Question:
In your theoretical framework do any of your systems
correlate with the alterably close or unalterably closed?
Dr.
Graves:
Well, first of all, according to the theory, you get into
your acting out behavioral disorders in the odd numbered systems,
that is
3-5-7
because those
are the expressive systems. And you get into more inhibitory
behavioral disorders in your even numbered systems 2-4-6-8. In your
even numbered systems you are apt to get some kind of compulsive
behavior while in the odd you are apt to get some kind of impulsive
behavior. Now, you can begin working along that line. You’ll see
that the systems are simply mechanisms man has at his disposal and
that in certain systems we tend to use certain mechanisms in
preference to others. We tend to subordinate, for example, the
anxiety symptoms when we are centralized in an odd numbered system
and we tend to exaggerate the acting out symptoms of various kinds,
hostility, aggression and taking it out upon our own body.
Psychosomatic problems and the like are more typical of the odd
numbered systems than they are of the even numbered systems. The
system uses that symptom that best make sense with the individual
psychology, which best fit with the psychology of the systems.
Look at the F-S system. If the central psychology of this
system is to avoid rejection by society and others, then this is
what the whole life of the person revolves around . . . avoiding
rejection by the valued others. What is the person going to go into
if he is rejected? He hasn’t got much left but dejection. Another
thing is that he can’t fight because if he fights he is probably
going to be rejected more. He can’t leave because he’s got to
have acceptance and if he leaves he doesn’t have anything there.
So, he’s got to do something that tries to get what Freud told us
as secondary gain out of the symptoms and that is sympathy. Pull the
person toward you by sympathy. In the process he runs away into a
depressive manifestation as the symptoms make sense with the central
core of the person.
Rider (sp?), for example, believes that psychosomatic
symptoms make sense with the E-R system. He’s worked with persons
in the E-R system. These individuals haven’t got sense enough, so
to speak, to admit that anything could be wrong. He just cannot
admit this to himself. He just cannot stand the thought that he
could have a weakness. If he gets into any kind of stress, and this
stress begins to eat upon him, he only exacerbates
the problem by refusing to accept the signal that his
information system could possibly be wrong. So he makes the decision
to get out from under the stress his central psychology is: I must
master, I must have will power, I must be able to do it myself, I
must not be licked by anything. So he pushes on in this . . . and
the very system that he has where he has centralized his behavior is
a prime system. Push the world aside and go down and get what you
want.
So, the minute he fights it, then he’s got to exacerbate
this sort of thing. So the system does make sense with the central
core of it and as you sit down and begin to think, what is the
central core? You look along that vertical top of the way these
people behave on psychometric tests and you begin to see a fantastic
thing evolve. I hypothesize that the kind of symptomatology that
could make sense with this kind of psychology is this symptomatology.