Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist and psychotherapist best known for his founding of analytical psychology and his work Psychological Types.
This book was the result of twenty years of research in the domain of practical psychology.
It was an attempt to find a compromise between two mainstream theories that existed at the time — one of these theories belonged to Sigmund Freud, and the other one belonged to Alfred Adler.
Carl Jung was the first to introduce the concepts of introversion and extroversion (also spelled as extraversion).
It’s important to mention that the modern usage of these two principles has deviated from his original definitions and intent.
He concluded that Freud’s theory was extroverted in its nature while Adler’s theory was introverted.
In his book Psychological Types, Jung attempted not only to find a compromise between the two theories but also define how his own view differed from Freud’s view and Adler’s view.
Contrary to what one may expect, Jung’s personality types (or typology) isn’t a horoscope-like system for character analysis.
It isn’t a system to label people.
It wasn’t invented to simplify our understanding of people and personality types.
Instead, it was invented to demonstrate the complexity of human typology and its consequences.
Jung’s original typology is built on
- Two personality attitudes: extroversion and introversion.
- Four functions (or modes of orientation): thinking, sensation, intuition, and feeling.
The four functions are divided into what Jung called rational (or judging) and irrational (or perceiving) functions.
Thinking and sensations are rational, according to Jung, while intuition and feeling are irrational.
It is essential to understand what Carl Jung meant by introversion and extroversion.
Jung saw both introversion and extroversion as attitudes.
Introversion, according to him, is one’s focus on the inner world, while extroversion is one’s focus on the outside world.
According to Jung’s view, it’s not possible to demonstrate extroversion or introversion in isolation.
It must be associated with one of the four functions — thinking, sensation, intuition, and feeling. This results in eight variations:
- Extroverted thinking
- Introverted thinking
- Extroverted sensation
- Introverted sensation
- Extroverted intuition
- Introverted intuition
- Extroverted feeling
- Introverted feeling
All four functions — thinking, sensation, intuition, and feeling — are used at different times depending on circumstances, but, according to Jung, typically there will be a preference for one single predominant function or “superior function.”
This tendency may be either inborn or developed throughout one’s life.
The less preferred function — the fourth function — is used unconsciously.
Jung called it “the inferior function”.
The inferior function is always the opposite of your primary function.
According to Jung, your dominant function represents your conscious behavior, and your inferior function represents your unconscious or repressed behavior.
According to the theory of Jung personality types, the opposite of thinking is feeling, and the opposite of sensation is intuition.
Here is a drawing of Jungian functions and their opposites:
If your superior function (or primary function) is thinking, your secondary functions (or auxiliary functions) are intuition and sensation, and your inferior function (less developed, unconsciously used function) is feeling.
According to Jungian psychological types theory, if your primary function is thinking, feeling cannot be your secondary function, because it’s on the opposite side of the spectrum.
Similarly, if your primary function is sensation, your auxiliary (secondary) functions are thinking and feeling, and your inferior function is intuition.
The same logic applies to personality attitudes — extroversion and introversion.
Take THIS TEST to find out »
If your primary mode is extroverted thinking, your less used and less conscious mode would be introverted feeling.
Generally, people find it hard to operate using their least preferred function, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t develop your inferior function and raise it to a more conscious level.
Marie-Louise von Franz, Swiss Jungian psychologist and scholar, wrote in her Jung’s Typology:
In the realm of the inferior function there is a great concentration of life, so that as soon as the superior function is worn out – begins to rattle and lose oil like an old car – if people succeed in turning to their inferior function they will rediscover a new potential of life. Everything in the realm of the inferior function becomes exciting, dramatic, full of positive and negative possibilities. There is tremendous tension and the world is, as it were, rediscovered through the inferior function.
Activating your inferior function is not without side effects.
First, strengthening your inferior function would automatically mean weakening of your superior function.
Second, according to Jung’s theory, switching to your inferior function could result in strong emotional reactions from falling in love to blind rage.
Activating the inferior function takes time and you would need to go through one of your auxiliary functions first (secondary functions).
For example, a path from superior feeling function to inferior thinking function could look like this:
Personality Test
You might be disappointed to hear that there is no Jung personality test.
Although Carl Jung ‘couldn’t have predicted the commercial use of his psychological types, he did leave us some warnings:
Even in medical circles the opinion has got about that my method of treatment consists in fitting patients into this system and giving them corresponding “advice.” . . . My typology is far rather a critical apparatus serving to sort out and organize the welter of empirical material, but not in any sense to stick labels on people . . . . It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimiting of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical.
From this quote we know that it’s highly unlikely that Carl Jung would approve usage of his model for personality tests.
In addition, the author warned that using his theory for better self-understanding is not that simple. He said:
Although there are doubtless individuals whose type can be recognized at first glance, this is by no means always the case. As a rule, only careful observation and weighing of the evidence permit a sure classification. However simple and clear the fundamental principle of the [opposing attitudes and functions] may be, in actual reality they are complicated and hard to make out, because every individual is an exception to the rule.
Although popular Myers–Briggs personality test is based on Jungian psychological types, there are some important differences between the two theories.
In addition, both approaches have been criticized for the lack of controlled scientific studies that support their claims.
You may also like:
- The 16 Types (Main)
- Top-Earning Personality Types (Briggs Myers)
- The Ultimate INTJ Personality Portrait
- All About INFJ (The Counselor)
- INTP Personality Description (The Architect)
- ENTJ, The Fieldmarshal
- ENFJ, The Teacher Personality Type
- ISTJ: Someone You Can Rely On
- INFP Healer and Dreamer
- ESTP Promoter and Thrill Seeker
- ISFJ Personality Type
- ENTP: Explorer, Innovator, Enthusiast
- ISTP Personality Type
- ESFP (Entertainer, Performer or Promoter)
- ISFP the Artist Personality Type
- ESFJ The Consul
- ENFP The Campaigner
- ESTJ: The Administrator
Photo
Group photo 1909 in front of Clark University. Front row, Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jung. Back row, Abraham Brill, Ernest Jones, Sándor Ferenczi.
References
C.G. Jung. Psychological Types
C.G. Jung. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology
Daryl Sharp. Personality Types: Jung’s Model of Typology