Police crisis training for mental illness assessment: officers' experiences and program evaluation

Jungian Phenomenology and Police Training

The methodologies selected for this study were the meta-synthesis approach developed by Noblit and Hare (1988) and a content analysis technique described by Neuman (2003) and others. The meta-synthesis approach allows researchers to draw broad substantive interpretations from various sources. According to York (1994), the meta-synthesis technique is a type of research that "systematically compares studies in order to interpret meaning, to clarify research foci, and to resolve existing substantive, methodological, or interpretive problems" (p. xiii). This approach allows the researcher to "compare and analyze text, creating new interpretations in the process" (Noblit & Hare, 1988, p. 9).

The seven-step process used in the meta-synthesis methodology developed by Noblit and Hare is set forth in Table 1 below.

Table 1.

Noblit and Hare's Comparative Method.

Phase

Description

Phase 1

Getting started. This step involves finding an area of interest in need of synthesis.

Phase 2

Deciding what is relevant to the initial interest. This phase involves conducting a review of the material based on sample criteria.

Phase 3

Reading the interviews. This involves reading and re-reading the interviews and identifying interpretive metaphors in each.

Phase 4

Determine how the interviews are related. In this step, the interviews are "put together" and relationships between them forged. It is suggested that a list of key metaphors, phrases, ideas and concepts are made for each study. The metaphors are then compared and juxtaposed. Three different relationships are possible: a direct comparison using reciprocal translations; a refutational comparison where the content oppose each other; and a grouping of interviews that represent a line of argument.

Phase 5

Translating the interviews into one another. Simply stated, the metaphors and themes are compared with each other while leaving the central metaphors intact.

Phase 6

Synthesizing translations. This phase requires the researcher to make the parts of each interview into a whole through synthesis of the information.

Phase 7

Expressing the synthesis. The final step requires the researcher to write up and report the results.

Source: Noblit & Hare, 1988, pp. 26-29.

The focus of the interviews conducted for this study concerned a police crisis training module designed to improve officers' understanding of mental illness and how best to assess the needs of the mentally ill. The above steps were used to identify common natural meaning units concerning what the eighteen individual officers' experience were during and subsequent to their training, what aspects of the training initiative were regarded as being most valuable to them, and what aspects of the training could be improved. The results are presented in the form of word tables that are congruent with the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual (5th ed) which states: Word tables present qualitative comparisons or descriptive information. For example, a word table can enable the reader to compare characteristics of studies in an article that reviews many studies, or it can present questions and responses from a survey or shown an outline of the elements of a theory. Word tables illustrate the discussion in the text" (p. 161). This same approach is used to develop appropriate summaries of relevant studies of personality development in the succeeding chapter.

In his text, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, Neuman (2003) reports that, "Content analysis is a technique for gathering and analyzing the content of text. The content refers to the words, meanings, pictures, symbols, ideas, themes, or any message that can be communicated" (p. 310). According to Gottschalk (1995), "The methods used in these content analysis studies range from simple counts of words, to counts of parts of speech, counts of classes of words, or counts of categories of subject matters" (p. 3). In some cases, such content analysis methods do not employ any specific counts as described above, but rather seek to identify recurring sequences of emotions or feelings, which they may or may not link up with changes in vocal qualities (paralanguage variables) or body movement (kinesic variables) (Gottschalk). Further, some content analysis methods ignore issues of the magnitude of any types of themes or subject matters while still other content analysis techniques focus on establishing a measure of the intensity or magnitude of a subject matter or psychological or behavioral dimension (Gottschalk). For the purposes of this analysis, both counts of words and counts of parts of speech were used to highlight recurring themes and issues of concern.

Recapitulation and summary of interview results.

Table ____.

Most valuable aspects of the training.

Interviewee

Observations/Comments

Key Metaphors and Themes

Better understanding of mental illness: I think if anything I've been better able to differentiate between what mental illnesses are amongst the people and who is a legitimate candidate and who is faking it because we have a lot of people that come into the system that are faking it. That's probably the biggest thing.

An example: Like a lot of homeless people, when they want somewhere to sleep, they'll try to get themselves into PES by saying that they are suicidal or whatever the case may be and now I just try to figure out what's going on in their head and what they need.

Field trips valuable:

1. I'd say that the dual diagnosis thing was definitely a key thing to learn about and the triple diagnosis as well because that's the thing that we as police officers tend to encounter more than the average Joe Shmoe going to see a shrink for the first time or the 8th time. So for us we deal a lot with the dual diagnosis, the drugs and the mental illness combined.... you can usually see it in their eyes more than anything else. Like when you're talking to them. You can actually see it in their eyes. There's just something that's just not right more than just being under the influence of drugs. A lot of it is just bizarre behavior. They jump out into the middle of the street or just random instances. We see them on the street and they are doing something funny so we stop them. Or else it's like calls that people are suicidal and they need police attention and you talk to them and you're like, OK there's something off with this person. That's usually it.

2. One of the best parts of the training was actually going out there and seeing these people that are in a somewhat clinical setting but not being a cop just being Joe Shmoe citizen walking in.

Improved understanding and recognition of legitimate mental illnesses.

Also intuitive aspects of real-world applications:.".. see it in their eyes."

Field trips were valuable addition to training.

The location it was given, it was great. The people that run it. Mike Sullivan is just, I personally like him. I think he's a dear man. He's really impassioned about what he's doing. But the training itself, the fact that they took us out in groups and took us to the different facilities where - you know I've driven by this facility a million times and never been in it. And so that was really good. To go to the diff facilities, see how they're run, see what the process is.

And even more important was having the people there that are suffering from some mental illnesses, sitting. We had a guy sit there and have lunch with us and to just be able to talk to someone like that and realize that they may be crazy but they're still - to have them articulate what goes on when they're in a crisis or having some sort of problem or just an ongoing thing - was really educational.

It was really enlightening and educational. So, that was the best part for me, was just talking to the people that are having some sort of clinical, or have life-long clinical problems.

Training was appropriate and timely: "Yes, I, I think the training was great and I know eventually all the patrol will be trained. Um, in SF we do have a major problem with the homeless/mentally ill and I think it goes both ways."

Identified alternate approaches: "I learned from the class. I'm more into using MC or contacting mobile crisis, something I've learned and passing it off."

You have to begin thinking new strategies and new ways to approach them and to handle the issue, which is, essentially, getting them to a position where they can even be taken for a mental health observation - 5150 or 5250, if it's serious enough. or, if there has been a crime committed by them, then it become's also, there's a criminal issue is involved and we then have to get a look at that as well."

And, so one of the benefits of the class was looking at the way we approach people with these kind of mental issues, from a different perspective.

Development of empathy: "One of the benefits of the class, that I learned, and not only from the instructors, but also from some of the patients who were brought into the class with mental histories, was - they're often just as afraid of us as we are of them. and, so that brought in a whole new perspective. I had never realized the degree to which they were afraid of us and often feel as though - now the situation becomes very life threatening for them. Because often they don't know how to follow the protocol, how to properly respond to police officers. and, so it just supercharges the whole event."

The training] gave us an opportunity to ask questions and answers, but a lot of the questions and answers we were unable to ask before the training and that it was always: well, they do this or they do that and I know the community thinks well the officers do this and the officers do... so we had an opportunity to interact." think it's one of those things that's been welcomed. I hear nothing but positive things. There's a few little thing, little glitches, in any kind of training, that people understand or people don't understand but they still feel that it's important. In the beginning of the training, before we had this training, I would say that it was, you were dealt this card and this is how you dealt with mental illnesses."

Field trips and dual diagnosis components were valuable.

Field trips were valuable: "I think my perception on mi was changed by actually going to places where they lived, the centers where they were being treated at. Because, usually, the ones we meet on the street are homeless. There's other issues that are going on. But when you got to see them at the centers and where they lived, you could see that these were productive people and they're like anybody else out there."

But actually bringing clients into the system, and actually being able to sit there and have lunch with them, and actually ask them questions and stuff.

It's just not being thrown these bi-polars, and just these terms thrown at you. You're actually seeing somebody and you're hearing their story. They are telling you: 'Oh, I tried to commit suicide so many times' or 'I hear the voices and I'm hearing voices now, but I'm able to cop with it'. And you're, you're kind of, it's like you're, this is a real person - it's not a term, it's not a thing." have been] a front line responder for many, many years, generally when I see people they are in a crisis situation. So that became my understanding of mental illness, crisis situations."

All police officers are kind of like drivers. Everyone knows how to drive, a car. it's the little things about different types of cars - say a motorcycle to a truck, you have to handle them, drive them a different way. I think as police officers, being the professionals that we are, we all know how to quote/unquote handle or deal with the mi. I just think this class kind of clarified or tell us a little bit more about the vehicles - a little bit more about the persons, the diseases, the illnesses out there."

Scarcity of resources: "The best thing I got out of it was different resources. But again (uncomfortable chuckle) the rain on the parade is, resources are good but they're not there. They're not there for the officers. Even like when I called today and told you about just the problem that I had. Like - and I'm not saying somebody should jump when somebody says 'I'm a police officer' - or this or that.

But I'm putting that out there to show you that some sort of legitimacy behind my call. And if, we should all be here to help each other out, rather than give each other the attitude.

And I know the attitude is needed, the thick skin is needed because of who we deal with. But it's true.

It's who we deal with. We need to have thick skin. We need to have a certain amount of... So, I'm not... I've been frustrated when I've tried to call people.

We've, me and my partner I think are real good. He loved this class. He got a lot out of it. I did too."

Police as drivers metaphor.

It showed that there was a greater range of services out there. and, it's not so black and white. They can either address the situation or walk away from them. That, if they're willing to cooperate, that there's other things that we can do. We can try and plug them into different services. And if it's, lets say, a family thing or a neighborhood thing, we could always make a phone call to, like, MC. And maybe they could come out and maybe not do a 5150, but talk to them and maybe get them some help so the problem is resolved or we don't have to go back there.

Field trips valuable: on one of our field visits we went to a, like a transitional housing. Which I didn't even know was in our district. Which is kind of a good thing. In that if they can kind of take care of business and don't have to call the police that shows that they're running a good operation.

And it shows that, kind of showed me that these were people who had been 5150ed and instead of just kicking them out, they're given a little more supervision, a place to stay, maybe a little counseling, a little guidance. So maybe they can successfully get on with their lives."

Training was timely esp. re: suicide: "I was particularly please with the training, that was with Blue Suicide. I thought that it was very timely, because I think that in the field we see more and more examples of people putting police officers in situations they're confronted with an individual who has a preconceived notion, an idea, of what he's - the end of his actions are." think one of the nicer things was that we were able to get to know some of the instructors a little bit more and some of the role players. And I also thought that it was very, very conducive to have people that had mental health issues in the past speak to us."

Suicide by cop - that one was helpful because you kind of know which people are going to want to do that. Sometimes you kinda don't. but, it's always good to get information on that and stay up-to-date on all that."

And the elderly, 'cause I like old people. I really do, and I feel..."Adults, I don't know, sometimes it's easy for me to get frustrated with them. I seem to have more patience with old folks. I don't know. I like old people. I tend to go that extra mile for old folks."

And the illness in cultures, I learned about that when I was working at the TerraBelle. Cause there was all kinds of different cultures out there. There was: Chinese, Russian, you name it - it's out in the TerraBelle. And it's kind of interesting to see how different cultures handle their mi. I mean, I've found them locked in closets. Chained in the garage and s***. And I was like: What are you doing? You can't do that. You can't chain the guy in the garage 'cause he's got a mi." think everything was helpful. It helpful and it was all interesting. And I was surprised by the level of enthusiasm the instructors all had - to be honest. I didn't know what to make of it. You know, most of these classes we go to, we just kind of show up and yk, people do their thing. but, at this one, it was so different."

Good food: "First of all - food was great. It was incredible!

Staff credentials: But, just the people that were there giving this training, I mean, these were, some of the people that were there were actually pretty high up in the...[respected in the field].

Length of training: "And it surprised me that the City wanted to actually invest this sort of time and - a week."

Liked other field trips: "What I did like was the visit to SFGen, that psych ward, that was, out of all the visits, that was the one that I thought was the most interesting. 'Cause once we 5150 somebody, we don't know where they go. So, it was interesting to see where they could go."

Attended pilot training course in May 2001:

thought it was something that every officer, in any department should have. That kind of training is invaluable, especially if you work in the street, which most officers do, and you are dealing with the mentally ill and you may not even know it. And it's great to help identify those who suffer certain conditions, in identifying them and how to talk with them, how to deal with them, how to communicate." actually requested a refresher on this and, unfortunately, because of staffing and so forth, it wasn't granted."

New information might have been things that were more clinical in nature. I know that we weren't told to diagnose, but you couldn't help, through the training, to be able to identify certain characteristics of certain types of diagnoses [such as] dual diagnosis, cognitive disorders, and the major mental issues, mental disorders. I do know that active listening was something that was pretty important. And in the dept, as a whole - and I shouldn't say that - I should speak for myself."

Active listening should be taught in other areas of the dept, not just when you think you're dealing with someone with a mental disorder. But the tools around active listening really apply to those with mental disorders and it actually gives you license to ask certain questions and behave a certain way, without fear of overstepping your political bounds."

Interviewee also attended pilot program in May 2001. "Things like dual diagnosis and blue suicide, which is something that affects, obviously, police officers to a great extent. Some of the medications and some of the symptoms and things like that. That's where I feel that the class was most beneficial."

Active listening beneficial: "Even before the class I really had a lot of experience dealing with mi, especially 5150 type things. Now, there's obviously a big difference. The 5150 thing involves a person who can't care for themselves so that we have to take them to psychiatric emergency. But most of the people don't really fall into that realm. it's kind of - they're not a danger to themselves but they, they're definitely meet the criteria as far as the mi goes."

But, yeah, as far as active listening and just kind of seeing where somebody's at and seeing if it - being able to identify a little better if they're in a crisis mode. And if they're not in a crisis mode there could be something that set them off, that's not necessarily a crisis."

Suicide by Cop: "Suicide by cop was one of the better classes that they had during that. 'Cause it's eye opening. it's something everybody would hate to have to go thru."

Speakers and Field Trips: "They were really good speakers. They really capture the whole essence of what's going on. And the site visits were good, to go out and just to kind of see, you get a feel for what's going on. Those are some of the things that really stuck with me."

Schizophrenic virtual reality found useful: "That's interesting because somebody can tell you well they're hearing voices - like 'what are you talking about?' - I hear voices too, but it's usually my conscience talking to me. So you... But that was really interesting."

Suicide by Cop: "The Suicide by Cop was kind of interesting."

Dual diagnosis component: "I'm not always great in dealing, in being able to recognize when somebody has a mi, when that's combined with alcohol or drugs. That's very difficult for me - and how that might affect a person. but, I think if it's just a mi, whereas four or five years ago, I wouldn't necessarily know if this person is, I wouldn't be able to detect the difference between sometimes their fear and them being resistant or combative or just not compliant with me."

If there was one course that I could take, if there was one part I could pick and say: 'Teach me more about it, that what I would do.'"

Dual diagnosis component. "This course has kind of actually, like I say, allowed me to stop and take more time and sympathize with what's going on. It sounds like it's a scary thing. And this course kind of really opened my eyes up to that it has got to be exhausting to live a life like that." would recommend this course to anybody. I would strongly recommend it."

Elder abuse and active listening.

I think one of the important things about the training is that it almost puts you into the mindset and the footsteps of those with the altered mental state. So, you kind of see things from their view point and their perspective. And I think once you gain that understanding, it's easier to step back into your own role, as a police officer, and think 'oh, maybe I shouldn't shine that flashlight right in his eyes and maybe I should talk softly and things of that nature."

Field trips: "I think what was also helpful was to go to the various treatment sights in SF and actually speak to the people who were being treated there. You know, the residents there. And that does, that definitely gives you a clearer understanding of the difficulties that these, that those people have to operate under everyday. and, I think it's great for officers to see them in a different light, i.e. you know, like when they're normal, when they're reading a book, when they're watching TV, when they're talking to friends than, you know, when they're ripping off their clothes in the middle of the street. it's kinda nice to see the, you know, the difference."

Table ____.

Experiences prior to, during and subsequent to training.

Interviewee

Observations/Comments

Key Metaphors and Themes

Covered previous ground and supplemented it: The training gave me more resources and it gave me a little bit more instruction on mental illness because we did get some training in the academy. it's not like we went out onto streets and we were empty-handed. So we did have a little bit of training this just kind of... I guess it just brought that training back out again.

Voluntary participation in training is preferable: Yeah, I think voluntary would be better because when people are required to do something they don't want to. So just something, just a refresher like this is what's new in the field and in case you forgot... this. But I think learning new things and resources that are available because things do keep opening up. Even as they close things do open up as well. So having a refresher course would be good for us because things are changing constantly.

Reinforced previous training. Refresher training is important but should be voluntary.

My experience is extensive. Even prior to law enforcement or any adult life occupations, my mother is clinically depressed. And I grew up in a household where it really impacted her and us, a lot. So, I was familiar with it as a child. But I, obviously didn't know what it was. I had a vague idea. And then I worked for the Dept of Public Health before I joined the PD, as a paramedic. And again I had some exposure there. Throughout my career I've always, sort of, understood what was going on, as far as people having mental health problems. But how to deal with it and what to do seemed limited."

Before the training, my knowledge was all based on just sort of what I learned going along, dealing with people. But I had really no deep knowledge of it. And that's where it stood, up until October."

And most of what we do now, contrary to what you see on TV, is not hostages, it's mostly people in crisis - it's suicidal people. So, that also - it just helped me with that, with the training that I had there. it's helped me deal with people that are in crisis there."

So, it makes me just a more mindful and more considerate of what's going on. Besides the fact that this crazy guy wants to jump off the roof. Now I want to know what's going on with him. What's the cause?"

More professional

Training helped with communications: "Like the way that they see stuff or I mean and the (I don't know if I'm going to call them disabilities) or the varying degrees of illness that are out there. I mean some people will take meds. Some people won't take meds. Some people just are flying by the seat of their pants and we... "

We can't make, we're not doctors, we're not nurses. We have to take the information that we were given in the class and try to use that to make a determination on how we can best help them, in that situation. We're doing no long-term care. We're just doing a band-aid, until we can get them from point a to point B."

After training: "After I took the class we went to this, I remember, we went to a call outside a. Well, the guy was walking down the street and he was just talking to himself and he was, it was like those sentences that don't connect, and they jump around from topics that are not connected. And you're standing there and the officer that was with me had also taken the training and so is was like, 'Okay, let's try to use this.'"

But, this guy was just like, I mean we talk into our microphones and he's just like "Well, who you talking to? Is somebody on Mars?" And I was like: "No." "Is that the Pres. " it's like: "No." And they jump around because, and he had like no shoes on and they have no ID and you're trying to get some kind of a straight answer so that you can do what you need to do. And hoping that you can get thru that to a place where they're going to be able to talk to you. And he's just jumping around and like a...."

In his way of thinking and what he was saying to us. And he wasn't really doing anything wrong, it's just that his behavior was, had attracted somebody's attention. He was wandering in and out of stores. He's disheveled and he doesn't have any shoes on, and you just say I can't arrest him, he's not really doing anything wrong. But he's also not, he doesn't meet the 5150 criteria. But he also doesn't, he just, it's really hard, because there's a fine line. And so what do you do with him? it's like 'can I take you someplace, can I give you a ride someplace? What can I do for you, how can I help you?'"

And it's just like, you feel like you're beating your head against the wall sometimes. Even though you have the information and you have the skills and you're trying to work thru, or get thru to them, it sometimes, you're just like, it's just you hit a wall. And you're just like: okay what do I do with you now?"

Band-aid

Beating your head against the wall

Prior to training: "I guess it was limited to just conventional, what I would have called mental disorders. And I didn't have a whole lot of personal experience - like in my family. Although I'm sure, now, I know that there was. Things that were indicative, but I just had no idea. So, I guess from my environment I, prior to being a police officer in SF. I came from a fairly small place, small central valley town. So, I guess from both a medical standpoint and even a personal standpoint, it was limited."

After the training: well there's things that the training helped me with that it has been helpful on a very conscious level, I guess you could say - more day-to-day. Things that might not necessarily help me in the performance of whatever I'm doing as a cop, but just have been very helpful in general. And that's more of just an awareness and that is sort of like a 24/7 benefit, I guess you could say."

And then there's actually certain techniques that I've been able to use - very limited though because of, I think, my assignments that I've had since taking this training that have helped me as well. So, I guess when I'm saying the awareness, not only disorders but basically having an idea that, or being aware of the vast numbers of people that are affected." guess I was always under the impression of was that someone with a mi, was always mentally ill - 24/7, all the time. and, so, on a, conscious level now I'm aware that there's definitely different levels of mental illness in terms of how bad a person is being affected or how severe someone might be affected. And how much that may or may not have an impact on what they do day-to-day."

When I went through the Academy there was no training. So, my first instances of dealing with mental illness were real eye openers. And I think I probably, know that now I saw it in it's most extreme forms."

You don't know if it's 'cause there's drugs involved, there's alcohol involved or whatever this person's going through something more severe than you can understand. and, and in those situations when you're trying to deal with that and whatever reason you're there in the first place for - that can be very difficult I think, for a cop."

I'm more aware of is the type of answers you get from people and the triggers. What seems to trigger that guy wasn't the fact that I was a cop, it was just the fact that I'm an unusual person in his comfort zone. That bothers him in my example. And I've had other that make, that's the impression I've been left with - is that it's not that I'm a police officer."

The questions that seemed to help the most, as simple as it sounds, is usually when I ask them if I can, what I can do to help them. It really changes things. They truly believe - he's asking my opinion, he's not telling me to do anything, he's just asking me. It doesn't mean that I'm, necessarily, going to be able to do it. but, it think when they're so used to hearing commands from cops or other people..."

Before and after training: "Over the last couple years my contacts with people in mental crisis have increased, a lot. I've noticed it a lot more, people who seem to be in a severe crisis a lot more than it was, say a couple years ago. And this training, I think what it allowed me to do was to kind of step back and approach these people from sort of a different perspective."

In, maybe, taking the time to listen a little bit more about what there needs are and exactly what it is they're looking for or maybe why they've called the police. I've kind of stepped back and probably give a little bit more time."

Whereas before, if they weren't necessarily a 5150, I may have thought - or driven away and thought, 'wow, I wish I could do something'. And this has kind of given me a little bit more leeway and a few more options to provide to these people. So, in that sense, it's kind of been a big impact for me."

Impact of active listening component: "Like, I just had a man the other day, who was adamant that his ex-boyfriend was breaking in and, I don't know - changing all the buttons on his shirts. And he was adamant that he had put speakers inside of his head phones. And everybody left, and he was obviously in distress and I finally said to him, I just stopped. I said 'What would you like me to do?' And he was like 'I just want you to come look at the headphones and I just want you to look at the phone.' And I spent, actually, quite a bit of time with him and then, the more I listened to him - he told me he had quit his job that day because he needed to be home, because people kept breaking into his house and he put up bars and did all this stuff."

And I, the more I listened to him and I thought, if I leave this man here he's going to hole up in his house. And who knows where he's going to be 2 to 3 days from now. and, at that point, I thought well, he's not necessarily 5150 but let me call MC. Where I may not have done that before." I thought, I can't just leave him, so I ended up calling them and they referred me (actually, which I didn't know about) but they referred me to (when someone has HIV, they have their own crisis clinic to call). So, that was good information for me. And then, like I say, I called them. And they said I should 5150 him, 'cause it could've been medical. He was very paranoid and to leave him there... But it was, like I say, I probably normally, if he wasn't 5150, I'd've left. But this time I was able to stop and hopefully try to ease him. "What do you want? What can we do for you? Well, you've obviously called. You're obviously upset." So, and I mean in that sense it's helped."

Asking what the police officer can do to help was shown to be most effective.

Prior to the training, I just had contacts on the job. Been on the job 8 1a?"2 years. Been in 5 different district stations. and, so I've come across my fair share of, won't say mi, but just altered mental state type people. and, instead of learning through experience that sometimes you need to talk quietly to 'em and not go through the entire police rigmarole of, you know, "Turn around, get your hands up," sometimes it's more appropriate to calmly talk to them. And instead of having to learn that the hard way I think it would be great if, maybe even at the academy level, that we could, you know, teach these tactics to the recruits, so that they don't have to learn the hard way." mean, clearly someone's under some kind of mental distress and he's giving you, you know, the 1000-mile stare and you kind of question whether he's under the influence or anything or just simply out there. It may be better to quietly approach instead of shining your light right in his face, and "hey, why aren't you listening to me." Sometimes that leads to, you know, very aggressive fights. And it's much better talk people into cuffs than it is to force them physically into cuffs, say."

Certainly the quality with the, you know, minimizing the confrontational aspect certainly has helped. and, you know, being a supervisor I think it's important to, you know, model appropriate behavior for your troops. When they see me or other supervisors dealing with altered mental state people in a different, more calm way it think that has a tremendous amount of impact."

The hard way.

Table ____.

Opportunities for improvement.

Interviewee

Observations/Comments

Key Metaphors and Themes

Training "just right": I think that they did a really good job. And given the amount of time they had they covered a lot of topics. I think pretty much everything that we need, cuz we need to deal with the immediate situation. I think pretty much everything that we, as police officers, was covered. So I really don't have complaints about the thing. In fact, I encourage a lot of my coworkers to go to it.... I always tell people, "Take it. it's worth it. it's beautiful. The foods great." I did really like too.

Need for 24-hour service: Oh my god, Yes. Yeah, it would be so much better for us. And especially it helps too that they have more training and more background in specifically this stuff.

Training was comprehensive and appropriate; refreshments were appreciated.

Need for empathy: "My interaction with people... I've always tried to be compassionate. Again, having some childhood background. But now I think it's - I deal with the people with a little bit more understanding. I think the more important part is dealing with people. I know that there's more resources now, there's different avenues to go down, different options to explore."

Need for 24-hour service: "And the one thing that I started doing, almost religiously, is every case where it looks like it's going to be (unless it's just a hard core - have to get them to the hosp and 5150 them) MC has become like it's, that's kind of dialed in my phone - speed dial. Because I just call them and they show up. They're absolutely amazing."

Need for 24-hour service: Yeah, that would be great... And I guess that's a budget thing. But they should be rolling 24 hours a day and more than probably one unit.

Refresher training needed sooner: The problem is it's been so long from the class till that and as my position as a sergeant. The big thing is I like to reference my officers back to the class and the training.

Impact of medication and lack of medication on mentally ill: "there's even those that are in the financial district that are mi - that are working, that are able to carry their, you know, their jobs off everyday and stuff. They can do it because they're on... The problem is when we get the call and they are acting strange and all this. Now you're in the financial district or Nobb Hill and you have somebody that's a little off and know one's sure why this person's acting strange, and a lot of it, I feel now, is (you know) because they are getting that medication, so they're able to balance." Also, "I had a problem with that because we were again, going through this negotiating stuff and they were talking like with officers on some of these different drugs. I wasn't too much of a proponent. They were pushing the 'hey it's okay,'you know, if they're taking their, you know, medication, they're gonna' be okay. It balances them out."

Concerning the cross-cultural aspects of the existing training: "One of the things that this is: It's a tool you are gonna use. it's, they're out there. We're dealing with 'em. I bet if, you know, most stations - especially your downtown stations, you know. Here, you know, we have Union Square, Fisherman's Wharf, you know, Chinatown. I could take you for a ride and you're gonna see these people all over. You know.

Apparent assumptions concerning the efficacy of medications and their appropriateness. Refresher training needed sooner.

SF has a lot of resources. If you're livin' out on the street - something's wrong there - for the most part."

In negotiations, people of all walks of life can behave abnormally and this may be the result of various psychotropic medications or the failure of individuals to adhere to a medication regimen and discerning such pharmacologically-based behaviors from other factors that affect the mentally ill is enormously difficult. Dual diagnosis training, therefore, should be covered to the maximum extent possible.

I've been on the police force, now, for twenty years. The scariest calls, generally, that I've run into are individuals with mental health issues. Often it can be anything from somebody who is just having a psychotic episode and hearing voices and responding to the aberrations that are apparently frightening them. It can be something from that all the way up to a wild man, machete waiving around and threatening peoples' lives at the scene, and everything in between."

Impact of medication and lack of medication on mentally ill: "So, over the years as I began to handle more and more of these calls, (not least of which is because the number of mental institutions, custodial institutions were closed down, beginning under Gov. Reagan because of tax cuts, through to the present day) we have more and more of an outage, in the general public, among the general public out in society. And they are, at just about every level, there's threatening - the public feels threatening - threatened by them. And responding to those over time, I began to realize that the most difficult aspect of handling a case, like that, from our perspective, is the fact that there is no rationalization, that they can't, you can't, reason with them. And in the absence of reason, kind of, all bets are off."

One thing that was very helpful was there was a pharmaceutical company there, had sent a representative. And they had a virtual reality machine that you put on. And you would see kind of, from a schizophrenic/paranoia's perspective."

You would see kind of how they were reacting to meeting with one of their psychologists or psychiatrists. And it was really interesting 'cause, I think it was only about a year later that the movie with Russel Crowe came out - "A Beautiful Mind." And having actually put on the virtual reality mask and seen how, basically from their perspective, how reality kind of gets mixed up and confused. It really helped me to understand the character that was being portrayed by RC. And I thought the film was really brilliant the way it handled it. There was the girl that kept playing out in scenes, the young girl.

And there were the different points you began to understand and finally the character that RC was playing, suddenly there was an epiphany and he understood that this must be a hallucination because the girl never grew any older. And I, it's very interesting personally, from my perspective, to begin to understand a mental illness to that depth and that kind of effect and see how people, it can really overwhelm them.

And that's through the advent of modern medication and things we can pretty much control a lot of the different psychotic illnesses that are present today. but, again, one of the big issues is getting these people to take their medications. Yeah, well it really helped that I had been through that virtual reality machine. Cause there were a lot of subtleties in the film itself that I'm sure went right over most peoples' heads. In fact I discussed it with the person I took to the movies and she didn't - she missed a lot of the very subtle aspects of the schizophrenic."

Probably the diversity. The class that I was actually teaching, the diversity in different cultures. I think where you have one person from the Asian community telling me - he does an excellent job of relaying that. Then you have somebody else from the African-American community. Then you have me from the Latino community. And I think, and even though some of them are different, I believe most of them are similar, in a lot of ways and probably could condense that - shorter. Or maybe even just one or two speakers. And I'm not speaking to cut somebody else out of the loop, I'm just saying as I listened to the officers, I read the feedbacks that I got, I think probably that's one of those ones that you want to keep them close or you just want to grab their attention. I think possibly it should be more focused as for law enforcement and investigations."

Training should be mandatory but that approach may backfire because of police culture: "I think the training was good, but I think that it should be mandatory. I don't think that it should be something that, it's elected that you go to."

Cross-cultural training not needed: "The only thing I heard, from other officers, that they didn't really particularly like - that they didn't need it, was cultural, the cultural aspects. A lot of the officers go: 'This is stupid. We don't need it.' That was the only complaint I ever heard from a few officers. it's like, I don't know if it was the presenters. 'Cause I know some of the officers that came in, that came, I don't know if it was their personality or whatnot. But that was about the only thing they didn't want to hear about, was the cultural stuff. it's like the different cultures and they have to act a certain way and stuff. That was the only negative thing that they didn't really want to hear about."

The Haight St. crisis intervention. That was so dry, so boring. I didn't get anything out of it. I think people got a little defensive on some of the things that were being said - in terms of how the cops responded to the Haight St. clinic.

They didn't want us in there and, yk, we come when we're called. If there's and issue, we've got to take action. I'm sorry, this person's bouncing off the wall - they're coming with us. You called me 'cause you couldn't control them and now you want me to... it's like - come on.

And on the other side it was like a house aflame, you only call me when you get somebody you don't want and now you want me to come clean up your house. You knew this person was a problem initially.

So, I don't know if it was personal 'cause I did spend a lot of time in the Park Dist., so I did work Haight St. And it's probably in the 80s and maybe early 90s. So, that could be personal. That could just be my perception. but, it was a little dry."

What did I like about it? I like the resources. but, what could we improve on? The availability of the resources. I mean that pretty much sums up my whole issue."

Making program mandatory may backfire because of police culture: "If you try to force this, then people are going to show up like they do to AO and other classes that we're forced to take, with a closed mind."

It was a very enjoyable week. I mean, it was, we were definitely treated like adults. Wonderful location. Nice catering. Not really a lot of dead time. Everybody had their presentation. It flowed along pretty well. Awful lot of evaluations. That eval after, like, every hour/half hour, that got to be kind of - a lot. I would, yk, fewer evals, but if they had you be a little more descriptive, that would have been okay with me."

Need for specific training with juveniles: "[but] that's an incredibly different issue and topic unto itself."

Re: dual diagnosis component: "It takes a while for a police officer to gather the courage and the wherewithal to be able to try to deal with someone in that aspect. Especially with the incredible lack of training, I mean we're dealing with people that are schizophrenic, that are on medications and stuff we can't even pronounce, much less determine what the cause and effect of this medication is. And it's an awful lot for us to be asked to deal with, other than the generic 5150."

Gender reference to 5150 facility: Fortunately my relationship with the folks over at the 5150s facility were, for the most part, pretty good. There was one fellow named Don who was a real, real good guy. And there were a couple gals that were real nice and treated us like we were not the f****** enemy. Which made the experience a lot easier. But there were a couple of people there that.... They hated men. They hated cops. They hated cops that were men. it's like, I had one experience where the guy that we were 5150 ing wanted to leave with us because he was so upset at the way that she was treating us. And it was f****** because they ended up putting the guy in a 4 point restraint. And he never deserved to be in that. That still bothers me to this day, that she abused her power to that end.

Desperate need for juvenile-specific services.

I think it's the biggest failure, is that juvenile crisis thing. Because if the hosp doesn't want them and the parents don't want them, we are stuck with them.

Now, what do we do? We drive around with these kids for 8 hours - looking for somebody to take them. Nobody wants them. Child protective services is not going to take them. I mean none of the, Huckleberry House, none of those places, they're not going to take them, especially if they're violent. Now, what do we do? We are stuck with this kid. And we don't know what to do. And no one will take them."

Need for more information on how to calm people down: I think probably the one thing that, it was covered, but not really well...I mean, they could give us a little bit more information - How do you calm people down? I think before you can even start talking about meds and all that other s***, you've got to get people to calm down."

And they didn't really tell us too much on how to other than 'try and talk low - don't be aggressive' but there's got to be some other tricks of the trade to get these people under control - other than beat the s*** out them or just dog-piling or something like that. There's got to be another way. And they really didn't cover too much of that."

Did not particularly like some field trips (appeared ambivalent about human brain activity): "Some of the things I think that maybe they could do without were some of the visits to the mental - I don't know what... It was interesting but, and I'm sure somebody must have gotten something out of it, but I just didn't really. I felt like when we went, a lot of it was - it wasn't important, as far as our involvement." think a couple places it was, we sat and we spoke to the residents, and it was just kind of a 'bash the cops' sort of thing. And of course they have mental issues but it's not something that you want to listen to when you don't have to. So, it wasn't, I don't think that part was instrumental in the training."

The virtual schizophrenia thing, I thought that was kind of, that was - stupid. That was just ridiculous. I'm sorry, that's too Disney for me, I mean, I thought that was needless. That was circus, I didn't like that at all. It was amusing, but I don't think it was applicable."

Re length of training: "Not even, I don't even think you need that much. I don't think - I think a 4-hour block. If you've taken the course within the last two years. If you've taken the course within the last, say, two years, then a refresher course on a AO 4-hour block I think should suffice. Officers can't handle too much more than that at AO on a particular subject. it's just too much to ask among all the other subjects they have to follow."

Need for 24-hour MC service: "MC, to me, is if I'm kind of caught in a quandary. I don't really... I really think that this person needs somebody to come out and maybe talk to them but it's not one of those definite - where I can make a split second decision on the scene. But whereas I don't feel comfortable maybe to leave the person right away, 'cause I want to kind of explore where they're at right then. But the shift I'm on now benefits me a little more because before, when I dealt with a lot of 5150s, I was on the late nite/mid-nite shift and they/the hours. I think they stop at 10 o'clock or something like that."

Preferred laminated resources card over 8-1/2 x 11" sheets: "Well, the best - like the card that I'm showing you. Any small type of card, that could fit in our pocket. See, because most cops they take... you get a big piece of 81/2 x11 sheet of paper. Goes right in the trash can. But something that's small and that, yk, maybe laminated even. That's just easily... put this in your pocket, this is a new thing that came down from mental health, they want...maybe use this to help you out.

It could include such things as like what medication certain people take for certain illness. So if a person tells you they're taking Viapan or things like that so you can maybe readily use it as kind of a reference guide. That, I think, would be really helpful."

Shorter refresher course would be useful: "We wouldn't need to do a week. I mean but just like to give us information. Cards that we can have. I mean phones numbers that've been updated. Places, close or moved. If centers have more.... Make it short."

Refresher course and pocket-sized handouts w/resources. "I mean I'm sure things like cost have a lot to do with. I don't know if a course would be most helpful for me but maybe every so often if - I'm sure things change in terms of the facilities. You know, both inpatient and outpatient, where people can go. I think if, maybe every two or three years, just a something simple as a packet could go out to everybody with the phone numbers and addresses."

Laminated resource cards: "Well, I mean, but if you have - like we hand out a domestic violence referral. And on that referral card, which it says we'll give, it has housing information, legal information, psychological information (where to receive counseling)." mean, it has a lot of information on that one card. And at least you're giving the person something. And they can shove it in a drawer and may not look at it for two years. But someday when they get tired of that person, they'll open up the drawer and they have the information."

Field trips created discomfort: "I enjoyed it to the hosp to meet the staff but I didn't necessarily enjoy touring the floors. I felt very uncomfortable - I thought one would've been sufficient, maybe. but, to go in each one and view these people in their state and view them in their rooms, like an animal. I just didn't like that at all. I mean, that probably was part of it. But one would've been sufficient."

Like an animal.

Logistical implications of theory: "I think the theory has certainly been addressed, you know. But in the practical application there still are some gaps. Because, you know, the trainers aren't police officers. They can't come out here and see that - hey a lot of the homeless people have 18 carts. Well, you know, when you take them into custody, you guys gotta move the carts and then you gotta call DPW. And then, you know, are you going to issue them a property receipt for all 18 carts, are you going to count through everything. So, there are these practical limitations."

And sometimes people with altered mental states don't, they don't, really, value hygiene. So sometimes it's really hard to get up close and you know try to talk to them. So..."

Table ____.

Recapitulation of interviewee recurring words and phrases.

Word/Phrase

Count

Under the influence

Suicide by cop

Alcohol

Homeless

Mental illness

Suicide/suicidal

Drugs

Medication(s)

Mental health

Figure ____.

Discussion

The Importance of Police Training Today.

In their book, Training the 21st Century Police Officer: Redefining Police Professionalism for the Los Angeles Police Department, Glenn, Panitch, Barnes-Proby and their colleagues (2003) report that, "The client of every profession is society. The police officer performs a service for the greater good much as doctors sustain public health, lawyers defend individual rights, and military personnel protect their citizenry. Such service to society implies that the professional police officer understands the social context in which he works" (p. 6). Today, this concept of service requires a community policing approach that takes into account the enormous social diversity that is increasingly characterizing American society. As Glenn and his associates emphasize, "Every modern metropolitan area is a palette of rich demographic differences. The concepts underlying community policing and diversity awareness must therefore pervade the entire organization, including its training functions" (p. 6). Police training models differ from state to state and even district to district, but there are some commonalities involved in many approaches that have caused some observers to suggest that current methods are inadequate, irrelevant or misguided. For instance, Miller (2005) asks, "Are police doing too good a job of making arrests and enforcing the law? Do police miss important contextual clues by being incident-driven in their investigations, rather than being contextually based?" (p. 2). By and large, police training models that embrace the components described in Table __ below help to ensure the requisite level of professionalism.

Table ____.

Components of effective police training models.

Component

Description

Corporateness

Corporateness involves instilling an understanding of professional duty and building a minimum level of expertise in an individual before he is admitted to the profession. It thereafter demands collectively maintaining established standards of performance. Implementation of the concepts underlying corporateness takes many forms.

The Police Responsibility to Community-Oriented Policing in a Diverse Society

While corporateness addresses organizational systems and procedures that must support officer training, responsibility speaks more to the policing philosophy that a department chooses to advance. The systems of corporateness act to establish and maintain the philosophy of responsibility. Both systems and philosophy rely on the unique expertise that police officers provide to their clients.

Police Expertise

Training develops and constantly hones the unique skills of a profession. Every leader and officer must unceasingly work to better himself and his colleagues as public servants. Department training in turn should not only help recruits become officers, but also constantly educate police at every echelon beyond their graduation from the academy. Five subject areas, use of force, search and seizure, arrest procedures, community policing, and diversity awareness, constitute a core set of skills that an ethical and effective police officer will regularly employ in combination. Expertise in these five areas demands more than physical adeptness. The professional officer is proficient in both technical skills (e.g., weapons proficiency, physical arrest procedures, and other topics frequently labeled as "tactical") and communication skills.

Source: Glenn et al., pp. 6-7.

Maintaining professional expertise is a continual process. Many professions require members to complete continuing education programs to maintain their standing. Other organizations hold periodic mandatory training sessions that focus on pertinent topics or require members to develop a personal reading program based on recommended readings focusing on the profession. Such programs seek to disseminate knowledge considered necessary for maintaining skills. A profession will stagnate, lapse in its expertise, or otherwise fail in its service to society if it does not constantly update the knowledge of its members (Glenn et al.). Police organizations generally leave the discovery and teaching of new material to their training function and on-the-job experience. Only by exception, such as in the case of a fatal shooting involving an officer or a mishandled riot, do departments conduct investigations that result in dramatic training and policy changes. There is rarely a means in place for promoting the transmission of good practices among precincts or encouraging individual police officers to share innovative concepts. A valuable initiative can take months or years to gain recognition. When there is no mechanism in place to make an innovative officer's initiatives known to a wide audience, they can be lost entirely if he leaves the department (Glenn et al.).

Personality Development Theories.

Personality has many different meanings. Attributes encompassed by the construct range from emotional reactivity to attitudes, expectations, values, and instrumental behaviors. Because consensus does not exist concerning the specific attributes that constitute personality, few measuring instruments cover every dimension assumed to be relevant. Personality is commonly studied at many different levels ranging from the concrete (e.g. behavioral responses) to the abstract (e.g. central orientations or behavioral styles that typify individuals across different situations). Digman (1990) describes this enterprise in terms of a four-tiered hierarchy that includes:

Specific acts or interactions that occur in specific situations;

Typical or modal responses occurring in prototypical situations (e.g. generalized habits or dispositions);

Trait facets or characteristics; and,

Superordinate constructs or traits (e.g. extraversion).

Hierarchical representations of this type generally assume that lower-order characteristics are uniquely related to higher-order constructs. And yet, empirical studies based in natural language show that only about 50% of personality-related descriptors (e.g. adjectives) are related to single traits; almost as many are related to two factors, and a small number to more than two. Circumplexes, created by pitting constructs or traits against one another (e.g. agreeableness vs. extraversion), are thus attractive alternative models (Hofstee et al. 1992). Using several hundred descriptive adjectives, these authors were able to propose a taxonomy that they thought "comparable in function to the periodic table of chemical elements" (p.146).

Factor analyses based on self- and other-descriptions of adults generally yield five orientations or dimensions, known as the Big Five or the Five Factor Model: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional (in)stability, and openness (Digman 1990, Goldberg 1993). The Five Factor Model is robust across many different subjects, item pools, instruments, and methods of factor analysis as well as across different languages and cultures. Some writers (e.g. Goldberg 1993) suggest that the framework can subsume most earlier taxonomies and theoretically derived schemes including Cattell's (1956) Sixteen Personality Factors and Eysenck's (1970) Superfactors (psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism). Such assertions have elicited heated arguments (Eysenck 1993), although wide replicability of the Five Factor Model is sparking many new studies, including several with children and adolescents (Halverson et al. 1994).

Main questions are whether the five factors assessed in adult personality also apply to the description of children's personality and how infant temperament develops into adult personality (Halverson et al. 1994). Although a con sensus does not exist, certain studies with children now confirm earlier results of studies with adults. For example, among both children and adolescents in the Netherlands and the United States, strong resemblance has been reported between the first five factors in the California Child Q-set (Block & Block 1980) and the Five Factor Model (van Lieshout & Haselager 1994, John et al. 1994). Ego-resiliency and ego-control are also linked to the Five Factor Model. Other studies from four countries (the Netherlands, the United States, Belgium, and Surinam) reveal that 70-80% of the characteristics mentioned by parents in describing their children can be classified within the Five Factor Model. Moreover, the proportions of these characteristics assigned to each factor are remarkably similar across countries and languages and across reports obtained from both mothers and fathers for both boys and girls (Kohnstamm et al. 1994).

Temperament is generally defined as a substrate for personality development, consisting of simple, basic styles that emerge early and that are tied closely to distinctive modes of emotional expression. Temperament ordinarily encompasses attributes including activity level, irritability or emotionality, soothability or self-regulation, fearfulness, and sociability (Goldsmith et al. 1987). These attributes, in turn, can be divided into two broad groups (Rothbart 1989): reactivity (i.e. arousability of affect and motor activity) and self-regulation (e.g. attention, approach-withdrawal, inhibition, and self-soothing).

Factor-analytic studies reveal considerable isomorphism between the structure of early temperament and the structure of child and adolescent personality. Studies with infants in the United States, Europe, Australia, and China, using two well-known temperament questionnaires, reveal five to seven factors very similar in meaning to four of the Big Five: Activity level and inhibition are positive and negative poles (respectively) of a factor resembling extraversion; flexibility and control of negative affect reveal aspects of agreeableness; negative emotionality, activity level, irritability, and inhibition define a temperamental factor similar to neuroticism; and task persistence resembles conscientiousness (Martin et al. 1994). Openness does not emerge in these analyses because relevant items are not contained in the infant temperament scales; intellectual ability, however, may be the basis for this factor. Rhythmicity (i.e. regularity of biological functions such as eating, defecating, and sleeping) emerges as a separate factor in these studies but is not usually regarded as relevant to personality development (Goldsmith et al. 1987).

The manner in which temperament serves as a substrate for personality development is not well understood. Temperament is thought to be constitutionally based (i.e. influenced by heredity, maturation, and experience), although it is not more genetically determined or biologically rooted than is personality. In fact, the extent to which temperament is more genetically-based than is personality remains an empirical question (Hartup et al.).

Temperament is currently understood to interact with experience in four main ways:

By determining the child's effective experience, thus accounting for the different effects that similar experiences have on different children;

By affecting the child's sensitivity to rewards and punishments;

By moderating or controlling the effects of other temperamental characteristics (e.g. effortful control may moderate aggression); and,

By influencing the learnability of social behaviors (e.g. social responsibility or conscience).

Personality development is affected pervasively by these interactions between temperament and experience in the following ways:

Certain temperamental factors are elaborated or modulated by these means into personality structure (e.g. low irritability and difficultness into agreeableness);

Temperament interacts with parental characteristics and caretaking behaviors, affecting both the construction of relationships between parent and child and the child's socialization. Much remains to be learned, however, about these elaborations (Hartup et al.).

The dimensions of temperament and the dimensions of personality are sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another. Early temperament is structured in some ways that are similar to the manner in which child and adolescent personality is structured. Continuities exist from childhood into adolescence and adulthood in both temperament and personality organization although the elaborations of temperament into personality are not well understood (Hartup et al.).

Psychodynamic theories emphasize the unconscious; a number of important aspects of personality are beyond human cognizance and can only be brought to consciousness with great difficulty, if at all. A summary and comparison of such psychodynamic theories is provided in Table __ below.

Table ____.

Summary of psychodynamic personality development theories.

Theorist

Key Findings

Sigmund Freud

Devised the first theory of personality (and the first psychotherapy), psychoanalysis. Most of personality is unconscious: we hide many unpleasant truths about ourselves from ourselves by using defense mechanisms, and we are driven by wishes, beliefs, fears, conflicts, and memories of which we are totally unaware. Human nature is entirely malignant, our only instincts are sexual and aggressive, and these inborn impulses include powerful desires for the parent of the opposite sex and intense jealousy toward the parent of the same sex (the Oedipus complex). Personality is often a house divided against itself, torn by conflicting wishes and goals, and this is best explained by using the concepts of id, ego, and superego. Personality develops through a series of psychosexual stages and is firmly established by about age 5 to 6 years. Dreams are a "royal road" to understanding the unconscious. Psychopathology occurs when we can't find ways to channel (sublimate) our malignant instincts into behavior that society will accept.

Carl Jung

At first a supporter of psychoanalysis, then broke with Freud to establish his own theory. Believed that the unconscious is extremely important but disagreed with Freud in many respects: Human nature is both good and bad. There are important instincts in addition to sexuality and aggressiveness (including individuation, the forerunner of the humanistic concept of self-actualization). There is a collective unconscious that contains archetypes, or inherited predispositions to perceive the world in certain ways. Introversion-extraversion is a major aspect of personality. Psychopathology occurs when personality becomes too one-sided, as when we fail to develop important aspects of personality or overemphasize aspects that are contrary to our true (inborn) nature.

Alfred Adler

Adler's inclusion among the psychodynamic theorists is controversial because he did not believe that the unconscious is important. Personality is shaped by the child's relationship with his/her parents and by our consciously chosen life goals, rather than by instincts. The most important motive is striving for self-perfection (superiority). Cooperation with others is essential for our survival, and we have an inborn tendency to do so. Psychopathology occurs when pathogenic parenting causes the child to develop an inferiority complex and refuse to cooperate with others.

Karen Horney

Combined Freud's belief that the unconscious is extremely important with Adler's belief that personality is shaped by the child's relationship with his/her parents. Psychopathology involves a personality that is torn by inner conflicts (but concepts such as the id, ego, and superego are not necessary to explain this); self-hate, which is often concealed by an idealized self-image; and painful anxiety that causes the healthy quest for personal growth to be replaced by an all-out drive for safety and a compulsive desire to be protected, to dominate others, or to be alone.

Erich Fromm

Because humans lack inborn instincts that program behavior, people are more isolated and anxious than any other species, and may find freedom and independence desirable but threatening. Psychopathology is caused by pathogenic parenting and by our poorly designed society, of which Fromm was severely critical, and it occurs when we use our freedom to choose unwisely (as by being selfish instead of loving others). Devised important methods of dream interpretation.

Harry Stack Sullivan

Defined personality in terms of our relationships with other people. Stages beyond early childhood, including adolescence, are important for personality development. Psychopathology is caused by pathogenic parenting that leads to intense anxiety and damaged interpersonal relationships. Made significant contributions to our understanding of the causes and treatment of schizophrenia.

Erik Erikson

Became the leader of the psychoanalytic movement after Freud because he was able to revise psychoanalytic theory in ways that did not offend the establishment. Corrected some of Freud's major errors: Human nature is both good and bad, and the rational ego is stronger than Freud believed. Personality is shaped much more by the child's relationship with his/her parents than by instincts and sexuality, and it develops through a series of psychosocial stages that go from infancy to old age. These stages include adolescence and the identity crisis, and there are criteria for determining whether development is successful at each stage. Devised techniques of play therapy for use with children.

Source: Ewen, 2003, pp. 2-3.

Personality refers to important and relatively stable aspects of behavior. Consider a young woman whose personality includes the trait of "painfully shy." She will behave shyly in many different situations, and over a significant period of time. There are likely to be exceptions: She may be more outgoing with her family or a close friend, or at her own birthday party; however, she will also have difficulty dealing with other people in many cases which will continue for months or even years and will have a significant effect on her general well-being.

Some theorists maintain that personality can be studied only by observing external, social behavior; the majority of psychologists today, though, define personality as originating within the individual. These theorists emphasize that personality may exist in the absence of other people, and may have aspects that are not visible (Ewen).

In this regard, personality development analyses are concerned with the entire range of human behavior. To most theorists, personality includes virtually everything about a person -- "mental, emotional, social, and physical. Some aspects of personality are unobservable, such as thoughts, memories, and dreams, whereas others are observable, such as overt actions. Personality also includes aspects that are concealed from an individual, or unconscious, as well as those that are conscious and well within individual awareness (Ewen).

Ideally, there are four criteria that a theory of personality should satisfy: description, explanation, prediction, and control. Human behavior and its analysis, of course, are extremely complicated, and a useful theory helps bring order out of chaos. It provides convenient descriptions, establishes a framework for organizing substantial amounts of data, and focuses attention on matters that are of greater importance. In addition, a good personality theory explains the phenomena under study. It offers answers to such significant questions as the causes of individual differences in personality, why some people are more pathological than others, and so forth. A theory should also generate predictions, so that it may be evaluated and improved (or discarded). To many psychologists, the gold standard of any theory is its ability to predict future events. Finally, a valuable theory usually leads to important practical applications. It facilitates control and change of the environment -- "for example, by bringing about better techniques of parenting, education, or psychotherapy.

These criteria may seem unambiguous; however, there is frequently considerable disagreement about how best to apply them. For example, some psychologists emphasize that a scientific theory should generate formal, objective predictions that can be tested under the controlled conditions of the research laboratory. From this perspective, a theory with many constructs that are difficult to evaluate empirically (such as the Freudian id, ego, and superego), or one that does not stimulate a considerable amount of research, would be regarded as inferior (Ewen). Other psychologists view the research laboratory as artificial and prefer to derive their theories of personality from informal clinical observations, an approach they regard as scientific. Some theories posit specific stages of growth that delineate the development of personality. The characteristics of these stages (e.g., sexual in Freudian theory), and of the corresponding character types (e.g., oral, anal, phallic, and genital), also highlight important theoretical similarities and differences (Ewen). A summary of representative personality development studies is provided in Table __ below.

Table ____.

Summary of personality development studies.

Author/Date/Title/Publication

Key Findings

Comments

Magai, C. & Haviland-Jones, J. (2002). The hidden genius of emotion: Lifespan transformations of personality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 9, 41.

Growth and development may be seen as an emergent product of a complex, chaotic system. The order that emerges in an initially chaotic condition is holistic in nature and derives from mutual effects. Within a system or between systems there may be an interdependence of variables with push-and-pull vectors that co-affect components, driving them to settle into a coherent pattern over time. In terms of human personality development, there will be the push and pull of co-affecting motor, cognitive, physiological, and emotional subsystems within the individual. There is also the co-affecting push and pull of interpersonal systems. Over time, these mutual effects settle down into recognizable patterns of activity that are identified with intrapersonal coherence or personality.

Most current theories of human development treat the emotional events of infancy as pivotal in personality development, if not "critical periods," with lifelong ramifications.

Shiner, R.L. (2005). An emerging developmental science of personality: Current progress and future prospects. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 51(3), 379.

Most relevant to the topic of personality development was the finding that higher emotional stability (or lower neuroticism) predicted greater reductions in externalizing behavior over time. This result points to the fact that children's personality characteristics may be an important source of stability and change in psychopathology. There may be a maintenance association between personality and psychopathology, such that personality may influence the manifestation, course, and prognosis of disordered behavior once it has started, even if the traits did not play a role in the onset of the disordered behavior. It will be important for future work to determine whether this finding replicates in other samples and in other developmental periods and to explore the processes through which neuroticism may exert such a negative effect on children's externalizing behavior over time..

This researcher determined that childhood traits do predict adult personality substantially and that the links between the two are conceptually coherent and meaningful.

Pedlow, R., Sanson, a., Prior, M., Oberklaid, F. (1993). Stability of maternally reported temperament from infancy to 8 years. Developmental Psychology, 29, 998-1007.

Using age-appropriate temperament questionnaires, these researchers demonstrated the measurement equivalence between infancy and age eight in approach (inhibition), irritability, cooperation-manageability, inflexibility, rhythmicity, and task persistence. (Irritability and cooperation-manageability during the first two years combined subsequently to create an inflexibility construct during middle childhood.) Interindividual stabilities were substantially greater (modal values ranging between.57 and.78) than those reported in earlier studies.

These researchers demonstrated that continuity of a construct over time is needed in the assessment of variable-centered stabilities.

Asendorpf, J.B. (1992). A Brunswikean approach to trait continuity: application to shyness. Journal of Personality, 60, 53-77.

When strong continuities in shyness were established between early childhood and adulthood, stability coefficients ranged between.51 and.75 from ages four through eight years.

Costa, P.T. & McCrae, R.R. (1994). Stability and change in personality from adolescence through adulthood. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Current results thus suggest that interindividual stabilities in childhood temperament are similar to interindividual stabilities in adult personality; however, these stabilities occur simultaneously with normative change:

Neuroticism and extraversion decrease from early to late adulthood, for example, while agreeableness and conscientiousness increase

Berscheid, E. (1994). Interpersonal relationships. Annual Review of Psychology, 45, 75-129.

Lifelong development involves temperament and personality in continuous transactions that encompass physiological processes, social expectations, and interpersonal relationships. Many writers argue that stability and change can be meaningfully construed only in terms of organization across these domains. Consequently, assessment must involve diverse functions including neurophysiological and endocrine processes as well as personological assessments made by independent observers, significant others, and the self. Personological assessments from three sources are needed because no one source is a proxy for another: Independent observers provide assessments that are relatively unbiased by the subject's attributions; significant others establish the subject in relational context with reference to the goals, cognitions, coregulated rules, and affective expectations that mark interpersonal relationships; self-evaluations are constituent elements of the self-concept and thus reflect the subject's self-perceived roles and identities. Assessment must occur simultaneously across these domains because quality of adaptation cannot be completely measured otherwise. Overall, the person-oriented argument is well taken: Personality development should not be viewed in terms of a set of static traits, but rather in terms of more or less stable organizational features that qualify a person's dyadic and group relationships and that may change over the life course

Personality Traits. Contributors: Gerald Matthews - author, Ian J. Deary - author, Martha C. Whiteman - author. Publisher: Cambridge University Press. Place of Publication: Cambridge, England. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: pp. 67, 69.

Constitutional temperament and the socialization experiences provided by the environment interact to shape personality development. At a conceptual level, the relationship between personality and temperament is often confusing. Temperament is sometimes considered to be synonymous with personality, as in psychobiological trait theories (Cloninger, 1987), or temperament may be considered to be a subset of personality (its biological components), or the two types of construct may be considered to be conceptually distinct, if strongly related

Nature and nurture.

Caspi, a. & Roberts, B.W. (2001). Personality development across the life course: the argument for change and continuity. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 49-66.

Using well-adjusted children as the comparison group, these researchers found that children in the 'undercontrolled' category were more likely to have behavioral problems throughout childhood and into adolescence; inhibited types did not suffer from behavioral problems but tended to deal with problems by internalizing them.

These researchers studied the temperament and personality development of 1,037 boys and girls from their birth in 1972-3, and are continuing to follow up the sample.

The Power of a Development Plan. Contributors: Robert a. Stringer - author, Randall S. Cheloha - author. Journal Title: Human Resource Planning. Volume: 26. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: 10

Leadership is learned by doing or by watching someone doing. Job experiences that are challenging, risky, stressful and visible -- where success and failure are real possibilities -- are the most developmental.

Formal training programs that emphasize awareness-building and teach skills that can be immediately applied to a person's on-the-job situation are the most valuable kinds of courses.

Sources: As indicated.

In sum, Temperament and personality development are being studied in a relatively integrated fashion. Variable-oriented and person-oriented approaches to personality development are in vogue, and closer attention to basic assumptions (e.g. continuity in the measurement structure) is improving the results. Short- and long-term stability and change are being documented with emphasis on the manner in which temperament is elaborated into personality. Relatively little is known about the manner in which temperament, socialization pressures, and interpersonal relationships are intertwined in personality development. Beginnings are being made, however, as evidenced by advances in three areas: antisocial behavior, inhibition and withdrawal, and responsibility (Hartup et al.).

Jung's theory of individuation and shadow integration through education and personal and practical experience.

The interviews with the eighteen police officers recapitulated above in sum suggests that there are as many personality types enforcing the law as there are in the general public which is being enforced. In order to develop appropriate training regimens for police officers today, then, requires an understanding of personality and its impact on how training may be perceived and received. The concept of different psychological types began with the Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, who speculated that human behavior is not random but is rather classifiable and predictable (1923). According to Cambray and Carter (2004), "In 1921 Jung published a major work, Psychological Types, where he described the now well-known typology introversion / extraversion, along with the feeling/thinking and intuitive/sensation functions. These terms have come into common usage in many languages, and the psychological type theory is used extensively in business applications" (p. 7).

In general Jungian terms, individuation refers to the process by which individuals are able to realize the potential that is innate in everyone. Therefore, the term "individuation" is connected with the development of the individuals' personality through people distinguishing their own uniqueness which will ultimately be different from collective thought and values (Scategni, 2002). In this regard, Scategni advises, "In social relationships the process of individuation assumes that an individual relates to others in his or her own unique way and experiences the values of the group he or she belongs to in a more inner-directed and personal way. In this way group values are not accepted passively are but reclaimed and re-elaborated in a spontaneous way, keeping a certain dose of innovative energy alive" (p. 148). From the broadest perspective, individuation serves as a guide to help individuals achieve the realization of their "Self" as the complete expression of themselves as a whole; in addition, individuation also concerns a person's fulfillment of their own human destiny (Scategni).

The process that compels an individual towards this holistic goal is defined by Jung as being the so-called "transcendent function." As this author points out, "During the course of an individual's entire existence, the transcendent function relates the consciousness of the ego to the contents of the unconscious, which manifest themselves through a continual transformation" (Scategni, p. 148). In a sharp departure from Freudian psychology, Jung believed that it was possible for people to be helped along the path to individual fulfillment by others. For instance, according to Scategni (2002), "The Jungian concept of individuation can be compared to the image of a creative thought. Furthermore, therapeutic practice was considered by Jung to be addressed towards the realization of the person and his or her own creativity through the individuative path" (p. 15). In this regard, Jung termed the process when material of the unconscious compensates, and is incorporated into consciousness, the process of "individuation" (Huskinson, 2004, p. 42). According to this author, "The process of individuation is therefore the dynamic interplay of opposites, in which opposites are actively balanced to form a new unity" (Huskinson, p. 42). This unity is Jung's conception of the whole self, or as he terms it, the 'Self' as described in an essay in 1928: "Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as 'individuality' embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one's own self. We could therefore translate individuation as 'coming to selfhood' or 'self-realization'" (Jung, 1928, par. 266). As Huskinson advises, "Self-realization implies an understanding of the structures of opposites inherent within the psyche" (p. 42). The process of individuation usually involves encountering a series of archetypal visual 'personifications', which compensate consciousness and indicate to the individual how the opposites are relating within him and how much progress has been made toward their unification (Huskinson).

Archetypes are symbolically translated from their unconscious roots to consciousness, so that archetypes appear within dreams and in other manifestations of the unconscious - in 'visions, fantasies, emotions, grotesque ideas, and so forth' (Jung, 1932, par. 509). The individuation process is not a "quick and dirty" one, but is rather a long and arduous process in which the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious merge into a unity. A series of archetypal figures and situations are encountered along the way, and are - if the conditions are appropriate - accepted and assimilated into consciousness. According to Jung, the individual's 'acceptance' of one archetype leads him to encounter others; this process culminates in the 'acceptance' of 'the archetype of archetypes', 'the archetype par excellence' (Samuels, 1994, p. 87), the 'Self'. The Self is the totality of the personality, where all opposites are united, and consciousness is enriched in its coordination with the personal and collective unconscious.

Jung does not explicitly define the process of individuation, so that it is not possible to be absolutely certain of the specific stages involved in the gradual unification of opposites. Jung makes it clear, though, that he does not want to define each stage in terms of an objective teleological formulation that applies to every individual: 'How the harmonizing of conscious and unconscious data is to be undertaken cannot be indicated in the form of a recipe' (Jung, 1939b, par. 524). It is also apparent that the archetypal encounters do not necessarily form a linear sequence or process, but can also be thought of as circular. According to this circular scheme, it would seem that an encounter with a particular archetype could happen at any time. It is not localized or allotted a specific place in the psychic order of things; rather it spontaneously materializes at a time appropriate to the individual concerned; however, in most cases, it is possible to discern in Jung's writings allusion to a linear sequence of archetypal encounters. The individuation process often begins with the confrontation of the personal unconscious, where individuals assimilate their neglected tendencies personified by the 'shadow' archetype (Huskinson).

Following this, the collective unconscious must be confronted, where the contra-sexual side of the individual is encountered, personified by the anima / animus (thereby providing the undifferentiated compensation to every individual alike). Finally, the archetype of the 'Self' is encountered. When this is accepted, the individual accepts the totality of his being. Furthermore, Jung's discussion of the individuation process in Aion (CW 9ii, 1951) examines the archetypal figures in this sequence, supporting the notion of a linear framework of experience. According to this scheme, it is conceivable for individuals to estimate how far they have progressed towards the Self, for it provides a teleological map to chart the progressive stages of the merger between consciousness and the unconscious. In other words, by closely examining the themes of archetypal appearances within their dreams, individuals should be able to estimate which stage in the process of individuation they have reached. Such clarity and accuracy would be unachievable with a circular process.

The shadow is the first archetypal figure to be encountered in the individuation process because it is the most accessible: 'Its nature can in large measure be inferred from the contents of the personal unconscious' (Jung, 1951, par. 13). The shadow is the most apparent archetype to the individual as it embodies the very opposite of his conscious one-sided attitude; it is the inferior function and attitude type within consciousness. To incorporate the shadow into consciousness is to reject the 'sick animal' with his propensity to promote one opposite in the binary pair, for its incorporation entails the acceptance of the neglected opposite, and thus a unification of opposites. 'With insight and good will', Jung writes, 'The shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality' (ibid., par. 16). However, Jung also notes that there can be resistance to this assimilation - notably 'projection', where some traits peculiar to the individual's shadow are projected outside of that individual and appear as traits within another person. The shadow is often rejected because it is of a contrary nature and often appears alien or even morally reprehensible. Projection works as a defence mechanism to remove the shadow-elements out of consciousness and into the external world. Jung writes: 'He must be convinced that he throws a very long shadow before he is willing to withdraw his emotionally-toned projections from their object' (ibid.). Jung continues to say that these projections are assumed to belong to the realm of the shadow, that is, to the negative side of the personality. This assumption becomes untenable after a certain point, because the symbols that then appear no longer refer to the same but to the opposite sex, in a man's case to a woman and vice versa. The source of the projections is no longer the shadow - which is always the same sex as the subject - but a contra-sexual figure. (Jung, 1951, par. 19; cf. par. 422)

In the linear process of individuation, it is, therefore, through experiencing a resistance in the shadow's assimilation into consciousness that the archetype of the anima (of a man) and the animus (of a woman) is encountered. If the shadow is experienced first - as the antithesis of the conscious orientation - the archetype of anima/animus is the second set of opposites to be experienced. The incorporation of this archetype into consciousness signifies the union of genders: the anima is the feminine component of the unconscious male psyche, while the animus is the male component of the unconscious female psyche. The former personifies 'eros' or love, while the latter is a personification of 'spirit' and 'intellect' (Jung, 1951, par. 29). The archetypal image of the anima is usually singular to compensate the fundamental masculine tendency to discriminate, while the image of the animus is usually plural to compensate the fundamental female tendency to unify and synthesize (cited in Huskinson at p. 45). The anima/animus therefore, like the shadow, compensates the persona of the individual - his (one-sided) conscious orientation. Jung writes: "The persona, the ideal picture of a man as he should be, is inwardly compensated by feminine weakness and as the individual outwardly plays the strong man, so he becomes inwardly a woman, i.e., the anima, for it is the anima that reacts to the persona" (1928, par. 309).

According to Coe (1992), "Personality type theory assumes that from birth people develop the four functions that they do best. Initially, while one is developing one's preferred behaviors and orientations, the opposite functions, which Jung calls the shadow functions, are used far less often. Most people really begin to work at becoming more comfortable with their shadow functions after the age of 20" (p. 511). Consequently, type development is viewed as a lifelong process of gaining more command over one's so-called "shadow functions." In this regard, Stein (1998) advises that, "Jung's argument, made over and over in his later writings, is that the Christian God image, the Trinity, betrays an absence of shadow integration. It is wholly 'good,' and evil is defined as mere privatio boni, the absence of good. For Jung, a transformative image that represses, neglects, or denies important features of human nature will not do the job of integrating the whole person and balancing all the aspects and forces of the personality" (p. 58).

In his text, Psychological Types, Jung (1971) provides this useful insight: "We naturally tend to understand everything in terms of our own type [but] it is not the purpose of psychological typology to classify human beings into categories - this in itself would be pointless" (p. 37). In a later work, Aion (1974), Jung makes the point that the ego, originating in the Self archetype, has one psychic basis and another somatic; the somatic basis would be comprised of the conscious and unconscious endosomatic sensations and the emergence of the ego would be touched off by the "collision between the somatic factor and the environment" (Jung, 1974, pp. 3-6).

According to Allen and Brock (2003), though, "Jung's work was certainly not in the behaviorist camp. His work included such unmeasurable concepts as the 'collective unconscious'" (p. 7). In this regard, Pietikainen (2001) advises, "Where Jungian psychology differed from Freudian psychoanalysis was that whereas psychoanalysis aspired to offer tools for an increased self-knowledge and psychological insight, Jungian psychology went beyond this analytic attitude and offered transcendental doctrines that included strong psychoutopian elements. What most of all makes Jung a utopian writer is his imaginative application of his own archetypal theory to ideas that are related to personality transformation (individuation) and an ensuing cultural regeneration. The doctrine of the collective unconscious and its archetypes is Jung's major contribution to twentieth century intellectual culture, and while the scientific status of Jung's theory is rather feeble, to say the least, the very idea of an archetype has filtered into common usage and influenced popular psychology, especially growth-oriented therapeutic practices" (p. 41).

Jungian archetypes are inherited supraindividual predispositions of the collective unconscious (CW 8, 200-16), which all shared by all humans regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or cultural background. In this regard, Jung based his conviction of the universality of the archetypal mental structure on the questionable premise that it is biologically inherited and maintained that since the "deeper layers" of the human psyche are everywhere the same, people living in different cultures are united by these archetypes in the sense that there are universal human experiences that are structured by them. According to Pietikainen, "Jung of course was not the only thinker who argued for the fundamental identity of (unconscious) mental functioning, the so-called 'psychic unity of humankind,' but he was unique in placing the speculative idea of the collective unconscious at the very centre of a psychological theory" (p. 41).

The Philosopher's Stone and Alchemy: Personality in the Crucible.

At its most basic level, alchemists were concerned with the transmutation of base metals into gold and with the search for the philosopher's stone, or lapis. According to Henderson and Sherwood (2003), "The alchemists often used images to illustrate their work to transform and redeem matter. As Jung noted, 'symbolical images belong to the very essence of the alchemists' mentality What the written word could express only imperfectly, or not at all, the alchemist pressed into his images; and strange as these are, they often speak a more intelligible language than is found in his clumsy philosophical concepts'" (p. 3). To the extent that alchemists unconsciously projected their internal experiences of transformation into their work with matter, their images are most relevant to the work of psychological growth and healing. In fact, the alchemists themselves were frequently cognizant that they were using a symbolic language to talk about the phenomenology of inner experience (Henderson & Sherwood).

In his work, the Psychology of the Transference, Jung made reference to a series of alchemical images to elucidate the nature of projections within the analyst-patient relationship. That series, known as the Rosarium Philosophorum, was comprised of woodblock illustrations from a Renaissance manuscript, and its psychological interpretation has been extensively discussed since Jung's original article demonstrated its relevance to the analysis of the transference. Jung was also familiar with the Splendor Solis. In his works, he reproduced several images and quoted the text; however, he did not consider its images in detail, either separately or as a series (Henderson & Sherwood).

In his later life, Jung found a wealth of symbolism in alchemy that he recognized to be parallel to the process of individuation. For instance, Jung believed that the unconscious communicates its material to consciousness via the transcendent function, which spontaneously produces symbols in dreams, fantasies and visions; however, it is insufficient to depend on Jung's 'systematic' discourse in isolation to understand the process of uniting opposites. As Huskinson advises, "Indeed Jung points out many times that the psyche cannot be adequately described in 'scientific' and 'rational' terms. An attempt at examining Jung's difficult texts on alchemy and its symbols may compensate for the structured exposition of his thought" (p. 47).

The ancient art of alchemy was concerned with the complexities of change, of the transformation from one state to another. To accomplish their fundamental goals of transmutation, alchemists worked with metals, and within their laboratories they tried to transform an ore of little value into silver or gold (or the 'Philosopher's Stone'). But this 'external work' with matter was, in many cases, intimately linked to an 'inner work' on the human personality. For example, we often read of the 'alchemical fire' that is the 'secret of the opus'. This is clearly a physical fire that was controlled within a vessel as part of the 'outer' process; but it is also the heat-producing quality of meditation and imagination that is linked with the 'inner' individuation process. Consequently, for Jung,.".. alchemy had a double face: on the one hand the practical chemical work in the laboratory, on the other a psychological process, in part consciously psychic, in part unconsciously projected and seen in the various transformations of matter" (Jung, 1937a, par. 380).

As a method of understanding physical process, it is reasonable to suggest that alchemy is now redundant: it inevitably gave way to modern chemistry due to its inferior methodology (which lacked quantitative measurements), understanding and lack of success in the transformation of matter; nevertheless, alchemy remains relevant in its use as a tool for reflecting upon psychological change. Indeed, in his seminal study, Psychology and Alchemy (CW 12, 1944), Jung describes how certain archetypal images that are common in alchemy appear in the dreams of modern individuals who have no knowledge of alchemical literature: "The world of alchemical symbols definitely does not belong to the rubbish heap of the past, but stands in a very real and living relationship to our most recent discoveries concerning the psychology of the unconscious" (Jung, 1955-1956, p. xiii).

The 'most recent discovery', according to Jung, is of course his individuation process. The often cited saying 'solve et coagula' in alchemical texts describes the process of uniting opposites that is common to alchemy and the individuation process. Both the alchemist and the Jungian analyst see the essence of his art in terms of separation, on the one hand, and synthesis and consolidation on the other: "There was first of all an initial state in which opposite tendencies or forces were in conflict... [and then] the great question of a procedure which would be capable of bringing the hostile elements and qualities, once they were separated, back to a unity again" (ibid., p. xiv).

According to Jung, the first half of life is one of ego development. The ego emerges out of the objective psyche or collective unconscious and engages itself in the outer world. It explores the world and fashions a persona with which to present itself to the world. These efforts are motivated by an outward flow of libido, which cathects worldly projects and identifications. The ego, then, during the first half of life, is absorbed in outer experience as the primary arena of existence. Correspondingly, the ego during this time is typically out of touch with its own subjectivity, and especially with the potentials of the deep unconscious. Focused on the outer world, the ego is oblivious to inner and underlying complexes, archetypes, and energies; at midlife, though, according to Jung (1928), the outward flow of libido ebbs; libido recedes from the world and begins to flow back toward its source in the collective unconscious. And as this happens, the ego, following the course of libido, begins to turn inward as well (Washburn, 1990). At this point, the individual's ego loses interest in the world and is drawn toward its subjectivity and underlying unconscious. This midlife reversal is the U-turn of the spiral paradigm; it is the about-face that brings the ego back to the original sources of its being. The ego begins the individuation process by which it is brought back to and reunited with the archetypal Self. And this reunion, true to the spiral conception, is superior to the original unity that it at once recreates and supersedes. For whereas the original unity was undeveloped and pre-egoic, this new unity is fully developed and transegoic (Washburn, p. 5).

In alchemy, regression in the service of transcendence is symbolized by the decomposition and dissolution that base metal must undergo in order to be reduced to prime matter. The reduction process involves a "blackening" (nigredo), "rotting" (putrefactio), and death (mortificatio) of the base metal, the nature of which must be completely obliterated in order to produce a pure residue of prime matter. Prime matter, in Aristotelian metaphysics, is the matter underlying all individuated substantial forms. Accordingly, the process of reducing base metal to prime matter is the process of radical, regressive deindividuation that base metal (or the fallen self) must undergo if its constituent matter is to be free to assume a new and higher form (Washburn, p. 6).

In Jung's spiral theory, regression in the service of transcendence appears in the notion of individuation, according to which the ego must submit to a confrontation with the unconscious on the way to integration with the Self. The ego experiences serious difficulties in confronting the unconscious. Facing the personal unconscious, and especially the shadow, can be an anguishing ordeal. But even more difficult is the encounter with the collective unconscious, which is truly dangerous territory for the ego. In encountering the collective unconscious, the ego is subjected to the deep shadow, evil itself, and is exposed to the inflating and engulfing, deranging and disconcerting effects of numinously charged complexes and archetypes. For Jung, then, the ego's return to the Self is a perilous journey, a journey fraught with difficulties and dangers. The return is not only a redemptive process but also, at least at first, a regressive one. It is a process that, as Jung ([1912]1967) well understood and as Jungian analyst John Weir Perry (1953, 1974, 1976) more recently has shown, can, in its regressive potential, lead even through madness or psychosis on the way to renewal and integration (cited in Washburn at p. 7).

A common theme that runs through these instances of the spiral U-turn in personality development is the path of return to origins is not only a path that leads to sources but represents a path that follows a developmentally backward course to those sources as well. As Washburn points out, "It is, therefore, a path punctuated with "spiritual emergencies." The ego is dispossessed of itself and subjected to serious setbacks and ordeals: collapses and upheavals, purgations and inflations, engulfments and losses of control. That is to say, the spiral path of return to origins is a path of regress on the way to higher progress" (p. 7).

The use of a "stone" to represent the evolution of the individual personality is entirely appropriate in this case. For instance, Knapp (1984) reports that, "Stone represents cohesion, hardness, durability, oneness; a reconciliation of opposites. Unlike a living plant or animal, minerals are far less subject to growth and change, birth and death" (p. 62). The imagery of a stone being used in such a fashion is also a common theme in many major world religions. In this regard, Knapp notes that, "When a stone shatters or fragments, it may be identified with psychic disintegration; when whole, with orientation, equilibrium, memory of both past and present events. In many religions, stone takes on a sacred aspect: the Kaaba for the Muslim, the Omphalos for the ancient Greek, the Beith-El for the Hebrew, the philosophers' stone for the alchemist. Christ was looked upon as the cornerstone of the church (Matthew 21:42); the angular stone of the Mason stands for the passage from brute to refined material" (p. 62).