Knowledge Articles 

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Instrument was developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs. Their aim was to create a tool to indicate, validate, and put to practical use C.G. Jung's work on psychological types. Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist whose book Psychological Types was an outgrowth of his efforts to understand individual differences among people.

Myers and Briggs first encountered Jung's ideas in 1923 and began two decades of "type watching." Prompted by the waste of human potential in WWII, Myers began developing the Indicator to give everyone access to the benefits in better understanding psychological type and appreciating differences.

After more than 50 years of research and development, the current MBTI® Instrument is one of the most widely used instruments for understanding normal personality differences. Because it explains basic patterns in human functioning, the MBTI® Instrument is used for a wide variety of purposes including the following:

• Self-understanding and development
• Career development and exploration
• Organization development
• Team building
• Management and leadership training
• Problem solving
• Relationship counseling
• Education and curriculum development
• Academic counseling
• Diversity and multicultural training

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Instrument is a self-report questionnaire designed to make Jung's theory of psychological types understandable and useful in everyday life. MBTI® Instrument results identify valuable differences between normal, healthy people, differences that can be the source of much misunderstanding and miscommunication.