Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types

The book's author knew his subject and was able to explain it very well. However I have my reservations about it's title 'Please understand me' which implies that this system will allow the reader to understand the psychology and motivations of others. Perhaps the title should have been 'Please better understand me' since it does identify important constitutional temperamental attitudes and functions that can help distinguish people to an extent. However it doesn't tell us how secure or adequate a person feels, or on what basis they predominantly value themselves and others, nor does it tell us about how interpersonally dominant/submissive a person is, their level of volitional independence/dependence in relation to their executive dependence etc. So it does tell us some things but far from being able to understand others. This has to be so since the book is about temperament which provides the building blocks for character which is more complex and in turn provides the basis for personality. Keirsey was a psychologist and unlike Jung and Myers-Briggs focused more on observable aspects of the personality rather than the phenomenological-subjective aspects. To some extent this is a strength as well as being a weakness. Still it's a good book and should be read by all those working with people in fields like HR and occupational psychology. It's also of interest to those working in the fields of mental health-psychotherapy since Keirsey's types do like Jung's indicate the 'choice of neurosis' or psychopathology, to use a psychoanalytic term, for why people demonstrate different forms of psychological disturbance, although the focus of the book is far from being that of psychiatry/clinical psychology.

I would not recommend this work for a someone with a casual, passing interest in MBTI or someone looking to discover more about their own personality - there are more accessible books around for these purposes. Keirsey has a particular take on MBTI, which I find interesting and useful, but to get the most from this book it really helps to be more than familiar with the philosophy and psychology underlying the indicator and it may help too if you are aware of Keirsey's position and ideas. Having said that, I find the type descriptions completely brilliant and they alone are worth the 4 stars. They are detailed and capture the essence of each type in a particular manner that seems to communicate to the relevant type - nearly always when they read their own descriptor, people smile, laugh and nod with recognition. I would say a useful addition to the MBTI library - if you are a practitioner you probably already own this.

I found this book really useful in working out what I should do going forward in life, when I had a dilemma about whether to continue on a course where I had been happy for 20 years, but also felt a change would be useful. This helped me to identify the sort of personality that I am in objective terms, and identify the type of area where other people with similar backgrounds had been happy and successful. I also used the book to help a younger friend of mine identify a career path and way forward, when she felt she was stuck in a rut. I am pleased to say that this helped her enormously too, and she moved quickly into a much better and more rewarding job in every aspect. This book does not offer a panacea, but is a useful tool to help resolve things if you are not sure of a resourceful way forward.

I haven't read it but my daughter quotes it all the time and now my granddaughter uses it - I think it must be very revealing but I just couldn't seem to answer the questions myself - I needed someone else to help me understand myself?!

Very interesting book. First helps you work out which type you are. Then explains your type in detail.

Decent book for getting into type theory but it generalizes behaviors too much in the name of making it a fun read. Also disagree with rejecting the function stack as this is vital to understanding type theory properly.

Fantastic little book. Recommended to me by a therapist friend. Gives a remarkable insight into yourself.

As a Myers Briggs fan it explains a lot! Enjoyable read and fills in some of the blanks in other books.