Personality Types: a Systems Science Explanation

Lowen partitions 'mental space' four times to yield 16 'cognitive skills,' and 'consciousness' develops as the skills awaken and begin to interact. He provides unique definitions, symbols and functions for each skill, as well as the sequence and general time frame in which they develop. What brings his model to life are his ingenious ideas about how information flows among the skills at different levels of consciousness, leading to personality types, short- and long-term memories, inputs and behavioral outputs. In the 16 personality 'profiles' that emerge from the model, each uses all 16 skills but at different levels of consciousness. To stimulate one's creativity, Lowen suggests engaging one's least conscious 'processing mode'; i.e., kinesthetic (SF), tactile (ST), verbal (NF) or intellectual (NT). While Jung's famous 'psychological preferences' (extroversion, introversion, etc.) are embedded in the model and largely compatible with it, they are not primary to its basic structure.