Personality Thoughts
My friend (who happens to be the art therapist at my full-time job) and I have been talking about personality quite a bit lately. She's been speaking to another friend (who I will get to meet in about two weeks at an art/faith retreat run by my friend) about two of the characteristics of the Myers Briggs personality inventory - intuitive/sensing.
I am someone who waffles between two types. My mother feels that the fact that I am not easily typed is just part of my overall experience with life - she says that, even as an infant, I had my emotional cycles that somewhat mystified her, but that we figured out. She states that I am moon child in many different ways. When we had our types analyzed using a full-scale test, the person who scored the test said that I scored exactly in between the thinking/feeling scale, so she felt that she needed to meet me. Once she did, she still couldn't figure out where I landed on the thinking/feeling scale, so she told me that I was both and would just have to read all of the material for both. The other three characteristics, on the other hand, were strong. I am an INT/FJ. I am firmly introverted, intuitive, and judging.
The characteristic that we've been speaking about lately is the N/S indicator - the intuitive/sensing characteristic. My friend, who is an INFP by the way, feels that there are many people around us at work who are S types rather than N types. We are both N types and have lots of frustration with how things are done at work - they don't make sense to us. Our discussions include thinking through the things we know about Jungian psychology and people, filtered through our common 44+ years of clinical experience as therapists.
I have also been reading quite a bit about The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine Aron. All of these conversations and my reading lately has really made me think more deeply about how I function within the teams that I am part of during my life. While all of this is rumbling around in my brain, I am also reading lots from one of my favorite bloggers, the Bloggess - Jenny Lawson, and I am spending time thinking about all of these pieces within the same filtering system.
Being highly sensitive is related to the way the brain produces specific neurotransmitters. There is some link between being intuitive and sensing as well (as far as Elaine Aron has found). There are many therapists who are Introverted-Intuitive (again, according to Aron). I find that fascinating and something to remember when working with others. It is possible that I am a therapist because of my neurochemistry. It is possible that I am a therapist because of my bent towards intuition rather than sensing. It is possible that all of this is absolute bunk and just something that Jung, Aron, and Myers Briggs developed to explain something that will always be a mystery.
I embrace the ideas of high sensitivity and personality. I think there are many good ideas and concepts contained within the writings of these authors. I am able to remember events of my childhood and adolescence and can understand them a bit more within the filter - I realize now why my youth group leader thought that I was such an odd ball (and felt that she had to tell my mother that fact - my mother laughed at her when the leader stated that I had no friends and was a lonely person - Go MOM!). She sincerely thought that I didn't have any friends because I didn't like her girls or what they did with their time. She wanted to make me more extroverted and didn't understand why my mother wouldn't force me down the path the leader had dictated for me. (Can you tell that this still offends me? No??) I enjoyed the moment this woman learned that her perceptions of me and my life were completely inaccurate.
I think that my recent discussions and readings have started me towards a deeper understanding of how the others in my work situation interact with the world. I am going to try to put on my understanding when I get into situations. I hope this will make me a better co-worker in the long run.
The result of my type test today was INTJ - here's the description. What do you think? Does it seem like me?
If you are interested in more information, here are some sites that I like:
www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
If you want to know what the Myers Briggs Foundation says about the types, start here:
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/sensing-or-intuition.htm
Here is the link for Elaine Aron's website: http://hsperson.com/
Here is the link for the Bloggess: http://thebloggess.com/
I am someone who waffles between two types. My mother feels that the fact that I am not easily typed is just part of my overall experience with life - she says that, even as an infant, I had my emotional cycles that somewhat mystified her, but that we figured out. She states that I am moon child in many different ways. When we had our types analyzed using a full-scale test, the person who scored the test said that I scored exactly in between the thinking/feeling scale, so she felt that she needed to meet me. Once she did, she still couldn't figure out where I landed on the thinking/feeling scale, so she told me that I was both and would just have to read all of the material for both. The other three characteristics, on the other hand, were strong. I am an INT/FJ. I am firmly introverted, intuitive, and judging.
The characteristic that we've been speaking about lately is the N/S indicator - the intuitive/sensing characteristic. My friend, who is an INFP by the way, feels that there are many people around us at work who are S types rather than N types. We are both N types and have lots of frustration with how things are done at work - they don't make sense to us. Our discussions include thinking through the things we know about Jungian psychology and people, filtered through our common 44+ years of clinical experience as therapists.
I have also been reading quite a bit about The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine Aron. All of these conversations and my reading lately has really made me think more deeply about how I function within the teams that I am part of during my life. While all of this is rumbling around in my brain, I am also reading lots from one of my favorite bloggers, the Bloggess - Jenny Lawson, and I am spending time thinking about all of these pieces within the same filtering system.
Being highly sensitive is related to the way the brain produces specific neurotransmitters. There is some link between being intuitive and sensing as well (as far as Elaine Aron has found). There are many therapists who are Introverted-Intuitive (again, according to Aron). I find that fascinating and something to remember when working with others. It is possible that I am a therapist because of my neurochemistry. It is possible that I am a therapist because of my bent towards intuition rather than sensing. It is possible that all of this is absolute bunk and just something that Jung, Aron, and Myers Briggs developed to explain something that will always be a mystery.
I embrace the ideas of high sensitivity and personality. I think there are many good ideas and concepts contained within the writings of these authors. I am able to remember events of my childhood and adolescence and can understand them a bit more within the filter - I realize now why my youth group leader thought that I was such an odd ball (and felt that she had to tell my mother that fact - my mother laughed at her when the leader stated that I had no friends and was a lonely person - Go MOM!). She sincerely thought that I didn't have any friends because I didn't like her girls or what they did with their time. She wanted to make me more extroverted and didn't understand why my mother wouldn't force me down the path the leader had dictated for me. (Can you tell that this still offends me? No??) I enjoyed the moment this woman learned that her perceptions of me and my life were completely inaccurate.
I think that my recent discussions and readings have started me towards a deeper understanding of how the others in my work situation interact with the world. I am going to try to put on my understanding when I get into situations. I hope this will make me a better co-worker in the long run.
The result of my type test today was INTJ - here's the description. What do you think? Does it seem like me?
If you are interested in more information, here are some sites that I like:
www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
If you want to know what the Myers Briggs Foundation says about the types, start here:
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/sensing-or-intuition.htm
Here is the link for Elaine Aron's website: http://hsperson.com/
Here is the link for the Bloggess: http://thebloggess.com/
Comments
Post a Comment