Peter Geyer
Type Coaching and Training

In May this year Susan Brock finally lost her long battle with cancer. Peter Geyer shares some personal recollections of one of the leading figures in the international type community.

Susan Brock spent the last 20 years of her life contributing to the type community in a variety of roles and in her distinctive and lively way.

One of the many significant contributors to type to come out of Minneapolis (others include Jean Kummerow and Sandra Hirsh), Susan became involved in the Association for Psychological Type in its early days, serving as President in 1981 and 1982. She was also a member of the CAPT board.

Her presidency was significant for Australians in that the first, unsuccessful moves to establish an Australian Association for Psychological Type were commenced at that time.

As a contributor to ideas about type, Susan's forte was communication, specifically selling and influencing. She developed comprehensive training courses in that field (e.g. FLEXSelling) and was the author of the booklet Using Type in Selling, available from CAPT. Susan came to Australia a few years ago to conduct these workshops for Australian Psychologists Press, I'm sure to the pleasure and benefit of those who attended.

I first encountered Susan's work in 1991 in the form of her succinct Four Part Framework, which put MBTI jargon on preferences and scales into plain language. As I sought to develop my type knowledge, I acquired many conference tapes of various presenters on type, including her work. There was a lot worth listening to. Susan displayed to me the ability to mix humour, knowledge and insight with clear, but not over-simplified explanations of how type impacts on communication.

Although her broad topic, that of selling, marketing etc, was not of central interest to me, her ideas have influenced the way I approach presenting with type, particularly for a general audience. Her work also challenges some of the basic principles of sales and marketing, in both an academic and practical sense.

I was privileged to meet Susan at the Multicultural Research Conference in Hawai'i in January 1998, where she spoke on successful communication for leaders.

She was open and friendly and we had a genial chat about various topics. She agreed to be interviewed about her involvement with type. At the time, she was recovering from serious illness – in remission, in retrospect.

Susan's illness and consequent interaction with people in the medical and health areas gave her direct experience of communication problems between patients and those whose role is to look after them. Joint presentations with Judy Allen, with the subtext "treat me as a human being", were made at APT Phoenix and the MBTI & Leadership Conference last year, and reported in the Bulletin of Psychological Type.

Their book on the topic was published recently. It's a great pity to me that Susan won't be around to do some influencing in an area important to all of us, our families and friends. The least we can do is go out and get the book and get the health care we deserve. That's what I'll be doing.

Susan preferred ENTP.

You're coming to join this community of learners and that speaks to several commitments.

It speaks to a commitment to understand psychological differences to the point of type. It speaks to your commitment to apply that knowledge in your various fields and in your personal lives. It is a commitment to synthesise new knowledge and new understanding, and I think from the point of greeting you, it is a real commitment to come together here to share and to enjoy this community of learners.

– Susan Brock (then APT President),
opening the 1983 APT5 Conference

Photograph courtesy of Jamie Johnston, CAPT Library. PETER GEYER (INTP) is a consultant, researcher and writer in the field of C G Jung's theory of psychological types. He conducts MBTI Accreditation programs and presents internationally on a regular basis. Peter is a life member of AusAPT and a professional affiliate of the Australian Psychological Society.