Accentuation of personality. Who first introduced this concept? This was done by Karl Leonhard, whose biography will be described in this article.
Milestones of the long journey
He was born in 1904 in Edelfeld, located in Bavaria. As a child, Karl Leonhard dreamed of becoming a lawyer, but gradually medicine became his main hobby. After graduating from the university, he chose psychiatry as the direction of his labor and scientific activity. His first place of work in 1931 was the psychiatric clinic in Gabersee. A year later, Karl Leonhard, whose photo is presented in this article, becomes her chief physician. However, in 1936 he leaves this post and moves to the Frankfurt University Clinic of Nervous Diseases and soon receives a scientific degree. In 1944, he was already a visiting professor at this university. Then Karl Leonhard becomes professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Medical Academies in Erfurt and Berlin. In 1957, he began working at the Charité clinic.
Favorite topics
Teaching at universities, Karl Leonhard does not leave his private practice. In addition to her, he is engaged in scientific research, the results of which are essays and articles. He devotes most of his attention to schizophrenia. In his writings one can findclassification and clinic of this disease. Leonhard is readily accepted into national and international scientific communities, often he becomes an honorary member, despite the fact that some of his scientific research is not approved by other scientists. For example, his attempt to separate cycloid psychosis into a separate disease. Whereas only depressive psychosis and schizophrenia were officially recognized. The German psychiatrist Karl Leonhard also studied childhood schizophrenia. He believed that the symptoms of this disease appear already in childhood. In the same period of a person's life, such a diagnosis can be made. In addition, he described developmental disorders of the intellect.
Broad interests
Leonhard also studied neurosis and behavioral therapy. He devoted a lot of time to the psychopathology of human behavior. The pathologies he noticed were described in the monographs “Instincts and ancient instincts of human sexuality”, as well as “The expressiveness of facial expressions, gestures and human voice”. Many works of the scientist-psychiatrist were ahead of their time. For example, those that de alt with the topics of involutional depression, the classification of endogenous psychoses, schizophrenia, neuroses, and accentuations of character and temperament. The latter was studied by him thoroughly. On the basis of the study of mood disorders, Leonhard wrote the scientific work "Accentuation of the Personality". In it, he broke down accentuations into types and described them. Additionally, he gave a description of each type on the example of the characters of literary heroes.
Personality Emphasis
Monograph by Carl Leonhardsplit into two parts. In the first of them, he conducts a psychological and clinical analysis of accentuated personalities. The second part consists of examples. Leonhard analyzed the characters of literary heroes born of fantasy by more than 30 writers known throughout the world. These are the heroes of the works of Stendhal, Goethe, Balzac, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Cervantes and others. In our country, the book "Accentuated Personalities" was published in 1981. It was found interesting not only by specialists in the field of psychiatry, but also by ordinary readers, thanks to the author's special style of presentation. The monograph has also been translated into many languages. Among them are Romanian, Italian, English, Japanese and others.
Leonhard personality types
According to the psychiatrist, there are only 10 pure personality types and several intermediate ones. He divides them depending on temperament, character and personal level. In his opinion, temperament is given to a person by nature. There are several types of personality with temperament. Types related to the personal level: introvented and extravented. Types related to character: excitable (temper, pedantry, submission to instincts); demonstrative (vanity, self-confidence, flattery), pedantic (conscientiousness, indecision, hypochondria); stuck (touchiness, suspicion). He attributed to temperament: emotive (compassion, kindness), anxious (timidity, timidity), dysthymic (focus on failure, fear, lethargy), effective-labile(compensation of traits, focus on standards), effectively ex alted (emotionality, inspiration, elevated feelings). In addition, Leonhard gave his own definitions of an extrovert and an introvert, different from those previously accepted. With his light hand, psychiatrists around the world began to use them. "Accentuated Personalities" can be advised to read to teachers and parents, those on whom the fate of the child depends. After all, it depends on the type of personality which profession it is better for him to choose in the future. In order not to be mistaken in its definition, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the work of Karl Leonhard.
The scientist was not just a recognized specialist in his field, but also a very good person. Everyone who knew him noted his delicacy and modesty in communication, goodwill towards others. Until the very last days, he wrote articles and received patients. Karl Leonhard died in 1988.
