Video Transcript: Melancholy Temperament

If you have a melancholy temperament, or you are close to somebody who has a melancholy temperament, this short video will give you an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the melancholy.

To our ongoing series about temperaments today we're going to look at the Melancholy temperament. The name melancholy, and the names that we use for the different temperaments are based upon, come out of the Arno profile system, which is a temperament analysis tool, a clinical diagnostic tool, if you like, developed by doctors Richard and Phyllis Arno of the NCCA. And it's used by counselors all over the world, to help them understand and teach their clients about their God given temperament and their makeup. And this particular model, I'll look at a person's needs in three different areas. One is what we call inclusion. How social is the person? Are they need to have a lot of social relationships? Are they more loner types? The secondary scenario of control and respect relationships are they tend to want to control or in charge in relationships, or are they very dependent, and third, area is the need for affection or need for love and affection, to and to establish deep personal relationships. So, you can see a person can be melancholy in one or two or three areas and not just one overall. But those are the needs. The Arno profile system measures are inborn temperament, and it's not a personality test. All that works is to tendencies strengths, that we have weaknesses, it's like, Lord, transform me, change me and change the weaknesses of that too by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's not an excuse for sin or bad behavior, when people just can't say, well. That's how I am. There's no better or worse temperament types, just different and associated strengths and weaknesses. And the idea is if you know your temperament needs or the needs of someone close to you, you want to understand those needs: needs to be met in godly ways, or if not, then problems and sinful behaviors are going to result.

All right, here are the temperament types, just put them up here briefly. There's five of them supine, sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholy choleric. Many of the terms are very familiar. The fifth temperament there in the top left-hand corner, supine, was actually developed by the Arno's and as I say, today, we're going to look at the melancholy temperament. And these are very broad-brush characteristics of each of these temperament areas. 

And as you can see there, the melancholy is typified by being what we would call typically loners. Okay, what are the traits of a melancholy primarily melancholy temperament, tend to be more introverts and loners not very social, generally need quiet time alone to regenerate. Very active minds, deep thinkers, tentative towards being very creative, and artistic, and very independent. Don't try to control a lot of people, but t, they don't want a lot of control over their life as well.

What are the weaknesses of that temperament? They are very prone to rejection, can perceive rejection when it's not even there, tend towards low self-esteem, can become moody and angry. Moody because many times the anger will go inward typically, and the head can have long memories for people who have wounded them or hurt them. Very active minds tend to play the ‘what if’ games over and over again, and contend to be, if you know, if not dealt with very rigid and stubborn and pessimistic.

What are the strengths of the melancholy temperament? They tend to make very good leaders make good decisions given enough time and info, they're good at that. They have good active minds, and you give them good data and good info, enough time. and they'll make good decisions. They understand tasks and systems very well. They're very dependable, loyal and faithful folks, for the most part, and they're empathetic, and they're very good at making and keeping deep commitments to people.

We do these temperament analyses for people all over the world. You can look at our website for more information. We have a lot more on all the temperaments. Get your temperament profile done with us. We do it over the internet or in our office. You get a counseling session; you get your own personal profile report. It's a very useful tool to help you understand yourself. If it's just for you. Just watch this for interest. That's fine to maybe help you understand somebody that you live with. So, we hope that's been of interest and that you enjoyed this video. Thank you for watching.