INADEQUATE PERSONALITY

Apersonality pattern disturbance characterized by failure to adapt to the occupational, social, emotional, and intellectual demands of life.Although most inadequate individuals have had average educational opportunities and test within normal limits on intelligence examinations, they are not only ineffective in all their dealings, but show attitudes of easy-going unconcern. They are seriously lacking in judgment, ambition, foresight, and stamina. Though often good-natured, their social relationships are almost invariably shallow, and they are too irresponsible and self-centered to work constructively with other people. They tend to live completely in the present, and even when extra effort would bring obvious results in the near future, they fail to carry through.The majority of shiftless individuals— vagrants, ne’er do wells, and the like—are inadequate personalities. They may become alcoholics and drug addicts, but they rarely suffer from neuroses since they are relatively insensitive to deep emotional conflict or persistent anxiety. If they are subjected to prolonged physical or social stress, they gradually deteriorate intellectually and emotionally, and in some cases develop psychotic reactions of a schizophrenic type.