Walter Lowen’s Transactional Roles are an important contribution to our understanding of Personality Type. Walter Lowen developed these concepts by examining the basic mental transactions we all use. As you will see they all have a place on te Map of Activities for each type. As individual posts are uploaded for each type you may want to return here to look at each of Walter Lowen’s Transactional Roles
ORGANIZER
The Organizer is as interested in how things are done as in the results. Neatness, order and efficiency are important. They are the world’s great systematizers. They make good secretaries and craftsmen. They are programmers and administrators. They accept responsibility and follow through with painstaking and thorough effort. They “are the guardians of time-honored institutions.
CONCEPTUALIZER
Conceptualizing involves visual information processing. This role finds structure in logic. Professions such as architecture and systems design use the conceptualizer role. Walter Lowen is a Conceptualizer, his theory presented here is the result of his efforts to build a structure to make sense of all the logical theories he had studied. He took Jung’s depth psychology, mathematics, child development theory, etc. and his theory of dichotomies of the mind was the result.
THEORETICIAN
The Theoretician finds the pattern in strategies. This might be in theoretical physics or on the battle field. Theoreticians can be mathematicians or philosophers. They organize ideas. They rely on thinking to expand principles into logical consequences.
CLASSIFIER
The Classifier is one who makes choices between dichotomous situations of control. In a literal sense, this is concerned with control of the body. Thus some classifiers are athletes. Lowen gives the example of a baseball player, who must decide if a pitch is in the strike zone and how to control his body to hit the ball. However, another prime example of a classifier is the politician. The politician is constantly choosing what action to take. Shall I vote yes or no? Shall I accept this invitation or go to that banquet? Shall I endorse this candidate or denounce that project? Shall I shake hands or smile for the photo opportunity? Administrators are also Classifiers. They must make decisions of control all the time.
INITIATOR
The Initiator is an entrepreneur and an opportunist. Lowen’s prime example is a salesperson. What is it about the customer that matches the product. When the salesman gets the answer, he or she says, “This is just the one for you!” For the ISTJ, this is the serendipity part of challenge. It is the answer that comes in from nowhere and provides a way out of challenge.
VERBALIST
The Verbalist has the ability to be articulate. He or she knows how to say the right thing and say it well. It is the Work transactional role of the ENFJ. This is the capacity of the orator, the preacher, the lecturer, actor and diplomat. The focus is not so much on what is said, but how. It is the capacity of people who would rather speak than listen.
PERCEIVER
The Perceiver notices harmonies and makes intuitive guesses regarding what is behind these harmonies. The reverse is also true. They make guesses about disharmony as well. Data comes from remote input, the sixth sense and smell. It is often difficult to know just how a Perceiver knows. The accuracy of their observations is confirmation. Professionally, one finds Perceivers in a variety of fields. People oriented professions, however, predominate: counseling, teaching, social work, and the ministry.
MOLDER
The most obvious professions for a Molder is that of sculptor, carpenter or other craftsmen. However, they might also have less concrete occupations. They might mold facts and institutions, instead of clay or wood.
IMPLEMENTOR
An Implementor is someone who sorts out the routines of life. Lowen tells us that he almost called this transaction engineer. The engineer uses the routines he or she knows regarding speed, stress, temperature, etc. to create a machine or build a rocket. As with other roles we have discussed, the Implementor can also be focused upon more abstract things. The Implementor makes a good administrator, who can mesh all the routines of an organization into a smoothly running whole.
OPERATOR
Like the role of Molder, the Operator is foremost a hands-on activity. The Operator might operate a word processor, a scalpel, or a socket wrench. Also, like Molder the Operator can operate people, institutions, or ideas, as well as things. He might be a store manager or a policeman, as well as secretary or surgeon. The Operator can read the environment and then act upon it. The environment might be a gang fight or car engine.
CRITIC
This role is involves very astute, critical listening, with exacting interpretation that notes the differences in meanings in words like lied, falsified, distorted, misinterpreted, and misunderstood. The exacting nature is typical of detailed transaction. This transaction is vital to many professionals, including speech therapists, voice coaches, theater critics, political analysts, interviewers, copy editors and opera singers. This transaction prefers to listen rather than speak.
COMPOSER
The Composer role harmonizes the combinations. This could be words in a poem or couples at a dinner party. This role is alert to issues of human sensitivity, and issues of spirituality. They often gravitate to the professions of counseling and psychology, as well as the arts.
FOLLOWER
The Follower is a very service oriented skill. They like to following directions. Nurses for example manipulate the body to act in accordance with clear-cut instructions. They get the instructions from a Doctor or learn the movements in nursing school.
A trained musician does the same thing. However, many hours of repetitive actions, called practice, help him or her to perform under the direction of the music on the printed page or follow the wave of the conductor’s wand.
DOER
The Doer role is one involving body output. Doer professions include everything from athlete and related professions, such as dancer, to such jobs as farmer or shepherd. Doers are most alert to signals from their own body, which they act upon as they match them to their memories similar signal in the past. The dancer knows what the right step feels like. The farmer recognizes with his senses when the crop is ready for harvest.
ANALYST
The Analyst finds logic in structures. He takes information that consists of structured data and logically processes them into structured concepts. This role is acted out in the professions of applied science, math and physics. It is also helpful in medicine for diagnosis, and a role useful to lawyers. This is the most sophisticated of the roles involving the most intricate of the mental capacities.
SUSPECTOR
The Suspector is trying to find a strategy or logic behind a given pattern. The detective is the obvious example. He or she searches the data until a pattern of clues is discovered. Then the task becomes one of developing a strategy to link the pattern to the suspect. The Suspector formulates a plan from an observed collection of data. So a football coach might be a good Suspector. He scouts the opposing team to detect their weak points and then plans a strategy to defeat them.
For more on personality type click here >