Question

THE CASE OF SYLVIA

Whenever Amy calls her mother, Sylvia, the conversation is very similar. Sylvia always goes on about cleaning her house. Amy is very familiar with this behavior. Sylvia takes great pride in the appearance of her house and yard and loves it when someone compliments either. As a child, Amy remembers Sylvia cleaning nonstop on weekends when she wasn’t working outside her home. She would clean the entire house room by room, making beds, dusting furniture and woodwork, shaking out rugs. The entire process took days. When the family was expecting company, it was assumed that the house would be cleaned twice, once during the regular weekly cleaning and once the day the company was visiting. Once a year, spring cleaning took place. Everyone in the family, except Sylvia, dreaded this process. During this event, closets were cleaned out and scrubbed. Hardwood floors were washed and waxed. Furniture was polished. Curtains were laundered and rehung. All the dishes were taken out of the cupboards and washed, as were the cupboards themselves. Then everything was returned to its place. Everything had a place in Sylvia’s house, and she would become angry if there were too many things out of place. “Family conferences” would be called to discuss ways to keep the house clean and how hard Sylvia worked at keeping the house clean while everyone else did so little. Sylvia often portrayed herself as a martyr who did so much for others and asked so little for herself. She sees herself as continuously doing for others, when in reality she usually tells others what to do.

The yard is also very tidy. The grass is beautifully trimmed and resembles a rug. It is often mowed, even though it does not appear to need it. The garden is well tended, and it would be difficult to find a single weed in it. Once when a neighbor cut his grass without a catcher attached to the lawn mower and grass went flying into her garden, Sylvia threw a fit. After that, she did not talk to the neighbor for two years.

Sylvia also made sure that her family saved money. Some of the activities that she engaged in to save money revolved around cleaning issues, such as using plastic and sheets to preserve the furniture and rugs, but Sylvia saved money in various other ways. Sometimes she would wash and reuse aluminum foil. There was always a concern for money even though the family was not poor nor lacking in any of the essentials. This was so extreme that Sylvia would become agitated when someone borrowed 50 cents for a soda and did not return it. Sylvia would tell stories about relatives who would accept invitations at her house but was not invited to any of their events. The primary complaint about this was that she was tired of spending money on these occasions without ever getting something in return.

In fact, Sylvia displayed a disturbing pattern of establishing relationships and then rudely ending them. She would have an intense relationship with someone she had just started a friendship with, often having that person over for lavish meals, and then complain about some aspect of that person’s personality to Amy. Sylvia would sometimes even criticize people to their faces, or she would just stop calling them. Often, these complaints revolved around the idea that Sylvia was superior to them in some way. For example, someone was too loud, and Sylvia was not, Sylvia’s house was cleaner, Sylvia’s cooking was better, and so on. When these people no longer wanted to interact with her, Sylvia did not understand why.

The family rarely spent money on anything except the necessities even though they were middle class and could afford it. Thus, they rarely engaged in activities such as going to the movies, and the children felt as though asking for a new toy was totally unreasonable. Although Sylvia is still healthy and she could participate in many other productive activities, such as volunteer work, she does not, preferring to spend all her time and energy working on her house and yard. When she visits her grown children, she is dismayed by how messy their homes are, and she begins to clean them. She frequently complains about how other people do not know how to clean anymore and that her neighbors do not take care of their property as well as herself.

Part 1 Which of Karen Horney’s Neurotic Personality Trends does she seem to be displaying? What is this personality trend all about? Provide as much evidence as possible to support your answer

PART 2 Explain whether Sylvia would score high or low on each of McCrae and

Costa’s big five dimensions. Provide evidence for your answer.

Please answer all the questions.

Answer 1

Ans Part 1) Sylvia seems to display trends of the 'detachment'or moving away of neurotic personality. This trend is all about the need to be perfect in everything, the self sufficiency behavior and making limits for ourselves. These neurotic needs makes the person anti social or hostile sometimes.

To support the above statement there are plenty of evidences in this context;

In the following incident Sylvia's aggressive behavior towards the neighborhood is marked.-"Once when a neighbor cut his grass without a catcher attached to the lawn mower and grass went flying into her garden, Sylvia threw a fit. After that, she did not talk to the neighbor for two years."

Also in the statement 'Everything had a place in Sylvia’s house, and she would become angry if there were too many things out of place." also depicts her hostile nature.

It has also been seen that Sylvia was unable to maintain her social relationship with others, due to her self sufficient attitude and superiority complex.

The evidence of perfectionism is also given here. Sylvia always wanted her place to be super clean and uptight and she used to take ultra care of her yard and house by spending all her time working on them.