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The 5 Personality Patterns: Your Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others and Developing Emotional Maturity Paperback – August 28, 2015
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This bestselling book marks a major advance in the psychology of personality. Suddenly, you can see what's going on inside people: you can see what motivates and matters to them and how to influence and communicate with them successfully. Finally, you have a simple, clear, true-to-life map of personality that gives you the key to understanding people and interacting with them successfully. The 5 Personality Patterns is a book that can change your life.
"This is one of the most useful popular psychology books I have ever seen. . . . It should become a classic."
--- Stephen M. Johnson, author of Character Styles and Characterological Transformation
Much of our human suffering is not necessary. It is created by old safety strategies that helped us survive our childhood traumas, but then got stuck in our bodies. Today, they control our thoughts, feelings, and actions so deeply that they have become an invisible prison. We live our lives trapped in that prison, repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
As we attempt to understand the psychology of success and become successful ourselves, studying the habits of successful people is not enough. To create real self transformation, we must dissolve the obstacles to success buried within us. To regain control of our lives, we must uncover the old safety strategies and patterns that still run our lives so that we can heal and transform them.
Often, these patterns have shaped us so deeply that we think that's who we are. But in fact, they cover up our true self and prevent it from shining out into the world. Finally, we have a map of these patterns, a map that will help you:
- Discover how you got stuck and how to get free
- Heal your core wounds
- Learn the skills you missed
- Communicate effectively with others
- Develop emotional maturity
- Become all you can be
Many readers seeking self improvement have discovered that this map of personality is even more helpful to them than the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs personality types, because those maps focus on the surface of the body, on your behaviors, while this map starts with the core of the body and how the flow of your life energy got distorted. And that distortion of the flow of life energy through the body is at the root of much of the suffering and conflict we experience in interpersonal relationships. Understanding those differences will dramatically increase your empathy, compassion, and people skills.
- Print length388 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateAugust 28, 2015
- Dimensions6 x 0.97 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100996343903
- ISBN-13978-0996343909
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Understanding people this way is like having x-ray vision!
This bestselling book marks a major advance in the psychology of personality. Suddenly, you can see what's going on inside people: you can see what motivates and matters to them and how to influence and communicate with them successfully. Finally, you have a simple, clear, true-to-life map of personality that gives you the key to understanding people and interacting with them successfully. The 5 Personality Patterns is a book that can change your life.
"This is one of the most useful popular psychology books I have ever seen. . . . It should become a classic."
--- Stephen M. Johnson, author of Character Styles and Characterological Transformation
Much of our human suffering is not necessary. It is created by old safety strategies that helped us survive our childhood traumas, but then got stuck in our bodies. Reinforced by the power of habit, they continue to shape our actions and personality even today. They have become an invisible prison. We live our lives trapped in that prison, repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
As we attempt to understand the psychology of success and become successful ourselves, studying the habits of successful people is not enough. To create real self transformation, we must dissolve the obstacles to success buried within us. To reclaim our power and regain control of our lives, we must uncover the old safety strategies and patterns that still run our lives so that we can heal and transform them.
Often, these patterns have shaped us so deeply that we think that's who we are. But in fact, they cover up our true self and prevent it from shining out into the world. Finally, we have a map of these patterns, a map that will help you:
- Discover how you got stuck and how to get free
- Heal your core wounds
- Learn the skills you missed
- Communicate effectively with others
- Develop emotional maturity
Many readers seeking self improvement have discovered that this map of personality is even more helpful to them than the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs personality types, because those maps focus on the surface of the body, on your behaviors, while this map starts with the core of the body and how the flow of your life energy got distorted. And that distortion of the flow of life energy through the body is at the root of much of the suffering and conflict we experience in interpersonal relationships. Understanding those differences will dramatically increase your empathy, compassion, and people skills. Understanding how to bridge those differences will dramatically increase your interpersonal communication skills.
Product details
- Publisher : Bodhi Tree Press; First Edition (August 28, 2015)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 388 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0996343903
- ISBN-13 : 978-0996343909
- Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.97 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #28,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #109 in Popular Psychology Personality Study
- #217 in Interpersonal Relations (Books)
- #851 in Personal Transformation Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Steven Kessler has been studying people his whole life. As early as the 9th grade, he was attending the school plays, night after night, to learn about people's emotions. The through-line of his life has been the question, “What is real?” Since our culture uses science and physical materialism to tell us what is real, and physics is the priesthood of science, he began college by studying physics at MIT. But he soon found that physics could never comprehend the human heart and spirit, so he transferred to acting school at Boston University, looking for something in our emotional life that was more real.
After getting his BA in Acting and spending four years as an actor and lighting designer in the New England Repertory Theatre, Steven turned to metaphysics to open the doors to a deeper exploration of our human experience. At first he studied parapsychology, then began exploring the human psyche by studying Transpersonal Psychology, anthropology, and mythology. Along the way, he began delving ever deeper into human consciousness by exploring many different spiritual and meditation practices. During college, he was initiated into Transcendental Meditation. During his twenties, he joined a Christian church led by a psychic and had his first experiences with channeling. After moving to California, he explored a plethora of different attentional and meditation practices, finally settling into the Diamond Heart School, where he sat at the feet of A H. Almaas for 16 years.
For almost 40 years, he's been a licensed psychotherapist, studying many different healing modalities and maps of personality, including the Enneagram (with Helen Palmer), NLP, energy work, Thought Field Therapy, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), becoming a certified EFT Expert & Trainer. For 20 years, he has been a student of Lynda Caesara, studying Character Structure, the direct perception of energy, and shamanism in the lineage of Grandfather Two Bears and the Southern Seers tradition. His books on The 5 Personality Patterns began with his studies in character structure and energy with Lynda Caesara. For more information on them, see his website at "the5personalitypatterns dot com".
Since 1984, Steven has taught hundreds of groups and workshops in the US and internationally, helping men and women heal their wounds and grow into their full adult selves. More recently he has taught over 100 classes and workshops training other therapists in the use of EFT. From 2006 to 2010, Steven left his private practice for 2-3 months a year to work on US military bases, both in North America and overseas, helping the soldiers and their families heal the wounds of war.
Whether teaching or working with clients, Steven weaves together many healing approaches and modalities to provide what is most needed in the moment.
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For my relationship with my wife, it's transformed and deepened the intimacy and ability to navigate challenges and ability to be vulnerable (because we know what's happening within us so we can then share it). She dove into the book very deeply as well, at the same time as me. Reading the book can be a doozy if you really understand it. We laughed and cried, reading about these patterns that we've lived with all our lives (generally each person runs 2-3 main patterns) and realizing parts of ourselves and why we became the way we are. With this insight, we were able to compassionately meet each other in the deeps, again and again.
We took this seriously - and that's why we got so much mileage with it. We have now introduced 45+ people to this material, and seen people's lives and relationships shift. Some people get alot more than others - because it TAKES TIME (months and months) to really marinate with this knowledge, observe yourself, try to identify your patterns - to clarify it.
But you either gain clarity on these things or they WILL repeat in your life - and I have never seen anything more clear for this than the 5pp (vs. Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, Human Design, Astrology, and many other profiling approaches that all are rich and supportive).
For many of us, we're familiar with the challenge of repeating patterns and miscommunication and inability to understand why we and others are doing irrational things in relationship. It's only irrational or over-reactive or doesn't make sense until we begin to understand the foundations of our psyche, which formed in our early 5 years.
In this way, if both partners take this book seriously, this book lessens miscommunication between partners in a way that's nearly impossible with just practicing NVC or working on polarity or learning that men are from mars and women from venus, or boundary work - all those are supportive but in comparison to the richness and connectivity that awakens when you begin to TRULY understand your patterns, those are more tactical supports for a relationship - and this is the key foundations, in my view and the view of my wife.
When you happen upon a map like this, it's worth a million points for your work life, your intimate life, your family, your friends... we're all stuck in these loops and they're deep - and it's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame - and this framework opens a rare window. Use it wisely.
A big debt of gratitude to Steven Kessler for pulling together this profound body of work - and looking forward to his next book. It's important to remember that this framework of the personality patterns has been 100 years in the making, since Wilhelm Reich laid it out in the 1930's - and it has been evolved and worked on by many since then.
As you might be able to tell, my wife and I (and our friends) are passionate about growth and yet we've never found a model and framework of information that is so eminently useful on a daily basis - that we're still talking about, learning from, using daily almost 2 years after first discovering it.
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2023
For my relationship with my wife, it's transformed and deepened the intimacy and ability to navigate challenges and ability to be vulnerable (because we know what's happening within us so we can then share it). She dove into the book very deeply as well, at the same time as me. Reading the book can be a doozy if you really understand it. We laughed and cried, reading about these patterns that we've lived with all our lives (generally each person runs 2-3 main patterns) and realizing parts of ourselves and why we became the way we are. With this insight, we were able to compassionately meet each other in the deeps, again and again.
We took this seriously - and that's why we got so much mileage with it. We have now introduced 45+ people to this material, and seen people's lives and relationships shift. Some people get alot more than others - because it TAKES TIME (months and months) to really marinate with this knowledge, observe yourself, try to identify your patterns - to clarify it.
But you either gain clarity on these things or they WILL repeat in your life - and I have never seen anything more clear for this than the 5pp (vs. Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, Human Design, Astrology, and many other profiling approaches that all are rich and supportive).
For many of us, we're familiar with the challenge of repeating patterns and miscommunication and inability to understand why we and others are doing irrational things in relationship. It's only irrational or over-reactive or doesn't make sense until we begin to understand the foundations of our psyche, which formed in our early 5 years.
In this way, if both partners take this book seriously, this book lessens miscommunication between partners in a way that's nearly impossible with just practicing NVC or working on polarity or learning that men are from mars and women from venus, or boundary work - all those are supportive but in comparison to the richness and connectivity that awakens when you begin to TRULY understand your patterns, those are more tactical supports for a relationship - and this is the key foundations, in my view and the view of my wife.
When you happen upon a map like this, it's worth a million points for your work life, your intimate life, your family, your friends... we're all stuck in these loops and they're deep - and it's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame - and this framework opens a rare window. Use it wisely.
A big debt of gratitude to Steven Kessler for pulling together this profound body of work - and looking forward to his next book. It's important to remember that this framework of the personality patterns has been 100 years in the making, since Wilhelm Reich laid it out in the 1930's - and it has been evolved and worked on by many since then.
As you might be able to tell, my wife and I (and our friends) are passionate about growth and yet we've never found a model and framework of information that is so eminently useful on a daily basis - that we're still talking about, learning from, using daily almost 2 years after first discovering it.
This book's premise is that when you aren't in the present moment, overwhelm has likely occurred and you're moving into pattern. Being in pattern may have been useful in the past. As an adult, it's likely that you've acquired more tools (and the book also suggest many tools) than your childhood had available, and being in pattern likely only makes situations worse.
The author suggests that there are 5 ways in which the energy of overwhelm moves. Seeing how I have utilized all these patterns at different times of my life, this book led me to feeling seen in a way that really lands for me.
My time was spent very well reading this book.
Dr Barb MacDonald
Top reviews from other countries
From a non-judgmental perspective Kessler lays down the formation of different personality types in simple, understandable terms. Were all damaged but not permanently!
This book really brought to light for me some of my deep-rooted inner workings and how to see and use them to my advantage rather than continuing to let them run my life to my detriment.
It has also enabled me to understand others much better and to bring even more compassion into my human relationships.
This book is a veritable bible of human behavior, and you can come back to it again and again. Each time you read it, you go a little deeper into the concepts explored.
And I am thrilled to see that it now also exists in a French version !!!!
#1 - Safety Strategy, not Typology
Even though I'd liked Myers Briggs and Big Five, I felt they were limiting in some way. I didn't even know why I felt that way. When I heard Steven emphasise in multiple interviews how what he discusses are safety strategies and not typologies, I finally got it. The point is: these patterns of your personality are not who you are, in fact they were the patterns you'd developed to block who you are.
#2 - Massive reduction in self-judgment & shame
When I saw how my developmental trauma has shaped me, I've experienced a massive decrease in shame and judgment. Even though I'd done a ton of inner work, up until now it was all fueled primarily by shame.
When I understood that beneath all these patterns, all my subconscious wanted was safety - it just made things so much easier for me to accept. I started treating myself with more compassion and I became more considerate. A large chunk of the voices inside my head became friendly as well (unlike a time when the inner critic was all I was)
#3 - Great bridge between developmental and energy psychology
Based on my upbringing, I'm fairly analytical, and therefore, I'd been dismissive of energy psychology until recently. But this book ties developmental psychology with energy concepts beautifully and I can now understand why Steven recommends the practices he does. Just getting started on these!
I hope this books aids you in a wonderful journey! :)