About Socionics.us

Hello! I am Rick DeLong, author of Socionics.us. I hope my site has been interesting, useful, and easy to navigate. If you have questions that haven't been answered here or thoughts to share, feel free to write me. If our correspondence might be of interest to other readers, I will find a place to post it on this site.

After toying with the idea of creating an English-language site about socionics for several years, I finally began the task in January 2006 after realizing that socionics was beginning to gain popularity among western Internet users despite a conspicuous lack of information on the subject. With little contact with the actual socionics community (where Russian is the common language), there is a risk of serious misinterpretation and mutation of important concepts in the West, especially under the influence of the Meyers-Briggs and other Jung-related typologies. I hope my site will serve as a bridge to the socionics community and the way socionics is actually understood here in the Russian speaking world. My emphasis is on providing accurate and comprehensive materials on socionics, as well as my own personal insights. I usually stick to widely accepted views in socionics that are well supported by the underlying socionics theory and don't tend to take interest in theorizing that is too far removed from the goal of understand ourselves and society better.

All articles, descriptions, and charts on this site were created by me, and I give credit when necessary to other people who may have participated in the process. Earlier versions of some of my charts and descriptions were posted with my permission at www.socionika.com in 2003. I also have a socionics blog where I have begun writing more informal entries on current socionics "events" and my own experiences as they relate to socionics and related topics.

If you have a website of your own on topics related to psychology and socionics, feel free to exchange links with me.

About me:

I am a U.S. citizen living in Kiev, Ukraine (most of the time). I am fluent in Russian and first learned of socionics in 2000 during my first trip to Ukraine (I had been to Russia before that). I was very intrigued and made friends with a local socionist who taught me individually everything he knew about socionics and about my own type (IEE). I was affected dramatically by my new awareness of the intricacies of psychological functioning and human interaction. After returning to the States, I decided to move back to Kiev a year later, largely for the opportunity to be part of the socionics community. In Kiev I got to know the International Institute of Socionics, attended Gulenko's socionics courses like so many others, and have occasionally attended conferences and social activities.

Time passed, and my understanding of socionics matured. I came to appreciate the complexity of factors affecting behavior, personality, and relationships rather than trying to see everything through the prism of socionics alone. At the same time, my ability to recognize types around me continued to grow until I became confident of my ability to identify socionic types myself without needing assistance. I felt a need to do something with the body of knowledge I had acquired, especially with socionics beginning to gain popularity in the West. This eventually led to the creation of this website. To the best of my knowledge, I am the first and only active socionist who is not from the former Soviet Union (i.e. someone who is reasonably well-known in the publishing socionics community and writes about socionics and/or provides typing services).

If you are interested in a consultation regarding your socionic type, please write to me for details. My current methodology involves several stages and angles of study and requires sincere and thoughtful responses on the client's part.

My other activities and interests:

For more information about me visit my personal website, RickDeLong.com.