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The 16 Types in Brief

The 16 Types in Brief

The unique contribution the MBTI assessment makes to people's understanding of personality is its focus on the 16 types as broad, complex structures whose parts interact dynamically and develop over a person's life span. This section includes the following:

  • The 16 Types

  • A description for each type taken from the standard MBTI Type Table, including indications of type dynamics

The terms dominant, auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior align with the terms first, second, third and fourth to designate dynamic elements. 

John Beebe's book, Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type, gives a useful description of the eight mental processes - orientations using every day language that gets at the heart of what the process is engaged in accomplishing:

Fi.  Introverted feeling.

judging, appraising, establishing the value.

Ti. Introverted thinking.

naming, defining, understanding.

Ni. Introverted intuition.

imagining, knowing, divining.

Si. Introverted sensation.

implementing, verifying, accounting.

Fe. Extraverted feeling.

validating, affirming, relating.  

Te. Extraverted thinking.

regulating, planning, enforcing. 

Ne. Extraverted intuition.

entertaining, envisioning, enabling.  

Se. Extraverted sensation.

engaging experiencing enjoying. 

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