We are all feeling types

We are all feeling types

One of the biggest misconceptions in personality typology is that the feeling function is about feelings. 

Feeling is about feeling into what we perceive through our intuition or sensation, and then accepting or rejecting it. It is a rational process, like thinking, because it is about evaluating.

To make it even more confusing (or fun!), Jung said that extraverted feeling types can “sometimes be the coldest person on earth.” As Marie-Louise von Franz says in Lectures on Jung’s Typology: “people who have differentiated feeling are, in a hidden way, calculating.”

Introverted feeling types, per von Franz, are “difficult to understand…Feeling is very strong, but it does not flow towards the object. It is rather like being in a state of love with oneself.” She also compares it to the “flow of hot lava from a volcano” that moves very slowly “but it devastates everything in its way.”

There’s definitely an edge to being a feeling type!

Anyway, here is something I’ve been pondering lately: Since none of the four functions (intuition, sensation, thinking, and feeling) are directly about emotions themselves, how do we understand type in relation to emotions?

If we can reconcile the thinking/feeling polarity within each of us, that could help us develop what Chinese philosophy calls the “heart-mind.” 

I recently learned about the heart-mind from The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life by Michael Puett. Chinese philosophy—especially Taoism—influenced Jung, so I was eager to read this book after hearing about how Puett’s classes are among the most popular at Harvard.

In Chinese, the word xin refers to both mind and heart. Those who cultivate their heart-mind are able to navigate life well, balancing reason and feeling. As Puett explains, wise decisions don’t come from intellect alone—they come from an integration of both mind and heart.

How can we develop this heart-mind? 

Pay attention to your physical sensations during acts of kindness. That’s the “sprout of goodness” within you. 

“In this way, you are not growing your goodness in the abstract: you are learning through every step of this process how to sow the conditions in which it can thrive,” according to Puett.

That’s easier said than done for those of us who aren’t sensation types and forget to pay attention to our bodies.

Think of yourself as a farmer. Rather that focusing on setting long term goals and five-year plans, you cultivate different parts of yourself:

You can’t plan out how everything in your life will play out. But you can think in terms of creating the conditions in which things will likely move in certain directions: the conditions that allow for the possibility of rich growth. By doing all this, you are not just being a farmer. You are also the results of the farmer’s work. You become the fruit of your labor.

That’s easier said than done for those of us who are intuitive types and like to begin with the end in mind.

Become aware of what triggers your emotions on a daily basis. Then strive to change them for the better.

What are the patterned habits, the entrenched narratives, through which you perceive the world? Does your partner’s criticizing you for the way you load the dishwasher trigger memories of your own childhood, when you were constantly made to feel inept? Do you tend to placate friends instead of being assertive because you feel unworthy of expressing a strong opinion?

Become more comfortable with ambiguity. When we let go of rigid expectations and don’t have “cherished outcomes,” what’s left is the heart-mind to guide us through life’s complexities.

Just like individuation isn’t a solo effort, cultivating the heart-mind isn’t only about inner balance—it’s about engaging more deeply with the world and others.

It teaches us that both feeling and thinking work best when they are aligned. Although some of us identify more strongly with the feeling function than others, the capacity for heart-mind wisdom resides in all of us.

_____________________

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How you can influence the archetypes…and the world

How you can influence the archetypes…and the world

Astrology, personality typology, and working with dreams and the I Ching can all lead to a dead end of passive introspection if we aren’t careful.

That’s not necessarily a fun thing for my introverted intuitive self to contemplate! But it must be done. After all, it’s immoral to focus on individuation and not pay it back, as Jung wrote in The Symbolic Life.

Or as James Hillman said, “You make soul by living life, not by retreating from the world into ‘inner work’ or beyond the world in spiritual disciplines and meditation.”

Currently the terrain we are navigating as a collective includes a dynamite-like Mars Uranus conjunction in Taurus, which perfects on Monday.

The Mars-Uranus archetype is the Rebel. Its themes include sudden urges for freedom and independence, recklessness, sudden breakthroughs, angry outbursts, and erratic behavior.

Unfortunately, here in the United States we already have one major Mars-Uranus event at the collective level, which is in the headlines all over the world.

Passively thinking about a transit like this, especially in regards to one’s own chart, can lead to anxiety and viewing the energies as a threat.

An alternative is to instead view this Mars-Uranus Rebel as an invited guest that comes “in the service of health and wholeness,” the same way dreams do, per Jeremy Taylor.

You could totally flip the script and actually have an influence on the Rebel (or any other archetype):

“Each time an individual overcomes fear and creatively embodies the Willing Sacrifice in his or her dreams and waking life, the archetypal energies themselves are influenced and helped to change and evolve. … Whether or not we can measure either aspect of this influence doesn’t matter; at its worst, this is a useful way to imagine the “unknowable,” and at best it is true.”

Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill by Jeremy Taylor

The language of the I Ching helps describe the type of situations we likely might face as we hang out with this Rebel: the polarity of Conflict and Holding Together.

For those of us in the United States, the type of culture in which this is happening is ESTJ, top-heavy in extraverted thinking, with extraverted feeling in the deepest recesses of its shadow.

“Beebe notes that extraverted feeling is oriented towards connecting with the emotions of others. When differentiated at a group level, it fosters ‘mutual trust and the harmonious working of groups’. Authentic empathy for the moral injury of identity groups other than one’s own is the necessary foundation for coordinated political action.”

Mark Hunziker and Peter Dunlap, Journal of Analytical Psychology, November 2021 issue

Fortunately, within the Conflict there is always the seed of Holding Together. We could have an influence on the Rebel archetype by bringing out our individual and collective extraverted thinking to help us Hold Together.

Then we can start to think beyond just my personality type, Mars-Uranus in my chart, my dream, my Conflict, to include our type, our Mars-Uranus experience, and seeing the collective elements in our dreams. This is how we become psychological citizens.

Mark Hunziker writes about how many psychological citizens engage in “Listening and empathy circles, ‘one-on-ones’ that invite activists to share their stories with one another. and many other practices.”

Jeremy Taylor wrote about the power of dream groups: “Working with dreams in groups helps us overcome the sense of isolation that we all feel from time to time, bringing us into more meaningful contact with one another. This renewal of community has an effect on the shape of society as a whole.”

The journey towards individuation is not merely an inward quest, but a call to engage with the world and its challenges, embracing both our inner and outer Rebels.

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8 Things I Learned from John Beebe in 8 Hours

8 Things I Learned from John Beebe in 8 Hours

I had the honor of attending eight hours of virtual instruction from John Beebe about psychological types.

This was part of the training for the Jungian Studies Program at the Jung Institute of Chicago.

I have written many posts about Beebe’s work over the years to help me understand it better, so it was a thrill to hear directly from Beebe himself and be able to ask him some questions.

Here are eight things I learned:

  1. Jung’s typology is practical and pragmatic. Sensation names what is, Feeling determines it worth, Intuition shows where it is going, and Thinking figures out what it means.
  2. Most of us have an aspirational type. Even Jung himself! Jung wanted to believe he was an introverted thinking type (INTP). But per Beebe he was an INTJ, which is why Jung was able to explain his material so that Americans in particular could understand it.
  3. Jung’s psychology is a psychology of the person in the psyche, not just defenses and syndromes. Beebe’s term for this is “personology.” It shows us how the person self-organizes. This is also known as “complexity theory,” which explains how the complexes we have tend to group together and self-organize. Beebe’s 8 function model is based on this. As he said, “We are never more than a complexity out of which consciousness is slowly emerging.”
  4. Jung’s psychology is a self-psychology, not an ego psychology. Beebe considers Jung a precursor to self-psychology. Self-psychology bolsters the self, with an emphasis on mirroring and empathy.
  5. The USA is an extraverted thinking (ESTJ) country. In fact, its four functions are Extraverted Thinking (Te), Extraverted Sensation (Se), extraverted intuition (Ne), and Introverted Feeling (Fi). This is a very imbalanced type, with three extraverted functions and inferior feeling. A normal function stack alternates between two introverted and two extraverted functions.
  6. Dreams are more like analogies than metaphors. When Beebe writes down a dream, he prefaces it with the words “It is exactly as if…” An analogy is in exact proportion to something. A metaphor is an exaggeration for the sake of emphasis (example: “My love is like a red red rose”). Dreams also tend to reflect our type and sometimes even a better or more enhanced version of it.
  7. Our type should not be viewed as “This is who I am!” Beebe said the hexagrams of the I Ching show that there are types of situations, rather than fixed types of people. Therefore our type is more fluid and situational. This was in response to my question to him about how the eight trigrams compare to the eight functions. In discussing this point with my analyst, who also has expertise in the I Ching, he said that the hexagrams we receive when asking a question would take our type into account. By the way, Beebe said he is working on a book about the hexagrams! I can’t wait.
  8. Typology has a value for sorting out self-experience. Beebe showed us several movie clips from Broadcast News (an ESTJ movie) and The Grifter (an ISFJ movie). Developing an eye for spotting the type of a movie, and the types of the characters in a movie, is a good practice for helping us sort out our own self-experiences using type.

If you are interested in learning more about typology, and Beebe’s work in particular, I’ll list some books below:

If you are new to typology, I recommend Personality Types: Jung’s Model of Typology by Daryl Sharp. In just over 100 pages he summarizes typology in a concise way that is easy to understand.

Building Blocks of Personality Type by Leona Haas and Mark Hunziker is an excellent introduction to Beebe’s 8 function model.

Lectures on Jung’s Typology by Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman is essential. It is one of the first type books I read. With its focus on the inferior function, it will help you identify your type if you currently are unsure about your type. Hillman’s essay on the feeling function is brilliant.

Once you have these basics down and understand the four main functions of the function stack, then it will be easier to understand Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type by John Beebe. Pair this book with Projection and Personality Development via the Eight-Function Model by Carol Shumate to complete your understanding of the model. Shumate’s book is superb and breaks everything down in a way that is easy to understand. Any lingering questions you have after reading Beebe’s book will be answered by Shumate’s.

Feel free to contact me if you want more book recommendations or have any questions.

Continue Reading8 Things I Learned from John Beebe in 8 Hours

7 things every astrologer should know about personality types and Myers-Briggs

7 things every astrologer should know about personality types and Myers-Briggs

Knowledge of Jungian personality typology can help an astrologer sharpen their predictions and better understand themeselves and their clients.

If you practice astrology, and like blending in elements of depth psychology, typology is a great addition to your practice.

Jungian typology is what eventually led me to astrology. I have found that the two work well together and there is no need to abandon one for the other. They are a potent combination.

Typology gives you more information than the chart does about the person’s energy flow and their eight energetic pathways (cognitive functions) as well as their shadow tendencies. It provides a more complete picture of the person.

When you only have an hour to meet with someone, and are likely only ever meeting once with the person, or perhaps once per year, astrology plus typology helps the person come away with practical information they can use.

Here are the 7 things astrologers should know about typology:

1. Typology is an archetypal language, just like astrology – In the Jungian world, individuation (wholeness) is an archetypal process; its patterns are universal but the specifics are unique to each person, which is where type comes into play, just like astrology does.

There are four main functions, which Marion Woodman describes as: “Sensation is what is. Feeling is its value. Thinking is what it means. And intuition is its possibilities.” When adding the attitude of intuition or extraversion to those four functions you get the eight total functions. When comparing these functions to astrology, Jung correlated sensation to earth, fire with intuition, air with thinking, and water with feeling.

Jung also viewed type as a mandela, just like a natal chart is a mandela. Jungian analyst John Beebe, M.D., who considers himself a “geographer of typology,” added another circle of eight archetypes to represent the positions in the psyche where the types can appear. These eight roles are: Hero, Parent, Child, Anima/Animus, Opposing Personality, Critical Parent (Witch/Senex), Trickster, Demon. I have posts about these which are listed on this page. These eight facets of the personality are similar in some ways to the 12 houses in astrology and certain astrological configurations.

Beebe also adds a “spine” and “arms” to type. The arms are the middle two functions of the personality, which we use when interacting with others. This could be compared, among other things, to the Moon and the 7th house in astrology. The spine consists of our superior hero function and inferior anima/animus function, which are focused on our identity. Comparables in astrology include the rising and Sun signs and difficult aspects. Beebe says holding both the inferior and superior functions in balance gives us integrity.

Now for a word about Myers-Briggs vs. Jungian typology: Myers-Briggs is quantitative and more helpful for the first half of life. It helps us strengthen our ego and adapt to the outer world. By contrast, Jungian typology is qualitative and more focused on individuation, which tends to be a project for the second half of life. It also is invaluable for dream work and shadow work, especially when using Beebe’s model. Beebe says that type development saves us from falling into our shadow.

2. The personality type gives clues as to how the person has responded to their natal karma. The chart itself can’t tell you that. For example, a natal Moon in the 12th house of Capricorn will mean a certain range of things archetypally. But how has the person responded to that placement throughout their life? Typology will provide some answers and help guide the questions we ask the client.

Astrologers often focus so much on the chart and pressure themsleves to try to unpack all the nuances before even meeting the person. Because an astrology consultation is usually a one-off occurrence, versus several sessions like in psychotherapy, it helps to have the language of type to get a baseline of the person. Astrologer and Jungian analyst Liz Greene emphasizes how the person always comes before the chart. We need to interact with them and experience something of their identify before providing delineations.

Liz Greene: “Even if we wish to restrict our interpretations to external events, nevertheless we still need to recognise that there is a human being who will respond to – and perhaps has even attracted or caused – the external event, and whose responses will be highly personal. The perception of an event is a highly subjective business. The event and the person are not separable. As Jung once said, a person’s life is characteristic of the person.”

3. Type is not a label and is not exact – A common criticism of type is that it isn’t possible for people to fit just one of 16 types – it is just another way of pigeonholing people into a label. The same is said about Sun sign astrology, that it isn’t possible for all people with a particular Sun sign to fit those characteristics. Those criticism are all valid. But just like any astrologer will tell you that astrology is far more nuanced than just Sun signs, so, too, with typology.

Some people will be closer to the bell curve than others but it’s best to think of tendencies rather than type. Rather than saying, “I am an ISFJ,” it is better to say, “I am someone with ISFJ tendencies.” That also moves us away from using type as a label.

As Jung said, “Every individual is an exception to the rule. Hence one can never give a description of a type, no matter how complete, that would apply to more than one individual, despite the fact that in some ways it aptly characterizes thousands of others. Conformity is one side of man, uniqueness is the other.”

4. Personality types change throughout the lifetime – Type is like an astrological transit. Just like certain parts of the chart are dormant and active at any given time, so, too with type.

Type is about energy. The changing psychic energetic flow is a snapshot of where we are at any give time. Factors such as environment, conditioning from others, the various roles we play in life, and more can bring out and potentially strengthen one or more of your weaker functions.

Jungian analyst Thomas Patrick Lavin said that a person who struggles with addiction sometimes lives entirely in their inferior function and it takes a year of sobriety for that to change. On the more positive end of the spectrum, he also said that 25% of people have their second and third functions reversed, because their environment during their first half of life pushed them to combine these things then instead of during the second half of life, and they tend to be creative people.

Regarding those two middle functions, Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s closest associate, said: “One must not forget that the assimilation of these functions is such a difficult task that people generally spend a very long time at it. Sometimes people actually become a certain type, which was not their original type, for eight or ten years.” For example, during the second half of life, an INFJ might find herself with more time to study topics of interest and develop the weaker introverted thinking function to such an extent that she might come across as an INTP type to some.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that, say, an INTJ can potentially morph into an ESFP or ENTP in their later years. What it can mean is that, if they have worked at becoming more conscious of those qualities within them, they can start reconciling those opposites. They will become an even more unique kind of INTJ.

This is similar to how astrological transits are harbingers of change and new themes but they do not override the natal promise in the birth chart.

5. Type cannot be discovered through an online test or from a natal chart – Both of these can give clues, but ultimately the person has to discover it through ongoing self-reflection, perhaps working with an analyst, and/or talking with others about how they perceive you. An astrologer with knowledge of typology can help a person with this self-discovery by looking at their chart with them.

As Liz Greene says: “One cannot evolve a formula to extract the psychological type of the individual from the horoscope; one must first experience it in the individual, and this knowledge should then be applied to the chart.”

It’s important to note that, for example, a stellium of planet in Taurus doesn’t automatically mean the person is a sensation type. This post of mine about questions to ask yourself to help you discover your personality type might be helpful.

6. Knowing your own type will help you become better at working with clients as an astrologer – Barbara Hannah, in her biography about Jung, said Jung was able to speak the language of every personality type, which was a great help when working with his patients.

If your delineations don’t make sense to the client, and assuming your astrological knowledge is sound, it is likely because the person is a different type from you. As an astrologer, if, for example, you have ENTP tendencies, and your client is likely INFJ, you’ll know to speak in a more focused way, keep the consultation structured, and not ask them multiple choice type questions.

When you know your own type, you will be able to develop the ability to pivot in your first four functions so that you don’t come on too strong with the client. You will especially learn to rely on your parent function.

7. Typology can sharpen your astrological predictions and provide better practical takeaways –

Although knowing what themes might be ahead can help us face them with equanimity, knowledge of that transit alone isn’t enough to foster that. Liz Greene writes about how some astrologers prefer to focus on the meaning of the transit, but it’s important to also have a sense of the person’s emotional patterns and empathy for difficulties the client may be going through:

For example, let’s say you have a client with ISFJ personality tendences. Let’s also say there is a lengthy Mars retrograde transit coming up in their rising sign. When offering the range of archetypal themes they may experience, one thing to point out to them is that they might find themselves being able to use their sha critical parent introverted feeling shadow function more consciously, such as by speaking up for themselves and being more assertive, and how that might end up bringing positive change. This differs from what you would say to someone who is an ENTJ and has a fire rising sign such as Aries.

Liz Greene warns us against focusing solely about the meaning of a transit or being too concretely predictive: “Talking about the ultimate meaning…may need to be combined with a genuine empathy for what the person is going through right now. This may be particularly important for those people who are rooted in feeling rather than thinking…” This is yet another way knowledge of type can help astrologers when talking about predictions.

In conclusion, typology provides a practical and interesting way to engage with Jungian psychology and deepen your astrology consultations. Also, type doesn’t require knowing someone’s birth time, like astrology does, so when interacting with clients and people in our everyday lives it gives us a way to understand their energy flow and speak their language.

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References:

Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type by John Beebe, M.D.

John Beebe’s interview with Joyce Meng

Marion Woodman and Robert Johnson in Conversation: Jungian Psychology Through the Eyes of Two Jungian Masters

Psychological Types by C.G. Jung

Psychological Types presentation by Thomas Patrick Lavin for the CG Jung Institute of Chicago

Lectures on Jung’s Typology by Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman

Relating by Liz Greene

Jung: His Life and Work by Barbara Hannah

Continue Reading7 things every astrologer should know about personality types and Myers-Briggs

Questions to Help You Identify Your Personality Type

Questions to Help You Identify Your Personality Type

The best way to determine your personality type is on your own through daily observations.

Eugene Pascal, in his book Jung to Live By, recommends starting by determining your inferior function: “Since it is the inferior function that always fouls up our daily life, simply observe if you fail most in perceiving reality via sensation or intuition or in evaluating reality via thinking or feeling.” He then provides questions to ponder, which I have summarized below. Keep in mind these are very broad and are meant to help you get in the general vicinity of your type:

  • Do others tell you that you do not perceive objective reality very well? That you miss the obvious? That you are a dreamer? That you always show up late for appointments, if at all? If so, your sensation function is causing you trouble and you are probably an intuitive type (INFJ, INTJ, ENFP, and ENTP).
  • Do others accuse you of not being able to read between the lines, of not being able to see behind the facades people present to you, of taking everything literally or of being gullible, than you are most likely a sensation type (ISTJ, ISFJ, ESTP, ESFP).
  • Do others accuse you of putting your foot in your mouth and saying inappropriate things? Of being cold and of being staunchly moral but unethical? Then you are probably a thinking type (INTP, ISTP, ENTJ, ESTJ).
  • Are you hopeless at making logical inferences, are a bad mathematician, misinterpret other people’s intentions and motivations and gush effusively at everything that happens outwardly or inwardly, or if you keep the gushing all bottled up, you are probably a feeling type (INFP, ISFP, ESFJ, ENFJ).

For more about the inferior function, I recommend Lectures on Jung’s Typology by Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman. Naomi Quenk’s books are excellent too.

Once you have the inferior function type determined, you can narrow it down a little more by determining if you are J or P. Carol Shumane, author of my favorite typology book, Projection and Personality Development via the Eight-Function Model, which clearly explains John Beebe’s 8 function model, says that it is actually difficult to determine if one is primarily extraverted or introverted. Therefore she advises by starting out to determine if you are J or P, as that is easiest to identify:

  • Select J or P in your type code. To do this, consider two questions:

Did you appear organized or messy during your childhood?

Do you like to have structure and plans (J), or do you have a strong need for freedom from constraints (P)?

This narrows it down to either a P or J type. Table 1 in the book goes into more detail and provides visual clues as well. The P functions are extraverted sensation (Se), extraverted intuition (Ne), introverted thinking (Ti) and introverted thinking (Fi). The J functions arer introverted sensation (Si), introverted intuition (Ni), extraverted thinking (Te), and extraverted feeling (Fe). She instructs you to choose your top two functions from all eight.

The appendixes in the back of the book with tables showing how each function displays itself in each of the 8 function roles, and the 16 type profiles, are worth the price of the book.

To further refine your observations about your type to help determine which of the 16 types might be the best fit, I recommend my post on journal prompts to use on a daily basis.

Jungian analyst Thomas Patrick Lavin recommends re-evaluating your type once a year, to see if the energy flow has changed. I think that is a great idea. Most of us are not an exact type, and it fluctuates throughout life.

I’ll close with a quote from Shumate about why it is worth discovering your type and the type of others:

“We judge others through the filter of our own psychological type. Knowledge of psychological type enables an understanding that some personality types are in constant motion whereas others tend to be still, that some types are verbose and others untalkative, that some types have a flat affect and others are animated. Jung’s type system saves us from the error of attributing such personality characteristics to grief or remorse, or to guilt or innocence. It helps us distinguish the core self from the mask of personality. [Emphasis mine]

Shumate also says: The result of [Jung’s] effort, Psychological Types, succeeded to the extent that it has been called “the world’s greatest treatise on tolerance” by Jungian analyst Rafael López-Pedraza.” [Emphasis mine]

Continue ReadingQuestions to Help You Identify Your Personality Type

Archetypes of the eight functions of the personality

Archetypes of the eight functions of the personality

I was delighted to discover archetypes for the eight functions in Michael Pierce’s book Motes and Beams: A Neo-Jungian Theory of Personality. Even better, these archetypes are from the I Ching. This is the first time I’ve seen the I Ching used in personality typology outside of Human Design. I’m also excited to see how these can be used with John Beebe’s archetypes for each role of the functions.

If you aren’t familiar with the I Ching, it is an ancient Taoist Chinese text comprised of 64 hexagrams and commentary of the meaning of the hexgram. There are eight main trigrams and a hexagram is made out of two of the eight three-line trigrams, for a total of six lines in the hexagram. Using coin tosses or yarrow stalks one can pose a question and receive an answer in the form of two hexagrams. There are 4,096 possible combinations and the answer you receive is often eerily accurate. Jung used the I Ching and was close friends with Richard Wilhelm, the first English translator of the I Ching. Jungian analyst John Beebe is an expert in the I Ching.

For the purposes of typology, Pierce focuses on the symbolism eight trigrams for the eight functions. But first, Pierce starts with the four binaries of the I Ching and compares them with the four functions The broken line (— —) represents receptivity and is yin. The unbroken line (——) represents lack of receptivity and is yang. Therefore the four binaries and the four functions are as follows:

The eight trigrams include a third line added to the above binaries. According to Pierce, a third line that is unbroken represents introversion. A third line that is broken represents extraversion. Below are the eight trigrams and the personality function that he assigns to each one. Keep in mind that the bottom line of the trigram is the first line and the foundation. The third line is the top or “roof.”

Extraverted Sensation (Se), Earth – With three broken yin lines, earth is the most receptive of the eight trigrams. Its symbol is earth because it is “plowed and sown” and receives from Heaven. According to Pierce, “Se is the function that deals with the most raw, unworked material, direct from the world.


Introverted Feeling (Fi), Heaven – With three unbroken lines, this is the most yang and unreceptive function. According to Pierce, “Fi is the made-up mind…Opinions are usually in conflict, so there is no room left for receptivity or compromise. Fi poses ideals and goals; it is the sun beyond Kant’s horizon of reason, drawing one on to greater heights (and depths). It is the expression of Man’s active hoping.”

Introverted Sensation (Si), Mountain – The unbroken line and two broken lines represent a mountain. Pierce says, “It is assertive of its own unassertiveness. While Se seeks external presence, Si seeks internal presence: it represents reality to itself in a way that is personally meaningful. Thus, like the earth, it endures all thiings; yet, unlike the earth, it remains fundamentally unchanged, except by the greatest and most sustained efforts against it.”

Extraverted Feeling (Fe), Wind – This is the opposite of the Si mountain with a broken line followed by two unbroken lines. As Pierce says, “Wind penetrates the thickest fortress walls with its infinite powers of diffusion. Just so, Fe penetrates the heart of the public – either with a breeze, or with a raging, overzealous hurricane, that can sweep the multitudes along.”

Introverted Intuition (Ni), Fire – A broken line between two unbroken lines. It is assertive in the same way fire “asserts” itself on its surroundings. Pierce says,”The seeds of fire lie in the earth (Se) and its products, dead grass and trees. Fire begins with a spark (the epiphany), and the Idea begins to smolder, dance and blaze, casting more and more light upon its environment, until it even rivals the stars. But this tremendous radiance is all dependent upon a receptive core, its eartly fuel source. It is a nothing that affects everything around it.”

Extraverted Thinking (Te), Water – An unbroken line between two broken lines. Pierce contrasts this with fire. Fire has arises upwards from an insubstantial center, where water has a substantial center, has weight, and rushes downward. Interestingly, Pierce says Te completes a cycle. “Earth (Se) sparks a fire (Ni), which rises into the heavens (Fi), from which rain waters down (Te) and runs back down into the earth (Se).” I like how he describe the motion in type.

Extraverted Intuition (Ne), Thunder – There are two broken lines with an unbroken line as the roof. Like Fire (Ni), thunder is caused by a spark or epiphany. Pierce says, “but unlike fire, which escalates, thunder is a concentrated burst of energy…The two broken lines indicate reception, namely, of static change, leading up to the consummate systole of energy (the top line) and the subsequent rousing percussion of the thunderclap. The mountain (Si) often serves as the grounding rod for this energy, because of its height. Thus, the Ne brainstorm, lancing and daggering the sky in every direction, finds its grounding in Si.

Introverted Thinking (Ti), Lake – There are two unbroken lines with a broken line as the roof. This is the opposite of Ne (Thunder) and, per Pierce, “represents resting water. … the lake is a rush of energy settling down to a halt. The water has finished running downhill for the time being, and now stands open to receive. Now, like Si, it is essentially unmoving. Ti has worked out is fundamental principles, and all that is left is to live by them.”

Putting it all together with the John Beebe archetypes

I like how visual and practical the I Ching archtypes are and am interested in how they can work with Beebe’s archetypes for the roles of each function: Hero, Parent, Child (Puer), Anima/Animus and shadow functions of Opposing Personality, Witch/Senex, Trickster, and Demon. (For fun, here is a post I did where I picked a tarot card for each of Beebe’s functions).

For example, someone with an INTJ type would have Fire as their Hero function, Water as their Parent function, Heaven as their Child function, and Earth as their anima/animus function. This provides a more complete picture of the personality and captures the movement between functions. The online typology communities often differ on how to define the eight functions, so starting with the trigrams provides a solid starting place.

I’ve thought about which astrological symbols might correlate to the eight functions, but there are only seven traditional planets and there are 12 zodiac signs, which is too many. Jung and Liz Greene say that the fire signs are intuition, the earth signs are sensation, air signs are thinking, and water signs are feeling. But that quickly falls apart when you start looking at the eight functions, which is why astrology is better for calculating temperament (here is my recent post on the melancholy temperament). You can work with both your temperament and personality type for a deeper understanding of yourself.

What do you think about the I Ching trigrams and the personality functions?  Feel free to contact me if you have any comments questions.

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Sources:

Motes and Beams: A Neo-Jungian Theory of Personality by Michael Pierce pgs 28-32

The I Ching by Richard Wilhelm

I created the graphics in this post using stock images in Canva.

Continue ReadingArchetypes of the eight functions of the personality

Tarot cards for the eight personality archetypes

Tarot cards for the eight personality archetypes

For fun I decided to find a tarot card that matches up with each of the eight John Beebe personality archetypes. This can be an aid to journaling about your personality and also gives you a visual to draw upon when you consciously use a function in a situation.

Here is a Jungian take on exploring the archetypal characters within us:

Jung believed that our disposition to experience the heroes, villains, lovers, and despots in ourselves derives from archetypal, which is to say, ancient, universal character formations that are the root structures of our psyches…in our deeper or fuller consciousness we are multiple beings…we have many personalities within us. Some of these other selves are surprisngly close to consciousness and can be awakened quite easily by the use of theater games and guided imagery exercises.

Other Lives, Other Selves by Roger Woogler, p. 34

In astrology, there is a tarot card for each 10 degree slice of a zodiac sign (three cards per sign). These 10 degree slices are called decans. Decans were the earliest form of astrology beginning in the third millennium BCE. In the early 1900’s the Golden Dawn assigned a tarot card to each decan and the decans influenced the symbolism in the Rider Waite Smith deck.

I really enjoy the blending of tarot with astrology in that way and want to give a try at doing that with the personality types. I’ve seen tarot cards used to represent a single personality type, but let’s take a look at tarot cards for each of the 8 functions.

Here goes:

Hero function: The Sun. The Sun represents being seen for who you truly are. There is clarity, success, enthusiasm, feeling safe to be yourself. Wholeness and health. I find that this card resonates most with me for the hero archetype. There are other candidates too, like The Magician, Six of Wands, and Strength, so use whichever one resonates. The Sun’s opposite is the Moon, which I chose for the anima/animus (inferior) function, so that’s also why I settled on the Sun.

Parent function: The Empress/Emperor. The Empress is associated with the archetype of the mother. She is an emotional leader and represents unconditional love, nature, creativity. The Emperor is associated with the archetype of the traditional father. He represents stability, authority, and masculinity.

Eternal Child (Puer) function: The Fool. The Fool is innocent and unaware and at the beginning of the journey. This correlates well to the Eternal Child, which is a weaker function and where we remain child-like.

Anima/Animus function. The Moon. The Moon represents are deepest fears and being carried along by forces we pretend to understand. It represents being in the dark about something and acting instinctively. On the positive end, The Moon reminds us that the anima/animus (inferior) function is the gateway to the unconscious and the importance of dream work and shadow work.

Opposing Personality – The Hanged Man. The Hanged Man represents looking at things from a different perspective. Letting go, martyrdom, self-sacrifice, facing doubts. To me this matches up well with what is is like to use the function that is opposite our hero function.

Critical Parent/Senex/Witch – 10 of Swords. 10 of Swords represents feeling hurt, criticized, stabbed in the back. It is opposite the Parenting function, and in the absence of proper parenting, the card represents feeling like you have to take care of everyone and the exhaustion that entails.

The Trickster – 7 of Swords. This card is the sneak. It represents lying or using manipulation to get out of or control a situation.

Demon – The Devil. Beebe says that the demon function is the part of us that is both devil and angel, so I chose the Devil card to represent this function. The Tower would work too. The Devil represents being chained to a person or situation. Darkness, chaos, destructive behavior, wanting what is forbidden are all part of The Devil.

I’d love to hear what you think about these tarot card associations and if you came up with any different ones. If you get this blog post by email, just click reply to email me. Otherwise click here for my contact page.

Continue ReadingTarot cards for the eight personality archetypes

How to discover your personality type through journaling

How to discover your personality type through journaling

Although it can be helpful to work with a typologist or Jungian analyst to discover your personality type, doing much of the work on your own will be even more meaningful, as it gets you in touch with your inner self.

Journaling is one of the best methods you can use for this process as it helps you keep track of trends over time. As author and Jungian Analyst Daryl Sharp wrote:

In the area of typology, as with any attempt to understand oneself, there is no substitute for prolonged self-reflection.

Personality Types by Daryl Sharp, p. 94

The daily journal prompts below draw from Jungian analyst John Beebe’s archetypal typology model, but they will work for any Jungian-based typology system, such as MBTI and Objective Personality.

I phrased these questions as archetypes because it important to not use the language of the functions in your journal entries. Refrain from saying “I used my Fe today while listening to my co-worker talk.” Instead say something like, “I “parented” my neighbor today by listening to her talk about her problems.” Don’t make assumptions about which function you are using. Instead, tell the story of how that archetypal role was apparent in your life that day.

Here are the prompts:

  1. How did I act heroically today? This can be any activity you did effortlessly or in a flow state.
  2. Did I “parent” anyone today? Described how you helped someone in a way that came naturally to you.
  3. How did my inner eternal child show itself today? This can be a situation where someone else “parented” you and provided help in area you aren’t strong in. It can also be something you were enthusiastic about in a child-like way.
  4. Did I get triggered in a positive or negative way today? This helps you track the “other” within you that gets overly upset when your ideals aren’t met and overjoyed when they are. Pay particular attention to surges of emotions you felt in your body.

Once you have settled on what your personality type might be you can continue to use these prompts to help you become less one-sided in your personality, which is the entire point of knowing your personality type, so that you can become the unique personality that you are.

Continue ReadingHow to discover your personality type through journaling

The language of personality types

The language of personality types

The best way to make personality typology practical is to use it as a language when talking with people.

In her biography about Carl Jung, Barbara Hannah notes that Jung was able to speak the “language” of every type:

Jung was able to speak the “language” of every type. Just as he took a lot of trouble to learn the languages of his patients (English, French, and so on), so he learned to put things into the language of the psychological type to whom he was talking. Not that people can be classified in sharply defined types, but if someone is always concerned with what a thing means (thinking) he just does not understand if you speak in terms of values (feeling), for example.

Jung: A Biography by Barbara Hannah, p. 133

I find it helpful to use John Beebe’s archetypes and definitions of the functions to think through how this would work in real life.

If a person with an INFJ type is discussing travel arrangements with an ISFJ, the conversation won’t go as well if the INFJ uses his “hero” introverted intuition and focuses on how he wants to go to Scotland because he has always felt drawn there and has a sense it will be a meaningful experience even though he can’t explain why. It would be more helpful for the INFJ to use their “parent” extraverted feeling function to present some details he knows will resonate with the ISFJ and help convincer her it is a good destination, such as hotel reviews, airplane ticket costs, possible tours to go on, and so forth.

Conversely, if it is the ISFJ making the suggestion for a travel destination, she would do well to not bog the INFJ down with details about a possible trip, but use her “parent” extraverted feeling function to first describe the vision and big picture of such a trip. The To-Do list can wait until later.

If an ESTJ type wants to discuss a potential bathroom remodel with her INTP, talking about her plans and To Do lists and the best process with her “hero” extraverted thinking function wouldn’t be the most effective. To help get him on board with the idea, she would do well to open the conversation with explaining why it is necessary to remodel the bathroom. She can use her “parent” introverted sensation function to select the right details to help him understand the goal, from which they can then proceed to talk further and get into the planning stage.

It takes work to communicate this way, and isn’t feasible for every interaction, obviously. But when you want to have an important conversation with someone, it’s worth taking a few moments to consider how to communicate with the person in a way that will resonate with the hero function of their personality type.

Continue ReadingThe language of personality types

The middle two functions of the personality: are there “jumpers?”

The middle two functions of the personality: are there “jumpers?”

The Objective Personality system expands the personality types to include “jumpers:” types where the third function is more used or respected than the second function. For example, an INFJ type could respect their third Ti (introverted thinking) function more than their second function of Fe (extraverted feeling).

This concept is not exclusive to Objective Personality and actually originates with Jungian typology. Carl Jung said that during the first half of life the middle two functions are vying for the second slot in order to “help” the ego. This is the source of most problems in the first half of life:

For example, if an individual has differentiated introverted feeling as a superior function, most problems in the first half of life will have to do with the opposition between sensing and intuiting, either in the extraverted or introverted modes, trying to align with the superior introverted feeling function. Through the opposition another function is being differentiated out for consciousness.

Typically for Jung only in the second half of life does one truly get into the problem of opposites involving the superior and inferior function in the classic sense described, for example, in Chapter IV [of Psychological Types]

Jung’s Typology in Perspective by Angelo, p. 160

Therefore the personality type of someone into their 30’s or so is going to fluctuate due to this jumper-type activity. Furthermore, Jung thought that for most people, the auxiliary function remains mostly unconscious, so getting too nuanced about type wouldn’t have been of much interest to him.

Jungian analyst Joseph Henderson, who worked closely with Jung, thought everyone was a jumper type, and said that his own type was Ne/Fe (an ENTP with extraverted feeling preference). Jungian analyst John Beebe, however, thinks this is a mistake:

Even those who recognized both Jo Wheelwright’s intuition and his feeling (and there were many who could only see one or the other of these functions when engaged by him) did not always know what to call them (some thought Jo’s extraverted intuition was simply intrusiveness, or narcissism), and few could figure out which of these functions was primary and which secondary (most people assumed that he had ‘extraverted feeling’ as his main modus operandi, not realizing, I believe, that they were conflating the extraversion of his superior function (intuition) with the availability or readiness of his auxiliary function (introverted feeling). This kind of conflation of the two leading functions into one—comprising the attitude of the dominant and the function of the auxiliary—is a very easy mistake to make in attempting type diagnosis.  [emphasis mine]

Energies and Patterns of Psychological Type by John Beebe

Therefore, before coming to the conclusion someone has a jumper tendency in their type, one should check and see if you are conflating the attitude portion (i.e. the extraversion or introversion ) of the dominant function with the second/auxiliary function.

Marie-Louise von Franz said it was possible for someone to develop the third/tertiary function before developing the second/auxiliary function.

One of my issues with jumper types is that a jumper type would have the problem of being even more one-sided than a regular type because the top two functions (called “saviors” in Objective Personality typology) would both be either extraverted or introverted.

Overall I agree with Beebe that the order of the four functions is qualitative and not strictly linear at all times, because the archetypal roles of the personality (Hero, Parent, Child, Anima/Animus) display differently in each person. He also says that “a century of type research” has verified that the functions do not express the same way in each person. There is “normal variation” in the “strength and reliability of the functions” according to the preferences of that individual.

We all have our jumper moments. As Beebe says, “It is as if [the functions] form an interacting cast of characters through which the different functions may express themselves in the ongoing drama of self and shadow that is anyone’s lived psychological life.”

Continue ReadingThe middle two functions of the personality: are there “jumpers?”