Myers-Briggs personality types.

I'm normally rather skeptical when it comes to stuff like this and don't believe much in what it has to say but I was aware of the Myers-Briggs personality types and decided to find which I was through several tests available on the internet. Every time I got the same one so I'm fairly sure that's what "I" am. I was intrigued because although a lot of its description fits me I knew that a lot of it didnt, which I understand is normal for any person, let alone someone with DID. I decided to let each alter have a go, they either told me what to put or did it themselves and I was surprised to see that every alter had a different personality type. To summarize this is what we got. The info below is from various sources.

Me- INTJ- "The Scientist"
loner, more interested in intellectual pursuits than relationships or family, values solitude, perfectionist, detached, private, not much fun, hidden, skeptical, does not tend to like most people, socially uncomfortable, not physically affectionate, unhappy, does not talk about feelings, hard to impress, analytical.

Scott- ESFJ- "The Caregiver"
does not like being alone, loving, considerate, altruistic. ESFJs are people persons - they love people. They are warmly interested in others. They use their Sensing and Judging characteristics to gather specific, detailed information about others, and turn this information into supportive judgments. They want to like people, and have a special skill at bringing out the best in others.

Darren-ISTJ- "The Duty Fulfiller"
logical, analytical, does not accept apologies easily, hard working,avoids mistakes.The ISTJ is extremely dependable on following through with things which he or she has promised.

Ted- ENFJ- "The Giver"
outgoing, social, attention seeking,image conscious, good at getting people to have fun, easily excited. Because ENFJ's people skills are so extraordinary, they have the ability to make people do exactly what they want them to do. They get under people's skins and get the reactions that they are seeking. ENFJ's motives are usually unselfish, but ENFJs who have developed less than ideally have been known to use their power over people to manipulate them.

Dean- ENFP- "The Inspirer"
outgoing, social, disorganized, easily talked into doing silly things, spontaneous, wild and crazy, acts without thinking, good at getting people to have fun, pleasure seeking, irresponsible, physically affectionate, risk taker, thrill seeker, likely to have or want a tattoo.

Now of course not all of us fit perfectly into these personality types. There are many parts that are inaccurate but on the whole I was quite surprised with the results as it seemed to fit everybody well. It interested me to see how many parts of myself differ but at the same time have a lot of similarities. It made me question where I would fall if I was "normal". I wonder if I would still be an INTJ or something else.

I took this test about 6 years ago, and again sometime within the last year and I was an INFP both times. I took it 2 other times in between there and ended up as something different both times that didn't fit me at all so I brushed it off lol. The first and last time I took it, I really had to sit and focus hard to get through it. It's hard to get through tests like these for me bc my answer to every question is usually, "It depends on what 'mood' I'm in" lol.

Overall, though, INFP fits me perfectly, but now that you mention it, I'm wondering the same about myself. If I was 'normal' would it be different? If all parts were integrated into one, and if the trauma and abuse never happened, I would have to assume I would be different and so would the results.

This is actually a great topic for this forum, Hunter. People with DID have alters who have clearly differentiated tendencies or personalities, the latter used in the general connotation of the word meaning disposition, as in sunny personality or avoidant personality.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one of the most widely used general purpose personality assessment tests. Some companies use it as a tool to avoid mismatches of staff in jobs, for example. Ultimately, it's derived from the work of Carl Jung and Wikipedia has a decent article on it.

The following is a simplified sketch of the MBTI. There are 16 different MBTI types based on two possible results for each of four ranges. So for the four characters, one can get:
1. [attitude] E or I, extrovert (outward oriented) vs introversion (inward oriented)
2. [information gathering] S or N, sensing (concrete) vs intuition (abstract)
3. [decision making] F or T, feeling (emotion) vs thinking (logic)
4. [lifestyle] J or P, judging (have matters settled) vs perception (keep decisions open)

Over many years I read dozens of books about the human mind and personality in an attempt to figure out exactly who I was, why my life just never made sense. I read that most people show the same type over a lifetime or at least don't diverge greatly on any of the four characteristics. So it came as a surprise to me that I tested as ENFJ (at the end of the spectrum for all four traits) years ago when I worked on Wall Street and then ENFP (same) more recently. It didn't make sense that I could have shifted so wildly on the last trait, from preferring to have matters organized and settled (J) to preferring to keep my options wide open (P). Yet going from being super driven to being mostly adrift was evident from my life and I could almost date when that happened.

Once I learned I had DID and came to know Jonathan and his role in our system, how he heavily influenced me, these two scores made total sense. Another life mystery solved. Jonathan is extremely focused, adept at shutting out everything and everyone for the task at hand. He went to school for me in childhood. He got us to move to New York City, which I knew I was relentlessly driven to do but never knew why. I myself am very easily and willingly distracted and have to isolate myself to get anything done. Neither J nor P is good or bad, they're just different, all the four traits are. When Jonathan became disgusted with me and our life for various reasons, he went into hibernation and I felt directionless for years.

I still find it surprising that within a single mind are others who have widely divergent ways of interacting with the world and those ways seem perfectly natural to them. I thought about writing a blog post on MBTI over a year ago but limited it to extrovert/introvert. It's weird to know that one type, ENFP, describes me extremely well, yet alters have a completely different ways of interacting with and approaching the world, INTJ for Aaron, ESFP for Jack.

ManyShadesOfMe and Frank_Darko ask an interesting question. Without the DID, what would we/I be? Right now, I don't know, though Sphinx suggests we were born an extrovert based on reading the body.

I found this very interesting. I am ISTJ when answered honestly (as I feel currently). In my profession I should be ENTP. This could explain why I am having difficulties finding a new job. Does anyone know of a website designed to "coach" you through the process to acheive the desired results? It isn't exactly cheating.

My personality type isn't 100% accurate of me but like I said I think even "normal" people wouldn't feel they fit into one personality type completely. Mine is very logical, which I admit I normally try to make decisions based on logic and reason rather than emotion, but at times I find that my emotions make decisions for me. Plus my career list consists of jobs that require a lot of intelligence and although I feel I'm quite intelligent (don't mean to sound like I'm bragging) I would hate to have most of those jobs as I'm more creative and I feel I'm suited to more creative pursuits, which isn't mentioned in my personality type.

Snuffthroostr- I'm not sure if this is helpful but it's a page about personal growths for ISTJ types- http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ISTJ_per.html

I did this test about a year or more ago, and out came INTJ. I took it again now and out came ISFJ. I once had it come out as ESFP too but I was drinking then.
I have lots of problems with tests like these cause I can't decide on the right answer cause I often honestly would say 'both' or 'neither'.

According to everything I have read your basic nature toward each of these functions does not fluctuate through out your life, but there are many different views on what forms these propensity’s. One long-term debate is on nature vs nurture. I believe that both strongly influence who we are.

While we do have a natural inclination at birth, our experiences build a belief system that supports or over rides that basic inclination. If a child that is generally outgoing is put in an environment where every contact he has with other human beings results in negative consequences it seems doubtful that he will retain that propensity.

While you can be born with a fearful nature I truly believe that your brain builds a set of beliefs that support or dispel the need for it. In this way I believe that personality is malleable until you build that system of supportive beliefs. Once you have made those decisions, then how you see the world is unlikely to change under normal circumstances.

With DID your ability to access the information that you depended on to make all your decisions was inhibited more then once and you made all those basic decisions that supported your personality again from those points in your life. The brain was forming separate files of memory. With nothing in the new file, the decisions about how safe your environment was and what your likes and dislikes were, would need to be made again.

How you made them would have been based on different information. Your parents could have been under horrible stress when you were born and yet the caregivers you had then could have been supportive and nurturing. This would have a huge impact on how you saw your world, so the decisions you made about it could have differed widely.

Some part of your personality would be based on your nature at birth which wouldn't change, but that other part that is variable would be different. "Files" or areas of memory storage that were formed because of this inability to access previous memories, would contain different information. Because of that it is possible that each of these separate files could test out differently on personality tests.

I got INFJ. Very interesting, thank you for posting about this.

Without the DID, what would we/I be? Right now, I don't know, though Sphinx suggests we were born an extrovert based on reading the body.

Good question, absolutely. Based on the traits that are most prominent through-out our system I would say we are probably highly introverted.