Instead, what appears to be of greatest benefit to patients is the genuineness and persuasiveness of therapists - qualities neither of which are especially flexible in professional training. But as counselling psychologist Paul Moloney points out, if warmth and confidence are the calling cards of successful psychotherapists, then it is worth observing that this principle - and I quote him with some reluctance - “applies equally to politicians, salespeople and prostitutes”.

But the struggle to become a person and to have a genuine relationship can hold people together, perhaps more effectively than a desire for happiness and unbroken togetherness. I’m not saying that a relationship should be painful but that the happiness sought for might be deep and complex, not superficial and simplistic. Therapists who aim at simple happiness for a couple in their care may either feel frustrated eventually or misguide the couple toward an ideal of superficial togetherness.

Just as this trait has its upsides, like all traits, it also has its downsides too. People high in conscientiousness experience more guilt. They are well suited to predictable environments but less well suited to unpredictable situations that require fluid adaptation. They are sometimes workaholics. There can be an obsessive or compulsive quality to them.

NEUROTICISM. If extroverts are drawn to positive emotions, people who score high in neuroticism respond powerfully to negative emotions. They feel fear, anxiety, shame, disgust, and sadness very quickly and very acutely. They are sensitive to potential threats. They are more likely to worry than to be calm, more highly strung than laid-back, more vulnerable than resilient. If there is an angry face in a crowd, they will fixate on it and have trouble drawing their attention away.

Those who score high in agreeableness are naturally prone to paying attention to what’s going on in other people’s minds. If you read high-agreeable people complex stories, they have so much emotional intelligence that they will be able to recall many facts about each character. They are able to keep in mind how different people are feeling about one

another. In one experiment that Daniel Nettle describes, high agreeables could keep track of four levels of social belief: “Tom hoped that Jim would believe that Susan thought that Edward wanted to marry Jenny.