Evolving the eight-function model 8 archetypes guide how the function-attitudes are expressed in an individual psyche Historical background: sensation and introverted intuition (‘intro- Jung’s eight functions verted irrational types’). These were the eight functions in Jung’s original descrip- tion. It was C G Jung, of course, who introduced the language we use today: words such as These functions were nothing less than function and attitude, as well as his highly capacities for consciousness residing with- specific names for the four functions of in any individual—though of course most our conscious orientation (thinking, feeling, people do not differentiate all these cap- sensation, intuition), and the two attitudes acities for their own use. It was Jung who through which those orientations are de- taught us that most people pair a rational ployed (introversion and extraversion). function with an irrational one to develop a conscious orientation, or, as he put it, an Establishing the rationale for this language ego-consciousness, that for most people as a helpful basis for the analysis of con- involves just these two differentiated sciousness was the purpose of his 1921 functions. John Beebe book, Psychological Types. Toward the end of that book he combined function Despite Isabel Briggs Myers’s later read- types and attitude types to describe, in ing of a single sentence in Jung’s long and often contradictory book (Myers & Myers There’s much talk in the type turn, eight function-attitudes. Regrettably it wasn’t until Dick Thompson published 1980:19; Jung 1921/1971:406, para 668), world nowadays about the his 1996 book Jung’s Function-Attitudes he never made clear that the attitude type Eight-Function or Whole Explained that we had that term for them, of the two functions in this two-function Type Model, and my name so most Jungians have simply referred to model of consciousness would alternate is sometimes brought up as them as eight ‘functions’. between function # 1 and function #2. a pioneer in this area. Nevertheless, for Jung the attitude type was Jung did, however, open the door to the the primary thing, and the function type a possibility of a further differentiation of I appreciate this opportunity to kind of sub-something that expressed that functions, up to a limiting number of four: establish the historical con- attitude in a particular way. Accordingly, the fourth to differentiate being his famous text of what I’ve contributed, he organised his general description of the ‘inferior’ function, which remains too close and explain in my own words types in terms of the attitudes, describing to the unconscious, and thus a source of errors and complexes. what my innovations are. first ‘the peculiarities of the basic psycho- logical functions in the extraverted attitude’ Jung said relatively little about the third and then going on to ‘the peculiarities of function. He expected that both functions the basic psychological functions in the #3 and #4 would, in most people, remain John Beebe MD (ENTP), a Jungian introverted attitude.’ analyst, lectures on psychological potentials only, residing in the unconscious, types in many parts of the world. His Jung started with extraverted thinking and represented in dreams in archaic ways and writings on type have appeared in extraverted feeling (which he called ‘the relatively refractory to development except the Chiron Clinical Series, Journal extraverted rational types’) and extraverted under exceptional circumstances—such as of Analytical Psychology, Psych- sensation and extraverted intuition (‘the the individuation process Jung sometimes ological Perspectives, and several extraverted irrational types’), before turn- witnessed in the analysis of a relatively books, including his pioneering 1992 ing to the introverted types: introverted mature person in the second half of life, study, Integrity in Depth. thinking and introverted feeling (‘intro- when the archaic functions would press [email protected] verted rational types’), and introverted for integration into consciousness. Australian Psychological Type Review Vol 8 No. 1 March 2006 39 John Beebe: Evolving the 8-function model Anima / Animus: type Chinese laundress, and it was she who Bridge to the Unconscious could provide me a bridge to the practical- ities of life that my conscious standpoint, ever theoretical, tended to leave out. I think When Jung’s close associate Marie Louise it was also she who made me consider von Franz published her Zurich seminar sorting out the rest of my consciousness. on the inferior function, in Lectures in Which archetypes were associated with Jung’s Typology, I was already a candid- my other functions? ate in analytic training at the C G Jung I began to watch my dreams. Gradually it Institute of San Francisco. Her discussion of the possibilities for development in this became obvious that when they symbolised largely unconscious area of the mind was my extraverted intuition, it was in a heroic, thrilling to read, and it opened up the four- rather grandiose way. (In a dream, I once function model for a whole generation of saw President Lyndon Johnson, architect analysts. of the Great Society in my country, as an image of my dominant extraverted intuition, Von Franz made it clear that we have a which gave it a high-handed, crafty cast, a choice about developing function #3, but bit out of touch with the actual readiness that the integration of function #4, the of those around me for the changes that I inferior function, is very much under the wanted to introduce in their lives, in the control of the unconscious, which limits name of helping them progress.) what we can do with it. Nevertheless, this much of the unconscious belongs in a sense My introverted thinking was symbolised to the ego—and even provides the bridge by a Father in one dream that found him to the Self that the other differentiated in conflict with an upset feeling-type son, functions can not. whom I eventually recognised as an image of my third function. The particular son The functions are carried I became aware that the inferior function figure in the dream was a persistently im- was often thought by Jungian analysts to mature man in analysis at the time, whose into consciousness on the operate in this way because it is ‘carried’ oscillation of woundedness and creativity by the Anima or Animus, archetypes of fit well the description Marie Louise von backs of the archetypes soul that can serve as tutelary figures, rep- Franz had given in her classic study of the resenting the otherness of the unconscious ‘problem of the Puer Aeternus’ (1970), the psyche, and also its capacity to speak to us Latin term referring to an eternal boyhood to enlarge our conscious perspectives (Jung befitting an immortal. I decided that this 1921/1971: 467-472) (note 1). The Anima dream was referring to an aspect of my and Animus are like fairy bridges to the own feeling that was inflated, vulnerable unconscious, allowing, almost magically, and chronically immature. a relationship to develop between the two parts of the mind, conscious and uncon- In this way, I began to evolve my under- Note 1 scious, with the potential to replace this standing that the four functions are brought I have adopted Jung’s use of Latin when tension of opposites with the harmony of into consciousness through the dynamic speaking of the Anima and Animus (literally, wholeness. And it is through the undiffer- energy of particular archetypes: ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’) because that language allows for gender (the Anima often being a entiated, incorrigible inferior function that • Hero for the superior function they do their best work! feminine figure in a man, and the Animus a • Father for the second or ‘auxiliary’ masculine one in a woman), and because function it conveys the archaic quality of these deep Basic orientation: Hero/Heroine, structures of the mind that Jung uncovered • Puer for the tertiary function in his explorations of the unconscious. Father/Mother, Puer/Puella • Anima for the inferior function Jung called them archetypes of the collect- ive unconscious, but when carrying function By then I thought I knew my own type— My functions were carried into conscious- #4, the inferior function, I feel they also form part of the conscious mind’s functioning. extraverted intuition, with introverted think- ness on the backs of those archetypes! A Hence I regard them as ego-syntonic— ing as my second function—and I had taken great deal of their functioning, even after compatible with the ego and its preferred the MBTI questionnaire, which scored me they became conscious—that is, available function-attitude—even though carrying ENTP, in apparent confirmation of my self- to me as ways of perceiving and assessing values from the unconscious mind that compensate the attitude of the person’s diagnosis. It was in dreams that I met my reality—continued to reflect the character- superior function. Anima as a humble, introverted-sensation istic behaviour of these archetypes. 40 Australian Psychological Type Review Vol 8 No. 1 March 2006 Later, I found evidence in the dreams of Four functions were still only half the story women for a Heroine, a Mother, and a of how consciousness arranges itself. Jung Puella Aeterna (eternal girl), symbolising said in Psychological Types that if one takes the first three functions of consciousness into account the all-important attitudes, in a highly analogous arrangement to the extraversion and introversion, we have to way my own were symbolised. I could realise that there are in all eight functions, also verify from their dreams what other or, as we say now, function-attitudes. Jungian analysts had already established, Von Franz had postulated that the greatest that the Animus carries the inferior funct- difficulties that occur between people are ion for a woman—although I came to re- on the basis of one using a function with a serve that term for a spirit or soul figure particular attitude (e.g., extraversion), and operating as a bridge to the unconscious, the other using the same function with the and not simply to refer to an antagonistic opposite attitude (e.g., introversion).