The 4 Types of Introverts | MedCircle x Dr Ramani

[Music] hi everyone i'm dr romini and today i'm going to walk you through the four types of introverts you need to know hey everyone don't forget to subscribe below and hit that bell so you always know when we post more videos like this one before we jump into the signs i want to explain the difference between shyness and introversion this is often an error people make because it's the we think of introversion our sort of our stereotypical vision of introversion is somebody who doesn't want to be with other people or is socially so unskilled or socially anxious shyness maps onto introversion a little bit but not all so shyness and also we have to remember about shyness is it's also not social anxiety i think that shyness is kind of its own little sort of subset there's obviously these things are all correlated social anxiety introversion and shyness are all correlated shyness does get at some level sort of a a preference but also a um there's a restraint if you will to shyness in the sense of there's like a slow to warm up a person who's shy may initially be they may hold back they may again be very restrained they may take a moment to warm up in a social situation we also have to account for in china's part of this also may have to do with socialization in the sense that a person is told that you should not be putting yourself out in a situation you should not be the one who is sort of you're grabbing all the attention and if somebody hears that enough and especially if that's associated with sort of for example gendered roles or something like that that there can be sort of a a holding back that a person has been told like if you don't if you do it this other way it's wrong like if you try to draw attention to yourself and part of it is also likely likely a temperamental kind of a preference that we do see that shyness does tend to track over a lifetime and that people who tend to be shy they tend they were often shy children and that will go into adulthood introversion on the other hand could be thought of more as a personality style and because introversion there's so many different types and manifestations of it shyness like i said while highly correlated with introversion is not synonymous with it so when we think about the four types of introverts it's such an important distinction for people to understand because so many people think oh introvert he doesn't like to be with people or they don't like to talk to people or they just want to stay home and it's a real misnomer because at some level especially if we use like a jungian almost meyers briggsian kind of taxonomy introversion almost feels like an sort of an energetic preference it's where a person draws their energy from and they often draw more of their energy from time spent alone from solitude it's not an aversion to other people it's not even an anxiety about other people but it's a style it's it's a it's a way of going through the world it's a preference now the types of introversion then really show us how nuance to this quality is when we think of social introverts in some ways that feels like an oxymoron putting two words together that seem kind of the opposite but they're really not introverts as i as an introvert myself i actually like to think of we introverts as sort of curators or sommeliers who are very careful about what we sort of bring into our lives but social introverts actually do enjoy social interaction they enjoy being with people they enjoy talking with people they're not your big group life of the party look at me draw the attention they they will often stick to a very time-tested and true social network that they enjoy being with they will again often may have even more successfully curated that network and not wander out of it so the social introvert is not going to like a big party but they will go to a big party and if they go to a big party they will find their people at that big party so it might be that they'll sit in a smaller area or in a quieter area with them or they will talk to one or two people all evening and have really nice conversations but what you won't see them is sort of throwing themselves in the midst of the fray and the glad handing and the meeting lots of people for very short interactions that doesn't tend to be the way of the social introvert again introverts tend can have actually rather robust social networks in the sense of their depth there may be very a close group of friends and an old close group of friends people they've been close to for a long time maybe close to family networks that they've that they've cultivated relationships with obviously over a lifetime and in those groups will be very gregarious they don't seem like they're holding back they're really having a nice time so that's the social introvert again it kind of flies in the face of what we think of with with introverted individuals it's just sort of how they operate and use social environments and in prefer to interact in those environments even for a social introvert it's quite likely though at the end of a social day a social evening they will feel depleted you know they'll definitely need time to themselves again as a first-person reflection i will tell you i actually don't mind being in groups of people but now that the world is opening up i've had to do two live events in the last few weeks and have had to travel and be with groups and i actually kind of dread if people want to have dinner at the end of that because i have to say at the end of a day that involves social interaction i want to be alone for the evening or i want breaks during that day i don't do well if i have to be social social social right through dinner that leaves me actually quite tired i want i want some alone time or time maybe with one person so i think there's still an exhaustion there with the second group the thinking introverts i actually have a magnificent graduate student i once worked with and now just work with her um she did a theater thesis on introversion and outcomes associated with introversion what she found in her research was that those thinking introverts they were the sort of the healthiest introverts and when we think of thinking introverts what we're thinking we're what we're seeing there are people who are very much people of the it's like people of the mind they they introspect they think a lot they take in a situation and they they think on it in in a good way like they actually they i often would almost say a great example of a thinking introvert is someone who's a really avowed people watcher they'll watch the people and sort of reflect on and muse on what are those people talking about and who are they and where are they from they'll spend time thinking about a problem they'll watch something and think about what the show is about so they're in their heads not in a bad way but what that means is if you're in your head you're not going to be chit-chatting away right you're sort of in your mind once again as the introvert and a very much a thinking introvert i could sit at a busy like plaza or boardwalk or something with a table and something to drink and i could sit there for three hours watching people go by and wondering about them and what are they doing why are they talking like that where are they from what is their home like if after i watch a movie i'll often want to sit alone for a while and think about what did i just see i will immediately start researching the actors the characters the story and so there are people who are very much in their mind and what my student found was that she found that there were many um there were a lot of healthy outcomes mental health outcomes um authenticity all of that associated with thinking introverts above and beyond all other kinds of introverts so there's something healthy about sort of being a ponderous healthy person but like i said if you're in here it's hard to be chatting away before i move on to number three i want to let you know that i have a full med circle series on introversion and mental health it's two hours of videos covering introversion versus depression the strengths of being an introvert and how to leverage them how to get treatment tailored to your personality style and more check it out at watch.medcircle.com or in the links below this video the anxious introverts the third type of introvert the these are folks who are probably gonna ascribe more to what we look look at as looking more socially anxious these are people who might be uncomfortable with the potential scrutiny of a social situation they may be afraid of looking foolish in a social situation and not only are they naturally introverted that that's their personality style but that there's also that that sort of anxiety associated with social situations which sort of doubles down on their existing need or desire or drive to want to be alone and so the anxious introverts unlike the social introverts will say sure i'll go out to dinner with a small group of people then they'll go out they know the people they're fine the anxious introvert may spend a fair amount of that evening wondering did i say the wrong thing or am i ordering the right thing and and you can imagine if you're going through that kind of social scrutiny anxiety social situations are going to be quite uncomfortable and if you're naturally an introvert probably on any day of the week it'd say i don't even need to put myself in any of those situations and can sort of be on my own the fourth type of introversion are the restrained inhibited introverts this overlaps with that third type a little bit the anxious introverts in that and in fact the restrained inhibited introverts probably are the ones that overlap most clearly with shyness these are people who in a new social situation may not be driven by anxiety i'm so worried what these other people are going to think about me but rather they just simply hold back they're what we maybe call reticent they're just they're again restrained they they hold back they're not going to be the one who just sort of throws them in they may be actually very much watching the proceedings around them and waiting and waiting one of my f my favorite things about restrained introverts is when they finally say something it's it's often a mic drop moment they're just watching and paying attention and they're very aware of everything that's going on and somebody may actually pull that person out and say hey you haven't said anything can we hear your thoughts and it'll be like boom and it's just wisdom coming at you this is one of my biggest frustrations about introversion is that because introverts tend to to be a little more quiet a little more restrained they tend to hold back they're not the life of the party we often paint introverted people with a brush that's actually we view them as socially unskilled we might view them as less qualified we may even view them as less intelligent which is a very very risky mistake to make in fact oftentimes that what's the old saying shallow brooks are noisy the people making all the noise often are the people who don't have anything to say or shouldn't be saying anything introverts can actually be very very careful but we are an extroversion favoring society that student's thesis project i thought she was actually i thought her head was going to explode with frustration because she really wanted the introverts to be good and the extroversion was consistently associated with all of the good outcomes and i she was so frustrated i'm like listen the data tells a story but i think the story it tells us is also a story of society you know that how society differentially values people who are more sort of naturally attention-seeking especially in an era of things like social media where we sort of overvalue attention-seeking behavior but introversion is not conflated with being mentally unwell i would say for the anxious introverts it might be that they're struggling with that anxiety and it comes up against the introversion and they don't mind being alone to be an anxious extrovert actually would be a in some ways a harder line to toe because they are going to be afraid of what people think of them but they desperately want to be with other people they'd be anxious to be an anxious introvert might be like well i'm happy being alone the place that could hold someone back is that their anxiety means that they may not put themselves out in situations where they should because they are afraid of being scrutinized it could negatively impact things like networking um dating situations that that could sort of be important to them in other ways in my own clinical practice i have worked with a lot of introverted people and um and i think that for them when i kind of i'm a humanistic in my practice so i'm very open and honest about what i am about and i'm that i say i'm introverted they're always shocked to say you're on youtube you're out here you're speaking there how can you be introverted because that's the mistake people make that an introverted person couldn't be somebody who is sort of a big public speaker or in the media in fact more people in the media are introverted than you know it is really that sort of that function of sociality functionality of sociality for a person but it's also a personality style in terms of sort of preference and i'll explain them since i was a little kid i was the kid who would read i was a kid who want to play a game alone i was a kid who wander off in the backyard and sort of daydream for two hours always because it's a personality style we tend to see these patterns over the lifetime but what i what i try to do in my clinical practice is try to kind of take that dark cloud over introversion and say own your introversion like just because everyone's telling you that somehow there's a message that it's better to be extroverted that to be introverted doesn't mean you can't be gregarious to be introverted doesn't mean you can't enjoy other people and to help them sort of tease some of that out because i actually believe some of the anxiety we see in introverts is because society doesn't give them permission to just be their fabulous introverted selves that there's you're something wrong with you because you're so introverted well somebody's telling you there's something not right about you that's going to drive an anxiety but if people are saying lean into that introversion it's you it's okay pace yourself i give myself permission it's okay to say no to the dinner invitation at the end of the long day it's okay that you just want to put your feet up in the hotel room and watch a little tv and play a game on your phone or read a book like that's okay for the longest time i even found myself judging myself for that long what's wrong with you there's nothing wrong with you you were around people all day that wiped you out and so i think in my own clinical practice it's um taking that pathologization of introversion away allowing people to understand this is who you are and yes society doesn't embrace it and you don't need to make this a negative aspect of yourself but find that balance and be okay with this being who you are so i be an introversion lover i love my introverts and um and i have one introverted child and one extroverted child so it's actually really really interesting to see how the extroverted child the pandemic was harder on her she now that the world is opened up she's doing so much better my introverted child on the other side on the other hand is i watch her sort of judge her introversion negatively but i can also see how she's very content sometimes just hanging out doing her own thing and so you can see those different kinds of styles even within the same family but you could imagine the extroverted child really gets on the introverted child's nerves because it's always trying to pull that one out and she doesn't want to be pulled and so i think that it's it's if we can sort of meet introverts where they're at and catch ourselves and stop giving extroversion always giving extroversion the good brand i think we could all learn a lot and like i said for those of us who are introverted give ourselves permission pace ourselves and be okay with it because once we're okay with ourselves we're often our best selves thanks for watching don't forget to check out my full series at med watch.medcircle dot com [Music]

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 444,918

Keywords: introvert, social anxiety, depression, differences, being an introvert, introvert vs extrovert, introverted, introverts, introvert extrovert, the power of introverts, introversion, introvert test, psychology, personality traits, psych2go, anxiety, mental health, medcircle, dr ramani, video, types, interview, discussion, youtube, videos, thinking introvert, social introvert, social, anxious, restrained, inhibited, introvert personality, introvert problems

Id: rB4xgdEcNXY

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022