Polarity Personality Type Indicator
First know thyself. Introducing a contemporary innovation and correction to classic Jungian typology.
A COMPASS FOR BECOMING WHO YOU ARE MEANT TO BE
Learn your personality type, harness the power of your polarities
If the unconscious matters so much, we'd better get acquainted with it. But how do we become aware of what we're unconscious of?
A tool that helps is an indicator of your personality type. An assessment that can reveal the parts of your personality that are favored, trusted and relied upon the most, versus those that are less developed, awkward and slow.
It's a snapshot of your personality preferences. It also gives you a bearing on how and why you relate to others of different types.
The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung discovered that people’s behavior is not random. Besides individual differences between people, there are also typical differences and patterns. He called them “psychological types.”
These patterns run deep, carving the rivers through which our lives flow. It can explain why one person has the temperament to become a scientist, and another an artist.
Jung once said "Type is nothing static." It's not a box you live in. In other words, type is a dynamic concept.
Your type is a dynamic unfolding of the polarities in your personality. Type is your capacity around the primary Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuitive functions that all humans have access to in their personalities. It also measures your capacity to connect the inner and outer world with Introversion and Extraversion.
The Polarity Personality Type Indicator (PPTI) was developed by the Polarity Institute's founder John van der Steur. It is based on Jung's seminal work, "Psychological Types" (1921). It corrects problems with the popular Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The PPTI acts like a compass on your journey to becoming who you are meant to be. From the PPTI, you can learn to identify your dominant and inferior functions. Then you can learn to harness their power by holding the tension between them.
This power can be applied within yourself, and in collaboration with others in a relationship or as a team.
The PPTI tool we've developed can be referenced as a 3D grid, or model, of the human personality. The video above describes how it can help you understand yourself and your shadow as well as others and their shadow.
The PPTI is contemporary with the 21st century developments in understanding of human psychology. It innovates and improves upon older personality models like Meyers-Briggs from the mid 20th century.
PPTI typology
Four functions of personality
Perceiving – how we take in information
Green Sensation (S)
Uses the five senses to perceive (Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch and Taste). It is interested in real, verifiable data.
It is factual, precise, detailed and focused on the reality of past and present.
Perceiving – how we take in information
Yellow Intuition (N)
It is imaginative, big picture-oriented, focused on potentiality and the future.
JUDGING – how we make decisions
Blue Thinking (T)
Uses the mind to solve complex problems. It analyzes information to find the cause and effect, the consistency and the logical order of things.
It is logical, impersonal, analytical, objective, task and result oriented.
judging – how we make decisions
Red Feeling (F)
Uses the heart to make a personal and more subjective value judgment such as a like or dislike or an appreciation or depreciation.
It is compassionate, empathic, personal, people and relationship oriented.
PPTI PRO
The PPTI Pro is an enhanced personality test available to certified practitioners. It brings more depth to the analysis, yielding better practical recommendations. Contact us to learn more about certification and the PPTI Pro.
IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR PERSONALITY PROFILE
Becoming Who You Are Meant to Be
A personality profile in and of itself is not very valuable. When we give workshops, the value is in the process we take people through. New levels of awareness are reached, new interpersonal strategies developed. Aha after aha occurs.
Why is developing yourself important?
Peter F. Drucker, a towering figure among management thinkers in the 20th century, answered this question as follows:
“We have to learn to develop ourselves. We have to place ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution. We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong.”
His observation was that this quality was not very well developed in most people:
Most think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are NOT good at – and even then more people are wrong than right. And yet, a person can only perform from strength.”
And this is exactly what our programs set out to help you achieve.
THE PPTI’s four grid model
Architecture of the Personality
Jung likened his typology to a compass, a model to help you navigate your life:
The four functions are somewhat like the four points of the compass; they are just as arbitrary and just as indispensable.
But one thing I must confess: I would not for anything dispense with this compass on my psychological voyages of discovery.
Here’s How The PPTI Can Help You Now
Jungian Typology
Know your strengths and limitations using the power of the polarities of your personality.
This program is based on the foundational principles of “The Power of Polarities’ book.
Proven Method
Our method helped an Olympic team win a goal medal. In this masterclass you will discover the Spine of your Personality in pursuit of a meaningful goal.
Community of Interest
No one can develop alone. We need connection and community. In this time of a pandemic, we choose to use technology that enables online community building to connect with each other globally.
In-depth Profile
A personality profile is not about classification, it is a mirror that you can use to reflect on yourself in depth.
Support in YOUR SEARCH FOR TRANSFORMATION
You Are Not Alone
Jungian analyst Robert Johnson once told me of a meeting he had with Carl Jung:
In about 3 hours he told me who I was, what I should do, what I should not do, what to trust, what not to trust. It was an extraordinary experience. He told me to stay with myself, not to marry, not to join anything. He encouraged me a great deal. He said, “The collective unconscious will support you.” Which it has.
I’ve worried myself sick, but it has always come through. These slender threads have never failed me. But I didn’t know that. I didn’t have faith in that.
When I met Jung, he told me to be true to myself, and true to my type. And that is what I wish for you. If you go against your typological makeup, you go against your grain, and you will get splinters. Go with it, and your life will have ease, flow, and purpose.
Self leadership
What we can learn from the journey of Martin Luther King
As a management consultant, I have worked with many leaders in companies, and the least effective ones were the ones that were trying to be something they were not.
Can you imagine a Blue Thinking type acting like a Red Feeling type? You can fool yourself but not others.
So knowing your type is critical for your effectiveness.
True and authentic power is found by holding the tension between the poles of polarities so that they become balanced, integrated, and dynamic.
This is what Martin Luther King did. He covered all four functions and temperaments with his leadership.
Visionary – This is what King is most famous for. He was a great visionary, with inspiring poetic language. Typical of Yellow Intuition with Red Feeling.
Inventor – He implemented what he called “creative protest”, based on Gandhi’s Satyagraha or non-violent action.
Helper – He focused on the practical needs of black people in America, like voting rights as a way for black people to meer their needs.
Technician – He was very focused on passing practical legislation and was very clear in advocating the exact legal changes he was fighting for.
Every advance, every conceptual achievement of mankind, has been connected with an advance in self-awareness.
– Carl Jung, CW IV, § 523
A compass for your journey
Jungian Typology
But one thing I must confess: I would not for anything dispense with this compass on my psychological voyages of discovery.
This is not merely for the obvious, all-too-human reason that everyone is in love with their own ideas.
I value the type theory for the objective reason that it provides a system of comparison and orientation which makes something that has long been lacking, a critical psychology.
~ C.G. Jung, CW 6, § 958-9