Typology and Biology

A Biological Dilemma

Biology as a science was dealt a shocking discovery at the start of the new millennium when the human genome was sequenced and the estimated number of genes that humans carry was determined.¹ Before the findings of the Human Genome Project were published in February of 2001 it was assumed that complexity of life was directly correlated with the raw amount of genes in a species' genome.² Therefore it was believed that there would be one gene for every type of protein in the human body, thus informing a prediction for 120,000 genes in the human genome. This would produce a linear, deterministic system that yielded great promise for medical research. Geneticists believed that the mapping of the human genome would pave the way for personalized medicine, the ability to treat patients not on a trial-and-error basis, but rather with a advanced knowledge of the potential diseases that each person might carry via their heredity.³ Because it was believed that each protein in the human body was created directly by a specific gene, a sort of genetic determinism, it was also thought that diseases target specific genes. Therefore, riding on the findings of the Human Genome Project was the hope that “genetic engineers” would be able to “fix all our biological dilemmas.”⁴

In 2004, Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project and current head of the National Institute of Health in the United States and an advocate of personalized medicine, writes upon completion of the sequencing project: “Notably, the human genome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes.”⁵ More than eighty percent of the DNA required for the standard model of genetics does not exist. Homo sapiens carries just 1,000 more genes than Caenorhabditis elegans, a simple-celled microscopic worm.⁶ In a commentary on the results for the Human Genome Project, geneticist David Baltimore laments: “But unless the human genome contains a lot of genes that are opaque to our computers, it is clear that we do not gain our undoubted complexity over worms and plants by using more genes.”⁷

The ramifications for biology and medicine alike are profound. The Primacy of DNA as established by Watson and Crick is thrown into question. Researchers turn to the fledgling idea that genetic information is not set in stone, but rather can be changed by the organism's ecology, actions, and even the actions of its ancestors. This new field, epigenetics, completely changes the view of how life is controlled.⁸ It is now known that certain proteins, affected directly by environmental signals, can regulate the manufacturing of DNA, effectively shutting on or off certain parts of the genome.⁹ This leads to insights that most diseases are not genetically determined: for instance, it is discovered that only five percent of cancer and cardiovascular patients can attribute their disease to heredity.¹⁰¹¹ In 2005, medical researcher Bruce Lipton publishes the Biology of Belief. Lipton spent years showing that the cell is not controlled by the nucleus, but rather the cell membrane. Thus it was no surprise to Lipton that epigenetics confirmed that DNA is controlled by messages sent from outside the cell. Lipton argues that because we are comprised of these cells, we therefore have the ability to directly shape our biology through our behavior and interaction with the environment.¹²

This complex picture for biology results in complications for personalized medicine. While there can be no doubt that the Human Genome Project left personalized medicine the necessary tools to begin depicting a unique biological portrait for every patient,¹³ the amount of information that would need to be recorded for every patient is now immense. No longer can personalized medicine be concerned with just the individual's genome- already an ambitious task. Now doctors must take into account RNA, proteomics, and a slew of ecological factors.¹⁴ Because of this, the pharmaceutical and medical industries are reluctant to drop their highly profitable business models for a costly new paradigm.¹⁵ Thus, many physicians continue to use outdated techniques to treat their patients. For instance:

Today, most U.S. Physicians continue to practice trial-and-error medicine. A patient presents with symptoms, and the doctor makes a “most likely” diagnosis that is consistent with those symptoms, then prescribes a drug and, possibly, other treatment such as surgery. The drug dosage is typically based on the patient's weight. If the drug doesn't work or has significant side effects, the doctor may change the dosage or try another drug if one is available. Alternatively, the doctor may abandon the original diagnosis in favor of another and write a new prescription. This cycle is repeated until the correct, or more precise, diagnosis and treatment plan are discovered.¹⁶

This method is cumbersome compared to personalized medicine, which in theory would narrow down the possible diseases on the outset due to advanced knowledge of the patient's biological information. But the increasing complexity of the science has made big business reluctant and federal government reluctant to back a new approach. An article that assesses the situation in the Harvard Business Review sums it up nicely: “Although science is always ahead of practice in the medical field, the gap today in the area of personalized medicine is inexcusably large.”¹⁷

One solution is to marshal the data in a way that makes it more accessible. Lipton's evocation of behavior's involvement in epigenetics leaves the door open to appealing to psychology. Lipton himself indicates that the way we view and interact directly affects our biological health.¹⁸ How we consciously perceive and act upon information is the subject of the personality typology originally conceived of by the founder of analytical psychology C.G. Jung in 1921.¹⁹ Jung's psychological types were later formalized into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, one of the most widely used personality inventories in the world.²⁰ The MBTI groups people based on four dimensions: One, whether or not they are introverted (I) or extraverted (E); two, if they see the world primarily through sensing (S) or intuition (N); three, if they base decisions more off of thinking (T) or feeling (F); and four, whether they prefer a scheduled (judging, or J) or open-ended (perceiving or P) lifestyle. This leaves the possibility of sixteen personality types. Later research by David Keirsey would group these types into four separate temperaments: people who favor both sensing and perceiving have marked similarities and are grouped as Artisans (SPs); types that prefer sensing and judging display homologous characteristics and are thus considered Guardians (SJs); intuitive-thinking types share the traits of the Rationals (NTs); and people who express intuitive-feeling fall under the temperament of the Idealists (NFs).²¹ No matter the dimension, the personality types derived from Jung's work differentiate people by how make contact with the world. Jung saw his typology as a “psychological compass” for determining mental health.²² If correlations between these personality types and aspects of biology were discovered, than typology could potentially also act as a compass for solving our biological dilemmas as well.

Researchers have already attempted to link personality types with different areas of biology. Various type profiles, such as ones written by David Keirsey or Otto Kroeger, attribute certain diseases to specific types.²³²⁴ Scientists from Mississippi State University published a paper that suggested coronary heart disease was more likely in people with sensing and feeling preferences; this study was conducted in 1987, nearly fifteen years before the Human Genome Project was completed.²⁵

Two researchers in particular, neither of whom are typologists, did more than associate illnesses with certain types: they actually connected neurochemistry with personality types. What is especially compelling about their work is that they not only use typology as a compass for personal health, but that they have touched upon a biological basis for personality type.

A Sprained Brain

In 2004 Eric Braverman, a physician who runs private practices in New York and Philadelphia, published his findings on neurochemistry and health in his book The Edge Effect.²⁶ A prominent figure in mind-body medicine, Braverman describes the original goal of his work as to find “a way to gather everything [he] had learned under the auspices of one universal scheme that could serve as the basis for all medical care.”²⁷ Though an ambitious task, Braverman nevertheless had several valuable insights that he felt led him in the right direction:

While I was searching for this grand solution, I met a celebrity who had recently undergone bypass surgery. As I listened to him, I realized that he wasn't getting his thoughts across as quickly as he used to on television; it seemed that his whole personality had slowed down. As an abstract matter, I knew that bypass surgery slowed brain speed by ten milliseconds. All of a sudden I realized that the man had lost his edge: his thinking was simply not as sharp as it once was, even though his medical problems seemed to stem from his heart, not his brain. This, I felt, might be the doorway to that elusive universal principle.²⁸

Two things are of interest. One, Braverman begins to see the brain, and thus the mind, as the guiding factor in health. Two, the fact that Braverman sees the brain as a controlling factor for disease corresponds to the epigenetic ideas espoused by those like Lipton, that behavior controls genes.

Braverman continues:

Looking deeper, I began to focus on the concepts that led to this book, ideas first brought to the medical forefront by Rodolfo Llinas, M.D., Ph.D., a world-renowned researcher of brain function and my mentor at NYU Medical School. Dr. Llinas was able to articulate a blue-print for the brain-mind-body connection, showing that brain biochemical imbalances could cause disease. He called this concept the Edge Effect. He also demonstrated how electricity in the human body reaches the brain and is processed through four biochemical neurotransmitters: dopamine, acetylcholine, GABA, and seretonin[...] Today we know that good health requires that for any given body function, all four neurotransmitters must be processed in a specific order and in precise amounts. The Edge Effect amplifies small electrical imbalances into bigger health problems[...] On one hand, it had become clear to me that biochemical deficiencies in the brain led to poor health. On the other, a balanced brain not only could restore you to good health but also was essential to maintaining a sound mind and body over the long haul. I had found the object of my search: a universal connection between mind and body, between the medicines of East and West.²⁹

Thus Braverman begins to link four major neurotransmitters with mental and physical health. For Braverman, the connection between the brain and DNA is a matter of electricity:

While DNA codes our behaviors and physical functions, it is not at the heart of what makes each of us unique. Our DNA is only as good as the transport system it creates for the transmission of information. That system relies on electricity[...] [Electricity] is the literal spark of life, which energizes the body and creates our consciousness.³⁰

Electricity is conducted in the brain via neurons, and the brain functions optimally when each neuron is correctly programmed to “produce, send, and receive” a specific biochemical. Braverman links the four lobes of the cerebrum to each of the major neurotransmitters he lists, along with different brainwave/electricity patterns. He associates the frontal lobe with dopamine as well as beta brain waves that control voltage, the parietal lobe with acetylcholine and associated alpha waves along with brain speed, the temporal lobe with GABA along with theta waves that regulate rhythm, and finally the occipital lobe with serotonin and rest and delta waves. In addition GABA regulates the left-hemisphere of the brain, whereas acetycholine, according to Braverman, controls the right-hemisphere. Then, Braverman links each of these neurotransmitters with temperaments, using the very same language of Keirsey: He connects the intuitive-thinking rationalists with dopamine, the intuitive-feeling idealists with acetylcholine, the guardian sensing-judgers with GABA, and the sensing-perceiving artisans with serotonin.³¹ Thus Braverman has effectively linked the four temperaments outlined by Keirsey to different properties of the brain. Curiously he does not credit Jung, Myers, nor Keirsey for this terminology, nor does he openly recognize the impressive step he has taken in linking neurochemistry and neurophysiology with personality types. But of greater import, Braverman actually uses his system as a compass for personal health by linking both mental and physical disorders with chemical imbalances:

Depending on which neurotransmitter is deficient, even a child as young as two or three years old will exhibit symptoms or a personality type that clearly define her as someone with poor health. A low-dopamine child might exhibit symptoms of ADD. A low- acetylcholine child may have learning disorders. A low-GABA child could have impulsive or violent tendencies, and a low-serotonin child might be moody or depressed.³²

These mental symptoms, says Braverman, could be the precursors to physical ailments. For example, a person with a deficiency in dopamine may exhibit blood sugar instability, kidney problems, carbohydrate binges, diabetes, and low sex drive, among other possibilities.³³ What Braverman is doing then is effectively charting possible diseases of all kinds based on imbalances in one's brain, and in turn in their personality. But there is a solution according to Braverman, and that is to practice a diet and lifestyle that could compensate for the biochemical imbalance: “Instead of quick fixes, there are effective treatments that can reverse the symptoms of a sprained brain. When biochemicals are adjusted to compensate for either an excess or a deficiency, you will have effectively bent your brain back in the other direction. For the most part, the place to begin is by addressing deficiencies.”³⁴ The Edge Effect contains a pencil-and-paper test for figuring our one's bio-temperament, as well as long chapters dedicated to bringing into balance each of the four neurotransmitters. Braverman is using a personalized model for health that places the greatest import on the actions of the patient, not the nucleus of individual cells. His systems binds typology in a way that might also be appreciated by Jungians, for while biochemical deficiencies are a problem to Braverman, so to then are imbalances of one chemical dominating the others. What Braverman desires is balance, which according to him leads to a more rewarding life:

I also believe that the Edge Effect can go even farther. If you enhance your brain chemistry, you can reach new personal heights. The Edge Effect can actually lead you into a state of physical and emotional bliss, where you reach a peaceful Zen mind, a power zone in your body, and a spiritual pinnacle for your soul. When you are at your physical and mental best, you are experiencing the positive side of the Edge Effect. This sharpness is the mark of a balanced brain that enables us to love others, remain clam, and effectively put our intelligence to its best possible use.³⁵

On some level Braverman's system seems too good to be true. But the best way to analyze some of the key problems in his model is compare it with the theory of another researcher who links temperament to personal health, although in this case a much more specific area.

Real Love

In 2004 Helen Fisher, a research anthropologist at Rutgers University most well-known for her work in the evolution of love in human history, was approached by an executive team for the popular online dating side Match.com to create a system that would predict which people would be more likely to fall in love based on their personality.³⁶ Fisher had already done some work on neurotransmitters in earlier research and thus already began envisioning a scheme that would connect personality type and neurochemistry with patterns of attraction. She sketched out a four-type system based on the four neurotransmitters that she knew to be most closely associated with personality. People who took risks and were spontaneous, she reasoned, were associated with dopamine, and she named them Explorers. People who were calm and traditional she linked to serotonin and dubbed them Builders. Individuals who were intellectual and strategic she connected to testosterone and called them Directors. And those who were empathic and idealistic she linked with estrogen and named them Negotiators.³⁷

With this system in hand, Fisher put together a type inventory and went online to see if she would receive data that showed any particular trend. After receiving around 40,000 results she analyzed the data. While she did indeed find tendencies in terms of what types were attracted to whom, she also discovered that people who tested as certain types had many physical characteristics in common: for instance, those who were Directors and thus testosterone-dominant tended to have index fingers longer than their ring fingers.³⁸ Fisher realized she had stumbled upon something that linked personality with other aspects of personal health than love. It is also interesting to note that she only realized after conducting the study that her system of four types matched exceedingly well with Keirsey's four temperaments, with Explorers resembling SPs, Builders matching SJs, Directors correlating with NTs, and Negotiators crossing with the NFs.³⁹ Says Fisher:

Why is the Myers-Briggs test so popular? Because it works, thanks to biology. Although Isabel Myers was unaware of it, most of her types fir the same four basic biological profiles that I've identified. Then in the 1990s, a brilliant psychologist, David Keirsey, a protege of Isabel Myers, simplied her schema to four basic personality types: the Artisan, Guardian, Rational and Idealist. I was unaware of Keirsey's types when I outlined my own set of four personality styles[...] Only later did I become aware of the striking similarities.⁴⁰

Thus Fisher's system, like Braverman's, is intriguing for its ability to cull consistent data while also matching with previously existing theories of personality from the Jung-Myers-Keirsey lineage. However, there is a very evident flaw with the models proposed by both Fisher and Braverman that might already be obvious to the reader: they both link four neurotransmitters to the four temperaments, but the neurotransmitters they use do not match. For instance, Braverman links serotonin with sensing-perceiving types while Fisher says her Builders (sensing-judgers) are serotonin dominant. Braverman makes no mention of testosterone or estrogen in his vision of the brain. Similarly, acetylcholine or GABA are not mentioned once in Fisher's text. Both claimed to have found the links between personality and neurochemistry, yet their theories contradict.

Indeed, to the neuroscientist both models proposed would seem too simple, too neat: for dopamine alone there are at least a half-dozen derivatives that can be associated with far more many regions of the body than the frontal lobe alone as Braverman suggests. It is possible that both Braverman and Fisher have merely committed the common crime in neuroscience today: using linear techniques to derive simple stories out of a system far more complicated.⁴¹ Another problem concerning Fisher's system specifically is the fact she outlined her four types prior to gaining any data; it is possible this approach has skewed her findings to seem more meaningful than they really are. Of course, the connections that both researchers have made are certainly promising and cannot be totally denied. Unfortunately, because both Fisher and Braverman used the bulk of their findings for commercial purposes, it remains to be seen if their work will be challenged or refined by any researchers in the future.

Nevertheless we have seen two important things: First, that there are possible connections between personality type and biology. Second, that these connections can be used for both diagnosis and predictive health. However, the inconsistencies between both systems leave unanswered questions. For instance, on just what level of biology (genes, proteins, anatomy, biochemistry, etc.) is typology getting at the most? Braverman focuses solely on the brain while ignoring genetics altogether, whereas Fisher acknowledges the affects that genes have on her chosen neurotransmitters while only mentioning in passing the presence of epigenetics.⁴² It is important to consider these nuances because typology therefore might not only act as a helpful economical compass in the patient room, but it also may have something of value to say in how behavior and other higher-order factors affect genes. As the next example shows, for a researcher to ignore these degrees of biological magnitude is to do so at their own peril.

Pseudoscience

In 2002 clinical psychologist Terry Sandbek wrote a scathing article for the American Board of Sports Psychology heavily critical of the work of one Jonathan P. Niednagel, a layman who has had considerable success using his version of the Myers-Briggs system, what he calls Brain Typing, in the world of professional sports.⁴³ On the website for his Brain Typing Institute (BTI) Niednagel makes some very grandiose claims:

Years and years of empirical research have convinced us at BTI that each person in the world only has one of the 16 Brain Types, and it’s an inborn, genetically predisposed wiring that directly regulates both mental and motor skills. Each Brain Type not only has inherent and specific mental proficiencies (and deficiencies) but physical ones as well. These inborn traits are the greatest determinants for why people do what they do (excluding personal ethics, morality, etc.). We believe it won’t be long before Brain Types are proven genetically.⁴⁴

This extraordinary claim is just one of many reasons Sandbek blasts Niednagel's brain typing as pseudoscience. Says Sandbek:

Jonathan P. Niednagel has a bachelor’s degree in Business Finance from California State University, Long Beach. Although born and raised in Missouri, he attended college and lived in Southern California for about 20 years during that area’s real estate boom. He made money in real estate and left that business before the real estate market caved[...] Near the end of the 90s, Mr. Niednagel created an organization called the Brain Type Institute in Thornfield, MO. The purpose of this organization is to promote the business of selling his Brain Typing product. Although the name conjures a large building with highly trained staff and possible research facilities, it is an “institute” in name only. A phone call to the headquarters will either result in an answering machine message or a personal contact with Jonathan’s brother, Jeremy.⁴⁵

While exposing Niednagel's limited credentials may not seem more of a personal attack instead of a critique of Niednagel's science, Sandbek goes on to address the gaping holes in Niednagel's 'research':

When Niednagel speaks of “years and years of research” he means that he coached children’s sports teams for many decades and that by merely observing them play, he can decide their Brain Type (Niednagel, 2002). Another type or “research” he conducted was reading journals and books in university libraries. Although such may be thought of as “research” by the public, it is merely the first step in designing a study. As all graduate students know, this activity is called the literature search and is designed to find out what else has been published in the area of interest. It is not to be confused with a completed research project.⁴⁶

Additionally Sandbek accuses Niednagel of name-dropping, fabricating endorsements from neuroscientists without their permission, and misunderstanding the very elementary grounds of science. He finds that Niednagel and his typology fit very the definition of pseudoscience. As a member of the Sacramento Skeptics Society, it may be no surprise that Sandbek's disparaging is not limited to Niednagel. He dismisses the MBTI, typology, and Jung altogether, citing parallels to mysticism and astrology. Per Sandbek, the MBTI is “as worthless as tarot cards and crystal balls.”⁴⁷

The accusation of Jungian psychology and its derivatives as pseudoscientific is a whole other topic that has no place in the discussion here. The lesson here is a matter of procedure. Braverman, an accomplished M.D., cautiously makes connections between temperament and health. Fisher does the same in her area of expertise, the anthropology of love. The issue is not necessarily that Niednagel is a layman, but that he makes extraordinary claims without the ability to back them up. Sandbek's attack underscores the problem of applying any aspect of analytical psychology or typology to other fields. There must be an understanding of the trends in the given field. Niednagel betrays his own ignorance of biology when he claims his typology can be confidentially linked with genetics. In an era where the dominance of genes is being seriously undermined, where it seems few traits are directly linked with just genes, this seems like a majestically improbable claim.

Unwittingly or not, Braverman and Fisher succeed where Niednagel fails by taking a top-down approach to biology- that is to say, their work deliberately or inadvertently recognizes that the Primacy of DNA has been undermined, and that behavior can affect the function of genes. Still, their models fail to reconcile differences between one another, nor do they establish just where typology is most correlated in biology: is it anatomy? Biochemistry? Epigenetics? Genes after all? Or a mix? A thorough investigation of how best to apply typology to personalized health would yield great reward, not just for the potential of aiding the success of personalized health in the medical industry, but also for explaining just how type emerges from biology.

A Hypothetical Project

The following is nothing more than a sketch of a possible way to proceed with this problem. Throughout the world there are institutes dedicated specifically to keeping databases of personal health statistics. Some of these institutes also act as clinics for patients to receive treatment based on knowledge of their individual biology. One such research center is the Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden, New Jersey. The Coriell Institute features the largest biobank in the world, a trove of “cell lines, DNA, and other biomaterials gathered and distributed for use by the international biomedical research community.”⁴⁸ Coriell runs a 'personalized medicine collaborative' that is meant to be a study of the efficacy of using personal genomic information in medical care. Volunteers provide saliva samples and answer questionnaires about their health. A genetic test is done on the sample, and afterward the results are shared with both the volunteer and researchers. This results in a large database of biological and hereditary information for each volunteer. As the Coriell website says: “the structure of the CPMC study has allowed Coriell to build a cohort with rich genotypic and phenotypic data with which to discover genetic variation that affects drug toxicity and efficacy, as well as to discover presently unknown gene variants that elevate a person’s risk of complex diseases.”⁴⁹

A simple way of finding significant relations between personality types and aspects of biology would be to add a type inventory to the questionnaires that volunteers fill out. Then one could assess just what magnitude and aspects of an individual's make-up: genetics, proteins, brain chemistry, ancestral lineage, and so forth- seems to correlate greatest with aspects of type, if any. Such a study would have three likely outcomes:

1. There are no significant correlations between an individual's personality type and their personal biology. This null result seriously puts into question if typology has anything interesting to offer for biology, and may indeed question the validity of typology to begin with.
2. There are significant correlations between an individual's personality type and specific genes in their personal genome. For instance, a specific gene is correlated with the ISTJ personality type. This suggests that type may be determined solely by genetic factors. This endorses the Primacy of DNA, despite the data of epigeneticists that suggest biomedical researchers should look elsewhere.
3. There are significant correlations between an individual's personality type and specific phenotype information, such as inherited diseases, lifestyle, or ancestry. Larger-scale biological correlations such as neurochemistry or epigenetic characteristics may also apply. The exact genetic makeup is not as relevant as these higher order factors.

If it turned out the third outcome turned out to be correct, this would result in several scenarios. One, typology would help urge the biomedical field to move away from the old model of genetic determinism. Two, it would offer the medical industry an efficient way of culling the mass amount of data in each individual's makeup in determining what treatment procedure may be best, just as Braverman outlines specific procedures for each temperament. Finally, it would also support the importance of psychology's influence on genetics, as Lipton stressed in The Biology of Belief.

Still, it is difficult to justify, for instance, why Jungian-based typology and not another personality model, such as the far more academically accepted Big Five, could not be used instead.⁵⁰ And as the inconsistencies between the Braverman and Fisher models show, perhaps classification of something as wonderfully complex as the biology of a human being is simply impossible. As the late great paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould once said: “Taxonomy is always a contentious issue because the world does not come to us in neat little packages.”⁵¹ Nor, therefore, do human beings. This may have been one of many reasons why the very proposal the writer of this paper just outlined was rejected by the Coriell Institute.

One thing is clear though. In an age where scientists and everyday people alike still believe they are the mercy of random genetic chance,⁵² the typology of Jung, Myers, and Keirsey can at the very least act as a reminder that our psychological health directly affects our biological health. This is the minimum of what Braverman and Fisher have demonstrated. And if the gap between current research and the biomedical field is to be closed, then this lesson will have to be heeded.

Works Cited

Aspinall, M, and R Hamermesh. "Realizing the Promise of Personalized Medicine." Harvard Business Review 45 (2007). www.missionfacilitators.com/articles. (accessed April 20, 2012).

Baltimore, DA. "Our genome unveiled." Nature 414 (2001): 122.

Braverman, Eric R.. Edge effect. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing co., Inc., 2004.

Burke, Wylie, and Bruce Patsy. "Personalized medicine in the era of genomics." Journal of the American Medical Association 13 (2002): 1682-1684.

Collins, F.. "Finishing the eurochromatic sequence of the human genome." Nature 431, no. 7011 (2004): 931-945.

Fisher, Helen E.. Why him? why her?: finding real love by understanding your personality type. New York: H. Holt, 2009.

Ginsburg, G, and W Huntington. "Genomics and personalized medicine: foundations and applications." Translational Research 1 (2009): 1.

Jung, C. G.. Psychological types. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971.

Keirsey, David. Please understand me II: temperament, character, intelligence. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis, 1998.

Kroeger, Otto, and Janet M. Thuesen. Type talk: the 16 personality types that determine how we live, love, and work. New York: Dell Pub., 19891988.

Lipton, Bruce H.. The biology of belief: unleashing the power of consciousness, matter and miracles. Santa Rosa, CA: Mountain of Love/Elite Books, 2005.

Myers, Isabel Briggs, and Peter B. Myers. Gifts differing. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1980.

Pervin, Lawrence A., and Oliver P. John. Handbook of personality: theory and research. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.

Surani, MA. "Reprogramming of genome function through epigenetic inheritance." Nature 414 (2003): 122.

Thorne, B, and Et Al. "The Myers-Briggs type indicator and coronary heart disease." J Pers Assess 51, no. 5 (1987): 545-54.

Venter, J. Craig. "The Sequence of the Human Genome." Science 291 (2001): 13401-51.

Watson, J.D. , and F. Crick. "A structure of deoxyribose nucleic acid." Science 171 (1953): 737-738.

Willett, W. "Balancing Lifestyle and Genomics Research for Disease Prevention." Science 222 (2002): 695-698.

1J.C. Venter, “The sequence of the human genome,” Science, 2001, vol. 1304-1351

2J.D. Watson and F. Crick, “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” Nature, 1953, 171, 737-738.

3Wylie Burke, Bruce M. Patsy, “Personalized Medicine in the Era of Genomics,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 2002, vol. 13, 1682-1684.

4Bruce Liption, The Biology of Belief, (Hay House, 2008), 32.

5F. Collins, “Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome,” Nature, 2004, vol. 431, 7011, 931-945.

6Lipton, Biology of Belief, 34.

7D. Baltimore, “Our genome unveiled,” Nature, 2001, 409, 814-816.

8M.A. Surani, “Reprogramming of genome function through epigenetic inheritance,” Nature 414, 122.

9D. Bray, “Molecular Prodigality,” Science, 2003, 299, 1189-1190.

10Lipton, Biology of Belief, 42.

11W. Willett, “Balancing Life-Style and Genomics Research for Disease Prevention,” Science, 2002, 695-698.

12Lipton, Biology of Belief.

13G. Ginsburg and W. Huntington, “Genomic and personalized medicine: foundations and applications,” Translational Research, 2009.

14Ibid.

15M. Aspinall and R. Hamermesh, “Realizing the Promise of Personalized Medicine,” Harvard Business Review, 2007, accessed on 20 April 2012, www.missionfacilitators.com/articles.

16Ibid., 2.

17Ibid.

18Lipton, Biology of Belief.

19C.G. Jung, “Psychological Types,” The Collected Works (Bollingen, Princeton, 1971), vol. 6.

20Isabel Myers, “Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type,” (Davies-Black, 1995) 2^nd ed.

21David Keirsey, Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, (Prometheus, 1998).

22Jung, C.W., vol. 6, Forward to the Argentine Edition.

23Keirsey, Please Understand Me II.

24Otto Kroeger, Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types that determine how we live, love, and work, (Delta, 1988).

25B Thorne, et. al., “The Myers-Briggs type indicator and coronary heart disease,” J Pers Assess, 1987, vol. 51, 5, 545-54.

26Eric Braverman, “The Edge Effect: Achieve total health and longevity with the balanced brain advantage,” (Sterling, 2004).

27Ibid., xi.

28Ibid.

29Ibid., xii.

30Ibid., 4.

31Ibid. 20-21.

32Ibid., 27.

33Ibid., 73.

34Ibid., 31.

35Ibid., xii.

36Helen Fisher, Why Him? Why Her? Finding Real Love by Understanding Your Personality Type, (Henry Holt, 2009), 4-5.

37Ibid.

38Ibid., 135.

39Ibid., 36.

40Ibid.

41Lipton, Biology of Belief, 90.

42Fisher, Why Him? Why Her?, 37.

43Terry Sandbek, “Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading,” from The American Board of Sports Psychology, accessed 10 April 2012, http://www.americanboardofsportpsychology.org/

44Jon Niednagel, “What is Brain Typing?” Brain Types, Accessed on 1 May 2012, http://braintypes.com/what-is-brain-typing/

45Ibid.

46Ibid.

47Ibid.

48“A Message from Michael Christman, PhD,” Coriell Institute for Medical Research, Accessed on 1 May 2012, www.coriell.org/about

49Ibid., accessed 2 May 2012.

50Oliver John, “The Big Five Trait Taxonomy: History, Measurement and Theoretical Perspectives,” Handbook of personality: Theory and research (1999, Guilford) 2^nd Ed.

51Quoted in Ibid.

52Lipton, Biology of Belief.

Typology Article

A Hard Sell

Typology has the curious distinction of being perhaps the most popular and widely accepted theory of Carl Jung, and yet it is also one of the least discussed and most poorly understood topics in Jungian studies and clinical circles. Aside from his fledgling work on word associations, typology is one of the few parts of Jung's work that has seen some use by academic psychologists. Experimental researchers have found that Jung's typology “presents some hypotheses which are amenable to experimentation,” whereas the rest of Jung's work is generally seen as “unscientific, and has consequently been dismissed.”¹ Jung's original theory of the psychological types has been cultivated and schematized to create the widely-used type tests.² What is interesting to note here is that many of these type tests were invented and are used by people who do not consider themselves Jungians. By far the most successful typology inventory on the market today is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It was developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katherine Briggs. Neither were Jungian analysts.³ The MBTI is regularly used by career counselors and human resource departments to assess potential clients throughout the world.⁴ 1.5 to 2 million people take the test every year in the United States alone.⁵ Additionally there are various other type inventories that draw from Jung's typology that are systematized very similarly to the MBTI, and were developed either analogous to the MBTI or derived directly from it.⁶ Some of these, such as The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS), have also enjoyed considerable success.⁷ Irrespective of the brand, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and its kin typologies also enjoy widespread popularity on the internet: one typology message board alone has over a million posts and 14,000 registered users.⁸ Thus, Jungian typology and its offspring have propagated far into society.

That said, many academic psychologists dismiss the notion of personality types, or at the very least they are hesitant to use type inventories for experimental research.⁹ The statistical validity of type inventories has been questioned. In a particularly negative review of one offshoot of typology, clinical psychologist Terry Sandbek suggests that typology is akin to astrology and is suspect to the phenomenon called the Forer Effect, where type profiles are written to be vague and positive enough so that virtually anyone will agree with their result.¹⁰ To be dismissed as unscientific is a trend typology shares with other branches of Jung's psychology, and in his article Sandbek takes the time to dismiss the grandfather of types himself:

The mention of Carl Jung’s name for adding credibility is also dubious [...]Though many mental health professionals claim to be Jungians, none of them are scientists. Jungians have the opposite orientation of scientists by embracing mysticism and even the occult[...] Jung was a closet racist, devoted to neo-paganism, and suspicious of scientific findings that did not fit his theories. He conducted no research but offered his hypotheses with a strength of conviction that still sways the scientifically naive.¹¹

Considering this passage as well as typology's notable popularity, it is therefore ironic that the detractors of personality types include not just academic psychologists but many Jungians themselves. John Beebe notes that typology is a “hard sell” amongst Jungian analysts.¹² A study published by Plaut in the early seventies suggested that less than half of Jungian analysts even use typing in their clinical work.¹³ In general, it would seem that many Jungians hold reservations about typology for being rather systematic compared to the rest of Jung's methods.¹⁴ The study of personality types is essentially an offshoot of analytical psychology in the same way that analytical psychology was an offshoot to psychoanalysis: Just as many Jungians do not observe the principles of psychoanalysis, many typologists do not consider themselves Jungians or adhere to any tenants of analytical psychology beyond some scant references to the appendix of Psychological Types.¹⁵ The disconnect here is mutual: In Jungian studies typology is simply not emphasized in the same way that other aspects of Jungian theory are. In the 2011-2012 academic year, the curriculum for the MA in Jung and Post-Jungian Studies at the University of Essex, one of the foremost programs for Jungian studies in the world, held a total of 72 classes divided evenly into four modules held across two terms. Out of those 72 classes, a dozen classes focused directly on archetypes, with virtually every class touching upon them in some way, but just one session dealt with psychological types. Furthermore a module dedicated to the “Key Texts of C.G. Jung” never once touched upon volume six of his Collected Works, Psychological Types.¹⁶ The situation is no different in the clinical setting: Beebe laments that many clinicians do not “even recognise the eight function-attitudes,” and that, for instance, they confuse “introverted feeling with introverted intuition,” or do not know elementary things such as “the difference between extraverted and introverted thinking, and so on[...] many do not really understand the difference between introversion and extraversion as processes in the self.”¹⁷ In other words, the gulf between Jungians and typologists is vast.

With this in mind one gets the impression that personality typology has nothing of import for analytical psychology. But the truth is that typology offers a powerful complement to the rest of Jungian theory: While the bulk of analytical psychology is concerned with the nature of the unconscious, typology focuses on the nature of the conscious- a psychology of the ego. Additionally the Jungian scholar Sonu Shamdasani has observed that typology grew out of Jung's desire to wrestle with the 'personal equation,' or the inevitable relativity that comes with the subjectivity of psychological research. Typology was part of Jung's effort to create a superordinate science. Says Shamdasani:

If all knowledge, if all psychology, is determined by one's personal equation, what chance is there of any objectivity, of any means of adjudicating between the claims of rival theories, or any possibility of a unified science of psychology? Jung's attempted solution was to provide a theory of the subjective determinants of the personal equation. Not only would this secure the scientific and objective status of psychology, psychology itself would be a superordinate science, as it alone could provide an explanation of the subjective determinants of all knowledge. This issue was predominant in[...] Psychological Types.¹⁸

It is also interesting to note that the psychological types initially grew out of Jung's work in William James' practical psychology, which tried to deal with the personal equation by creating methods that were useful to people even if they did not necessarily correspond with reality. This inspired Jung's own synthetic or constructive method. As Shamdasani writes, “while a scientific theory remained an ultimate goal, the time for this had not yet arrived. The value of the constructive method was that it gave rise to concepts that were practically useful.”¹⁹ In Jung and the Making of a Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science, Shamdasani highlights Jung's struggle to make a psychology that was not merely clinical useful, but also a descriptive science. In many ways typology is a manifestation of this struggle, for on one hand Jung had crafted a theory meant to link the individual and the universal, a possible solution to relativism in science, and yet after the publication of Psychological Types he referred to his typology as a “critical system of orientation,” something for practical psychologists and not a true “characterology.”²⁰

Thus it would seem that typology does indeed offer something important not just in the context of analytical psychology, but also in the epistemology of psychological research. Typology forms a vital complement to the rest of analytical psychology: for while the bulk of analytical psychology is concerned with unconscious processes, typology is Jung's psychology of the ego. To properly assess typology's place in both the legacy of Jung and psychology as a whole, it seems prudent to unpack how typology has evolved over the years, and perhaps more importantly disentangle the original theory from succeeding iterations. A deeper look into the history of typology and the variations of type theory will perhaps underscore the importance of typology and, as Jungian typologist John Beebe hopes, motivate “many more analytical psychologists to become much more type-literate than they are nowadays. Then we can hope for some interesting research that follows up the implication of Jung's theory of psychological types, research that can also move our understanding of the actual path of individuation forward.”²¹

While post-Jungians such as Loomis and Singer have done interesting work in challenging the mechanics of Jung's typology, this autopsy of typology's development focuses largely on four central figures.²² This lineage demonstrates how the theory has essentially embraced social psychology far more than Jung originally envisioned. The reader should keep in mind two points lest they desire to drown in a sea of typological jargon. One, it will prove enlightening to observe what aspect of the psyche each of these four typologists place the utmost premium on. Two, note where typologists place the starting point for their models: individual functions or a complete personality type. In other words, some typologists start from the bottom and work upwards, others choose a top-down approach. Some we will see avoid reductionism altogether.

Carl Jung's Psychological Types²³

In 1921 Jung publishes Psychological Types. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung states:

This work sprang originally from my need to define the ways in which my outlook differed from Freud's and Adler's. In attempting to answer this question, I came across the problem of types; for it is one's psychological type which from the outset determines and limits a person's judgment. My book, therefore, was an effort to deal with the relationship of the individual to the world, to people and things. It discussed the various attitudes the conscious mind might take to the world, to people and things. It discussed the various aspects of consciousness, the various attitudes the conscious mind might take toward the world, and thus constitutes a psychological of consciousness regarded from what might be called a clinical angle[...] The book on types yielded the insight that every judgment made by an individual is conditioned by his personality type and that every point of view is necessarily relative.²⁴

Thus Jung himself effectively states that he was setting out to create an ego psychology. He also affirms the fact that Psychological Types was an attempt to tackle the problem of relativism in science. This passage from MDR also propagates the commonly-held belief that typology grew out of Jung's desire to do justice to the differences between his psychological theory and those of his former colleagues, Freud and Adler. There is certainly truth to this, though as Jung began delineating aspects of type four years prior to his split with Freud, his motives are a good deal more ambitious than personal reconciliations. Actually, Jung first recognized that there were at least two varying styles of consciousness appeared in his work on word association back in 1902.²⁵ From the results, Jung and his colleague Riklin noted that two recognizable types emerged:

1. A type in whose reactions, subjective, often feeling-toned experiences are used.
2. A type whose reactions show an objective, impersonal tone.²⁶

A decade later, Jung tried to explain the split of Freud and Adler by applying the notions of 'tender-minded' and 'toughminded' from William James' practical psychology:

At the time [1912], Jung was envisaging psychoanalysis as a pluralistic discipline capable of containing divergent viewpoints and approaches within it[...] While Adler's perspective corresponded to the “tender-minded” viewpoint, Freud's corresponded to the “toughminded.” In conclusion, he claimed that what was at work in the Adler-Freud opposition was a clash of unconscious world views.²⁷

Then, in 1913, in a lecture delivered to the Psychoanalytic Congress in Munich, Jung went a step further and began to formulate a new theory of the libido. Sonu Shamdasani explains:

Jung contrasted the clinical portraits of hysteria and schizophrenia. He summed up the difference by stating that the former consisted in a centrifugal movement of the libido, while the latter consisted in a centripetal one. This centrifugal movement, in which the subject's interest was predominantly directed towards the outer world, he termed extraversion. The centripetal movement, in which the subject's interest was direct towards himself, he termed introversion.²⁸

Jung first used the term introversion in 1909. Over the next four years he took James' categories and reframed them in terms of his new theory of the libido. Jung's argument is that “Freud's work presented an example of an extraverted theory, and that Adler's work represented an example of an introverted theory.”²⁹

Thus we see that Jung's origin point for his typology, introversion and extraversion, did not come out solely from his efforts to examine the differences between competing psychological theories, but also from his reformulation of the libido that was also occurring at this time. Shamdasani also makes note of Jung's interest in creating a psychology that could overcome such personal biases. He speculates that “such a psychology would be able to surpass the conflict between introverted and extraverted theories, through presenting a theory that was not shaped by a typological bias, and hence resolved the problem of the personal equation.”³⁰

While the years following Jung's break with Freud are most well known for Jung's ensuing breakdown and his writing of the so-called Black Books, it is interesting to point out that during this period he was mapping out the schematics of his typological theory. Between 1913 and 1921 he gradually teases out the other aspects of the psychological types: the functions of thinking, feeling, sensing and intuition. While Jung would take the bulk of the credit for these definitions as the result of countless hours with his patients, the truth is that Jung's various collaborators at the time helped mold the theory. It was Maria Moltzer, for instance, who first devised the function of intuition.³¹³² Beebe succinctly describes how the development unfolded:

In the next seven years, with the help of Hans Schmid-Guisan and Toni Wolff, Jung began to unpack his typological theory. The correspondence with Schmid-Guisan particularly helped him to examine and get past his preliminary equation of feeling with extraversion and thinking with introversion. His close associate Toni Wolff made him aware that beyond extraversion-introversion and thinking-feeling, which so far organised the psyche along strictly rational grounds, there was another axis of orientation altogether that his theory would need to take into account, the 'irrational' axis of sensation-intuition...³³

Thus, Jung's colleagues helped sculpt his completed typology:

By the time he came to write Psychological Types in 1919 and 1920, he had already envisioned a sophisticated system of analysis of types of consciousness characterised by four main dichotomies: extraverison-introversion, thinking-feeling, sensation-intuition and rational-irrational. It was this system that he continued to defend for the rest of his life and that informed all subsequent work on Jung's psychological types.³⁴

The starting point to determining one's psychological type in Jung's model is the axis of extraversion and introversion: Is a person's psychic energy focused first and foremost outward, towards the object, or inward, towards the subject? This describes the dominant attitude of the individual. But in addition to this topic of orientation towards the inner or outer, as Jung illuminated in his analysis of Freud and Adler, there are the four functions or properties³⁵ of consciousness.³⁶ Jung identified the functions as thinking, which is the property of impersonally assessing what a thing is, what category it may belong to, and what is its logical purpose; feeling, which is the function of considering the value of something, assessing the effect and affect a thing has on oneself or other people; sensation, the property of digesting information through the five senses, informing us what is immediately and concretely available to us; and intuition, which tells us what could be, where something may go, hunches without tangible evidence. Furthermore Jung divided the functions into two pairs, a rational pair (thinking and feeling) and an irrational pair (sensation and intuition). The logic here is that the functions are grouped into the tasks they perform: thinking and feeling act as determinants or decision-making functions (hence rational), whereas Jung saw intuition and sensation as dealing more with the experience and perception of reality (irrational). Eventually Jung would adopt the terms crafted by Isabel Myers: perceiving for irrational and judging for rational.³⁷³⁸

Each individual has all four of these functions, just as every person has tendencies towards both introversion and extraversion. But because consciousness typically has an unambiguous aim, says Jung, one function is dominant over the others in each individual. This leads to a preliminary result of four possible types. However, a person also has a dominant attitude (introversion or extraversion) that colors the functions in distinct ways. While the brevity of this paper does not allow for greater exposition, one example would be that an introverted-thinking type obsesses with their own thoughts, while the extraverted-thinking-type instead “becomes enamored of established ideas.”³⁹ By multiplying the four functions with introversion and extraversion we now have eight possible types.⁴⁰

But as Jung explains, there is also a secondary function:

Closer investigation shows with great regularity that, besides the most differentiated function, another, less differentiated function of secondary importance is invariably present in consciousness and exerts a co-determining influence[...] Its secondary importance is due to the fact that it is not, like the primary function, valid in its own right as an absolutely reliable and decisive factor, but comes into play more as an auxiliary or complementary function.⁴¹

This auxiliary function is not randomly assigned. It is determined by the nature of the dominant function:

Naturally only those functions can appear as auxiliary whose nature is not opposed to the dominant function. For instance, feeling can never act as the second function alongside thinking, because it is by its very nature too strongly opposed to thinking. Thinking, if it is to be real thinking and true to its own principle, must rigorously exclude feeling[...] Experience shows that the secondary function is always one whose nature is different from, though not antagonistic to, the primary function. Thus, thinking as the primary function can readily pair with intuition as the auxiliary, or indeed equally well with sensation, but, as already observed, never with feeling. Neither intuition nor sensation is antagonistic to thinking; they need not be absolutely excluded, for they are not of a nature equal and opposite to thinking, as feeling is which, as a judging function, successfully competes with thinking-but are functions of perception, affording welcome assistance to thought.⁴²

Thus, the possible dominant-auxiliary combinations yield sixteen personality types. Jung also states that the two functions that do note make up the dominant-auxiliary axis of a person's ego create an unconscious axis that correspond in a predictable way: a person's inferior functions will be the exact opposite of their conscious tendencies. So for instance, an extraverted sensing-type with a secondary function of introverted feeling would have a crude tertiary function of extraverted thinking and a fourth, completely unconscious inferior function of introverted intuition.⁴³ We now have a picture not just of the person's ego, but their shadow as well.

In short, Jung's emphasis on attitudes and his subsequent description of functions allow us to systematically describe not just a person's ego, but their ego's interaction with the unconscious. But while Jung laid out the groundwork of sixteen possible types, he himself never formalized this model. One reason may have been that his own position was that typology acted as a compass and to take it further would inevitably lead to pigeonholing.⁴⁴ In the 1940s the Gray-Wheelrights were the first to created a formal inventory based off psychological types.⁴⁵ Interestingly though, the first derivative of Jung's typology occurred before Psychological Types was even published: In 1922 Beatrice Hinkle, Jung's most ardent supporter in America at the time, published an article named “A Study of Psychological Types.” Though published after Jung's book, she had written it “prior to reading his work.” Consequently Hinkle's derivations began solely with the notion of introversion and extraversion: she thought both concepts needed to be further nuanced, and broke them down into three categories: objective, simple, and subjective. Whereas the simple types “corresponded to Jung's original classification,” the other two groups did not. Hinkle believed that these other two groups comprised the majority of people. Obviously this is a very different model from that of Jung's, which led to the question of whether or not both models were limited by the typologies of their respective creators⁴⁶

All this aside, the most successful descendant of psychological types, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, would loyally adhere to Jung's classifications but at the same time would present a system that would be copied by competing models for years to come.

Isabel Myers: Gifts Differing

Myers formalized Jung's model by officially classifying the sixteen types and then categorizing them into groups based on the dominant function. She classified each type by formulated a notation for each axis, as seen below:

Attitude: (E) Extraversion (I) Introversion

Irrational/Perceiving Function: (N) Intuition (S) Sensation

Rational/Judging Function: (T) Thinking (F) Feeling

Expressive Irrational/Rational: (P) Perceiving (J) Judging

The notation allows us to effectively classify the various types. For instance, someone who is a dominant extraverted thinker (shorthand Te) and a secondary introverted intuitive (shorthand Ni) would therefore be predominantly extraverted (E), more intuitive than sensing (N), a great thinker than feeler (T) and expressively judging in their interactions with the world (J). Therefore the shorthand for their personality type would be ENTJ.⁴⁷

As noted previously, Myers threw out the words 'rational' and 'irrational' and replaced them with the clearer 'perceiving' and 'judging.' She also determined that a person was more perceiving or judging based not on whether the most differentiated perceiving or judging function was the dominant, but rather which of the two conscious functions were extraverted. For instance, an INFJ, despite having a dominant perceiving function of introverted intuition, would be classified as a J, because they interacted with the world primarily through extraverted feeling.⁴⁸ Some post-Jungians as well as other offshoots to typology, such as the Russian-based Socionics, would dissent from this logic.⁴⁹ Nevertheless, Myers' thinking here demonstrates a trend towards seeing the whole type as greater than the parts. At the same time she still adheres to Jung's model by placing utmost importance on extraversion-introversion and categorizes the types based on functions.

David Keirsey: Portaits of Temperament

David Keirsey first unveiled his model in 1976. Later on he would acknowledge the debt he owed to Isabel Myers in the creation of his own 'personology,' and he would stress the importance of Jung's hypothesis that differences in people innately existed. That aside Keirsey's model differs from Jung and Myers in many respects. He accuses Myers of “unwittingly adopting Jung's 19^th century elementalism, which assumed that personality could be pieced together from independent elements,” whereas Keirsey describes himself as a subscriber to “organismic wholism.”⁵⁰Classifying types purely through behavior and action, he notes:

I must say I have never found a use for [the] scheme of psychological functions, and this is because function typology sets out to define different people's mental make-up- what's in their heads- something which is not observable, and is thus unavoidably subjective, a matter of speculation, and occasionally of projection. A good example of the difficulties such guesswork can introduce is the way in which Jung and Myers confound introversion with intuition, saying that the introverted types are the ones “interested in ideas and concepts,” while the extraverted types are “interested in people and things.” In my view, which is based on close observation of people's use of words, the intuitives are the ones primarily interested in ideas and concepts, while the sensing types are those primarily concerned with concrete things. Indeed, after forty years or so of typewatching, I have not found any [sensing types] who were more inclined to discuss conceptual matters[...] than to discuss factual matters[...] The sensing types are more perceptual than conceptual, while the intuitive types[...] are more conceptual than perceptual.⁵¹

Ergo Keirsey challenges the very need for functions themselves. In addition he also doubts that extraversion and introversion play such a strong role in determining type:

In my view [introversion and extraversion] border on trivial compared to S-N, and is much less useful than T-F and J-P. Presumably extreme introverts and extreme extraverts are easy to spot, and that may be the reason the Jungians and therefore the Myersians consider the concept so important.[...] Important or not, Myers's E-I scale is badly flawed because she inherited Jung's error of confusing extraversion with observation (S) and introversion with introspection (N).⁵²

Therefore, Keirsey takes a strong turn from the Jung-Myers lineage by placing so little importance on the I-E axis. Indeed, in Portraits of Temperament he describes only eight types by virtually ignoring I-E altogether.⁵³ Keirsey instead finds the S-N axis to be the greatest divisor between people. Based on his observations he then divides the types into four groups: sensing-perceivers, sensing-judgers, intuitive-thinkers, intuitive-feelers. Keirsey argues that his four temperaments are the same social quaternity described throughout history since the Greeks spoke of four bodily humors that determined a person's character and health.⁵⁴ Thus, Keirsey differs starkly from Jung-Myers while at the same time provides us with an efficient way of categorizing the types, as well as a top-down typology that relies on societal roles and largely ignores individual functions.

We now have a system that focuses on societal roles, placing greater import on intuition and sensation than introversion and extraversion while essentially discarding the need for functions altogether. This change would not seem heretical just to Jungians: The Myers and Keirsey camps famously do not get along or share much in the way of information.⁵⁵ This may leave the reader with the impression that typology does not have much to offer analytical psychology after all. However, our final typologist seems to have found a way to effectively bridge the developments in typology with the core tenants of Jungian psychology.

John Beebe: The Eight-Function Model

Following the work of Marie-Louise Von Franz, John Beebe's eight-function typology model is unique for two reasons: One, Beebe preserves the existence of functions- additionally he argues that each person has all eight functions (the original four times the two attitudes). Secondly, he links each of these functions with an archetypal figure. For instance, the dominant function corresponds to the hero archetype, whereas the inferior function is symbolized by the anima/animus. The four functions that Beebe claims are beneath the inferior would comprise the shadow. What Beebe has done here then is create a model that appeals to the Jungians by bridging functions with the archetypes of individuation. The point is that typology not only describes different ego styles, but also can be used as a map for the individuating process- a possibly invaluable tool in the therapy room. As Beebe explains:

It has not always been clear to students of Jung's analytical psychology what his famous 'types' are types of. But for Jung, they were types of consciousness, that is, characteristic orientations assumed by the ego in establishing and discriminating an individual's inner and outer reality. For psychotherapists, an understanding of these different natural cognitive stances can be invaluable in the daily work of supporting the basic strengths of their clients' personalities and of helping a particular consciousness to recognise its inherent limitations. The understanding of individual differences communicated on the basis of this theory can reduce a client's shame at areas of relative ego weakness and diminish the client's need to buttress the ego with strong defences that complicate treatment.⁵⁶

In addition Beebe has noted various fellow Jungians such as James Hillman who expostulated upon types in some way, usually through a connection to the archetypal, the message being that typology is not a dead subject to all analytical psychologists, and that it in fact has something to offer the Jungian community.⁵⁷

The Pygmalion Project

In the legacy of Carl Jung, typology is Jung's ego psychology, his compass to individuation, and the product of his wrestling with the useful and the actual. Though scorned by some researchers, others outside of the Jungian community have adopted it and have effectively created an entire separate field of study. But Beebe's model indicates that typology can potentially offer Jungians the best of all worlds: a social psychology, an ego psychology, and a map to the unconscious.

Indeed, typology does indeed act as a guide to coming to grips with the shadow. But as Keirsey stresses, perhaps the most valuable aspect of typology is that it eschews the Pygmalion habit of attempting to mold people to become things they are not. Rather, typology accepts and encourages the diverse differences amongst people.⁵⁸ No matter what person or model, what may be the most significant contribution that typology makes to analytical psychology, and to psychology as a whole, is celebration of the individual.

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1Sonu Shamdasani, Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: A Dream of a Science”, (Cambridge, 2003), 30.

2John Beebe, “Psychological Types,” Ch.6 in The Handbook of Jungian Psychology, Ed. By Renos K. Papadopoulos, (Routledge, 2006) 146.

3Ibid., 146.

4Ibid., 147.

5Ron Zemke, “Seconds Thoughts about the MBTI,” in Training, (5) April 1992 vol. 29, 43.

6Beebe, “Psychological Types,” 146.

7David Keirsey, Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, (Prometheus, 1998).

8“Typology Central Statistics,” Typology Central, accessed 13 April 2012, http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/forum.php

9Zemke, “Second Thoughts about The MBTI.”Training 29, no. 4 (1992): 43.

10Terry Sandbek, “Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading,” from The American Board of Sports Psychology, accessed 10 April 2012, http://www.americanboardofsportpsychology.org/

11Sandbek, “Brain Typing,” accessed 10 April 2012, http://www.americanboardofsportpsychology.org/

12Beebe, “Psychological Types,” 148.

13F. Plaut, “Analytical psychologists and psychological types: comment on replies to a survey,” Journal of Analytical Psychology, 1972, 17(2): 137-151.

14Observed in class lectures given on 23 November 2011 by Jim Fitzgerald and 7 March 2012 by Mark Saban, for PA973, University of Essex.

15David Keirsey, Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, (Prometheus, 1998).

16“Course Materials: Centre for psychoanalytic studies,” University of Essex e-learning: course materials repository, accessed 28 April 2012, http://courses.essex.ac.uk/pa/default.aspx

17Beebe, “Psychological Types,” 148.

18Shamdasani, “Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology,” 75.

19Ibid., 65.

20Ibid., 87.

21John Beebe, “Psychological Types,” Ch.6 in The Handbook of Jungian Psychology, Ed. By Renos K. Papadopoulos, (Routledge, 2006) 149.

22 Loomis and Singer, “Testing the bipolar assumption in Jung's typology,” Journal of Analytical Psychology (1980) 25:4 351-6.

23Author Note: While Jung first referred to his typology as the psychological types, they are popularly known simply as personality types. At times Jung himself seems to use these phrases interchangeably. Those associated with the MBTI call their subject 'personality types' or 'personality typology,' whereas David Keirsey opts for the term 'personology.' To avoid confusion in this paper, note that the term 'psychological types' refers specifically to Jung's original formulations, while 'personality types' correspond to the MBTI and similar offshoots. 'Typology' is used as an all-encompassing umbrella term that encapsulates both Jung's original theories and all its derivatives.

24C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, (Vintage, 1965) 207.

25Beebe, “Psychological Types,” 130-131.

26C.G. Jung, “Experimental Researches,” The Collected Works (Bollingen, Princeton, 1971), vol. 2, pp. 148.

27Shamdasani, “Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology,” 57.

28Ibid., 62.

29Ibid., 62.

30Ibid., 63.

31C.G. Jung, “Psychological Types,” The Collected Works (Bollingen, Princeton, 1971), vol. 6.

32Shamdasani, “Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology”, 70-72.

33Beebe, “Psychological Types,” 131.

34Ibid., 131.

35Andrew Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians (Routledge, 1985), 62.

36C.G. Jung, C.W., vol. 6.

37C.G. Jung, C.W., vol. 6.

38Isabel Myers, “Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type,” (Davies-Black, 1995) 2^nd ed.

39Beebe, “Psychological Types,” 137.

40C.G. Jung, C.W., vol. 6.

41C.G. Jung, C.W., vol. 6, pp. 667.

42Ibid., pp. 667-669.

43Ibid., pp. 668-671.

44Shamdasani, 60-99.

45Beebe, 146.

46Shamdasani, 81.

47Myers, “Gifts Differing.”

48Ibid.

49David Keirsey, Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, (Prometheus, 1998).

50Ibid., 30.

51Keirsey, “Please Understand Me II,” 30.

52Ibid., 331.

53David Keirsey, “Portraits of Temperament,” (Prometheus, 1988).

54Keirsey, “Please Understand Me II.”

55Ibid.

56Beebe, “Psychological Types,” 130.

57Ibid., 141.

58Keirsey, Please Understand Me II.