Can You Type Yourself?

Today, we are going to be discussing the question of whether or not you can accurately and independently type yourself, or if it takes an official test or expert to get you accurate results. Some people think that only you can know yourself so only you can type yourself, while others think that it’s absolutely necessary to consult with an expert. Of those two main schools of thought, I think we, at Practical Typing, exist somewhere in the middle.

The argument that only you can know yourselves is an excuse people tend to give to type themselves whatever they want. I think you can figure out your type, but it should be done with verification or help from a trusted second person, not necessarily a typology expert, but someone who knows you well.

The three things that we think are important are this:

1. A solid understanding, good information, and clear definitions for the system that you will be using to type yourself.

The key here is to find the system that can match what real people in the real world look like. The more relatable and tethered to real life examples and reasoning, the more accurate, and frankly, useful it will be in determining type. In other words, it will be practical.

The system should be consistent in its logic. An example would be that the traits of Te should be consistent across all types that have that function. Only the skill and frequency of use should vary depending on placement. Additionally, types such as ENTJ and INTJ, while certainly not the same, should share similar cognitive processes and ways of reasoning. This would be due to high use of Te-Ni in the ENTJ and Ni-Te in the INTJ.

Any system that is showing forth radically different behaviors, reasonings, and utilization of the functions between similar types is NOT consistent with itself and would do more in the way of confusing people than actually providing any kind of useful information. To put it simply, Te utilization should be natural and strong in all HEALTHY high Te users. So, the act of keeping the external world in order should not be distressing to them. If this is not the case, the person doesn’t have high Te. It’s as simple as that.

2. An honest evaluation of yourself, your strengths, and your weaknesses, along with an unbiased mindset walking into it.

This part is so important if you want to go the route of self evaluation and typing. If you are someone that has a hard time describing your own weaknesses and find yourself relating to a lot of strengths from a bunch of different types, you may want to consider having outside help. Furthermore, if you have self-typed and you find yourself constantly trying to redefine the definition of the type you chose to better fit yourself, you may want to consider outside help and perspectives.

It is natural to focus on our strengths and turn a blind eye to our weaknesses, but you are doing yourself a great disservice when it comes to typology by doing this. One of the big advantages of knowing type is being able to identify our own tendencies and problem areas so we can learn to improve upon them.

3. An impartial third party that knows you well (and maybe also understands the system) to help check your own biases and fill in your blind spots.

You should be able to get outward confirmation that the type fits; and if you can’t, you should reevaluate.

This third step isn’t necessarily a must if you are honest with yourself and have a good understanding of how you are both in private and public. However, having that extra perspective can’t hurt and is pretty highly recommended.

We find two main issues within the type community.

a. People discredit opinions that don’t match their own due to bias.

This is why it is important to keep an open mind and know where the other person is coming from and what system the two of you are using. Sometimes the misunderstandings are the result of two people having fundamentally different understandings of something. This seems to be increasingly prevalent as more and more people are coming out and pushing their own interpretations of the system. One thing I would say to this is that it’d sure help if people didn’t decide to recycle all of the same terms. It just makes everything confusing.

b. Every “joe shmoe” wants to type someone something different

You know who I am talking about. This is the guy that constantly runs around antagonizing everyone with his unsolicited opinion, calling everyone a mistype and asserting that his own understanding is much greater than everyone else’s and that he has it figured out. Again, this is why it is important to have a solid base to point back to to make sure everyone is on the same page understanding wise; and whether the fundamental understanding is wrong or if logic is just skewing in different directions. Either way, these trolls tend to be highly illogical and do little more than talk in circles.

In conclusion…

So, you need to get an understanding of the system, figure out where you fit into it, but then verify yourself. That’s ultimately our take on it. Agree with us? Disagree? Let us know in the comments.