Jefe's Soapbox: The Healer, or Personality Types and You!

I am a healer. I am a weaver of fanciful stories that span the far reaches of my mind. I am a mender of many things: Souls, hearts, minds, computers. I think by this point your head is cocked to the side, so I will dispense with some odd wisdom I’ve picked up about myself over the years. It concerns 2items from Psychology; The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and its derivative the Keirsey Temperaments.

The MBTI itself is meant to differentiate a personality based on 4 dichotomies (Def, n. Division of a whole into 2 equal parts, usually polar to each other):

Introverted vs. Extroverted: Are you outgoing, or do you tend to look within first.
Sensing vs. Intuitive: In gathering information, do you take the more concrete, visible, or tangible (Sensing), or are you ok with things being more theoretical or abstract (Intuitive). Note here in the final report of a personality lists this as Sensing vs. iNtuitive (The I being taken by Introverts)
Thinking vs. Feeling: In processing information (gathered above), do you take a more logical approach (Thinkers), or allow emotions to wind everything together (Feelers).
Perceiving vs. Judging: At some point, even for Introverts, we all must seek the outside world. The difference is when you do it: Perceivers do so when taking in information (by using Sense and iNtuition). Judgers, on the other hand, go outward at the decision making phase (using Thinking and Feeling). Perceivers take a more flexible approach to work while Judgers will have it set in stone.

What we are left with are the Sweet 16: MBTI Personality types

The MBTI is an interesting test if you ever get to take a proper one. Sure, there are online offerings but I can't vouch for their accuracy. In fact I can’t vouch for the ACTUAL test, because every question in it is subjective in nature. Perhaps, thought, this is my own meandering between certain aspects.

In truthfulness I made up the last two sentences to prove a point: The test is an indicator (says so in the name), not an absolute statement of fact. You can take the test twice and get a similar, but different, result. In other words there’s a margin of error. You can even be between two parts on any of the 4 parts. What a test will tell you is your tendency to favor one side of the other.

Pushing forward we actually have to look backwards: Temperaments and personality studies go as far back to Plato and Aristotle. Carl Jung, many thousands of years later, began his work to typify Introverts and Extroverts. Both of these works were the basis for Isabel Myers and her work in making the MBTI.
David Keirsey, however, decided to reintroduce the concepts of Plato and Aristotle’s times. He arrived at the four major temperaments: Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, and the Rational. To get there we take iNtuitives and pair them with either the Feeling or Thinking. This makes sense (pun intended) as information processing is more internal. Sensing, since it looks outside, is paired with the Judgmental or Perception functions. Since the purpose of J/P is to indicate what a personality does when they seek the outside this too is a perfect fit. Thus we have our four: Intuitive Thinking Rationals, Intuitive Feeling Idealists, Sensing Judgmental Guardians, and Sensing Perceptive Artisans.

Thank you Wikipedia for this. Saved me a lot of time XD

So we arrive back where I started this infernal post. You can look above and see each of MBTI’s 16 types have been given a temperament name. Unless my text here has blinded you, you should find The Healer under INFP. Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiver. Actually that doesn’t quite ‘say’ what I am quite as well as this:

That I is thousands feet tall, set in granite. Look the right of the P. That little dot is a 6ft tall man, for reference. This isn’t to say that I am shy. I can be, but on the same token work around that. It just means that humanity tires me out at times. I tire easily in large groups, but will take stimulating conversations until 4 in the morning over sleep. Intuition and Perception rule me as well. It's Feeling vs. Thinking were I waver a bit. Yes I can get lost in my own mind, in my own emotions; So too I can get lost in data details and mathematics/strategy of a situation. That places me in between Idealism and Rationalism. I will say, however, that I seem to favor my feelings over absolute logic.

I should go ahead and leave you to my wanderings… or something like that. As I was thinking of what to post I came across these very funny, and equally accurate, INFP posts. Peruse and enjoy.