Emotional and personality types of breast cancer patients and spouses

Abstract

This study explored the emotional and personality types of married pairs in which the wife had sustained single mastectomy for Stage I/II breast cancer. The scatter of scores among personality types limits conclusions. A weak trend is for husbands to fall into one of three personality types and for wives to fall into one of two types. Inspection of data for these types indicates characteristics which potentially interfere with marital interactions and, for wives, with relations with medical care givers. These characteristics include regarding illness as a personal weakness, a lack of personal dependability, the need to control others, and a tendency to avoid confronting problems. Results are discussed as they may reflect the effects of illness on personality. The need to adopt a reductionistic position in regard to further research on physical illness and marital systems is also discussed.