Strengthening and developing psychological type
Found this in a book about jung and business management, but I figured it would be of interest to some of you here. It's about how to strengthen your type, by developing traits of the opposite type.
Tasks for introverts: Becoming Comfortable Outside
- Attend assertiveness training classes or join a discussion group in which everyone has to talk about what is on his or her mind.
- At parties, conferences, or dinners, introduce yourself and interact actively with others.
- Meet with subordinates, peers and bosses, and ask them what they need from you.
- Ask yourself, "What did I leave out in the conversation?"
- Attend some drama classes or role-playing seminars held by adult education programs.
- Attend classes in presentation or speaking skills
- See a Marx Brothers film. Harpo, Groucho, and Chico are the archetypical extroverts.
Tasks for Extroverts: Becoming Comfortable Inside
- Learn the relaxation response, set out in Chapter 7
- Read Proust and Thoreau. Both these authors painstakingly explore their inner worlds.
- Set aside one hour of quiet time each day.
- Take a long walk in the woods alone and contemplate nature.
- Learn active listening techniques.
- Keep a diary of your inner thoughts.
Tasks for Intuitive Types: Develop Sensing
- Learn to cook from recipes
- Learn a sport, such as sailing, that demands specificity: terms, exactitude, and precision.
- Learn about computers, the most sensing of all electronics.
- Listen to jazz for the fun of it.
- Use your hands; paint, sculpt, or fix up the house.
- Plant a garden.
- Use your eyes to focus on details in nature.
- Learn to master a balance sheet.
Tasks for Sensing Types: Develop Intuition
- Visit a museum with a good collection of abstract paintings and write about their personal meaning to you.
- Construct a personal five-year plan with strategic options.
- Listen to classical music. Try to grasp the complexity and weave it into an interpretation of what the music means to you.
- Write an explanation of why a rose is not just a rose.
- Watch a Fellini or Bergman movie or Malick's The Tree of Life. Fellini and Bergman are extremely abstract and symbolic in their film themes. My Dinner with Andre, directed by louis Malle, is a dialog between a prototypical sensing type (Wally) and a full blown intuitive type (Andre). The film is useful for both sensing and intuitive types. The sensing type should try to understand and empathize with Andre, and the intuitives do the same with Wally.
- Read poetry, especially the Lake poets (Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake, and Byron) and note their use of allegory, metaphor, and symbolism.
Tasks for Thinking Types: Develop Empathy and Personal Values
- Write about your most cherished values.
- Ask a very close friend about his or her most cherished values.
- Develop a more personal style. Write a letter (not to be send) to a subordinate who gives you trouble. In the letter, try to walk a mile in his or her shoes. Stay away from impersonal factual and critical comments.
- Attend an AA meeting to see others' personal pain.
- Interview a friend about certain critical issues. Share your views with that person.
- See Charlie Chaplin in the movie The Kid. The film is full of pathos and feeling.
- When you have to make a decision, ask yourself, "Did I consider the impact of the decision on others' welfare?"
Tasks for Feeling Types: Develop Balanced and Logical Judgment
- Hear both sides of an issue before judging.
- Pay attention to reacting less personally to criticism.
- Take a course in critical thinking.
- When making a decision, ask yourself, "Did I go through an impersonal analysis of the facts in the case before imposing my values on the decision?"
- Develop power bases. Power is not evil.
- Learn effective performance appraisal skills.
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Originally Posted by wacey
