Have you ever been puzzled by the behaviour of people around you? As Chris Nancollasexplains, the MBTI could help you to understand different personality types
I first encountered the Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI), the world's most popular psychometric test, on a general practitioner refresher course. The reaction of my fellow GPs, a tough audience at the best of times, was pretty mixed. One man next to me muttered “bloody astrology” and disappeared during the interval. Yet, for me, the MBTI was, and remains, the most important thing I've studied since medical school. Suddenly, the chaos of human relationships was reduced to order, and perhaps more intriguingly, an order which was subconsciously familiar.
The MBTI is a questionnaire which expresses an individual's personality in four parameters: Extroversion or Introversion, Sensing or iNtuition, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. A person's personality type comes out as ENTP or ISFJ and so on. There are 16 possible types. My own type is INTP. The best way to understand how it works is to examine each of the paired parameters.
Extroversion or introversion
People who prefer extroversion focus their energy on the external world, while those who prefer introversion focus on their internal world. Put simply, the extrovert relaxes by going down the pub, the introvert by reading a book. Much to my surprise I preferred introversion, which means I need solitary time to recharge my batteries, learn best by reflection, and tend to be private and contained. Before I discovered the MBTI, I would come home from work absolutely exhausted, having spent the day reacting non-stop with the outside world. Armed with my personality type, I realised I had to build in quiet periods where I had time to marshal my thoughts. The second advantage of knowing my preference was shedding the guilt I used to feel about not going to evening lectures and meetings. I always knew I learnt better through reading.
Sensing or intuition
The second pair of letters, sensing or intuition, shows how you take in information, which is of particular importance in consulting. Sensers like facts and figures, concrete reality, while intuitives prefer the big picture and make mental leaps. One thing I found particularly wearisome, as an intuitive, were patients who insisted on knowing every single practical detail of their treatment: “And what time do you take the pill, doctor?... With food or without food?... And what sort of food do you take it with?” Type theory shows that these are merely people who prefer sensing to take in information. The corresponding conversation with an intuitive, “Yeah, whatever,” is equally likely to irritate the sensing doctor. People who prefer sensing are in the majority in the population, so information is more likely to be presented in the form of protocols, flow charts, and guidelines. There are a surprising number of intuitives in medicine, which accounts for the often violent opposition to frameworks and targets.
Thinking or feeling
Thinking or feeling, the way of making decisions, is the only one with a sex bias: men tend more towards thinking, while women prefer feeling. Empathy and compassion are the strengths of the preference for feeling, and explain why there are so many Fs in the healthcare professions. In a science as unpredictable as medicine, thinkers need to curb their naturally tough minded instincts and appreciate the human side of their decisions. Those who prefer feeling must balance their compassion with the need to be tough at times. Thinkers can get unnerved by people with labile emotions and need to recognise this.
Judging or perceiving
The last couplet, judging or perceiving, explains the individual's orientation to time, the judger being organised and scheduled while the perceiver is casual and open ended. In practice, I have found this, along with the I/E axis, to be the most fertile source of conflict, especially in partnerships. People who prefer judging tend to be the leaders in organisations, and they simply cannot understand the perceiver's habitual lateness, over-running surgeries, and general disorganisation. If, like me, you are a perceiver and you choose general practice, you need to get a handle on time management quickly.
Strength of the MBTI
Once you gain a working knowledge of personality type, the world around you becomes more understandable. Are your clinical meetings dominated by the same four or five people? Do you wonder why some people sit there hardly saying a word? Why, when you are constantly rearranging surgeries does one partner always run late? These are all examples of type behaviour.
And the MBTI can prevent conflict. I remember mentioning to my senior partner that I'd had some further thoughts about something we had discussed at a practice meeting. He exploded: “You're always doing this, coming out with things three days later. Why can't you speak up at the time like everyone else?” So I told him that this was the way my type worked, and anyway, there was no way anyone could get a word in edgeways because he, an outspoken E, completely dominated the proceedings. He burst out laughing, and from then on made an elaborate point of inviting everyone to say their piece.
Type theory will not be to everyone's taste, but I would strongly recommend it to anyone who, like me, is alternately fascinated and perplexed by the behaviour of those around us. ■
Further reading
- Briggs Myers I. An introduction to type. Oxford: Oxford Psychologists Press, 1994
- Houghton A. Understanding personality type. BMJ Careers 2004;329:177-8
About Author:
Chris Nancollas general practitioner Newham, Gloucestershire Nanco@aol.com
Content taken from http://careers.bmj.com
No comments:
Post a Comment