Beskova, Liubov
Liubov Anatolievna Beskova is a director of Center of Applied Socionics "Terra". Her background is in humanitarian sciences - she has attained a degree in philosophy from Moscow State University and worked as a teacher. First developed an interest in socionics in early 90s. Studied socionics under the guidance of Prokofieva. Author of two popular books on socionics "The way to a man's heart ... and back" (2003) and "The lessons of Socionics, or what's important, what we haven't been taught in schools" (2003). Self-types as IEE.
Beskova on her involvement with socionics
Posted in 2001: "Initially I was attracted to socionics because I wanted to learn about myself, and then I began to help other people by means of socionics, they started to learn more about themselves, discovered many interesting things, and I often witnessed that this has made their life easier. In general, socionics is like a system that explains for example, why ethical types need to interact with other people. Our society is built mostly on logic, and nothing can be done about this, and those who have little of it need to fill it somehow, which is an achievable task. Thus socionics, in my understanding, offers help for ethical type to adapt to a "logical" society."
"I became very interested in socionics back when there was no literature on this topic available in Moscow. One day my friend, Tatiana Jakubovskaya, came back from the city of Lvov and and told me one of those fairy tales, that ILEs know how to tell, and that I have been listening to all my life from her. This time, the fairy tale was about people, about human relations, about some very clever system (which I at that time couldn't grasp with my IEE mind, since, as we know now, this mind is opposed to formal logic).
Quenching my sudden interest in this mysterious socionics was not possible. At home I had a useless table of intertype relations. My type was still unknown. In Moscow, I didn't know anyone who knew anything on the subject, let alone who has heard about this. The year 1992 came. Products have disappeared from stores [fall of the USSR], simple consumer goods were very difficult to get. Wages weren't paid, and when they were paid it was never enough to cover everything. No one owned a computer ... and I did not foresee ever owning one. About such things as the Internet I did not even dream. It was clear that ... not in this life.
One time, at a book sale, by accident - as it happens with intuitives! - I found a book by E. S. Filatova "Socionics for you" which was published in Novosibirsk (1993). This was the first swallow. Thanks to the person who thought about other people, thank you for writing this book. With this book started my independent introduction and study of socionics. The works of Aushra Augustinavichiute became available much later.
My second purchase were books by O. Kroeger and J. Tyuson, where I found wonderful descriptions of personality types, free of any chauvinism. And when time came for me to write how I see representatives of 16 types, I already knew that one can write about types positively, and not negatively and maliciously, as it is often done with us. Especially, why be angry at a type? What complaints can you make to it? A person's type is just the way in which he or she processes information.
Perhaps some authors who write books on socionics have not encountered these books or they have not made any impression on them. Maybe they arrogantly discarded them on the grounds that American writers work in the direction of typology. Maybe these people are suffering from an inferiority complex. Or maybe these authors, although they are developing socionics, have not yet matured to reach the idea of a humane attitude toward other people. Okay, let this be in the end on their conscience.
In those days (1995) I worked in the Department of Philosophy at MADI. I worked as a teacher, previously finishing a degree in philosophy from Moscow State University and defended my PhD thesis there, so I worked in my specialty. But when I have attained the title of associate professor, I have already met with socionics and it gradually started to occupy all my thoughts, suppressing my interests in philosophy and pushing it out somewhere completely by the wayside. In addition to the main lectures and seminars that I taught, I led an elective course (this means a course of your choice - for those who do not know what it is), and little by little I told about socionics to my students, who for some reason loved attending my class. (Sometimes I hoped that they all collectively decide to skip class, then I can go home, but apparently I somehow managed to tell them interesting things, because they always came to my class and even criticized me for running late.)
As the years passed, I haven't learned anything new about socionics, since there was nowhere to learn anything about it. An idea came to me that we should publish as many books on socionics as possible, so that other people can learn about it and use it to solve their problems. Meanwhile, philosophy started looking to me though very important but too abstract of a science. In addition, living on teacher's wages has become impossible. And just when all these thoughts came to my mind, a friend of mine invited me to work as an editor for a publishing house. And I went (skipping some minor biographical details). This was in the year 2000.
The editor in chief (he was of type LSI) needed new ideas. And although he haven't heard anything about socionics (and never really got interested in it), he agreed to publish a series on this subject. For which he deserves a lot of human gratitude. The first series, which was published by "Armada-press", came out under a rather romantic name "Relationships in the Mirror of Socionics". It included four books on socionics that were carefully chosen and edited by me. I wrote the forewords to them in case something wasn't clear to the readers. Therefore, they were called "For those who are not familiar with socionics".
Who knew what a tedious and difficult task this was - to produce books on socionics! But I told my co-workers: "Guys, we are now doing historic work. You will be remembered, that it was you who released the first book in socionics." But they did not believe me - among them were two people of type LSI, and they were indifferent to socionics. And I kept thinking that this is very necessary and that the process of educating the masses began.
Overall, I'm glad that there is no longer such a problem in regards to information available about socionics. And I'm glad that this did not happen without my participation. Now there are a lot of books and websites on this subject. (And I, of course, now have access to them!) Other publishing houses are now publishing books on socionics, but unfortunately not all of them good. And, of course, it's really bad that the editors who work with these books don't know socionics.
In 2002, we joined another publishing house where the director, to my happiness, also agreed to publish books on socionics. There the series was published under the name "You and your type" (who this "your type" was still remains a mystery, although the series with this name still continues to be published by the publishing house "Astrel").
If I'm going to describe how I looked for and selected authors during all this time, it will be a very long and at times upsetting story. I can only say that before my whole life was spent in the quiet calm of philosophy departments; it was almost like on a reservation. Suddenly I had to deal with people from a very different group - socionists. On this point I shall confine myself to one comment: the relationships between socionists are very, very complex. And there's nothing you can do about it. (This is for beginners, so that they won't confuse socionics with its bearers.) Let us hope that our followers will be more peaceful and tolerant of each other.
While I was engaged in the publishing activities and seeking authors, I became more closely acquainted with some representatives of socionics community, which, by the way, grows further and further every year. Once I went to a conference in Kiev and talked with other socionists. In Moscow, I participated in conferences of T. N. Prokofieva, and later met E. A. Udalova with whom we cooperated fruitfully for 3 years. Our collaboration resulted in three popular and beloved by readers books: "The way to a man's heart ... and back" (2003) and "The lessons of Socionics, or what's important, what we haven't been taught in schools", "I and others. The fundamentals of socionics" (2005).
I want to say that although Moscow has joined the socionics community relatively recently, the teaching skill and level of knowledge among the local socionists is very high. Although I haven't listed all of them here.
In short, socionics has fascinated me to such an extent that I even resigned from my job at the publishing house and organized my own Center. Now I devote all my time and energy to teaching and counseling. Fortunately, this field every year becomes more and more popular, as more and more people understand on their own experience how much it helps in life.
Many people live and work in Moscow who are interested in the learning process. And they come to study socionics. These are usually the most advanced, forward-thinking and living people. We have students, middle-age men and women, as well as more mature audience who hasn't yet lost interest in life. It's a pleasure to teach them all and to work with them.