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Jung's typology, presented in more than 600 erudite pages as Psychological Types (CW 6), has vicariously enjoyed a wildly successful ride in the public domain for
some 50 years, due specifically to a psychological inventory known the world over as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI®. As Beebe tells us in his preface, 50 years is also how long he has been reflecting on Jung's typology. Beebe's book is replete with typological analyses and insights, including detailed descriptions of how his model evolved in his own life and work.
Jo Wheelwright gave initial focus to Jung's typology by developing the first Jungian based typological inventory, the Grey-Wheelwright or Jungian Type Inventory (JTI). June Singer and Mary Loomis’ Singer-Loomis Inventory of Personality (SLIP) followed, offering a ‘corrective’ to the JTI and MBTI's structural premise by eschewing a forced choice format. By adopting a Likert scale for determining and measuring type preferences, the SLIP yielded a typological construct qualitatively different from both the JTI and the MBTI. However, compared with the MBTI's global profile and influence, both the JTI and the SLIP have remained relatively unknown outside of Jungian circles.
Over the years, very few analysts have devoted themselves unreservedly to Jung's typology; fewer still have made sustained use of it in their clinical work. Among analysts, only John Beebe and John Giannini (2004) seem to have caught on early to the MBTI phenomenon; both have been active in the MBTI community for decades. Beebe's contributions were recognized formally in 2009 when the Association of Psychological Type awarded him a President's Award for Merit at their international conference in Dallas.
Many Jungians have tended to view the MBTI and its success with chagrin, as co-opting Jung's seminal text. Is there a danger that the MBTI inadvertently trivializes Jung's original ideas or panders to the masses? Beebe's wide-ranging book, which even incorporates Henderson'