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A Survey of the Effects of Brain Lesions upon Personality

  • Chapter
A Model for Personality

Abstract

There are two reasons, above and beyond the purely academic ones, why clinical neuropsychologists should concern themselves with the relationship between brain and personality. The first is that up to 80% of adults who suffer brain injury are likely to suffer personality deterioration or some psychiatric disability (see Lishman 1968). Therefore personality disorders should be thought of as just as important (defined in terms of frequency) as the more commonly assessed and studied disabilities relating to language, memory, motor, visual and intellectual functions. The second reason why the analysis of brain and personality relationships is important is that whereas deliberate lesions are virtually never made to alter, say, language or memory functions, deliberate lesions in the form of “psycho” -surgery are made to alter personality. It is somewhat paradoxical that such intentional lesions are made according to a brain-personality model that is far weaker and less developed than the equivalent models for language and memory and so on. The onus is therefore upon the clinical neuropsychologist, who should be the member of the surgical team best equipped to conceptualize and measure personality, to provide the data on brain-personality models and to elaborate the model in such a way as to encourage more fruitful research.

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  1. Graham E. Powell
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, SE5 8AF, London, England

    Hans J. Eysenck

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© 1981 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Powell, G.E. (1981). A Survey of the Effects of Brain Lesions upon Personality. In: Eysenck, H.J. (eds) A Model for Personality. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67783-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67783-0_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-67785-4

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