Type possesses a strange attraction. Self-identification is insightful, and fun, and it is only the beginning. It pulls us along, and somehow, in time, we learn how to recognize type in others, accurately we hope.

How is this type recognition accomplished?

Specifically, what kinds of features or processes do people latch onto and bring to bear as they begin the journey? Does success come by some kind of magic, or is there a science to it?

Beyond the MBTI^® many people bring in Jung's original work. Jung's functions are not the same as the MBTI^® indexes, yet they correspond to and are an integral layer underlying sixteen irreducible types. Clearly the functions add value, getting at something different -- many of us are using them more and more.

Similarly, many refer to Jung's archetypes (the trickster, etc.)

and others to temperament.

and besides these "formal models," there is implicit knowledge like "experience," and gray areas like "rules of thumb." These ride along with the core type theory we know and love. Why? Because the broad categories of type theory in our heads must be matched with patterns -- concrete or abstract -- that we perceive in the real world. We do this even if we are not aware of this matching process or what exactly we are perceiving.

When asked, a "type expert's" insights range from the disarmingly simple to complex ones that leave a beginner wondering where to start. What empowers these "type wizards?" What relevant knowledge do they draw on? and how do they combine their knowledge areas to produce synergy instead of inaccuracy? Is there a compass?

Certainly, accurate knowledge of the theory is critical, as is training and experience with all the types and their flavors; and a few people display a wealth of natural talent. Success depends on having insight -- truth -- about the world, and what each practitioner has in their pack for their journey is a signpost to potentially beneficial knowledge.

As statisticians will remind us, it is all too easy to find patterns where there are none, patterns which strike us as real -- many personality theories which "compete" with type lead us around a circular path that at some point strands us back in the wilderness.

Conversely, all of us believe in the sixteen types. That is the unifying compass. And individually we latch onto a few fine theories to get at those types. Some make lists of features or patterns stereotypical of each type. Others write type descriptions, either in the language of that type or as analytical guides for readers to get their bearings in the continent that is type.

and make no mistake about it, the terrain is huge: the average person is naturally comfortable with two or three categories, and maybe six or eight with training -- certainly not juggling sixteen at once. Yet when probed, type wizards will report they usually "sort" directly into one of the sixteen types, and fall back to a theory or theories only if they cannot make that initial leap.

So just how many "theories," if any, does an expert use?

Most of us have some awareness of cues to pick up on, to convert a person's "off" or "adapted" behavior to something that falls into a type category. These cues might be purely sensory, such as tone of voice or body type, or purely intuitive, such as the "energy" that each type gives off. Or they may be analytical: situational patterns in behavior or responses. Or detection of whether you are getting the "real" person.

A truly powerful type wizard casts all these nets in search of true type, drawing on multiple models, multiple contexts and experiences -- using all the functions. And isn't that what type is all about?

and there are important limitations. Categories are not crisp, but fuzzy: boundaries between each one push into others' terrain here and there, like the jigsaw puzzle geographic boundaries between oddly shaped states. How do we draw these boundaries? Even more importantly, people are not crisp. How strong are the natural tendencies to see "today's self" over innate design? Emerging research demonstrates that whatever the medium, people often rate their "true" category second. Never last, but often second or even third over first.

Fortunately, people usually "fool" themselves in only a few ways. That's why, in the true type discovery process, we bring out instruments and facilitative exercises and descriptions and theories that are the members of the 16-types family, like Jung's functions and the archetypes and the MBTI^® indexes and temperament -- in hopes of helping a person "catch themselves in the act" at some level (through some representation) of the core notion of type. So like a search and rescue party that has only a confusion of signals and landmarks, we latch on to a few helpful features and patterns. Multiple theories allow us to "triangulate:" to say, at this level (with this theory), this person's signals are misleading, but if we listen over here and over there as well (to these representations), we know where they have to be. Look in a geography book: so many maps of one place -- by streets and such, and population, and forest makeup, and mineral reserves.... Explorers in the wilderness know all too well that one map is not the territory.

So what maps do we have to work with, or work out?

Remember your first type experience? People new to type can puzzle us with their questions and perspectives, and while there may be a book of helpful magic formulas at the type wizard's disposal, there are no pat formulas. Sometimes we look back on our journey and wish we had packed better.

Where we start and what we pick up later are important. Generally, those who discover type via the MBTI^® leave their "first time" with a sense of a continuous geography divided into sixteen zones -- a city built on a grid, convenient, civilized and easy to navigate. In contrast, those who discover type via temperament leave with the notion of sixteen whole types, where the temperament themes are bedrock underneath the varied type landscape. Bedrock shapes how rivers flow and plants thrive -- and provides natural and unshifting passes through otherwise confusing terrain.

Yet many often have only the MBTI^® as their most accurate and objective option to rely on. And that's decent. But no instrument, or description or other modus, by itself, determines or "constructs" type. Type exists to start with. We only try to "read" it.

So what "scientific" phenomena drive our compass? There's "pattern" and "process."

Pattern is just "there." It's "whole." A person is one pattern and there are sixteen whole type patterns. We can invent theories that simplify talking about and getting at a pattern, but in the end there are these patterns and everything else is a reduction or over-generalization.

Or not. There's process: on-going, continuous activity.

Simply, journeys have beginnings, middles and ends. Sometimes loose ends, but ends none the less. Sometimes missing middles and raw beginnings. If patterns are like movie themes then process is the plot. And a plot with holes is painful -- process is hard to explain, but we notice and complain when essential elements are missing.

Unfortunately, we just can't point to one moment in a movie and say "This, my friends, is the plot." Or one tree in the woods: "This, folks, is the forest." Or, "he's using metaphor, he's an ENFP." Metaphor may frequently play a part of the ENFP pattern, but it is not the whole pattern; other types can and do use metaphor as a process in service of their particular type pattern. This is why Jung's functions challenge us.

Say your ENTJ workshop leader explains her preference as extraverted thinking with introverted intuition. Which is "on" now? Or are they working hand-in-hand? and are these even what she's using today? Not necessarily.

To answer we must know the interactions, noting beginnings and middles and ends, such as they are. And we thought fewer categories meant easier choices! Even the type wizards make mistakes. Pattern is set in each of us by design, but processes are available to all. Each type prefers some over others, but with a multitude of tracks and trails for each and every function, all mixed in the thick brush.... We find our metaphor of the crisp movie plot fails. Welcome back to the wilderness.

Fortunately, there's also temperament.

Temperament is the oldest new member of the type family. In our age of movies and instant tents, the four temperaments have been recognized in some form since the ancient Greeks. Yet how many of you have met someone -- in the office, out in woods, at the movies -- who's discovered the four temperaments all on their own?

It's fair to say that temperament is deep.

When we walk though the tall trees in the woods we do not see the miles of earth and bedrock underneath, and even when we walk through the empty mountains, and the highest peak was so clear from the plains, we easily lose our way.

Yet temperament is obvious in retrospect because it displays all the qualities of "pattern." There are four whole temperament patterns, each with essential elements that provide information not in the type pattern. It is a map of a different kind, at a different level. It's broader classification distinguishing between, say, conifers and broad leaf trees, whereas the sixteen type patterns are kinds of conifers and kinds of broad leafs. And individuals contain the essential elements of the broader classification. Temperament is infinite in richness yet simply structured -- a gift, discovered by a few fine wizards.

Naturally, temperament alone risks over-generalization: description of a static pattern. Real living systems are dynamic and adaptable -- multiple patterns and processes.

So which trail do we take?

For each new person we meet we must forge (or perhaps "follow") a new path determined by everything else we know about the whole terrain and all other available paths. As practitioners, we can draw on:

• Sixteen unique type patterns
• Jung's eight mental processes
  (functions in their attitudes: Se, Si, Ne, Ni, Te, Ti, Fe, Fi)
• Four temperament patterns in terms of core needs, values and related talents
• Interactional processes like directing vs. informing (exemplified by the directive "forge" vs. the informative "follow" in the paragraph above)
• Type development
• Other factors: gender, culture, age, generation, life experiences
• and all those patterns that still lie in "undiscovered country."

At the end of the day, as we sit around the campfire with all these friends, it may seem like the complex "wizardry" espoused here over-emphasizes one kind of gift, comfort with complexity.

Yet complexity is a big piece of what it takes.

A wise type wizard uses not just multiple models, but multiple functions. Each function is a gift, and type development reminds us we are called to recognize the contribution of each, and all of them...

... always guided by the compass needle of our temperament.