Classical Temperaments versus Modern Depression

Once upon a time, a very wise philosophopher believed that each individual person was created with 1 of 4 temperaments.  Modern man has mocked this idea and boiled it down to some crazy idea that Aristotle had that each person was made with more blood (sanguine), or more phlegm, or yellow or black bile.  Lovely images correct.

If Sanguin humour do too much abound, These signes will be thereof appearing cheefe, The face will swell, the cheeks grow red and round, With staring eies, the pulse beate soft and breefe, The veynes exceed, the belly will be bound, The temples, and the forehead full of griefe, Unquiet sleeps, that so strange dreames will make To cause one blush to tell when he doth wake: Besides the moysture of the mouth and spittle, Will taste too sweet, and seeme the throat to tickle.
	If Choller do exceed, as may sometime, Your eares will ring, and make you to be wakefull, Your tongue will seeme all rough, and oftentimes Cause vomits, unaccustomed and hatefull, Great thirst, your excrements are full of slime, The stomacke squeamish, sustenance ungratefull, Your appetite will seeme in nought delighting, Your heart still greeued with continuall byting, The pulse beate hard and swift, all hot, extreame, Your spittle soure, of fire-worke oft you dreame.
	If Flegme abundance haue due limits past, These signes are here set downe will plainly shew, The mouth will seeme to you quite out of taste, And apt with moisture still to overflow, Your sides will seeme all sore downe to the waist, Your meat wax loathsome, your digestion slow, Your head and stomacke both in so ill taking, One seeming euer griping tother aking: With empty veynes, the pulse beat slow and soft, In sleepe, of seas and ryuers dreaming oft.
	But if that dangerous humour ouer-raigne, Of Melancholy, sometime making mad, These tokens then will be appearing plaine, The pulse beat hard, the colour darke and bad: The water thin, a weake fantasticke braine, False-grounded ioy, or else perpetuall sad, Affrighted oftentimes with dreames like visions, Presenting to the thought ill apparitions, Of bitter belches from the stomacke comming, His eare (the left especiall) euer humming.

In normal language.  

Sanguines are usually happy, friendly, extroverts whom people like.  They are born knowing social skills and tend to attract attention.  The negative aspects of this temperment would be a tendency towards superficiality and shallowness.  They have quick reactions of average intensity and are relationship oriented.

Cholerics-Type A personality.  These are the doers and leaders.  They are often extroverts who understand people skills as well. People with this temperament are characterized by quick reactions of heated intensity.  They are rational.

Phlegmatics-are people pleasers and they loath conflict.  A phlegmatic will go to great lengths to avoid confrontation and they also can tend towards superficiality and shallowness.  They seem to be more introverted.  They are characterized by slow reactions of weak intensity and are relationship oriented.

And there there are those darn Melancholics.  I personally am quite partial to this temperamant:).  Melancholics are deep.  They are moody.  The greatest saints, musicians and artists are often Melancholic.  And guess what, the modern pyschological world would call them all manic depressants.  Not just normal run of the mill drepression but deep dark at the bottom of the world depression.  These would be slow reactions of strong intensity and the intensity of the emotional reaction grows over time.  They are not relationship oriented but truth oriented.

So what is the relevance of this discussion?  Well, think about it.  Close to 4,000 years ago, Aristotle noted that people are not all the same.  He classified people based upon their reactions to things and  that system of classification is still totally relevant today.  Since we as humans ignore this system, we have doomed a large segment of the population to live in misery.  Our modern pyschobabble system uses tests like the Myers Briggs, to discern who you are and how you will respond to things.  Even though school books mock the old temperament classification; those modern personality tests don't. If you do the research there is evidence that the Myers and Briggs and Carl Jung understood the 4 temperaments and organized their ideas around this ancient wisdom.  And then of course, they marketed their "ideas" as something new and different and modern and "scientific".


Somehow as Americans we all pretend to talk about accepting everyone as they are,but we really want our children and family members to be the perfect mix of choleric and sanguine.  Doesn't everyone want a child who is both a leader and the outgoing friendly type.  Who actually wants and introverted, moody thinker for a child?  No one.  Who wants to be married to an intensely sensitive, overly rational truth oriented individual?  No one.  Who wants a shy, follower as a son?  No one.  What we as Americans want is the happy go lucky, star is born, leader, who gets over emotional problems quickly.  We want that movie star image of the charming, extrovert, for whom witty comments always roll off the tip of their tongue.  We don't want to come home everyday to someone whose behavior we can not predict, and who is always anxious over something.  But guess what?  God did not create everyone with the same temperament.  He gave us different temperaments for a reason.  

Unfortunately, since it is so obvious that 2 temperaments are so strongly preferred to the other 2 temperaments, those individuals who are phlegmatic and melancholic grow up feeling that something is wrong with them.  It starts out with mom wondering why her kids are shy and should she be worried.  Then it progresses to mom worrying about why her kids over react to things or why her child is such a follower.  Eventually, by highschool, true melancholics are being pyschoanalyzed by everyone around them.  I know from experience.  I am the classic melancholic and I come from a family of melancholics.  It is really hard to grow up as a melancholic and not feel the pressure to be like your sanguine or choleric peers, family or friends.  You wonder what is so wrong with you that you can't just be happy like everyone else supposedly is.

When I was an adult, I read a book and realized to my shock that per the modern world, I was and always had been a total manic depressant.  I should have had drugs, counseling, etc.  It was a life changing moment. 

  It was at that moment that I realized what I had been looking for all my life.  God, truth, perfection. I had looked for it in classical ballet. I had looked for it in the writings of the intelligentsia, I had looked for it in Eastern philosophy, I had looked for it in pagan Wiccanism,  I had looked for it in scientism.   I had looked for it careerism and of course, I never could find what my mind and soul was yearning for.  Perfection.  I would only find what I was looking for in God and so I had to seek the perfect truth.  I searched and rediscovered my Catholic faith and have tried in a miserably bad sort of way to live that perfect truth.

As a Catholic, I can see the truth that God created me with a plan in mind.  Therefore, when unpleasant things happen, I need to accept that suffering, offer it back to God as best I can and move on.  As a Catholic, I can see that the only bad thing that really matters was that Jesus was nailed to a cross and also that sin destroys the soul.  As long as I focus on those 2 things, none of the trivial bad things that happen are worth worrying about.  As long as I keep those 2 truths in mind, I am fine.  Nothing worries me, because I know that God has a plan.  But the minute-the second, that I forget about those truths; the anxious melancholic in me comes back.  I worry.  I get angry.  I take trivial, tiny, little bitty things and magnify them to life or death moments.  I become livid, and uncontrollably upset, and weepy and my blood pressure skyrockets.  But after Confession and an act of faith, those anxieties usually melt away. They are gone.  Completely and utterly gone.  The misery, anger, and physiological responses to that melt away.  I don't go to counseling, I don't get drugs, and I don't talk with anyone about it.  I just go and confess MY sins, not the sins of the other person who upset me, MY sins and then I make an Act of Faith and move on.  Serenity is restored, till I fall again.  

I am writing this because I see so many melancholics in such pain.  They are wounded as children because they grow up instinctly knowing that something is wrong with them.  They go through life with that wound which only grows larger day by day as the effects of their own personal sins push them further and further from God and then they find the pyschologist.  Game over.  How can you find the truth when the pyschologist is just talking to you about past hurts?  Your parents weren't perfect, so what.  Your friends aren't perfect, so what.  Jesus' friends denied him and turned from him as he was dragging a cross up the hill.  Your children are perfect and don't treat you they way they should, so what.  King David still praised God as his son was trying to hunt him down and kill him.  Your life isn't perfect, so what.  Jesus was born in a stable and there are children starving with nothing in Haiti.  No pyschologist can heal you.  No drug can suppress your need for God and truth nor can it suppress your conscience forever.  Only God can heal you, and as a Catholic I believe he heals through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Yes, people, counselors and pyschologists can help you but only God can heal you. 

 In a perfect world, the Melancholic would search only for Truth, the Choleric would lead others to the Truth, the Sanguine would have a relationship with only the Truth,  and the phlegmatic would follow others to the Truth. But we live in a fallen world.  So the Sanguines and Phlegmatics do seem more often than not to find that relationship with Jesus Christ.  But I see most Melancholics growing up to line the pockets of the psychological industry for the duration of their lives.  It saddens me.  They waste their time looking for reasons for their sadness, when the answer is so clear.  You have separated yourself from God by sin.