David Keirsey, RIP. A great man, a wonderful influence. I could not have done what I’ve done in the field of addiction without his input.
And, an obituary for a great man and extraordinary influence on my life and ideas: David Keirsey, RIP
It’s unlikely anyone has had a greater influence on my life than David Keirsey. Not only did his work on personality type and temperament, primarily through his first book Please Understand Me (PUM), help make sense of other people’s behaviors, attitudes, abilities, interests, beliefs, preferences and core needs, which are frequently so dramatically different from mine, but a single comment he made to me personally was instrumental to my work in addiction. Without his almost off-the-cuff remark, I likely would never have developed the idea that behaviors are the key to identifying likely alcohol and other-drug addicts long before addictive use is confirmed.
My then-fiancée (the addict who inspired a need to understand addiction) and I met with him, with several members of his family, for a late snack after a talk he gave. At the time, I may or may not have suspected active addiction in the fiancée, but I certainly hadn’t confirmed it (as described in Drunks, Drugs & Debits, she hid her use well and the therapists with whom we counseled were clueless). She identified herself under the Myers-Briggs personality type paradigm as Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judger, or INTJ (that’s what I am; I hadn’t yet figured out that chemistry is unlikely if not impossible between those of the same type), then ENTJ (an Extroverted NTJ) and, after taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, INTP, an Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceptive. David observed her for a time, took me aside and suggested that I consider the possibility her innate type was Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceptive, or INFP.
At the time I was taken aback. I knew many are mistyped because they incorrectly answer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questions (or those on Keirsey’s Temperament Sorter) in a style inconsistent with underlying innate type, often due to either stress or learned behaviors. I hadn’t considered the possibility that a student of Type and Temperament, as she was, would respond incorrectly—and I hadn’t yet figured out she was a full-on alcoholic or that stress-induced alcoholism dramatically increases the odds of an incorrect self-assessment. Keirsey summarized it succinctly: do not believe what Type a person says he or she is; instead, as he put it, “One must observe behaviors.”
After doing just that for nearly a year, I realized Keirsey was right. The best explanation for her behaviors, at least the healthy ones and her innate abilities, was clearly INFP.
I scored Introverted Sensing Thinking Judger, or ISTJ on Keirsey’s Temperament Sorter the first time I took it, likely because I was, at the time, under non-alcoholic-induced psychological stress. I consistently score INTP on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator due to poorly constructed questions asked on the Judging/Perceptive (J/P) dichotomous scale.* I realized that if sober people could respond to questions inconsistent with innate personality type, alcoholics certainly would. Stress distorts how people answer questions about themselves; therefore, the results are distorted. Lying, cheating, stealing and manipulating require repeated violation of one’s values, which is intrinsically stressful; therefore, alcoholism always causes intense stress and the results will nearly always be off the mark. I realized that although an addict may relate to a description of his or her scored type, such self-assessment cannot be trusted.
My crucial insight from Keirsey’s observation was an extrapolation: the idea that “one must observe behaviors” to learn the truth not only could be, but must be applied to the identification of likely alcohol and other-drug addicts. In fact, because distortions of perceptions and memory make substance addicts incapable of self-assessment (a singular fact gleaned from a one-line comment in Vernon E. Johnson’s seminal work, I’ll Quit Tomorrow**), observing behaviors is much more helpful in spotting alcoholics than in identifying true personality type (which non-addicts, at least, get right more often than not in self-assessments). The hundreds of subtle and not-so-subtle misbehaviors I’ve found to be indicators of likely alcoholism might never have been uncovered had it not been for David’s remark.
Of course, I had to apply the idea. If I hadn’t already learned that my own type is unique, I might have figured everything I was thinking had already been done. But I learned from David that my personality type, one of 16, comprises only 1% of the population. Because Type and Temperament are so central to how we think, I understood how differently my thinking and the way I think about things is from 99% of the population. And I realized the odds that others of my type had experiences similar to mine were remote. Knowing and understanding my Type led me by baby steps to proceed into an area that was completely outside my prior fields of expertise, because I realized no one else was likely going to do it—and, after reading every book on alcoholism that I could get my hands on, found no one else had done it. ***
If all Keirsey had done was to lead me to the pivotal insight about alcoholism and the crucial one into my own Type, his influence would have been profound. There was, however, much more. As mentioned at the outset, PUM helped make sense of people through the logical grid of Type and Temperament. His work helped me in both my personal and professional life. I figured out what Types I am attracted to and could live with for a lifetime, which was instrumental in helping me find my wife, Marty. I began using it in communicating with prospective clients in ways that increased the odds they would become and remain clients (for example, by changing words and terms where I could in my client engagement agreement from “thinking” to “feeling” words). The value of Type and Temperament in screening for prospective employees is second only to the work in addiction that Keirsey made possible.
In his later years, Keirsey announced he wanted to write on madness, a subject that can be understood only in conjunction with an understanding of alcoholism. His student, Eve Delunas, wrote Survival Games Personalities Play, as if Type gone awry explained sick people. I connected the dots between “games” and personality disorders, nearly all of which are driven by alcoholism; the disorder takes shape as a function of one’s Type. This, too, was a key insight, on which much more work should be done. Ironically, Keirsey provided the essential tools by which to understand madness, even if he never grasped its roots.
Unfortunately, while Keirsey’s work, with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, is used extensively by corporations and government in team-building, it largely remains out of the mainstream. Many psychologists mock it as “pop” psychology, I believe because so many are inaccurately typed, making the tool appear little better than astrology. Used properly—which means confirming innate Type by knowledgeable experts in Type and Temperament—Keirsey’s ideas are unparalleled in helping one to understand healthy human behaviors and beliefs, as well as predict core underlying needs, preferences, natural abilities and interests. They are on par with understanding alcoholism in assessing appropriate matches for lifelong mates, partners, employees and employers. When the value of Type and Temperament is fully recognized, it will be used in devising appropriate educating styles and education foci from pre-kindergarten, which will help to make for ever-more fulfilling lives. Unfortunately, this will be left to future generations to figure out. Regardless, Keirsey’s memory will live on.
* I’ve analyzed the reason why the J/P questions are faulty in an unpublished essay.
** “It is impossible to find out the subject’s behavior by questioning the subject.”
*** Some authors described a relative few behavioral indications of alcoholism, but fell short of developing a comprehensive list.