Customer Reviews
excellent follow-on once you've mastered MBTI basics 
2008-09-01
I have owned this book for some time and had made three or four attempts to read it without success. It was not until after I had brushed up on Myers-Briggs (MBTI) basics and felt like I had a clear understanding of the sixteen MBTI types that I was able to read through, learn from, and thoroughly enjoy this text. Once I gained a basic mastery of MBTI, Kiersey's grouping and analysis of temperaments became much more accessible and meaningful.
I always thought that the differences between Introverts and Extroverts were most profound and defining, and I had difficulty distinguishing between Ns and S's. After coming to understand the N/S distinction a little better (still plenty more to learn -- I don't claim to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination), I learned that the most significant source of difficulty in communications is between Intuitive Ns and Sensing S's -- which explains why Ns are grouped together and why S's are grouped together in the temperaments.
Kiersey groups persons into four different temparements -- SP Artisans (playmates, liberators), SJ Guardians (helpers, socializers), NT Rationals (mindmates, individuators), and NF Idealists (soulmates, harmonizers). SP Artisans include ESTP Promoters, ISTP Crafters, ESFP Performers, and ISFP Composers. SJ Guardians include ESTJ Supervisors, ISTJ Inspectors, ESFJ Providers, and ISFJ Protectors. NF Idealists include ENFJ Teachers, INFJ Counselors, ENFP Champions, and INFP Healers. Rationals include ENTJ Field Marshalls, INTJ Masterminds, ENTP Inventors, and INTP Architects.
Kiersey discusses each of the temperaments at length and provides specific information on each of the four MBTI types found in each temparement. The text also discusses how the temparements impact mating, parenting, and leadership styles. The book is chock-full of real-world examples and references to famous personalities. Particularly interesting is the discussion of how each of the temperaments interact with the other temperaments in parenting and social relationships. Kiersey explains why Ns are most successful partnering with other Ns, while SJs and SPs can make a good team. Very interesting.
This book is desnsely-packed with information. I think it would be difficult for anyone without a solid fundamental understanding of MBTI. I would not recommend it as a starting point for MBTI study, but it is an excellent next step for anyone who has conquered the basics and wants to learn more.
Excellent book, very practical for the business professional 
2008-07-12
I teach organizational behavior classes where we review Myers Briggs and DISC assessments. This book covers Myers Briggs individual types in a straight forward and easy to digest format. It's review of 4 groups of personalities, the Guardians (SJ), Artisans (SP), Rationals (NT), and Idealists (NF), will help on both a professional and personal level. He defines their many traits of temperament and character, including their roles where they perform best in.
For those who enjoy the personal analysis too, he actually covers relationships from dating to parenting too.
Flawed 
2008-05-20
This book is based on the MBTI system and please understand that this system has serious flaws. The only effective system to personality typing is used by Rod Novichkov in his book How to Find Yourself and Your Best Match Socionics. Eventhough the book sounds like a matchmaking book it is infact written with the purpose of explaining the different personality types and goes further to explain morphology and intertype relationships between people. Read Socionics and inspire your professors to look at this type theory before you seek answers from MBTI; you will be impressed.
This is the WRONG EDITION to buy! 2008-05-12
The second edition is so bad, the name should be changed to "Pretty Please Understand Me, Despite My Poor Writing."
Mark Twain once wrote "I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one instead." A good editor cuts down. Unfortunately, Kiersey's originally brilliant book took the opposite direction. The first edition of Please Understand Me was lucid, and at the same time enigmatic. The second edition, almost twice the page count, was so diffuse, it appeared to have been written by committee.
I didn't understand it.
It appeared that Kiersey was not so interested in persuading the reader of the book's thesis, but more interested in paying homage to the great-great-great-grandfathers of typing theory. Kiersey tediously attempted to stretch and squeeze the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Paracelsus, Adickes, Spranger, Kretschmer, Fromm and Myers to match each other, and boiled them all down to the same thing: that there are four broad categories of personality types. It was a little like hearing an argument that the Spanish word for crocodile and the Filipino word for alligator are referring to the same animal. It left me unconvinced.
The book then diverged into one chapter for each of the four temperaments. Here, instead of four coherent chapters, I felt like I was leafing through four drawers of a filing cabinet where a researcher had thrown scraps of trivia about each temperament, and then just belched them out. The treatment of each temperament was therefore illogical and unbelievably long. And of course I had to endure not one description of a temperament, but about five names for the same temperament from Paracelsus to Jung to Myers, blah, blah, blah. I lost interest even when I was reading about my own personality type. (Maybe the chapter should have mentioned, "You are the type who falls asleep when reading a chapter about yourself full of things that are not true."
RAY OF LIGHT
So I tried the first edition. The first edition was a collaboration of Kiersey and Bates. Perhaps Bates was the copy editing half of the duo. At less than 200 pages, the first edition is a perfect example of a book that can sell millions of copies.
Understandable, concise, and lucid. The first edition takes a complicated theory (and any typing theory would have to be complicated to do humans justice) and makes it usable. Because it makes the system workable, Kiersey & Bates and Myers & Briggs are indispensible to each other. The second chapter of the first edition is the most useful 30 pages ever written in the field.
SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Personality typing is an old idea, but strangely, I believe that it is in its infancy. In my view, the problems with the second edition illustrate the reasons why this fascinating field is only barely on the verge of finding its legs.
Personality typing is a field where too many people are selling the theory and too few are developing it.
You can't prove a theory by showing that the theory is old. To seriously convince anyone, you prove the theory through social scientific methods.
To those who would argue that these theories are not scientifically provable, I would argue that personality typing should be more available to scientific investigation than almost any other field of social science, because it is based on the simple concept: "By knowing a person's type we can anticipate rather accurately what he will do most of the time." (First Edition, p. 27.) If you can predict what a particular person will do, then you can create experiments to test whether the prediction is true. That's the foundation of scientific theory. And without that, Myers-Briggs is no different from astrology or palm reading. But I believe it is.
My readings have always vaguely suggested that Myers and Briggs established their theory through experimentation, but I have seen no real description of the experiments or their findings. So maybe this data does exist, but it's just not frequently discussed. (Please comment to this review and give me the sources so I can educate myself.)
If the data is out there, I have two criticisms. First, I believe that Myers Briggs suffers from inadequate P.R., because many people would be more likely to believe it if they understood the clinical work behind it. That Aristotle allegedly thought about it first doesn't make the theory true. Second, if Myers-Briggs is a scientific theory, then it should be developed like all scientific theories -- with more experimentation on an ongoing basis. And I don't think that ongoing experimentation is going on, which is a shame.
I suspect that people are not developing this worthy theory because personality typing is an easy sell on the seminar circuit, similar to many types of pseudo-science that corporate management types seem to gobble up. And something tells me that this theory holds more for the human race than the promise of consulting fees.
Excellent Experience 2008-05-05
My order from Amazon was great once again. My book arrived very quickly and in excellent shape as promised.
Beneficial and introspective 2007-11-30
I love books that help you take a closer look into your own personality and temperament, and this one is perhaps the best I've found. The only difficulty I had with it was the test portion. It would have been even better if the book went over how to take the categorizing exam. Everyone I gave it to scored "idealist" when most clearly weren't and were just answering what they aspire to be versus what they actually are. If you are into looking at yourself, flaws included (I must stress that), and can get past this problem, this book is for you. In all, it covers how to be more accepting of our differences, which I greatly needed when I purchased it.
Wow--has this evolved from first book 2007-10-18
Remarkable life-tool for better home interactions and outstanding for the workplace. If we were all taught the principles of this book we would have better interactions throughout our life walk. This book defines even further each of the temperaments-- it is a bit technical for a novice beginner in the big pool of life--but just read through and over passages--look up terms your not familiar with to get the full benefit of this valueable insight to how people move through and interpret their day. Since I better understand myself and how I perceive or maybe perceived--allows me to recognise sooner why things are going as they are in my life and others. The value of the information is "priceless"!
Very good book on Myers-Briggs personality types 2007-09-24
This is a very good book if you are interested in psychology, personality types (Meyers-Briggs), or just understanding yourself or other people.
Communicate 2007-09-17
Listen, if you are a man or woman wanting to communicate or better understand the differences in the way people behave toward one another, this is a great resource. Recommended
The definitive "twist" on a classic model 2007-08-10
George E. Box once said: "All models are wrong. Some models are useful."
Keirsey takes the traditional Meyers-Briggs model and by merely viewing it from a different perspective increases its utility.
He retains the same measurement charateristics of the original model: Introvert/Extrovert, Sensor/Intuitor, Thinker/Feeler, and Judger/Prober, and posits key discriminators that, based upon behavioral observations, result in a classification scheme that is delightfully simple and useful.
His derived model identifies four tempremental archetypes which he calls: Guardians, Artisans, Idealists, and Rationalists. He explains the differences and similarities between the types based upon two criteria: mode of communication (concrete vs. abstract), and mode of achievement (cooperative vs. utilitarian).
The model does not attempt to "pigeonhole" people, it instead offers a plausible explanation for why folks sometimes become "stuck" in their interactions based upon their preferences. This is liberating in the sense that it provides a basis of understanding for what is important to you and to the other person, from this proceeds an opportunity for mutual respect (to look at again) and acknowledgment of the dignity of our fellow human beings.
Utterly intriguing -- the model may be "wrong" but it sure is useful.
