but is less fearful than sanguine. But regardless, both of them do sometimes gets emotionally depressed from anger especially when factors that exposes them to it are in place. 

Melancholy and phlegmatic temperament on the other hand, though they are less anger-prone but are usually more fearful and easily discouraged than the former, causing them to become more frequently exposed to worry, anxiety, and depression. Which of course negatively impacts their mental health. But more importantly, aside fear and anger problems which of course are necessitated by some eventualities, and are common to all temperaments. There are far more causes of these two problems in the four temperaments and those are the major factors that usually predisposes them to experiencing some mental health issues. How each of them handles challenges, deal with pressure, get over with the negative or unfortunate experiences, deal with uncomplimentary and uncharitable people, respond and react to failure, and so many other things that touches their emotions. When times like this emerge, the strengths together with the corresponding weaknesses of each of these temperaments obviously predisposes them to experiencing mental health challenges. In my subsequent post, I'll be discussing these strengths and their corresponding weaknesses in the four basic temperaments that negatively affect the emotion of these four personalities.

In conclusion, our temperament influences and controls almost everything we do in life and how we do them. It controls our emotion and shapes our personality. And for the very fact that it is inundated with various strengths as well corresponding weaknesses, it will considerably impact  our emotion both positively and negatively and by extension our mental health status. It's for this reason that in resolving mental health issues, we must take into account  the four temperament types and how the four personality types gets exposed to it so we can achieve lasting and sustainable mental health.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave your comment, questions or suggestions on this topic.