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Re-Modeling the Mind: Personality in Balance
Who doesn't love a personality theory? Unfortunately, to many readers, personality systems seem like checklists, confining boxes, or games and gimmicks. We know we're all unique and in some ways we never stop changing; at the same time, we humans do fall into groups that are somewhat predictable. A useful personality theory needs to define, explain, predict and still leave room for flexibility and uniqueness.
Building on Jungian philosophy and deep personal observation, Ruth Johnston presents a living model of human personality. Neuroscience tells us that the brain follows the dynamic principles of other natural systems and all living things. Innate abilities adapt and self-organize to meet the demands of learning, working, bonding with others and managing our feelings. Personality emerges from this dynamic adaptation as a predictable, understandable way of processing the world.
The dynamic model's power lies in understanding how it works, not merely in looking at end results and labels. Re-Modeling the Mind takes you step by step through the parts of personality, so that you can see for yourself how the model fits together and how it runs. It then lays out how the engine looks when categorized into traditional Myers-Briggs types, offering new interpretations along the way.
With a special section to discuss the sometimes hazy difference between normal personality variation and truly abnormal psychology, Johnston also discusses temperament categorization, relationships between various personality combinations, the need for dominance, and the care and maintenance of the personality engine in marriage.
With many keen insights, the author has built a thoughtful and—unlike most theories—highly useful model of the mind. Dense in ideas, but not in technical language, Re-Modeling the Personality in Balance is accessible to both professional and lay readers.
Building on Jungian philosophy and deep personal observation, Ruth Johnston presents a living model of human personality. Neuroscience tells us that the brain follows the dynamic principles of other natural systems and all living things. Innate abilities adapt and self-organize to meet the demands of learning, working, bonding with others and managing our feelings. Personality emerges from this dynamic adaptation as a predictable, understandable way of processing the world.
The dynamic model's power lies in understanding how it works, not merely in looking at end results and labels. Re-Modeling the Mind takes you step by step through the parts of personality, so that you can see for yourself how the model fits together and how it runs. It then lays out how the engine looks when categorized into traditional Myers-Briggs types, offering new interpretations along the way.
With a special section to discuss the sometimes hazy difference between normal personality variation and truly abnormal psychology, Johnston also discusses temperament categorization, relationships between various personality combinations, the need for dominance, and the care and maintenance of the personality engine in marriage.
With many keen insights, the author has built a thoughtful and—unlike most theories—highly useful model of the mind. Dense in ideas, but not in technical language, Re-Modeling the Personality in Balance is accessible to both professional and lay readers.
355 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 6, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 14, 2015
In a Nutshell
You should totally read this book; the author does a great job of describing human people more accurately than any other personality theory I've seen.
Background
The Myers-Briggs system, jumping off of Carl Jung's writings, draws several dichotomies in personalities. The S-N split describes how some people are more concrete and others more abstract. The T-F split describes a person's focus on numbers-thinking versus relationship-feelings. And so on. Books like Kiersey's Please Understand Me II develop the Myers-Briggs formulas into a proper conceptual framework for describing enduring personality traits evinced by people over time.
A New Theory
In Re-Modeling the Mind, the author develops a system of personality which is both new and old. She delves deeply into Carl Jung's writings, "fixing" distinctions that have got lost over time; at the same time, she melds in important features from modern cognitive research, citing relevant studies that provide support and imagery for her distinctions. While she uses the Myers-Briggs letters (I-E, N-S, T-F, P-J), she re-formulates them into a different overall picture of how personality works.
Pros
- The new theory makes many useful observations about real people's actual patterns of thought. I gained much insight into actual people I knew. For example, it had vaguely seemed to me before that there was something similar about my husband and one of our neighbors; now, thanks to this book, I have the vocabulary to describe it: the two of them both have Introverted Intuition.
- The author lays out straightforwardly how to place her personality theory in context; everyone is a unique individual, she firmly acknowledges, and some things are universal to all humans. Personality theory lies between the two; it is the search for which facets of our experience can be expected to continue, to help us predict our future needs. At the same time, she never makes her personality model sound like a one-size-fits-all solution; she has a section dedicated to the ways that her model can be used to understand people who don't fit her model perfectly. (Which is not as contradictory as it sounds.)
- The language of the book is highly accessible. Although the concepts are in-depth, the author does not resort to difficult terminology, instead laying the ideas out carefully, step by step, in normal language. The only "special" terms she uses are the ones she defines herself as the labels for the model.
- Each piece of the model, each segment of the personality theory, is laid out with both a description and examples from literary works. Historical figures are sometimes mentioned, too, to help the reader learn to transpose the theory onto reality for themselves.
- The author is correct that her model is dynamic instead of being a list of traits. Although I have found Kiersey's take on the Myers-Briggs model to be considerably helpful in my life, one complaint I have is that it fails to account for the way that people sometimes exhibit contradictory traits. Johnson's model portrays any individual as having ALL of the basic mental functions, with different orders of dominance. This gives a much greater flexibility to her model, a flexibility that is badly needed in any model hoping to capture the complexity of real people.
Cons
- While readable, the book is dense, with new ideas continually piled on. I had to read most of the book twice before I felt I had got it all straight in my mind.
- The book is not humorous, since it's meant as a scholarly topic. I felt it also would have benefitted from more personal anecdotes (there are three, if I recall correctly) to illustrate the author's model, but I've heard that the author left these out to avoid referencing family and friends without their permission.
Overall
This is a really good book, and I highly recommend it. Understanding why other people don't think the way you do is always a tricky thing for humans, and having a good personality model to help frame your expectations is fundamentally worthwhile.
You should totally read this book; the author does a great job of describing human people more accurately than any other personality theory I've seen.
Background
The Myers-Briggs system, jumping off of Carl Jung's writings, draws several dichotomies in personalities. The S-N split describes how some people are more concrete and others more abstract. The T-F split describes a person's focus on numbers-thinking versus relationship-feelings. And so on. Books like Kiersey's Please Understand Me II develop the Myers-Briggs formulas into a proper conceptual framework for describing enduring personality traits evinced by people over time.
A New Theory
In Re-Modeling the Mind, the author develops a system of personality which is both new and old. She delves deeply into Carl Jung's writings, "fixing" distinctions that have got lost over time; at the same time, she melds in important features from modern cognitive research, citing relevant studies that provide support and imagery for her distinctions. While she uses the Myers-Briggs letters (I-E, N-S, T-F, P-J), she re-formulates them into a different overall picture of how personality works.
Pros
- The new theory makes many useful observations about real people's actual patterns of thought. I gained much insight into actual people I knew. For example, it had vaguely seemed to me before that there was something similar about my husband and one of our neighbors; now, thanks to this book, I have the vocabulary to describe it: the two of them both have Introverted Intuition.
- The author lays out straightforwardly how to place her personality theory in context; everyone is a unique individual, she firmly acknowledges, and some things are universal to all humans. Personality theory lies between the two; it is the search for which facets of our experience can be expected to continue, to help us predict our future needs. At the same time, she never makes her personality model sound like a one-size-fits-all solution; she has a section dedicated to the ways that her model can be used to understand people who don't fit her model perfectly. (Which is not as contradictory as it sounds.)
- The language of the book is highly accessible. Although the concepts are in-depth, the author does not resort to difficult terminology, instead laying the ideas out carefully, step by step, in normal language. The only "special" terms she uses are the ones she defines herself as the labels for the model.
- Each piece of the model, each segment of the personality theory, is laid out with both a description and examples from literary works. Historical figures are sometimes mentioned, too, to help the reader learn to transpose the theory onto reality for themselves.
- The author is correct that her model is dynamic instead of being a list of traits. Although I have found Kiersey's take on the Myers-Briggs model to be considerably helpful in my life, one complaint I have is that it fails to account for the way that people sometimes exhibit contradictory traits. Johnson's model portrays any individual as having ALL of the basic mental functions, with different orders of dominance. This gives a much greater flexibility to her model, a flexibility that is badly needed in any model hoping to capture the complexity of real people.
Cons
- While readable, the book is dense, with new ideas continually piled on. I had to read most of the book twice before I felt I had got it all straight in my mind.
- The book is not humorous, since it's meant as a scholarly topic. I felt it also would have benefitted from more personal anecdotes (there are three, if I recall correctly) to illustrate the author's model, but I've heard that the author left these out to avoid referencing family and friends without their permission.
Overall
This is a really good book, and I highly recommend it. Understanding why other people don't think the way you do is always a tricky thing for humans, and having a good personality model to help frame your expectations is fundamentally worthwhile.
October 29, 2015
I'm only part way through the Re-Modeling the Mind, which I got in the Kindle version, but I stopped to order two copies of the trade paperback to give as gifts -- one to my mother, who has a doctorate in psychology applied to child development, and one for a young friend who has a deeper intuitive understanding of her fellow humans than anyone else I know. I can already see that I'll need to get a few more copies as gifts, particularly for a daughter who just started a career in management, who will find the notes on key external markers of the various personality types and what they want from managers and subordinates to be particularly useful. (My husband can just share mine when I'm done.)
I've been interested in the applications of the Myers-Briggs/Jungian personality matrix since the 1980s, and so started with Part Four: Relationships in Balance, in which Ms Johnston looks at how personality types function at work, in the family, and in marriage. I expected to be informed, as one usually is in a science popularization, but did not expect how often Ms Johnston's words caused me to see incidents and relationships I'd observed over the years in a new light. I'm going to reread this section again before going to the beginning to understand the underlying science and see how the charming drawings I noticed in flipping through the book will fit in. Oh -- and Ms Johnston has whole sections on the various personality parts in literature! But after jumping first to dessert, I am determined to do the rest of the book in proper order. :-)
I've been interested in the applications of the Myers-Briggs/Jungian personality matrix since the 1980s, and so started with Part Four: Relationships in Balance, in which Ms Johnston looks at how personality types function at work, in the family, and in marriage. I expected to be informed, as one usually is in a science popularization, but did not expect how often Ms Johnston's words caused me to see incidents and relationships I'd observed over the years in a new light. I'm going to reread this section again before going to the beginning to understand the underlying science and see how the charming drawings I noticed in flipping through the book will fit in. Oh -- and Ms Johnston has whole sections on the various personality parts in literature! But after jumping first to dessert, I am determined to do the rest of the book in proper order. :-)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews