On Taking the MBTI

INFJ.  According to the interpretive report of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator I recently took under the care of my spiritual director, INFJ is the "type" that best describes me.  "I," indicating my tendency towards introversion; "N," indicating my preferred intuitive ways of perceiving; "F," revealing my tendency to base conclusions on feelings and relationships; and "J," indicating my preference for decisiveness and planfulness. 

I decided to take the MBTI for the second time (the first time was when, as a high school student, I attended a Catholic youth leadership conference in Boston) for two reasons.  First, I've been struggling to know better what my professional "next steps" should be.  I have probably exhausted some of my friends, "testing" some of my vocational ideas on them.  The latest?  This week, I begin a course in Pastoral Counseling at Fordham, with the intention of matriculating in the program.  Perhaps it will be everything I've been looking for...perhaps it won't.  My work with a spiritual director (who is also quite skilled in career/vocational counseling) has helped me to get to this point, and the MBTI is one test that she is qualified to administer and interpret.  The second reason I took the MBTI is because it can be a very powerful tool for spiritual growth.  And no matter where I am in my life (confident in my chosen vocational path/lost amid the many options, married/single, etc.), I am always called to grow.  Maturity is never a final destination.  The spirit can always become more expansive.

So a few months ago, I was given a test that took a little less than one hour to complete.  There were a series of questions that I was instructed to answer "naturally," "without thinking too hard."  Once completed, I mailed the test to an agency that would "score" the report and return it to my Director, who would then help me to understand its results.  Last week, for about an hour, my Director and I unpacked the results. 

I'm an INFJ.  I am not at all surprised by this.  When I took the Myers Briggs in high school, and was identified as tending towards "introversion," I was bothered by this identification.  In fact, my high school self started to cry (?!?)--I guess this was because I wanted to be more gregarious.  I wanted to be the "social butterfly" who was at ease with groups and who could inititate conversations.  But deep down I knew that I preferred more intimate relationships (which actually take a lot of time for me to cultivate), that I was reflective and needed a significant amount of quiet time and space, and that I am far more reserved than I let on.  I wasn't surprised, further, that I tend to focus on the abstract and conceptual, the "big picture," sometimes at the expense of the concrete and sensible.  Even as I wasn't surprised by these things, I was grateful for this opportunity to deepen my self-knowledge and to grow in self-acceptance. 

But what I was surprised to discover, with the help of my Spiritual Director, was that spiritual growth involves not simply the acceptance of who I really am (the ways in which I tend to perceive things, the ways I tend to make decisions, etc.).  It requires a kind of "dabbling" in those ways towards which I am not inclined--not a betrayal of self, but an expansion of self.  The thinker behind the MBTI (although he wasn't its author) was Jung, whose work emphasized human wholeness.  Thus, while I am a "planful" person who prefers routine and order, I might do well to allow for some open-endedness and sponteneity.  While I am an "imaginative" person who loves the conceptual and abstract, I would do well to dabble a bit in the concrete and the practical. 

My husband, John, has agreed to take the test as well.  The MBTI, when administered and interpreted properly, might very well be a great tool for couples, who have their own "ways" but must learn to love, live and work with one another.  I look forward to discovering more about him and learning to grow with him.

And I'd recommend it for you, too.  At the very, very least, it's a fun way to spend a few hours, especially in these winter months, when we all are so longing for new life and light....