Personality type vs personality disorder

I don't know If this is a philosophical question or not, but I can't seem to get my head around it.

With personality types, like with the test I like, myers-briggs, which gave me a weird result anyway, could you even still define yourself as a certain personality type if you have a personality disorder? which is much less complex than a disorder would be, or does the disorder define you now which has much more specific descriptions?

Maybe this has a really obvious answer, but taking on the identity of either a type or disorder seems so conflicting. Also it would be interesting to see what the most common ptype was with people with disorders. This thought is already making me tired.

I would never take on the identity of anything.... I'm me. Taking on an identity is basically saying that you would be changing who you are to fit in with a certain type.

Which defeats the purpose. Both personality quizzes and personality disorders just explain who you are. The Myers-Briggs is based on questions you answer and demonstrates your perception of yourself more than anything. Personality disorders are diagnosable and not overly changeable without a lot of hard work.

If someone is diagnosed with a personality disorder, they're probably more likely to end up with a Myers-Briggs type that complements their disorder. People with Dependent personality disorder are almost certainly going to end up with a very different result than someone with Antisocial PD. They are very different personalities.

Here’s a correlation of Myers-Briggs results and personality disorder among college students:

http://www.uccs.edu/Documents/dsegal...ures-JPT-2.pdf

The conclusion: people with I, N, T, and P on the Myers-Briggs were more likely to correlate with personality disorders.

Another way to look at it: If you start from Jung’s theory of innate preferences, then people with I and N preferences are in the minority of the population, in the US at any rate. And people with T preferences aren’t as “friendly” as people with F preferences.

So maybe there is an inherent bias in the majority, people-oriented population to consider people with less common Myers-Briggs preferences as being "abnormal"? And hence to develop ways to measure personality disorder that confirm that?

When I was in graduate school 20 years ago I took some psychology statistics classes with a man who was a big fan of the Myers-Briggs. He thought that starting from the basic Myers-Briggs preferences different people would tend to develop different personality disorders, if other risk factors were there (i.e., parenting and environment)

I agree with Panda, personality type or disorder (if any) is different from identity, which is who someone is as person, just who they are. Sometimes who we really are is hard for us to know, especially during adolescence or times of stress or transition and the tests seem to offer some insight. I wouldn't sweat it, though, if it's hurting and not helping.

Thanks your answer was very useful, I guess everyone has the innate desire to understand themselves better.

And Panda saying that type is perception of self, where diagnosis is more objective seems right on the money.

I think with the Identity thing it can be useful not to lose yourself within a despription of a diagnosis, I tend to think everything is final and go off on a tangent.

Great perspective from you guys, thanks.

MBTI is a very misunderstood personality theory.
MBTI is based off of Jungian theory which is all about cognitive functions. The problem with a lot of these tests is they don't try to figure out how your brain thinks (the cognitive functions), but more on what kind of behaviors you have which isn't what the system is about so the tests you find online end up not having a high accuracy rate. Likewise, the MBTI "profiles" that go with these tests are about behaviours which is again, hit and miss. So someone who really is an ISFP might not look very much like their ISFP profile. So in short, MBTI is really about how you think, how you perceive the world, how you give and take information, not so much about behaviors. There are likely behaviors for these functions (which is what online tests and profiles are based off of), but that's all it is - likely behaviors. The four letters you see are actually a code to what these cognitive functions are. It isn't that this person is Introverted, sensing, feeling and perceiving, ISFP REALLY means Introverted feeling, extroverted sensing, introverted intuition, extroverted thinking in that order.

Anyways you'll see some correlation. Like Histrionic PD probably won't be too common for an INTP, but you might very well find an INTP Schizotypal PD. But the others already touched on that pretty well.
I'd also like to add in that in MBTI no one person is 100% anything so one ENTJ will be more extroverted than another and so on. Types are only one small aspect that makes a person.

Someone who is extremely introverted might not have a PD just like someone who is extremely extroverted might not. The thing about the diagnosis, that I've understood, is that something about this person has become such a way so that it hurts the person or those around them, or it causes a deal of distress for the person or those around them. I'll use myself as an example. I believe I've been diagnosed with Schizoid PD (not 100% sure but it fits fairly well, might also be something else but I digress). I'm also an ISTP and it fits pretty well. It's kind of like two of the many pieces that make up the person "me". The thing about the diagnosis is that it actually does cause distress in my life and those around me. I feel the need to be alone all the time, but my family and friends don't want that - they actually want to be around me. That's going beyond introversion, because introverts still need and desire to be with other people, it just looks different than extroverts. But that doesn't mean I'm not an ISTP either. That's what I have understood anyways? But someone correct me if I'm wrong on this one.

Many great things here. I have NPD and INTJ is my personality type. To me this makes sense, I am able to recognize many of the findings I read about in regards to my personality type and as well with my PD. For me I like the fact that how I see, work and so on others do the same even if it is one with the least amount accounted for. To answer your question in my perspective is yes, my personality type and disorder seem to go hand in hand and because of that it helps me even if it's just to read about. At least it makes better sense to myself which is why I answered yes. I can understand what others are saying in regards to mismatch I guess I just got lucky lol.