The “opposing personality” is an archetype created by Jungian psychologist John Beebe, M.D.

This function is opposite the Hero (superior) function in your personality type. Beebe describes it in the language of character pathology as “oppositional, paranoid, passive-aggressive, and avoidant.” It is the cluster of defenses we use to oppose others rather than work with them. He says it is hard to see in yourself and falls within the blind spot of the superior function.

The opposing personality is a primary resource of defense, a part of us that tends to lurch forward first when we feel our heroic superior function and its most cherished values to be under attack.

John Beebe, Energies and Patterns of Psychological Type, p. 132

In situations where we are forced to use our opposing function, the negative traits of that function will be on display. For example, an INFJ who is forced to brainstorm on the spot, which requires using extraverted intuition, may do so in cranky and oppositional way. Beebe describes that, as an ENTP, he has to use introverted intuition to describe archetypes, and pointed out how in his book he often ended up using negative, oppositional examples.

The opposing personality shows up as one of two places in the psyche as the opposite sex figure. Beebe says that a man in the grip of his opposing personality “may make ‘bitchy’ remarks or unleash a seductive charm whose purpose is to exercise control over others.” A woman might exhibit it as being overly competitive, angry, or spiteful.

The opposing personality is one of four functions that make up your shadow side. The shadow side is the part of us we repress because it is incompatible with our values. The shadow functions allow us to name these aspects of ourselves and make them more conscious The other three shadow functions are trickster, senex, and demon. I’ll write about senex next, so stay tuned.

The hero is he who is immovably centered – Ralph Waldo Emerson

All of us know what a hero is and, without much effort, can think of individuals we consider heroes and are able to identify hero figures in literature and movies. But we can also look inward to find a hero, because we have a hero within us in the form of the lead/dominant function of our personality.

Jungian analyst John Beebe expanded the four function model of Myers-Briggs to an eight function model of the personality and assigned archetypes to each one. We are the most conscious of our dominant function. In depth psychology the hero archetype represents the ego, so Beebe gave this function the name of the hero archetype. As Jung said, “Consciousness needs a centre, an ego to which something is conscious.” (Psychological Types, paragraph 506).

The hero function, combined with the inferior anima/animus function, forms the “spine” of the personality. This spine, per Beebe, is “the axis of our relation to self.” He says that this spine is a “plumb line of personhood that develops between superior function hero and inferior function anima ]…]When this happens, a personality can bloom, and the personal self will acquire more affective coloration, cohesion, and temporal stability than before.”

Below I’ll list brief descriptions of how each of the eight cognitive functions displays itself in the hero archetype. I included links to my full posts on each function:

Hero Te (Extroverted Thinking) – The environment of things must be efficiently organized and mechanically correct.

Hero Ti (Introverted Thinking) – Intellectual clarity. Life must make technical sense to the individual’s understanding.

Hero Fe (Extroverted Feeling) – The environment of people must be socially friendly.

Hero Fi (Introverted Feeling) – Life must be humanely congruent to the individual’s values.

Hero Ne (Extroverted Intuition) – The environment of patterns must be scanned for alternative hypothetical possibilities. Makes remarkable inferences.

Hero Ni (Introverted Intuition) – Life must be “filled in” by the individual’s subconscious impressions.

Hero Se – The physical environment must be scanned for opportunities for action in the present and tangible experiences.

Hero Si – Recognition of the natural order of things. Life must be familiar to the individual’s storehouse of practical data.

The hero function is the only one of the eight functions that is measured by how strong it is. This will be important to keep in mind while studying the archetypes of the other 7 functions:

As we move beyond the heroic first function, however, we should recognize that not all of the eight functions follow hero psychology in being measurable by their degree of strength.

They do not, in actual experience, follow a descending hierarchy of differentiation from first (superior) through fourth (inferior) to eighth. Rather, the strength, and the kind of strength, a function of consciousness displays is a consequence of the archetypal role associated with it, and archetypes are differently developed in different people. The numbering of the positions is a bit of an anachronism, left over from the early days of Jungian psychology and of Isabel Briggs Myers’s adaptation of that psychology to the analysis of the MBTI findings. When I use numbering today, in these post-heroic times, the numbers are meant to be read as qualitative rather than quantitative, much the way the numbers of streets can be read in a well-differentiated city that one is intimately acquainted with. Thus the ‘second’ and ‘third’ functions are identified, like avenues in New York City, by the qualities experience has taught us to recognize when

p. 135

The opposite of the hero function is the “opposing personality” function, which is the shadow form of the hero function. Studying the opposite, and learning how to integrate it, will enhance your understanding and use of the hero function. My next post will be about the opposing personality function. Stay tuned!

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Source of the Beebe quotes in this post: Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type

The feeling function is about a lot more than feelings.

In fact, according to Marie-Louise von Franz, a person who seems full of feeling may not be a feeling type at all, but instead a thinking type with inferior feeling.

That’s because a feeling type ” disposes of feelings quite equanimously, may seem utterly devoid of feelings, distant and disinterested. Having feelings and using feeling is the difference between the contents and the process that organizes and expresses the contents.”

Feeling is the psychological process in us that evaluates.Feeling types can be intolerant of new values or deviations from values. A feeler doesn’t simply observe; he passes judgments and brings himself into relationships with what he evaluates. According to von Franz

Feeling types take time, so that often they inhibit movement with their slowness because they tune into an atmosphere. If it is not to their suiting, they subtly impose their feeling world or disturb the one taking place by undercutting it. If they do not like the atmosphere and cannot change it, they may spend the evening in silence, unable to take part at all, meanwhile passing silent judgments, or attempting, if extroverted, to turn things into adapted sociable channels. The importance of ideas, the beauty of wild intuitions, or sensations just as they are, are not enough. Things must be evaluated and related to.

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

Now let’s take a look at introverted feeling (Fi) specifically.

In the book Jung’s Function-Attitudes Explained, Henry L. Thompson says that introverted feeling types are the hardest to understand “because they allow so little of themselves to appear on the surface, and the wall surrounding them is almost impossible to scale.Jung used the phrase ‘Still waters run deep’ when describing this type because ‘their depth of feeling can only be guessed.’ Hillman described them as the ‘deep feelers.'”

Fi types judge people, things, and thoughts by their own internal values and don’t readily conform to society’s values.Jung said that Fi shows “little effort to respond to the real emotions of the other person.” Strangers aren’t show special attention and the easiest place to see Fi express their feelings is with their children. They differ from extroverted feeling (Fe) types in that they don’t enjoy interpersonal closeness with strangers.

According to Thompson, they can be “mistaken for thinking types because of their perceived lack of warmth and friendliness. Their outward appearance might seem cold at times.” They are inclined to shun large gatherings because their Fi becomes numbed when too much comes in at one time.

von Franz says Fi types exert “a positive secret influence on their surroundings.” And they “very often form the ethical backbone of a group, without irritating the others by preaching moral or ethical precepts; they themselves have such correct standards of ethical values that they secretly emanate a positive influence on those around them. One has to behave correctly because they have the right kind of value standard, which always suggestively forces one to be decent if they are present. Their differentiated introverted feeling sees what is inwardly the really important factor.”

Below is the infographic I made that describes all 8 archetypal roles of Fi. All personality types have Fi and it behaves differently depending on where it is located. Half of the 16 personalities have it in the top four functions where it is more conscious. The other half have it in shadow.

Jung’s theory of the functions has a practical value, but it is not dogma, and Jung said we never see the pure form of a function. Furthermore, functions don’t act in isolation, we are usually using more than one function at a time.

This is part 6 of 8 in the series. My other articles in the series:

The 8 archetypes of Extroverted Sensation (Se)

The 8 archetypes of Introverted Sensation (Si)

The 8 archetypes of Extroverted Intuition (Ne)

The 8 archetypes of Introverted Intuition (Ni)

The 8 archetypes of Extroverted Feeling (Fe)

To look at extraverted feeling in a nuanced way we will explore all 8 of the different roles it plays in the personality. This is per Jungian analyst John Beebe’s 8 function personality type model.

First, here is a refresh on what a function is, as per James Hillman: “A relatively unified, relatively consistent and habitual pattern of performance which enjoys itself in its activity, a pattern that likes to be exercised.” (Lectures on Psychological Type, 1971, p. 91)

Now we’ll look at Fe in general terms. Feeling, along with thinking, is a judging function. Here is Jung’s definition of extraverted feeling, where we see how it differs from introverted feeling in that it is not based on subjective values:

Extraverted feeling has detached itself as much as possible from the subjective factor and subordinated itself entirely to the influence of the object. Even when it appears not to be qualified by a concrete object, it is none the less still under the spell of traditional or generally accepted values of some kind.

(Jung, Psychological Types)

Jungian analyst Daryl Sharp elaborates further:

Extraverted feeling types are generally amiable and make friends easily. They are quick to evaluate what the outer situation requires, and readily sacrifice themselves for others. They exude an atmosphere of warm acceptance, they get the ball rolling at a party. Except in extreme cases, the feeling has some personal quality—there is a genuine rapport with others—even though the subjective factor is largely suppressed. The predominant impression is of a person well adjusted to external conditions and social values.

(Personality Types, Sharp, p. 50 )

Below is the infographic I made that describes all 8 archetypal roles of Fe. All personality types have Fe and it behaves differently depending on where it is located. Half of the 16 personalities have it in the top four functions where it is more conscious. The other half have it in shadow.

These archetypes descriptions are just sketches and aren’t meant to be literal. The shadow functions in particular are highly qualitative. Our shadow is unconscious and the contents of each person’s shadow differ, of course.

The shadow functions are a guide for you to understand your complexes better. When you get “triggered,” and it is brought to your conscious attention (usually by another person) you can try to trace it back to a shadow function and then reverse engineer it further to explore the origin of your complex.

Remember that no function ever acts separately from the other functions. Jung said we almost never see a pure form of a function. We consider a function only in order to better understand the whole of the personality.

This is part 5 of 8 in the series. My other articles in the series:

The 8 archetypes of Extroverted Sensation (Se)

The 8 archetypes of Introverted Sensation (Si)

The 8 archetypes of Extroverted Intuition (Ne)

The 8 archetypes of Introverted Intuition (Ni)