Idiomdrottning is pondering the MBTI drawback: putting people in
categories instead of the multidimensional spectrum that is
better demonstrated by the big five.
It's true that MBTI obviously does not reflect reality, because
of the binary basis. It is even worse when you go into the
shadow functions, since there are certain rules about the order
of the functions that are quite suspicious. It's also unclear
how much of all that is what Jung meant.
I have found the types useful, though, not so much to help me do
something with my own personality (although, when I was younger
it was helpful to find that there is a type for my rather
rare collection of features). The best use for the types, for me,
was to help understand other people. The way the functions are
defined turns it into character descriptions, which is something
you don't get with big five. You just get the percentages
and you can say that you are more openminded than most, but get
no idea of how that meshes with being more conscious as well.
The MBTI binary makes it easy to step-by-step focus into
someone's type. You don't even have to define all of the
functions, you could just have two letters that you are quite
sure of and this already helps you understand the person better.
My defence for the types is actually sort of a tautology, but
since it is about psychology, it turns into a self-fulfilling
prophecy: If you define some, any, categories and put people
in them, the existance of these categories turns into a tool
even if the categories are based on less than solid foundation.
The people who are put in the categories define the categories.
I haven't much thought about the types in a long time. I think
I am good enough understanding people that I don't really need
to keep on thinking about the types. And when it comes to self-
analysis, I focus more on how I have developed and what sort of
traumas I have to work with. Seems more actionable.
