ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes healthy personality is a value-driven effort and may apply judgments too broadly. In particular, healthy personality may be drastically different across the globe and within subcultures. The demands and rewards of connection with others are welcome to the healthy personality, both in the personal sphere of romantic love and the larger sphere of community. The concept of psychological health is neither singular nor constant, but an ephemeral process that yields life satisfaction through its pursuit. A healthy personality does not live in continual happiness. Baltes and Staudinger, these psychologists argue that the wisdom heuristic would usefully be included in our construction of a hierarchy of optimal human development. In White's classic piece, "The Concept of Healthy Personality: What Do We Really Mean?" he contended that most of us would rather go under the knife of a superior neurosurgeon who was emotionally distant from his wife, than undergo surgery by a so-so neurosurgeon with a healthy personality.
