Myers-Briggs Theory

The Myers-Briggs personality typology, unlike some other typing theories such as the Enneagram or Four Temperaments, uses a combination of several aspects to arrive at a "composite" type, based on the interaction and relative weight of different behavioural and attitudinal factors. The types are expressed as combinations of four letters, as follows:

E or I (Extravert or Introvert)

S or N (Sensing or iNtuitive)

T or F (Thinking or Feeling)

J or P (Judging or Perceiving)

These four pairs give 16 possible combinations, some of which are more common in the population than others. I am myself an INTJ, and I will use myself as the worked example in what follows, as I am the nearest subject to hand.

The four type descriptions were developed by Jung and later elaborated. I have doubts about Jung, but consider this some of his most important and valuable work.

Everyone, said Jung, does two things with information: They take it in, and they respond to it. These are the Perceiving and Judging processes, and each of them relates to another part of the type description. Perceiving has two modes: the Sensing (gathering detailed information bit by bit through the senses) and iNtuitive (integrating knowledge already held, often in a moment of "gestalt" appreciation of the "big picture"). Judging also has two modes: Thinking (rational, logical, factual) and Feeling (affective, emotional, relational).

Jung defined "sensation" (S) as "perception through conscious sensory processes", and "intuition" (N) as "perception by way of unconscious contents and connections". ("Psychological Theory of Types" in Modern Man in Search of a Soul.)

Each person has a mode with which they "greet the world", something that people see them doing, and another mode which they mostly keep inside. One of these will be a perceiving mode, and the other a sensing mode. The one which is exposed to outside inspection determines the P or J component of the type: if people mainly see you Perceiving (either Sensing or Intuiting), you are a P, and if they mainly see you Judging (Thinking or Feeling) you are a J. I am a J because people see me Thinking while I keep my Intuition inside, and a T because I approach things first factually and then emotionally, and an N because I gather and integrate information intuitively from existing knowledge more readily than by a detailed, gradual process through the senses.

The other factor which affects how your personality works is whether you are introverted (I) or extraverted (E) - that is, whether you draw your psychic energy mainly from inside you or from the external world. I am an Introvert, who finds time alone, drawing on my inner being, refreshing and time with others sometimes tiring (which is not to say I don't enjoy spending time with others, only that it de-energises rather than energises me). Therefore, my Intuitive faculty, which is the one which points inward, is known as my "primary" faculty. It's what I most enjoy doing, what I find easiest to do, and was also the first faculty to develop, when I was a child. Jung notes about this, in the article previously quoted, that "the predominance of a function leads us to construct or to seek out certain situations while we avoid others, and therefore to have experiences that are peculiar to us and different from those of other people". In other words, our personality will influence our life experience (another complexity to add to the nature/nurture debate).

My secondary (or "auxiliary") faculty is the other member of the Perceiving-Judging pair, which in my case is the T (thinking). This faculty develops mainly in the years from puberty to young adulthood, and indeed this was the case with me (though I was already somewhat known for it as a child). This faculty, typically, will be almost as strong as the primary, and almost as much preferred.

The "tertiary" faculty is the complement of the auxiliary - the other member of its pair. In my case, this is Feeling, which began to seriously develop when I was a young adult. We are now getting into areas which I will never be as comfortable and fluent with as my primary and auxiliary. Bruce Duncan uses the analogy of languages. The primary is your "mother tongue", which you speak with complete fluency, and it is unaccented and idiomatic. The auxiliary you learned young, and speak well, but if someone observes closely they can perhaps tell you are not a native speaker. The tertiary you learned as an adult, and you will always have an accent and may grope for words on occasion, or make grammatical errors; you may not understand it very well if it is spoken quickly or colloquially by someone else.

The final faculty, the last of the S-N-T-F quartet, is referred to as the "inferior", because generally it is. It is a language you learn typically in maturity, and you are unlikely ever to be fluent in it. It is often the blind spot in your personality - the faculty you least like to use and are least comfortable with. When your primary (which is its counterpart) is exhausted through overuse, it may appear, and you may find yourself doing things which are "out of character" for you and which you afterwards regret - because the inferior faculty is immature, undeveloped, and childish. You are not skilled with it. It's like writing with your less preferred hand, if you are not lucky enough to be ambidextrous. The result looks as if it was produced by a child, and possibly a slow child at that.

In my case, the inferior is my Sensing faculty. This renders me vulnerable to particular temptations - not that people in whom Sensing is stronger are immune to these, but I am especially vulnerable because Sensing exists at least partly in my "shadow", that part of my personality of which I am not consciously aware.

The Chinese proverb says that a man carries around two baskets: one in front, full of his neighbor's faults, and one behind, full of his own. Jung goes further, and says that the baskets tend to contain the same things; the sins we most condemn in others are our own strongest temptations, the denizens of our shadow. So I am most strongly tempted to (and most strongly repelled by) materialism, lust, luxury, and other sins which exert their primary pull on the senses, and have limited resources within my Sensing faculty to oppose these things. I have to use my other faculties, and if I overtire them they may not be equal to the task.

At the same time, as Paul the Apostle said, "when I am weak, then I am strong". God's power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians chapter 12). The inferior faculty is also a powerful means for God to reach us, because the defences which sometimes don't keep temptations out also don't keep him out. I find that beauty perceived through my senses is a channel of God's power to me; it always renders me prayerful, mindful of him.

Bruce Duncan suggests that people with an inferior Sensing faculty should use some external means of focus to help them pray, and I have come up with some prayer beads for this purpose.

The chapter on Awareness of the Soul's Shape contains links to online testing instruments to help you discover your own Myers-Briggs type and explore what that means.

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