Empowering career search and enrichment

Last week I shared an activity called the “Sixteen-Room House Analogy for the Type Table” from our new MBTI® Practitioner’s Field Guide. As you may have seen, this is a simple activity to use with students to help them understand that type is not meant to box them in or be a “trap”.

The purpose of drawing a house is to help students understand that while they may stay in one room of the house most of the time, they likely visit the other rooms for different reasons. For example, the kitchen for when they are hungry or the living room to interact with guests or family, even if they don’t stay in those rooms for very long. Yet their favorite room in the house serves as their place to unwind and be themselves, and where they would spend the most time.

Just as how they visit these different rooms throughout the day, same goes for their type preferences. Even though they have chosen their “best fit” type, they must use the other type preferences in one way or another in order to effectively perform their daily duties at work, school, and even in their relationships. Therefore, their best fit type simply suggests that it is their “favorite room”.

You may find that as the day progresses and your students explore the other “rooms” or type preferences, they may tell you that they would like to “move” to a different room. In this case, you should support their decision as you want to make sure that they feel comfortable with what they have chosen from what they understand.