12/13/2006

Various authors

Other Contemporary Authors on Type
Written by Donwilliams

Many authors from psychology to wellness to business have discovered that typology is more important than most of us ever dreamed. Some of these authors can be found below. We invite you to explore them.

For those wanting to learn more about C.G. Jung, the web site, The C. G. Jung Page at www.cgjungpage.org is the most complete web site available. Information presented includes: articles, papers and interviews, workshop schedules, links to Jungian institutes and related websites, book reviews as well as a glossary of Jung's terminology.

For those interested specifically in falsification of type, one of the most interesting new books is Now Discover Your Strengths. The book, written by a team of Gallup researchers-consultants, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, with the Gallup International Research and Education Center, reveals that Gallup Consulting did a 25-year retrospective study of their global consulting practice in order to understand why the had not been more successful in helping clients achieve their goals. Their discovery and the most significant point in made in the book is that they were not more successful because throughout the world in businesses of all sizes 80 percent of the employees were being encouraged to develop and use their weaknesses rather than their strengths. In other words, they discovered that 80 percent of their clients' employees around the world were falsifying type, and concluded that it was impossible for any business to be highly effective when 80 percent of its workers are falsifying type. The Gallup Findings confirm Dr. Benziger's findings in her book, Falsification of Type, that falsification of type is a tremendous global problem affecting production, individual and corporate effectiveness, health and mental health so dramatically that it can be understood to be as serious as AIDS.

Elaine N. Aron's book, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, reporting the experiences of introverted people living in the United States, continues to attract attention from introverts seeking to understand why they are so overwhelmed. Again, not surprisingly, Aron's work confirms Dr. Benziger's observations in Overcoming Depression, that the American culture tends to have a predictably negative effect on introverted persons such that they report suffering from depression more than the average person. The point that Dr. Benziger has added to the discussion is that the depression is the natural result of these people feeling overwhelmed, the natural result of our 2nd crisis response, conserve withdraw trying to help these people stay alive and survive when they are living continuously in an impossible world.

Robert Fritz's book, The Path of Least Resistance, continues to be a top seller among the self-help books. Fritz's insight that people can make change more often when they are set up and keep the tension between what they want and their current reality. Benziger's use of The path of least resistance includes honoring Fritz's work, and at the same time pointing out that when people falsify type to survive they generally do so using the brain's path of least resistance, across the corpus callosum. For this reason, when people have been wounded early in life their home base is often not their true preference, but the type of thinking across their brain's corpus callosum from their preference - because this is indeed the path of least resistance they take unconsciously in life to try to survive.

Natural Health September-October 1997 Issue contains an article on "Danger: Men At Work" in which the author quotes the president of the American Holistic Medical Association as saying that many people actually get sick and die from holding jobs they dislike. Although the author does not know about Benziger's work with Jung's Falsification of Type, he has observed what Jung referred to as the "serious Costs of Falsification" for the individual and society.

When people do jobs which suit their natural lead function and natural level of extraversion/introversion, they feel happy and internally energized. The dislike here identified as a health risk is generally a powerful inner message that the person is outside their area of natural effectiveness.

The Harvard Business Review July-August 1997 Issue contains an article on "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work" in which the authors suggest that contemporary neuroscience is validating Jung's model; and that businesses are well served to seek to apply at least three key features of Jung's model to assure their success: the four functions or functionally specialized regions of the cortex, the tendency for each person to have only one natural lead, and introversion/extraversion. That the authors are recommending business leaders look to Jung's work is important. For, as they say, less sophisticated models lack a full appreciation of features such as extraversion and introversion. That the authors suggest business look into and apply Jung's model by looking at and using the MBTI assessment indicates only that the authors are unaware personally of the BTSA, which is a solid and important next step beyond the MBTI.

Dr. Benziger's introductory article

Leveraging Your Brain's Natural Lead
to Achieve and Sustain Inner Balance

By Katherine Benziger, Ph.D.

Breakthroughs in brain research in the past 10 years have shocked neuroscientists. Learning to live an energy efficient lifestyle has taken on a new meaning, as the neurological foundations of human thinking are better understood. Just as we find ourselves selecting more energy efficient cars, cars which cost less to run and pollute less; so too, we are learning that by selecting jobs and activities which use our brain’s most fuel-efficient component (i.e. functionally specialized area), we can naturally increase our own inner well-being and balance, as well as our own mental, physical and emotional health.


Here’s what we’ve learned. Our brain is made of four highly specialized areas which are responsible for performing very different tasks. Their specialized capabilities make us think they are the physiological bases for Jung’s four functions: thinking, sensing, feeling and intuition.

CORTICAL REGION FUNCTIONALLY SPECIALIZED ABILITIES JUNG'S FUNCTION OR TYPE
Left Frontal Logical Analysis, Decision Making Thinking
Left Posterior Convexity
Left Basal
Sequencing, Performing Routines Sensing
Right Posterior Convexity
Right Basal
Harmonizing, Connecting Feeling
Right Frontal Pattern Analysis, Inventing Intuition


The two discoveries that have surprised scientists are:

1. that we are each born with one efficient and three inefficient areas; and

2. that the one efficient area is so tremendously efficient, it naturally uses only one one-hundredth the energy second per second.

Moreover, although we can and do develop competencies in all four areas, as we study different subjects and master different types of tasks, the relative efficiency of the one mode is never altered. We continue, throughout our life, when learning or using a skill managed by our brain’s preferred area to enjoy more efficiency, a faster learning curve and a tendency to make fewer errors.


These discoveries have surprised neuro-researchers and educators alike. Both had assumed that those who appear to be more intelligent on IQ tests could learn and do just about anything well, given a good teacher, proper training and practice; and those who performed less well on such tests would do virtually everything less well. The breakthrough discoveries say in no uncertain terms: everyone is gifted – in one area of their brain. Everyone can be smart – concentrate easily, learn rapidly, feel energized, be highly effective. The trick is to make the choice to use and leverage skills managed by area of our brain that is naturally highly efficient.

And that’s not all. It turns out the context in which we do something matters, as well. Additional research has established that each of us has a stable level of inner wakefulness (e.g. how awake we are inside when we wake up). About 15% of the us are very awake. About 15% of us are barely awake. And about 70% of us fall along a continuum between these two very different inner realities. Why does this matter? Because, those of us who are in the first group, who are barely awake, need lots of external stimulation (noise, activity, competition, crowds, a crisis, literal or metaphoric fire-fighting) to wake us up so that we can perceive and think clearly. And, unfortunately, the very stimulation which makes it possible for women in this first group to achieve peak performance, creates discomfort and anxiety in the second group, causing them to shut down or leave. In other words, what facilitates the first group improve performance actually hinders the performance of those in the second group. A quick example: a woman in the first group, who needs the additional stimulation will elect to read in a noisy office or kitchen or cafeteria, where the noise around her keeps her awake so she can read. Put in the same environment, a woman in the second group would find reading very difficult, if not impossible.


As such, it is easy to understand how and why a woman gets out of balance when she goes to work.



1) She gets out of balance, because she is regularly using mental skills which are not managed by her natural lead function – a life and work habit which demands and consumes one hundred times the oxygen second per second – leading to: irritability, headaches, fatigue and a wide range of other problems (e.g. digestive disorders, inability to sleep, anxiety, and depression) from overworking her brain in a way that robs the rest of her body of the oxygen it needs to operate properly.

And or,

2) She gets out of balance because she is pushing herself to compete, close deals and or function in noisy, crowded environments, more than is suited to her natural level of introversion-extraversion, generating inside her a chronic low grade anxiety, as well as forcing her to need significant downtime after work to re-balance.

To achieve balance in the first instance, she needs to identify, develop and leverage skills in her natural lead function so that her work is naturally energizing and meaningful, rather than exhausting, and meaningless. Indeed, when her brain is being so very efficient she finds her work easy, even fun.

When we invest our minds in activities and tasks that our brain can manage from its area of superior efficiency, we receive an abundance of energy, mental alertness and inner balance. It is the wisest investment we can make. And, in choosing to make it, we are honoring and empowering ourselves. The result is that we live and work in balance. We do not need to do anything else to achieve or reclaim our balance, because we no longer lose it.


In other words, living a balanced inner life is the natural pay back or ROI we get for choosing to invest our time, energy and attention in activities which use our natural lead function in the environment or context which suits our arousal needs.

Article taken from www.benziger.org