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Psychology And Writing


Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion

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Recently, my projected life path shifted a bit. Prior to this shift, I was interested in one thing - writing - and figured I would probably do something like teaching at a middle school to support myself between books or whatever. The idea of teaching never fully appealed to me however. While I was positive from a young age that I wanted to make a career out of writing, teaching was something I had thought of because I like helping people. As it turned out, when I tried to teach my younger brother math, I discovered that stubborn children have extremely strong wills and I'm fairly repelled by the idea of having to put up with that every day from thirty kids that aren't mine.

 

So teaching was out of the question for me (not that I had really, really wanted to teach to begin with), and I wasn't quite sure what to do about that. My father, who tended to shoot down my ideas on a "that doesn't pay much" basis, was pushing me towards science and math, which I'm not at all passionate about. My mother was seeing everything through the glass of what I could do with writing - freelance writing, journalism, etc., while the only writing I'm interested in is, at the moment, young adult adventure/mystery novels.

 

Eventually, as part of my Academic Affairs class mentioned a ways back in this blog, we had a guest lecturer come in and talk about choosing majors based on the MBTI system, which is a way to classify a person's personality with four letters (I or E, S or N, T or F, J or P). My personality type is INFP, a type well-suited to writing. Looking down the list of suggested careers, psychologist caught my eye. Since the MBTI system interested me so much, and I had liked helping people from the beginning, I came to decide that this was a career path that I really wanted to pursue. The past couple weeks I've spent much time researching MBTI and psychology in general, and I find it all extremely interesting.

 

But that's not what the entry is about. As the title (which actually has a dual-meaning :P) would suggest, this entry is about how I'm using what I know about psychology so far to aid in my writing. What I'm doing is assigning my characters MBTI types and using that to see how they would react to certain situations. It's actually really helping in the writing of my fifth epic, which will begin to be posted towards the end of June. As follows are the types I've assigned each of the six main characters of Book 5:

 

Auserv: INFJ (Despite being a representation of me, Auserv has developed into a completely separate entity, and as such gets a slightly different type)

Eilaiki: ENFP

Kebeshu: ISTJ

Abakkon: INTP

Zyrleck: ENTP

Eolirk: ESTP

 

This has helped extraordinarily in defining how the characters relate to each other and how they will react to situations, and also has made them far more real to me and hopefully to the readers once I start posting it. There are a number of great sites about the MBTI system if you're interested, and you can take a free test at this site or if you're interested I could give you a test based on my own knowledge of the system - sometimes humans can give the test better than computers.

 

Also, if anyone's as interested in this stuff as I am, what would you guys (my regular readers) say to me starting a blog feature where I do in-depth profiles of each of the 16 types (ISTJ, ESTJ, ISFJ, ESFJ, ISTP, ESTP, ESFP, ISFP, ENTJ, INTJ, ENTP, INTP, ENFJ, INFJ, ENFP, and INFP), along with a list of characters in my series who are that type? Just throwing the idea out there.

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My father, who tended to shoot down my ideas on a "that doesn't pay much" basis, was pushing me towards science and math, which I'm not at all passionate about.

Opposite of me. I just feel I have a bond with science, particularly physics. But that's another story.

 

I got INTJ.

 

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My father, who tended to shoot down my ideas on a "that doesn't pay much" basis, was pushing me towards science and math, which I'm not at all passionate about.

Opposite of me. I just feel I have a bond with science, particularly physics. But that's another story.

 

I got INTJ.

INTJ, huh? I could definitely see you as an INTJ. And you would be pretty good with physics - INTJs have a great capacity for facts as far as goes anything they're interested in, and they're also good at understanding abstract concepts, which physics tends to consist of. For the record, I find physics very fascinating, but I can't see myself making a career out of it, whereas I can easily see myself as a writer (or a psychologist).

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INTJ, huh? I could definitely see you as an INTJ. And you would be pretty good with physics - INTJs have a great capacity for facts as far as goes anything they're interested in, and they're also good at understanding abstract concepts, which physics tends to consist of. For the record, I find physics very fascinating, but I can't see myself making a career out of it, whereas I can easily see myself as a writer (or a psychologist).

 

The problem with physics is that people think it's extremely 'nerdy' and even though I go to a 'academically selective high school', people annoy me about reading about physics in year seven. But I'm not going to let complains stop me.

 

And you would be pretty good with physics - INTJs have a great capacity for facts as far as goes anything they're interested in, and they're also good at understanding abstract concepts, which physics tends to consist of.

 

I wouldn't say I'm exceptional at physics but I'm fascinated by it as well so I do my best at it. The only abstract concept I have trouble visualising is the wave-particle duality and all those 'junk' having to do with Quantum Mechanics. But I suppose we can't visualise those scales.

 

For the record, I find physics very fascinating, but I can't see myself making a career out of it, whereas I can easily see myself as a writer (or a psychologist).

 

Why not?

 

And by the way, I would like to take you test, if you have time to make one up.

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So I thought that this would be an interesting excuse to see how much I've changed over the years and thus retook a temperament test to see what it said.

 

Apparently I've become an "INTP", which really differs quite a bit from the "ENTJ" I was in my past and really I find it to be an interesting duality within myself as an "Intuitive Thinker".

 

I guess my point is that people change and what one may find important or interesting at any given time can certainly be altered by life's challenges.

~
Åusår
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Just a warning about majoring in Psychology from a Psych major:

 

You can do very, very, very little, career-wise, with only a Bachelors degree. In order to be a psychologist you're going to need a Masters degree, at the very least. The only thing you can really do with a Bachelors is, wait for it... teach.

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INTJ, huh? I could definitely see you as an INTJ. And you would be pretty good with physics - INTJs have a great capacity for facts as far as goes anything they're interested in, and they're also good at understanding abstract concepts, which physics tends to consist of. For the record, I find physics very fascinating, but I can't see myself making a career out of it, whereas I can easily see myself as a writer (or a psychologist).

 

The problem with physics is that people think it's extremely 'nerdy' and even though I go to a 'academically selective high school', people annoy me about reading about physics in year seven. But I'm not going to let complains stop me.

 

And you would be pretty good with physics - INTJs have a great capacity for facts as far as goes anything they're interested in, and they're also good at understanding abstract concepts, which physics tends to consist of.

 

I wouldn't say I'm exceptional at physics but I'm fascinated by it as well so I do my best at it. The only abstract concept I have trouble visualising is the wave-particle duality and all those 'junk' having to do with Quantum Mechanics. But I suppose we can't visualise those scales.

 

For the record, I find physics very fascinating, but I can't see myself making a career out of it, whereas I can easily see myself as a writer (or a psychologist).

 

Why not?

 

And by the way, I would like to take you test, if you have time to make one up.

Mostly the only reason I can't see myself as a physicist is the same reason I can't see myself as, say, a lawyer. The career doesn't appeal to who I am as a person - physics is too concrete for someone like me, who learns about a physics concept and then begins to wonder how that could fit into a story. I'm a man of possibilities rather than a man of facts, and something where there is only one right answer like math and science doesn't appeal to me.

 

I'll PM you a test soon, it's only 4 questions but we may need to discuss them a bit to make sure which one you are.

 

So I thought that this would be an interesting excuse to see how much I've changed over the years and thus retook a temperament test to see what it said.

 

Apparently I've become an "INTP", which really differs quite a bit from the "ENTJ" I was in my past and really I find it to be an interesting duality within myself as an "Intuitive Thinker".

 

I guess my point is that people change and what one may find important or interesting at any given time can certainly be altered by life's challenges.

~
Åusår
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Quite interesting... INTP and ENTJ are each other's "shadows", if I remember correctly. Under a lot of stress or in a time of change, you use your "shadow functions" which can then make you appear to be another type. This usually comes from forgetting the most important rule of the MBTI tests - you are not looking for what you are, but instead you are looking for what you would be if circumstances didn't force you to act another way. For example, the difference between Perceiving types and Judging types is that Perceiving types tend to be flexible and disorganized, while Judging types are determined and structured. My father, an ISTJ, at first thought he was an ISTP because he often has so little free-time that he has to be disorganized and unstructured. But if he had more free-time, he would unquestionably be Judging rather than Perceiving.

 

My point is that your type probably did not change from ENTJ to INTP - something simply changed that forced you to adapt to using the functions of an INTP (or something went away that allowed you to go back to functioning like an INTP). So judging from your most recent test, you are introverted and are a Perceiving type. Given as much time and as many or as few people as you want, would you rather spend more of your time quietly and alone or would you rather spend more of your time socializing with a big group of people? Would you rather be flexible and start several things at once or would you rather work tirelessly on one project until it's done? If it's the former to both, you're an INTP; if it's the latter to both, you're an ENTJ.

 

Just a warning about majoring in Psychology from a Psych major:

 

You can do very, very, very little, career-wise, with only a Bachelors degree. In order to be a psychologist you're going to need a Masters degree, at the very least. The only thing you can really do with a Bachelors is, wait for it... teach.

I'm willing to work as hard as necessary. It's better I spend a few extra years in college than the majority of the rest of my life doing something I don't enjoy, right?

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Well, at this point in my life I most certainly prefer to spend more of my time quietly and alone, maybe I always have. :???:

 

Meanwhile I really can't stand the clutter and disorganized nature of many of the things around me (my current Home Office for instance), yet I don't always have the energy to straighten things out the way I'd prefer, so I just ignore them. :shrugs:

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Åusår
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It's better I spend a few extra years in college than the majority of the rest of my life doing something I don't enjoy, right?

Absolutely. :)

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Funny, I got INTJ, too. It'd be interesting to take your test to see if I really am an INTJ (though I'm fairly sure I am). I'd also like to read about the 16 personality types.

 

~ BioGaia

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