Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Sarah Bauer
Grand Canyon University
10/8/14

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI, was created Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine C. Briggs, who were both Jungian students (Rosenthal, 2008). After researching Carl Jung’s personality theories and types, Meyers and Briggs sought to develop an assessment that could bring his ideas to life and help people discover their true selves. Jung posited that everyone has personal mental and psychological preferences that will draw them to enjoy certain tasks (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2004). Meyers and Briggs researched to expand this theory through the type indicator, hoping to help people understand themselves better and find their ideal occupations.
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The first dimension is based on focus of one’s interest, including extraversion and introversion. Extraverted people focus outward toward other people and things, and introverts focus inward toward ideas and concepts (Pinkney, 1983). The second dimension is how one gathers information, and includes either sensing your environment tangibly or intuiting different possibilities. The third area of concentration deals with involvement with information, or deciding. Someone with a thinking preference uses logical analysis, while someone with a feeling preference synthesizes information from a personal and value-driven perspective. The last dimension deals with how one prefers to structure their lives, either by making judgments and decisions, or staying open, perceiving ideas and possibilities (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2004). The resulting dichotomous types are extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judgment/perceiving (Rosenthal, …show more content…
If a client is experiencing low self-esteem, the MBTI can be used as a strength-finding tool (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2004). It can also help people structure their environments to something more complimentary to their personality styles. If a client is having trouble getting along with others, the MBTI can be used as a tool to understand the complexity of all humans, and used to develop empathy and increased awareness (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2004). The Meyers-Briggs is extremely popular, both vocationally and therapeutically, and it is because of its universal appeal. It is grounded by Carl Jung’s timeless theories and proved beneficial by 50 years of successful results, and it will undoubtedly be used for many years to