RUNNING HEADER: My Personality and Me

My Personality and Me
Jay Key
Wake Forest University

My Personality and Me

Introduction
In this paper I will describe my personality. This description will be based off of the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Enneagram, and NEO-PI-3 assessments. I will also compare the
scores from those assessments with personality disorders that reflect aspects of my personality.
And I will describe how my personality reflects my relationships and my ability to be a
counselor.
MBTI
My Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) score is Introversion (I), Intuition (N), Feeling
(F), Perceiving (P), or INFP. The I indicates that I am slightly introverted and draw energy from
within rather than other people. While I am normally very social and spend a lot of energy on
being social, I do not gain energy from this, but rather need time to myself to rest, meaning that
the I is accurate. The N implies that I look at the big picture and focus on patterns and
interrelationships, rather than concrete information. While I am scored as a clear N, I have
trouble conceptualizing myself in this way. It is true that I base a lot of my decisions on intuitive
feelings that I have, however those feelings often seem combined with more tangible data
indicating that the MBTI is off and I am more Sensing than is shown or my conceptualization of
myself is off . I am a clear F, and it is my highest score, which I fully agree with. Two of the key
themes of being an F are harmony and understanding. Harmony, or balance as I tend to call it, is
one of, if not the biggest goal that I have in my life, followed closely by having an understanding
or knowledge of the world around me. Lastly the MBTI says that I am a P, which would indicate
that I look for more info before coming to a conclusion and take a spontaneous, flexible
approach to the world. I dont know how these go together, but they do fit me. For both there is a
willingness to be open to what comes, and I am quite open to both values and experiences.

My Personality and Me

Taken together the INFP score says that I should be a caring and loyal person, who bases
decisions on my own personal values. I should want to contribute to peoples inner growth, enjoy
reading and reflecting on possibilities for positive change, and am seen as sensitive and complex.
I think that this is very accurate. I do place great importance both on my relationships with others
and on my own inner world. I also enjoy reading, discussing, and reflecting on possibilities for
positive change, which are signs of an INFP. I read frequently, both for fun and for knowledge,
and like challenging my beliefs. Furthermore I want to help those who are important to me from
an empathetic and sensitive standpoint. And I often have many layers to my personality that can
often seem contradictory but that still fit together.
Enneagram
My primary enneagram type is the Type 2, the Healer. A healer is someone who is
described as being demonstrative, generous, people-pleasing, and possessive. On the surface I
agree with the positive traits. I have a strong desire to be loved, to connect with others, and to
help the world. I want to have people be close to me, and have them value my friendship in
return. I am empathetic and will go out of my way to make sure that someone gets the help that
they need. I also believe that I recognize my true strengths and limitations and can accept a
relationship that is not at the depth that I want it. I want everyone around me to succeed, and
while I want them to enjoy my company I do not want them to be dependent on me.
I also believe that I can and do exhibit many of the negative traits. However, I think that
the negative traits more accurately reflect me at an earlier stage in my life than where I am at
now. There have certainly been times where I would put others in front of myself and try too
hard to make the relationship work. This was especially true when I had little or no friends
during late high school and early college. I know that I became possessive, tried too hard, and

My Personality and Me

would hover around others, all of which are descriptive of Two problems. Because I have a
friend group that I love and that supports me I am much more trusting and much more willing to
both give and get space than I have been in the past. I still feel some rejection from others, but I
am much less likely to go out of my way to make those people love me as I have been in the
past. Whether I will fall back on those previous patterns I dont know, but I do not foresee that
happening anytime soon.
NEO-PI
On the NEO-PI-3 I scored very high on neuroticism (N), average on extraversion (E),
very high on openness to experience (O), average on agreeableness, (A) and low on
conscientiousness (C). High neuroticism would imply that I experience negative affect, am prone
to irrational ideas, are unable to control impulses, and tend to cope poorly with stress. I certainly
can confirm the negative affect, as I often feel anxious and normally characterize myself as a
pessimist. These things shape my life and are much stronger than the other aspects of
neuroticism that I might have. Because of these negative feelings I feel that I am often stressed.
Because I often feel stressed and anxious however, I think that I do a good job of managing it.
Despite this I could see an argument that I feel stressed and anxious because I cope poorly with
stress. I also do not see myself as having impulse control or prone to irrational ideas, although an
outside observer might disagree. I suppose I could lack impulse control in that I will often
procrastinate, and therefore do something fun before doing something that I need to do. I would
rather view that as taking a much needed rest before doing work. And while I can have overly
anxious thoughts, I normally am aware of them and dismiss them. So while overall I believe that
a high neuroticism score fits me, I only believe that some aspects of it do so.
Unexpectedly, my high scores for Neuroticism were on anxiety and self-consciousness.

My Personality and Me

As stated before I tend to have high anxiety, and so scored high on the anxiety facet. I do dwell
on things that might go wrong, and while this often allows me to plan ahead and stay safe it can
also take away energy that I have that might be used more productively. And I often feel selfconscious, although less than I used to. One area that I feel particularly self-conscious and want
to avoid awkward situations is when I am friends with two people who are angry with each other.
I feel very self-conscious and can actively feel myself being affected negatively.
I have an average extraversion score, and am barely more extroverted than introverted. I
believe this is accurate, because while I gain energy from being alone and lose energy when I
interact with other people, I also have a strong need to not be alone. Because of this, I often walk
a fine line between having time to myself where I can rest and rejuvenate and spending time with
my friends and family so that my fears of being alone can be abated. This leaves me just about in
the middle between extroverted and introverted, as my scores show. I do not have any strong
scores either way in the E facets.
I scored a very high openness to experience score. The parts of a high score that I believe
accurately apply to me are my active imagination, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for
variety, intellectual curiosity, and independence of judgment. I frequently use my imagination,
am very aware of my feelings, do not like the mundane, want to learn a lot about almost
everything, and do not rush into judgments until I have more information. I also value both
positive and negative emotions more than most people do, as I of course enjoy being happy but
also recognize the value in being anxious or sad as both an indicator of how something makes
me feel and a motivation to become better. I do not know if I am as sensitive to aesthetics as this
score would indicate, but I do enjoy the idea of the arts even if I do not always enjoy the actual
arts.

My Personality and Me

I have very high scores on the O facets of fantasy, feelings, and values. I frequently create
fantasy worlds in my mind, play a lot of fantasy games (both video and board) and read fantasy
novels. I also am very open and aware of my strong feelings (both positive and negative) and use
them as an integral part of my life. And I have frequently reassessed my values towards a wide
variety of subjects, changing them or keeping them the same as I get more information. Because
of this I believe that these scales are accurate.
My agreeableness was average, with my score indicating I am slightly more agreeable
than not. This should indicate that I am either both friendly and eager to help while skeptical and
antagonistic towards people, or that I am none of these things. I believe that I am a mix. I am
more agreeable than not, tending towards being pleasant and wanting to help people. However, I
often dont trust that the people that I help would do the same for me. This trust is not often in a
someone will physically hurt me sense but rather in that I do not know if a friend will be there
for me. This combination of traits places me in the middle. Accordingly I do not have any very
high or very low A facet scores. Instead I do have two scores that are low (trust and modest), two
that are average (straightforwardness and compliance), and two that are high (altruism and
tender-mindedness.) This collaborates my ideas that I want to help and be kind, but dont trust
that that help would be reciprocated.
I scored low, just below average, on my conscientious score. That score should mean that
I am less exacting in applying moral principles and am more lackadaisical in working towards
goals. I fully disagree with the first part that I lack moral principles, as I have a strong sense of
morality and of what is right and wrong that I have come up based on my experiences rather than
what someone else has told me. I do believe that I can be more lackadaisical on working towards
goals, which is mostly in the form of procrastination and valuing breaks. I know a lot of people

My Personality and Me

who are workaholics, and I had no desire to be one, and so I am not. What is important to me is
more than just work, and so my life reflects that. While this may mean that I dont always work
as hard as I could I do so because I spend my energy on other pursuits that are more important.
Considering that I am still in grad school, working towards my goal of being a counselor, and
doing well in all of my classes and at internship probably implies that I have a harsher view of
my lack of conscientiousness than is the case.
My conscientious facet scores are the only ones where I am very low. These are order and
self-discipline. A low order score should mean that I am unable to get organized and describe
myself as unmethodical, and this is, mostly, correct. I am obviously organized enough that I can
function in grad school, although I do admit that my room and car are not as organized as they
could be. So while I may be mentally organized, I am not always physically organized.
A low self-discipline score should indicate that I procrastinate and am easily discouraged
and eager to quit. While I would like to think that I am not easily discouraged, I will freely say
that I procrastinate a lot. Part of that is because I need rest and part of that is because Id rather
do something that I like than something that I have to do. And while I enjoy being in grad school
it is also more fun to play video games than to read about development stages. I clearly still do
my work, and do so successfully, but I probably spend more time not doing work than I should.
Personality Disorders
The traits that I believe match the diagnostic criteria are the lack of trust and strong
negative affect as indicated by the NEO-PI-3 and my strong desire to be in close relationships as
indicated by my Enneagram score. These are similar to aspects of paranoid personality disorder,
borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and dependent personality
disorder. I cannot find any strong associations between the MBTI and any personality disorder as

My Personality and Me

the MBTI does not seem to deal with negative aspects of personality but rather how ones
personality works.
My lack of trust in relationships with others, as shown in my Agreeableness scores of the
NEO-PI-3, are similar to Criteria A Sub-criteria 2 and 7 of paranoid personality disorder
(American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These criteria indicate a pervasive distrust and
suspiciousness of others specifically about friends and loved ones but of others as well (2013).
My low trust scores indicate that I tend to be cynical and skeptical of others, which fits directly
with paranoid personality disorder. Although much more so in the past than in the present, I have
tended to distrust that others cared about me and would invite me to hang out with them. In
previous relationships I also did not always believe that my significant other wanted to date me.
At times both of these feelings were true and at times they were not but regardless I felt that it
was hard to put my trust into others who were supposedly close with me.
My feelings of strong, negative affect as shown in the NEO-PI-3 are similar to both
borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. In both disorders there is
excessive emotion that often fluctuates and is difficult to control (American Psychiatric
Association, 2013). Borderline disorder often shows reactivity of mood such as long bouts of
anxiety while histrionic disorder often shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and an
exaggerated expression of emotion (2013). I do often have long pervasive bouts of anxiety that,
while not of a high intensity last for a while and are more annoying than intrusive. My mood is
often pessimistic as well even when everything is not necessarily bad, meaning that I might
exaggerate how bad I am feeling and how bad things feel.
Lastly my desire for close relationships that I may try too hard to make work is similar to
criteria of borderline, histrionic, and dependent personality disorders. While I would not say that

My Personality and Me

I am manipulative to gain nurturance like histrionic and borderline personality disorder are, I do
believe that I have a strong need for close relationships. Borderline, histrionic, and dependent
personality disorder all show a fear of abandonment and can react in a way to keep those
relationships together and strong. While I do not show the vast majority of responses to this fear
(I do not get as angry as someone with borderline, as seductive as someone with histrionic, or as
submissive as someone with dependent personality disorder) I still experience that fear and
empathize with those people. I have felt abandoned by those around me and it is a horrible
feeling, and I have tried very hard to keep those relationships from failing. I have been clingy
and tried to get those relationships closer, which of course often ended up backfiring and driving
a person further away. So while I felt the same fear of being alone as these people with these
personality disorders do, I dont show the responses to them.
Summary of Personality
My personality scores from the MBTI, Enneagram, and the NEO-PI as well as my
analysis of these scores with personality disorders say different things about different parts of my
personality. The MBTI says that I should be a moderate introvert who focuses on the big picture,
has strong feelings that guide me, and am open and flexible when making decisions. I should
also want to enjoy reading and reflecting on new ideas. Overall I should be kind and caring of
the relationships that I have with other people. I should also attempt to bring out the best in them.
I believe that the positive scores for the Enneagram are accurate. My Enneagram scores
indicate that I want to help people. Relationships with others are once again very important to
me. When Im at my best I bring out the best in other people and am supportive, warm, reflective
and kind. However I believe that the negative aspects of my Enneagram scores show me in the
past rather than where I am now. In the past, rather than now, I may expect those relationships to

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be deeper than they are. I may try too hard to make them work, and then take them personally
when they dont even if it is not my fault. I can be clingy, worried, and possessive. I may also put
the needs of others in front of my own needs to keep the relationship going or balanced.
My NEO-PI scores say that I am neurotic, both extraverted and introverted, very open to
new experiences, moderately agreeable, and not very conscientious. My neuroticism, or
emotional instability, is most exhibited by my anxiety and self-consciousness. I should often
worry, be tense or jittery, and be sensitive to ridicule. My middling extraversion score says I
should be both outgoing at times and withdrawn at others. This is shown in my need to gain
energy by myself and my desire to hang out with a lot of people. My openness is demonstrated
by my high scores in fantasy, feelings, and values. These are demonstrated in my love of fantasy,
high expression of feelings, and intense values. My agreeableness score is moderate because it is
balanced by low feelings of trust (either about safety or about the fidelity of relationships) and
modesty with high feelings of altruism and tender-mindedness. I should not expect the best out
of people and be a little conceited, while also wanting to help and be kind to others. And my low
conscientiousness is exhibited by low scores on order and self-discipline. I should be
unorganized and procrastinate a lot.
The personality disorder analysis says that I should be untrusting of others, have strong
negative emotions, and be clingy in relationships. I should not always trust the intentions of
others, and not expect them to go out of my way to help me. I should also feel strong emotions,
often anxiety or depression that can be both persistent and change quickly. And I should feel a
strong connection to a relationship and have dread if that relationship ends (or I think it might
end.) Together these mean that I should intensely hold on to relationships.
Impact of personality

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Impact of personality on relationships

I know full well that my anxiety and clinginess in relationships has shaped my life.
Because I had few friends near the end of high school I clung hard to new relationships that I had
and feared that many of them would end. This made a self-fulfilling prophecy at times and has
made friendships strained or ended when I would not want them too.
On the opposite side of this, my fear of friendships ending has made me very sensitive to
other peoples feelings and moods and made me very caring of them. I am already a warm,
caring friend, and so this anxiety and clinginess, when managed correctly, only makes me a
better friend. I am (almost) always there to help and want to make both myself and my friends
the best people that we can be. I am also very open to other people and their ideas and have a
diverse group of friends. As a good INFP I dont judge my friends, although I do use my intuition
and my feelings to decide who I want to be my friend.
Unfortunately my low conscientiousness can affect my work. I am not always as
professional as I should be, although this mostly is my attire, such as not wearing shoes when I
should, or procrastinating. I have had multiple bosses talk to me about my choice of footwear.
I also do not handle conflict, in friendship, family, or the work place particularly well. I
tend to try to avoid it or fix it quickly. A large part of this is feeling anxiety around losing or
ruining the relationship, so I do not push it as much as I might. I also want to be kind and
considerate of others feelings, and so initiating conflict might not be considerate of theirs. By
being kind and considerate, I often put others needs in front of my own, such as not standing up
for myself if I am criticized unfairly at work, avoiding the conflict and suffering so that I dont
have to push the boundaries of the relationship. All of these line up with my enneagram score as
a helper.

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Impact of personality on counseling

First, my personality should make me a warm, caring, and empathetic counselor. I do care
about my clients and feel that I am open to both them and their needs. This includes clients with
vastly different backgrounds and presenting concerns from me, such as the students who are 20
years older than me or my student who is transgender. I also want to make my clients the best
versions of themselves, which will hopefully allow clients to reach new levels of congruency and
insight into themselves.
However my personality does show some negative aspects in the counseling relationship.
I may not always be as organized and ordered for them as they might need. I may have forgotten
my portion of the homework assignment that I gave them, which has happened more than once. I
might also expect more depth with a client than there is and so miss something or try too hard to
make the relationship work, which happened with one client. I am fairly certain that I was so
thrown off that our therapeutic relationship wasnt as strong as I felt it should have been that I
was not as effective a counselor as I could have been. And I could let my anxiety about a client
carry over into my everyday life, although as of yet I have managed to avoid that.
Clients
Working with a client with a similar personality as myself would theoretically be easy. I
am open and knowledgeable to my emotions, and so a person with the same personality should
be easy to counsel even if they had difficult problems. They should give a lot of pertinent
information and be able to accurately describe what is going on with themselves. However, they
may not be as committed to counseling or as organized as might be helpful. Giving them
homework may not be effective, since while they may not forget about it it may be lower on their
priority and they may not get to it. They will also probably need external information rather than

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insight, since they theoretically already have a high level of insight into themselves. Therefore I
will need to find either blind spots or an external source of information that can bring about
change. An example might be a person who feels that their friends always leave them behind
when they hang out. I know that pointing out exceptions may not work, since they might dismiss
those exceptions. I also know that focusing on how they have coped in the past might help them
cope in the future, and to take advantage of their rich inner world.
Another difficulty with this type of student would be having them take our relationship
too far. If I am the only warm and caring figure in their lives they may assume that we are closer
than we are. While I believe that I have managed to avoid this so far, a client who believes that
we are friends or that I am their only confidant could suffer from transference and I would
struggle to find the balance between helping them and setting boundaries.
However, a student who is similar in most aspects but different in others can be very
difficult if I incorrectly countertransfer onto them. I had a student who seemed knowledgeable of
their inner world and suffered from anxiety. They seemed interested in knowledge and
relationships were important to them. I felt that I should connect easily and just never connected
as well as I felt I could. I believe that I never got over this feeling and never helped that student
as well as I could have. In retrospect they were much more concrete and, while they could
intellectually talk about themselves had distanced themselves from their emotions to keep
themselves from cracking. I had seen myself in them and had not done as well because I could
never acknowledge their differences.
Working with someone different has presented challenges. On one hand there may be less
depth to traverse, and the feelings stay on the surface. On the other, because I am so cognizant of
my emotions and of my inner world, I sometimes struggle with those students who need to go

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deeper but cant. I can go too lofty in my questions or my reflections with these students, and
struggle to become more concrete. I can often struggle to reflect emotions when a student cannot
even identity them. I currently have a student who cannot name most of his emotions, and it has
been very difficult for me to find ways of reflecting. I often reflect back what I hear the client
saying, and since this client is saying nothing, I flounder.
Response to my personality
I asked my girlfriend to review my summary. She said that my MBTI scores seemed
accurate. I usually try to bring out the best in my girlfriend and I want to help people. She also
agreed that I was loyal, and enjoyed reading, discussing, and reflecting on possibilities for
positive change. She sees me as sensitive, introspective. And she sees me as complex some of the
contradictions in my personality. I agree with all of this.
For the Enneagram she agreed that I do want to help people. She saw relationships being
important, such as a friend who is not favorite person but whom I still hang out with him. She
also said that I bring out best in her and was super supportive, so that was accurate. And she
though that I was very warm and reflective and kind. However she saw herself as committing to
the relationship more quickly than I did, so she did not believe that I rushed into relationships.
She also didnt believe that I tried too hard to make relationships work, and havent seen me be
clingy or worried or possessive. We both wondered whether I might be a counselor in order to
have people be happy about having a Two in their life, but we both agreed that wasnt the main
reason. And she said that I might sometimes put the needs of others instead of my own but not
always. I think she is more correct than the Enneagram is, at least in the present.
For the NEO-PI she said that while I was much more extroverted than her, she could see
me being both extroverted and introverted. She at first said that she hadnt really experienced my

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openness to new experiences from the broad definition, but did later agree that I was very open
in fantasy, feelings, and values. I think she is both right and wrong. I did go to another country
over the summer, which was certainly new and foreign. But she also pointed out that I spoke the
language (albeit not well) and therefore it wasnt as new as another country might have been. I
also want to point out that while Im very open on thoughts I am one of the pickiest eaters ever,
so my openness does not translate to my eating habits.
For neuroticism she agreed with the anxiety but not with any self-consciousness. She did
not agree that I was low in modesty as I dont seem conceited to her, and she didnt feel that I
was as untrusting as my score says I should be. For the conceited part, I am both very modest
about some things and very sure of myself about others, but I think I do a good job of not
expressing any haughtiness. I believe that the disconnect on trust is because I am untrusting of
relationships, while her definition would be of not trusting people random people to not hurt me.
She did agree that I have high feelings of altruism and tender-mindedness, and that I was more
pessimistic, so that I dont see the best out of people. And she says that I want to help and be
kind to others. Lastly, she emphatically agreed that I might be unorganized and procrastinate.
For the personality disorders she said that she supposes she could see me being untrusting
of others in a relationship but only after we talked about it and clarified what I meant by
untrusting. So the untrusting would be more self-report than what someone else might see. She
felt that I do not have strong negative emotions and used the examples of being very depressed
or angry. She felt that I was not clingy in relationships, and I agree with that right now although,
much like the enneagram, I have been in the past. She could see how I dont always trust the
intentions of others, but she was not emphatic about it. She also was not emphatic but agreed that
I dont expect others to go out of their way to help me. She did see the strong emotions (both

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positive and negative). And, in something that surprised me, she saw how I might change
Anxiety and depression that can change quickly can see that, but not a lot. And something that
surprised me was that she agreed that I can change emotions quickly. She used an example of me
working on this paper and then deciding that I wasnt going to worry about it and went and did
something else that would be less stressful.
Conclusion
In conclusion the MBTI, Enneagram, and NEO-PI were relatively accurate in assessing
my personality, I am closest to exhibiting symptoms of borderline, histrionic, and dependent
personality disorders, and my personality impacts my relationships in different ways. The MBTI
showed how my personality worked by focusing on my inner world and on my relationship with
others. The enneagram focused on how I want to help people, but also picked out parts of my
personality that were more accurate, or at least prevalent, in the past. And the NEO-PI did an
accurate job of facets of my personality. My reaction to relationships is what makes me most
similar to the personality disorders that I picked. And my personality helps my relationships
when I am warm and caring, and hurts it when Im not as conscientious or clingy.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
disorders: DSM-5 (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.