OK, personality belief; believing in a "me," in whatever ways "me" is, "me" a human, "me" a man, "me" 53, "me" a meditation teacher, "me" a kind person, "me" this, "me" that. All of these different statistics and ideas we have about "me," this is our personality, so to speak. We believe in this as being "me," as being a personality. The methods, techniques and tools, the basic mindfulness, start to chip away at thinking that there's a "me." Reflection on the four elements, reflection on the 32 parts of the body starts to chip away at this as being "me." Some of the reflections don't chip away as much, something like Compassion and Lovingkindness actually use individual personality as part of the concept. When you're working with some concepts that are actually defining personalities, then of course you're not going to be working on letting go of the personality belief itself.
So the different techniques that work on breaking down that personality belief, understanding the body is just the elements, it's going to fall apart, it's got skin and hair, there's no such thing as "me" in this body, etc. However, of course, you eventually get to this point: "Who's watching? Who's thinking this anyhow?" And then we may think that's the "real me!" In other words you've got to keep letting go, you've to keep breaking up, you've got to keep chipping away to see whether there really is something in there or not! And that's the big test of the practice, because personality belief doesn't go away until you're partly or fully enlightened. The first level of enlightenment has the definition that includes having let go of this personality belief. So, the different techniques that work with destroying that, being more objective with reality and not creating concepts of person, then all those techniques will help.
"How does this fetter manifest for Western meditators?" I don't know if there's any real difference between western and eastern with this, because as I understand the personality belief, it really has to do with anything that we're thinking and believing in regarding a "me." I don't see that as a big difference between west and east.
Having said that, the Thais grow up with the teaching of the Buddha so ingrained, in regards to what they call Anatta (or "lack of an individual self" is another way of expressing it). Because the Thais grow up with that as a basic belief, if they accept Buddhism as their religion, then sometimes they have an easier time with believing that there's no personality. However, that still isn't going to destroy the personality belief they have (if you can get that one, it might have been confusing). They will accept it has a theory, believing that "OK there's no personality, there's this thing called Anatta," and yet that doesn't really stop them from underneath still feeling, "I exist, I am." And having said that, I'll mention also that on the first three levels of enlightenment, by definition, although a person has discovered there's no true personality, this concept of Anatta, although they have discovered it, they actually don't keep it in their mind 100% of the time. They forget, they lapse back into believing that there's a personality.
There is a Buddhist story about one great disciple of the Buddha who was partly enlightened up to the third level of enlightenment. Anuruddha was one of the Buddha's cousins, and when the Buddha started teaching Anuruddha, he became a monk, a very good monk. He could see clearly the importance of the practice, and very quickly reached third level enlightenment and he also developed the psychic ability to see back in time as far as the Buddha could. He matched the Buddha's ability to see back in time. As the story goes he didn't match the Buddha's other psychic abilities, but that one he did develop.
Then he became very frustrated that he wasn't finishing the job. He wasn't getting fully enlightened, he tried very hard but he wasn't getting fully enlightened. Even though he could see back in time as far back as the Buddha, he couldn't get fully enlightened. He went to Sariputta, who was noted to be the wisest of all other people besides the Buddha. Sariputta didn't have much with regards to psychic abilities, but he was the wisest except for the Buddha. He went to Sariputta and he said, "Sariputta can you help me? I'm third level enlightened, I can see back as far as the Buddha but I still can't finish the job, I can't get fully enlightened. Can you understand what it is that's blocking me, even though I've got this psychic power and everything? Can you see what's blocking me from getting fully enlightened?" Sariputta said "You're too conceited." He was attached to the fact that he could see back in time as far as the Buddha, there's this "me" who could see back in time as far as the Buddha. When Sariputta gave him that understanding he quickly became fully enlightened. So, don't worry too much if you still have personality belief.