Customer Reviews

A Woman's Guide to Personality Types: Enriching Your Family Relationships by Understanding the Four Temperaments

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Donna Partow aims this personality styles training book at women and says she writes for women in the bathroom. This means she tries to have short and useful segments that can be read in stolen moments. The introductory material contains an actual quickie personality test, and an explanation of the classic four-personality-type system. The back of the book has perforated quick-reference cards summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of each personality. Donna follows the practices of Florence and Fred Littauer and renames the personality types so that they all cutely start with the letter "P": Dominant/Choleric becomes Powerful; Influencing/Sanguine becomes Popular; Steady/Phlegmatic becomes Peaceful; and Conscientious/Melancholy becomes Perfect.

The first section of chapters is titled "Understand Yourself"; next is "Understand Your Man", "Understand Your Marriage", and finally "Personalities in Your Children". Inside each section, the four personality types are addressed in turn, enumerating the identifying characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of each.

I found it a bit confusing that Donna tried to separate the strengths and weaknesses of women versus men. For example, separating those of a Popular woman from those of a Popular man. Popular women are listed as having strengths of: talkative, life of the party, motivator, creative, and accepting. Popular men are listed as having strengths of: fires up the troops, great saleman, and great family motivator. Since they are nearly identical, the separation feels artificial and can seem to imply that popular women are not great salesmen or family motivators ... only men. And that just doesn't seem right. The popular man is listed as a poor money manager; but isn't the woman just as prone to that weakness? The man is listed as "prone to wander" (as in infidelity), but isn't the popular woman just as tempted?

As a student of personality types, I found the book most helpful in the areas of identifying clues of personality type in children, and the interaction between the personalities of husband and wife. If you've never read about personality types, this might be a good introduction, but be sure to also read at least one of the classic books like "Please Understand Me:Character and Temperament Types" by David Keirsey, and Marilyn Bates (ISBN 0960695400).

--Lynellen.com

A Woman's Guide to Pesonality Types is a great self help book that will enrich every woman's life. It is an easy read and self motivating.

I keep buying copies of this book to give out because it is so helpful in understanding the personalities of others!

This book is so great! I've made all my friends and family read it. It really helps you to understand yourself and those around you, why we do what we do. It's surprisingly accurate!

I really liked this book, particularly as someone who has had little background in personality training. I was encountering regular frustrations in my marriage that I understood much better after reading Donna Partow's review of the personality types. Not only was I better able to understand our disagreements, but I was also able to talk to my husband in a different way so that he was better able to understand my point of view. I appreciated Donna Partow's Christian perspective and the Bible verses that correlated with the different personality types. This book has improved the overall quality of my marriage as well as my relationships with my kids and co-workers. I have also bought this book for friends who have had similarly positive results.

I highly recommend this book to the average woman who would like to understand her family better, especially if the same little problems continue to fester in your relationship with your husband or kids. It is easy to read, extremely entertaining, and insightful in real-life situations. I learned a lot from it the first time through and reference it whenever I need a refresher.