The Value of Live Workshops

Eric recently posted a comment on my blog that read:

Don’t take the shortness of my previous post to mean I don’t have any experience. I’ve started learning about this from the book “Please Understand Me” 14 years ago. Since then I have sought to apply this knowledge to the people I interact with. As an INTJ I am constantly analyzing my environment and the people around me. I don’t need to go to a workshop for this because I think that real knowledge comes from self-discovery. But that may just be the dominant Ni in me speaking.

I appreciate Eric’s comments since they got me thinking about the necessity of experiential learning. Certainly I am under the impression that a number of people I have met online feel the same as Eric — that they can figure type out adequately enough without ever leaving their chair.

I might even go so far as to suggest this is the conceit of iNtuiting types in general — myself included — believing their imagination is sufficient and that engaging in real-life learning simply isn’t necessary.

Contrast this with an idea from Confucius:

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

Since he is invoking the 5 senses in this prose, it would seem that Confucius would be more inclined to come down on the side of live workshops.

Here’s a parable that further illustrates his point:

A young man who lived in a small inland village in Greece had never been to the ocean and wanted to learn about it. He spent hours and hours in quiet libraries reading books that explained and described it and he learned many things about it. He could describe its size, name the creatures that lived in it, and he even knew the colors the setting sun cast on it at the end of the day. His mind was filled with all sorts of wonderful impressions and images of this thing called ocean.

Then one day, he was invited to take a journey to the coast. When he arrived, the sun was setting over the water. The sound of the breakers, and the splashing foam was magnificently beautiful. He ran down to where it lapped against the shore, dipped his hands into it, and brought some of the salty water to his lips. Taking off his shoes, he walked into the ocean, and felt the water gently pull the sand out from under his feet. As the water swirled around his legs, and the rich colored sunlight danced off the water into his eyes, he thought to himself, “So this is the ocean!”

Because my husband and I attend and conduct live workshops, we both wanted to put our two cents in — following is a 12-minute video we recorded about their value.

Our intention is to provide Eric and others with some new perspectives to consider when evaluating their competence around applying psychological type models.

I welcome your thoughts.

Training programs that offer live workshops using the 8-function model include these:

www.Interstrength.com
www.type-resources.com
www.hpsys.com
www.qualifying.org

(more to come as I identify them)

Charles:
November 26th, 2008 at 5:59 am

Hey Vicky Jo and Robin,
I hope you’re both well. Thanks for sharing what was a most interesting and informative video. You are, IMHO, quite right about extolling the advantages of live personality and type workshops in addition to other learning methods. The opportunities that they present in terms of being able to share and learn from individuals of both the same and different ‘types’ is immense. Additionally, they can certainly help to bring the various theories to life with a more personal dimension.
I found Robin’s comment about how the context in which someone is operating can lead to false type determinations to be spot on. It is only after truly getting to know someone (or by asking them!) that their type can become clear. To assume otherwise is slightly arrogant and certainly error prone. I think that all too often there is a powerful tendency for us to present ourselves to the outside world in the way the specific situation demands irrespective of whether that is our ‘true natural selves’ or otherwise.

Best regards,
Charles [INFJ]

Rosalee:
July 15th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

Hi Vicky Jo,

I am very interested in type theory and have been studying it for several years. As much as I value your work (I love infj.com) I am a little disappointed that you seem to be promoting live workshops over self-teaching. I realize you probably come across a lot of self-taught people who are misinformed about type or make frequent errors with type. I feel like I should speak up for the ones that might not be misinformed and ask if you believe that it is possible for someone self-taught to understand type theory to the same degree as someone more formally trained. After all if I am not mistaken Jung developed his theory through study and reflection. Shouldn’t it be just as valid to study type the same way it was founded!? I thought the issue with Eric was interesting because I didn’t think he was devaluing live workshops by valuing being self-taught. I guess the big question is can someone self-taught be competent with type theory without attending live workshops or having formal training. If there are competent self-taught type theorists and enthusiasts it might be difficult to convey over the Internet. I am no expert but in my humble opinion if Eric has preferences for intj that would make competence an extremely high value. My guess is that he may have inadvertently stepped on your toes while trying to demonstrate his level of competence and experience with type. I am not devaluing live workshops and I would love to attend one someday but I felt it was necessary to stick up for self-teaching. You may have already guessed my preferences are likely for infj. I do think my infj nerve was hit. I don’t want to leave you with a bad feeling though I still think your work is great but I wanted to speak up on behalf of people who study type on their own.

Rosalee

VJ:
July 15th, 2009 at 9:41 pm

Hi, Rosalee.

I *completely* appreciate what you are saying, and I can understand the grounds for your suspicions. They are valid grounds!

Allow me to clarify:

In no way am I suggesting one should *not* do self-study — what I am suggesting is that self-study on its own is simply inadequate. Just as I would in no way want to visit a doctor who is merely self-taught and has never touched an actual patient, likewise psychological type does not reveal itself to one merely by reading books or websites.

I am currently developing ways around that using online video (as above); nevertheless, the only way to increase our psychological literacy is by interacting with real-life examples of the 16 type patterns and learning firsthand what they are like through face-to-face experience. And this is best accomplished through the framework of a live type workshop, where we are able to discuss differences and put some “form” around them. Each of us needs to develop our own psychological “encyclopedia” for the types that we may reliably reference, or we are subject to delusions (typically manifesting through our egos).

Dr. Linda Berens has told me on numerous occasions that the most valuable aspect of her type training under the tutelage of Dr. David Keirsey was when she got to meet and interview representatives of each of the 16 types. It provided her with reference points she still relies on some thirty years later.

I daresay it is fair to suggest that if Dr. Berens found this sort of learning the most valuable, then it stands to reason that following in those footsteps would increase our own competence.

One of the many ways this is becoming truer for me everyday is how often I am encountering mis-typed people in my practice. In particular I am encountering many ENFPs and ENFJs who have mistaken themselves for INFJs. When I remarked about this recently to a fellow type practitioner, she replied, “there’s a big difference between those types!” — as if to say, “how could anybody make such an obvious mistake as that?”

I agree entirely! It confirms my belief that if you don’t experience the patterns in person and make yourself available to feedback about your own patterns from those with greater experience, you can fool yourself until the end of time that you prefer a pattern you don’t. A live workshop demands one get crystal cleear about differences, and “take ownership” of their pattern.

Maybe it’s like singing — some people flatter themselves that they are great singers, but how many submit themselves to working with an actual voice teacher who can tell them precisely what their skill levels are, and where they aren’t cutting it? If someone is serious about [say] opera and wants to pursue it, a voice teacher is a necessary investment, even if they are merely indulging in a hobby.

So yay to self-study! — let’s have more of that — AND let us not kid ourselves that we can identify and grasp type differences without encountering other people, other types, in a live setting, and experiencing for ourselves firsthand exactly where and how we are different. Type is simply another abstract theory — a nice idea on paper — until one interacts with it in real life.

Thank you for your insightful comments and challenge — I appreciate your raising this matter.

Type Insights
insights into psychological type models