THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR®
The story of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator began during World War I when a uniquely gifted and tenacious American woman named Katharine Cook Briggs (INFJ) became so intrigued by the personality differences she observed around her that she set about the serious study of personality types. Once involved, she constructed a theory based upon her own empirical observations and the study of biography. In the process of her research she came upon a book entitled Psychological Types by the renown Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. His work so informed her own that she became a devoted student of Jung and later integrated his system of thought into her own theory.
Katharine Briggs homeschooled her daughter, Isabelle (INFP), until she entered Swarthmore College at seventeen -- later graduating first in her class. Following her graduation, Isabelle married, had children, and wrote and published two mystery novels -- one a prize winner. With the outbreak of World War II, her life expanded dramatically. While her mother's work with Jungian typology had always been a major influence in her life, World War II and its resultant chaos, devastation, and suffering was the underlying catalyst and impulse behind the creation of a "Type Indicator." In wanting to do all she could to help human beings understand each other in the hopes of preventing future wars she set about designing her famous psychometric instrument, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® -- a self-report instrument taken by an average of 2 million Americans annually.
"The shared vision of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers was to enable individuals to grow through an understanding and appreciation of individual differences in healthy personality and to enhance harmony and productivity among diverse groups. Briggs and Myers believed that Carl Jung's understanding of human development, his theoretical model encompassing psychological type, his concept of the process of individuation, and his structure of the psyche offered the most promising approach. Their mission was to give the individual access to this understanding. " [Katharine Downing Myers and Peter Briggs Myers,1998 MBTI® Manual, Third Edition:]
The current MBTI® is the most widely-used instrument of its kind for understanding normal personality differences. It has successfully been used in the areas of:
Self-understanding and Development
Career Development and Exploration
Organization Development
Team Building
Management and Leadership Training and Development
Probelm Solving
Education amd Curriculum Development
Relationship and Family Counseling
Conflict Resolution
Diversity and Multicultural Training
Academic Counseling
Spiritual Development
