Interviews - Patrick

I interviewed Patrick:

Observations:

• Quiet, careful, thoughtful demeanor. Easily receptive to formality of interview setting.
• Not prone to interruption or excess display of energy (debatable?)
• When asked to describe conflict - beginning at 1:25:15 (continuing to around 1:33:00) - there is a clear tendency to represent conflict from subjective, emotional point of view. Conflict is not described not as the causal history of objective external circumstances (e.g., "This is what I did, and the other person responded by doing such and such behavior, and I reacted like this"). The causal histories of conflicts are described in Patrick's responses in a somewhat neglected way. Instead what he appears to be focusing on pointing out by way of explanation, is the subjective response; the emotional charges, and ideological stances of the participants are the focus.
• Likewise, the conflicts discussed seem minor in scope -- it is noteworthy that Patrick chooses to even discuss (and, perhaps, engage in) such conflicts. Rather than, for example, a response similar to "I had a [distant] friend who said some really dumb things to me which I thought were ridiculous and/or cruel, so I essentially ignored that person and decided they weren't very smart [and it doesn't necessarily occur to me to discuss this unimportant dumb person at all.]"

Themes:

• Simplify, get to the point, only give me the information I need to know - the main point, the "basics".
• Limit scope of information acquired to reality, rather than speculation - 42:50 "I don't want to feel like I'm spending my time doing something that will turn out to be completely irrelevant to the job I'm getting; I know that if I work really hard on interviews, that is something that will literally happen [...] it's actually something that will happen in physical reality [...] so that's what I can spend my time on to get the maximum benefit." Also around 1:09:50, "I don't care because it's not going to happen."
• Little discomfort with initiative or taking action. Much less impulse to act. Limited impulsivity, but also inconsistent self-control (from standpoint of inner narrative). Inconsistency of motivation.
• Initiative limited by shame, fear of judgment. Literal stated preference for free expression.

I found this interview very difficult to interpret. Probably partly it is my fault, I focused on some of the wrong things and went on some unuseful conceptual digressions which wasted time (although which might be nonetheless interesting for my small readership here).

But perhaps the main reason the interview is hard to interpret is because, for the most part, Patrick is very even-keeled and doesn't show us much. He tells us more than he shows us; he is a dry, astute, studious, career-focused, and very verbal person. We are left to piece together his comments by context, and make what observations he can.


The most consistent unique theme from the interview, in my view, is it's emphasis on "reality" opposed to speculation, as in the observations explained above. The word choices Patrick uses are telling; he is concerned with "what will happen in physical reality" and not at all with speculative possibilities, which he dismantles articulately as, not relevant to his life. Even, perhaps, when those possibilities are not so unlikely. This focus on reality, and dismissal of speculative possibility, seems unlikely for an Ne valuing type, and instead suggests a type with a greater focus on limiting possibilities, perhaps an Ni valuing introvert. Although, the range of types that I thought about carefully certainly included the LIE and SLE as well.

It seems to me, as well, that Patrick is more correctly described by his rejection of what is uncertain, than by any positive possibility; that is, by any formative vision of what he might expect to become, e.g. a specific vision of what he would like to focus on in his career. But it is still difficult to rule out any of the Ni valuing introverts, based on such inferences.


Interestingly Patrick expresses around 1:16:50, a strong, a preference for environments of free expression "people might judge me harshly or look at me critically and I don't know how to respond to that". It's difficult to know exactly what to make of this; the preference is told and not really shown and Fi valuing types will also report that they prefer not to be judged than to be judged (for obvious reasons). Arguably, Patrick's comments are spontaneous and occupy a high pressure point in the psyche. This picture is consistent with his comments that he strongly prefers exterior emotional space environments of enjoyment, but does not always understand how to behave in order to (or have the confidence to) cultivate environments of good fun.

We are painting the picture of the LSI, of course, with Fe suggestive and Ne vulnerable, and Ti+Ni values, as the best fit for Patrick's type. But we should also consider the other types that might fit this same picture. 
The SLE is a somewhat reasonable fit, but my opinion is that Patrick lacks certain qualities that I would expect to accompany this type, including impulsivity, any history of erratic choices, managerial attitude towards other people

• The SLE is a somewhat reasonable fit, but my opinion is that Patrick lacks certain qualities that I would expect to accompany this type, including impulsivity, any history of erratic choices, managerial attitude towards other people (arguable that he does have this, but in my opinion not to the same degree). By way of comparison examine Ihor Pidruchny's interview done by Jack who is an extremely focused people mover, and others.
• The ILI is a fair fit -- but only if we dismiss Patrick's comments about free expression as told not shown and therefore not valid. This supposes that he prefers to interact with the interior emotional space than the exterior -- all of the language about "ingratiating" himself into environment of free expression seems to go against this. The best I can figure from this interview -- from the language, and the expression, is that the comments about preference for emotionally rich atmospheres is a strong pressure point like Patrick says.
• The IEI is a real possibility here which shouldn't be discounted. Like the LSI this type also has a strong preference for free expression, some difficulties with motivation, and can indeed appear quite studious and rational (especially male IEIs). As in the description above of Patrick's explanation of conflict, we see some (strong) reasons to describe Patrick as focused on emotional information (which could be "tapped" Fe suggestive). But we also find reason to see Patrick as perfectionistic and formal. We could also make some arguments that his "definiteness" and language in describing reality over fantasy, suggests Ne vulnerable and not Ne ignoring, although this is a very tenuous comparison.