 Personality:
Let me clarify a few things first.
1): Bewaqoof bhai, aap na kaha hai keh age 5 kay baad personality change nahin hoti. This is not the case. Agar aap DSM IV-TR ko daikhaian to aap ko andaaza ho gaa keh personality disorders childhood main diagnose nahin kiya jaate ( because the personality is still developing/changing). Personality disorder diagnose karna kay liya "early adulthood" ke age ke requirement hai. Sirf aik personality disorder, Anti Social Personality disorder minimum 15 years ke age mein diagnose ho sakta hai. Baqi tamam ka liya "early adulthood" ke age tak pohonchna zaroori hai. I think it would be clear now that the statement " We can not change our personality after age 5" is not true.
2): Loosely, we can define personality as a pervasive pattern of relating to or behaving in response to circumstances presented to us.These patterns of relating to or behaving in a certain way, stem from our underlying belief system ( our core beliefs), our temperament, our genetic makeup, our prior psycho-social experiences, and psychoanalytically speaking, our defence mechanisms ( projection, splitting, denial, displacement, humor, sublimation, acting out, rationalization, intellectualization, etc etc). While we certainly can not change our genetics, we can certainly change or modify other factors like our underlying beliefs and perceptions, resulting in changing our pervasive way of relating to or reacting to our circumstances, thus indeed changing our personality. Also, every definition of personality would include some mentioning about emotional or behavioral response patterns of an individual. Therefore, while personality may not be the same as behavior, they are not much different either. I would use the analogy that if the personality is a building, the behaviors are the individual building blocks. Therefore changing the behavior Does indeed change the personality.
3): Speaking from pure psychoanalytic perspective, so that we are on the same page, same wavelength, and speaking the same language, I want to mention that Freud's psychoanalytic theory( the topographical and structural model) talks about the role of id, ego, and superego ( the basic structures of the psyche) and the role of defense mechanisms in the personality development. After Freud, his daughter, Anna Freud, did extensive work on the defense mechanisms in relation to personality development. She categorized defense mechanisms into immature defense mechanisms ( the ones that contribute to the presonality disorders) like projection, splitting,denial etc and mature defense mechanisms ( that are present in emotionally healthy people), for example humor, sublimation etc. In psychoanaltic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, the goal is to identify , understand and change the immature defenses into mature defenses, and thus changing the personality ( it happens all the time ). Thus, you can see that even according to the psychoanalytic perspective , personalty can be changed. Psychoanalytic psychotherapists see this change in personality of their patients all the time.
4): Having the belief that our personalities could indeed be changed also better prepares us to face the challanges of life as we would not resign to the statement that " I can not change, this is just the way I am," and would help us be more adaptable and malleable in life.
I did not mean to make it more complex than it already is but I hope I have made my point clear.
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