Something unpleasant happened to me recently.  I went to dinner with some lovely folks who were enrolled in this workshop along with me.  What great people!  And something I articulated during this workshop was my work with type.  So here we are, sitting around enjoying wine and conversation, and the person on my left begins telling me this horror story about the first time she took the MBTI.  Apparently the administrator handed her the "result," passed her a badly xeroxed type description, rattled off things "she needed to work on," and rushed her out the door.  It sounded awful!

Much to my chagrin, the person on my right side then piped up and shared a similar horror story!  It was about someone coming into an organization and administering the "test" to everyone, then handing out results and forcing people into boxes.  It was so counter-productive that this woman had sworn off the Indicator, vowing never to use it again.

You can imagine how challenging it was to advocate the MBTI after hearing it had been used as a blunt instrument to beat people with.  Yikes!

But I won't pretend to be surprised.  After all, every time I attend a conference, I hear similar horror stories from people coming by our booth.  There are loads of them!  So I've decided to start collecting these tales in earnest.

If you've had a dreadful MBTI experience, I want to hear about it.  I don't care to know the name or the particulars of the company or school or institution (if there is one), but I want enough of the story to get the gist of what happened.  I'm posting them online for now—maybe eventually I'll collect them into a book or something.  

Perhaps chronicling these blunders will send the message that some practitioners are violating the first rule of medicine:  "do no harm."  Maybe if it's awful enough, it will impact the type community and raise our consciousness so people won't put up with it any longer. 

Will you share your story?

 

Horror Story Submission Form I make the assumption you want your identity kept private.  However, please share your contact information in case I need clarification of some kind.  (It also provides me assurance that your story is real, and not fictitious.)  I will keep your contact info confidential and only share the story. First name & Last name? City & State? E-mail address? Phone number? Are you a practitioner, coach, student, or an ordinary "joe"? Around what year did your horror story happen? Please tell  your story.  (You may wish to type it into another document and paste it into the box below, just in case something goes awry.) Is there a happy ending?  Did you swear off the MBTI for good, or did you find a path back to discovering its value?:

Thank you for your contribution!

-Vicky Jo
Type Coach
Self-Discovery Specialist
Team Development Coach
CPCC, ACC, IGIP, JCDC, ORSCer!