Personality Type

549 Pages·1998·4.93 MB·English

by  Lenore Thomson

ABOUT THE BOOK
The type test inside will tell you about the choices you’ve made and the
direction you’re taking—according to C. G. Jung’s theory of psychological
types.
For Jung, knowing your type was essential to understanding yourself: a
way to measure personal growth and change. But his ideas have been
applied largely in the areas of career and marital counseling, so type has
come to seem predictive: a way to determine your job skills and social
abilities.
This book reclaims type as a way to talk about people’s inner potential
and the choices they make in order to honor it. Using everyday examples
from popular culture—films, ‘Star Trek,’ soap operas, comic strips—it
describes the sixteen basic ways people come to terms with their gifts and
values.
In this book you will find tools to understand:
How your personality takes shape
How your type reflects not only your current priorities, but your hidden
potential
How unlived possibilities are trying to get your attention
How relationships at home and at work can help you to tap your unrealized
gifts
Whether you’re trying to figure out who you are and what you need to do
in life, or recognizing that deeper meaning lies beyond what you’ve already
accomplished, this book will help you to become aware of your greatest
strengths, your opportunities to live them out, and your ability to make the
most of your unique potential.
LENORE THOMSON, M.Div., has written extensively on theology and
psychoanalysis for the past twenty-five years. Formerly managing editor of
the Jungian journal Quadrant, she has taught courses on psychological
types and popular culture at the C. G. Jung Foundation in New York City.
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PERSONALITY TYPE
An Owner’s Manual
Lenore Thomson
SHAMBHALA
Boston & London
2014
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 1998 by Lenore Thomson Cover design by Jim Zaccaria All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thomson, Lenore.
Personality type: an owner’s manual/by Lenore Thomson.—1st Shambhala ed.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-83482656-4
ISBN 978-0-87773-987-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Typology (Psychology) 2. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
I. Title.
BF698.3.T46 1998 98–10700
155.2′ 64—dc21 CIP
For my ESTJ father—
who doubts that type means much of anything . . .
my INFP mother—
who fervently hoped I’d write a book on the Enneagram . . .
and my ENFP husband—
who can’t believe I’d invest so much time in one project.
Contents
Foreword
Part One The Personality Type System
1. This Door Is Not the Door
2. Casting Types
3. Interpreting the Type Evaluator Results
4. The First Type Category: Extraversion or Introversion
5. Our Two Strongest Functions
6. The Fourth Type Category: Perceiving or Judging
7. Our Dominant and Secondary Functions
8. Personality Types Are Also Brain Types
9. What Happens to the Functions We Don’t Prefer?
10. Type Dynamics
11. The Tertiary Problem
12. Getting Along with Other Types
Part Two A Closer Look at the Attitudes and Functions
13. The Attitudes: Extraversion and Introversion
The Perceiving Functions
14. Extraverted Sensation—ESTP and ESFP Types
15. Introverted Sensation—ISTJ and ISFJ Types
16. Extraverted Intuition—ENTP and ENFP Types
17. Introverted Intuition—INTJ and INFJ Types
The Judging Functions
18. Extraverted Thinking—ESTJ and ENTJ Types
19. Introverted Thinking—ISTP and INTP Types
20. Extraverted Feeling—ESFJ and ENFJ Types
21. Introverted Feeling—ISFP and INFP Types
Notes
Index
E-mail Sign-Up
Foreword
Over thirty years ago, C. A. Meier, one of the giants in the field of analytical
psychology, delivered a provocative address at the Fourth International Congress
for Analytical Psychology, in effect challenging his colleagues to administer
psychological type tests to each of their patients. Of all the basic concepts of
Jung, Meier declared, his notion of psychological type was not only the most
neatly defined, but arguably the most important. Indeed, Meier suggested,
perhaps membership in the International Association for Analytical Psychology
ought to be limited to analysts who test their analysands at the start, during, and
at the end of their analysis, as a way of determining whether or not Jungian
therapy affected one’s type.
For Meier, and Jung, understanding one’s own type is the alpha and omega of
the individuation process. Without this insight, one stands little chance of any
true self-realization or development as an individual. Moreover, Meier’s belief
was that, since one’s psychological type is not static, a shift must inevitably take
place in order for any in-depth analytical work to be judged effective.
True to this challenge, Meier often administered the Myers-Briggs Type
Inventory (MBTI) to those he worked with—myself included. While I am far
from certain how much my own type shifted over the years, I have a profound
respect for this aspect of Jung’s thought, and I incorporate it into my own work
with clients—both as a therapist and as a business consultant. Indeed, Jung’s
typology is widely understood and valued for its practical applications in an
almost unlimited range of fields. Mental health professionals, literary critics,
sociologists, and career counselors, among others, relate to this unique concept
of Jungian psychology, which is in fact quantifiable and measurable. From its
function in the business world, to its insights in the humanities and in the helping
professions, over the years such well known and highly respected authors,
analysts, and scholars as Arnold Toynbee, Marie-Louise von Franz, and Thomas
Moore, to name but a few, have written about and been interested in
psychological type.
Nevertheless, the area where Jung’s work on type has been most widespread