This thread has been rather perplexing to me. Some of my favorite members on this forum are INFJs. I like them and I really enjoy reading their posts. My biggest reaction to this thread has been an ongoing confusion as to why the INFJs reacted so strongly to the feedback from a few posters.
I have learned a lot following this thread. So all this effort by all the parties involved wasn't for naught.
Every time I think I have a clear handle on Fe/Ti versus Fi/Te differences, I'm humbled by my obvious lack of understanding. It still blows my mind how differently Fe/Ti users think compared to me. This thread has only re-illustrated how much I still have to learn here.
I feel quite the same way.
I think the problem here at its core is that Se-inf's are just delusional and paranoid. Your own experiential truth is derived from lack of observation and from patterns which are removed from reality due to their subjective nature and uninterested in confirming whether they should continue to exist.
All perception is contained within the universe after all, all that is must be contained within its principles and laws. Yet how many times does Ni come to conclusions which just aren't correct which are removed from how the universe works? I've seen Ni users make false assumptions on the motives of others based on their perception which simply cannot be realised or achieved (e.g. someone is sleeping with Ni user's wife even though they are 5000 miles away at the moment the incident supposedly took place.)
Exaggerated and overly harsh to be sure but if we are honest with ourselves, there are grains of truth. Ni doms can be a little delusional and paranoid. There is this overactive imagination and at times a tendency to obsess about things in their head. There is also a tendency to be arrogant and stubbornly cling to these perceptions. I’ve read about it. I have experienced it. It’s ok. Ni is not perfect and it’s important it be balanced with other things. Accept this in ourselves. It’s a little like Enneagram in that way – the perceptions can be distorted and not entirely aligned with reality. Our intuition is not flawless. Having an awareness of this occasionally distorted perspective is what’s important. It is the foundation for addressing it.
As an aside, I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever of @OrangeApplied and [MENTION=15291]Mane[/MENTION] being manipulative or trying to push other people’s triggers. I have seen no harmful intent at all. I admire their persistence, honesty and directness. Are their perspectives biased by personal experiences? Sure. All of ours are. I think there might be
grains of truth in several of those things in OP's list - for Ni doms in general. It's not that horrible.
the pattern underlining most (if not all - just in case i missed something) of the complaints is that the INFJs in the various lives of the INFPs here are complaining about, can be summed up in one belief:
the belief that those INFJs weren't capable of experiencing remorse.
It's already been said but I see no reason at all why this behavior would limited to INFJs. I’ve had this experience with others – ESTJs, ISFJs, ISFPs, ENTJs, INTJs, ISTJs, etc. It's very much situational. It’s a difficult thing because there is remorse that is expressed and remorse that is felt. Those two are not anywhere close to being the same. How can you know what is in someone else’s mind? [MENTION=5999]PeaceBaby[/MENTION] had a really nice post on this topic and the 5 ways it is expressed.
What I'm trying to get at is that I do make a big effort to not affect others badly, and if possible to affect them in positive ways; to be pleasant to be around, to be helpful and kind, all that sort of thing.
I don't think that's necessarily because I'm such a wonderful person, it just feels really bad to me, really exposing and embarrassing.
So bringing this back to the remorse thing - I feel like a lot, if not the majority, of the mistakes I make are between me and me, or between me and God.
It seems your sense of self is very much tied to this view of yourself – as a positive influence on others. It’s interesting when viewed in relation to the last point. I wonder what would happen if there was another thread that said one of Te user’s weakness is they are incapable of remorse.
I could do what you're doing to most of us in this thread - which is calling us liars. Telling us we have no self-awareness. Telling us that we have the empathy and remorse levels of psychopaths.
Getting past the precise words, which are clearly affected by previous experiences, I hear a couple of people saying INFJs have gaps in self-awareness. We all have gaps in-self awareness. I’m hearing them saying that INFJs don’t feel remorse because they blame things on others or because they don’t express it in a way that the other person needs to hear. Is that such a horrible thing if it were true? I can see the same behavior in other types – like a certain ISFJ that I know
. Does that make her a horrible person? No.
Again, I'm not sure that the feeling of remorse carries much weight with us (Fi places more emphasis on emotion), so much as the effect of remorse (Fe places more weight on outcome).
This seems to hit the nail on the head though even with all of the words in this thread, and all of the examples of remorse that have been described, it is more difficult for me to precisely understand exactly how the INFJ is
expressing remorse to the person on the receiving end which does have an impact to that person. That, it seems to me might be a central point. I heard one poster suggest that such a thing is not particularly useful because really everyone is responsible for working through their own feelings themselves. It's an interesting point of view with certainly a great deal of validity. However... Mane’s heartfelt letter is how he expressed remorse. I think his question might be how an INFJ would do this? How would they react to a letter like that? That’s why he was asking for examples. I’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of thing but not with an INFJ - and again, I'm not sure this is limited to INFJs. What was been hurtful in those situations was the failure of that other person to express any regret, remorse, own up to their responsibility in any way or even indicate that they really cared. The things that went wrong were all my fault. There was an unwillingness to communicate much at all really (perhaps avoiding an uncomfortable situation?). Those kinds of things do have a negative impact in an some cases, it can be quite significant, whether the other person realizes it or not.
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