Monday 5 November 2007

Guide to the typology of psychological types

covers Jung, amongst others. ( link )

extraverted-feeling

"In precisely the same way as extraverted thinking strives to rid itself of subjective innfluences, extraverted feeling has to undergo a process of differentiation before it is finally denuded of every subjective trimming. The valuations resulting from the act of feeling either corresponds directly with objective values or accord with traditional and generally accepted standards.
This kind of feeling is very largely responsible for the fact that so many people flock to the theatre or concerts, or go to church, and do so more over with their feelings correctly adjusted... In these matters extraverted feeling proves itself a creative factor. Without it a harmonious social life would be impossible" [596/355]

The extraverted-feeling attitude is directly responsible for the dominance of consensus reality. Does this make extraverted feeling the norm?

"[as soon as the object gains ascendancy] The force of extraverted feeling then pulls the personality into the object, the object assimilates him, whereupon the personal quality of the feeling, which constitutes its chief charm, disappears. It becomes cold, "unfeeling", untrustworthy. It has ulterior motives, or at least makes an impartial observer suspect them... one suspects a post, or that the person is acting even though he may be quite unconscious of any egocentric motives. Over-extraverted feeling may satisfy aestheitc expectations, but it does not speak to the heart; it appeals merely to the senses, or worst still - to reason." [596/355]

The extraverted-thinking type

When the extreme extraverted thinking model is faced with a 'problem' requiring a certain subjective/introverted perspective to truely understand and grap a thing, he authomatically reduces the problem to his own accumulated objective/extraverted knowledge and experience. Viewing the 'problem' through this filter gives an extremely narrow view of the 'problem', with only a few molecules of understanding beingh attracted to and sticking to his pre-existant knowledge/experience. This personality type appears quite often in the short stories of Franz Kafka.

"it is a fact of experience that the basic psychological functions seldom or never all have the same strength or degree of development in the same individual. As a rule, one or the other function predominates in both strenth and development." [584/346]

The basic psychological functions are split into 5 groups under the two headings: Extraverted / Introverted

These are: Thinking/Feeling/Rational/Sensation/Intuition

Thusly is Jung's model of being mapped.

"[the extraverted-thinking] type will, by definition, be a man [Or woman. Use yr imagination peoples!] whose constant endeavor - in so far, of course, as he is a pure type [if such a thing exists in the world] - is to make all his activities dependant on intellectual conclusions, which in the last resort are always orientated by objective data, whether these be external facts or generally accepted ideas." [585/346]

I think what Jung is trying to say in his use of the term 'last resort' is that if the individual can't think it out for himself he will rely on preconceived external data.

The objective-thinking type seems, to me, to embody the personalities of the majority of politicians/right wing nut jobs.

"Their best aspect is to be found at the peiphery of their sphere of influence. The deeper we penetrate into their own power province the more we feel the unfavourable effects of their tyranny." [586/348]

"The thinking of the extraverted type is postivie i.e., productive. It leads to the discovery of new facts or to general conceptions based on disparate empirical material. It is usually synthetic too. Even when it analyses it constructs, because it is always advancing beyond the analysis to a new combination, to a further conception which reunites the analysed material in a different way or adds something to it. One could call this kind of judgement predictive. A characteristic feature, at any rate, is that it is never absolutely depreciative or destructive, since it always substitutes a fresh value for the one destroyed. this is because the thinking of this type is the main channel into which his vital energy flows. The steady flow of life manifests itself in his thinking, so that his thought has a progressive, creative quality. It is not stagnant or repressive. But it can become so if it fails to retain prior place in his consciousness. In that case it loses the quality of a positive, vital activity. It follows in the wake of other functions and becomes Epimethean [an afterthought]. Plagued by afterthoughts, contenting itself with constant broodings on things past and gone, chewing them over in an effort to anlyse and digest them. Since the creative element is now lodged in another function, thinking no longer progresses: It stagnates. Judgement takes on a distinct quality of inherence: It confines itlsef entirely to the range of the given material, nowhere overstepping it. It is satisfied with more or less abstract statements which do not impart any value to the material which in not already inherent in it. Such judgements are always orientated to the object, and they infirm nothing more about an experience than its objective and intrinsic meaning." [592-593/351-352]

"Its habitual mode is best described by the two words "nothing but". Goethe personifed this thinking in the figure of mephistopheles."

Everything in its right place.


"Whenever somebody defends or advocates a cause, negative thinking never asks its importance but simply: "What does he get out of this?""

"The trick [to pure extraverted-thinking] is to make it appear dependant on something quite common place."