Winter Course
Two Mondays
Have you taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®), but it has been a while? Or did it seem unnecessary at the time, but now thinking of Jung’s typology, you are curious again? Or is this whole topic new? This course could be for you.
For more years than she is willing to admit, Jane Byerley has been administering and interpreting the MBTI® for Federal agencies and commercial clients. It is a widely used and recognized tool that provides insight into a specific set of preferences based on Carl Jung’s Typology. Developed by Katharine Cook Briggs, a Michigan State graduate in agriculture, it originated from Brigg’s observation of family, fellow students and friends. In 1923, after reading an English translation of C.G. Jung’s Psychological Types, and corresponding with Jung, she found that her thoughts were closely aligned with his theory of typology. She spent the next 20 years developing her types, as well as writing the questions and validating an instrument, hoping to make Jung’s Typology available and useful to a broad audience. In 1931, Isabel Myers Briggs, Briggs’s daughter, gave up a mystery writing career to join her mother. The MBTI instrument was introduced in 1943 with 93 questions and was first published in 1962. It was immediately embraced by the Office of Strategic Services (a short-lived forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency) as a tool for assigning intelligence operatives in newly liberated Europe, and has been used throughout government and industry since as a way of thinking about preferences and as a communication tool.
Myers and Briggs had two goals in developing the MBTI:
To identify basic preferences of each of the four dichotomies specified or implicit in Jung's theory
To identify and describe each 16 distinctive personality types that result from the interactions among the typological-based “preferences” described by the instrument
In this course, we have one goal: to be able to describe our types and how they describe our preferences. You will take a variation of the instrument at a site that will be sent to you prior to coming to the first session. That is the only homework. We will use participatory exercises to understand the nature of our preferences based on Jung’s types.
*Snow date set for February 24th.
Please check your email and website before leaving for class to ensure you don't show up in case we have cancelled. If you do not have an email, please ensure to include your phone number at the time of registration so we have a method of contacting you. Thank you
Jane E. Byerley, M.B.A., M.S.W. has a strong background in problem-solving. She has had a career in management consulting and a therapy practice focusing on individual and couples counseling. She is on the Planning Committees for both the Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology and the Washington Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology, serving as Registrar and Clerk. Jane has a working knowledge of anthroposophy as a member of the Waldorf community. She came to Jungian studies through knitting, and stayed. She originated in Kansas, but has lived in the DC area most of the last 40 years.
