Michael Kiyoshi Salvatore An Introduction to Psychological Types C. G. Jung’s living legacy can broadly be placed within two psychological frameworks: that of depth psychology, a study of human experience with an emphasis on working with the unconscious and its contents, and that of psychological types, descriptions of cognitive and behavioral inclinations that are theorized to be innate to individuals. Jung began conceptualizing his typology in part to grasp the irreconcilability he saw in Sigmund Freud’s and Alfred Adler’s own psychological theories. Jung’s inquiry, with the help of his friend Hans Schmid and original contributions of Maria Moltzer and Jung’s ‘spiritual wife’ Toni Wolff1, grew into psychological types. While initially hesitant to posit a plurality of truth, Jung came to see how “every judgment made by an individual is conditioned by his personality type … every point of view is necessarily relative.”2 His typology captures how these biases tend to operate. Four attitudes, or orientations of mental energy Four functions, or processes of mental information Introversion (I) Extroversion (E) Sensing (S) Intuition (N) Oriented towards the inner Oriented towards the outer Operates from “actualities” Operates from “enticing world of feelings, ideas, world of people, objects, and “direct experience”5 from visions of possibilities”6 or memory, and imagination.3 places, and action.4 the details received from the “hunches”7 of the five senses. imagination. Irrational, or Perceiving (P) Rational, or Judging (J) Thinking (T) Feeling (F) “Attuned to incoming “Concerned with making Seeks “objective truth”10 and “Informs you . of the value information” with an “open, decisions, seeking closure, to “organize facts and ideas of things . whether a thing curious, and . adaptable” planning operations, or into a logical sequence.” is acceptable or agreeable or attitude.8 organizing activities.”9 not,” its “worth.”11 1 Nan Healy, Toni Wolff & C.G. Jung: A Collaboration (Los Angeles, CA: Tiberius Press, 2017), 177-183. 2 C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1989), 209. 3 Dario Nardi, 8 Keys to Self-Leadership (Huntington Beach, CA: Unite Business, 2005), 5. 4 Nardi, 8 Keys to Self-Leadership, 5. 5 Isabel Myers and Peter Myers, Gifts Differing (Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black, 1995), 59. 6 Myers, Gifts Differing, 59. 7 C. G. Jung, Analytical Psychology in Theory and Practice (The Tavistock Lectures) (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 13. 8 Isabel Myers and Mary McCaulley, A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologist Press, 1985), 14. 9 Myers and McCaulley, A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, 14. 10 Myers, Gifts Differing, 65. 11 C. G. Jung, Analytical Psychology in Theory and Practice, 13. 1 Following the publication of Psychological Types in 1921, C. G. Jung’s subsequent work largely focused on elucidating more esoteric and mystical subjects. As his typology caught on, he distanced himself from its popular applications, comparing them to “a childish parlour game.”12 Jung nevertheless continued to use his typological theories in his private practice, still finding it integral as a “psychology of consciousness”13 that supplements his work inward and downward towards the spirit. Contrary to his preferences, Jungian typology has become an internationally acclaimed tool in both professional and hobbyist fields of business, counseling, coaching, and psychotherapy. The success of psychological types is in no small part a consequence of Isabel Myers’ and Katharine Cook Briggs’ operationalization of Jung’s ideas, their own amateur research into human personality converging with Jung’s. Through the latter half of the 20th century, they worked to further clarify and formalize Jung's original ideas, creating an assessment tool and framework that emphasizes accessibility and practical utility for understanding and developing oneself or others. Jung’s typology has inspired many other type iterations,14 although the most successful tend to follow the precedent set by the focus of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory: the eight functions and attitudes, and the sixteen personality types they produce. ESTP ISTP ESFP ISFP ENTP INTP ENFP INFP Extraverted Introverted Extraverted Introverted Extraverted Introverted Extraverted Introverted Sensing Sensing Sensing Sensing Intuiting Intuiting Intuiting Intuiting Thinking Thinking Feeling Feeling Thinking Thinking Feeling Feeling Perceiving Perceiving Perceiving Perceiving Perceiving Perceiving Perceiving Perceiving ESTJ ISTJ ESFJ ISFJ ENTJ INTJ ENFJ INFJ Extraverted Introverted Extraverted Introverted Extraverted Introverted Extraverted Introverted Sensing Sensing Sensing Sensing Intuiting Intuiting Intuiting Intuiting Thinking Thinking Feeling Feeling Thinking Thinking Feeling Feeling Judging Judging Judging Judging Judging Judging Judging Judging Despite its popularity, types remain outside of mainstream psychology, often derided for its essentializing of human nature. The current scientific paradigm, grounded in centuries of success privileging the explanatory power of the mechanistic and material over the teleological and typological, 12 Jung, Psychological Types, xiv. 13 C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 209. 14 Post-Jungian typology includes the highly systematized Socionics model of the Lithuanian psychologist Aušra Augustinavičiūtė and her followers that developed on the other side of the Iron Wall, neurological correlations studied by anthropologist Dario Nardi, four-function hierarchical models of Naomi Quenk and others, John Beebe’s eight- archetype model, and David Keirsey’s four temperaments and behaviorally-focused research.. 2 assumes innate behavior and cognitive development should be attributable to specific genes, hormones, evolutionary processes, and/or neurology. Likewise, psychological modeling should follow the evidence, abstracting from emergent averages in the data along spectra and scales, not emphasizing immaterial binaries that depend on subjective generalizations and geometric elegance. At the same time, acclaimed Big Five researchers McCrae and Costa find “each of the four indices [of type] showed impressive evidence of convergence with one of the five major dimensions of normal personality.” Jungian extraversion parallels Big Five extroversion; intuition corresponds to openness to experience; feeling relates to agreeableness; judging is similar to conscientiousness; neuroticism has no match.15 These researchers view type as a “set of internally consistent and relatively uncorrelated indices” with “no lack of correlational data” if type were reimagined as an open inventory of traits opposed to the closed, typological model it is.16 These criticisms point to the irrevocably archetypal nature of psychological types, as its pairings of functions and attitudes exemplify the Heraclitian principle of enantiodromia, everything giving rise to and most knowable through its tension with its polar opposite, forming dualities and quaternities.17 There is no material basis for these complementary pairings, nor explanation for why their synthesis is fundamental to the process of becoming psychologically whole. Could it be Jung was inspired by the quarternaries of the humors, astrological elements, or alchemical processes he is well-known for studying?18 Perhaps. These structural parallels should not be overstated, however; “for Jung it was a great discovery when he later found confirmation of his more intuitively conceived idea in the fact that everywhere in myths and religious symbolism there appears the model of the fourfold structure of the psyche. In studying the behavior of his patients, he found that he had apparently hit upon a basic structure.”19 Thus, Jung created an irreducible psychological model, speaking to something elemental with consciousness. 15 Robert McCrae and Paul Costa Jr., “Reinterpreting the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator From the Perspective of the Five‐ Factor Model of Personality,” Journal of Personality 57, no. 1 (March 1989): 32–33. 16 Robert McCrae and Paul Costa Jr., “Reinterpreting the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator From the Perspective of the Five‐ Factor Model of Personality,” Journal of Personality 57, no. 1 (March 1989): 19, 23. 17 C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, vol. 18 of The Collected Works of Carl Gustav Jung, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1981), 178. “There is no consciousness without the discrimination of opposites.” 18 Phillipson, Garry and Peter Case, “The Hidden Lineage of Modern Management Science: Astrology, Alchemy and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator”, Culture and Cosmos 5, no. 2 (Winter/Autumn 2001): 59. 19 Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology (Putnam, CT: Spring, 2013), 10. 3 Further complicating psychological type’s relationship with science and academia proper, the orientations and mental processes outlined above are viewed by many type theorists as supplemental and superficial compared to what is argued to be at the core of the theory underlying Jungian types20: the eight cognitive processes. Extraverted Thinking (Te) Extraverted Feeling (Fe) Extraverted Sensation (Se) Extraverted Intuition (Ne) Introverted Thinking (Ti) Introverted Feeling (Fi) Introverted Sensation (Si) Introverted Intuition (Ni) Also known as attitude-functions, cognitive functions, and mental processes, the cognitive processes represent eight essential dynamics of perceiving