Based on the psychodynamic personality framework of Nancy McWilliams, emerita visiting professor at Rutgers University.

Characterological Style Test

This test is based on the psychodynamic understanding of personality developed by psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams and other influential figures in psychoanalytic psychology. Unlike conventional personality tests that focus primarily on observable traits and behaviors, this approach examines the deeper psychological patterns that shape how individuals experience themselves, relate to others, manage emotions, and respond to internal conflicts.

What is your personality style? For each of the following questions, indicate your answer below.

Question 1 of 77

During intense stress, my surroundings can seem unreal.

Disagree

Agree

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The Characterological Styles Test is inspired by the work of clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams, especially her influential book Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process. It draws on the psychodynamic tradition, which approaches personality not simply as a collection of traits or symptoms, but as an organized pattern of emotional needs, psychological defenses, self-perceptions, and relationships.

Conventional personality inventories often describe how frequently someone experiences particular thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. McWilliams's approach asks a different question: What psychological purposes might these patterns serve? For example, emotional detachment may protect a person from feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism may help manage anxiety, and an intense need for admiration may reflect difficulties maintaining a stable sense of self-worth. The emphasis is on understanding the meaning and function of behavior, rather than merely cataloguing it.

McWilliams's distinctive contribution is not the invention of these personality categories, many of which have long histories in psychoanalytic theory. Rather, it is her unusually clear and clinically grounded synthesis of several traditions, including ego psychology, object relations theory, self psychology, and relational psychoanalysis. She brings together characteristic emotions, unconscious conflicts, defensive processes, internal representations of others, and recurring interpersonal patterns to explain how different personalities are organized. Her descriptions also highlight what people with similar outward behavior may experience very differently on the inside.

Another important feature of her framework is the distinction between personality style and level of personality organization. Someone may have predominantly narcissistic, schizoid, depressive, obsessive, or paranoid characteristics without necessarily having a personality disorder. McWilliams considers how flexibly a person functions, how coherent their sense of identity is, and how effectively they maintain relationships and interpret reality. A given character style can therefore appear in comparatively healthy or more troubled forms. Personality is not reduced to a binary division between normality and pathology.

The test uses this perspective to explore several recurring characterological styles. Rather than treating these styles as mutually exclusive boxes, it presents them as overlapping tendencies that may vary in prominence across individuals. These patterns are neither fixed destinies nor moral judgments about who someone really is. A person might, for instance, combine obsessive tendencies in their approach to work with depressive patterns of self-criticism and schizoid preferences for privacy. Results are intended to encourage reflection on motivations, emotional vulnerabilities, coping strategies, and relationship dynamics.

The Characterological Styles Test is an independent, educational self-report assessment inspired by the psychodynamic personality framework described by Nancy McWilliams. It is not equivalent to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-3), the Psychodiagnostic Chart (PDC-3), or a formal clinical assessment, and has not been developed or endorsed by McWilliams.

Importantly, this test is not a diagnostic instrument. It cannot determine whether someone has a personality disorder, establish their level of personality organization, or replace a clinical interview. McWilliams's method depends substantially on the wider context of a person's life and on clinical observations that self-report questions cannot capture, particularly when psychological defenses operate outside conscious awareness. This questionnaire is an independently developed educational interpretation of psychodynamic ideas, not an official assessment created or endorsed by McWilliams.

Its purpose is to offer a richer vocabulary for understanding personality: not merely what you tend to do, but what you may be trying to protect, preserve, or achieve through the patterns that shape your experience.

References

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1952). Psychoanalytic studies of the personality. Tavistock Publications.
Freud, A. (1937). The ego and the mechanisms of defence (C. Baines, Trans.). Hogarth Press; Institute of Psycho-Analysis. (Original work published 1936)
Kernberg, O. F. (1984). Severe personality disorders: Psychotherapeutic strategies. Yale University Press.
Kohut, H. (1971). The analysis of the self: A systematic approach to the psychoanalytic treatment of narcissistic personality disorders. International Universities Press.
Lingiardi, V., & McWilliams, N. (Eds.). (2026). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual: PDM-3 (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
McWilliams, N. (1999). Psychoanalytic case formulation. Guilford Press.
McWilliams, N. (2004). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioner’s guide. Guilford Press.
McWilliams, N. (2011). Psychoanalytic diagnosis: Understanding personality structure in the clinical process (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Shapiro, D. (1965). Neurotic styles. Basic Books.
Shedler, J., & Westen, D. (2007). The Shedler–Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP): Making personality diagnosis clinically meaningful. Journal of Personality Assessment, 89(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890701357092
Vaillant, G. E. (1994). Ego mechanisms of defense and personality psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103(1), 44–50. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.103.1.44
Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development. Hogarth Press.

Overview of Character Styles

Psychopathic

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around power, autonomy, and the need to remain beyond other people’s control. You may feel most alive when testing limits, taking risks, or discovering that you can influence what others do. Depending on someone can feel like placing something precious in uncertain hands; being at another person’s mercy may be what you most want to avoid.

Narcissistic

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around the question of personal worth. You may be unusually sensitive to how others see you, registering small shifts in admiration, attention, or respect almost before you know it. Recognition can make you feel vividly present; its absence can leave you wondering whether there is much to value.

Schizoid

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around preserving the freedom and privacy of your inner world. Solitude may restore a sense of wholeness that becomes harder to maintain around other people. Their expectations, emotional intensity, or simple presence can feel as though they take up room inside you, so that even a pleasant evening may leave you needing time to become yourself again.

Paranoid

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around protecting yourself from betrayal, humiliation, or hidden danger. You may listen closely to what lies beneath a remark, watching for inconsistencies between someone’s words and actions. Trust can feel consequential: once you lower your guard, another person has the means to hurt you.

Depressive

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around love, responsibility, and the fear of losing connection. You may notice other people’s disappointment quickly and wonder what you did to cause it. When something goes wrong between you and someone important, the search for an explanation can turn inward almost immediately, as though the fault were most likely yours.

Manic/Hypomanic

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around movement, possibility, and keeping painful feelings at a manageable distance. You may respond to disappointment by finding another plan, another person, or another reason to laugh. Life feels more bearable when something promising has already begun before an ending has fully registered.

Masochistic (Self-Defeating)

Your responses suggest a personality style in which love, worth, and endurance have become closely intertwined. You may feel most secure in your place when you are giving something up, carrying a burden, or remaining loyal through hardship. Being needed can offer a clearer sense of belonging than simply being welcomed.

Obsessive

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around thought, precision, and the effort to arrive at the right answer. Thinking may give you somewhere dependable to stand when feelings become difficult to contain. You may examine an experience from many angles, hoping that enough clarity will make uncertainty easier to bear.

Compulsive

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around doing what is right, useful, and necessary. Action can give you a sense of steadiness when your inner life feels uncertain. A completed task, a corrected mistake, or a familiar routine may bring a relief that reassurance alone rarely provides.

Hysterical (Histrionic)

Your responses suggest a personality style organized around the wish to feel wanted, influential, and secure in another person’s attention. You may be especially responsive to the emotional atmosphere between people, sensing attraction, distance, or disappointment quickly. Being appealing can reassure you when your own sense of power feels uncertain.

Dissociative

Your responses suggest a pattern in which overwhelming experience can become separated from your sense of yourself. You may continue speaking or carrying out familiar actions while feeling distant, unreal, or strangely absent. At other times an event remains available as a memory but feels disconnected from the emotions it once carried, as if it had happened to someone else.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Characterological Style Test measure across its scales?

The test evaluates individual tendencies across eleven characterological styles, including narcissistic, schizoid, paranoid, depressive, obsessive, and compulsive patterns.

What does my result show?

Your style is the one of the eleven you scored highest on, each scored as a percent of its maximum. A tie shows Multiple Results, and if no style reaches 40%, the result is No Detected Characterological Style.

Who created the framework for the Characterological Style Test?

The assessment is based on the psychodynamic personality framework formulated by Nancy McWilliams, an emerita visiting professor at Rutgers University.

Can the Characterological Style Test provide a clinical diagnosis?

No. It is an educational self-report test, not a clinical assessment, and it cannot tell whether you have a personality disorder.

How should I answer the questions?

Answer each of the 77 statements as it applies to you most of the time. There are no right or wrong answers.

Characterological Style Test

Why Use This Test?

The Characterological Styles Test offers a deeper perspective on personality by exploring the psychological patterns underlying thoughts, emotions, and relationships. Drawing on the psychodynamic framework of Nancy McWilliams, it examines characteristic defenses, emotional conflicts, and ways of relating to others that conventional trait-based assessments may overlook. By identifying your predominant characterological styles, the test can provide insight into your motivations, vulnerabilities, and interpersonal tendencies, helping you better understand the psychological processes that shape your experience and behavior.