Specificity revisited: personality profiles and behavioral issues

The notion of a connection between illness and temperament goes back at least as far as Hippocrates with his typology of melancholy, sanguine, phlegmatic and choleric personality types. In the 1930s, Dunbar studied large numbers of patients with several chronic diseases from which she derived personality profiles which correlated with the illnesses. Many other studies developed similar correlations. Following the work of Alexander, this approach was deemed superficial. More recently, the description of type A behavior has consistently been shown to correlate with coronary artery disease. The concept of alexithymia is another variant of personality typology. The present status of personality and behavior patterns as markers in psychosomatic medicine are discussed as well as the possible relationship of personality profiles to genetic factors, developmental issues, psychological conflict and other approaches to psychophysiological disorders.