IN OUR OPINION a comprehensive schema for descnption of the much discussed "total personality" is a pnme requirement in psydiology at this time The reasons for this need will be elaborated upon below, but may be stated bnefly as follows (1) Current conceptual systems in psychology usually emphasize only one of several areas of personality or one type of datum, e g, manifest or behavioral traits, central urges, psychodiagnostic categones, etc, and relationships among different areas and levels are but imperfectly dealt with, if at all (2) Most variables m current use in the field of psychology lack clear or systematic interpersonal reference(3) For the most part concepts oriented toward psycho-pathological functioning are emphasized, while those deahng with normal functioning are neglected (4) Many personality vanables in current use are not so stated or defined as to permit their objective measurementThis IS the first of a series of articles designed to present a comprehensive schema for the orgamzation of personality data The system to be described presents an account of the "total personality" based on a tripartite division of personahty data (le, the "total personality" is described by the nature of the data in each of three ' The studies on which this paper is based have been sponsored by Permanente Foundation Hospital, Oakland, California, under the codirection of Hubert S Coffey, Ph.D, and Harvey Powelson, M D The current expanded research pro}a:t >s in part supported by the U S Public Health Service under the direction of Saxton T Pope, Jr, M D The authors are grateful to Dr Jean Walker Macfarlane for her editorial contributions to this article A four-year collaborative research study involving 20Q subjects has provided the data aa which the theones of variables presented in this article are tased. For each subject there were available for study the protocols of ten personality tests and approximately cne thousand verbal interactions obtained by &e wire recording of group psychotherapy sessions.

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HE study of personality is difficult because of the fact that many concepts which seem useful on a purely understanding or intuitive level are extremely resistant to scientific operational test. On the other hand, those concepts which seem to be most immediately amenable to operational formulation and quantitative expression seem to have less "explanatory" power for the clinician. 2 Those of us who have been working on the Kaiser Foundation project, 8 like all research

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