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Please understand me

David Keirsey

1978208 pagesabout 3–5 hours
1978
first published
  • 1978Promethean Books · 208 pages · ENGISBN 9780935652024
  • 1984Distributed by Prometheus Nemesis Book Co. · 210 pages · ENGISBN 9780960695409
  • 1984Promethens Nemesis · 210 pages · ENG

After presenting a brief rundown of 20th-century psychology movements, Keirsey and Bates encourage you to take the 70-question "Keirsey Temperament Sorter," a sort of mini-Myers-Briggs test that places you in 1 of 16 personality types. Like the Myers-Briggs system, this test sorts your personality into groups of extraversion/introversion (E/I), sensation/intuition (S/N), thinking/feeling (T/F), and perceiving/judging (P/J). Unlike the Myers-Briggs system, Please Understand Me also presents four easy-to-remember temperament types -- Dionysian (freedom first), Epimethean (wants to be useful), Promethean (desires power), and Apollonian (searches for self) -- that underlie the 16 possible personalities identified by the test. The book then delves into a detailed analysis of each type, with sections on mates, children, and leaders. An appendix paints portraits of the 16 possible personality types.

How it reads

How do you feel?