Can mbti types for a person actually change through time?
Wow this is such a controversial question in the cog psych community…but I’ll do my best to explain it as well as I can… Well, some people may feel that way, but I personally agree with the statement, “People change, but types don’t, there are just a lot of mistypes.” Which may sound kind of close mined, but believe me, I have mistyped myself and plenty of others. You see, MBTI is great, I love it, but it does tend to focus on what you are at that exact moment in time(when you take the test or whatever), and though I’m SP and all about the present, I think that MBTI doesn’t explain the evolution of each personality like enneagram can.
It took me 2 years to come to realization that types don’t change. After mistyping myself and almost everyone I knew, after months of deep deep depression, after months of crazy life changing stress, I finally started to feel better and feel relief, and with that feeling of long-awaited happiness, I realized I was;t the person who I thought I was, I saw not only myself in a new way, but my family and friends in a new way. So, mistypes come in all sorts of ways, but I’m showing you my story as an example.
When we are young and going through life, we see what we want to see or settle for what we think we should see. I was a very unhealthy ISTP that felt so loved and connected as an INTP because they are rare and often feel like they are abnormal and don’t fit in with society as much as say an ISFJ. I thought the only types the people I liked were types that were compatible to INTPs, so I mistyped my whole family. I wanted everything to make sense and everyone to feel the same way I did about MBTI, and used every stereotype about MBTI to do so. I convinced my family that they were people they weren’t and never understood why they couldn’t get as obsessed with MBTI like me. “Well we are all intuitive, so we must all like psychology because we like theories!?!” No… “Well us 3 get along really well and say the same things so we must be types with the same functions?!” No…
I had a hard time seeing people as what they truly were. I’m saying all of this because I know a lot of people out there are possibly in the same place I was. Seeking for approval and an explanation for how the world and you work. MBTI is great and fulfilling, but you can only truly enjoy it when you find your real type and real happiness. Unhealthy types can mimic others stereotypical behavior. Unhealthy types use shadow functions more than healthy types do. Unhealthy types’ function development is lower. These are just a few explanations of how mistypes can happen.
In conclusion(yes ik this is like an essay haha sorry), everyone is born with one personality. The way life shapes and molds it will make you seem like you are constantly changing, but really, you are adapting and learning. Your environment is making you a better person. It may make you act different than you would’ve a week, month or year ago, but that just means you are becoming a more balanced, healthier version of you. It takes time to get there, but when you do it is the most rewarding and spiritually liberating thing and typology is a tool that helps put your self-exploration to fathomable words.
