Myers Briggs

Knowing your personality type does not put you in a box.  It actually helps you get out of the box - to understand your preferences and those of others - to go beyond personality and open to greater intelligence and more powerful action.  

The Myers-Briggs benefits from over fifty years of research and development and it is an approach to personality type will help you to identify your strengths and unique gifts. You can use the information to better understand yourself, your motivations, your strengths, and potential areas for growth. It will also help you to better understand and appreciate those who differ from you - often a source of much misunderstanding and miscommunication. Understanding MBTI® type enhances cooperation and productivity in the workplace.

Katharine Cook Briggs (1875-1968) and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers (1897-1980) were keen observers of personality differences. They studied and elaborated the ideas of Carl G Jung, a Swiss Psychiatrist, and applied them to human interaction. Prompted by the waste of human potential in WWII, Myers began developing the Indicator to give a wide range of individuals access to the benefits of knowing their psychological type.

Self development

-Career development and exploration

-Relationship counselling

-Academic counselling

-Organisation development

-Team building

-Problem solving

-Management and leadership training

-Education & curriculum development

-Diversity and multi-cultural training

More than 3 million Indicators are administered annually. It is used extensively in the USA, Australia and internationally and has been translated into many languages including Japanese, French, Spanish, Korean, German, Danish, Swedish and Chinese.

Psychological Type is a theory developed by Carl Jung (1875-1961) to explain some of the apparently random differences in people's behaviour. From his observations of clients and others, Jung found predictable and differing patterns of 'normal' behaviour. His theory of Psychological Type recognises the existence of these patterns or types, and provides an explanation of how types develop.

According to Jung's theory, predictable differences in individuals are caused by differences in the way people prefer to use their minds. The core idea is that, when your mind is active, you are involved in one of two mental activities:

Taking in information, Perceiving; or

Organising that information and coming to conclusions, Judging.

Jung observed that there are two opposite ways to perceive, which he called Sensing and Intuition, and two opposite ways to judge which he called Thinking and Feeling.

Everyone uses these four essential processes daily in both the external world and Internal world. Jung called the external world of people, things, and experience Extraversion and the internal world of inner processes and reflections Introversion.

These four basic processes used in both your external and internal worlds give you 8 ways of using your mind.

Jung believed everyone has a natural preference for using one kind of perceiving and one kind of judging. He also observed that a person is drawn towards either the external world or the internal worlds more than the other. As you exercise your preferences, you develop distinct perspectives and approaches to life and human interaction.

The variations in what you prefer, use, and develop lead to fundamental differences between people. The resulting predictable patterns of behaviour form Psychological Type.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator® is the world's most widely used personality instrument. Here are some examples of how it might be used:

Develop different teaching methods to meet needs of different types

Understand learning motivations to help students gain control over their own learning,

Analyse curricula, methods, media and materials in the light of the needs of different types

Provide extra curricula activities to meet the needs of different types

To help teachers, administrators and parents work together more constructively

Counselling

Help individuals find direction for their lives by understanding the strengths and gifts of their preferences

Help individuals cope with problems by developing powers of perception and judgement

Help couples and families learn the value of both their differences and similarities

Help parents accept children as they are

Help children follow their different roads to excellence without external disparagement or internal guilt

To guide individuals in choice of school subject choice, professions, occupations and work settings.

To consider the opportunities a given career offers for use of the preferred modes of perception and judgement, and the demands that the same career makes for use of the least-liked and least-developed modes of perception and government.

To help group members recognise, appreciate and make use of the strengths of each type in the group

To help group members grow in their development as each learns from the skills of the other

To conduct meetings so as to take advantage of the contributions of each type

To help those who work and live together to understand how previously irritating and obstructive differences can become a source of amusement, interest and strength.

To learn the approaches that are most likely to earn the cooperation and agreement of each type.

To increase understanding by "talking the language" of the different types in the group.

To create a climate where differences are seen as interesting and valuable, rather than problematic.