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In Character Styles, Stephen Johnson pulls together a number of different models of the mind and personality and knits them into his own comprehensive system, which he names characterological-developmental theory.
Departing from classical drive theory, he presents instinctual needs in terms of “seven basic existential human issues.” He sees personality and psychopathology as evolving out of the interplay between the instinctual needs of the individual and the impact of the interpersonal environment, all influenced by the individual's developmental level at the time of interpersonal frustrations. He goes beyond oral, anal, and phallic internal pressures to consider the infant's need to attach to a primary caretaker; the child's need to individuate and build psychic boundaries; the need for self-determined expression; and the need for an attuned self-other relationship.
In a scholarly opening chapter, Johnson reviews and integrates self psychology, character-analysis theory, object relations theory, ego psychology, child observation and development research, and