John's personality page

As a ``judging'' type, I tend to put (ethical) values on things readily...

My personality type: INTJ

I tend to be sceptical about personality classifications etc (the way some people talk about their personality types is worryingly like astrology believers talk about their star signs -- although it's probably fairer to say that astrology believers talk about their star signs as though they were personality types), but was surprised by the accuracy of the personality synopsis for INTJ that the Myers-Briggs test for personality types produced for me, hitting the nail on the head about many things which were not asked about in the questionnaire.

I came out as pretty strongly INTJ, not just marginal:

The INTJ type is described as the classical ``Scientist'' type.

For a list of links to the profiles, see here.

Judging

The personality type description above refers to ``judging'', and I happily admit to being a ``judging'' type... but doesn't Jesus tell us not to judge, so that we should not be judged?

Here, ``judging'' refers to placing a value judgement on a situation, rather than making situations value-free... I'm confident in being able to say that some things are good, some are bad, and some are hard to tell correctly (including perhaps some of the ones that seem good or bad). Placing such value judgements is closely linked with ethics -- to behave ethically, you must be able to distinguish between ethical and unethical. One wise pastor pointed out to me (when I was asking him questions about why ethics and judgementalism don't conflict, after he had given a talk on ethics) that it is a matter of discernment, rather than of judgement.

Depression and therapy

I was a long-term depressive, and have been treated very effectively by Cognitive Therapy... if you're depressed, I'd definitely recommend this, ask your doctor about it. (And although I'm not keen on the chemical approach to psychological problems, I'll add that in my case anti-depressants did seem to work as a stop-gap... which is in a way annoying, since I don't think of the problems in those terms, but as being ways in which you get stuck in parts of your mental terrain.)

I realized during the treatment that some of the ideas echo things I have read in the Bible, and so I am starting to put together some ideas on Christian Cognitive Therapy, addressing the psychospiritual aspects of depression and neurosis.

[Thoughts] John C. G. Sturdy

Last modified: Sun Jun 10 18:17:20 GMT Daylight Time 2007