PICTURES OF PERSONALITY presents the Four Temperaments and 16 Personality Types in pictures worth 1000 words. You will see what is behind normal personality differences and the games people play. All key concepts are presented visually with precise explanations. The Five Point Survey will help you to find your own Temperament (David Keirsey) and Personality Type (Carl Jung, MBTI, Myers-Briggs). You will get to know your two sides (light and dark) so you can manage the conflict, flow with your natural strengths, and make friends with your other side. This graphical guide will help you to understand and remember the primary personality differences, similarities, patterns, and relationships. In sum, the book illustrates and explains the two most popular and respected systems of personality typology in the world, and will help you to understand yourself and others better. If you like to learn visually, PICTURES OF PERSONALITY is for you. Over 150 illustrations, color, glossary, and index.
Also, see the Type TV Show, a popular software program that visually explains the basics of Carl Jung's typology and the evolution of Jung's eight types into the 16 MBTI Personality Types--the most popular and respected system of typology in the world.
John
Lopker's new book, Pictures
of Personality, is a unique
graphical guide to understanding the Four Temperaments and 16
personality types of the MBTI®. The types are simplified and
clarified so that everyone can benefit from understanding them. ASTD-LA.
American Society for Training and Development
Pictures of Personality
by John Lopker presents several elements of typological thought in a
stunning visual format. The pages are a glossy, tactile joy, the
graphic designs are evocative (especially when one considers the author
and the artist are the same person!), and the text expresses some very
old truths in very new ways. Although I'm still spending time with this
tome, in my preliminary field-testing, it's the typology book most
likely to incite conversation when brought as a prop to a
café or poised on a coffee table in the home. Some deep
Jungian thoughts find accessible expression here. --Mojo,
Arizona
Recommended reading for students of Jungian psychology. Pictures
Of Personality is an
illustrated and informative introduction which presents the reader with
an informed understanding of inborn personality differences within a
context of Jungian psychology. The "reader friendly" text is enhanced
with more than two hundred color illustrations, a glossary, and an
index. Pictures of
Personality is
enthusiastically recommended reading for students of Jungian
psychology, metaphysics, and human nature. Midwest
Book Review
Pictures of Personality
is a superb book on personality types and is both a great reference
volume as well as a practical tool. The book has been written in such a
way that it is insightful yet easy to understand. Using one set of
symbols, the reader can identify numerous personality tendencies and
come to a deeper understanding of themselves and those around. Once the
symbols are understood they reveal a great depth of information that is
expressed in an easy to understand system. In some way, the meaning of
each symbol must be decoded, they are like Zen Koans, brief, intense
and brimming with meaning, but they must be contemplated and used to be
fully appreciated. This approach is especially useful as it avoids
putting meaning or beliefs onto the system and allows the user to find
his or her own application and level of comprehension. The book itself
centres on sixteen pages in color, that provide a complete summary in
words and images for each of the sixteen types, these correspond to the
Myers-Briggs types. The four temperaments are given the colours of
blue, green, red and yellow, and the four variations of each
temperament are given specific symbols. It is profusely illustrated,
well presented and is a great asset for those who wish to come to a
deeper understanding of human personality. Living
Traditions Magazine, Australia
Pictures of Personality
is a surprising and refreshing addition to the literature on
personalities. Lopker's approach is entirely new. Instead of wordy
definitions, he describes the temperaments and types with symbols and
metaphors. As he says, his book is "ancient and futuristic" at once,
and he's right; it's definitely not your everyday book on type. Pictures
of Personality is a book
worth exploring, playing with and savoring. Thanks to Lopker's
extraordinary imagination and clear mind, a lot of things that were
once just things will suddenly start to remind you of people and their
personalities. The Type
Reporter: Psychological Type in Everyday Life. March 2002
[The Pictures of Personality Symbols
are] a rather interesting twist to the conundrum of personalities using
the classic collapsed MBTI temperament types by John Lopker. (No matter
where you go, there you are.) Dr.
Leslie Owen Wilson
Robert Pirsig, in Zen and
the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,
describes a motorcycle as a pattern of logical relationships worked out
in steel. Pictures of
Personality, by John Lopker,
may be said to describe psychological type in much the same way: as a
pattern of archetypal relationships worked out in human nature.
In order to introduce a reader to this archetypal understanding of type, the author takes a bold and original tact. Rather than treat personality theory as a form of cognitive science, Lopker celebrates, instead, its hermeneutic implications, offering the reader a highly visual and holistic grasp of the psyche's underlying architecture. In so doing, the author serves to illuminate the more esoteric character of Jung's theory of psychological types, showing graphically how each functional standpoint carries implications of its opposite. The fourfold nature of temperament emerges as kin to the elder statesmen of the world's enduring philosophies: all those quaternities of forces, directions, seasons in which the universal aspects of human nature are mirrored. Where Lopker develops his themes conceptually, he uses a vocabulary that emphasizes the collective character of his subject, speaking, for example, about Magicians and Rulers rather than Perceivers and Judgers. This permits him to devote his attention to the way these types experience and exercise free will -- in what he calls global or local terms. The book is thereby accessible to readers new to the subject, but it also invites seasoned type practitioners to see the theory afresh.
That being said, the book is a challenging one. It asks the reader to grasp by way of perceptual experience the dimension it offers rather than to absorb it intellectually. It means, in this respect, to guide individuation rather than describe type as such. To that end, the medium is very literally the message. For example, the author has created a series of iconographic maps to the sixteen types, exploring them from many different angles; and the book culminates in a highly inventive deck of Tarot-like cards, rich with the symbols he's gleaned from many world traditions to illustrate his premises.
In summary, this is a unique and artistically exuberant book that seeks to immerse a reader in the underlying structural arrangement that links human nature to Nature writ large. It's not for the casual reader, but will reward those who surrender to the highly original lens the author has trained on a process shared by all of us.
Reviewed by Lenore Thomson, M.Div., author of Personality Type: An Owner's Manual (Shambhala, 1998, Jung on the Hudson Book Series). She has written extensively on theology and psychoanalysis for the past 30 years. Formerly managing editor of Quadrant: The Journal of Contemporary Jungian Thought, she has taught courses on psychological types and popular culture at the C.G. Jung Foundation in New York City.
All models/systems of consciousness are false-limiting-half-truths:
with that out of the way, Pictures of Personality is a great system of
understanding consciousness and why people act the way they do. Evertoth
An
Unusual Book on Typology. It
was bound to happen. Somebody would eventually take a cue from a lot of
Jung's writings about man, his archetypes, myths and symbols, the
concepts of David Keirsey and the Four Temperaments, as well as the
Sixteen Personality types of the Myers-Briggs, and much else to create
an unorthodox though handsomely designed picture book using six pure
and bright colors and a relatively terse text.
The book is not to be looked at in the usual fashion. Lopker wants his readers to experience and internalize (rather than conceptualize or intellectualize) typology and Jung-related categories and polarities. They should "learn to fish," as he puts it, and contemplate its 212 pictures and icons derived from many sources, quite a few with cosmic implications, such as mandalas, yin and yang, alchemical ideas, boats on the dark sea of the collective unconscious, the four elements of ancient thinkers, the pentad, Plato's five solids, the compass and the spiral,. Lopker has advised me by e-mail that he feels that "personality typology is, at its heart, about seeing the patterns of Mother Nature mirrored in human nature."
His book is designed to provide a clear visual image these patterns and to lead to the "aha!" experience of recognition since "a picture is worth a thousand words." One can argue that this is indeed applicable to the lovely William Blake watercolors which he reproduces.
He also uses little poems, tales and parables and one phrase and even one word statements to try to convey his version of typological ideas. He uses his own vocabulary to describe them. Thus, Myers Briggs functions become "Talents." The sixteen personality types become four sets of four Activators, Clarifiers, Stabilizers and Unifiers. Extraversion and Introversion become Internal and External Attitudes. He also speaks of Magicians of the Known and of the Unknown,(SPs and NPs), Rulers of the Past and of the Future,(SJs and NJs), Harmonizers (Fs), Globalizers (Ps), Localizers (Js), Four Natures and Four Realms.
Such phrases are colorful and have some appeal, and may also provide some of us the pleasure of decoding them. They can also help towards a fresh look at standard typological concepts. Lopker puts a great deal of emphasis "on our light side and our dark side," on polarity, and on consciousness and unconsciousness. The book also contains a fairly extensive glossary (with numerous quotations from the collected works of Carl Jung), which contain brief but thoughtful analyses of many relevant ideas.
As typology emphasizes, people are different and have different needs and different ways of learning and apprehending reality. There is evidence that this book does prove inspiring to some and provides to them new feeling of understanding of typological concepts and indeed of themselves and others. This in itself would make the considerable and earnest effort made by Mr Lopker in designing this book worthwhile.
A number of the readers of this Bulletin may be genuinely intrigued by this volume, which should appeal particularly to those who share some of Mr. Lopker's basic philosophy and like a more venturesome approach, expanding on Jungian and temperament concepts. They may also find the symbol and icon cards which Mr.Lopker also designed to illustrate his ideas to be entertaining. Reviewed by Pierre Ferrand, Bulletin of Psychological Type, Spring 2002:
Pictures of Personality is
fun to read or view. A person completely unfamiliar with the technical
details of personality type theory will be attracted by the artistic
graphical designs that are very suggestive of fundamental ideas. Indeed
one novice was observed by this reviewer to say, I
would buy the book simply for the pictures.
Pictures of Personality
gives a new playful pictorial approach to the subject of the four
temperaments which David Keirsey has written on so extensively. John
Lopker calls them the four human natures - which is a useful way to
differentiate his novel graphical approach for developing and
explaining his concepts from Keirsey's textual approach. The names for
the four natures are Clarifiers, Unifiers, Stabilizers and Activators.
As does Keirsey before him, Lopker moves to show the relationship
between the four human natures and the sixteen MBTI® types. In
contrast to Keirsey who has always maintained that Jungian constructs
of mental functions and attitudes within the mind are unverifiable,
Lopker maintains that there is a close Jungian connection and includes
many quotes from Carl Jung in the Appendix to suggest an association
between the four natures and Jungian psychology. This is sufficient
reason for me to recommend the book to beginning or seasoned students
of temperament and personality type who want to get a fresh viewpoint. Walter
J. Geldart, M.Eng., M.Div.
You've
shown me the connection between nature and human nature. I look
out my window at the sun and sky and earth and water, and they seem
full of new meaning to me now. I especially like your explanation of
bounded/unbounded confidence or trust; it has helped me to understand
so many things. I love that framework you provide. I think it's
absolutely brilliant. Susan
Scanlon, Editor, The Type Reporter
A terrific book on personality types is now on the market. Pictures
of Personality by John
Lopker, provides scholars and students of personality type an exquisite
reference and study tool. The heart of the book is sixteen pages, in
color, that provide a complete summary in words and images for each of
the sixteen personality types, which correspond to the Myers-Briggs
types. The four temperaments are given the colors of blue, green, red
and yellow, and the four variations of each temperament are given
specific symbols.
The book is extremely helpful. With one set of symbols, the reader can identify numerous personality tendencies. The symbols must be studied carefully, but once they are understood, the symbol pictures paint a thousand words. I enjoy the extremely lean descriptions for each of the symbols. The meanings are presented almost as puzzles, and the responsibility for grasping the meanings rest with the reader's willingness to contemplate the ramifications of each. In other words, the author does not impose his beliefs on the readers; instead he provides a clean, intelligent and extremely well developed picture of the personality types. This book belongs in the same category as the masterpieces of Jung, Myers-Briggs, and Keirsey in exposing the meaning and application of personality type theory. David Henry, Curriculum Coordinator/English Instructor, El Paso Community College