If the Four-Letter Code Is No Longer Telling You Enough About Why Your Clients Behave the Way They Do, Here Is What Changes

How Type Elements adds 32 independently scored subscales and Personality Formation data to reveal the individual differences within type that the code alone cannot show.

You have had this moment. Your client knows their type. They agree with the description. And then a situation comes up where their behavior looks nothing like what the type code predicts, and you do not have instrument data to explain why. You are left interpreting from experience, which works when you have time and rapport, but does not give the client something they can see in their own results.

Two clients can share the same four-letter type code and look completely different in how they communicate, handle pressure, build relationships, and respond to conflict. This is not a measurement error. It is a reality the four-letter code was never designed to fully address. The code identifies natural preferences. It does not describe how those preferences have been shaped, modified, or sometimes suppressed by decades of lived experience.

If you are working with clients at a depth where the code consistently raises more questions than it answers, Type Elements was built for that work.

Switching from MBTI Step II

MBTI Step II was designed to address exactly this limitation of the basic four-letter code. By adding facet scales within each of the four dichotomies, Step II provides a more granular picture of how each preference is expressed. Practitioners who use it typically value the ability to show clients that two people with the same type can look different at the facet level, which opens more nuanced development conversations than the basic code supports.

The friction point with Step II is how the facets are scored. Step II measures each facet on a single continuum, which means results are an average of responses across both poles. When someone scores in the middle on a facet, the result loses information rather than capturing it. Two different response patterns can produce the same midpoint score, obscuring meaningful individual differences rather than revealing them.

Type Elements scores both poles of each subscale independently. That means a moderate score on both poles is a different result from a strong score on one pole, and that difference carries information. A client who has genuine access to both sides of a subscale looks different in the data from a client who is simply ambivalent about both, and a practitioner can work with that distinction in development conversations.

Type Elements also adds something Step II does not have: Personality Formation. The 10 Personality Formation dimensions measure developed attitudes and beliefs, not innate type preferences. They surface how a client has learned to respond to pressure, how they interpret communication from others, their orientation toward change, and their beliefs about relationships and their own capacity to succeed. These patterns are not fixed. They are changeable. And they are often where the most productive development conversations live, because they explain behaviors that type descriptions alone cannot account for.

Moving from Type Discovery to Type Elements

Type Discovery delivers the four-letter code accurately and efficiently, and for many client contexts that is exactly the right tool. Type Elements is for the contexts where the code opens a question that the code itself cannot answer.

When a client’s behavior under pressure does not match their type description, the subscale and Personality Formation data often provide the explanation. When two clients with the same type communicate very differently, the subscales reveal where individual expression has diverged from the preference pattern. When a client recognizes their type intellectually but does not feel it in how they show up at work, Personality Formation often surfaces the developed patterns that are overriding natural expression.

Type Elements uses the same non-forced-choice format and Type Precision Module as Type Discovery, with 127 total items. The four-letter code is identified using the same methodology. What the additional items add is the subscale and Personality Formation data that turns a type result into a development roadmap.

The Practitioner Report for Type Elements contains numeric scores for all 57 measured components: 8 preference scales, 32 subscales, 10 Personality Formation scores, and 8-Process scores. That data gives practitioners a level of precision in development conversations that the basic type code does not support.

When Type Elements Is the Right Choice

Use Type Elements when a client already knows their type and is ready to go deeper. The subscales and Personality Formation data provide new material for practitioners who have worked extensively with a client at the four-letter code level and need a more granular foundation for continued development work.

Use Type Elements when behavior does not match type. The subscale variance from the overall preference pattern is often where the most useful development insight lives. Personality Formation scores frequently explain the gap between what a client’s type predicts and how they show up.

Use Type Elements when conflict or communication breakdown cannot be explained by type differences alone. The subscales reveal specific behavioral differences that contribute to friction, and Personality Formation scores surface how clients interpret communication and respond to pressure in ways that create misunderstanding even between people with compatible types.

Use Type Elements when a client’s development requires honest engagement with the patterns they have built over time, not just awareness of their natural preferences. Personality Formation gives practitioners a framework for that conversation that is growth-oriented, specific, and grounded in the client’s own data.

What Switching to Core Factors Actually Means

Administering Type Elements follows the same project-based workflow as every Core Factors assessment. You create a project, add participants, send a consignment link or individual invitations, and control when results are released. The 15 to 17 page participant report is designed to be shared directly with clients in a debrief context. The Practitioner Report, with its full numeric data across all 57 components, is for your use in guiding the development conversation.

After delivery, participants access results through the Participant Hub, where full descriptions of all 16 types are available alongside the Compare and Connect tool and My Journal for structured reflection. Evidentra®, where you enable it, supports ongoing development between sessions.

Participant feedback and NPS reporting are built into every project at no additional charge.

You stop being the practitioner who confirms a type code and runs out of runway. You become the one who shows clients where life has shaped their expression and where they can choose to grow.

What Practitioners Are Saying

“As someone whose work is rooted in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and Jung’s theory of Psychological Type, I’m very protective of how Type is used. I care about ethics, depth, and helping people grow without reducing them to a four-letter code. That’s why I’m excited about Core Factors Type assessments and the Evidentra platform. It’s updated and modern, with an online experience that genuinely engages participants. It doesn’t force an either-or mindset, and it doesn’t push people into rigid categories. Instead, it supports learning and development.”

Cindy Paris, MBTI® Master Practitioner, Facilitator, Certified Professional Coach

Apply for a Free Pro Account If you are ready to move beyond the four-letter code and into the individual differences that shape how your clients show up, apply for your Pro Account, complete the Practitioner Foundation Training, and start using Type Elements with your clients.

Request a Demo If you want to see how the Type Elements subscale and Personality Formation data open development conversations that the basic type code cannot support, request a demo and we will walk you through the platform.