4 Days with John Beebe Talking Type

I am writing this Blog as a way to share some of my thoughts about a workshop I am attending. Tomorrow, 15 Oct 08 we will begin a 4 day workshop with John Beebe to talk about the 8 functions approach to Type Dynamics. I am excited about this since John Beebe is the pioneer of this approach to understanding Jungian Type Theory. To better understand the next couple of days of Blogging, a basic understanding of Personality Type Theory would be very useful. I also want you to understand that I may ramble a bit since this is my Blog and not a precise assignment. I am also doing this as a way to meet the requirements placed on me by UW-La Crosse since they are reimbursing some of my travel expenses and in return I have to present the knowledge I gain from this workshop back to other students and faculty.

The 8 Functions approach to type dynamics is a method of viewing Carl Jungs personality theory that has been used by so many around the world. Jungs theory really came into prominence thanks to a mother daughter team that provided the world with the well known MBTI® or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®. This tool was designed to provide a simple way to present a somewhat difficult theory. Unfortunately, this tool also made it too easy for some to present this theory in such a way as to provide very little or no meaning. It just gave a person a four letter code and nothing more. I say this not to make light of an excellent tool but because that is the way I was introduced to the MBTI the first couple of times that I took the instrument. Then when I was told that I would be getting qualified so that I could provide it to groups of Army officers, I felt that I needed to find more to this than anything I was told about it before. I attended a 5 day course in February of 2005 with Bob McAlpine the owner of Type Resources Inc. Those five days would prove to be life changing for me mainly because of the 8 functions approach to understanding my own type. For the first time I understood some of the big decisions I made durint my career in the Army. I understood what was causing some of the conflicts I had with both superiors and subordinates. I can not say that I knew how it all work or why it was like it was but I understood that my type was significantly different than almost 50% of other Army officers, but that despite the big differences apparent in the whole type code, the functions in attitude the the 8 functions talks about were close enough so that I was able to make the necessary adjustments to be successful. That will be explored further over the next few days. I hope you enjoy reading this series of posts. Thanks.