Medicine: Come to the Fair

Human personalities are infinitely diverse and defy all efforts to stuff them into neat pigeonholes, but the classifiers never tire of trying. Latest classifier is Hungarian-born Psychoanalyst Michael Balint, 62, who has lived in Britain since 1939. His basic breakdown: people are either ocnophils or philobats.

As Dr. Balint explains in Thrills and Regressions, published by London’s Hogarth Press, his Greek polysyllables were devised after he had found, an earthy test for personality typing—how an individual reacts at an amusement park, or “fun-fair.” The type that avoids the thrills of the roller coaster, whip and illusion rooms is an ocnophil, from a Greek verb meaning to shrink from or hang back. The opposite, or philobat (“one who loves to go places”), not only gets a kick out of these machines, but is the type that becomes a racing driver, stunt flyer, animal tamer, explorer or Astronaut.

Moving from carnival to couch, Analyst Balint holds that ocnophilia goes with self-effacement, anxiety-proneness and fear of open spaces, while philobatism may lead to self-contained detachment, paranoid attitudes and claustrophobia. The ocnophil is not necessarily more inhibited; while his inhibitions are public, the philobat’s are mostly private—often he is unaware of them. And in his more restrained way, the ocnophil may get as much real satisfaction out of life. For while the philobat’s enjoyment is more obvious and open, “this hides the price he had to pay for it.”