Recap of February Program – Type & Relationships

BAAPT member panels have been a popular program, and a great way to depict Type in action. On February 14th, Adam Frey facilitated a Couples Panel, and shares a brief summary below.

For this Valentine’s Day program at BAAPT, I interviewed two married couples about type and relationships.  

Gina and Tom Snyder have been married for 48 years. Gina has preferences for ENFJ; Tom’s are for INTP.  As they spoke, I was struck by how well they have come to know each other and how much work they have done to learn to accommodate each other’s type orientation. Gina remarked that knowing type theory saved their marriage. 

Christine Oh and Bruce Ortiz met in 2008 and have been married since 2010.  

Their preferences are for INFP and ISTJ. It was interesting to hear how these two people with introverted preferences respect and make space for each other. Like Tom and Gina, they said that understanding type makes it much easier for them to face challenges together. 

Members of the audience asked pertinent questions and offered provocative ideas. One of the most interesting ideas of the day, for me, came from Gina Snyder. In speaking about her experience of having children, she suggested that post-partum depression may be largely a reaction to the disturbance to the mother’s introversion or extraversion that naturally follows on having a child. If the mother, like Gina, is an extravert, it may be hard for her to adjust to staying home and taking care of the baby rather than being out in the world. Conversely, if the mother is an introvert, it may be hard to get acclimated to having to be always available to the baby and not having substantial stretches of time alone. 

Adam Frey, Gina Snyder, Tom Snyder

Adam Frey, Christine Oh, Bruce Ortega