The Shadow - Seeds Of Our Downfall

[highlander]

If you want to say "negative aspects of personality", or "weaker aspects of personality that could bear improvement," and call that a "shadow," I really don't have any beef with that. If you want to say Ni-Te has a shadow of Ne-Ti or Se-Fi or Fi-Se, and therefore these are weak/dark/improvement-needing aspects of personality, I'll reply that you're putting the cart before the horse. In general, for an INTJ, all the aspects of personality that our outside of Ni-Te are "weak" or "shadows" or "bear improvement." Not just particular aspects in particular ways.

So, you think there is no pattern? That is, you think that there is not commonality across individuals of a particular type when it comes to negative characteristics of their personality? You'd say it makes no difference - let's say for the INTJ type - between Se, Ne, Ti, etc. They are all non-preferences and can be treated equally?

 

[highlander]

As Highlander says, it's not a "costume". There's no "faking". Rather, it's how Te deals with "Fe matters". Fe has a similar means of dealing with "Te matters." At the extreme, the Fe user will note that the Te user, while quite polite, occasionally makes really obvious mistakes w/r to dealing with people. The Te user will note that the while the Fe user appears to be very reasonable and competent, occasionally makes serious errors in logical/logistical matters.

The key is that these are cognitive functions: the Te user looks at a people situation and analyzes it logistically, as objective factors that might be manipulated. In so doing, the Te user can trod over people's feelings, leaving them very upset, especially if their being upset doesn't get in the way of the Te user's objectives. The Fe user can make the reverse error, and manage a logistical situation as if it were a people problem, e.g., when told that the order cannot be filled because there aren't enough widgets, the Fe user, rather than figuring out how to get more widgets, will tell employees to not have such a negative attitude.

In both cases, the functions are managing very similar areas of life, often with similar results. The approach of each function is from rather different perspectives.

This seems very much right to me.

 

[Eric B]

Introverted thinking. And not, say, the habits of being "objective" plus a monster dose of Fi+Ni? -- sucking the extroverted thinking back inside to become introverted? Is it still extroverted thinking, but overwhelmed by an introverted focus.. Or is it actually introverted thinking?

Yeah, basically. There is really one Thinking fumction, and Te and Ti are just two sides of the coin. You're taking the function, and switcing the orientation.

Or, consider the trickster, the seventh--for me, Fe. Using this process I can fool myself into thinking something is important when it isn't. Like, say, by imagining that for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness as far as other people are concerned, it's important to be polite--or perhaps if something is important enough I can be polite and concerned about harmony? Nope, actually, that's too thoughtful. More like, someone looks at me and they have some concern or query in their eye and I get upset because I know I can't make them at ease so I try to be smiling and happy anyway for the sake of just not getting upset anymore even though, actually in practice, it never works well but I haven't got any other resources...

That last one in particular is either wrong as a presentation of when a shadow function is working for me or it's proof that Beebe shadows aren't that impressive because that "feeling" described above is easily conceived of as some combination of Ni/Te/Fi/Se all working together normally (or as normally as some combination of mature/growing/immature/basementdweller functions can.


On the other hand... if to have Xy function really means that you have X function just like anyone else with X function except you happen to have a heavy y focus just so that you actually have a functioning function (because without direction, consciousness doesn't, um, "conch", a made up verb to instantiate a claim that consciousness that is static isn't consciousness), then technically, given some consciousness shaking circumstances, you can access the opposite focus too if you like.

Which is to say, it needed be the case that the top four "functions" explain everything. As much as one would like them to, or as much as introspection seems to point that way, shadows aren't ruled out. Indeed, introspection could sort of be expected to hide the shadows. Introspection would be keyed to the familiar functions (or function orientations) as explanatory.

How about "Use it or lose it"? The function orientations that oppose the function orientations of your top four "functions" are rarely (if ever) consciously animated. Blink and you miss them. (Or blink and you disguise them as what they aren't, your normal functions.) So how do they contribute? To call the unconscious mind "archaic" seems a bit of an understatement.

When we speak of the shadows, it is mainly the archetypal complexes that form around the functions, and these are not always engaged. so again, as Lenore puts it, "the products of undifferentiated functions are perfectly capable of reaching consciousness" so long as they are linked to the goals of the dominant perspective.

The complexes are what we project onto others, when some memory or something of an incident seen through the functional perspective evokes the complex. Then, it's not so much about "using" those functions, but rather how the complex (using the persoective of the function) will manifest.

 

[Kalach]

So I'm working through your article, Eric, and puzzling over a few things, and I make the uncomfortable discovery that ego exists prior to differentiated functions. I find this idea upsetting, but only I guess because this ego is without determinate structure. Consciously it's just animation, right? But unconsciously, it's much more than that (or it's linked to much more than that), right? It's the whole of the unconsciousness? Or is it just potential? (Aka... um, unstructured libido?)

Will read further.

 

[Eric B]

So you believed that the ego has no existence apart from differentiated functions?
I think holding functions as perspectives helps separate them from the ego. The ego thinks it's the center of the psyche (which includes the unconscious), but the larger self is. The ego just chooses a differentiated preference.

 

[Kalach]

No, no. I don't know what the ego is at all. Too busy screwing around with functions to have wondered on it thus far. The thing is, a perilous strange intuition presented itself to me this morning, something that tottered around the mind-body divide. Wikipedia told me the ego, superego and id are functions of the mind and aren't (necessarily) to be confused with any particular somatic structure. So I thought to myself hmmm. Functions are the least likely things in the world to be mistaken for people. They aren't animated. The ego is animated though. So I wondered what it was.

See, functions seem closer to the body than to the mind. They are at least a lot more amenable to mechanistic talk. Ego by contrast is very clearly some other kind of conceptual thing: it has liveliness built in. So-o-o-...

...something about how the mind-body issue just got hurdled and thus some instructive constraints maybe just got left behind, and um, like, we don't get to talk about ego as much more than the structureless spark of life?

 

[highlander]

Thinking about this further, it seems as it relates to functions, there are a few ways to define the Shadow, which fall into two primary buckets.

Option 1 - Eruption of the Inferior
One option is to reverse the order of the functions - an INTJ that normally has this function order:

Ni, Te, Fi, Se

Turns into an bad version of an ESFP:

Se, Fi, Te, Ni

So, in that example, our weakest function takes over when stressed, reversing our normal hierarchy. The shadow form stresses the negative aspect of each function during the experience.

Option 2 - Functions Not In Our Top 4

Complete function order for an INTJ: Ni Te Fi Se / Ne Ti Fe Si

The Shadow functions in this case would be Ne, Ti, Fe, and Si

Using Thompson's theory,
The "crows nest" are Fe and Si
The "double agents" are Ne and Ti

An example of how one of these would be used is an INTJ using Ti to verify logical consistency of thinking.

How these relate to "shadow" type behaviors, I'm not yet sure, but if one were to fall into a pattern of emphasizing their non-preferred process - like excessive use of double agents or crows nest, I would imagine it would create some form of imbalance.

 

[highlander]

But...no matter how far down the path to individuation one travels, one never arrives. When we fail to admit that there are functions we do not use as capably, they can rise up to haunt us.

Leave aside for a moment whether there are 4 functions in 2 attitudes or 8 separate functions (still a matter of great debate, actually) and think whether you truly know of anyone who is equally good at reality and conjecture, or at objectivity and subjectivity. Yes we gain skills, and we can turn them on and off. But when stress, or emotions, or exhaustion, or other factors ply at our control, the shadow can truly cause trouble. As someone old enough to carry an AARP card, I can say that my friends and I talk more about how we HAVEN'T mastered our shadow than incidences of where we have. We're still ourselves even if we understand the value of and find it easier to sometimes use the other side.

... and, the more I think about it, there there seems to be wisdom behind these words.

 

[highlander]

If you want to say "negative aspects of personality", or "weaker aspects of personality that could bear improvement," and call that a "shadow," I really don't have any beef with that. If you want to say Ni-Te has a shadow of Ne-Ti or Se-Fi or Fi-Se, and therefore these are weak/dark/improvement-needing aspects of personality, I'll reply that you're putting the cart before the horse. In general, for an INTJ, all the aspects of personality that our outside of Ni-Te are "weak" or "shadows" or "bear improvement." Not just particular aspects in particular ways.

The key behind all of this seems to be that shadow form of a function stresses the negative aspect of that particular function.
I think this applies whether or not we are talking about a short term eruption of the inferior or longer term systemic patterns of cognition or behavior that relate to non preferred function attitudes - such as the shadow functions, the inferior, or the tertiary.

I came across these items in another related thread that somehow I missed. The video is really good if you're in the right mood (first time I watched it, I fell asleep).

http://www.ccc-apt.org/system/files/...+model+APT.pdf

John Beebe - The Spine and its Shadow - Portal Psychologii Analitycznej C.G. Junga - Polish Journal of Analytical Psychology of C.G. Jung - psychoanaliza - archetyp

Dr. John Beebe introduces his October 2008 workshop on the archetypes

 

[Eric B]

No, no. I don't know what the ego is at all. Too busy screwing around with functions to have wondered on it thus far. The thing is, a perilous strange intuition presented itself to me this morning, something that tottered around the mind-body divide. Wikipedia told me the ego, superego and id are functions of the mind and aren't (necessarily) to be confused with any particular somatic structure. So I thought to myself hmmm. Functions are the least likely things in the world to be mistaken for people. They aren't animated. The ego is animated though. So I wondered what it was.

See, functions seem closer to the body than to the mind. They are at least a lot more amenable to mechanistic talk. Ego by contrast is very clearly some other kind of conceptual thing: it has liveliness built in. So-o-o-...

...something about how the mind-body issue just got hurdled and thus some instructive constraints maybe just got left behind, and um, like, we don't get to talk about ego as much more than the structureless spark of life?

Funny, as I was just reading that Wikipedia article again today. Comparing Freud's theory to what I'm learning about Jung. It seems in both theories, the ego is the center of consciousness. The id sounds like Jung's "personal unconscious", and Lenore's "limbic system", while the super-ego sounds kind of like the "collective unconscious", at least in part.

From what Lenore had been telling me, the functions are of the ego, and the frontal cortex, (in contrast to the limbic brain and the body). The Wikipedia article also says that the id was associated with the body. (If it wasn't that article, I also read the related article on Jung's paper "the Id and the Ego")

 

[highlander]

First of all, I think that the shadow and concious functions are linked to each other in terms of use and development. The 8th place function is the stongest of the most developed of the shadow functions and the 5th the least. That is to say, both introvered percieving functions develop together, as do both extroverted judging functions and so on.

This creates a U-shape in terms of development, with the weakest functions in the middle. Thus the functions we have the best use of are 1,2, 7 and 8. Functions 3 - 6 are the ones most likely to give us trouble when they opperate.

The shadow functions tend to have a somewhat "impersonal feel" to them, I think, especially number 7, the trickster function. When the shadow functions operate, they don't feel as intrinsic to who we are.

Similarly, we will use Si, but only in the persuit of our Ni goals. It's a way of thinking we can utilise successfully, but it doesn't motivate us like Ni does.

Of the bothersome functions, 3 and 6 tend to have an inhibiting character about them, when they misfire. In an INTJ both Fi and Ti can undermine confidance. Misfiring Fi causes us to question our motivations and what we really want. Critical Ti sits there and punches holes in our idea, causing us to doubt our ideas. When they work correctly, Fi becomes a source of strength and Ti acts a double check on our ideas.

In an extrovert, the tertiary can provoke rash actions - it inhibits thinking about the problem too deeply.

THe 5thand 6th functions tend to be distracting when they fail. THe opposing function will tend to lead us blind allies. For example, while an INTJ is trying to put some long term Ni plan together, 5th place Ne will be suggesting all the other things we could be doing. If followed, it creates a situation in which the INTJ has a half a dozen unfinished projects, which is something that they find unsatisfying.

So according to this model, best use functions in the INTJ example are Ni (dominant), Te (auxiliary), Fe, and Si (crows nest). It's the tertiary, inferior, and double agents that tend to cause the most problems.

According to Beebe, the functions usually "develop" in the order of 1,2,3,7,4,5,8,6. Of course, that won't be a hard rule either. It does seem that for me, the 6th is yet the weakest, though with a better understanding of what Ni really is, now, it might be different.

But what Lenore taught me was that it is really not about "developing functions" (as if they were skills), but rather withdrawing the complexes, which then brings the associated functions under more conscious control.

So I'm not sure how the two versions of the theory square on that point. I know Lenore is trying to be more purely Jungian, and I think sees some of the other theorists as diverging on some of these points. Especially those who hail from the world of temperament, which the whole notion of functions as skills sets is obviously influenced by.

Well, that ordering of function development looks a little different than what Andy suggested, unless I'm missing something. It does make sense to me that 3 comes before the others. That being said, with all the Tertiary "trip wires" that seem to be out there, it seems to be one of the more troublesome ones in any scenario.


Maybe from a practical perspective, a combination of Naomi Quenk's Eruptions of the Inferior (Option 1 described above) and Lenore Thompson's discussion on Double Agents (and maybe Crow's nest) might be the best way to think about some of this stuff. I'm not quite so familiar with Beebe's work and how it fits with those things.

 

[highlander]

Implications of Beebe's Model from a Neurological Standpoint, by Lenore Thompson

No, no. I don't know what the ego is at all. Too busy screwing around with functions to have wondered on it thus far. The thing is, a perilous strange intuition presented itself to me this morning, something that tottered around the mind-body divide. Wikipedia told me the ego, superego and id are functions of the mind and aren't (necessarily) to be confused with any particular somatic structure. So I thought to myself hmmm. Functions are the least likely things in the world to be mistaken for people. They aren't animated. The ego is animated though. So I wondered what it was.

See, functions seem closer to the body than to the mind. They are at least a lot more amenable to mechanistic talk. Ego by contrast is very clearly some other kind of conceptual thing: it has liveliness built in. So-o-o-...

...something about how the mind-body issue just got hurdled and thus some instructive constraints maybe just got left behind, and um, like, we don't get to talk about ego as much more than the structureless spark of life?

Does this help shed any light on the topic? It includes a discussion on:
- Some relationships between Beebe's model and Thompsons
- The ego and the relationship with Beebe's model
- How Beebe's model links with Neurology
- References to "eruptions of the inferior" as described by Quenk

I thought it was interesting

www.greatlakesapt.org/uploads/media/beebe1.PDF

 

[highlander]

- What is the shadow?

Well, I thought this was quite a good description, from Jungian therapy by Jungian therapist-analyst in New York. Carl Jung therapy , with some nice pragmatic guidance.

The Shadow

"Hidden or unconscious aspects of oneself, both good and bad, which the ego has either repressed or never recognized. (See also repression.)

The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. ["The Shadow,"CW9ii, par. 14.]

Before unconscious contents have been differentiated, the shadow is in effect the whole of the unconscious. It is commonly personified in dreams by persons of the same sex as the dreamer.

The shadow is composed for the most part of repressed desires and uncivilized impulses, morally inferior motives, childish fantasies and resentments, etc.--all those things about oneself one is not proud of. These unacknowledged personal characteristics are often experienced in others through the mechanism of projection.

Although, with insight and good will, the shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality, experience shows that there are certain features which offer the most obstinate resistance to moral control and prove almost impossible to influence. These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary. While some traits peculiar to the shadow can be recognized without too much difficulty as one's personal qualities, in this case both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie, beyond all possibility of doubt, in the other person.[Ibid, par. 16.]

The realization of the shadow is inhibited by the persona. To the degree that we identify with a bright persona, the shadow is correspondingly dark. Thus shadow and persona stand in a compensatory relationship, and the conflict between them is invariably present in an outbreak of neurosis. The characteristic depression at such times indicates the need to realize that one is not all one pretends or wishes to be.

There is no generally effective technique for assimilating the shadow. It is more like diplomacy or statesmanship and it is always an individual matter. First one has to accept and take seriously the existence of the shadow. Second, one has to become aware of its qualities and intentions. This happens through conscientious attention to moods, fantasies and impulses. Third, a long process of negotiation is unavoidable.

It is a therapeutic necessity, indeed, the first requisite of any thorough psychological method, for consciousness to confront its shadow. In the end this must lead to some kind of union, even though the union consists at first in an open conflict, and often remains so for a long time. It is a struggle that cannot be abolished by rational means. When it is wilfully repressed it continues in the unconscious and merely expresses itself indirectly and all the more dangerously, so no advantage is gained. The struggle goes on until the opponents run out of breath. What the outcome will be can never be seen in advance. The only certain thing is that both parties will be changed.["Rex and Regina,"CW14, par. 514.]

This process of coming to terms with the Other in us is well worth while, because in this way we get to know aspects of our nature which we would not allow anybody else to show us and which we ourselves would never have admitted.[The Conjunction," Ibid, par. 706.]

Responsibility for the shadow rests with the ego. That is why the shadow is a moral problem. It is one thing to realize what it looks like-what we are capable of. It is quite something else to determine what we can live out, or with.

Confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective or even impossible. Everything becomes doubtful.[Ibid, par. 708.]

The shadow is not, however, only the dark underside of the personality. It also consists of instincts, abilities and positive moral qualities that have long been buried or never been conscious.

The shadow is merely somewhat inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward; not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities which would in a way vitalize and embellish human existence, but-convention forbids![Psychology and Religion,"CW11, par. 134.]

If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of all evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is, his shadow, does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc.[Conclusion,"CW9ii, par. 423.]

An outbreak of neurosis constellates both sides of the shadow: those qualities and activities one is not proud of, and new possibilities one never knew were there.

Jung distinguished between the personal and the collective or archetypal shadow.

With a little self-criticism one can see through the shadow-so far as its nature is personal. But when it appears as an archetype, one encounters the same difficulties as with anima and animus. In other words, it is quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil of his nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil.["The Shadow," Ibid, par. 19.]"

 

[Eric B]

John Beebe - The Spine and its Shadow - Portal Psychologii Analitycznej C.G. Junga - Polish Journal of Analytical Psychology of C.G. Jung - psychoanaliza - archetyp

Does this help shed any light on the topic? It includes a discussion on:
- Some relationships between Beebe's model and Thompsons
- The ego and the relationship with Beebe's model
- How Beebe's model links with Neurology
- References to "eruptions of the inferior" as described by Quenk

I thought it was interesting

www.greatlakesapt.org/uploads/media/beebe1.PDF

Aw, man; I forgot about both of those articles in the Beebe Resource lists I've been posting on my site and on these boards.

(Edit:, just realized that the first one is really a reprint of this one: http://www.ccc-apt.org/system/files/Type+and+Archetype+-+Part+One+-+The+Spine.pdf)

 

[Andy]

So according to this model, best use functions in the INTJ example are Ni (dominant), Te (auxiliary), Fe, and Si (crows nest). It's the tertiary, inferior, and double agents that tend to cause the most problems.



Well, that ordering of function development looks a little different than what Andy suggested, unless I'm missing something. It does make sense to me that 3 comes before the others. That being said, with all the Tertiary "trip wires" that seem to be out there, it seems to be one of the more troublesome ones in any scenario.


Maybe from a practical perspective, a combination of Naomi Quenk's Eruptions of the Inferior (Option 1 described above) and Lenore Thompson's discussion on Double Agents (and maybe Crow's nest) might be the best way to think about some of this stuff. I'm not quite so familiar with Beebe's work and how it fits with those things.

It's supposed to be the NTPs who worry about the precise usage of words, but to explain how I view the types and type development I think a quick lexicon is in order. Note that these are just how I use the words, not necessarilly everyone in the world.

Function Order: This is the usually 1 - 8 list that gets seen and is concerned with how the functions are used, when they are used.

Function Preferance: How much you actually use each function.

Function strength: How easy it is to use a particular function in a healthy manner, rather than it misfireing and giving you problems.

Function development: Whether or not a given function does work well for a particular person.

To my way of thinking function order and function strength are invarient for each of the 16 types. They are the same for all individuals of that type. However, function preferance and function development can be radically different from person to person, even in the same type, which creates the differances between seen between people of the same type. It also explains many of the differances seen in the development of the types.

Thus, I don't believe that function development has to follow the same pattern for each individual at all. Some people may find that the critical function gives them better results than the teriary, while for others the reverse may be true.

If you like, function strength is like a statistical average along the lines of "At age 21, 50% of ISFPs will get good results from their tertiary Ni."

To me, the debate over function development is really about function strength, those averages that are so hard to get a grip on. It's hard to say how many members of a type at a particular age will be able to use a function well because it is hard data to obtain, especially as growing into a function is like having your voice break. It will flit back and forth between working well and malfunctioning for awhile. Even in old age, a poor function may still cause trouble on occation.

THis is why I prefer a Beebe style 1 - 8 ordering, with the concious functions on one side and the shadow functions on the other. You see, while I'm sure that going from 1 through 4 follows decreasing strength and 5 through 8 show increasing strength, I'm not convinced I know the relative strengths of the concouse functions compared to the shadow functions.

Instead, I simply except that enough fuzzyness, (enough standard deviation, if you like) exists in the function development that variations will exist in the actual order seen. Thus if asked which will develop first, the 3rd or the 7th function, I would tend to reply "wait and see." I don't think it is something that can necessarilly be predicted ahead of time with ease.

 

[highlander]

It's supposed to be the NTPs who worry about the precise usage of words, but to explain how I view the types and type development I think a quick lexicon is in order. Note that these are just how I use the words, not necessarilly everyone in the world.

Function Order: This is the usually 1 - 8 list that gets seen and is concerned with how the functions are used, when they are used.

Function Preferance: How much you actually use each function.

Function strength: How easy it is to use a particular function in a healthy manner, rather than it misfireing and giving you problems.

Function development: Whether or not a given function does work well for a particular person.

To my way of thinking function order and function strength are invarient for each of the 16 types. They are the same for all individuals of that type. However, function preferance and function development can be radically different from person to person, even in the same type, which creates the differances between seen between people of the same type. It also explains many of the differances seen in the development of the types.

Thus, I don't believe that function development has to follow the same pattern for each individual at all. Some people may find that the critical function gives them better results than the teriary, while for others the reverse may be true.

If you like, function strength is like a statistical average along the lines of "At age 21, 50% of ISFPs will get good results from their tertiary Ni."

To me, the debate over function development is really about function strength, those averages that are so hard to get a grip on. It's hard to say how many members of a type at a particular age will be able to use a function well because it is hard data to obtain, especially as growing into a function is like having your voice break. It will flit back and forth between working well and malfunctioning for awhile. Even in old age, a poor function may still cause trouble on occation.

THis is why I prefer a Beebe style 1 - 8 ordering, with the concious functions on one side and the shadow functions on the other. You see, while I'm sure that going from 1 through 4 follows decreasing strength and 5 through 8 show increasing strength, I'm not convinced I know the relative strengths of the concouse functions compared to the shadow functions.

Instead, I simply except that enough fuzzyness, (enough standard deviation, if you like) exists in the function development that variations will exist in the actual order seen. Thus if asked which will develop first, the 3rd or the 7th function, I would tend to reply "wait and see." I don't think it is something that can necessarilly be predicted ahead of time with ease.

This is helpful and clarifying. Thanks!

 

[highlander]

Personal detail & nuance indeed becomes an important factor if it causes some of the extensions of the theory to crumble. It becomes important if it means that Person A of a type will in fact not lean on function 7 and instead latches onto function 5 when under extreme duress (whatever..I'm just giving an example, don't take these numbers literally), whereas Person B of the same type will always, in a shadow-state, subconsciously lean on function 7. When the theory begins spelling out precise and exact occurrences and behaviors by type, that's when I find it falls short because by that point the details might quite profoundly impact the turn of events, rather than the overriding psychae.

The 'detail' of someone being quite narcissistic would probably be much more impactful to their behaviors and actions than their actual mbti type (although I also realize cognitive functions aren't really supposed to be about behavior... but that's what the theory ends up becoming in practical applications as evident on this board). Just as the 'detail' of an INFJ enneagram type 4 vs. an INFJ enneagram type 1 or 5 or 7 could cause resultant 'shadow states' to diverge. An ESTP whose 'S' preference isn't as strong as that of another ESTP would likely have a different resultant 'shadow' complex. And so on.

In the sense that I'm saying a 'Shadow' will often imply your less than idealized, self-actualized self, yes, it would tend to mean you are then grasping onto subconscious, lesser-used functions or functions that are not part of your 'natural,' preferred state. But in the sense that those functions will be exactly the same for all of the same type, no, I'm not saying that. So the resultant 'shadow state' could vary within type.

When I read this post earlier, I am not sure it fully sunk in and now, I'm reflecting on the importance of it. These seem like very salient points. It gets down to whether there is a pattern or not for particular types and what their shadows tend to look like.

I do think there are patterns, but it is a question of what they are and how frequently these types of things occur. It seems like it would be possible to explain all this. There are probably:

- Negative Shadow characteristics that tend to be the most common across human beings in general (wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony, etc.)

- Positive Shadow characteristics that tend to be the most common across human beings in general

- Shadow characteristics and nuances that tend to occur with a particular type

- Possible patterns in how those characteristics and nuances develop and are dealt with as people go through life

Any thoughts or feedback on these points?

 

[Kalach]

Does this help shed any light on the topic? It includes a discussion on:
- Some relationships between Beebe's model and Thompsons
- The ego and the relationship with Beebe's model
- How Beebe's model links with Neurology
- References to "eruptions of the inferior" as described by Quenk

I thought it was interesting

www.greatlakesapt.org/uploads/media/beebe1.PDF

Jung's Testicles! An article that outlines scientific proof for the existence of type?!

And then somewhere on page four, right around the paragraph starting "Thus, a zero-sum relationship...", the discussion begins to lean on mind concepts again, doesn't it?

Still... wow.

 

[Thalassa]

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.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

So... is this to say that my shadow is an ENTJ... and that I might have flashes of ENTJ-like behavior??

naaaah. that's impossible. ...right?