The Temperament Advantage
Have You Struggled To Know Who You Really Are?
Do you constantly battle the feeling of having lost yourself and your true identity? Have parts of your life become wrapped up in others and what they need or expect from you? Have you merely become an extension of your roles, causing you to lose some of the enthusiasm your life once had? Maybe you’ve become a people pleaser just to keep those around you happy. Has this caused you to grow distant from God, feeling disconnected from Him and His purposes for your life?
The Bible teaches that every one of us is born into a fallen, self-focused world. Every person and every thing is fractured from the effects of sin. We become broken when the object of our hope and worth leaves us or fails us. We begin to assume that no one could ever understand the emotional and mental pain we’re going through. Maybe that’s where you are right now.
Maybe you’ve found all your identity and meaning in your marriage and family, only to discover that your spouse has been unfaithful to their vows. Or possibly you’ve placed your worth and value in the accumulation of wealth, only to find yourself feeling empty with everything money has provided. Maybe you poured all of yourself into your children for decades, only for them to distance themselves from you once they have their own lives and families. Or maybe you’ve committed your entire life to caring for your aging parents, only to have them treat you like you have no worth or value to them.
The World Will Gladly Answer The Identity Question For You
A Lifeway Research study on how Americans view their identity reveals that most Americans find their identity in their relational roles, their character, and their accomplishments. When asked this question, “When you think about who you are, what are the first three things that come to mind?” Americans say being a parent (25%), intelligent (12%), their job (11%), compassionate (11%), a husband (10%), kind (10%), trustworthy (10%), a wife (8%), a friend (8%), hardworking (8%), honest (8%), a Christian (8%), and religious/spiritual (2%).
When given a list of potential factors that could be considered very important to their identity, most respondents point to their role in their family (73%) and the good they do (57%). Around half say what they have achieved (51%) and their role as friend (49%) are vital to their identity.
Unfortunately, relational roles, character, and accomplishments can easily change. Sometimes rather rapidly. What ends up happening is what psychologists call an identity crisis, the “challenge faced by adults who must figure out who they are, what they’re going to do with their lives and who they’re going to do it with.”
Finding Your True Identity Can Be A Challenge No Matter The Strength Of Your Faith
Christian counseling at Life Training utilizes the Arno Profile System (APS) temperament profile, the industry’s gold standard, and the first and only five-element, Bible-based human assessment tool. At Life Training, we have administered this profile to nearly three thousand men, women, and adolescents over the past fifteen years, and have consistently received 5-star reviews from those individuals. The APS profile provides a highly accurate, comprehensive, and detailed portrait of your unique, God-given nature – strengths, weaknesses, and needs – to an extent that only a few people in your life may have known you.
We have discovered that when an individual’s temperament needs are not fulfilled, their life will be primarily lived through their inborn weaknesses. Yet if the person’s needs are largely getting fulfilled in healthy, godly ways, they will be able to experience life and relationships through the temperament strengths God gave them, which will bring gratification to the individual, improve relationships, and ultimately bring glory to God. We want to help you discover this for yourself!
Any time you base your identity on factors that can change, you are setting yourself up for failure and disappointment. Unfortunately, family relationships can change. Divorce has become too common. Children can become estranged. Crisis sometimes separates even the closest family connections. These relationships cannot be your foundation.
Forty-two percent of Americans say what they do determines who they are. Working to achieve a reputation presupposes you have less value without this earned reputation. You shouldn’t base your identity on what you do. It’s so important that you know you are made in God’s image and loved by Him regardless if you are performing highly or not, working or resting, out in the field or disabled and unable to work.
Your roles, responsibilities, titles, or circumstances don’t determine the core of your identity. God loves you just as much whether you are in the game or watching from the sideline. If you think you only have value when you are doing, you will continuously struggle to discover your meaning or place in this world separate from performance and the approval of others.
Our Christian Temperament Counselors Help You Discover Your True Identity
Historically, there have been only four temperaments described in both faith-based and secular counseling practice and literature. However, in 1981, as a result of Drs. Richard and Phyllis Arno conducting seven years of research with over 5,000 individuals in the Christian counseling setting, a fifth temperament — the Supine — was identified. The Supine classification is exclusive to the copyrighted APS temperament profile and can only be taught by an NCCA Certified Temperament Counselor.
Every human being has an inborn temperament nature that is comprised of a combination of these five pure temperaments, lovingly chosen by God specifically for each individual:
Melancholy
Has an essential need to know that they are “enough” through being seen as competent.
Choleric
Has an essential need to know that they are “admired” through consistently being in control.
Sanguine
Has an essential need to know that they are “adored” through being approved of and liked.
Supine
Has an essential need to know that they are “invited” through being included and wanted.
Phlegmatic
Has an ssential need to know that they are “understood” through being listened to and heard.
Your Temperament And Your Personality Are Two Vastly Different Things
Unlike a personality profile, the APS does not measure the many ways you present yourself outwardly (masks). Rather, the APS identifies your inborn, God-given temperament. Who God created you to be (temperament) and who we become (personality) through learned behavior, can be vastly different, and from that difference comes great conflict, both internally and within relationships.
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.”
(Psalm 139:13-14 NIV)
As you begin to discover through the detailed APS report who God has created you to be, you will feel a deeper validation of who you are then ever before. As you are guided in how to examine your personal temperament information through the perspective of the flesh versus spirit nature, your understanding of your true identity in Christ will begin to come into focus. In doing this, we will help you learn how you can operate from the temperament strengths God has given you, and learn to walk in the Spirit as you realize more and more who you are in Christ.
Temperament Reveals and Validates The Real You
The process of learning about your inborn temperament begins with you completing a 60-question online multiple-choice questionnaire which takes fewer than ten minutes to complete. The questionnaire measures your temperament (soul) needs, natural traits, strengths, and weaknesses. With the detailed 7–8-page report generated from your questionnaire we are able to immediately and accurately identify the roots or origins of the struggle you may be having with realizing your true identity, worth, and value.
The temperament identification provided in the APS report identifies three separate human interactions:
Inclusion – Your Mind
Surface relationships, social orientation, intellectual engagement , and how your mind interprets your surroundings.
Control – Your Will
Level of competence in making decisions, carrying out responsibilities, and performing tasks
Affection – Your Emotion
Emotional connection related to love, affection, and deep approval within yourself, your deep relationships, and your sensitivity to those around you.
Your temperament strengths were given to you by God. Your temperament weaknesses come from your imperfect, sin nature. Both can lead you to God through your obedience to His word and His ways. Conversely, they can also lead us to a greater focus on self, either through self-promotion or self-deprecation.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
(Jeremiah 1:5)
Because we each have different temperament tendencies, we each have different areas of life (flesh) we need to overcome. Our well-trained Christian Counselors who have a thorough understanding of the APS profile and knowledge of God’s word are equipped to help you get to the root of your struggles. You will gain an understanding and appreciation of the strengths God has given you. You will also gain a deeper understanding God’s love for you and who you are in Christ. In order to overcome your temperament weaknesses, we will help you gain a greater understanding of the needs specific to your unique temperament, and how you might seek to satisfy those needs in healthy, godly ways.
Maybe You’re Considering Christian Temperament Counseling But Still Have Some Questions Or Concerns…
“I’ve completed other profiles (i.e. DISC, Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, MMPI, StrengthFinders, and so on). Why should I take the Arno Profile System (APS) assessment, too?”
That’s a great question. In fact, we get asked this question nearly every day. There are three really important answers to this question: 1) The APS is a temperament profile rather than a personality profile. It assesses your inborn, God-given needs, whereas personality profiles assess the outward projection of your personality, 2) The APS is the only 5-element human assessment. Without the fifth temperament (Supine) being included, all four-element profiles leave out a sizable number of people who were born with the Supine temperament nature, and 3) The APS temperament characteristics — which include the needs, strengths, and weaknesses of each temperament type — are based on the Bible’s description of each nature. What God calls a strength, the world might see as a weakness. And vice versa. The premise of the APS is to help the individual rediscover their inborn nature (identity) that God created within them.
“Could the APS temperament profile reveal things that might cause or trigger emotional trauma or shame in me?”
No, the APS report is not able to identify any information that might specifically describe or expose you or any of your past life experiences. The information in each report characterizes the needs, strengths, and weaknesses that you (and countless others with the same temperament type) tend to express in your life and desire from others. If at any point during your meeting with the temperament counselor you begin to feel uncomfortable with what is being presented, we want you to feel free to redirect or stop the session at that point.
“What is the benefit of me knowing information related to my temperament?”
Nearly every individual or couple whom we teach about their inborn temperament tells us how much it validated their view of themselves. Oftentimes when people lack positive traits, such as social skills, competence, leadership, etc, they believe it’s because there is something about them is “wrong” or “bad.” The APS temperament profile provides detailed information about how God created the individual in their mother’s womb. Further, when a couple learns one another’s temperament characteristics, they now possess a blueprint that brings great clarity to how they might more effectively relate to each other.
Contact Us Today To Begin The Journey To Discovering Your True Identity
Dr. Dave and Ann Ralston, founders of Life Training Christian Counseling, are the only 5-Star rated NCCA Certified Temperament Counselors in the Metro Louisville, Kentucky and Southeast Indiana region.
The APS is inexpensive and will save you and your counselor multiple counseling sessions because it is able to identify your internal struggles immediately.
Having counseled hundreds upon hundreds of clients utilizing the APS temperament profile as a primary tool, Dr. Dave and Ann Ralston have seen God restore individuals, relationships, marriages, and families in ways that only He can do.
Let Us Help You Discover Your True, Inborn Identity.
If you would like to know more about Christian temperament counseling, please call 502 717 5433 to learn more about us and our unique approach. We enjoy the personal contact of talking to prospective clients and answering questions you may have. So, please, feel free to contact us to see how we can help you begin to move forward on the journey to discovering your true identity.