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MYERS-BRIGGS PERSONALITY TYPE

The Sixteen Personality Types

       Hopefully, after using the check lists on the previous pages, you now have a fairly good hypothesis about which of the sixteen types is your inborn personality type. You also know which categories you feel clear about, and which ones are less certain.

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SPELL CHECK: STEP THREE
Confirm your hypothesis.

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• Re-read your temperament description (table 1).
  
  First, and foremost, your two-letter temperament should accurately describe you.
• Read the description of your best-guess four-letter type (table 2).
  
  Does the verb associated with that type accurately sum up your approach to life? How much of the description fits how you behave now? How much fits what you were like as a child? Did your childhood (parents, events) support the development of this type, or work against it? Many people had childhood experiences, such as an alcoholic parent or parent of the opposite type, that supressed the natural development of their true type (type falsification).
• Read the descriptions of four-letter types that are just one letter different than your best-guess type.
  
  Keeping you childhood and adolescence in mind, does one of these better describe how you might have turned out, if you'd had different parent(s), or easier life circumstances?
• If you are between more than two types, read all 16 type descriptions.
  
  Eliminate those that you know with certainty do not fit you now or as a child. Remember, if you are someone in recovery from addiction, or take medication for a mental health condition such as bipolar disorder or OCD, your natural type is most likely masked by your condition and unconsciously operating coping systems.

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TABLE ONE

Locate your best-guess type in the table below and note its TEMPERAMENT COLOR (gold, orange, blue, green). Then, click on the appropriate temperament link in the upper left hand corner of the table below. First and foremost, your temperament description should feel "right".

SP Adventurous Troubleshooter SJ Responsible Stabilizer NF Harmonious Catalyst NT Curious Visionary		SENSING		INTUITIVE
		THINKING	FEELING	FEELING	THINKING
INTROVERT	JUDGING	I S T J Duty Fulfillers	I S F J Nurturers	I N F J Protectors	I N T J Scientists
	PERCEIVING	I S T P Mechanics	I S F P Artists	I N F P Idealists	I N T P Thinkers
EXTROVERT	PERCEIVING	E S T P Doers	E S F P Performers	E N F P Inspirers	E N T P Visionaries
	JUDGING	E S T J Guardians	E S F J Caregivers	E N F J Givers	E N T J Executives

 

TABLE TWO

       Click on the hyperlink for your specific best-guess type below, and see how well the description fits with your current understanding of your true self. If you had a challenging childhood, parents with strong personalities, or are straddling more than one type, click on the types that are just one letter off from your current best-guess. For instance, if your best-guess is ISTJ, and SJ fits, but you're not sure if you are "I" or "E", read both ESTJ and ISTJ.

       Remember, you will see aspects of yourself in many of the type descriptions. We all use each of the eight "letters" every day. However, the first profile usually sounds a lot more like you than the others, if you've identified your best-fit type correctly.

       At least, it sounds like the you as you behave now -- so ask yourself, is this your "acquired" type or is this the type with which you were born -- your "natural" type? Your Jungian personality type is equivalent to the hard drive and operating system of your computer (MAC, DOS, WINDOWS, etc.) You -- and others, such as parents, teachers and coaches -- can install "software" that changes how you appear, allowing you to behave any way you choose, but your underlying system was there at birth and hasn't changed. You've just got software installed on top of it. How do you tell the difference? Only with time and experience using personality type.

SP Adventurous Troubleshooter SJ Responsible Stabilizer NF Harmonious Catalyst NT Curious Visionary		SENSING		INTUITIVE
		THINKING	FEELING	FEELING	THINKING
INTROVERT	JUDGING	I S T J Monitoring	I S F J Caretaking	I N F J Foreseeing	I N T J Strategizing
	PERCEIVING	I S T P Problemsolving	I S F P Composing	I N F P Advocating	I N T P Designing
EXTROVERT	PERCEIVING	E S T P Promoting	E S F P Performing	E N F P Inspiring	E N T P Inventing
	JUDGING	E S T J Supervising	E S F J Providing	E N F J Mentoring	E N T J Directing

 

       After you feel reasonably certain that you know your type, try your type on in different situations and at different ages. What were you like as a toddler? A fourth-grader? A high school or college student? A young professional? Since your type is something you are born with, there should be evidence of your natural type sprinkled throughout your childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.

       Sometimes identifying areas of behavior that most frustrated your parents or teachers, can help you confirm your natural type. Were you always putting things off until the last minute, getting projects finished just in the nick of time? Were you usually better at starting things than finishing them, with a tendency to randomly or tangentially change directions? How often did your mom say, "Go outside and play, it's such a gorgeous day out -- don't bury your nose in a book!" or the opposite, "Can't you ever just sit still for five minutes?"

       If you find yourself defending your type to others, that's okay. You may have spent many years behaving "out of type" to compensate for living with someone else's type or adjust to adverse family situations. Remember, if you can't decide, don't ask your parents, boss, friends or your spouse! Your outward behavior may not currently match your natural, preferred mental processes. This is especially true for those who tend to prefer the internal world to the external world.

       Asking how other people that have known you for a while see you, can often just make things more confusing. Most people, even in high school, saw me as organized and goal-oriented. Few people, if any, would have described me as unstructured. I always had a plan -- that was my family's expectation. I just changed it all the time, which then gave people the impression that I was wishy-washy or couldn't follow through. The truth is, that I like being in the moment, seeing what comes up, leaving my options open. I enjoy flexibility. That wasn't acceptable to them, so I'd give them a plan, and then change it constantly.

Myers Briggs personality type describes what you DO far more than it describes who you are. The key word for each type is actually a VERB not a noun!

       When you look at the type descriptions, you'll notice I put one word in a box and in big bold letters. This is not a randomly chosen word! Each type has a dominant mental function (which you will learn about on the next page). This KEY word encapsulates the nuances of that specific four-letter type. Yes, you'll identify with many of the KEY words; if you carefully, thoughtfully filter and distill your behaviors so that you exclude learned, value-driven and supportive ones, this word becomes the "essense" of your type in its purest form.

       Of course, none of us does that -- nor should -- because we really do need to use all eight of the mental functions each and every day regardless of which operating system was installed at the "factory" - but it's fun to think about what sort of energy is at your brain's very core, isn't it? Okay, it's fun for me, anyway - one of the types that likes to understand people in the same way engineers like to understand systems or machines!

       Remember, I told you that personality type is dynamic? That the letters combine synergistically to form words that have whole new layers of meaning? Well, here we go. I'm going to introduce you to the concepts of TYPE DYNAMICS now. You've read the basic description of your type, have some idea of what fits and what doesn't quite fit within the type description, and a sense of how well your best guess fits your current understanding of yourself. Understanding what your DOMINANT and Auxiliary functions are will help you validate your best-guess type as your best-fit type -- or not! In which case, it will help you find which one really is your best-fit type. It was through this process that I learned I am a very strong P with wondrously developed J skills - or I would not have been able to achieve what I needed to do for medical school acceptance.

       Let's continue on and find out what's really behind those KEY words: TYPE DYNAMICS

 

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