Mental and behavioural problems can be named and categorized, as for instance bipolar affective disorder (manic depression), psychosis, but viewed from a deeper level, they are problems of identity. Body dysmorphic disorder occurs where the individual senses that his personal identity lies in his body and he finds that body unacceptable. A widow will experience excruciating loneliness and slide into depression because the loss of her husband constitutes an enormous depletion of her Self. Anguish at the thought of death is terror at the prospect of obliteration of personal differentiation.

In order to feel sure that I exist I must sense a Self, a stable core to my being. Where I locate this Self is a powerful determinant of my personality. Another way of putting it is that my personality-type depends on how I fill in a computer dialogue-box. If I type in "human relationships" against "what is most important in my life?" my personal identity will reflect the human beings who are close to me. If I type in "pleasure", my personality is likely to be characterized by restlessness because pleasure is addictive. It gives rise to the craving for the next pleasure, for more. My identity will be sought in consumerism, in Freudian terms, oral eroticism. Aristotle's observation in the Nicomachean Ethics was that "the prudent man strives for freedom from pain, not pleasure."

Yet this analogy is not a good one in that it imputes conscious decision to the individual when his priorities are formed for the most part at an early stage of his development and without his conscious awareness. They are formed as responses to stimuli, usually repeated stimulli.

When the environment changes, the Self changes. Nothing is exempt from change. If personal attitudes do not change in response to a changing environment what was once a steadfast personality becomes a rigid personality - its value changes from adaptive to maladaptive.