This article casts new and refreshing light on Florence Nightingale’s life and work by examining her personality type. Using the theory-based Myers—Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the author examines Nightingale’s personality type and reveals that she was an introverted-intuitive-thinking-judging type. The merit of using the MBTI is that it allows us to more clearly understand three major areas of Nightingale’s life that have been partially unacknowledged or misunderstood: her spiritual development as a practicing mystic, her management of her chronic illness to maintain her prodigious work output, and her chosen strategies to transform her visionary ideas into new health care and social realities.
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