What is MBTI and how this assessment tool is used today

by

Alina

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (1998) is a personality test designed to assist a person in identifying their personality preferences.

During World War II, a young woman named Isabel Myers decided to do her part for the war effort by creating a self-report inventory that would make Carl Jung's theory (Jung, 1933) of psychological types available to more people. Her goals were two fold; 1) Help people find a better fit for their work and so make the work in factories and in the military more effective and 2) Promote world peace by helping people develop more appreciation for individual differences and how to use the differences constructively rather than divisively. Her work resulted in worldwide use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and spawned an industry of professional "type practitioners" who apply type theory to business effectiveness, communication, career development, cross-cultural understanding, education, spirituality and more.

Myers Briggs Personality Type is based on Jung’s two psychological attitudes (1933), (Extraversion and Introversion), and four personality dimensions, Intuiting (those who look for patterns and trust their hunches), Thinking (those who prefer to use logic, analysis, and experiences that can be verified as facts), Sensing (people who prefer to rely on who they can see, hear through their own physical senses, and Feeling (those who tends to make decisions base on their personal values and emotional reactions). It is about 125 questions with four scales: Extraversion and Introversion (E-I), Sensing and Intuiting (S-N), Thinking and Feeling (T-F), Judging and Perceiving (J-P). These four dimensions can differ for each individual, resulting in eight different preferences and in the possibility of 16 different personality types. Each type is represented by four letters: ISTJ, ISTP, ISFP, ISFJ, etc. (Briggs& Myers, 1988). Example: ISTJ (Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging). This person is serious, quiet, earn success by concentration and thoroughness, practical, orderly, logical, realistic, and dependable, Take responsibility, make up their own minds as to what should be accomplished and work toward it steadily, regardless of protests or distractions.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator is a tool use today to provide practical access to personality type to help individuals to:

• Improve communication between one another, especially husband and wife, Colleagues and siblings
• Deal with conflict in work place and families.

• Eliminate problem-solving blind spots.

• Enhance team performance in work place and school

• Foster leadership development and coaching.

MBTI is especially beneficial to organization. When team members of an organization understand their own personality styles and those of their co-workers, they can become more effective in a teamwork context.

Understand their own personality types will:

• Provide team members a framework for addressing differences to minimize conflicts.

• Identify team members’ potential strengths for promotion and department transfer.

• Identify team members’ potential areas of growth.

• Improve team and individual problem solving processes.

• Assist with executive coaching and leadership development.

• Provide improvement in the organization's effectiveness

For example an introvert, who has a day of meetings, can schedule private time to be alone. An extrovert, who has a day of paperwork to get through, can schedule in a break to touch base with clients or colleagues.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the world’s most valid and reliable personality instrument. Because of its success (when used appropriately), it is used by 70% of Fortune 500 companies (Article-Connecting the ROI and the MBTI) to improving leadership skills, team building and coaching clients into areas of preference and avoidance which impacts decision making, problem solving, communications and conflict.

Couples' therapists use this information to assist partner growth processes. The career professional can use MBTI to help clients discover an occupational experience that is a closer match to their personality, identify how to balance their daily energy needs, and express themselves clearly during personal job interviews. MBTI brings to light the subtle nuances of personality type found in us all. It helps to target areas of personal strength and challenges that are clear and specific, which results in a more productive type experience.

In medical field MBTI is clinical used in individual counseling (adolescent, college, and adult), career counseling, marital counseling, family counseling and mediation services from high school through adults

After the MBTI test I was totally convince that MBTI is a reliable tool (at least 90%), because MBTI help to identify my unique gifts. The information enhances my understanding of myself, my motivations, my natural strengths, and my potential areas for growth. It also helps me appreciate people who differ from me. Understanding my MBTI type is self-affirming and encourages cooperation with others.


Reference:

1. Myers, D. (1993). The pursuit of Happiness: Who is happy, and why? Avon.
2. Briggs, KC., & Myers, IB (1998) The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator-Form M. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychology Press.
3. Jung, C. (1933) Modern man in search of a soul. New York: Harcourt Brace
4. Cicarelli, Saundra, Psychology, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
5. Hartzler, Margaret. (1998) Using Type with Couples. Gaithersburg, Md.: Type Resources.

Monkey Tale

(Read and Think Like Chinese)

哭断肠 (ku du` chang) is translated in English bilingual dictionary as crying, weeping or wailing. The actual meaning comes from a story in ancient China time.

There was a hunter who loved to catch monkey alive and kept them at home to be tortured for entertainment. He used to hunt for food but would bring the monkey home alive almost all the time.

One day, the hunter caught a small monkey alive, while walking home, he noticed that there was a big monkey following him all the way home. The hunter had a wicked idea. He hung the small monkey on the tree and enjoyed the pity look of the big monkey. This big monkey seemed to be very close to the small monkey and the hunter presumed that the small monkey must be the son. Hours passed, the big monkey showed and gestured to beg for the release of his son but the hunter ignored its gesture. Instead he beat the small monkey so hard that the small monkey finally died. One seeing this, the big monkey began jumping up and down, crying , wailing and screaming. Finally the big monkey climbed up a tree and jumped to its death.

The hunter brought the two monkeys into the house, cut open their abdomens and found that the big monkey’s intestines were broken into small fractions about an inch in length. This meant that the big monkey didn’t die because of the fall but it was so sad that his intestines had been broken into small pieces. From then on the saying of 哭断肠 (lu du`chang) is being used to describe extreme sadness that one would endure. The direct translation should be ‘cry till the intestines broke into pieces’

Sunrise

Freud's theory - transsexuality

By Alina

Email:essentialitem@yahoo.com

There has been lots of research addressing the possible causes of transexuality, yet nobody really knows the answer. What causes a male to wanting to change himself into a female and a female wanting a male body? Most of us are perfectly comfortable with the fact that we are male or female. In fact, we normally never give it a thought. However, a few people feel they were born with the wrong body - men who feel they are trap in a female body vice versa. These people suffer from a recognized medical condition known as gender dysphoria (American Psychological Association, 1994), and are generally referred to as transsexual. One may think that transexuality is hereditary. Nevertheless, until this point of time there is no proof of any genetic link to the condition, therefore it is not something that is known to be passed down through generations of the same family. Nobody knows exactly what causes the condition, although there are various theories that consider a possible link between hormone disturbance in the mother during the first weeks of pregnancy or other interruptions to the normal course of pregnancy while the foetus is at a critical point of development.

Gender dysphoria occurs when the person believes himself or herself to be a woman, their brain knows them to be a woman, even though their physical body may be that of a man. The society believed the only 'cure' for gender dysphoria is to change the body to match the brain. Therefore, after surgery both brain and body are those of a woman. Now, this person is in all respects a woman; even her passport will show this. They should rightly expect to be treated as the woman they know themselves to be. Is this change necessary? Can it be cure without surgery?

George A. Rekers, PhD research studies appear that a preventive treatment for transvestism, transsexualism, and some forms of homosexuality may have been isolated early identification and early intervention in the childhood years. George found that the social environment of child rearing is primarily implicated in the etiology of the psychosexual disturbance. He evaluated 70 gender-disturbed boys and after following through a boy from 8 years, 8 months until he was 16. Carl came from a broken family in which his mother had four marriages in lifetime. At age 4 he was pronounced feminine voice inflection and feminine speech content. After a 15 month with a combination of treatment program in the clinic, home and school-setting and individual counseling for the mother and her marital problems and family relationship difficulties. There remains no trace of any feminine behavior or cross-gender identification in the boy after treatment. In this case, George A. Rekers proof that the absence of male role models is the biggest contribution to gender disorder such as transexuality thus supports the Gilligan’s Boy Theory.

The second strand of Gilligan's boy theory believed that the disorders of boys stem from their separation from female influence, but the biggest problem facing boys is the absence of fathers. Boys need to get in touch with their feelings. Boys need positive male role models, thus healthy father figure is so essential in each family. Susan Coates, Ph.D. (1990) quoted; Gender identity (the sense of either being male or female) is not directly determined by the genetic code. Rather it is a psychological construct that emerges early in life (between 12 and 18 months) because of interaction among biological, developmental, and psychological influences. Which reveal to me that gender disorder such as transexuality can be cure if discover when the child is below 10 years of age.

Freud (Freud, Sigmund 1905) theory believes sexual life does not start with puberty it starts with birth. In his third stage theory - Phallic Stage: 3.5 - 6 years, Feud believe the child’s sexual drive is slowly directed to the parent of the other sex, the boy being attracted to his mother and the girl being attracted by her father. That way, the parent of the same sex becomes a rival, the superiority of which lets the child fear possible punishment and leads to a bad conscience for his own thoughts. The boy’s fear to be castrated by his father makes him repress his desire for the mother into the unconscious and forces him to identify with the father: the Super-Ego in the boy cause him to feel that if he becomes like the father, the more he can unconsciously replace him.

One cannot help but to link Freud’s third stage theory to Gilligan's boy theory (Gilligan, C. 1982). In these two theories it clearly show that if there is an absent of father figure the boys has no one to compete and no male role model to focus on. The child grow up in such family might swift his fear and repression to a different direction thus causes him to identify with the mother or sister and his Super-Ego in this boy steer him to feel that if he become like his mother or sister, (when one of them threaten his position), he can replace her one day too.
Summarising, transexuality is not hereditary; social environment, family upbringing, self-esteem plays important role in a child’s life. Treatment and counseling therapy is a definite solution and not surgery to change one’s body into the imaginary gender. Parents and childcare providers should play an important role in spotting gender disorder children before he reaches post puberty genital stage, where changes are near impossible.


Reference:

Brown, G.R. (1990) A review of clinical approaches to gender dysphoria. J. Clin. Psychiatry.
Freud, Sigmund (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.

George A. Rekers, Ph.D., (Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science, Research Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Chairman of Faculty in Psychology at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia, S.C.)

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lundy, M., & Rekers, G.A. Homosexuality. Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual Problems. New York, NY: Lexington Books of Macmillan/Simon & Schuster, 1995,

Susan Coates, Ph.D. (1990). Ontogenesis of Boyhood Gender Identity Disorder. J. Amer. Acad. Psychoanal.