Archetypal Assessments
We are aided in our journey by inner guides, or archetypes, each of which exemplifies a way of being…. We see them reflected in recurring images in art, literature, myth, and religion, and we know they are archetypal because they are found everywhere, in all times and places.
– Carol S. Pearson - Awakening the Heroes Within
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Assessments for Discovering the Archetypes Active In Your Life and Work
The 12-archetype model forms the basis for the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® (PMAI®) instrument, which measures archetypes in individuals, and the IBM® Kenexa® Organizational Cultural Insight Survey (IBM-KCIS), which measures them in organizational cultures. Getting reliable data on one’s active archetypes can help you recognize the stories you are unconsciously living and make them conscious.
Your PMAI® results can enable you to make choices that fulfill you as you begin to see your motivations more clearly. Deeper than that, with this information, you can recognize that your archetypes serve as lenses through which you observe the world, which can tip you off to what you are not seeing because it gets filtered out. This, in turn, can improve your relationships as you gain a readily accessible way to notice what archetypes are active in others and thus understand why they think differently than you do. Your results also can inform you about your low scoring archetypes, which can help you comprehend why you may have trouble getting motivated to accomplish certain tasks or have a difficult time dealing with certain people, when the work or the interaction with them requires an archetype that does not come naturally to you.
It generally is agreed that an organization’s culture is a key determinant of whether it is successful or not. However, culture usually is invisible to leaders and employees alike. The IBM-KCIS® decodes cultures, and this information allows the culture’s real values to be identified. Understanding which archetypes generate energy within a group then can be used in branding and marketing, leadership and organizational development, and employee recruitment and retention to support outcomes that are good for the organization and its stakeholders and customers.
Why Are Validated Instruments Important?
Other surveys claim to help you think through what archetypes are active in your life and work, but often these are just made up by someone and not validated. I’ve found that it actually is more challenging than you might think to select survey items that work reliably to correlate with archetypes active in diverse groups of people and to be certain that when someone takes the survey at one time and then again somewhat later, they get the same results.
There is great value in utilizing instruments that have been thoroughly studied and tested. Surveys that are put together quickly have their uses, but for accurate results, I recommend taking well-tested instruments. Both the PMAI® instrument and the IBM-KCIS® have been developed, tested, and refined by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT).
What is the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® (PMAI®)?
The PMAI® instrument is the world’s first scientifically validated archetype assessment tool. It opens a window into the patterns of our unconscious stories and provides a path to self-understanding. Once we are aware of the archetypes that are active in our lives, we can decide how and when to use them, and which ones may need nurturing or further development.
Taking a psychometrically sound instrument that points to possible archetype activity provides a framework and method to understand and valuable objective information about the possible roles of archetype-related characteristics in an individual’s life. In conjunction with self-reflection, other information, and—if desired—professional consultation, PMAI® results can offer insight into what archetypes may be active, in the shadows, awaiting expression, idealized, and/or in line with or in contrast to the archetypes in one’s milieu.
The 2020 Edition of the PMAI® and the StoryWell website.
The 2020 edition of the PMAI® instrument is the product of several years of research, working with data from user results since 2003, and extensive psychometric testing to ensure the validity of the scores. Three of the archetype names were adjusted to make all of them equally positive.
As part of the relaunch of the PMAI® instrument, the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT) created the StoryWell website as the new destination for purchasing the latest version of the instrument, for taking it, and for receiving one of two reports—the introductory Core Report and the more advanced Expanded Report. StoryWell is beautifully designed, with great illustrations and a contemporary, user-friendly structure. It can be an important resource, where you will be able to:
- purchase and take the PMAI®, which will now be offered online only;
- quickly receive results as a Core or Expanded Report;
- have your own personal MyStoryWell page to retain your results;
- compare results over time as you retake the PMAI® in times of transition;
- purchase books, materials, trainings, and so on to further your learning curve;
- get additional free stuff, in the form of articles, blogs, and information about other users;
- for professional use, be able to order multiple administrations and, with user permission, access your clients’ results; and
- overall, gain visibility and a sense of community as you get involved with other PMAI® users and experts.
The 2020 PMAI Manual® is coming soon on www.storywell.com. To learn more about taking the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® (PMAI®) instrument, visit StoryWell, the home of the latest version. You can purchase an administration now!
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Clarifying Your Vision for 2022?
It is wise to clarify intents for a new year, yet resolutions often don’t work. Learn why. Learn about 12 archetypal narratives that can help you achieve authentic desires by living their plotlines. Gain insight into four steps in the process of discovering your current archetypal motivations, recognizing those that now call to you through your desires and interests, and developing a vision for the next year.
Guest Blog The Dracula Syndrome: How Our Fear Keeps Archetypes (and Our Potential) in the Shadows
In polarized times, unconscious moral certainty is the hunger that drives leaders mad,and weakens us all by feeding our fears. The stories we live, and the archetypes that energize them, get twisted into distinctions of Us/Them,Right/Wrong, and Good/Evil. There’s no better example than the Dracula Syndrome.
Guest Blog by Katherine Culpepper
I’m very pleased to publish this guest blog from pioneering educator Katherine Culpepper. Her work with high school students provides a model that I would love to see replicated widely in schools today—especially, but not exclusively,with students coming from challenging circumstances. An earlier blog on Katherine’s work can be found in the archives on this site. The foundational ideas in this important blog could also be used by parents, families, and others to support and assist children and adolescents in seeing themselves as heroes and heroines, discovering their values and gifts, and making positive choices going forward so that they can fulfill their potential.
What Stories Are You Living?
What Stories Are YouLiving? guides you through the journey of discovering and understanding the archetypes active in your life. These universal themes may be invisible to you now but through this book you will learn how they inspire the behaviors and relationships that drive your life story. As you become conscious of your archetypal potential, you can cultivate the hero or heroine within you by living your stories consciously, in your own unique way. This book provides a roadmap for achieving deeper self-understanding, and includes clear steps for reshaping your life stories, awakening your authenticity, and finding meaning, direction, and purpose.
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The Hero Within
This initial work was a grassroots HarperSanFrancisco best seller about the heroic journey that any of us may be taking in today’s world. I began writing it because its archetypes were talking to me, demanding that I capture what they were communicating in an accessible book. Now in its 3rd edition, The Hero Within remains timely and makes a great gift to anyone seeking purpose and meaning, whether they are starting out or in transition.
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Awakening the Heroes Within
The 12-Archetype System began with this book and is the basis for the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® (PMAI®) assessment and many follow-up applied works. It links archetypes to the hero’s journey to offer an accessible, gender-balanced human development theory, updating the work of C.G. Jung, James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, and Erik Erikson to reflect changing attitudes and roles.
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Persephone Rising
The heroine in the subtitle refers to women and to the feminine within both men and women. The plot shows how psychological balance is restored through greater gender equity and partnership. Each of the four mythological characters matures with the aid of three of the 12 archetypes, thus providing models for how you might live the three reported in your PMAI results as most active in you.
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Take the PMAI
This assessment does for Jung’s work on archetypes what the Myers-Briggs does for type. The featured book, What Stories Are You Living?, supports the PMAI instrument by helping you to fully understand your results and use these insights in your life journey. For additional information beyond this site, see the instrumentation website, www.storywell.com.
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