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posted by Vicky Jo at 3:12 AM
Thursday, June 15, 2006
About Me
- Name: Vicky Jo
- Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
I coach people to identify and develop their natural personality strengths in order to maximize their potential.
Please contact me to arrange a free strategy session -- I would be delighted to speak with you.
Previous Posts
- Communication Redux
- Tandem Processing
- Rate Yourself
- Contrasting Ni and Ne
- Contrasting Fi and Fe
- Truth in Humor
- Process, Results, & E-mail Lists
- More Words
- Another Buzz Word
- Codependence
15 Comments:
This is the 2nd time you've mentioned boredom on this blog, which leads me to guess you ignored my previous reply. So let me try again.
Boredom stems from boredom with a particular process. Everyone can experience boredom -- it's usually boredom with an inferior or Shadow process in our type pattern. Even Dr. Beebe expressed boredom by yawning when we delved into his 5th process at the last workshop I attended. (It was a moment of mirth and self-recognition for all present.)
Where ADD shows up for me is that our culture has a predisposition for ESTJ. Which would mean that anything that doesn't align with those preferences would show up as "abnormal" and be labeled as "lacking discipline" and even marginalized as "ADD." Naturally, that same cultural norm makes anyone with a preference for perceiving in the outer world very "wrong." ESTJs just don't behave that way!
So coaching questions you might try on for size include, "What processes do I use that delight me but bore others? What processes are not socially acceptable overall in my culture? How can I use those processes in effective ways that get past the cultural embargos against it, and not fall into the trap of thinking I'm somehow damaged?"
Culture norms make certain processes "right" or "wrong" -- while type is really about gifts and how we're all okay. So if you're okay, and I'm okay, what's going on that's making us "wrong" for what we do well??
Dya follow me?
Well I suppose that's one way you might say it, although it feels just a tiny bit simplistic to me (although, to be fair, doesn't everything?).
If I step into Dr. Beebe's perspective of type, it seems to me there are eight forms of consciousness. I would suggest that the thing you are not attentive to is a consciousness that is less developed -- perhaps because it is not your preference. Society doesn't care about your preference -- it wants to dictate that everyone come from the same forms of consciousness, and it punishes those who do not conform, either by condemning, labeling, or marginalizing.
Bill --
now you're getting onto it! My hesitation is around the phrase "not giving a rip." That might cause problems. Can we finetune that to ask, "How can I be with the discomfort of criticism" OR (better still) "How can I turn that criticism to my benefit?" OR, here's one I like: design a powerful question to use with the person, such as, "Are you saying my suggestion did not benefit you?" OR "How could I have made that suggestion in a way that would not have elicited the criticism you just gave me?" That way you "dance" together and find a way for everyone to come away happy.
What dya think?
I admit I don't really know what you're talking about here - I'm lost (especially the body stuff). But here's what I'm reading between the lines: I'm picking up that you're letting somebody get away with criticizing you without challenging it. If you "know" somebody is being righteous at you, why are you letting them get away with it? I challenge you to be authentically in the moment and take the big scary risk to ask the question I suggested, "What was it about what I just said that didn't work for you?" The problem with "already knowing the answer" is that it's based PURELY on assumption, AND it's preventing you from speaking up. I guarantee that speaking up will make a difference. If you don't try it, it will be that ole definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. I DARE you to risk a new behavior and see what comes of it.
Even if you're "right," it's time to put the matter on the table and have a crucial confrontation about it. You are not a child, and no one has the right to dictate how you should be. If you're letting someone get away with doing that to you because you "already know," then shame on you for giving them that kind of power over you. You are now part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Break the pattern!
I do have to weigh in on this one because I have clinically diagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder. Sans hyperactivity (mostly). Clinically referred to currently as AD/HD, Predominantly Inattentive Type.
As someone who does very much believe and understand that the medical diagnosis is based on real physiological differences in the brain, causing testable, measurable underfunctioning of specific brain areas which aid us in sustaining the thought processes and maintaining the behavioral control needed to function and survive as the complicated creatures we are-
I have to chime in with some facts here.
First, the most important thing I think anyone who doesn't have AD/HD or hasn't had personal reason to delve deeply into the medical literature and current research on it should see, and do, is look and skim through here:
http://amenclinics.com/bp/atlas/ch12.php
(Also, for comparison's sake, check out, in the drop-down 'Table of Contents' box: "Chapter 2-Images, Normal & Abnormal," and for an amazing quickie-education on all the things we know our brain controls, by section- "Chapter 3.")
(I think this doctor is now the top expert in the U.S. for AD/HD and brain disorders.)
Anyway, from what I learned in school and from my own study, this is what I believe about the link between "INFP preferences" and AD/HD:
What we call a (cognitive, anyway) brain dysfunction is almost always a matter of degree. It's a sliding scale. On a continuum. Just as we understand about the words "normal" and "abnormal."
Yes, certain contexts and activities are going to show up the weaknesses in one person's brain functions over another's. And vice versa.
BUT- there IS an empirical component for AD/HD. Starting with that website, helps. But in sum, the neuroscience community has amassed enough and varied enough kinds of pictures & images into the brain, now, and measured enough structural differences as well as chemical output differences, to not only have a template, established a standard, for what your averagely healthy, 'normally' functioning brain looks like, and looks like under standard conditions when it's functioning like the well-oiled machine it's built to be-- but they have enough images of various problems, traumas, malfunctioning areas, etc.-- to also have a standard for what DISorder/malfunction looks like, in many different areas.
And there are not only structural differences in the brains of those with AD/HD (certain parts are smaller, than in the standard brain), but, as they've known for a very long time, the blood flow to certain critical areas of a brain with AD/HD is less (than the average 'normal' brain) by...I want to say like 30%? (or up to), and as well (and hardly the least important fact), that the chemical neurotransmitter output is different in the AD/HD brain. Different as in INsufficient.
I know, to some these 'facts' don't say much, adding up to "So...what?" Well, their effect is this:
Comparing only the individual exhibiting AD/HD to themselves -NOT to some 'societal' standard- when we correct for all that we can, for those differences in neurophysiology in the AD/HD-er, by the means currently available to us (the most effective individual means yet is chemical supplementation), the individual's brain images, cognitive control and useability, and behavior all relatively 'normalize.'
Some ask, who don't understand, if this isn't just 'killing' the special gift(s) that 'AD/HD' minds bring, into the world.
But through the feedback reports of their patients (some of whom were concerned and raised those kinds of questions- "Will I lose my creativity?" -etc.), they have concluded that when their brain works right, THEY work right.
Meaning, the human mind was meant to have gifts and be creative, with special skills and abilities- ON TOP of its everyday normal function. And supplementing the brain with the crucial component it's been lacking to work like it is structured, wired, and set up to, only supplies the missing functionality- (usually which is CONTROL) -NOT take away any high-functionality, or special ability, that was there.
I used to hang out on an AD/HD forum, and from what I recall, most of the adults there that said they were some kind of artist or writer or made their livelihood off their creative abilities who had tried medication and found the effective one for them, DID NOT choose to go back to being unmedicated.
I would estimate (there are a lot of artists among the AD/HD set!) that I heard about less than 1 out of 5-10 who tried medication, but then chose to go off because they felt that it somehow affected their art. The rest said it (meds) was just a blessing and did not adversely affect their artistic ability, or creativity or art at all. On the other hand, many said that they were actually able to make a living off that life, because now they had some focus and self-control with which to direct their productivity, as well as keep all the other basic maintenance matters of life (rent, bills) under better control, so that they COULD just be focused on their art.
So for me, ideas about "dumbing down" or stupefying or drugging out the 'creative edge' or spirit of the Creative types is a very perhaps romantic idea, and we seem to LOVE it and have a super-hard time letting it go- but it is simply untrue.
And it's not serving us well, and is in fact cheating us, and our future Creative generation, from probably healthy, prolific lives.
The "madness/artistic genius" archetype is one that's GOT to GO.
Trust me- I've got PLENTY of kuckoos in MY family, and 'taint *ONE* of them an artistic genius!
;) -Brain disorder/dysfunction junction; 0% creativity.
P.S. Bill I am no one qualified to give any advice, but as a person with AD/HD my general statement to people who've wondered if they should look into it is that if there's something that's bothering _you_ (and you alone) enough in your life, that you think may have a chance of being AD/HD-related, you may owe it to yourself to check it out.
I had no clue what the he** was wrong with me until I was 25. I felt there was definitely something, and I sure as heck knew it had nothing to do with my INFP-ness.
It was far bigger and sabotaging and weightier than that. (Besides, INFP traits are not 'bad' or 'sabotaging' things, in ANY WAY!)
There- that's my neglected opinion in my last post (I forgot!)- what I think of linking INFP traits with AD/HD: I think somebody dreamed up the speculation. -And I doubt it was an INFP type. It sounds like [forgive me] the judgmental disapproval of some other type(s) who looked with scorn upon some INFP characteristics or functional by-product habits, and pathologized them.
If you have AD/HD, you know the difference (between the 'Something Wrong' and aspects of your personality style). _I_ think, anyway. (Maybe 'cuz I did...?)
~The ENFP Prayer~
God, help me keep my mind on one th...
LOOK A BIRD!
...ing at a time
++++++++++++++++++++++++
It is more rare to meet an ENFP who has NOT struggled with ADD than otherwise. I belong to a large coaching community, composed largely of ENFPs, and this is so common that I frankly got sick of hearing about it in my coaching programs.
I find it interesting that all E__Ps have what Beebe calls an "irrational" spine -- and, coincidentally, they're the ones who all seem to get tagged with ADD. So what is an "irrational spine?" It's when a perceiving process is both one's dominant and aspirational process (tandem).
John Beebe himself has an "irrational spine," and he occasionally wisecracks about what it's like to live life where *everything* seems like an unexpected surprise all the time.
It's certainly not what our ESTJ American culture expects. I definitely agree that heroic extraverted perceiving processes are pathologized in the United States. I shudder for my ESFP nephew and hope I can keep the drug-pushers away from him until he develops adequate understanding and confidence in himself.
Good call, Bill! Yes, INFJ has an irrational spine, but it's our dirty secret. All introverts with a "J" in their code actually have an irrational spine (even those scapegoat ISTJs we tend to deplore in the type community!).
So even though my "ADD" might be worse than anybody's, I'm not going to let you see it. (I'm not going to let you see my messy office either! ;-P)
So yes, the I__Ps and the E__Ps have in common that they *extravert* their perceiving process, which our ESTJ culture deplores (and pathologizes). But E__Ps have it worse than the I__Ps, because their very spine is irrational. They reeeally stick out. What I notice is that the happiest E__Ps I know have found work that honors and compensates this gift that "normal culture" rejects.
The school system got my niece on Ritalin, and convinced her she was broken. I refused to be convinced. Whenever she forgot to take a dose, she was a little spacey, and the whole family would comment on how "she forgot to take her medicine." She was what they call the "identified problem." She apologized once for being so goofy, and my husband told her he liked her better that way -- she seemed more real. A few years ago, I noticed she was "campaigning" with her mom to get off the junk, and they made some "deals" around homework. Apparently they reached an agreement, because she got off the stuff and has been perfectly fine ever since -- as normal as an ISFP can be.
When they started eyeing off her ESFP younger brother and hinting ADD with him, my sister yanked him and his brother out of school and started a homeschooling program. Even though she has ISTJ preferences and is pretty invested in doing the "conventional" thing, she was smart enough to realize she didn't want to play that game again.
The whole ADD issue is a mixed message, and I'm very uncomfortable about it. I can't figure out whether it's being deplored or glorified. What I find ironic is that people who don't like type because they insist it puts people in "boxes" don't have any problem shoving pills down their throats so they can live a "normal" lifestyle.
There are as many people who become neurotic because they are only normal, as there are people who are neurotic because they cannot become normal.
– C. G. Jung
Bill said...
"ADD sufferers are supposed to change jobs frequently, according to the psychiatrist that I was going to. I tried to explain that I had been blessed with a job where I got to control my own work environment, and management didn't care how I accomplished my projects, as long as they were completed on time, and functioned according to specifications, but to the psychiatrist, somehow that didn't matter."
and
"I reported all of these weird side effects to the psychiatrist, and he said, "Well forget it then. If Ritalin effects you this way, other stimulants would too."
I find your psychiatrist extremely ignorant.
For what it's worth.
Not everyone with AD/HD is the same or follows the exact same pattern, by far.
And, as far as your experience on Ritalin goes, as far as any experiences I've heard, those ARE extremely unusual.
And one of the first things any doc who's had sufficient experience trialing medications on AD/HD-ers will say is: "If the first stimulant med doesn't help, or if it has unpleasant side effects, don't give up- because everyone's body is different, and there are a LOT of different things to try, out there."
-Including non-stimulant AD/HD medications. (Strattera being one.)
And, I had negative experiences, Bill, on a few of the other Rx stimulants (than Ritalin), which were very unpleasant to me. Ritalin happens to be the one that my system & my brain likes the best. I can't say I've had any negative side effects. I am a music lover too, and it has not had that effect (or any negative effect, for that matter) on my listening pleasure at all.
Also, to quickly comment on your 'change in personality,' as you said:
I can say that I can recall at first feeling a little more "out there," too- and it was a bit of an oddity to me. It wasn't outrageous, though, and because the medication wasn't having any other bad effects, I decided to give it time to see whether I disliked that or not, or if it was simply a curious effect of my brain having more dopamine (this is the natural neurotransmitter in the brain that Ritalin is 'increasing'), and something which, if my brain naturally had sufficient amounts of, by itself, would be a natural part of my healthy personality.
What I found was that the "out"ness was something that was an initial effect, like a little bit of extra energy, that until another part of my brain learned to catch up with, at first spilled out like a new puppy. But after a little while, it IS like another center of my brain caught up to that, 'learned' the new energy signature, and adjusted itself accordingly. I no longer feel that stuff is just coming spilling out of my mouth. I'm my same, old thoughtful self again. Although I would say a benefit now is that I kind of feel I have a choice between putting a thought out there, and deciding to keep it in...whereas before, it was a lot harder to get it OUT, in contrast. So I feel now that I feel neither too inhibited, nor too 'loose.'
But, again: Only do something new or try something if YOU are feeling that there is a problem for you, personally.
My choice was based on the fact that I was personally miserable and sad.
(In response to Vicky Jo:) And I believe I have a strong enough ego and enough discernment to reject any messages from our culture or society that natural personality traits which are gifts are "inferior" or "bad." In fact, I did and HAVE rejected many such messages- before medication, and after.
So these are not the same thing.
And as far as certain personality traits looking like AD/HD traits go, I believe that it's all about that continuum idea, again. ESTJ and INFP traits and at polar opposite ends of a spectrum. And these preferences or dominances are mappable to certain brain regions.
No one would ever accuse ESTJ traits of appearing "AD/HD"-like. They're usually the antithesis of it, right? So, it makes logical sense that the polar opposite (but still within 'healthy') side of that spectrum of traits WOULD look closer to AD/HD-like, yes?
But that doesn't make them unhealthy.
What makes some behaviors unhealthy is when they go from adaptive to maladaptive: When they fall off the map.
I know my INFP traits from my AD/HD. Having the internal experience of being both, I know when I've (or what about me has) "fallen off the map."
And treating my AD/HD medically has not taken away or altered my inner INFP-ness.
However, I think I would say that since medication, I have been much more skillfully able to use my extraverted skills. They still tire me out, in the long run (such as here), but they're much more fluid when I do wish to use them.
I'm going to have to bow out of this conversation now, as it's also likely that I will off the rest of the blog/board.
May say why, elsewhere.
What I know is that many ENFPs seem to have "complexes" about ADD. As previously stated, going through a coach training program dominated by ENFPs, I've had an earful of ADD and medication and what-have-you. They seem to have a lot of energy around this topic (which is why I label it a "complex").
What I notice is how controlling health and body seems to map to the inferior function (and the associated inferiority complex) in their type pattern.
The difficulty is when it shows up around coaching. I've been trained to treat my clients as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole -- and it's difficult to do that with a client who insists they're "broken" with ADD. That's a very challenging belief to encounter.
As far as "bowing out of the conversation" goes, I'm not surprised. My sense is that you came here expecting to have pre-existing biases validated, and you're uncomfortable being challenged around something you've "made up your mind about." And it feels like you're holding that against me, even though my very WELCOME page states clearly that it's a WASTE to come here simply to confirm pre-existing biases. So if you simply want to be reassured and held in your biases, this is not the place to visit. People come here because they crave clarity, they recgnize type is a valuable tool for understanding themselves, and not having an accurate grasp of their own psychology is hampering their development.
As I've challenged you elsewhere on this blog, "What wisdom do you want from me?" If it's simply to agree that you had everything figured out before you got here, I'm sorry to disappoint you. (And for the record, I don't enjoy disappointing people, and it's difficult to choose between telling my truth and selling out on myself to make somebody else feel good. :-/)
From my end, I am grateful to you for bringing an issue to my attention. Due to this encounter (atop some similar encounters I've had recently), I developed a new page to address the E/I issue in more depth. Perhaps it will help others gain clarity about their best-fit pattern, so I consider this a wonderful gift.
Yes, that would match with how I've experienced people declare their ADD. You're left wondering whether it's a diagnosis you're supposed to be mourning or celebrating. And you are reviled if you try to pry it away from them. :-(
Go ahead and rant! ADD IS total BS.
I know an INTP who believes that he wouldn't be able to function in the world without his meds, but I think that if he stopped popping the perscribed pills he would regain a lot of creativity. There is no medical condition, just a stupid societal expectation that many people internalize.
Go ahead and rant! ADD IS total BS.
I know an INTP who believes that he wouldn't be able to function in the world without his meds, but I think that if he stopped popping the perscribed pills he would regain a lot of creativity. There is no medical condition, just a stupid societal expectation that many people internalize.
I understand where you are coming from, but most folks of different PT types will not accept people who different just because the they claim to be different, but if the person can call his differences a condition or disease, this person can force the others to give him acceptance saying "See I can't help it.". Of course in reality they really can't help it, but with the disease approach they have a means to create change of attitude toward their differences that they feel they probably wouldn't have just saying, "God made me different." I agree with you that for the most part the disease is a bunch of BS, but I cannot blame those who have bought into it for making a fuss when you try to tell them that. To them, giving up claim to the disease means having to go back to an environment where they are expected to go strive to be like everyone else. Or it makes a nice theory.
now you're getting onto it! My hesitation is around the phrase "not giving a rip." That might cause problems. Can we finetune that to ask, "How can I be with the discomfort of criticism" OR (better still) "How can I turn that criticism to my benefit?" OR, here's one I like: design a powerful question to use with the person, such as, "Are you saying my suggestion did not benefit you?" OR "How could I have made that suggestion in a way that would not have elicited the criticism you just gave me?" That way you "dance" together and find a way for everyone to come away happy.
The problem I was having then, and still have not gotten past, and I have also encountered it in other people who are INFP, is that certain kinds of criticism feel like rejection, or at best a lack of acceptance. When someone is asking me why I can't do things this way, or whatever, I want to say, because I am not like you, but I have learned that this a pointless approach also. It's easier to just say nothing and either attempt what they are demanding, or find some other way to do it my way, and also accomplish their requirements.
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