Friday, March 6, 2020

MBTI: The Core Complexes

Homer & Marge Simspson, and Ned & Maude Flanders
[Image from Giphy]

Everyone knows nowadays that people “have complexes.” What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.
— Jung


When you find out your (or someone else’s) type you only know part of the story… 1/4 of the story to be precise. What we commonly think of as our type is only that of one of the four inner personalities that exist within us. This is one reason why different individuals of the same type can be so different (that, and psychological development of course.) You can have an ESFJ who’s done some work and developed their opposite personality, INTP. An ESFJ who has developed their inner INTP will spend a lot of time reading and thinking, and work very hard to develop their own philosophy of life, or other intriguing intellectual pursuits. They’re never going to be as good at being an INTP as an actual INTP - using ones' inferior function is always awkward and scary - but it will bring them far more meaning than having INTP in the dominant position ever can. The same holds for every type; in a paradoxical way, our weakness is our greatest quality.


The four inner personalities are basically two pairs of opposites; two couples, masculine and feminine, that can be thought of as the four pillars of a complete personality. This is why we sometimes find certain people irresistible, we project this internal “other” onto an appropriate target. For example healthy ESFJs, when they get to a certain level of development, will often find themselves mysteriously attracted to healthy INTPs. Think of the phrase “opposites attract,” this is why that can be the case.



The first two personalities, the lucid ego and animus, are easy to see as they are conscious. The second two personalities, however, are generally much harder to become aware of as they are repressed by the conscious personalities. For example, if you flip a coin even though you may get heads, tails still exists, it’s just hidden from sight on the other side of the coin. The shadow animus and ego still exist, they're just hidden from sight on the other side of the coin so to speak. In the Simpsons the two couples, Marge & Homer Simpson and Ned & Maude Flanders, are each other’s shadows. The Simpsons themselves are America’s shadow, and the Flanders - a humorous caricature of the dominant, “normal” American family - are the Simpson family's shadow.


(“S. Anima/us” and “S. Ego” are Shadow Anima/us and Shadow Ego respectively.)

When people criticize the MBTI for being overly simplistic they're actually right. We're not just our type. The MBTI types are archetypes, eternal patterns of behavior in the human psyche. They are abstract platonic ideals, like the expectation of Mother, or the drive to climb every mountain. The ENTP type is the archetype of the trickster; Hermes and Charlie Chaplin, Bugs Bunny and Loki. INTP is the archetype of the sage. ESFP is the archetype of the hetaira or geisha, the Aphrodite. The core of every type is an archetype. We, however, are not archetypes. We’re human. The archetypes are not, they’re inhuman. They are, essentially, the gods. To confuse ourselves with the archetypes is inflation; to believe that we are both more, and less, than human. But we are not gods, we are complex, contradictory human beings.

Saying that someone is X type is limiting, and it's not actually true. No one is just an ENTP, or an ESFP, or any other type. No two individuals of the same type are the same. First off, we're all shaped by a lifetime of experiences. We're shaped by the things that happened to us but, more profoundly, by the choices we make, by how we choose to respond to those experiences. Do we take our experiences as opportunities to grow and deepen? Or do we hide from having to make those often difficult choices? Even deeper than all of that, we have a profound individuality, along with our profound connection with each other and with the Universe. But we can only realize our true uniqueness when we make those hard choices, and do the hard work. And finally, we're not just one type, we have all four types of our sodality within us. All four of the types that are in us are also us; who we are and how we relate to the world are the result of all of these four inner personalities, not just the one that's the most obvious. 

All right, now that we have a very basic sketch of the inner personalities let’s move on to something completely different. I call these inner personalities the “core complexes,” but what exactly is a complex?


Jung’s theory of complexes
Jung stressed that complexes in themselves are not negative; only their effects often are. In the same way that atoms and molecules are the invisible components of physical objects, complexes are the building blocks of the psyche and the source of all human emotions.
- Daryl Sharp


When Jung was thinking of a name for his version of depth psychology (to differentiate it from Freud’s) one that he considered was “complex psychology” as working with complexes is the foundation of his theory. Daryl Sharp calls the complex “an emotionally charged group of ideas or images.”
Formally, complexes are “feeling toned ideas” that over the years accumulate around certain archetypes, for instance “mother” and “father.” When complexes are constellated, they are invariably accompanied by affect [emotions]. They are always relatively autonomous.
- Daryl Sharp, Jung Lexicon

When you want to eat right and exercise, but another part of you wants to laze about binging on Häagen-Dazs and Netflix all day, that “other you” is actually another you.  It’s a kind of sub-personality, one of many, that we all have.

You can tell when a complex has taken over when all of the sudden you’re overwhelmed by emotion. People around you may tell you later that “you weren’t you,” and you weren’t, you were the complex that seized control of your consciousness. The thing is… your ego is also complex. It’s very important complex - the center of consciousness - but it’s not the real you. That would be the Self. It’s like the Zen koan (a riddle that’s meant to shock you into enlightenment): what was your original face before your parents were born? That face is the face of the Self.

There are many complexes, as many as there are human experiences: there’s the mother complex and the father complex; the child complex and the parent complex; the Oedipus complex and the Electra complex; and many more. Jung identified six main complexes that everybody has that together form the structure of the psyche. Going from outside to inside we have: the persona, the ego, the shadow, the animus/anima, the wise old woman/man, and the Self.
  • The persona is our mask; it’s the face we turn outwards to the world. It’s job is to help us navigate reality, especially social reality.
  • The ego is our “I,” the hub of that holds the wheel of consciousness together in one piece. It’s the personality we naturally identify as, the homebase of consciousness so to speak.
  • The shadow is everything we don’t identify as, that’s either actively rejected or simply outside the scope of the ego and the persona.
  • The animus or anima is our internal contrasexual figure (the opposite gender that we identify as), the inner “other.” It’s the face we turn inwards, our guide to the personal unconscious.
  • The wise old woman/man is our inner wise elder figure, our guide to the collective unconscious.
  • And finally, the Self is the inner image of the supraordinate (transcendent, superior, complete) personality. In the same way that the ego is the center of our conscious personality, the Self is the center of our entire personality, both conscious and unconscious.
When looking at the four inner personalities of the MBTI and trying to understand them what struck me was how they function like the following Jungian complexes: the ego, the shadow, the animus or anima, and the wise old woman/man. Let’s take a look at these four inner personalities, our core complexes.


The core complexes
The change of character brought about by the uprush of collective forces is amazing. A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a savage beast. One is always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances but nothing could explode in us if it had not been there. As a matter of fact, we are constantly living on the edge of a volcano, and there is, so far as we know, no way of protecting ourselves from a possible outburst that will destroy everybody within reach. It is certainly a good thing to preach reason and common sense, but what if you have a lunatic asylum for an audience or a crowd in a collective frenzy? There is not much difference between them because the madman and the mob are both moved by impersonal, overwhelming forces.
— Carl Jung

The seeds of this theory come from CS Joseph’s 4 Sides of the Mind and John Beebe’s later developments of his 8 Function Model. Beebe discovered the existence of the shadow functions, and identified the roles the functions play in our psyche. Joseph identified the four inner personalities, though he gave them different names: ego, subconscious, unconscious, and superego respectively. I believe he based them on Socionics' concept of “blocks” except that he uses slightly different names. Chase himself doesn’t seem to do much with the concept other than identifying their existence. He has a video on these personalities but it’s basically just him listing the functions they're made up of.

Speaking of terminology, although I can kind of see a pattern in Chase's choice of names I can’t bring myself to use them. These words have nothing to do with their original Freudian meanings making them needlessly confusing IMO. I actually describe them in various ways — for example, the first complex is the lucid ego, as well as the ego complex — but when deciding on labels I settled upon Personality 1, Personality 2, Personality 3, and Personality 4 (P1, P2, P3, & P4 for short). Labeling the personalities in as a neutral away possible allows space for new discoveries from future thinkers. 

The 8 functions, the function roles, and these 4 inner personalities are connected. Each personality is made up of two functions: a “head,” which forms the nucleus of the personality and gives it it's character; and a “tail,” which modifies the main function. These functions, along with their roles, determine the characteristics of the complexes. For example, an ESFJ's Personality 1 is made up of Fe as it's head and Si as it's tail; their INTP P2 is made up of Ti head and Ne tail; their ISFP P3 is made up of Fi head and Se tail; and their ENTJ P4 is made up of Te head and Ni tail. But the personalities aren't just characterized by their functions, they're determined by both the functions and the their roles, particularly the head roles. How P1 expresses itself is determined both by the function - Fe in the case of an ESFJ - but also by the fact that it's in the position of the hero/ine. Therefore, this particular complex is strong and confident, the center of the conscious personality, just like the heroine is.

As described earlier in the post, the four inner personalities - the core complexes - are like two pairs of couples, a conscious pair (P1 and P2), and an unconscious shadow pair (P3 and P4). These four personalities make up one whole, complete psyche. I call this grouping of four personalities, these four types, a sodality.


Any one of these inner personalities can be active at any time, and this can change moment to moment; movement between the different complexes happens fluidly, unconsciously, and automatically. When a situation arises in which you need to access certain functions you'll spontaneously, without any thought or awareness, go into the personality that contains those functions. When that particular personality is unconscious, though, we usually end up expressing the more negative traits of that personalities type. For example, ENTPs who find themselves in a situation where they need to be serious and hard-working often find themselves in their antagonistic P3 personality; in their case, they basically become really anxious INTJs (I work with a lot of INTJ-ing ENTPs at my job as a legal secretary; there are a surprising number of working in corporate law.) Basically, any one of the complexes can be active at any time, and this can change in an instant.

The four inner personalities can be summed up with the following exceedingly general statements:
  • Personality 1, the lucid (conscious) ego, is the Ego Complex. It’s what you, and others, think you are.
  • Personality 2, the lucid animus or anima, is the Shadow Complex. It’s what you fear but also wish you were.
  • Personality 3, the shadow (unconscious) animus or anima is the Anima/us Complex. The opposite of P2, it’s what you are good at but reject.
  • Personality 4, the shadow ego, is the Wise Old Woman/Man Complex (WOW/WOM). It’s what you really are deep down but aren’t aware of.
Something you're going to notice is that there are a lot of repetitions of the same terms for different things; for example, we have both an anima/us function and an anima/us complex... and animus function isn't even in the animus complex! How can this be??

This is pretty confusing and I apologize for that confusion, it was just the best I could do. It's part of the reason why I prefer neutral terms like Personality 3 (instead of the “Anima/us Complex,” etc.) I was trying to pick the most accurately descriptive name that I could and the animus complex does act like the animus. As does the animus function! Let's look at the four complexes and the roles they play:


The most important thing to remember about the core complexes is that they are the lucid ego & animus and the shadow ego & animus. These are the complexes primary roles, and how the they interact both with each other and also with the core complexes of others. In every relationship its not just the egos that are clashing and falling in love, it's also our other complexes. This is the main way we work with them in our Jungian active imagination; the forms they often take in our inner world are as these two pairs of couples, or as a pair of sisters and a pair of brothers. Sometimes they're connected in one way, other times in other ways, but they're always interacting with each other, and with the core complexes of the people around us.



Personality 1: The Ego Complex

Our lucid (conscious) ego; our sense of self. This is the hub that holds all the other complexes together in the wheel of consciousness. Also called the Ego Complex. We become conscious of this complex first, which makes sense as it contains the easiest functions to develop, the Hero/ine and the Parent. If all goes well we usually finish developing the ego complex by the end of our youth/young adult years. When someone says there a certain type they mean the P1 ego complex.

This is generally the “homebase” of our conscious awareness though that’s not always the case; in fact, many people spend a lot more time in one of the other complexes. This is one major reason why some people are so hard to type. However, unless we’re being “possessed” by one of the complexes - unless consciousness has been seized by another complex - the lucid ego still, even in this situation, seems to retains its control.

P1 is the foundation of the cultivated personality. Without it, no growth is possible. In order to bring unconscious contents into consciousness we need a strong ego. It’s the boat we carry the unconscious contents back to shore in. However, everything has a good and bad side and the ego is no different. If we believe that it’s the most important thing, the only important thing, it can do great harm. One obvious way is when we think our needs and desires are more important than those of others. The ego can also think it’s more important than the other parts of the personality and refuse to do the work necessary to develop our other parts. The two are pretty much the same because if we are doing one we're doing the other.

The moral crux of this complex is: do we put it in its proper place, not as the master but as the servant of the Self? Or do we confuse it with the Self instead? All of our unreasonable desires to be the most beautiful, most popular, most successful, most wealthy, most powerful, what have you, are all, at root, our innate desire for the Self. The Self is the golden prize that these other things are symbols of.... and cheap replacements for. The supremacy of the ego is a very powerful illusion because the ego is, actually, a symbol of the Self brought into mundane reality; the Self is the original that the ego is a miniature, earthly copy of. This naturally makes it easy to confuse the two.

The ego's purpose is to make the moral choice to do the work we should be doing. However, the things we have to work on — the things that come into our lives, or rise up out of us, that challenge us — that all comes from the Self, not the ego. The ego has to make decisions about the things the ego has to make decisions about: making the moral choice to suffer crucifixion on the cross of our irreconcilable opposites, to attempt to surmount our insurmountable difficulties. In this way, instead of being an obstruction the ego complex becomes the decisive factor in one’s psychological and spiritual development.
The possession of complexes does not in itself signify neuroses… and the fact that they are painful is no proof of pathological disturbance. Suffering is not illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness. A complex becomes pathological only when we think we have not got it.
- Jung, “Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life”

[Art by Yu Cheng Hong]


Personality 2: The Shadow Complex

The lucid animus; the conscious side of our contrasexual, or opposite gendered, inner other. If we identify as female this inner other is male, if male she’s female. Also called the Shadow Complex it's the gateway to our personal unconscious. Integrating it gives us access to deeper levels of consciousness. I also call this the antipodal personality as it’s the opposite of the ego. It’s made up of the Animus and Child functions. The shadow complex initially appears fearsome to us partly because it is and always will be painful and embarrassing; no matter how much of it we bring into consciousness it will always be our Achilles’ heel. But it’s also because, when we begin this whole process, it contains everything that we are unconscious of.

When we first confront the shadow complex it is, as is typical of undifferentiated contents of the unconscious, mixed up with (“contaminated with”) everything else in the unconscious: the animus and anima, the enemy and the criminal, the inner witch and the inner brute. And since everything is unconscious it’s all wicked and unreformed. Jung describes our initial encounter with the shadow in this way:
The unconscious is commonly regarded as a sort of incapsulated fragment of our most personal and intimate life - something like what the bible calls the “heart” and considers the source of all evil thoughts. In the chambers of the heart dwell the wicked blood spirits, swift anger and sensual weakness. This is how the unconscious looks when seen from the conscious side. But consciousness appears to be essentially an affair of the cerebrum, which sees everything separately and in isolation, and therefore sees the unconscious in this way too, regarding it outright as my unconscious. Hence it is generally believed that anyone who descends into the unconscious gets into a suffocating atmosphere of egocentric subjectivity, and in this blind alley is exposed to the attack of all ferocious beasts which the caverns of the psychic underworld are supposed to harbour.
- Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

This is the first test, the gate that is guarded by Cerberus, the terrifying watchdog of the Underworld. It’s so terrifying that it generally scares off most people before they even start because, let’s face it, none of us want to see what we really look like. Most people just turn away from this ugly, painful, and humiliating part of ourselves but until you gaze deeply into your reflection you will never get past this gate. This is our first experience with the unconscious, the narrow door we call the shadow.

However, once we do pass our first test we find a whole world opening up before us, and what at first appeared to be sinister darkness reveals itself to actually be one of the brightest parts of our personality. This is a common experience when dealing with the unconscious; in truth, when we face the dragon and allow ourselves to fully experience our shame we find that this is one of the best parts of ourselves. And, if we continue this work, we will find that this is actually the easiest part of the process. All you have to do is endure your human imperfections. The hard work comes after dealing with the shadow.

The shadow complex isn’t actually that difficult to integrate. In fact, most people of even very average psychological health generally seem to manage it. There are many people who are neither neurotic nor particularly healthy who naturally and fairly easily integrate this complex. Many people of very average health “live” in P2 but they do so in a very average way. These are the people who are generally comfortable and satisfied with their lives and see no need to reflect on it.

When they are unconscious, complexes are often unpleasant and unhealthy. However, the shadow complex, along with the ego complex, is actually in our conscious psyche; it’s the lucid, or bright, animus. So long as you don’t try to avoid it most normal people seem to develop this part of their psyche by mid-life. A healthy person, however, will express the healthiest qualities of their P2 complex, just as they do for every complex. The trick is getting there; when complex is being fully integrated it’s very painful and difficult, like giving birth to yourself.

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
― Jung

A healthy person will express the highest qualities of their P2 complex. For example, an ENFP who naturally, without any real effort, develops their ISTJ shadow complex will actually be quite practical and careful. However, an ENFP who has really developed their lucid animus — has suffered the torments of having to deal with all the excruciating, challenging, and boring mundanities of their ISTJ Shadow complex — such an ENFP will express the absolute highest and most noble traits of the ISTJ. They are trustworthy and loyal, servants of humanity, working tirelessly to make the world a better place without asking for anything in return. Even people with ISTJ as their ego complex won’t be as amazing, although their ability “to ISTJ” for long periods will, naturally, be more robust than even a healthy ENFP.

Reforming our lucid animus requires that we do the hard work of confronting the darkness and accepting these unsightly, disagreeable, and, most of all, painfully excruciating parts of ourselves. We need to allow it to live with us, to embarrass and even torment us. It’s like the story of the princess who had to marry the frog; we must let the ugly frog sit next to us at dinner, to feed off our own plate. We need to marry this unsightly part of us, for when we do it finally reveals itself to be our handsome prince.

When we finally confront, then integrate, this part of ourselves we find that we are able to tap into something what, while weak and awkward, and will always be weak and awkward, is far more meaningful then our brawny ego complex could ever be. Personality 1 is the way we are productive and act effectively in the world but, if done right, P2 is what imbues our actions with beauty and true decency.
The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is a world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.
- Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

[Image from Zerochan.net]


Personality 3: The Anima/us Complex

The shadow animus; the unconscious side of our contrasexual inner other, the dark side of our inner partner. This is, according to John Beebe, basically the obnoxious, unpleasant side of our animus or anima; where P2 is the “nice guy/girl” P3 is the “bad boy/girl.” It can be thought of as the antagonistic or mirror personality. It will have the opposite attitudes of the ego complex; because it’s the mirror opposite of our ego we usually reject its values. For example; the ISFJ is made up of Si heroine and Fe parent. The type with Se hero (P3 is the opposite gender as P1) and Fi parent, the opposite attitudes of ISFJ, would be the ESFP type. So, the P3 of ISFJ is ESFP.

After we’ve integrated the conscious P2 animus we start becoming aware of the unconscious P3 animus. This is the first of our two unconscious complexes and, as it’s unconscious, it’s far more difficult to integrate successfully then the shadow complex. We have a love/hate relationship with it where we are both attracted to and repulsed by it, as if we were in a volatile, roller coaster romance with a particularly vexing lover. This is the animus complex and is formed from the Nemesis and Critic functions.

The negative qualities expressed by unconscious P3 are that type's normal, every day negative qualities. This isn’t where we become evil and destroy the world, we’re just off putting. When we get into normal arguments - not severe ones, just your ordinary, every day disagreements - what is often happening is that one or both people are going into their P3 shadow animus and, because it’s unconscious, expressing it’s less attractive qualities.

For example, let’s look at the ISFJ when their in their shadow animus; the ESFP. When an ISFJ is frustrated by physical reality they tend to get ragey, even violent. They will yell a lot and sometimes literally punch things that aren’t working right. Or an average-neurotic ESFJ will be selfish and childish, and make unreasonable demands on those they feel they can take advantage of, much like an unhealthy ISFP, their shadow anima. Or an INFP, instead of being connected with their powerful emotional core, will be shallow and concerned only with looking good to others when in their ENFJ shadow animus. When we go into our P3 animus complex without consciousness we often end up expressing it in a rather disagreeable way, as in our previous example of a ENTP worrying a lot and becoming anxious when they need to be practical and hard-working. Anxiety and worry are the negative side of their INTJ P3, as raginess and destructiveness are part of the negative side of the ISFJ’s ESFP P3.

We can also chronically stay in P3 in a very normal, relatively well adapted way, especially in the first half of life. Just like with those individuals who live in P2, this can make them difficult to type because they look more like their P3 shadow animus. In this situation the complex, even though relatively unconscious, isn’t really causing huge problems.

Regardless of whether we go into P3 temporarily when certain circumstances arise, or we habitually live there, when we're young being in P3 isn’t that big a deal. We are slightly unhealthy but still generally functional; just your normal, fallible, ordinary jerk. Maybe we’re a bit noxious but it’s nothing too disruptive. Others around us can usually see our flaws pretty clearly even though we ourselves willfully turn a blind eye to them. At this point we are barely on the cusp of neurosis but we are still functional; our unconsciousness may cause discord but it’s not ruining lives. But, as we age, unless we start growing we will become more and more neurotic as we find ourselves grappling with feelings of meaninglessness and stagnation. And, as long as we are unconscious of this part of us, there’s always a danger that we'll truly fall into serious neurosis. Being here in an unhealthy way isn’t harmless.

This isn’t to say that whenever we go in to P3 it always ends badly. One thing we know about unconscious contents is that they are negative when unconscious but, when brought into relation with the conscious ego, they transform and reveal their best nature. The very fact that we do these things can, in itself, if we accept the truth, bring this part of us up into consciousness thereby allowing us to redeem it. This is, in fact, the entire point of what we are doing.

Even people who live in P3 in a generally not terrible way will constantly find themselves falling into the trap of acting out the shadow animus's worst traits. What is required by this complex, first and foremost, is that we stop blindly acting out. When we catch ourselves going into P3 in a negative, harmful way we need to stop. Take a deep breath. Feel your feelings, whatever they are; frustration, anxiety, impatience, envy, whatever it is that is currently possessing us. We need to stop and feel those feelings, and then we need to decide what to do with them. Are they really called for? Are they helpful? Are they moral? Are they right?

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
― Jung

The first thing we need to do is actually admit that we are doing what we’re doing. The biggest problem with this complex is how invisible it is to us (though not to anyone else). As we aren’t able to see our own disgraceful behavior we usually end up projecting it on to others. We feel so much shame for our innocent P2 animus but we can’t see how horribly our unconscious P3 animus is behaving. If the moral crux of P1 is to submit to a greater authority, and P2 is to face our fears, the moral crux of P3 is to confess our faults.... and commit to fixing them.

One thing we need to remember about the animus complex is that it contains the critic function; this is the function that we turn cruelly and coldly on to others but ought to be aiming at ourselves. What is the thing we should be doing? Where are we failing? The way we do this is by connecting the shadow animus with the lucid animus, Personality 2. They are actually two, contradictory sides of the same thing. Their absolute incompatibility is the reason they’re so difficult to unite but it’s what must be done. We must have faith that the two are, at bottom, one and find the solution to the conundrum. That is the central task of the animus complex.

The animus complex, like the ego complex, is strong. It can, and should, be used to be effective in the world. But, without a connection to the morality of the redeemed and healthy P2 shadow complex, it will only cause harm. When we find ourselves going into P3 in a negative, harmful, nasty way we need to stop and connect it up with our compassionate, aspirational P2 shadow complex. P3, the shadow animus, is the dark side of the P2, the lucid animus. The two are actually two sides of the same thing. Our challenge with this complex is to keep it oriented to the outside world, like the ego is oriented to the outside world, but keep it linked with our benevolent P2 animus. In this way, we are finally able to bring the gifts of the fragile but wonderful P2 bright animus into the world.

[Image from PicsArt]


Personality 4: The Wise Old Woman/Man Complex

The final mystery; our secret, shadow ego. I call this complex the wise old woman/man because it’s both demonic and wise. Like Baba Yaga it can devour us, cook us in it’s fire and eat us up. But it’s also the keeper of wisdom, and guide to Arcadia. We must be as subtle and wise as it is when dealing with it. While it initially only shows it’s demonic, destructive side, once we’ve done the excruciating and protracted work of bringing it into consciousness it reveals itself to be our angelic guide to the Self. P4 is made up of the daimon and trickster functions.

As the Daimon function is the nucleus of this complex they share many of the same traits: obscurity, extreme resistance to being brought into consciousness, the tendency to only express itself in the worst most destructive ways. It is intractable, irresistible, uncontrollable, unreasonable, and demented. Where P3 is horrible and obnoxious but in a very human and relatable way, the wise old woman/man complex is utterly demonic. When we are seized by this complex we lose all control of ourselves. When people commit crimes of passion, or when a mob commits monstrous atrocities, it’s this complex that’s to blame in almost every case.

P4 is rage and hate, it’s madness and destruction. It gets activated when we are hit in our P2 insecurities, which is part of the reason why it’s so important to bring that complex into a healthy relationship with the lucid ego. Marie-Louise von France wrote that it’s our own small, personal evil that gives Big Evil - the vast, inhuman darkness that’s the other half of God's goodness - entry into our hearts. This is why the work we’re doing here is so essential; by reclaiming our own, personal evil we prevent these hideous, Lovecraftian forces from possessing us.

“The madman and the mob are both moved by impersonal, overwhelming forces.
— Jung

Jung said that these things we are working with in the unconscious are real; they may not be physical, they may be ideas but they’re not “just” ideas. Ideas have consequences. These things have consequences. Barring the presence of sociopaths all atrocities are the result of these invisible forces in our psyches. And even with sociopaths, much of the harm they cause is enabled by those around them who have been blinded and hamstrung by their own weakness and evil. We allow Evil to flourish when we refuse to do the painful work of redeeming our own little evil.

But, if we can’t even see this part of ourselves how can we possibly work on it? This is a large part of the problem and, though I will go into more detail in my later post on working with the MBTI, I can give you the basic keys here. We become able to work on this complex by working on all the other complexes, especially the other gate complex, Personality 2; the lucid animus. Undergoing the torment of the lucid animus with consciousness changes what was fuel for the eruptions of P4 into a way to liberate the shadow ego from the darkness. Never totally or completely - this part of us will always be out of our control - but it will begin to show its angelic face.

It’s only by suffering the most excruciating pain of the most vulnerable part of us that we're able to redeem the demon and return her to her original state as angel. When we do so we free her to perform her holy task; where the lucid animus is our highest and most to noblest aspirations, the shadow ego is where we connect with God.

Personality 4 is the second gate we must pass through, after the first gate of Personality 2. P2 is the gateway to our personal unconscious; the way we access our shadow animus and shadow ego. P4, on the other hand, is our entry to even deeper levels of the unconscious, what Jung called the collective unconscious, where the Self resides. The shadow ego is our hidden personality, our eidolon (eye-DOH-len). The word comes from the Greek and means: double, phantom, ghost; image of an ideal; a shade or phantom look alike.[1] This is our invisible, other self.

There are many stories, across all cultures, of our lost twin; the doppelgänger that, when we encounter them, signals our fate. Fiction is also full of them. I refer to this other self in the very title of this blog, which comes from the following excerpt from Upsnishads:
Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating.

On the same tree a man sits grieving, immersed, bewildered by his own impotence. But when he sees the other is contented and knows his glory, then his grief passes away.

When the seer sees the brilliant maker and lord of the world as the Person who has his source in Brahman, then he is wise, and shaking off good and evil, he reaches the highest oneness, free from passions;

For he is the Breath shining forth in all beings, and he who understands this becomes truly wise, not a talker only. He revels in the Self, he delights in the Self, and having performed his works he rests, firmly established in Brahman, the best of those who know Brahman.
— The Upanishads

The bird who eats the fruit is the conscious ego, the ego complex. But we also have another I, another ego; the shadow ego. Our secret other self lives outside of life. We, our ego, eat the sweet fruit of life, but this other I - this hidden ego, our beloved friend and companion - watches without partaking. This other I doesn’t live in the world, she lives in the Unconscious, and as our lucid ego's job is to interact with outer objective reality, this other I’s job is to interact with inner subjective reality.

This is why this complex is the wise old woman; it isn’t because she’s old but because she is the ageless guide to the other world. In fact, she’s only really old when we're young. When we are young this transcendent personality is old, but when we grow old she grows young. She is the avatar of wisdom, the coniunctio, the marriage of our irreconcilable opposites: head and heart, body and soul. As our task with the shadow animus is to unhook him from the ego and connect him up with the lucid animus, his other half, so to here we must unhook the shadow ego from the lucid animus, break their dysfunctional marriage, and connect her back up with her other side, the lucid ego.

Redeeming the eidolon requires a lot of hard work and suffering. But, once we’ve started liberating her from the darkness we begin to want to express the creativity, love, wisdom, peace, and passion of the divine, to bring it into the world. We love to do this thing, whatever it is, but we never get good at it as it’s our greatest weakness. But that’s OK, because it’s purpose is not to gain wealth or acclaim but for a sacred purpose. When Jung, an INTP, created Bollingen he was creating a physical manifestation of his sacred work through his creative ISFP Shadow ego. A normal ISFP will do something similar but it will be mundane; it may be beautiful and expressive but it won’t be sacred. For us to express the sacred we need our inner wise woman/man.

Work on the shadow is one's “apprentice-piece,” the piece we create to graduate to becoming a master. Work on one’s animus or anima is one's “master-piece,” the work that shows the world that we are a master. But the work we do with our shadow ego, the inner wise woman or man, is our Magnum Opus; it’s the greatest, most beautiful, but most challenging work of our lives.

[Art by Rupid Leejm]


Working with the complexes

[Image from Jung's book Psychology and Alchemy]

A complex can be really overcome only if it is lived out to the full. In other words, if we are to develop further we have to draw to us and drink down to the very dregs what, because of our complexes, we have held at a distance.
- Jung, “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype”


This is going to be a brief introduction to working with the complexes, more to give an idea of what it looks like then anything else. I will be going into more depth in future posts.

Each of the four inner personalities has a relationship with every other personality. Pay attention to your dreams, of course, to see when one of these figures shows up. Also pay attention to any fascinations you may have; libido - desire - is a strong indicator that the unconscious wants to go in a certain direction. Fascination is a form of desire, and attention a form of love; that which you love and value you spend a lot of time thinking about and working on. Someone who loves his garden will constantly be working on it, thinking about it, wondering if it’s OK, fantasizing what new flowers or vegetables he can plant. This work we are doing requires a lot of love, and libido gives us the stamina and motivation to stay the course.

The complexes can come to us from inside or outside. When we fall in love - really fall in love; madly, passionately, unreasonably fall in love - that’s the unconscious working. The unconscious has a special ability to reveal to us the numinous in the world. Without it, life is meaningless and dull. But when we have our relationship to it right, when it’s able to flow in our lives, life has color and savor. This is why, when we fall in love, the world is so much brighter. Or maybe you’re fascinated by a certain book, movie, or TV show. All those preteens and middle-aged women weren’t watching Twilight because it was such a well-made film, they were fascinated by the potent animus figures. When we develop a fascination for a thing or person, pay attention. Eventually you will see your projected complex hiding in them.

They can also come to us from inside. Learn what your various personalities feel like and keep an eye out for them. This is especially the case when you feel suddenly possessed by an affect or emotion; why did I suddenly get so ragey, or so sad? Any overreaction is a sign that complex has been touched. If somebody cuts you off and you get violently angry, that's probably a complex. Try as much as possible to stay present and aware when it happens. If you can’t don’t get discouraged; I still struggle with this and I’ve been working on this for decades. It’s actually supposed to be difficult. Like with physical exercise, if it’s not hard, it’s not working.

“Our suffering comes from our own unlived life – the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche.”
— Jung

Use active imagination to get to know these inner figures when they make their appearance, whether from within or without. Just be sure that if you work with an outer figure (an actual person in your life) that you don’t try to influence that person; i.e. no black magic. If you try to influence the object of your passions - whether to make a beloved fall in love with you, or to hurt someone who’s hurt you - you will undermine everything that you’re trying to accomplish. Trying to force others, or the Unconscious, to your ego's will is only going make you even more unhealthy and neurotic by increasing, rather than decreasing, unconsciousness. The journey to wholeness requires us to make moral decisions, not to seek to fulfill our wishes but to strike out on an adventure, to answer a great calling.

Make sure you make it very clear to yourself that you are working with your own inner figure, not the other person. If you want to try using active imagination go here for more detailed information on how to do it, or, if you find yourself struggling, go to a Jungian analyst or another type of therapist or healer, preferably someone who is versed in this kind of thing, possibly someone with a spiritual background. Active imagination is basically the same spiritual practice of meditation that every religious tradition has used, for as long as we’ve been humans I imagine. It isn’t for everyone, though, so if it doesn’t work for you, or you just don’t want to do it, don’t worry about it, just focus on the practice of maintaining presence.

Probably the very best way to work with these inner figures, other than active imagination, is to pay extra attention to your romantic feelings. There’s a reason the core complexes so frequently appear in fiction as two romantically connected couples; like in our external relationships, desire and love is the thread that draws the opposites to each other. In every relationship different complexes will interact with each other. For example, despite the fact that my fiancé (“G”) is an ISFJ, and pretty much my opposite in every way, we get along swimmingly. This is because both of us have developed core complexes other than our ego complex; I am in touch with my affectionate, loving ESFJ side, and he’s in touch with his smart, playful, funny inner ENTP. But I believe the heart of our connection is due to our P4 secret egos and their relationship with each other (see below), at least that’s the case from my end.

I know that my inner ISFP calls the shots, even though I can almost never see her as she’s my hidden, other self. It’s her affection for G’s warmth and kindness that feeds my love for, and feelings of connection with, him.  One way I know this is that when we fight in such a way that her feelings are hurt, that connection is completely ruptured. For days. It’s really devastating to G and I hate to hurt him but I literally cannot help it, her feelings are either there or they’re not. She’s the one who loves his genial ISFJ personality, so when she’s sulking there’s not much my INTP ego can do about it.


The reverse is also true; when his vulnerable Ne anima function feels threatened his inner INTJ rises up in really cold, nasty, unrelated way. He becomes suspicious and unkind. When I ask him what I can do to make things better he says “I don’t know!” and, of course, he doesn't. When we are in this state and try to think of a way to make things better there’s almost a feeling of despair as we can’t see any way out.

When these kinds of situations arise we need to bring presence to them. We need to sit with our feelings. Maybe we need to bring our judging Critic function to this part of ourselves. Or maybe we need to soothe and nurture it, as we would a small child. When this happens it means that something in us is trying to get our attention. If we can just endure, if we can bring ourselves to just sit and stew in these unpleasant emotions, maintain our awareness, the solution usually presents itself. Jung said, “when you were up against a wall, put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over the wall and grow.” This is what we must do; we have to center and ground ourselves, let our roots grow deep into the unconscious. The answer will come to us, we just need to give it time.

Any of our complexes can relate with any of another person's complexes. Paying attention to who’s doing what, why, and how - staying present and aware in the face of the natural chaos of our every day lives - is one of the most powerful ways to become conscious of, and eventually integrate, these inner figures.



Integrating the core complexes requires that we give them our time and attention, and that we be willing to suffer. Since we humans are fundamentally lazy this integration is pretty uncommon (Jung once said “laziness is the greatest passion of mankind, even greater than power or sex or anything.”)

This is the great moral question of all of our lives; do we suffer, and toil, as is asked of us? Or do we take the easy way out - the cheaters way out - and wind up a neurotic mess who makes the world a worse place? These things have consequences. Each of us have the capacity to become a powerful channel of healing, bringing clean, healthy waters from the unconscious to wash away all the garbage in our increasingly screwed up world. The world needs the curative powers of the healthy unconscious but that will only happen if more and more of us have the moral courage to turn away from what others (and even we ourselves) tell us is important. To turn inward, to find the treasure without compare, the golden prize: the Self.
Out of evil, much good has come to me. By keeping quiet, repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and by accepting reality - taking things as they are, and not as I wanted them to be - by doing all this, unusual knowledge has come to me, and unusual powers as well, such as I could never have imagined before.

I always thought that when we accepted things they overpowered us in some way or other. This turns out not to be true at all, and it is only by accepting them that one can assume an attitude towards them.

So now I intend to play the game of life, being receptive to whatever comes to me, good and bad, sun and shadow forever alternating, and, in this way, also accepting my own nature with its positive and negative sides. Thus everything becomes more alive to me.

What a fool I was! How I tried to force everything to go according to way I thought it ought to.
— Carl Jung, Alchemical Studies



MBTI

The cognitive functions
The function roles
The Houses
The core complexes
The Sodalities
How to type
Function + roles
My MBTI story


See also

Active imagination
Anima
Animus
Collective unconscious
Coniunctio
Contamination
Differentiation
Ego
Libido
Persona
Projection
Self
Shadow
Wise Old Woman/Man


Links

CS Joseph, “What are the four sides of the mind?
Daryl Sharp, Jung Lexicon
CG Jung, “ The narrow door of the shadow


References

[1]  Eidolon (Wikipedia)






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