Book Report: I'm Not Crazy I'm Just Not You

[MTINFJ]

By Roger R. Pearman & Sarah C. Albritton

This is the first book about type I’ve read. The first edition was published in 1997 and the second in 2010. The authors stress from beginning to end the need to resist the temptation to take a deterministic and reductive approach to type, both in oneself and others. To this end they’ve described the 16 types by using tables with short phrases and adjectives rather than prose paragraphs. There is much to be said in favor of this approach because the model can easily become a prison. An interesting and surprising part of the book is an attempt to show trends in different generations (e.g., Boomer, Gen X, etc, which is an American point of view). I recommend it.

 

[Jaguar]

I'm glad you read that book first, rather than Lenore Thomson's book.
You might notice a familiar name in my signature line.

It's a good book with multiple ways of looking at type, which is what I prefer. There's a story in that book about Roger and a friend walking down the street. They were lost. A person on the sidewalk stopped to ask if they needed help. Roger's friend said, "Thank heaven for Extraverted Feeling types." Roger replied, "No, thank heaven for extraverted feeling, regardless of who is doing it." I laughed, since I agreed. We can express any of the 8 function attitudes but that doesn't mean the person's dominant function attitude is Extraverted Feeling.

That's what I see most often in this forum - people picking up on something they think stands out about a person while recklessly assuming: "Eureka! It must be their Dominant Function!"

They really hit the nail on the head with this:

"... Psychological type as conceived by Jung and Myers, and many of the individuals who are exposed to it, are being grossly abused by some popular applications of the theory through the improper use of the MBTI. Too many are coming away thinking their results are better or worse than others, or that type causes behavior. Such notions are directly contrary to the basic tenets of type theory which states firmly that preferences do not cause behavior. It's an abuse of type theory to use it to excuse unacceptable behavior, blame others, explain poor performance, to project onto others' motivations, and to predict individual competencies."

 

[highlander]

An interesting and surprising part of the book is an attempt to show trends in different generations (e.g., Boomer, Gen X, etc, which is an American point of view). I recommend it.

That is interesting. What did they say?

 

[MTINFJ]

Well highlander, I had to return my copy to the library today so I have to go on memory. They tried to give a tweak to the types based on what the various American generation characteristics are supposed to be. In my opinion it was the most far out and least convincing part of the book because it's an attempt to blend two fuzzy models. The best part is the 8 point checklist for thinking through an issue. Basically if you can bring all 8 functions to bear on a problem then you're doing a very thorough job of dealing with it. I guess a dream team assembled to tackle a large sophisticated project would have an optimum mix of types to think it through from every side. I wrote it down to remind myself of the things I don't like to do.

 

[KDude]

Sounds interesting (especially the generation characteristics). That said, I'm still a bit "beholden" to Thomson (among others.. most books say something interesting at least). That's the second time I've heard that kind of comment from Jag. I'm not sure what's so off about her.. as if she's some kind of proponent of oversimplified approaches or stereotypes. When did that happen?

 

[highlander]

The best part is the 8 point checklist for thinking through an issue. Basically if you can bring all 8 functions to bear on a problem then you're doing a very thorough job of dealing with it.

I've thought about that before. It makes complete sense.

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32219&p=1211942&viewfull=1#post1211942

 

[MTINFJ]

The way I'm coming to view type is that it shows us what our thinking habits are. Habits are persistent but not immutable and certainly not the only way to do things all the time. So I'm glad to learn what my persistent blind spot are in order to develop as a thinker and as a person active in the world.