Introverts vs. Extroverts - by Liezl Cromwell

Are you an Innie or an Outie?

So, do you know if you are an Innie or an Outie? And no, we‘re not about to contemplate our belly buttons, but rather explore introverts and extroverts.  Most of us have heard these terms and can randomly allocate them to our nearest and dearest. Yet, do we truly understand what they are and why are they significant to everyday life?

Generally, we assume that extroverts are the ‘live wires’ at a party or those that are assertive and outgoing.  I’m sure you have just thought of someone, who loves being the centre of attention, the ‘typical’ extrovert. Or your introverted friend who seems so shy, withdrawn, sometimes lacking in self confidence. That’s right, the one that’s never keen to try something new and the proverbial wallflower at parties.

 In fact, the way to tell if someone is an introvert or extrovert is determining how they recharge their energy levels. This is the key difference. Do you need to withdraw from people, noise and activities when tired, when needing to process or just simply think? Then the chances are pretty good that you are an introvert. Extroverts on the other hand need people to recharge and energise. They need other people to process decisions, experiences and feelings. For example, an extroverted child will want to do their homework in your presence at the kitchen table, while the introvert prefers the quiet of their bedroom.

In general, we find that for every introvert there are three extroverts. The Meyers Briggs type indicator is a well known test used by psychologists to determine personality preferences. This is the route to take for a more accurate assessment, which is conducted in the form of a questionnaire. Myers-Briggs uses the terms extraversion and introversion. Extraversion means "outward-turning" and introversion means "inward-turning. There are four areas of preference that are assessed, but that is a subject for another time.

Another component often overlooked is the temperament continuum, which ranges from extreme extrovert to extreme introvert.  Most of us function in the middle, shifting from one side to another when appropriate, as we feel safe, comfortable or when in different roles. Dr. Laney (see below) compares this to being left or right handed. We can use both hands, but are more orientated to either the left or right one.

Extreme Extrovert

Middle Ground

Extreme Introvert

So why is this important to know? Let me share a personal experience. I’m not typically seen as a classical extrovert, yet I score highly on Meyers Briggs test as one. My mom, an introvert never understood my need to socialise, after complaining bitterly how exhausted I was. This often led to me feel misunderstood and that I was ‘faking’ my exhaustion. By understanding how we operate we have a better understanding of ourselves and others. I recently stumble across a book, The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child, Helping your Child Thrive in an Extroverted World, written by Marti Olsen Laney, Psy. D. In this book Dr. Laney focuses on helping us see the contribution that introverts give. This is often overlooked as extroverts draw more attention and introverts often feel unnoticed and undervalued.

In this book she identifies how we function and thus gaining insight and understanding.  Innies and Outies are often defined by their behaviour, rather than how they source their energy and their orientation to the world.  These are the following key differences:

Extroverts:	Introverts
Love action and excitement	Like to be stimulated in small doses
Prefer to get an overview of a topic	Explore topics in depth
Emotionally react in the moment	Process emotions before reacting
Energised by the outside world, depleted by quiet and solitude.	Feels depleted and drained by too many people and activities
Danger: overstimulation and exhaustion	Danger: getting lost inside their own heads
Wearied by too much quiet and solitude	Take longer to get their bodies moving
Tend to shoot from the ‘lip’	Use a longer brain pathway, hence do not always answer immediately
Enjoy attention, talking and activities	Tend to hesitate in unfamiliar environment
What immediate gratification, want it ‘now’	Harder to get their body moving, have to tell their body to move.
More vulnerable to addictions	Highly observant and detail focussed
May walk, talk and eat fast	Difficult to get to know

It is important for both introverts and extroverts to balance their tendencies. An Innie needs to be encouraged to engage the world, grow in confidence and not become lost inside their heads. The Outie could burn out from overstimulation and would benefit from periods of contemplation and relaxation. This should be kept in mind as we parent our children and in our relationships with our spouses. For example, an Outie parent with an Innie child may be frustrated by their child’s lack of enthusiasm and perceived lack of confidence.  The Innie parent with an Outie child may feel exhausted trying to keep their noisy child ‘under control’.  These children are often misdiagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)  or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) In our relationships conflict may rear its head, when one partner needs time out and the other needs a night on the town.

All said, we are all created different and unique. This should not be seen as a disadvantage.  Everyone has something to contribute and what we do and say is of value. Here’s a simple scenario, look at couples around you, perhaps your own marriage. Who is roaring to go, take risks and talk the talk? Think about who is the one who applies the brakes and brings perspective to decisions that needs to made. Do you see how we could balance each other’s tendencies, creating harmony in our significant relationships?

Why Love Matters - a book review by Janie Loubser

Janie Loubser writes about the thoughts that are provoked by Sue Gerhardt’s book Why Love Matters

Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain
by Sue Gerhardt
264pp, Routledge

Available on www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583918175/

Why Love Matters is the title of a book I recently read. It is written by Sue Gerhardt and she explores how the earliest relationships shape the baby’s nervous system. As psychologists and counsellors we know that childhood experiences have a great affect on adult life. We are familiar with John Bowlby’s attachment theory and Margaret Ainsworth’s  “Strange Situation” study that showed how a child’s development is a direct result of the way the child's main carer responded to and engaged with him or her.  Yet it seems that attachment theory has almost been forgotten or is being downplayed. The whole issue of mothering has become sensitive and even politicised.   Sue Gerhardt however goes and uses neuroscience to prove the attachment theory. She provides the scientific explanation for the importance of early experiences. She is very honest about how parents fail their babies and what the consequences can be. But she also describes a mother’s experience of being with her baby with sensitivity and provides insight into why a mother is limited in the way she mothers. She goes further and gives a rich description of psychological disorders such as depression and borderline personality disorder. I say it’s rich because she helps the reader imagine the baby’s experience that possibly contributed to the disorder.  She makes it clear that she believes that prevention is key and that early intervention with mothers and babies are much more effective. But she also explains how psychotherapy with adults can help to repair some of the damage.

 

This quote summarizes Gerhardt’s viewpoint: “The human baby is the most socially influenced creature on earth, open to learning what his own emotions are and how to manage them. This means that our earliest experiences as babies have much more relevance to our adult selves that many of us realise. It is as babies that we first feel and learn what to do with our feelings, when we start to organise our experience in a way that will affect our later behaviour and thinking capacities.” 

The book is divided into three parts. I am going to present some of the key ideas from this book that I have found helpful in my work.

The first part of the book deals with brain development in infants and how this can be influenced by attachments and the corrosive influence of cortisol. Gerhardt sets out the scientific basis for understanding babyhood as a crucial time in emotional development. She uses the concept of “the unfinished baby” and explains that the baby has many systems that are incomplete and will only develop in response to other human input. Babies also rely on adults to manage their emotional states so that discomfort and distress are reduced and comfort and contentment is increased.  If a baby is exposed for too long or too often to stressful situations (such as being left to cry) its brain becomes flooded with cortisol and it will then either over- or under-produce cortisol whenever the child is exposed to stress. Too much is linked to depression and fearfulness; too little to emotional detachment and aggression. 

  

The second part of the book looks in more detail at the links between various adult disorders and their roots in babyhood. Gerhardt highlights the concept that insecure attachments and the consequences can make one more vulnerable to specific psychopathologies. She does not say that the one ‘causes’ the other, but explains how poorly developed emotional systems impair one’s  capacity to manage one’s feelings . The likelihood of finding dysfunctional solutions to emotional problems are increased, such as eating too much or too little, drinking too much alcohol, reacting to others without thinking, failing to have empathy for others, falling ill, making unreasonable emotional demands, become depressed, attack others physically, and so on.  Gerhardt looks at the links between early emotional regulation and the immune system, depression, as well as personality disorders. Her description of the baby’s experience that developed into a borderline personality is a helpful reminder of the baby within the adult. In fact she says, “whether you focus on the parent, the baby or the adult with the mental health difficulties, the core problem remains the same: the insecure baby within.”  Insecure attachments tend to develop because parents find it hard to respond adequately to their babies. This is mostly because of their own limitations in regulating their emotions.

Gerhardt  writes about an emotional framework that is set up and consists of both a physiological and psychological  capacity. If the framework is secure, it gives the individual a confidence in regulating the ups and downs of emotional life, with the help of others when needed. But if the framework is insecure, then the person will find it much harder to cope effectively with stress, and will feel little confidence either in coping as an individual or in relying on others to help. She describes self-esteem as the confidence in oneself as well as in others and says that self-esteem is not just thinking well of oneself in the abstract, but also having the capacity to respond to life’s challenges.

Part three looks at treatment and repairing the damage. Gerhardt acknowledges that this information can leave one feeling heavy with guilt about the parenting one provided and hopeless about the parenting one received. Gerhardt argues that improving the relationship between parents and their babies is a much more cost-effective way to improve mental health than any number of adult therapeutic interventions. She advocates parent-infant psychotherapy as one way to prevent damaging emotional patterns from repeating themselves.  

She does however acknowledge the possibility of development and change extending across a lifetime and not just infancy. She explains that important pathways continue to be established through childhood until the brain is fully fledged at 15 years old. Change and development do continue after that, but as we know from our own work, at a much slower rate. She explains how through psychotherapy an individual can explore the way that he or she regulates himself or herself in relation to others, and can attempt to modify old emotional habits and introduce new ones. She writes, “the therapist’s acceptance allow a mental space to reflect on the feelings and consider how to respond afresh. Whilst the feelings are alive and active, so too are the stress hormones which will assist new (higher brain) cortical synapses to be made in response to the subcortical signals. Together with the therapist, new networks can be developed.”

We can probably all relate to how difficult it is to talk about early experiences. Adults cannot remember their babyhoods even though they have feelings about it. And mothers find it hard to express their intense emotional and physical experience with their babies.  Gerhardt’s writing does not only provoke thoughts and feelings about early childhood experiences, but provides a language to talk about it. It is accessible to not only those involved in mental health, but to parents too.  The book can help create awareness in parents about how much their babies need them.  It can also be helpful for adults in explaining why they have the difficulties they have. It has helped me to teach parents how to respond to their babies; and to teach adults how to respond to the baby inside them in an empathic way.

-          Janie Loubser is a clinical psychologist in private practice, Cape Town. She has a special interest in relationships and helps people to discover and remove the obstacles that keep them from having meaningful relationships. This includes relationships between parents and children.  www.janieloubser.co.za