MBTI stress and grip researcher
Naomi Quenk (1936–2021)
Research note: we include only facts traceable to Wikipedia, obituaries, or named publications. Speculative relationship lists and unverified biographical detail are omitted.
Biography
Naomi L. Quenk was born on July 24, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York. She held a doctorate in clinical psychology and wrote extensively on Myers–Briggs type theory under stress. She was a past president of the Association for Psychological Type (APTi) and co-authored editions of the MBTI Manual.
She died on September 28, 2021, in Scarborough, Maine. Her published work focuses on how types behave under everyday stress and grip episodes tied to the inferior function in the Myers function hierarchy.
Representative Works
- Was That Really Me? How Everyday Stress Brings Out Our Hidden Personality
- In the Grip: Understanding Type, Stress, and the Inferior Function
- Essentials of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment (with others)
Reputation
Among MBTI practitioners, Quenk is the standard reference for stress and grip typing. Her INFJ inferior-Se grip sketches are widely cited in practitioner and forum contexts.
Frequently asked questions
What is grip in Quenk's sense?
Grip describes behaving unlike your usual type when chronic stress overwhelms your dominant and auxiliary functions, often mobilizing the inferior function in crude, compulsive ways. For INFJ, inferior Se grip is the most cited pattern.
← Back to experts & reading list
Not sure you're actually an INFJ?
Take the free 32-question test and get an instant standard reading.
Take the Test