User:Consentingadult

From Wikisocion

I'm consentingadult, the webmaster of Wikisocion.org, which means I take care of the plumbing and replace light bulbs whenever needed. I am, however, not involved with moderation of the contents of this wiki, that's Rick's job.

If you find an error of a technical nature on this wiki, you can send an email to admin{on]wikisocion{point]org. Please provide as much detail as possible, so I can look into it.

My Perspective on Socionics

First of all, I mainly stick to the insights of classical Socionics. For me such things as subtypes, Reinin Dichotomies (=Forer effect), non-Model A explanations of the psyche, muti- and cross type theories dilute the theory and have no value whatsoever. Most of what I need to know about other people can often be eloquently explained or predicted simply by classical Socionics, or by non-Socionics insights.

Socionics to me is not written in stone, but a proto-science that has made some discoveries that have not yet reached mainstream psychology, social psychology and sociology. But I think that once mainstream science does, it will merge the Socionics insights with existing ones, form new hypotheses and test these, creating a larger and more complex understanding than Socionics is capable of offering. I am optimistic about this, since I increasingly find 'scientific evidence' that in my opinion seems to support the underlying essence of Socionic insights.

The main value of Socionics is that it allows me to understand mainstream psychology better, and vice versa, and apply these understandings. Many phenomena in Socionics are also explained by mainstream psychology, only the terminology and the conclusions as to what these insights really mean differ.

Finally, and this will probably not be met with agreement, I think Socionics type is not fixed. It would take too many words to explain it, so I won't even try, but I do see Psychological Type as a form of ego fixation that one can escape out of. That being said, most people do not escape that ego fixation, making them and their relationships typeable. Also, in this world of rapidly increasing histrionic, narcissistic and other neurotic tendencies, it becomes increasingly difficult to act type-neutral: other people's expectations or projections often corners you into a niche. Social Psychology has an abundance of examples to prove that (applies only to the part after the colon).

What probably is fixed, is Temperament, and I mean that in both the mainstream psychological as well as Socionics sense. So far I have no reason to believe to believe that it changes under unchanged conditions (e.g. hormonal effects), although I do see that people get less 'extreme' in it as the get older and more balanced.

In daily live I do apply Socionics very often, but not in isolation. At the same time I use insights of mainstream Personality Psychology and Pathology, non-Personality Psychopathology (to decide when not to apply Socionic insights), Social Psychology, Sociology and whatever interesting stuff crosses my path.

Suggested Reading

To complement your knowlegde in Socionics, I would like to propose the following books as introductions to related ideas:

• Social Psychology - 3rd Edition: Introduction to Social Psychology. A lot of in-depth information, interesting because it explains, amongst many other things, how we create our self-concepts and views of others. However, any other introduction to Social Psychology is probably just as good.
• Schema Therapy - A Practitioners Guide: meant for therapists, but very readable for non-professional. It takes a look at personality pathology, and when you take the time to think about what it says, you'll find many phenomena, healthy and unhealty, that have their counterparts in Socionics. Why is this important? Because chances of dualization are very unlikely when you have low self-esteem.
• Reinventing Your Life: self-help version of Schema Therapy. The only all-encompassing self-help book that ever worked for me. Will, however, be useless in terms of self-help when you're not ready for it yet: a problem is not a problem until someone experiences it as a problem.
• The Michelangelo Phenomenon: scientific publication that I consider to be mainstream scientific support for the Socionics concept of Duality and other intra-quadra relationships. More downloadable articles here (search page for Michelanelgo Phenomenon).

Apart from these, I would also like to recommend introductions to Sociology. The ones I read are in Dutch, so check out your local library or book store for something that fits your interests.

My Participation in this Wiki

Since Wikisocion went live, I've been using it as a valuable information resource. When the Wiki went down in Februari 2010, I was cut off from this source, and offered my assistance to Rick, which he accepted. I brought the wiki back online on my own hosting account, although unfortunately we weren't able to recover the wiki in a recent state. I have implemented some measures, in terms of security as well as disaster recovery procedures, which should prevent the information of this Wiki becoming so utterly destroyed again. Backups are now made automatically on a daily basis and uploaded to two(!) off-site locations, one is mine, and the other is Rick's. We will also frequently test the quality of these backups.

Not that you were planning such a thing, but know upfront that hacking or vandalization attempts will be just minor nuisances that we can deal with, not disasters. We have the backups, all we need to do is upload them and run the restore script. I can do that with my eyes closed.

I will not participate in adding content to this wiki or discussing it. The only related things I would like to contribute to other people's lives are outside the realm of Socionics, and as such have no business here. Furthermore, I have always thought it to be good practice, also with other sites I've managed, to keep technical responsibilities and personal interests separated. Yes, I know, I have too many scruples!