Accentuation

The term "accentuation" in 1968 was introduced by the German psychiatrist Karl Leonhard , who used it in the phrases "accentuated personality" and "accentuated personality trait." He describes accentuations as overly enhanced individual personality traits that tend to go into a pathological state under adverse conditions. Leonhard characterizes accentuations as a “ deviation from the norm ”, but notes that, in his opinion, “the population of Berlin is 50% accented individuals and 50% is a standard type of people ." He also developed his classification of accentuations, in which one can see a significant influence of psychoanalytic ideas about the typology of mental disorders . ^[2]

In 1977, Andrei Yevgenyevich Lichko, based on the works of Leonhard and the classification of psychopathies by Pyotr Borisovich Gannushkin, developed the concept and began to use the phrase “character accentuation”, considering personality to be too complex a concept for accentuation. The typology developed by him has an explicit link to the classification of Gannushkin's psychopathies and, in addition, is intended only for adolescence. ^[one]

At the moment, with the transition of Russian psychiatry to ICD-10 , the classification of Gannushkin’s psychopathies is morally obsolete, and accentuations, for convenience of work, are often classified based on the international typology of personality disorders or psychoanalytic typologies of personality disorders, although this approach is not strict or recognized scientific community.

The normal state of the psyche can smoothly flow into accentuation, which, in turn, gradually turns into psychopathy or personality disorder. These are links of one chain, united by common processes with varying degrees of severity. At the moment, the classification of accentuation and psychopathy is purely descriptive (phenomenological) in nature and does not reflect the essence of the mental process that forms them. Therefore, the classification should be based not on external behavioral manifestations of accentuations and psychopathies, but on the basic elements of the psyche and world models (as parts of the psyche), which are directly involved in the formation of all accentuations and psychopathies.

The concept of "accentuation" is close to the concept of " personality disorder. " The main difference is that the three main characteristics of personality disorder (influence on all spheres of a person’s life, stability over time, social maladaptation ) are never present in accentuation at the same time:

1. An accented person can specifically respond to specific psychogenic influences, but only to them, while a person with a personality disorder reacts to any psychogenic influences in accordance with the characteristics of his disorder (effect on all areas of life).
2. Accentuations can be most pronounced only during a certain period of a person’s life (for example, adolescence) and usually smooth out over time, while personality disorders are characterized by the appearance in the early periods of life and the stability or intensification of manifestations during life (stability over time) .
3. Accentuations may not lead to social maladaptation at all or lead to it only for a short time, while personality disorders interfere with such adaptation constantly.

Although this is usually not specifically emphasized, it can be seen that the concept of “accentuation” is defined through the concept of “personality disorder” (“ psychopathy ”) and is secondary to it. From the statements of Lichko about the differences between accentuations and personality disorders, we can conclude that in everything else they are similar . ^[one]

A.E. Lichko developed his concept and diagnostic methods exclusively for working with adolescents, because of which one can sometimes meet the claims of other authors that the concept of accentuation applies only to adolescence. However, he himself does not limit the scope of this concept anywhere and speaks only about the scope of his theoretical and practical developments. Later he applied his developments and developed the concept for adults ^[3] .

A. E. Lichko identifies two degrees of severity of accentuations:

1. Explicit accentuation is an extreme version of the norm. Accentuated character traits are quite pronounced throughout life. Compensation does not occur even in the absence of mental injuries.
2. Hidden accentuation is a common norm. Accentuated character traits are manifested mainly in mental injuries, but do not lead to chronic maladaptation. ^[one]

In contrast to personality disorder (obsolete. "Constitutional psychopathy"), accentuation of character leads to maladaptation only in some situations ^[4] . Personality disorder is a grave violation of the characterological constitution and behavioral trends, almost always accompanied by maladaptation.

With accentuation, features do not appear everywhere and not always, as opposed to personality disorders ^[1] . Disadaptive traits are manifested only sometimes in certain conditions, in difficult life situations or mental trauma ^[1] . In case of personality disorder, the pathological traits of character are total and relatively stable ^[1] .

During the existence of the concept of “ accentuation ”, several typologies of accentuated personalities have been developed. The first of them ( 1968 ) belongs to the author of the concept, Karl Leongard . The next, more widely recognized classification from 1977 , was developed by Andrei Evgenievich Lichko .

• Psychological setting
• Psychiatric Literature

• Burno M. E. On the characters of people (2005, 2006, 2008)
• Volkov P. The diversity of human worlds. Agraf, 2000.
• Kretschmer E. Body structure and character. State Publishing House, 1930.
• Rudnev V.P. Characters and personality disorders. Pathography and metapsychology. - M .: Independent firm 'Class', 2002. - 272 pp. - (Library of Psychology and Psychotherapy. Issue 102).