Please Understand Me

Please Understand Me

Author	David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Temperament, psychology, personality
Publisher	Prometheus Nemesis Books
Publication date	1978
Media type	Paperback
Pages	210
ISBN	978-0-935-65202-4
OCLC	11585453
Followed by	Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence

Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types (first published in 1978 as Please Understand Me: An Essay on Temperament Styles) is a psychology book written by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates which focuses on the classification and categorization of personality types. The book contains a self-assessed personality questionnaire, known as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which links human behavioral patterns to four temperament types and sixteen character types. Once the reader's personality type has been ascertained, there are detailed profiles which describe the characteristics of that type.

Based upon the notion that people's values differ fundamentally from one another, Keirsey drew upon the views of several psychologists or psychiatrists: Ernst Kretschmer, Erich Adickes, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Isabel Myers who are all mentioned as predecessors in the psychology of temperament or personality.^[1] Of these methods, preference is given to the Myers–Briggs test when determining personality type.^[2]