Character strengths in spiritual direction

Bruce Stanley
Aug 5
5 min read

A practical, research-grounded alternative to personality typing

If you work one-to-one with others sooner or later you might reach for a map.

Person in blue jacket studies a map in snowy mountains; Annapurna Base Camp text visible.

Spiritual directors, counsellors, and coaches often find themselves wondering – who is this person? What is shaping their choices? What are they avoiding? What gives them life? What might help them grow?

For years, personality typing systems such as MBTI, the Enneagram and similar tools have been used to open up those questions. MBTI was a core element of my Spiritual Direction training. At their best, they help people notice patterns and give language to automatic behaviours and ways of relating. They can help you understand yourself and understand why other people are different.

But they also have limits – and I became critical as soon as my results were in.

My biggest gripe is that typing systems become boxes. A person discovers their type and is encouraged to treat it as a fixed identity. You can resist but the model requires the binary – this is who you are and this is how it predicts you will act and relate to others. The tool that starts by creating insight then encourages a restricted, fixed mindset. I explore the liberating opposite mindset in a book I wrote in the Day Crafting series.

Character strengths in spiritual direction offer a different kind of map.

The VIA Character Strengths framework came out of the positive psychology movement, especially the work of Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman. Rather than beginning with what is disordered, deficient or broken – think DSM classifications (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or ICD as the NHS is obligated to use) – it asked a different question: what does good character look like across cultures, wisdom traditions and human experience?

The result was a framework of 24 character strengths, grouped under six broad virtue areas: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence.

Character strengths in spiritual direction makes sense for practitioners because VIA is not another personality quiz. It is not trying to tell someone which box they belong in. It identifies strengths of character that can be noticed, practised, developed and brought into wiser balance. And it recognises that strength profiles are phasic and circumstantial. That makes it particularly useful in spiritual direction and other one-to-one work, it is much more agile and adaptable than MBTI for example.

We're experts at knowing what we're bad at. We're not so familiar with what we're good at

Spiritual direction is not primarily about analysis, diagnosing people, fixing people or giving them a better self-improvement plan; it is about paying attention to a person’s experience, their longing, their resistance, their prayer, their sense of meaning, their choices and the life that is trying to emerge.

Character strengths give us a practical language for that work. They help us ask questions such as:

What is most alive in this person?
What are they already bringing into the world?
Where is a strength being hidden, dulled or dismissed?
Where is a good strength becoming too loud?
What might service look like for this particular person, with this particular pattern of strengths?

This is where VIA is especially refreshing.

VIA handles the difficult side of human behaviour in a practical way. A strength can be underused. It can be overused. It can be used in the wrong situation, with the wrong timing, or without enough wisdom.

Kindness, overused, may become people-pleasing.
Honesty, badly timed, may become bluntness.
Prudence, overused, may become paralysis.
Curiosity, ungrounded, may become restlessness.
Leadership, misdirected, may become control.

There is no pretending everything is wonderful because we have found someone’s strengths. It is a serious and nuanced way of looking at how good things in us can become distorted, cramped, neglected or misapplied.

Why this model stands up to scrutiny

VIA has a much stronger, more open scientific research base than any other personality tools that circulate in churches, retreat centres and helping professions. It also fits remarkably well with older traditions of virtue, formation, vocation, discernment and service. It is modern enough to be useful, but not so thin that it loses contact with the deeper questions of character and spiritual life.

VIA Strengths and Spiritual Practice at SDUK

Crowded street scene with people walking; large text reads VIA Strengths for Spiritual Practice and spiritualdirection.co.uk.

This course is led by Bruce Stanley, who has worked with VIA character strengths for over 20 years across leadership, personal development, group facilitation, spiritual practice and his wider Day Crafting work. Bruce brings an unusual mix of experience: product and innovation work, strengths-based facilitation, Forest Church, spiritual direction, and practical adult learning – which means that this course isn't a generic introduction delivered from a manual but is fruit of long use, testing, adaptation and practice.

The course is designed for spiritually interested people.

If you work one-to-one with others, this will give you a grounded, flexible and generous tool for helping people recognise what is strong, fruitful and life-giving in them. You will be able to apply it first to yourself, then begin translating the insights into your own setting, whether that is spiritual direction, ministry, listening, retreat work, facilitation, counselling, mentoring or pastoral care.

The course runs weekly – four x hour long sessions.

You do not need to be Christian to attend, though some examples may use Christian language such as prayer, calling, vocation and service. The material is designed to be useful for anyone.

For practitioners who want a more practical, research-informed and spiritually resonant alternative to typing systems, this is a strong place to begin.

What's wrong with MBTI?

The core evidence against the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) centres on its failure to meet standard psychological and scientific criteria, which could be summarised as:

Poor test-retest reliability: People often get different personality profiles when retaking the test weeks apart or even hours apart.
False binary categories: Human traits fall on a continuous spectrum rather than strictly opposing categories like introvert or extrovert.
Low predictive validity: The scores fail to predict real-world outcomes, such as job performance or career success.
Lack of comprehensive scope: It misses crucial personality dimensions, most notably emotional stability and stress tolerance.
Scientifically unverified foundations: The framework relies on unproven theories instead of empirical, data-driven research.

Its popularity may be down to the Barnum effect which is a psychological phenomenon where people believe generic personality descriptions apply specifically to them. Here is how it works and why it influences tests like MBTI:

Vague statements: Descriptions use broad language that can apply to almost anyone.
Positive bias: People more readily accept vague statements if they are complimentary or positive.
Authority trust: Individuals believe the results because they trust the test or the person administering it.
Subjective validation: The human brain actively searches for personal memories to make the generic statement fit.
Universal traits: It exploits the fact that all humans share basic, conflicting desires and tendencies.