Personality Brief- History of John Smith John is seating in his sofa on a Saturday night eating a large peperoni pizza and for dessert a quart of Thirty-one Flavors chocolate almond ice-cream. It is late Saturday evening and he is contemplating his past week, which he felt has been quite stressful. John is obese, weighing 255 pounds and he is only five feet and seven inches tall. This past Friday he saw a clinical therapist about his weight, something he had been considering, after yet another woman terminates a relationship with him. In this case, Janice told John that they could no longer see each other because they were too incompatible. John met Janice through a chatroom exposing the benefits of Macs over PCs, and John became quite impressed with Janice knowledge of computers and software. After chatting a few times on the computer, John and Janice found that they lived in the same city and we're both single. Due to their comment passion for computers, they both thought it would be a great idea to get to know each other in person. They met for drinks at a mutually agreed upon bar and then went out to dinner to a nice restaurant. The date did not go as well as Janice had hoped, and one can understand Janice's point of view. She tends to be a calm, friendly person who is dislikes conflicts. John, on the other hand, tends to be quite sarcastic and frequently says things to others that are offensive. For instance, John made unkind comment about Janice's occupation as an insurance salesperson. While conversing over dinner, John implied that persons in her line of work, rip people off by feasting on their insecurities and selling them expensive insurance product that they really do not need. Other examples of his verbal insensitivity include John unfairly berating the waiter at the restaurant because he was dissatisfied with his drink. He could have simply returned it if he didn't like it or requested something different. John became so loud that everyone at the restaurant stop talking to watch John and Janice. This incident mortified Janice. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. These verbal outbursts seem to be the norm for John. He engaged in a similar behavior during their second date when they went to a computer show. John got into an argument with one of the exhibitors about which graphics software package was the better product and became increasingly irate when exhibitor disagreed with him. The exhibitor was just expressing his professional opinion. John has always been sarcastic, and his stinging comments alienated him from his peers even as a child. When he was growing up, he had difficulties establishing relationships. Friendships were practically nonexistent during his childhood As a child, while the other children wee hanging out and interacting in groups, John was learning to use the computer, which now places him at an advantage in his line of work. John has other annoying habits that tends to turn others off, including Janice. For instance, he often chews his fingernails in public when he is nervous, a habit which Janice finds repulsive. In addition, John is a chain smoker, and Janice is a non-smoker. John thought that Janice broke-up with him because of his weight problem. He soothes his ego by telling himself that she was a shallow person if she could not see past his appearance and value his personality. He also told himself that his weight was probably partly genetic; his whole family was somewhat overweight, including his father, mother, and siblings. He also suggested to others, and to himself, that he was about to break up with her anyway. Shortly after his breakup with Janice, John started to experience chest pains. After a trip to the emergency room, John found out that he had a heart condition. The doctor told him that he had to stop smoking, he needed to lose weight, drastically change his eating habits, and start an exercise program; otherwise, he was headed for a heart attack that he might not survive. This was certainly good medical advice given that John continuously had something in his mouth, either food or cigarettes. He especially ate and smoked a lot when he was nervous However, this news about his health was especially disturbing to John because he's relatively young a man of 35 years of age. So, John was scared into considering seeing a therapist to help him lose weight to improve his overall health. During his first visit to the therapist, the therapist described himself as having psychoanalytic orientation and describe the types of experiences that would occur in the therapy process. John felt comfortable with this therapist and by the end of the session decided to continue so he could lose weight and become healthier. John also thought about the difficult week he had had at work. As an employee of an advertising firm, John works primarily with computers. He is the go-to guy when someone has a computer or software question. John is a whiz at computer graphics and is responsible for designing and maintaining the firm's web page. Occasionally, he meets with the client or potential clients, but his boss typically assigns this duty to other members of the firm. This past week, however, his boss asked John to meet with a potential client, primarily because the people who usually did so were too busy working on a big advertising campaign deadline. Apparently, the meeting did not go well because shortly afterwards his boss called John in and chewed him out, stating that this potential clienthad said that John was a loudmouth and belligerent jerk. John couldn't figure out where this opinion came from. He thought the meeting had gone really well. Sure, he told the client that their health food products were tasteless and that the portions were too small but the ass-hole kept self-righteously promoting weight loss and healthy eating. John thought that someone (meaning he) had to put him in his place. Interestingly, John's mother often described him in terms that suggest that he had been loud even as a baby. She comments that his cries used to pierce the air. She would often rush to make a bottle for John or give him a treat to regain some peace and quiet, even when she could not understand why he was hungry because he had eaten so recently. She laughed about it now, but it was stressful at the time. The pepperoni pizza started to make John feel better. He began to relax and once he finished the quart of ice cream, he pulled out a cigarette and lit up. The first deep inhale also helped to reduce the tension he was feeling. John hoped that the next week would be better. John wished that his coworkers would appreciate him and offer him friendship. When he was younger, he thought that by becoming good at computers (which he thought were super cool) and being able to answer other peoples' questions about computers, he would be able to make contact with others and form close relationships. So far this strategy had not worked for him. More than anything else, John wished a woman would fall in love with him. John thinks that love would solve all his problems, that he would no longer be lonely, and that he would be able to lose weight and quit smoking. If he just had the love of a woman, he reminisced. CENGAGE Learning (2012). Personality theories. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.