If you've ever felt alone or unloved... (Please Understand Me - David Keirsey, Marilyn Bates)

Member Name: Termagant

Product:	Please Understand Me - David Keirsey, Marilyn Bates
Date:	12/01/01 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can use it to convince your friends you're telepathic.

Disadvantages: Don't use it as a guide to finding your ideal mate.

If you have ever felt that you are alone in the universe, and that no one else understands you, this book should be required reading. By the end of it you will understand not only why you have always felt that way, but also how everyone else feels as well.

Basically, it's a guide to understanding your own personality and those of others, both generally and in specific areas such as childhood, work and finding a partner. Me, I'm generally rather sceptical about personality theories which attempt to "pigeonhole" our characters. After all, humanity is a pretty diverse set of people. However, the 16 personality types in Kiersey's book do seem to be spot on. I've used it on my whole family and at least 20 of my friends, and the effect is usually close to a religious conversion.

Essentially, Kiersey has adapted the famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and condensed its theory into a very tight, accurate and easily readable format. His interpretations of the personality types (you work out yours by completing a questionnaire) are extremely penetrating, almost eerie in their insight - for instance, how you respond to gifts or to rejection; how you are likely to act as a parent or manager; the ways in which you try to fulfill your potential, and - by examining how your type reacts with other, different types - the reasons why we run into problems.

The point is clearly made that human friction occurs, in most cases, not because one person is "wrong", but because both have completely different ideas of what is "right."

Personally, I disagreed with the section on finding a mate, which operates on the premise that opposites always attract (not for me they don't). However, this is a minor complaint with a book which is, in general, so devastatingly accurate that it can be painful to read (if you had a bad time at school, read the section on childhood, and weep). This is self-examination und
er the lens. What is particularly astonishing is that this is really a very short book. Little space is wasted.

Should be compulsory reading for managers, parents and politicians. And probably everyone else as well.

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