Warriors, Settlers & Nomads & Parent Adult Child

There are a ton of personality models out there to choose from but I often find that one of the simpler ones, Warriors, Settlers and Nomads from Terence Watts to be very useful.

Watts puts forward the idea that there are three basic personality types that derive from our inherited DNA. (These may or may not relate to our parents' personality typing).

Warriors are the go- getters. Action driven , focussed and determined to achieve goals. Want respect more than love. Analytical rather than feeling, controlled and controlling choosing somber colours (blacks/brown) for clothes.

Nomads are the drifters, they love change, colour, feelings and need to be the centre of attention. They hate being controlled by people, situations, schedules or events. They are "people people" often with a passion for the arts or performance.

Settlers are those who occupy the middle ground. Solid dependable folk who get on with life. They like to please others and value home life, friends, stable work patterns and family.

Of course we are all a blend of these personality types but imagine for a moment what might happen if two warrior types fall in love and form a long term relationship; you can expect fireworks!

If a Nomad and a Warrior get together, the drifting ways of the Nomad may exasperate the Warrior while the controlling tendencies of the Warrior may make the Nomad want to run away.

Of course these are massive generalisations and yet I have found the hypothesis a very useful one to make use of in therapeutic work.

In that work, I often find I am dealing with not just the personal difficulties of one individual but also the interaction with that person's partner or parent or child.

Since I do not generally engage in relationship counselling or couple work, I wanted a simple way to explore that dynamic and have found the combination of the Warrior Settler Nomad personality typing coupled with elements of Transactional analysis Parent - Adult - Child states to be very useful.

I am still exploring the areas where this is most useful but I thought some others might find this a useful combination to explore.