“Right” and “wrong”

(Image from Drake University)


In Jungian psychology there is no right or wrong, it’s always “what’s right for you?” Honesty can be a good thing for someone else, but maybe you need to learn protective deception. Being goal oriented can be a good thing but maybe you need to learn to relax and let go. Or vice versa.

Marie-Louise von Franz said that, in fairy tales, there are no consistent rules. Sometimes you must lie, and sometimes you get punished for lying. Sometimes the hard worker gets rewarded, and sometimes it’s the village idiot who does nothing but sit around scratching his butt. (There’s only one rule in fairy tales: never harm the helpful animal.)

This is a symbolic reflection of life; everyone is different so everyone needs to balance themselves in different ways. Maybe a workaholic needs to relax, but a lazy person probably needs to get to work. What’s medicine for one person is poison for another. So, what is the goal of Jungian analysis? The short answer is: individuation. That is, recovering our lost parts and integrating them into our conscious selves.

Jungian psychology says that our conscious selves, our egos, are in relation to just a small fraction of the totality of who we are. Most of “us” is actually in the unconscious, like an iceberg submerged in the ocean. Our task is to bring as much of that iceberg above the waterline as we can. So, in Jungian psychology “good” is consciousness, and “bad” is unconsciousness.

This actually gives Jungian psychology a very clear, though individualistic, parameter. If you do things that increase consciousness, you are doing the right thing. If, on the other hand, you’re doing things that increase unconsciousness you are doing “bad.” If you lash out at someone with your Demon function, or attack them with your Critic, you are increasing unconsciousness. If, on the other hand, you accept your weakness in the form of your Animus, or go into your Nemesis consciously to balance out your ego’s weakness, you increase consciousness.

If we do something that we think is “getting over someone” – passive aggressive behavior, cheating, unloading our anger on someone – we will increase unconsciousness in ourselves. This is bad for us. We’re not “getting over” anyone; the person we’re cheating, and hurting, most is us. And, at the same time, we’re also making the world a worse place, increasing unconsciousness in everyone around us, unless they are strong enough to avoid getting caught up in our bullshit. The world and everyone around us end up worse because of our existence.

This is the crux of the moral question: do I do the hard, painful, and not fun thing required of me to increase consciousness? Or do I do the easy, fun thing that increases unconsciousness? One of Marie-Louise von Franz’s analysands wanted to use active imagination to beat, stab, and kill someone she didn’t like (in her head, not IRL). MLvF immediately told her that this was a terrible idea; it wasn’t active imagination, it was black magic (misusing the unconscious for selfish and harmful purposes). It would not only have halted growth, this analysand would have gone backwards, i.e. they would have become even more neurotic, as neuroticism is basically psychology-speak for unconsciousness.

Another example is an ESFP I know who likes playing mind games with people who he feels deserve it. Unconscious ESFPs and ENFPs, thanks to their Fe Critic, have this problem where they tend to judge the people around them to be immoral. This, they feel, gives them license to be completely immoral themselves. The irony of their Fe Critic is that it can lead them to being some of the most immoral people of all the types, but every type does something similar, thanks to our hypocritical, sanctimonious Critic function. The problem is, this ESFP is hurting himself far more than he’s hurting anyone else, because he’s making himself more unconscious.

All of us have a similar tendency, all of us need to be vigilant and moral in our own lives. To do any less is cheating… and the only person we’re really cheating… is ourselves.


See also
The 8 function model

Maintaining a relationship with the animal body

Reference for an upcoming post on shame:

Here is a question by Dr. Harding: “Can you take up in further detail the section in the chapter on the Compassionate Ones where Nietzsche speaks of man as the animal with red cheeks? The interpretation given at the last seminar that he was ashamed on account of the unconsciousness of his fellow man does not seem adequate to me. Is there not an analogy with the story of Eden where we are told that when Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of knowledge they were ashamed before God of their nakedness, which had never bothered them before? And perhaps – who knows? – they may have been ashamed of their clothes before the other animals? In fact, does not consciousness itself carry its own burden of guilt because the discerning one can no longer act with the complete rightness of unconscious instinct?”

Well, you have answered your question yourself, practically. That shame is of course a very typical reaction; it is a primitive reaction which clearly shows the distance that exists between the ego consciousness and the original unconsciousness of mere instinct. As long as man is in a merely instinctive animal condition, there is absolutely no ground for shame, no possibility of shame even, but with the coming of ego consciousness, he feels apart from the animal kingdom and the original paradise of unconsciousness, and then naturally he is inclined to have feelings of inferiority. The beginning of consciousness is characterized by feelings of inferiority, and also by megalomania. The old prophets and philosophers say nothing is greater than man, but on the other side nothing is more miserable than man, for the ego consciousness is only a little spark of light in an immense darkness. Yet it is the light, and if you pile up a thousand darknesses you don’t get a spark of light, you don’t make consciousness. Consciousness is the sun in the great darkness of the world. Man is just a little lantern in the world of darkness, and as soon as you have a certain amount of ego consciousness naturally you are isolated and become self-conscious – you can’t help it – and naturally you no longer possess the absolute simplicity of nature: you are no longer naïve. It is a great art and a great difficulty to become like unto a child again – or better still, like unto an animal; to become like an animal is then the supreme ideal.

When you have built up your consciousness to a decent degree, you become so separated from nature that you feel it to be a disadvantage; you feel that you have fallen from grace. This is of course the expulsion from paradise. Then life becomes ego misery and lawlessness and you must create artificial laws in order to develop a feeling of obedience. Having ego consciousness means that you have a certain amount of disposable willpower, which of course means arbitrary feelings and decisions, disobedience of natural laws and so on; and that gives you a terrible feeling of being lost, cursed, isolated, and wrong altogether. And of course this causes feelings of shame. Compare your state of innocence with the innocence of a little child and you have ground for shame; and compared with an animal you are nowhere. So the dawn of consciousness was naturally a tremendous problem to man; he had to invent a new law-abiding world of obedience, the careful observance of rules; instead of the herd or the natural animal state, he had to invent an artificial state. He has now succeeded in making of the state a tremendous monster, such as nature probably never would have tolerated, but he had to do it in order to compensate that sentiment d’incompletude, d’insuffisance. For we should not live instinctively any longer. We had to invent machines and law books and morals in order to give mankind a feeling of being in order, of being in a decent condition – something similar to paradise where the animals knew how to behave with each other. You see, the great world seems to be a self-regulating orderliness, an organism that moves and lives in a more or less decent way. The catastrophes are not too great or too many. There are not too many diseases – only a decent amount to kill off enough animals. But we know that we can break out at any time and destroy as no volcano and no epidemic ever destroyed, and we chiefly injure our own species; we would not dream of making an international war against flies or microbes or against whales or elephants – it isn’t worthwhile – but it is worthwhile when it is against man. That is so much against nature that on the other side, man seeks to protect himself by complicated machines, states, and contracts which he cannot observe. So this first reaction of shame symbolizes the moment when man felt his tragic difference from paradise, his original condition.

Yet that original condition was also not a very happy one. The primitive man did not feel his unconscious to be very satisfactory. He tried to get away from it. Of course, we have the idea that the original condition was a wonderful paradise, but as a matter of actual fact man has always tried to move away from that unconsciousness. All his many ceremonies were attempts to create a more conscious condition, and any new positive acquisition in the field of consciousness was praised as a great asset, a great accomplishment. Prometheus stealing the fire from the immortal gods has become a savior of mankind, and man’s greatest triumph was that God himself incarnated in man in order to illumine the world; that was a tremendous increase of consciousness. But every increase of consciousness means a further separation from the original animal-like condition, and I don’t know where it will end: it is really a tragic problem. We have to discover more consciousness, to extend consciousness, and the more it is extended the more we get away from the original condition.

The body is the original animal condition; we are all animals in the body, and so we should have animal psychology in order to be able to live in it. Yes, if we had no body then we could live with contracts and marvelous laws which everybody could observe and a marvelous morality which everybody could easily fulfil. But since we have a body it is indispensable that we exist also as an animal, and each time we invent a new increase of consciousness we have to put a new link in the chain that binds us to the animal, till finally it will become so long that complications will surely ensure. For when the chain between man and animal has grown so long that we lose sight of the animal, anything can happen in between, and the chain will snarl up somewhere. That has happened already and therefore we doctors have to find in a conscious individual the place where the chain begins; we have to go back and find out where it has been caught or what has happened to the animal at the other end of the line. Then we have to shorten it perhaps, or disentangle it, in order to improve the relationship between the consciousness that went too far ahead and the animal left behind.

- CG Jung, from Jung's Seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathustra

Our "underdeveloped countries"

Our conscious realm is like a room with four doors, and it will be the fourth door by which the shadow, the animus, and the anima and the personification of the Self will come in. They will not enter as often through the other doors, which in a way is self-evident, because the inferior function is so close to the unconscious and remains so barbaric and inferior and undeveloped that it is naturally the weak spot in consciousness through which the figures of the unconscious can break in. In consciousness it is experienced as a weak spot, as that disagreeable thing which will never leave you in peace but always causes trouble, for every time you feel you have acquired a certain balance or inner standpoint, something happens from within or without to throw you off again, and it is always through that fourth door, which you cannot shut. You can keep the three doors of your inner room closed, but on the fourth door the lock does not work, and there, when you do not expect it, the unexpected will come in again. Thank God, you can say, for otherwise the whole life process would petrify and stagnate in a wrong kind of consciousness. It is the ever-bleeding wound of the conscious personality, but through it the unconscious can always come in and so enlarge consciousness and bring forth new experience.

As long as you have not developed your other functions, your auxiliary functions, they too will be open doors, so in a person who has only developed one superior function, the two auxiliary functions will operate in the same way and will appear in personifications of the shadow, animus, and anima. It is only when you have succeeded in developed three functions, in locking three of your inner doors, that the problem of the fourth door still remains, for that is the one which is apparently not meant to be locked. There one has to succumb, one has to suffer defeat, in order to develop further. So if you attend to your own dreams, you will see that these inner figures, if they appear personified as real persons, tend to choose such personifications. Another kind of personification, which naturally has to do with the shadow, is that the fourth function is contaminated with personifications from the lower levels of the social strata of the population or by the underdeveloped countries. That is a beautiful expression – the “underdeveloped” countries. It is just marvelous how we Westerners in our superior arrogance look down on the underdeveloped countries and project our inferior functions upon them! The underdeveloped countries are within ourselves, and therefore, naturally, because this is such an obvious symbolism, the inferior function for a white person often appears as a wild Negro or a wild Indian. Frequently also the inferior function is expressed by exotic people of some kind: Chinese, Russian, or whoever may give that quality. The unconscious tries in this way to convey the quality of something unknown to the conscious realm, as if it would say: it is as unknown to you as the Chinese are unknown in your culture. The shadow, animus, and anima appear very often projected onto Asian or African or “primitive” people.

- Marie Louise von Franz, “Psychotherapy”

This is why it's so important to come to terms with the people (and creatures) that live within our unconscious; the "primitive" is within us... the criminal, the underdeveloped, all of it is us. Until more of us start to realize that our prejudices are actually the fear and hatred we have of our own shadow, we will continue marching down the road of violence.

The golden shadow

I've been thinking about the shadow, thinking of all the ways that we fail. How most people refuse to face the truth of what they've done/are doing. That is the shadow, the thing that most people are so terrified of that they can't admit that it exists (even though everyone around us is quite aware of our failings.)

The shadow isn't evil, it's just weak and stupid and selfish, helpless and incompetent. It's just human; it is, in fact the most human part of us. The heroic side of us isn't our brightness, it's our clumsy, awkward shadow. To accept our shadow - to admit that it is a part of us - is to feel our full humanity, to embrace it. To embrace our own humanity is to embrace the humanity of others. Whatever your weakness is, to embrace it is to embrace the childishness of our full humanity... the child of all humanity, the Golden Child. The Golden Child - the new God we've been waiting for - isn't a perfect hero, he's a fragile child, the weakest and least able of us. He doesn't save us by rescuing us, he saves us though our compassion. And we can only have compassion for others if we first have compassion, and acceptance, for our own weakness and frailty.

To open to, to embrace and fully accept, our shadow side is to relax into our totality. Every part of us, not just the commendable part. To seek glory and perfection is to fall into ego; it's precisely the thing we don't need. Being judgmental and perfectionistic are poison. To accept our imperfections, and those of others, is the only way out... but only by facing, accepting, and lovingly embracing our own imperfections can we do the same for others. The hero is the devil, and the devil is the savior. When we accept the devil, we finally see his true face; the Child. This is why the Child has snakes in his basket.

Our shadow is the sacred Child who lives inside each of us. The path to God - that is, wholeness - is accepting this Child.


Links:

Glossary: Inferior Function
Symbolism: Child

A society of animals

In this rather humorous way the unconscious took up the idea, namely that it is really a great problem, for as conscious beings we can contact each other, but in this inferior function, one person is a cat, another is a tortoise, and a third a hare – there are all those animals! Such social adaptations present a great difficulty. There are all the problems of having one’s own territory, one’s own ground, for every animal species has a tendency to have a few meters of homeland. Every bird and every animal defends its territory from intruders; one may not step on the other’s ground, and all these complicated rituals build up again as soon as human beings join together and discard the persona and try really to contact each other. Then one really feels as if one is moving in the jungle or the bush: one must not step on this snake or frighten that bird by making quick movement, and things become very complicated. This need for bush manners has even led to the belief that psychology causes social behavior to deteriorate, which to some extent is quite true. At the Jung Institute, too, we are in a way much nastier and more difficult a group to get along with than, say, a society for breeding dogs or hares, or a club for fishermen, for there the social contact is in general on a much better level. Such an accusation has often been made not only of the Psychology Club but also of the Institute. But the truth is simply that we tend not to cover up what is going on underneath. In all other societies or groups of people, that is covered up and plays under the table; underneath there are all these difficulties, but they are never brought up to the surface and discussed openly. But, in fact, naturally, facing the shadow and the inferior function has the effect that people become socially more difficult and less conventionally adapted, and that creates more friction. On the other hand, it also creates a greater liveliness: it is never boring, for there is always a storm in a teacup and excitement, and the group is very much alive instead of having a dull, conventional, correct surface. It has even gone so far that in the Psychology Club, the animal tendencies to have one’s own realm became so strong that people started reserving seats; there was So and So’s chair, and you couldn’t’ sit on it; that was a major insult, because So and So always sat there. I have noticed that there are also papers on certain chairs on which people write their names: this is my chair – in other words, there the dog or cat So and So sits! That is a very good sign, and I thought; “Well now, that is better, matters are improving!” It is a restoration of an original and natural situation. But it is amazing how deeply the inferior function can connect one down into the realm of animal nature within oneself.

Apart from the humorous way in which I have described it, it is a very important fact, for the inferior function is actually the connection with one’s deepest instincts, with one’s inner roots, and is, so to speak, that which connects us with the whole past of mankind.

Marie Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy

Integrating the Four Functions

“That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.”
- C.G. Jung


In Jungian psychology knowing what your "type" is isn't enough, you have to move through the functions, integrating them one by one. This is one of the main reasons why it isn't accurate to call these "types"; if one is actually individuating one's personality will change over the course of one's life as we integrate each function. This is, in fact, a large part of the individuation process itself.

Those who have only one function developed will be at the mercy of the unconscious as it comes in the three other "doors" (as Marie Louise von Franz puts it); the unconscious can catch us as it barges in, taking over our consciousness and making us do things that in retrospect may appall us. As we work to develop and differentiate each of the first three functions, we slowly shut the doors as we bring these functions under the control of the conscious ego. This continues on up to the third function. The fourth and final function, the inferior function, can never be brought under the control of the ego, allowing the unconscious a place to enter into our lives.

Below is a re-post of a an article from my previous blog:

The four functions aren't actually "types," unless people get stuck in a particular function. And then the Self will send neuroses in order to poke and prod at us until we get moving and growing. But in order to do so, we have to take a meandering path that snakes from our primary function to our auxiliary function, to the tertiary function, and finally to our inferior function. This whole process takes a very long time (we can finish it by the time we die, if we’re lucky) and it doesn't have to be particularly clear cut or even sequential, either. This is how we move around the circle, integrating the first three functions. When you integrate a function, you live that function, and all its strengths and weaknesses are yours.

The assimilation of functions is such a serious business that people generally spend a very long time in assimilating their auxiliary functions and sometimes, say for at least eight to ten years, become a type which was not their original type. I once, for example, knew a woman who was an introverted feeling type; that is, in the past she had been a feeling type, but in the stage at which we met, she had already switched the process to developing intuition and at that stage had as much trouble with her sensation as if she had been a genuine intuitive... [S]he went through all the crises of having to switch from intuition to sensation which you see with a primarily intuitive type; for example, she became completely inaccurate about facts and had trouble relating to them, exactly as an intuitive does. She then stated with great emphasis that it had always been an error to call her a feeling type, for she was an intuitive, but she was wrong! She was right and wrong for at the stage at which she was, she was exactly like an intuitive, but that was because she was at the stage of living in her second function and was just in the crisis of getting over to the third.

(von Franz, Psychotherapy, p. 131)

What seems to happen is your dominant function gets worn out from overuse; you get tired of using it and life gets sterile, lifeless; it feels meaningless. In my case I had a combination of fascination for things of the intuitive sphere and actual messages from dreams and the Tarot that pretty clearly told me it was time to move on . When we integrate another function we become that function - all of its strengths and weaknesses become ours. A feeling type that starts integrating sensation will have problems with flashes of sinister, and completely unfounded, suspicion. Or, as in my case, a thinking type moves to integrate intuition and can't balance her checkbook or keep her apartment clean if her life depended on it.

- Integrating the Four Functions (from Queen of the Night)


We're usually born with one function that is clearly our best function, along with a secondary function that's also pretty dependable. As we try to succeed in the world, we naturally lean on our strongest function(s), which develops them to a high level. At some point, though, this first function starts becoming fatigued; overuse makes it boring and sterile. Imagine playing the same game over and over, or watching the same movie over and over. It may be a lot of fun the first few times but eventually it's going to get boring and lifeless. In order to keep the juice flowing in our lives we need to start working on a new function. This often takes place during our middle years, when we have (hopefully) accomplished a large part of what had we set out to accomplish.


The Car Model (Personality Hacker)

Personality Hacker uses the image of a car with the driver and three passengers as a way to illustrate the way the four functions operate. The primary function (the "Driver") is the main cognitive function, the one we most strongly identify with, and the one with which we can get into what they call a "flow" state. It's the function in which we have competency that operates unconsciously; we're so good at it that we don't even have to think about it.

The auxiliary function (the "Co-Pilot") is the other function that we have or can develop competency at. We can get good at it but never as good as the Driver function; there will always be an element of conscious attention required when using this function

The tertiary function (the "10 Year Old") is one of our two weak functions. However, we do have a measure of control over it - we can eventually close the door here - therefore we'd say that it's the inferior function that we are conscious of. With conscious attention, we can, with some effort, bring it under the control of the ego.

The last function, the inferior function (the "3 Year Old"), is not and cannot ever be brought under the control of the ego. As with the Driver function, the 3 Year Old is also unconscious, but it's the function in which we have unconscious incompetence. As with a toddler, we can never bring it under our control.

(From Personality Hacker)

When we're still undeveloped our natural tendency is to go to the 10 Year Old, or the tertiary, function as our defense. This will be the function that we run to when we're scared, including when we're trying to avoid our growth function, the Co-Pilot. To develop, we need to move into the Co-Pilot function. Doing this balances out weaknesses in our primary function, while also keeping us from using the tertiary function defensively.

The people at Personality Hacker don't go too much into integrating the third function but, based on what I know of Jungian psychology, the third, or 10 Year Old, function will also eventually need to be integrated in a healthy, non-defensive way. From what I've seen, this seems to involve using the 3rd function as a kind of meditation. For example, an ESFP friend of mine goes to his thinking as a way bring his mind to a calm state. I've found the same thing; when I do physical work, like cooking or cleaning, with attention (my third function; introverted sensation) I find myself going into a meditative state.

The fourth and final function - the 3 Year Old in the Car Model - can never be integrated into consciousness. It will always act up, usually at the worst possible time. It's also the source of life and spontaneity, just like a 3 year old. The fourth function needs time and attention, and love. It will never easy to deal with, but with time, attention, and love, it will bring some of the greatest rewards into our lives.


Integrating the inferior function is, at root, shadow work. One's shadow is represented by the psyche as a person of the same sex as you but with the worst qualities of your inferior function, at least at first. This demonic figure often catches us from behind; when we're sick, tired, or in other states in which the control of our ego is weakened. It causes us to behave in ways we would normally find reprehensible, in the very opposite ways in which we like to view ourselves. Others around us are easily able to see our hypocrisies but they will remain hidden to us because we don't want to see them.

Integrating one's inferior function is about accepting one's own helplessness, weakness, stupidity, selfishness, and all the other human weaknesses that we all have. This is the moral work that that we have to carry out... and this is one of the main reasons why so few people undertake individuation. As you work on integrating the shadow/inferior function, however, this figure often expresses her/his better qualities, and you come to see that the dark adversary is actually an angel of light.

A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour.

- “The Philosophical Tree” (1945). In CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P.335

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.

- Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.25

To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.

- “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” (1959). In CW 10. Civilization in Transition. P.872



Further reading:
The Car Model (Personality Hacker)
When You ALMOST Know Your Personality Type (Personality Hacker)
Integrating the Inferior Function (Personality Junkie)


See also:
Primary function
Auxiliary function
Tertiary function
Inferior function
The shadow

Glossary: Meyers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

A personality typing system by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers based on Jung’s theory of the four functions of the psyche. There are 16 different MBTI types in total based on the following dichotomies: introversion/extroversion, sensation/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving (rational/irrational). From the beginning the MBTI has been especially popular in the world of business; Meyers herself worked with the personnel manager of a major bank who went on to found one of the first consulting firms in the US.

It’s important to remember that one’s “type” is simply one’s preferred method of dealing with the world; this is a type indicator, not some destiny determined by the stars. It only suggests a type. We should be careful to avoid labeling ourselves or others. Jung developed his typology as a way to organize our thinking while exploring the infinite complexity of human psychology; labeling people, even with Jungian concepts, makes that impossible as it reduces that complexity to a single four letter caricature. Even if we get our “type” right, we need to remember that it’s a preference, not a result. And it’s a preference which should, ideally, change throughout one’s life as one proceeds along the path of individuation.


What’s my MBTI type?

The easiest way to find out your type  is by taking one of the many free personality tests online (I've listed several sites that offer these at the end of the post). Beware when taking the tests that you don’t base your answers simply on the last incident that happened. You need to think about what you would typically do in such a situation, not what you happened to do in one particular instance. When in doubt, ask someone who you feel knows you well what they think you would do. It's probably going to take some time to work out; I’ve been working on this subject for years and I’m still learning new things about myself and about Jung’s typology.

Personally, I feel that the best way to figure out one’s “type” is to get a firm grasp of the various dimensions of the personality (intuition, sensation, introvert, extrovert, etc.) One helpful thing to do is to figure out which are your weakest functions, and which, in particular, is your inferior function. Just as it’s fairly clear what your two strongest functions are, it’s also generally pretty clear what your two weakest functions are; they’re the two areas of your life that always trip you up. To figure out which one is your inferior function ask yourself where you feel the most shame.

As an INTP, both my thinking and my intuition are fairly strong, so much so that at first I wasn’t sure which one was my primary function and which the auxiliary function. This was especially true because I was trying to figure this out later in life, and as you grow psychologically you often move more strongly into your second function as the first one gets worn out and boring. I’ve always suffered failure in the areas of sensation and feeling; I always struggle to take care of my most basic needs, and I’m constantly embarrassed by my social faux pas. However, while I’m embarrassed by my dirty apartment and inability to keep my finances in order, I’m terrified of and humiliated by my social difficulties, to the extent that I’ve literally wanted to die after having embarrassed myself. That simply doesn’t happen when my sloppy housekeeping or lack of financial acumen come up. This kind of over the top affect is an excellent indicator that the inferior function was touched, as our inferior function is the wound that never heals. And once you know what your inferior function is you can figure out the rest.


Understanding the MBTI Code

The MBTI code notes an individual’s attitude and their two strongest functions; the first letter, the “I” or the “E”, denote whether the person is introverted or extroverted. The two letters following the I or the E denote the two main functions, without indicating which is the primary and which the auxiliary function. Determining one’s attitude and main functions in the MBTI is fairly straightforward. Determining which function is one’s primary function is a little more complicated, especially if one is an introvert, due to the MBTI’s somewhat convoluted method of notation.

In the MBTI the last letter that shows which of the two functions is extroverted; the J or the P (for “judging” or “perceiving,” or the rational and irrational functions). The important thing to remember is that this last letter shows which of the two functions is extroverted. In an extrovert it’s easy; the extroverted function is the extrovert’s primary function. An introvert, however, by definition introverts their primary function. This is what makes them an introvert. Therefore, the J or the P indicates which of the two functions is the auxiliary function.

… Extroverts turn their primary function towards the external world; when you meet an extrovert you can quickly make out their primary function because that is the one with which they will greet you. Introverts turn their primary function inwards; the function they turn to the world is actually their auxiliary function. For example, if you meet an extroverted feeling type who secondarily relies on their sensation, you will see a feeling type. But if you meet an introverted feeling/sensation type, you will initially perceive their auxiliary function, sensation. This is because introverts rely on their auxiliary function to get through life. Introverts hide their primary function (in this case, feeling), unless they get to know you well. This makes introverts seem a bit awkward because they're generally using their second best function when dealing with the world.

- Glossary: Auxiliary Functions


As the MBTI code tells you which of the two functions is extroverted, and introverts extrovert their auxiliary function, the last letter for an introverted MBTI type indicates the introverts auxiliary function, NOT their primary function. Below are some examples

ESTP = Extroverted Sensation Thinking, primary function sensation (“P” means perceiving, which is MBTI for irrational, which are the sensation and intuition functions, hence the primary function is sensation, the perceiving function).

ESTJ = Extroverted Sensation Thinking, primary function thinking (“J” means judging, which is MBTI for rational, which are the thinking and feeling functions, hence the primary function is thinking, the judging function).

ISTP = Introverted Sensation Thinking, primary function thinking (“P” means perceiving, but since this person is an introvert the function indicated by the P – sensation – is the auxiliary function, so thinking is the primary function here).

ISTJ = Introverted Sensation Thinking, primary function sensation (“J” means judging, but since this person is an introvert the function indicated by the J – thinking – is the auxiliary function, so sensation is the primary function here).

If this seems completely counterintuitive and ridiculously complicated you are not the only one. This is literally the thing that took me years to get. The thing to remember is 1) if you’re an extrovert, the last letter indicates your primary function but 2) if you’re an introvert, the last letter indicates your auxiliary function.


Once you’ve figured out your MBTI type have fun exploring the internet for information on your type, and that of others as well. While it’s not good to pigeonhole people (yourself included), you can discover valuable insights into your and your loved ones’ personalities. The MBTI is a tool and as such should be your helper, not your master. But if you know how to use it it’s a very useful tool, and one that should be explored by anyone who’s interested in people and why they do the things they do. If Jung’s theory of typology is the only thing, out of all of Jung’s concepts, that you ever master it will still help you enormously in understanding yourself and others.

Typological analysis determined by written tests can be helpful, but it can also be misleading. Such tests are collectively based and static; that is, their validity is statistical and time-specific. They may give reasonable picture of one’s conscious predilections at the time of the test, but in ignoring the dynamic nature of the psyche they say nothing about the possibility of change.

Daryl Sharp, Personality Types: Jung's Model of Typology, p. 92



For further reading (including self-tests):
Personality Hacker
Personality Junkie
16 Personalities
Truity
Personality Page
Human Metrics


Podcasts:
Jung Podcast #11 - 13 (Jungian’s Podcast)
How To Figure Out Your Personality (Personality Hacker)


See also:
Primary function
Auxiliary function
Tertiary function
Inferior function
Introversion
Extroversion
Thinking
Feeling
Intuition
Sensation
Rational functions
Irrational functions
The 16 “Types” (MBTI)
Integrating the Four Functions

The narrow door of shadow

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.

True, whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face.

This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem is exceedingly difficult, because it not only challenges the whole man, but reminds him at the same time of his helplessness and ineffectuality. Strong natures – or should one rather call them weak? – do not like to be reminded of this, but prefer to think of themselves as heroes who are beyond good and evil, and to cut the Gordian knot instead of untying it. Nevertheless, the account has to be settled sooner or later. In the end one has to admit that there are problems which one simply cannot solve on one’s own resources. Such an admission has the advantage of being honest, truthful, and in accord with reality, and this prepares the ground for a compensatory reaction from the collective unconscious: you are now more inclined to give heed to a helpful idea or intuition, or to notice thoughts which had not been allowed to voice themselves before. Perhaps you will pay attention to the dreams that visit you at such moments, or will reflect on certain inner and outer occurrences that take place just at this time. If you have an attitude of this kind, then the helpful powers slumbering in the deeper strata of man’s nature can come awake and intervene, for helplessness and weakness are the eternal experience and the eternal problem of mankind. To this problem there is also an eternal answer, otherwise it would have been all up with humanity long ago. When you have done everything that could possibly be done, the only thing that remains is what you could still do if only you knew it. But how much do we know ourselves? Precious little, to judge by experience. Hence there is still a great deal of room left for the unconscious. Prayer, as we know, calls for a very similar attitude and therefore has much the same effect.

The necessary and needful reaction from the collective unconscious expresses itself in archetypally formed ideas. 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, paras. 42 - 45

Carl Jung: This then was the holy ghost to him (pt. 2)

Miss Hincks: When you were speaking of bringing up your inferior function, did you mean the one in the unconscious?

Dr. Jung: Yes.

Miss Hincks: I understood you to mean that you had developed your intuition in contradistinction to your thinking.

Dr. Jung: No, I meant to place feeling in opposition to thinking. As a natural scientist, thinking and sensation were uppermost in me and intuition and feeling were in the unconscious and contaminated by the collective unconscious. You cannot get directly to the inferior function from the superior, it must always be via the auxiliary function. It is as though the unconscious were in such antagonism to the superior function that it allowed no direct attack. The process of working through the auxiliary functions goes on somewhat as follows: Suppose you have sensation strongly developed but are not fanatical about it. Then you can admit about every situation a certain aura of possibilities; that is to say, you permit an intuitive element to come in. Sensation as an auxiliary function would allow intuition to exist. But inasmuch as sensation (in the example) is a partisan of the intellect, intuition sides with the feeling, here the inferior function. Therefore the intellect will not agree with intuition, in this case, and will vote for its exclusion. Intellect will not hold together sensation and intuition, rather it will separate them. Such a destructive attempt will be checked by feeling, which backs up intuition.

Looking at it the other way around, if you are an intuitive type, you can’t get to your sensations directly. They are full of monsters, and so you have to go by way of your intellect or feeling, whichever is the auxiliary in the conscious. It needs very cool reasoning for such a man to keep himself down to reality. To sum up then, the way is from the superior to the auxiliary, from the latter to the function opposite to the auxiliary. Usually this first conflict that is aroused between the auxiliary function in the conscious and its opposite function in the unconscious is the fight that takes place in analysis. This may be called the preliminary conflict. The knock-down battle between the superior and inferior functions only takes place in life. In the example of the intellectual sensation type, I suggested the preliminary conflict would be between sensation and intuition, and the final fight between intellect and feeling.

Dr. de Angulo: Why cannot the main battle take place in analysis?

Dr. Jung: That can only happen when the analyst loses his objectivity and becomes personally involved with the patient. In this connection it can be said that the analyst is always in danger of intoxications through his unconscious. Suppose a woman comes and tells me I am her savior. While consciously I may know perfectly well she has made a terrible projection upon me, unconsciously I drink it up and possibly swell to tremendous proportions.

Mrs. Keller’s question: (This question as originally presented was lost. The problem concerned was in connection with the will.)

Dr. Jung: It cannot be said that the will of man is like a stone rolling downhill. What is true is that through the will you can release a process, say a fantasy, which then proceeds on its own course.
There are two ways of looking at will. That of Schopenhauer, for instance, who speaks of the will to live and the will to death in the sense of an urge to life and an urge to death. I like to reserve the concept of will for that small amount of energy that is disposable by us in consciousness. Now if you put this small amount toward activating the instinctive process, the latter then goes on with a force much bigger than yours.

The libido of man contains the two opposite urges or instincts: the instinct to live and the instinct to die. In youth the instinct toward life is stronger, and that is why young people don’t cling to life — they have it. The libido as an energetic phenomenon contains the pairs of opposites, otherwise there would be no movement of the libido. It is a metaphor to use the terms of life and death; any others will do, so long as they show the opposition. In animals and in primitive peoples, the pairs of opposites are closer together than in so-called civilized peoples, hence both animals and primitives part with life more easily than do we. A primitive can kill himself just for the luxury of haunting an enemy. In other words, because of our dissociation, the pairs of opposites are much further apart. This gives us our increased psychical energy, and the price we pay is one-sidedness.

http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/2017/03/carl-jung-this-then-was-holy-ghost-to.html

Carl Jung: This then was the holy ghost to him (pt. 1)

Miss Henty’s question: Cannot the inferior functions be developed without such an overthrow of the superior functions as you described last time?

Dr. Jung: Can you lift water up from the bottom of a falls without loss of energy? You have to have energy in order to activate the inferior function, and if you don’t get this energy away from the superior function, whence is it to come? If you leave all your energy and will in the superior function you slowly go to hell — it sucks you dry. Normal people are those who can live under any circumstances without developing protests, but there are certain people in whom various conditions of life develop a protest. Take for example the effort to live a rounded life; it is most expensive. Today to bring up the inferior function is to live, but we pay dearly for it both in mistakes and in energy.

Sometimes it is not our choice — the inferior function takes us unawares. Such a situation presented itself at the time of the spread of Christianity two thousand years ago. The spiritual values had at that time sunk into the unconscious, and in order to realize them again, people had to go to tremendous lengths in the repudiation of material values. Gold, women, art — all had to be given up. Many even had to withdraw into the desert in order to free themselves from the world. Finally they came to the point of giving up life itself, and they were confronted with the arena and with being roasted alive. All this came to them through the growth of a psychological attitude. They were sacrificed because they undermined the most sacred ideals of the time. They threatened the disruption of the Roman family by their theological disputes. They refused to consider the Emperor divine. The effect they had on the collective viewpoint was similar to that produced today when anything is said against the god of Western Europe — Respectability. We today are also looking for certain other values. We seek life, not efficiency, and this seeking of ours is directly against the collective ideals of our times. Only those who have energy enough, or who have been gripped in spite of themselves, can go through this process, but once in it you have to bleed for it. It is a process that is going on all over the world today.

Mr. Robertson: What forced people into this attitude two thousand years ago?

Dr. Jung: People could see no other way of meeting the extreme to which paganism had led.

The reversal of attitude which Christianity induced took the juice out of the literature and the art of the time. According to the philologists, everything of value disappeared then; only a faint flame remaining burning in Apuleius. But as a matter of fact, it was simply that the main stream of creative power left the channel dug by antiquity and sought a new bed. A new literature and art grew up, of which Tertullian is an example. The libido went over into spiritual values and an enormous change took place in human mentality in three hundred years. These collective movements are always hard for the individual to sustain. They grip people from the unconscious without their being able to know what has happened to them. Thus the literature of those days was full of a sickish sentimentality — the spark had gone from the conscious standpoint and was buried in the unconscious. These people in the early Christian era were unaware of the general movement contemporaneous with them. They could not realize they were Christians, yet they were seeking initiation into all sorts of mysteries in search of the thing Christianity was offering. They could not accept it because of its origin in the hands of despised peoples.

Most of the troubles of our times come from this lack of realization that we are part of a herd that has deviated from the main currents. When you are in a herd you lose the sense of danger, and this it is that makes us unable to see where we deviate from the deep currents of collectivity.

- Carl Jung Depth Psychology