Life themes

Life themes are the major preoccupations or concerns an individual develops which then affect his behaviour in other spheres. They demonstrate the way in which the person develops psychologically following infancy and help to explain differences in personality and social adjustment. They may also be used to show how each stage of development has affected the following stages and why the characteristics of an adult have developed one way rather than another, so that resulting perceptions of the same situation may be widely different. This is therefore a way of demonstrating how each individual has a different personality; similar personalities would be expected to have similar life themes. It is considered preferable to classifying people by personality "type", "traits" or development history.