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The Shadow - Seeds Of Our Downfall

Thalassa

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No, your shadow would be ESFJ.

ENTJ would be eruption of the inferior.

So does ESFJ seem more plausible to you?
 

highlander

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Is the shadow as troubling as an eruption of the inferior? Because I can see points where I have displayed what could very well look like "unhealthy ISTJ" (in fact I comically had someone on here once suggest that was my type!) particularly during periods of my life where I felt out of wack or not balanced...so it could happen momentarily, in a flash, or I could even go through a period of my life where the inferior erupted more than it normally would.

Shadow doesn't seem like it would necessarily look as "unhealthy" and might be even more comfortable to slip into (for example if ENFP goes INFJ or INTJ goes ENTP, staying within your same little group i.e. NF, NT) doesn't seem like as much of a traumatic stretch, but maybe would just become more and more obvious later in life?

I don't know. I don't fully understand.

The question is how an eruption of the inferior relates to the shadow. I've seen it described in different ways. Looking through the thread again, there were a number of differing opinions and not a clear conclusion on the question. These are a few posts that seem relevant:

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32373&p=1217290&viewfull=1#post1217290

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32373&p=1217493&viewfull=1#post1217493

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32373&p=1221949&viewfull=1#post1221949

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32373&p=1219173&viewfull=1#post1219173

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32373&p=1218178&viewfull=1#post1218178

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32373&p=1218315&viewfull=1#post1218315

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32373&p=1219097&viewfull=1#post1219097
 

Sunny Ghost

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The Shadow Functions - The four functions which oppose the functions in our type. For example, if an INTPs function order is: Ti, Ne, Si, and Fe. The shadow functions are correspondingly Te, Ni, Se, and Fi. How these functions manifest themselves in people is unclear or inconsistent in current literature.

wait... so... i'm Fi/Se/Ni/Te... so my shadow is... Fe/Si/Ne/Ti ?? which is an ESFJ??

i'm confused.
 

highlander

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just saw this. haha.

ESFJ as a shadow... i'm still not really sure what that means, though.

This might be more helpful. Write down 10 characteristics of people who utterly repel you. People who demonstrate these things - you can't stand. Then write down 10 characteristics of people that you greatly admire.

That's your shadow.
 

Sunny Ghost

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This might be more helpful. Write down 10 characteristics of people who utterly repel you. People who demonstrate these things - you can't stand. Then write down 10 characteristics of people that you greatly admire.

That's your shadow.

love/hate relationship with ESFJ?
 

Thalassa

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Highlander, that makes SOOO much sense because I sometimes tend to admire INFJs to the point of almost feeling inferior at times in the face of their self-control, gentleness, mad people skillz, diplomatic behavior, which is also sometimes accompanied by being funny, dark, and cool.

Then again, I'm also highly annoyed by people who are self-righteous, overly cautious, avoidant, have a stick up their butt, think they're smarter or more moral than others, or have a narcissistic messiah complex.

This could be applied to ENFJs to some degree, too, the whole adoration/annoyance, but I don't quite worship them at moments like I can with the INFJ. It's true.

INFJ worship is a platonic worship, it isn't any kind of subconscious underlying sexual fascination like I can have with some INTJs.

And I'd like to point out that I don't worship all INFJs (just like I'm obviously not gonna be attracted to or fascinated with all INTJs), and that sometimes a certain INFJ will embody all the traits I admire, others seem to only have the irritating ones I can't stand, and the rest will have a balance of both.
 

Sunny Ghost

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Highlander, that makes SOOO much sense because I sometimes tend to admire INFJs to the point of almost feeling inferior at times in the face of their self-control, gentleness, mad people skillz, diplomatic behavior, which is also sometimes accompanied by being funny, dark, and cool.

Then again, I'm also highly annoyed by people who are self-righteous, overly cautious, avoidant, have a stick up their butt, think they're smarter or more moral than others, or have a narcissistic messiah complex.

This could be applied to ENFJs to some degree, too, the whole adoration/annoyance, but I don't quite worship them at moments like I can with the INFJ. It's true.

INFJ worship is a platonic worship, it isn't any kind of subconscious underlying sexual fascination like I can have with some INTJs.

And I'd like to point out that I don't worship all INFJs (just like I'm obviously not gonna be attracted to or fascinated with all INTJs), and that sometimes a certain INFJ will embody all the traits I admire, others seem to only have the irritating ones I can't stand, and the rest will have a balance of both.

Put this way, it makes a lot more sense.

Even funnier is that me and my sister are shadow functions of one another. :girlfight::hug::cheers:

And I can make sense of what you mean by platonic versus the fascination I may have with NT types. When highlander first posed the question of top 10 qualities of people I idolize, I immediately went to: "Well, I idolize NT types..." But that wasn't what he was asking, what's a personality I love and hate.

I can think of many things about ESFJ's that get under my skin, but I'm sure just as many that I admire though won't always openly admit. Such as, their ability to separate emotions from shit that needs to be done. My sister managed to get through school without a single crisis... whereas for me, every day was a crisis and priorities such a school had to go on a back burner. Also, she was always better at making friends than I was, of managing her life better than me, and in general has her shit together. I was always a mess in comparison.
However, most of our life, I had always considered her closed minded. She would always call me a hippie. We were day and night, yet ultimately the same. Yin and Yang? Both feelers. Both sensors. Point and counter point.

Hmm... interesting.. very interesting.
 

guesswho

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This might be more helpful. Write down 10 characteristics of people who utterly repel you. People who demonstrate these things - you can't stand. Then write down 10 characteristics of people that you greatly admire.

That's your shadow.

Projecting the "shadow traits" on others. I've watched so many people do that...soooo many...each time I wondered...why don't they see it...Do I do what they do?!
A few days ago, I was with this guy...we were listening music in his car, and he puts this ridiculous song, about greedy people who take advantage of others, and he tells me that he really likes this song. And guess what, he is GREEDY AS FUCK. The issue with the song (which he listens a lot) is that it's from the "victim's" perspective, so he is identifying with the victim, thinking that people cheat him. When in fact he's doing the cheating.

F*C*I*G PROJECTION.
EDIT:
Oookay...I'm having attention issues again.

I got the impression that the shadow type is what you hate, but it's also what you admire. And actually what you choose to hate/admire are projections of your 'shadow values'.

Ok. I think this is the idea.

selfconcept-2.jpg
 

KDude

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This pisses off inferior Te. I demand some consistency. :tongue:

First I've heard the IFP shadow is ETJ
Then it's ITP
Now it's EFJ.

I suppose there is some love/hate with ENFJs though. Probably not worth getting into. If there's any "eruption" of the inferior in relation though, it might be my aggravation on an immature Te level with their equally immature arbritary reasoning. This goes without mentioning Fi/Fe differences blah blah blah. Meh, I said I wasn't going to get into it.
 

rav3n

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Mark me down as another who's not only a believer that shadow exists but experiences it daily. It's not only the unhealthy child but also something worth developing, since each of our primary four processes can utilize the talents of our shadow processes as another perspective or methodology. It only becomes childish under stress.
 

Andy

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Is the shadow as troubling as an eruption of the inferior? Because I can see points where I have displayed what could very well look like "unhealthy ISTJ" (in fact I comically had someone on here once suggest that was my type!) particularly during periods of my life where I felt out of wack or not balanced...so it could happen momentarily, in a flash, or I could even go through a period of my life where the inferior erupted more than it normally would.

Shadow doesn't seem like it would necessarily look as "unhealthy" and might be even more comfortable to slip into (for example if ENFP goes INFJ or INTJ goes ENTP, staying within your same little group i.e. NF, NT) doesn't seem like as much of a traumatic stretch, but maybe would just become more and more obvious later in life?

I don't know. I don't fully understand.

Generally speaking, I suspect that the shadow functions is less of a problem than the inferior. The inferior is troublesome largely because it is supressed by the primary, but is still a active desire within the person.It's the bit of themselves that the person often wont own up to. While it is surpressed, the person doesn't act upon the desires associated with it, and so they build up over time until you get the sudden, explosive backlashes associated with it.

The shadow functions are, by comparisin, rather dead and inert. Acting upon the desires brings little psychological reward. They usually only cause problems by leading the person away from the conciouse functions because people often struggle to tell the lower order shadow functions (5 and 6) apart from the lower concious functions (3 and 4). THe opposing function facilitates the suppression of the inferior, for instance. It is not so foreign to the primary, and so looks attractive when that attitude is needed (When an IP requires a Je mindset, for example) however, acting in the opposing function is bit boring and the person soon moves away from it, accidently writing of the inferior function as well because they don't have enough experience in that attitude to distinguish between the two. THat ability to distinguish between the two functions of the same attitude (Pi, Pe, Ji, Je) is often called differentiation, I think. Certainly, I often call it that, right or wrong.

The critical function can act in a similar way. Just like the tertiary, it can often be expressed as an alternative to the auxillary. Unfortunately, as I shadow function it never satisfies, which means the person using it is never entirely satisfied when expressing it either. Hence the name, critical function. ITJs, with critical Ti, can be excessively hard judges of what is technically good when it gets the better of Te.
 

Thalassa

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acting in the opposing function is bit boring and the person soon moves away from it

This part makes a lot of sense to me, especially in terms of Fe/Ti, more so than Ni...they get boring to me, that's so true. Especially Ti.

Thanks for the entire explanation, I do appreciate it. It confirms what I suspected about the shadow being less of a catastrophe than eruption of the inferior.
 

highlander

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This part makes a lot of sense to me, especially in terms of Fe/Ti, more so than Ni...they get boring to me, that's so true. Especially Ti.

Thanks for the entire explanation, I do appreciate it. It confirms what I suspected about the shadow being less of a catastrophe than eruption of the inferior.

Actually, there is a definitional question. I don't think the shadow functions represent a person's "shadow". In my opinion, a person's shadow is far more important than their shadow functions. You can look at the shadow through an MBTI lens or completely without it.

I think it would be wrong to say that an eruption of the inferior is a bigger concern than your shadow. It seems to me that the relationship between the shadow and an eruption of the inferior is much closer than the relationship between the shadow and your shadow functions.
 

Eric B

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This pisses off inferior Te. I demand some consistency. :tongue:

First I've heard the IFP shadow is ETJ
Then it's ITP
Now it's EFJ.
It's ETJ in four-process theory, in which the inferior is called the "shadow", and anything below that is never dealt with.
It's ITP and EFJ in eight-process theory, depending on which order you are listing the functions (same order, but with the attitudes reversed (EFJ), or the functions in the reverse order (ITP)).
 

Z Buck McFate

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Check out the INFJs emphasising the content of people's lives over the value of abstract theory--did not see that coming.

Sometimes I think about this (and the INFJ tendency to poo-poo dogmatic adherence to type theories) and it still makes me laugh.
 

cascadeco

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Sometimes I think about this (and the INFJ tendency to poo-poo dogmatic adherence to type theories) and it still makes me laugh.

Kalach!!! :cry: Though I rarely knew what he was talking about.

I just skimmed the thread....when I read my first response especially I was like, whoa, I wrote that?? haha. Long long ago.
 

rav3n

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The Shadow Functions - The four functions which oppose the functions in our type. For example, if an INTPs function order is: Ti, Ne, Si, and Fe. The shadow functions are correspondingly Te, Ni, Se, and Fi. How these functions manifest themselves in people is unclear or inconsistent in current literature. Lenore Thompson refers to them as "double agents" and "crows nest" functions.
Something of interest. The vast majority of INTPs are enneagram 5 and the majority of ENTJs are enneagram 8. Fives integrate to eight but eights disintegrate to five.
 
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