INTP Aspies & psychotropic medication

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Some time ago, I came to realize that most Aspies either have an INTJ or INTP personality (see https://www.16personalities.com/ if you don't know wat INTJ & INTP personalities are). At least, that what various polls here on WrongPlanet suggest.

I've also noticed that different forms of psychotropic medications work differently for different individuals. Some respond very well to eg. Adderall, Ritalin, Escitalopram or Venlafaxine. Others respond very badly to those same substances.

Considering the brains of people with different personalities behave in different ways, this is to be expected. However, this could also suggest that medication should have similar effects for people with the same personality.

Personality, I'm INTP. I'm also an Aspie. And if you are an INTP Aspie as well, I'd like to know if you've taken any medication eg. for improving your focus or dealing with anxiety/stress related issue, and how you respond to it.

I'm thinking about trying some new medication myself, and before I visit a shrink I'd like to get an idea of what type of medication would be suitable for an INTP Aspie like myself.

I don't think suitability of psychotropic medication has a great deal to do with personality type. What you say re MBTI types is interesting though; I've also noticed the predominance of INTJ/INTP types. I'm INTJ, personally.

I’m taking a very low dose of Citalopram to help with EF deficits around memory and focus - seems to be working.

...?

Aren't different personalities the consequence of different "wiring" in our brains?

If so, doesn't similar wiring suggest similar susceptibility to psychotropic meds?



May I assume you are INTP?

I think that's a fallacy, albeit an alluring one. Psychotropic medication acts on parts of the brain comparatively incidental to personality; this is why there are no medications for treating personality disorders.

In what way are ANY parts of our brain incidental to personality?

How is our personality not the direct consequence of the configuration of our brain?

The personality is solely a product of the brain, but the converse does not apply; the brain is concerned with more than solely the personality.

OK



Obviously. But that's not what I'm implying.

What I'm implying, is that personality (in the MBTI sense) is defined by the architecture of our brains. And therefore, I would expect people who have a similar brain architecture to respond in a similar way to the same medication.

Yes - I meant to say so

I don't think there's going to be much in it. It's going to be more of a behavioural than a neurological thing; for instance, as a cerebral, intellectual INTJ, I might find the brain fog that comes with benzo-diazapenes to be less tolerable than an amiable ESFJ. Of course, personality IS an epiphenomenon of the brain, like everything else about the mind, but the connection isn't yet well understood.

I am probably with Pometheus18 on this one. I would not relate Myers-Briggs personality type with medicine. As a matter of fact I have never used any medicine to treat my Aspie condition, period.

First off, I am an INTP/INTJ Aspie. I have both personality types and use them as the situation warrants. It is a really good combination. If you think of INTP as the character trait called Intelligence and INTJ as the character trait called Wisdom. My INTJ personality steps in to protect my INTP when all logic fails. My INTJ is a learned capability. As an INTJ, I can look at any problem from a variety of different perspectives. It is like a million voices rattling around inside my head to guide me.

Secondly, there are other Aspies who are not INTPs or INTJ. They have evolved the Judging attribute in the way they have grown up and learned.

May I know what you do professionally?



I'm not sure you can isolate the behavioral from the neurological here.

IMO the very reason that you might find the brain fog that comes with benzo-diazapenes to be less tolerable than an ESFJ is mostly the neurological differences between your brain and that of an ESFJ.



It's not so much ASS that I'd like to treat as it is stress tolerance & capacity to focus.

As I programmer, I need a high capacity to focus 40 hours a week, on a 9-to-5 basis (10-to-6 technically), which for me as an INTP induces a lot of stress. So I'm looking for ways to increase the focus while reducing the stress.



I'm not sure it works like that. It's normal to recognize yourself in personality profiles similar to yours, but I don't think you can fit into two different profiles.

There are many overlaps between profiles that have but a letter difference, but there are also many subtle differences when you look at it more closely. For example, I strongly relate with the ways of thinking of both INTJ & INFP people (and I've had friends with both profiles), but I'm still a total INTP myself.

Generally speaking What do type practitioners have to say about raising children of any personality type? Unanimously authors and researchers agree that parents should support and nourish the development of a child's type-based traits rather than attempt to mold them into other types.

But there is a secret here. The avatar on the left is a picture of me. That is what I look like deep inside me. I am 4 or 5 years old. I am in my "pleasing four" stage of childhood development. On the outside I am a 70 old man. I use masking to appear like an adult and to live in an adult world.

In 1955, Einstein passed away. A decade later in his memorial lecture delivered on 13 December 1965, at UNESCO headquarters, nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of Einstein as a person: “He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness ... There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn."

So this childlike trait has been described in several savant INTP Aspies. Because I am a child, my brain is still moldable. I have retained a trait called brain plasticity. As a result I can transition between these two states easily. Also when I undergo Myer-Briggs testing I will show up as a strong INTP or INTJ.

This is also why I continue to learn each and every day. I live in a world of wonder.

Sure, nowadays I work in product management in a telecoms company (satellite based) and I'm doing process engineering / analysis at the moment. The thread running through my career is analysis, algorithms, methods, creativity, plus not being able to bare technology for the sake of technology & asking awkward questions to make people think. Despite my alexithymia and low affective empathy, I have good cognitive empathy and can help often help people from different backgrounds communicate with each-other. I also make people be precise about what they're talking about (because I don't 'get it' otherwise) and this has become a useful skill - because I'll ask the question that everyone else is thinking until things become clear

On the outside, I'm a 37-year-old man. On the inside, I'm a 10-year-old boy.

I don't mask. I'm the same person when I'm with my friends, when I'm with my girlfriend or when I'm at work. Sure, I share more of my personal life with people closer to me than with people I barely know. Especially my politically incorrect views are something I share with but few people. But beyond that, there is little difference between how I treat a stranger & how I treat someone close to me.

I love building Chinese bootlegs of Lego modular buildings. I love collecting and reading old books. I honestly don't care if my family members of colleagues know about that. Why should I? Heck, my inner child is something I'm proud of.



It sounds like you're just an INTP pretending to be an INTJ, because he believe INTJs are most socially acceptable.



It's one of the reasons I started collecting old books. IMO, there's little more fascinating than seeing the world through the eyes of people living in the 1920s. It tells you so much of the world of not just the early 20th century, but also how it came to be the way it was and how it evolved into the society we live in today.