Making Sense of People

Samuel Barondes is the Jeanne and Sanford Robertson Professor and Director of the Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco. He was trained in psychiatry and neuroscience at Columbia, Harvard, and the National Institutes of Health and has been at the University of California since 1970. He is the author of more than 200 research articles and has held many administrative and advisory positions, including Director of UCSF's Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, President of the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, and Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Mental Health. He has received many honors, including membership in the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to his research publications, Barondes has written three books about psychiatry for a general audience as well as a children's poetry book: Before I Sleep: Poems for Children Who Think. He lives in Sausalito, California, with his wife, Louann Brizendine.

Preface to Second Edition xi

Introduction: When Intuition Isn't Enough 1

Part I: Describing Personality Differences

1 Personality Traits 7

2 Troublesome Patterns 33

Part II: Explaining Personality Differences

3 How Genes Make Us Different 65

4 Building a Personal Brain 87

Part III: Whole Persons, Whole Lives

5 What's a Good Character? 111

6 Identity: Creating a Personal Story 139

7 Putting It All Together 159

Endnotes 175

References 199

Acknowledgments 221

Index 227