Please Understand Me II: Temperament Character Intelligence

Very Insightful

Professor Keirsey has written quite a provocative book. I took the Keirsey temperament sorter twice and ended up as scoring as an ESTJ and then I took it the test again after I had finished the book as an ESFJ. I found what Keirsey had written about my particular personality type (Guardian) as very true. What was particularly prescient were the discussions of the different types of intelligence. Keirsey claims there are four different types of intelligence: Tactical, Logistical, Diplomatic, and Strategic. The descriptions of the particular types of intelligence are not very in depth, but they are quite illuminating for the purposes of introspection.
This book is very good in terms of trying to understand those in your life and those that you may interact with in the workplace.
This book is not meant to be read like a novel. The first two chapters explain Professor Keirsey's approach to the temperaments and defines some of the terminology the book contains There is also a discussion of how this work builds on Isabel Myers' and Paracelsus' work. The following chapters deal with the different types, a chapter on mating, parenting, and leading.
This book is highly recommended if you are in business or like understanding personality types.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

One that I continue to reread- great insight!

This is one of my favorite books. An easy book to read that will open your eyes to your personality type and understanding others around you. I am a psychology student and personality psychology interests me greatly, but I was extremely impressed with the value and insight I found in the pages of this book. It was shocking to read with much amazement my personality type and finding myself nodding in agreement that Keirsy hit the nail on the head and was able to descriptively describe my motivations in life and who I am at the core of my being. Not only did I confirm my personality type but I was able to understand what drives those closest to me and find a greater depth of understanding and acceptance. I highly recommend this book!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Understanding your personality

This book is an underground classic for understanding personality type and putting the strengths of your personality to work for you. I highly recommend it as well as a new book that came out last week called The Personality Code. It's a more modernized version that includes an online test to measure your personality type, and it shows who your anti-type is so that you can get along better with the people you clash with.

Great Great book for understanding those around you and communicating properly

This is a great book with lots of insights as to who people are and how they communicate best. I read this with my family and it gave me great understanding as to how we relate to one another. A great Christian supplement to this book is Transformed Temprament by Tim LaHaye, it was written in the 70s but it is a great way to view your personality in light of the Holy Spirit's work in your life!

Helping to Keep us Sane

This book helps you not only accept yourself, but accept others for who they are. The test will only come out accurate if you are truly honest with your answers, so you must be prepared to be brutally honest with yourself (the good and the bad). The crazy part of different personalities is that you aren't wrong for being who you are, and yet sometimes we feel as though we are wrong for prefering justice over mercy, or for being spontaneous instead of deliberate/scheduled. But that just means we are different than someone else. And the world is a better place because of it. If we were all the same, what a boring place it would be!! Thanks to this book, and to those who made it available, we can improve our relationships with others and embrace our true selves. We don't have to feel the need to change others, or become irritated with them, if we appreciate our differences and see them as the positive traits they truly are. Fortunately, there is someone who understands us and realizes that none of us are crazy.. we're just different.

A Staple Book for Your.... Self-Help Shelf !

Not only informative....but very entertaining....You will see everyone from your school teachers to your parents to your first boyfriend and be able to understand them better!

A must read for those who are and are going to be married

This book has done more to help our marriage then any other. Now we have the freedom to be who we are and express our true feelings without the frustration of being misunderstood. It has also been invaluable in our day to day lives as we interact with the people around us giving us understanding of who they are and why they do the things they do. We have recommended this book to countless couples and will continue to do so.

Read the Book several times, books fine, just that theres been more information gathered about this topic that the book does not explain because of its age.

This book is very helpful to me as a beggining into self awareness. I'm 16 (INFJ). This book did have a very accurate description of myself. It aids in discovering things about your self you never realized before, but slightly suspected. There are a few problems that I latter discovered. The test that the book offers to discover your personality type is not 100% accurate, well your lucky to get 50% acccuracy. The book does not mention this, but sites that relate to this field of work do. Also the profiles in the book are a bit aged since it is a couple of years old, but if you simply go to google and type in the four magical letters of your type, chances are you'll find a more current updated profile for your type. As I said the test is not 100% accurate and the only way to know for sure what personality type you are is to read each profile carefully and decide which most relates to you. For example I know I am an INFJ, but the first time I took the test it called me an INTP, which is not correct at all, and when ever I take the test I never get the result of INFJ, at best it's INFP. Also another thing the book does not mention is that one person can be right on the border of two personality types such as myself. I am mostly and INFJ, but 1/3 of the time I am more of an INTJ. This makes me more of an INXJ, the x used to replace the letter that cannot truely be defined. Still I would recoment this book for everyone, and if I had the money I'd buy thousands of copies and give them away on street corners.

Breathtaking

Not a word usually used to describe an analytical book, it almost made me cry at one point because I felt so deeply understood. I finally feel justified in my thoughts and feelings and am better able to respect and understand others'. Matt (INTJ)

Great Insights

Absolutely the best book on human character read so far. I would loved if he showed more how the different personality types interact with each other. Sort of a roadmap or guide to use when dealing with people from the perspective of the particular personality type Perhaps in Please Understand me III :-) Great book, Already recommending it to people

WOW

I have not read the whole thing but an excerpt from the book was given to me in one of my classes: Different Drummers. I must say when I read this, words could not even come to my mind on how to describe how close this was to how I feel. I am getting the whole book because just that little part helped take away so much pain in my life.

You can always tell...

You can always tell whether the author of a temperament-type book is a Rational or an Idealist. Just look at the way they treat the Rationals. The Idealists have very little nice to say about Rationals. To them, a Rational is an antisocial, sometimes bullying, argumentative, perfectionistic nerd. Fellow rationals, however, know better... Please Understand Me II is delightful (especially for us poor, misunderstood Rationals).

Demystification of the MBTI

What an excellent book. I have heard sooooo many faulty explainations of the MBTI, it's purpose, uses, meaning, interpretations... It was down-right healing to read this book. I think there's a lot of truth to it.

Good book, although a bit cumbersome

I¿ve discovered I¿m an ENTP, which gives me great comfort. It was also good to read about the other temperaments so I can better understand the motives and internal priorities of others with whom I have to deal. However, I found the book a bit cumbersome to read. I thought it went a bit overboard on the theoretical side and was short on practical suggestions as to how I could better get along with others. However, I just read a book called WINNING WAYS, by Dick Lyles and my need for practical application was satisfied. I highly recommend reading it as a companion work to PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME II. It may be unfair to ask one book to do so much, but I wish the author had gone more in the direction of practical application and less in the direction of theory in volume II.

An excellent help - knowing yourself and others

I read the first book and thouroughly enjoyed it. This second one is updated and expanded with the same excellence. The book does go into great detail on each of the personality/character traits - it is very valuable and insightful to those who wish to understand themselves and others better.

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