Understanding Personality Prototypes in Catholic Religious Vocations

In response to the Church's call to incorporate psychological sciences in assessing and guiding religious candidates, we present a psychoanalytic framework for understanding and assessing personality styles in Catholic religious. This perspective proposes several empirically verified personality styles, which need to be known and used for comparison (pattern recognition) purposes when evaluating any individual candidate. Understanding these personality prototypes is useful in addressing the “goodness of fit” discernment question (e.g., Do individual personality styles match the needs of the religious community?) and can be of immense benefit to the Church, the religious community, and the candidates themselves. They are especially useful for effective clinical case formulation. On the basis of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2 (PDM-2) taxonomy of personality, we present concise descriptions of five common personality styles often observed among individuals in religious life: depressive, narcissistic, borderline-dysregulated, obsessive-compulsive, and dependent. We discuss some possible motivations for entering religious life and challenges faced with each style.