Funnily enough, something similar happened on the street I lived in while I was in China. I don’t know who it was, although there’s a train line straight from Shenyang to Pyongyang and Kom Jong Il used to go there on state visits, so it could have been a meeting with Kim Jong Un. All the lights turned green along the main road and there were police vehicles lined along the route. There was no main convoy of cars that I could see, you just had groups of motorbikes escorting identical buses separated by a few hundred metres. This went on for about 10 minutes, then they opened the roads again.
It wasn’t about altering your perception. All major state visits suck when you’re near the venue, the social and political system of visitor and visited is of secondary importance.
This sounds like literally every alt-med aficionado I know.
And this sounds like every astrology-fan I’ve ever encountered in life.
If you’re going to try to convince others of the supremacy of Myers-Briggs, try to step outside yourself and understand that the best way to differentiate yourself from pseudoscience is to find more science-based arguments, not repeat the same concerns people have of you, and not tack on “trust me” style anecdotes. They’re not believable.
My understanding of the value of these kinds of tests is that it seems the majority of people need to be told that other people might be different than them. You do any such test (doesn’t matter which one) and that provides a framework for a discussion about how you might change to better interact with your co-workers. That is, the point is to tell people to project less. That we need to spend a bunch of money on an authorized pseudo-science vendor to be told “You know, different people are different, maybe you should think about that,” is pathetic, but it seems that’s actually what needs to happen for a lot of people.
I guess that’s just what someone who consistently texts as xxxP but who is best described by the description under INTJ would think. (I strongly disagree that the test tells me what I think of myself, it doesn’t do that at all).
You might be right. I taught a course on the hippie side of psychology for several years. The one thing about psychology as opposed to traditional medicine is that you are trying to change irrational mental processes from people that will always inherently hold some irrational mental process. And one thing I use to teach is that all the science in the world means nothing if you can’t get someone in the door or to come back for the second session.
Again, the test will tell you something about you RIGHT NOW. Will it be accurate tomorrow? Well…probably. Will it be accurate in a year? Maybe not. But it gives insight about how you feel right now no matter what Jung felt about the concreteness of personality, and the fact that science shows us that this isn’t the case.
And this is useful to patients trying to find their way. Show a little understanding of someone and they may open up enough to trust that what you are asking them to do is going to be useful. And by this, I mean getting them into CBT or other evidence based treatment along with medicine if it is indicated.
That said, alt-med is often healthy – if paired with actual real medicine. Physicians are finding that so long as there isn’t interference with the actual medicine (some alt stuff will interfere with absorption or may be competitive antagonists at the cellular level…I can’t think of any right now because I went the psych route as opposed to med, but I know a lot of antibiotics will encourage you not to drink grapefruit juice while on them…that sort of thing), the encouragement of using it actually strengthens their resolve in adherence to the real stuff. You find that people that are willing to do both – and not have the physician tell them that their old route is wrong – are more likely to do what it takes.
So sometimes you pick your battles. You can pretend we are all science based robots that do everything logically, but especially in the mental health world, you quickly realize this isn’t going to get you very far. Sometimes the art of the practice is more important than the science of it…
What purpose is a test to tell you something you already “know”?
It’s a waste of time and energy.
It’s a complete waste of funds and is often unhealthy in many ways. Insurers cover it because people are less likely to receive actual medical care they need.
Because you don’t already know this. People are not that metacognitive as we’d like to believe they are. And unless you have credentials to say otherwise, it isn’t a waste of time nor energy.
As for alt-meds? Where do you think I said that insurance should cover it. I believe you are reading into your own prejudices. I actually don’t believe doctors should prescribe this…I do believe that if someone is doing it on their own and paying for it on their own, I’m not going to tell them they need to stop. I’m not going to encourage it, but I’m also not going to dissuade them from this so far as it doesn’t interfere with their treatment. Doctors, psychologists, therapists all think they need to interfere with areas of peoples lives that are not interfering with their day to day functioning. So long as someone isn’t bothered by something…let them do what they do. I feel the same way if someone wants to spend 3 hours a week listening to some crazy sermon in a wacky religion. Might not believe in it, but who am I to tell them that they are wrong, even if it is irrational – so long as it isn’t harming themselves or others.
[quote]test deemed expensive and silly[/quote]When I read the headline, I hoped that it meant someone in a position of authority had actually issued a proper decree from on high that might conceivably lead to real change.
But alas, it seems that it’s just the same old griping that’s been circulating for the past decade. “Secret history”, indeed. http://gladwell.com/personality-plus/
No, but they’d know why they use this. I mean, you have no idea why someone would do this but you are against it. You aren’t trained as a therapist, but you seem to think those of us that are are just complete dumbasses. I come from a scientific end of things – my current role is pretty much a research as I got out of the field (which was always the goal of grad school) and I do so using scientific evidence based practice.
And the goal of ANY therapy should be to use evidenced based practice. But again, you have to get people in the door. It doesn’t matter how right you are if you can’t get someone to adhere to what you want them to do. But then again, I’ll defer to experts like you…because obviously you know it all. That is all I’ll have to say on this subject, feel free to tell me how wrong I am as much as you want, I’m done with you.
Not to mention that most of the theory behind the personality types don’t actually model personal traits correctly. For example, the notion of introversion/extroversion axis doesn’t seem to measure the reasons for why a person may be either of those traits such as being depressed, anxious, shy, reserved due to cultural hierarchy, and so forth. It just assumes people naturally fall into those categories. For example, I’m very open with people online about my thoughts and feelings but in an everyday face-to-face situation like a meeting or a doctor’s appointment I tend to be very reserved because I feel I say too much after years of being told that I was a “motor mouth” by my parents. It has little to do with an inherent personality trait. So for me MBTI always seemed more like a complicated horoscope than a real assessment of personality traits or disorders.
Myers-Briggs is not a diagnostic tool, it is a personality profile of people in the normal range. Jung specifically refused to develop a comprehensive model of neurosis, so it could hardly be part of MB.
I you want a test that will measure neuroticism, you can take a Five Factor test online
Also, there will always be business people and a academics that criticize MB because they are working on commercializing their own product and MB stands in their way. I’m looking for the next generation of tests to be commercialized in 10 or 15 years, but only after a lot of IP battles in the courts.
We are close to seeing the commercialization of the the Dynamic-Maturational Model of attachment and adaptation, which has more emphasis on trauma and cognition. And it’s a wheel instead of a grid, so it’s easier to use pretty colors!
Jung said that as soon he came up with the idea of introversion and extroversion, the extroverts latched onto it and used as a club to beat the introverts. Jung described this extroverted attitude as “arrogant” and “stupid.”
And it is ILLEGALLY used for corporate HR. At least for hiring purposes. I’ll quote you what I said yesterday.
It is most certainly used MOSTLY in therapeutic settings. I know I’ve been asked to give it in corporate settings and have declined. Sadly, it isn’t hard to find someone else.
This. Apart from that, I can’t fucken remember all the godamn HSLN and FUBAR acronyms necessary to “understand the person” being dealt with. And on top of THAT, having repeatedly seen exorbitantly commissioned “consultants” hold the MBTI up as The One True Test That Will Save Your Organization tells me that if it smells like snake oil…
