Boundaries of the mind refers to a postulated

personality trait In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional theory) is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of ''traits'', which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thou ...

concerning the degree of separateness ("thickness") or connection ("thinness") between mental functions and processes. Thin boundaries have been linked with open-mindedness, sensitivity,

vulnerability Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." The understanding of social and environmental vulnerability, as a methodological approach, involves ...

creativity Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable Idea, ideas or works using one's imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible (e.g. an idea, scientific theory, Literature, literary work, musical composition, or joke), or a physica ...

, and artistic ability. It has been postulated that people with thin boundaries tend to confuse

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

and

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways. Philosophical questions abo ...

and have a fluid sense of

identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), an ...

, leading them to merge or lose themselves in their relations with others. People with thick boundaries are said to differentiate clearly between reality and fantasy and between

self In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes. The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) same ...

and

other Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), ...

, and tend to prefer well-defined

social structures In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...

. The concept was developed by psychoanalyst

Ernest Hartmann Ernest Hartmann (1934 – 7 August 2013) was an American psychoanalyst and sleep researcher. He is known for pioneering sleep and dream studies, incorporating neurophysiology, endocrinology, and biochemistry into his work. Life and career Hartma ...

from his observations of the personality characteristics of frequent

nightmare A nightmare, also known as a bad dream, Retrieved 11 July 2016. is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong emotional response from the mind, typically fear but also despair, anxiety, disgust or sadness. The dream may contain situations o ...

sufferers. The construct has been particularly studied in relation to

dream recall A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5–20 minutes, althou ...

and

lucid dreaming In the psychology subfield of oneirology, a lucid dream is a type of dream wherein the dreamer realizes that they are dreaming during their dream. The capacity to have lucid dreams is a trainable cognitive skill. During a lucid dream, the dreamer ...

Thin and thick boundaries

Ernest Hartmann proposed that people who suffer frequent

nightmares A nightmare, also known as a bad dream, Retrieved 11 July 2016. is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong emotional response from the mind, typically fear but also despair, anxiety, disgust or sadness. The dream may contain situations o ...

have distinctive personality characteristics which he described as "unguarded", "undefended", "vulnerable", "artistic", and "open". People with such characteristics seemed to him unable to screen out frightening images and feelings originating in their dreams. They also seemed to lack barriers between their own identity and those of others, or between their own beliefs and unconventional ideas. Hartmann proposed that such people have "thin" boundaries between their mental processes and argued that thinness or thickness of boundaries was "a broad dimension of personality and an aspect of the overall organization of the mind." He considered the concept to be similar to

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...

's concept of "tender-mindedness" and to Blatt and Ritzler's "permeable ego boundaries". The construct is measured with the Boundary Questionnaire which assesses thinness of boundaries in relation to a variety of areas, including boundaries between sleeping and waking, thoughts and feelings, and persons, places, and values. People with thick boundaries tend to see the world in "

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

" terms, whereas those with thin boundaries tend to be more aware of "shades of gray". Women tend to have thinner boundaries than men, and boundaries tend to become thicker with age.

Measurement

The Boundary Questionnaire consists of 145 five-point scales covering the following 12 areas: Additionally, a total score (SumBound) reflecting boundary thinness was derived by summing the ratings of 138 items.

Relationship to other personality traits

The Boundary Questionnaire has been related to the

Five Factor Model In personality psychology and psychometrics, the Big 5 or five-factor model (FFM) is a widely-used scientific model for describing how personality traits differ across people using five distinct factors: * ''openness'' (''O'') measures creat ...

of personality, and "thin boundaries" are mostly associated with

openness to experience Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe personality psychology, human personality in the Big Five personality traits, Five Factor Model. Openness involves six Facet (psychology), facets, or dimensions: active imagina ...

, particularly the facets of openness to fantasy, aesthetics, and feelings, although some of the content was correlated with

neuroticism Neuroticism is a personality trait associated with negative emotions. It is one of the Big Five traits. Individuals with high scores on neuroticism are more likely than average to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, shame ...

extraversion Extraversion and introversion are a central trait dimension in human personality theory. The terms were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, though both the popular understanding and current psychological usage are not the same as Jung's ...

, and low

conscientiousness Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being responsible, :wikt:careful, careful, or :wikt:diligent, diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to ...

. Scores on the questionnaire are also positively correlated with

absorption Absorption may refer to: Chemistry and biology *Absorption (biology), digestion **Absorption (small intestine) *Absorption (chemistry), diffusion of particles of gas or liquid into liquid or solid materials *Absorption (skin), a route by which su ...

transliminality Transliminality () is a concept introduced by the parapsychologist Michael Thalbourne, an Australian psychologist who was based at the University of Adelaide. It is defined as a hypersensitivity to psychological material (imagery, ideation, affec ...

, hypnotisability, and

suggestibility Suggestibility is the quality of being inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others. One may fill in gaps in certain memories with false information given by another when recalling a scenario or moment. Suggestibility uses cues to disto ...

. Thin boundaries are also associated with the Feeling and Intuition scales of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Psychopathology

It has been suggested that persons diagnosed with

schizotypal personality disorder Schizotypal personality disorder (StPD or SPD), also known as schizotypal disorder, is a cluster A personality disorder, cluster A personality disorder characterized by thought disorder, paranoia, a characteristic form of social anxiety, dereali ...

or with

borderline personality disorder Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive, long-term pattern of significant interpersonal relationship instability, an acute fear of Abandonment (emotional), abandonment, and intense emotiona ...

tend to have thinner boundaries than the rest of the population, whereas people with obsessive-compulsive disorder tend to have thicker boundaries. On the

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology. A version for adolescents also exists, the MMPI-A, and was first published in 1992. Psychologists and other ment ...

, thin boundaries have appeared to be associated with high scores on the

paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of co ...

scale, and in males with high

femininity Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

and low defensiveness. Thin boundaries in males have therefore been linked to willingness to accept "feminine" aspects of the self, whereas men with thick boundaries may tend to believe that "men are men, women are women".

Dreaming

One study reported that people with thin boundaries have more frequent

dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensation (psychology), sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around ...

recall, have more nightmares, and may also have longer, more intense dreams, with more bizarre content. Additionally, people with thin boundaries appeared to value their dreams more, especially in terms of their meaningfulness and creative aspects. A finding that people with thin boundaries were more likely to report having had childhood nightmares led the authors to suggest that boundary thinness may be relatively stable across the lifespan.

New age beliefs

Adherence to

new age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

beliefs and practices, such as

yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

reiki Reiki is a pseudoscientific form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine originating in Japan. Reiki practitioners use a technique called ''palm healing'' or ''hands-on healing'' through which, according to practitioners, a " unive ...

divination Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, ...

, and

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...

, have been linked with thin boundaries as well as with measures of

schizotypy In psychology, schizotypy is a theoretical concept that posits a continuum (theory), continuum of personality psychology, personality characteristics and experiences, ranging from normal dissociative, imaginative states to extreme states of mind ...

and

magical thinking Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Examples include the idea tha ...

. New age beliefs and thin boundaries may be related through such shared factors as a sense of "connectedness", holism and emotional sensitivity, as well as a thinking style defined by looseness of association.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Papers
by Ernest Hartmann *Dr. Ernest Hartmann personal websit

Personality traits