Pardon Me, But Your Shadow is Showing. . .

[Anja]

Naomi Quenk says that the shadow of INFP is Inferior Te.

The 3 main ways Inferior Te manifests itself in INFPs is by

• projecting their unconscious fears of incompetence becoming hypersensitive to others' mistakes
• making judgments that are overly categorical, harsh, exaggerated, hypercritical and often unfounded
• overwhelmed by the urge to take some precipitous action, usually to correct some imagined mistake which often then exacerbates the problem

I know it's not easy to understand.
Sorry.
You really need the book.

According to Quenk, an INFP tends to emerge from the grip of the inferior as they learn a new perspective from which to view their situation.

Thank you. You're taking a lot of time and thought to help out with this. A piece of me is going, "Geez, Anja, go look it up." But I'm lazy and it's a lot more fun to hear what others have to say.

So, if I understand you right, I would be exhibiting my shadow when I lose my cool. And it would center around some kind of mistake someone appeared to be making. Or a mistake I was afraid of making.

Oh boy. That hits so close to home that it gives me the shudders.

Nevermind. Suddenly don't want to talk about it! That kind of feeling. Defensive. Yes.

So a clue for me, when my shadow is being engaged, is when I start to feel defensive. That makes sense. I can feel that when I get into an intellectual conversation that's very thought-oriented and a little over my head. The beginnings of a sense of urgency start itching. It's nearly a panicky feeling about feeling misunderstood. An urgency to clear the air. That's so dang INFP!

That little voice that shouts, "Connect with me! Connect with me!"

I was just talking to Jennifer about this elsewhere and tellilng her I can distinctly trace this back to my childhood and being raised by a very ISTJ mother who seldom seemed to understand me or give me credit for my thoughts. She both physically and emotionally distanced herself from me.

I don't know if that ever goes away. It's stil there for me. Think I've just learned over the years to be aware of that little girl inside and ways to calm her some.

And like heart says, it doesn't hurt to reframe your needs. Like telling myself, "Okay. Not everyone has to agree with you in order for you to have connection with others." Like that. It still needs to be done now and then. Gets tiresome.

And we're currently having a discussion elsewhere about whether some can intuit what's going on with others. So. When I see that defensiveness, either in the form of hostility or excuse-making or sudden, unexpected humor, it could be a fair assumption that I've just bumped into someone's shadow. Make sense? That was addressed to noz and erin who are questioning the concept.

But I'm fairly certain that those of us who don't believe we have a shadow are simply unaware yet that they do. They may be the most resistent to exploring the concept.

 

[Anja]

Do you ever find yourself in the situation where people mistake your observation for judgement?



If the shadow is related to stress then the two INFPs I know are definitely ordering me to respond ESTJ. If I try to question something which they included or want purely because they want to they tend to start off giving false reasoning (me being dense I always bite on reasoning... quite failing to see it's a defence mechanism) which I move past only to be met with a very angry and forceful response which kind of tries to set things in stone. The style reminds me very much of the ESTJs I work with when they're in crisis mode.... which is quite often

Yes, I do frequently run into people who get defensive if I comment on their shadow. Most of the time I'm pretty nonjudgemental and have friends of all kinds of flawed and tatter souls. Heh. I fit in good with them.

Guess I discussed above how that works for me internally.

Most of my friends and I consider it a gift to know how we come off to others. Providing that piece of ourselves we can't "see." But I am aware that it's hurtful sometimes to others. Rarely happens in my social group cuz we know each other well. But I think it does have its time and place.

I think part of what caused more willingness to self-disclose and offer observations was that I worked for so many years in the people-serving types of jobs in which I needed to figure out where people were coming from in order to help them.

The last part of your post, Xander certainly shows a good ability to introspect! I find that an admirable quality in people.

 

[raz]

For an ISTJ, maybe an ENFP shadow might come out if something is happening that can't be controlled or followed and it's bothering you to the extent that you're desperate for an outlet to either ignore it or push it off the boat? Well, I'm thinking about my tendencies to bring out ENFPness when something is happening in my life that I feel like I'm trapped. It could be explained with the tertiary and inferior functions. One thing I read about Thinkers with Tertiary Fi is that Fi holds a lot of values about their intelligence. They hold a high regard for their competence, and will defend it with the Tertiary Fi.

Thinking about bringing out an ENFP in me, this might happen when I feel like I can't get a hold of a situation. My systematical viewpoint isn't getting things done and I become desperate. I start to take it incredibly personally that I can't fix the problem, and I start trying to look for external resolutions that aren't exactly practical or reasonable. That's just my experience with problems I've faced. Most of the time, I feel like my ability to control myself is in question and I withdraw even more to convince myself that I don't need external approval.

 

[Eric B]

Naomi Quenk says that the shadow of INFP is Inferior Te.

The 3 main ways Inferior Te manifests itself in INFPs is by

• projecting their unconscious fears of incompetence becoming hypersensitive to others' mistakes
• making judgments that are overly categorical, harsh, exaggerated, hypercritical and often unfounded
• overwhelmed by the urge to take some precipitous action, usually to correct some imagined mistake which often then exacerbates the problem

I know it's not easy to understand.
Sorry.
You really need the book.

According to Quenk, an INFP tends to emerge from the grip of the inferior as they learn a new perspective from which to view their situation.

Oh, I got the impression that she used all eight (the "shadows" being the last four).

BTW this was a great thread by Anja.

I am still never clear which is the true INFP shadow ESTJ or ISTP.

It depends on which of the three different models you're using:
http://www.typeinsights.com/FreeArticles/Relationships.pdf

Keirsey’s "Opposites Attract" ESTJ (all four letters opposite; four functions reversed within primary/shadow blocks)
McAlpine’s “Opposing Personality”: ENFJ (Change outer two letters; reverses attitudes of each function, or even swaps primary/shadow blocks)
McAlpine’s “Dynamic Opposite” ISTP (Change inner two letters; all eight in reverse)

the first one is what the old four process model uses (and Keirsey doesn't even use the functions anymore). The other two are used in the eight process model of Beebe.

 

[Alpha Prime]

Anja, are you talking about the Jungian shadow, or the MBTI-one?

 

[Kalach]

Copied from another thread:

On this question of the shadow functions... couple a things:

we're talking functions that exist in you in the same order as normal, but with the normal focus reversed. I can sort of see it being true. If you normally rely on say dominant Ni and auxiliary Te, and some kind of substantially stressful situation is upon you, a situation where your normal function is incapable of producing a result, but you have to produce a result, then the normal functions hunt around for another way--they reverse, perhaps. Why wouldn't they? They're already there, they function and produce a functional result, why wouldn't they under extreme stress (1) try to be themselves, but (2) look for a different expression, a different result, a different focus... if they really had to.

Like if you know how to use X to solve X types problems, but you get a Y type problem and you really have to solve it, you still use X but with a different application.

But they don't reverse to produce normal, healthy functioning. They can't, because, being rarely that way focused, they're so low powered. So, if they reverse, they do it relying on past achievements of the normal functions functioning normally.

So, if I go ENTP, it's with an Ne and Ti that already has a clear map of the world from normal Ni/Te functioning. I wouldn't go ENTP to be ENTP but to support the ailing INTJ I really am. See what I mean? Mostly the shadow would be defensive and aggressive.

The times I believe I have put on an ENTP face:

1. To teach class (because the classes I teach are not straight lectures--I am, of all things, an EFL instructor.)
2. To deal with Fe users that have me intimately cornered
3. any public meeting, maybe.

What happens? Well...

In intimately benign but nonetheless stressful situations, like class, I pose and strut to get laughs and get students on my side, because they have to be happy and jolly or they won't join in the activities I have to make them do. I use non sequitur humour, and poke fun at feelings. I say random things. I discover random connections or surprising developments of ideas. (And then I bear down with hardcore INTJ "Do X now" style instructions.)

In intimately stressful situations, I tear up the place with really aggressive proofs of how and why other people have transgressed. I focus outward to bluntly coerce. And I chop and change too. I can't sustain that digging away at other people for long, so after a burst of logic display, I drop back into low voiced observations, without humour, in fact often deeply grim, in fact.

In public, anytime, if I'm confident of being at least a little bit dominant, I'll almost always have a burst of energy at the beginning of interactions with others. It'll include T-type boisterous joking around, usually observational, focusing on absurdities. It gets worn out pretty fast.

Yeah, it all sounds like being a prick, but, hey--it's ENTP.


Alarming conclusions: so... those strange non-duality relationships you hear so much about... INTJs with INFJs or INTPs, or INTJs with ENXJs... and so on... they love you best when you're stressed, because when you're stressed you look much more like their dual.

INTJs and INFJ particularly. Stressed INTJ is a perverted ENTP, and stressed INFJ is--oh, my god--a whacked out ENFP.

Ain't love grand.


I wonder if introverts don't have stronger shadows than extroverts. It's just a guess, but it seems like a lot of commonplace normal stuff would provide an I with stress--simply being in public, for example, and having to interact.

 

[Anja]

Anja, are you talking about the Jungian shadow, or the MBTI-one?

I'm not sure. Gathering information.