Ita Buttrose experiences her inner life as a process of growth and maturation, nurtured by her involvement with others and the positive and negative encounters this generates.

Ita Buttrose is reluctant to team up with others. Because she is an individualist, she attempts to free herself from any outside influence. She is eager to leave her personal imprint on the world around her, but often rebuffs other people’s help when working on projects.

Ita Buttrose’s uppermost concern is her personal, subjective interest. Because the development of her personal identity requires great individual freedom of action, Ita tries to free herself from outer restraints and limitations. Psychologically self-centered, she remains fairly detached from the social world. She reduces such commitments to the strict minimum. Individualistic and egocentric, she derives her feelings of inner security from her ability to command her will and handle her personal involvements freely and openly.

Ita Buttrose approaches life pragmatically. Her feelings are based on rational, tangible evidence, and her judgements are based on past experience. She is skeptical, and a hard worker. Her possessions help her assert herself as an individual and act as an antidote to any feelings of insecurity. As a result, material accomplishments may preoccupy her more than either love as a passion or intellectual or philosophical considerations. Nevertheless, she becomes attached to anything which offers her certainty.

Ita Buttrose struggles to understand other people’s feelings, but finds it difficult to do so due to her own emotions and lack of understanding. She sees the emotional world as a foreign terrain, and would find it more difficult to establish a rewarding relationship if she were able to understand her own emotions. She has a strong desire for emotional independence, and might struggle to see other people’s emotional needs, which could lead to dependency. Her dependency on others is unconscious, and is seen as a threat, which is why it is repressed.