Why study personality types?

I'm reading a really fantastic book about personality types called Personality Type in Congregations: How to Work with Others More Effectively, by Lynne M. Baab. A lot of what the author writes about could really be applied in any organizational situation, not just within church congregations, but she does address prayer and a few other particularly spiritual activities (such as worship) that are more specific to a faith based community.  

Oftentimes when I bring up personality typing (especially within our congregation) I basically get pooh poohed. The attitude is either that it's all a bunch of hocus pocus and mumbo jumbo, or there's no real value in the study and, if anything, it will just be used against people. Baab did a great job of explaining that just the opposite is true. She says there are three paths to growth relating to personality types: self-acceptance, learning to use all functions, and learning to "access the shadow" (which deals with the way we behave/think under extreme stress).

The moment of self-acceptance comes when you discover your personality type and suddenly you realize that your constant fight to be one way or another is because you're not naturally that way. God made you to be a certain way and you may feel like your parents, or your church, or your work place has expected something very different of you, something that you found it depressing to be unable to achieve. When you realize that you're introverted because that's how God made you, or that there's value in being a dreamer, or that basing your decisions on feelings isn't wrong or right, it's just how you are... then you're able to accept who you are and how you naturally operate, irregardless of what others' expectations might be. (You might also have a better sense of why they are expecting something from you that's always seemed so foreign. It's because that other person has an opposite personality trait in that area so they'd always thought they were expecting something natural of you, not realizing it was natural to them, but not to you.) Once you discover your personality type, you'll probably have a better understanding of yourself and others. This will help you to be more accepting of others when they decide or act differently than you do. But there's a lot more value to personality typing than just awareness. The next step involves growth.

Each of the functions of the Meyers-Briggs personality type system are amoral. That means they're neither right or wrong, they're just different. And there are times when one type might be more appropriate than another. For example, if someone has just gone through a traumatic or sad experience, it's unlikely that they want a Thinking type person to come up and logically explain to them the situation that they're in. What they really need then is a Feeling type person who will empathize with them in their time of need (or a Thinking person who has learned to use their Feeling side). One of the goals of those studying personality typing should not only be to

learn more about your own personality type, and to learn to value and appreciate other personality types, but also to find ways to grow in areas where you have a weakness. Not only does this help us to be more well rounded people, but we may find the stretch into an area that doesn't come naturally to us to be an exciting challenge that helps us grow closer to God (as we learn to rely more upon him in our areas of weakness) and others (as we learn to relate to people in a way that might not be as natural for us, but which helps us to connect to them more deeply). I think this is an important aspect of personality study that is often overlooked and Baab does a great job of giving examples of how people have grown in areas that were previously foreign and uncomfortable to them (like learning to be a listener when you're naturally more of a talker). 

Baab describes the third value of studying personality types as "accessing the shadow." When we are in periods of great stress, we often do our best to face the problem with our usual strengths. When those fail, or when we feel like we've exhausted our ability to deal with the situation, what often happens is that we revert to going the direct opposite route. The example that the author gives of herself was that under stress, she started to exhibit extroverted sensing behaviors (even though she's introverted and intuitive). Healthy extroverted sensing behaviors involve an enthusiastic, joyful embracing of sensory experience. But when we're in these stress modes and flip into using our "inferior function" (which means the opposite of how we'd normally behave) we end up embracing the worst possible form of that function. So in this case, instead of joyfully embracing of something sensory, she depressedly fell into a habit of over-eating. This state of relying upon our inferior function (in other words, relying on the areas we're weakest in and do the worst at) is called being "in the grip." Baab describes it as "vivid evidence that sin's power reaches deep into our souls." During these times, emotions are exposed that we'd managed to hide before. We continue to try to hide them with our inferior functioning, but Baabs encourages growth at this stage by facing our obsessions, mistakes, and failures and learning from them rather than allowing them to lead us down the road of poor behaviors. 

I've considered these first two values of studying personality type for quite awhile now, but the inferior functioning is something I've read about before, but not really delved into deeply. The description of the inferior functioning of an ISTJ (impulsiveness and catastrophizing) fit Nathan's recent behavior to a tee, though. That nearly gave me whiplash when I read it -- definitely catching my attention. Suddenly it makes a little more sense to me why my son is behaving so very differently than he's ever behaved in his life. Something in his life has caused severe stress and his only means of dealing with it has been this radical change in behavior. Baab suggests some means of helping a person get out of "the grip" but I've also noticed there's a book just on that topic. It's something I'll definitely be looking into. 

Understanding personality type is certainly not a panacea, but I've repeatedly seen situations in which it either has helped, or it could have helped if it was taken into consideration. Personality is, by definition, an incredibly personal thing. Some people don't like to be pigeon-holed or scrutinized. Others get a bit too gung ho and run with the beginning of the idea without really understanding how typing can be used beneficially and they end up doing more harm than good. I think it's helped me to be more sensitive and understanding of others. Just like any tool, typing can be helpful or harmful. It's a tool that I've found great value in, both in understanding myself and the actions and beliefs of those around me. Baab is a good writer and does a great job of giving specific benefits and goals of using personality typing within congregations.