Please Understand Me II

It's a book that came highly recommended and did not disappoint.

Excellent book!

Really useful book.

Libro davvero interessante, mi sono appassionata da poco alla tematica trattata, consigliatomi da una mia amica americana, direi che sono rimasta molto soddisfatta di questo libro. Se appassionati del tema e conoscete l'inglese, acquistatelo!

Contains a version of the Meyers Briggs personality test. There is a lengthy chapter dedicated to each of the 4 main personalities and their sub-groups. Learned alot about why I am who I am and what matters to me, how I define myself etc which has been very useful in understanding my decision making process and knowing what type of work opportunities to pursue. It could do with a bit of editing. The style of writing is a bit dated but it's worth reading for the insights.

Perfect quality, great book! Quicker delivery than expected, too.

Perhaps I should preface my comments by pointing out that I am an INTP "Architect", one of Keirsey's four Rational personality types. I guess this puts me in good company, since David Keirsey is also an INTP. Some sources even suggest that Carl Jung, whose psychological theories were the inspiration for Keirsey's work, was also an "Architect". So maybe I'm temperamentally predisposed to liking Keirsey's approach to making sense of human behavior. At the very least, being an INTP means that I am open-minded enough to give Keirsey a fair hearing, and independent-minded enough to draw my own conclusions.As a Rational -- and especially as an "Architect" -- I am, by nature, a pragmatist. That means that, whenever I have to evaluate something, I tend to focus on its practical utility. In other words, I want to know how well it works, compared to the available alternatives, when put to use in real-world applications. Does it do what I need it to do? Does it get the job done more-or-less adequately? Is it reasonably safe and easy to use? Do the benefits I get from using it outweigh the costs and risks? Does it stack up well against its competitors? Would it be more efficient for me to go ahead and use it than to take the time and effort to try to find a better alternative? If the answer to each of these questions is "yes", then it passes the practical utility test, and earns my seal of approval as a pragmatist. I'll use it; and I'll continue to use it until something better comes along.David Keirsey's approach to the study of personality might not be widely accepted within the field of psychology today; and his method of sorting people into distinct personality types might not pass muster in the modern experimental psych lab; but, at least as far as I'm concerned, Keirsey's ideas pass the practical utility test for real-world applications. They do what I need them to do, and do a better job than any of their competitors. They might not be perfect; but their pros strongly outweigh their cons. Psychologists might not see the value of Keirsey's methods for use in experimental or clinical applications; but laypeople can still benefit from them as they go about their everyday lives, interacting with other people. Keirsey's insights into personality differences are very useful when trying to understand why people behave the way they do, and how best to relate to people whose personalities might be very different from your own.It's important to realize that different people have different ways of looking at, and interacting with, the world around them. This means that different people will often approach the same situation in very different ways: with different attitudes, desires, priorities, values, and strategies. They will think differently, communicate differently, and act differently. Understanding and accepting these differences is essential if you want to be able to coexist and cooperate with your fellow human beings. Keirsey gives us a set of tools for making sense of these essential differences in human temperament and behavior. Using these tools, we can understand why different people behave in different ways, and can even predict, at least to some extent, how someone is likely to behave in a given situation. Psychology professors may question the scientific basis of these tools; but this is an academic matter, not a pragmatic one. The true test of the value of Keirsey's methods has to be carried out in the real world, not the psych lab.I have found Keirsey's insights into personality to be very helpful when trying to understand how other people view the world, and why they behave the way they do. These insights have also helped me to get a better sense of who I am, what my strengths and weaknesses are, and what I want and need out of life. Keirsey's methods aren't perfect; but, as a pragmatist, I don't expect or demand perfection from anything. All that matters to me is that they're useful.Some people might claim that there are other approaches to understanding personality that are superior to Keirsey's; but I've searched, and haven't found any. The Five Factor Model (a/k/a the "Big Five"), which is favored by experimental psychologists, is practically useless outside of the psych lab. It may give a more finely tuned picture of individual variation in personality, but it doesn't group people into distinct personality "types", each with its own characteristic patterns of thought and behavior. So, if you're looking for a tool that you can take out into the real world and use to help you better understand the people you meet, the Five Factor Model isn't going to help you all that much.The Myers-Briggs method of personality typing closely resembles Keirsey's method -- in fact, the two are often mistaken for each other -- but there are a number of differences in how they conceptualize the determinants of personality. Much has been written about the similarities and differences between Myers-Briggs and Keirsey; and there is much debate about which approach is superior. For me, the most important difference between Myers-Briggs and Keirsey is that the former approach is more geared toward helping you better understand yourself, while the latter is more geared toward helping you better understand other people. Personally, I'm more interested in trying to understand other people; so I find Keirsey's method to be more useful. Also, Keirsey's approach seems simpler and more straightforward than Myers-Briggs, and draws sharper lines of distinction between the characteristic behavior patterns of the different personality types, making it somewhat easier to categorize the people you meet without formally testing them.Other methods -- e.g. Socionics, the Enneagram, DISC, True Colors, Type A vs. Type B personality, left brain vs. right brain -- are generally either too complicated to be of much practical use in real-world applications, or else too simplistic to give us any real insight into how a specific individual is likely to behave in a given situation. Keirsey manages to hit the sweet spot. His method is simple enough that you can use it every day to help you better understand the people around you, and yet complex enough to account for a wide range of human behavior patterns. If there's a more practically useful way of understanding why people behave the way they do, I've yet to come across it. Keirsey's method works for me.Anyway, "Please Understand Me II" is the definitive text on Keirsey's method. If you want to learn what Keirsey has to teach about personality, this is the place to begin. You might also want to read "People Patterns" by Keirsey's colleague Stephen Montgomery, which is much shorter than this book, and presents the material in a somewhat different way. But it's hard to beat Keirsey's own treatment of the subject. So get this book.

Suggestion – every writer should do an MBTI on themselves and then come to understand what that means. This excellent book gives you insight into your true personality and the character that you might really be. It helps you to function both as a writer and as a person in the world. I’d confidently recommend “Please Understand Me II – Temperament, Character, Intelligence, David Keirsy: Prometheus Nemesis Book Company 1998 to writers.It is a handy and very easy book to use as a writer’s 'desk book' on character and it also provides you with an easy to fill in MBTI analysis on yourself – and other characters in your private and professional life – and in your fiction.It is not a full psychological work-up – but it is a very useful for any writer to have set up in your character folder in Scrivener or whatever software you use to write.I reworked the entire book as a writer’s tool under the headings – Artisans, Guardians, Idealists, and Rationals.It provides excellent insights into each Jungian Type and their nature, interests, intellect, orientations, self-image, values, social roles, traits, mating, parenting, leading and outlines four variants of each type. – and in doing that I discovered I was a variant of a Rational called an INTP (somewhere between Yoda and Hermione Grainger).It also gave me very useful insights into facets of my childhood and who I am now. I learned that my wife and my mother are Guardians, my father was an Idealist and the friends I relate to best turned out to be identical or complimentary in nature to me. What can a writer do with that stuff? Think about character interactions, expectations, conflict, disappointments, consequences, hopes… and so on. If you are a writer and you need to describe the arc of a character's wound from inciting incident to healing - or not healing - at the end, this will help.