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Is it possible to be every type?

Savage Idealist

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As the title suggests, could a person who is borderline E/I, S/N, T/F, and J/P to the point where they could be any personality type at any time?
 

skylights

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sure. theoretically. pretty unlikely though, especially if you think of type in terms of percentage (how often you use N vs S, etc.)

i think the more relevant question is can they utilize all of the cognitive functions to the extent that someone with that function dominant can...

like, if you're an XXXX, can you use Fe as masterfully as an ESFJ can?

i imagine it'd be more likely a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none kind of deal.
 

professor goodstain

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i'd say sure too. however, where this whole gig hits reality is in the first and last. the I/E J/P. it's our domain. people lean to S/N F/T only a little. imo
 

Kasper

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Nope. You're one or the other but you may develop non-dominant functions.
 

KDude

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Maybe with time, we could evolve.. But then, when we get old, we get cranky and go "I'm too old to change.. You change!"
 

Eckhart

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If you would be borderline in every aspect, that would mean you have no personality at all because you are all random in every aspect.
 

Lark

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As the title suggests, could a person who is borderline E/I, S/N, T/F, and J/P to the point where they could be any personality type at any time?

I definitely wouldnt have said so, I would say that there are traits that you are more comfortable with or that you unconsciously exhibit or are the strongest, they may change with maturation, moving in and out of crisis or under stress but I doubt that they are interchangeable, anymore than you could choose a different height, skin tone, eye colour or hair colour at will.

I'm interested in the posing of this question though, there's a tendency now, I reckon fed by among other things consumer culture, which dissaudes people from wanting to be any one thing because it involves sacrifices being any other thing.
 

slowriot

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Individuation in Jungian terms.

Individuation. A process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality.

In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology.[ Ibid., par. 757.]

The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other.["The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 269. ]​

Individuation is a process informed by the archetypal ideal of wholeness, which in turn depends on a vital relationship between ego and unconscious. The aim is not to overcome one's personal psychology, to become perfect, but to become familiar with it. Thus individuation involves an increasing awareness of one's unique psychological reality, including personal strengths and limitations, and at the same time a deeper appreciation of humanity in general.

As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 758.]

Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to itself.["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 432.]

Individuation has two principle aspects: in the first place it is an internal and subjective process of integration, and in the second it is an equally indispensable process of objective relationship. Neither can exist without the other, although sometimes the one and sometimes the other predominates.[The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 448.]​

Individuation and a life lived by collective values are nevertheless two divergent destinies. In Jung's view they are related to one another by guilt. Whoever embarks on the personal path becomes to some extent estranged from collective values, but does not thereby lose those aspects of the psyche which are inherently collective. To atone for this "desertion," the individual is obliged to create something of worth for the benefit of society.

Individuation cuts one off from personal conformity and hence from collectivity. That is the guilt which the individuant leaves behind him for the world, that is the guilt he must endeavor to redeem. He must offer a ransom in place of himself, that is, he must bring forth values which are an equivalent substitute for his absence in the collective personal sphere. Without this production of values, final individuation is immoral and-more than that-suicidal. . . .
The individuant has no a priori claim to any kind of esteem. He has to be content with whatever esteem flows to him from outside by virtue of the values he creates. Not only has society a right, it also has a duty to condemn the individuant if he fails to create equivalent values.["Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity," CW 18, pars. 1095f.]​

Individuation differs from individualism in that the former deviates from collective norms but retains respect for them, while the latter eschews them entirely.

A real conflict with the collective norm arises only when an individual way is raised to a norm, which is the actual aim of extreme individualism. Naturally this aim is pathological and inimical to life. It has, accordingly, nothing to do with individuation, which, though it may strike out on an individual bypath, precisely on that account needs the norm for its orientation to society and for the vitally necessary relationship of the individual to society. Individuation, therefore, leads to a natural esteem for the collective norm. [Definitions," CW 6, par. 761.]​

The process of individuation, consciously pursued, leads to the realization of the self as a psychic reality greater than the ego. Thus individuation is essentially different from the process of simply becoming conscious.

The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self. [The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 278.]

Again and again I note that the individuation process is confused with the coming of the ego into consciousness and that the ego is in consequence identified with the self, which naturally produces a hopeless conceptual muddle. Individuation is then nothing but ego-centredness and autoeroticism. But the self comprises infinitely more than a mere ego, as the symbolism has shown from of old. It is as much one's self, and all other selves, as the ego.[On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 432.]​

In Jung's view, no one is ever completely individuated. While the goal is wholeness and a healthy working relationship with the self, the true value of individuation lies in what happens along the way.

The goal is important only as an idea; the essential thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime.["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 400.]​

Source
 

Eric B

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I'm still trying to understand individuation, especially as it relates to the anima/animus. Lenore Thomson had been explaining some of this to me, but then had to tend to something else. I found this article that said a lot of stuff paralleling what she had been saying:

Jung Society of Atlanta - Anima
As Jung says, "The anima has an erotic, emotional character.... Hence most of what men say about feminine eroticism, and particularly about the emotional life of women, is derived from their own anima projections and distorted accordingly." (CW 17, Par 338) That is the foremost manifestation of the anima's process, but she acts upon us as well by way of dreams, visions, fantasies, memories, moods, and, I also would assume, physical sensations.
More commonly they [men who avoid the anima] engage in an ambivalent dance between a virginal good girl who threatens to trap them into a stultifying conventional marriage and a sexually-charged bad girl version of the femme fatale, from whom they also must flee, because she is so dangerous. The ultimate refuge is the wilderness, with like-minded "lost boy" male companions, a pattern Leslie Fiedler traces in Love and Death in the American Novel. Maria Von Franz's Puer Aeternus, considers negative anima issues to have underlain the suicidality implicit in the aviator/writer Antoine St. Exupery's risk-taking behavior.
[I had come so suspect that that "bad girl femme fetale" might be connected with Beebe's "Opposing Personality Complex" which is the other normally female archetype in the male psyche. I believe the ego splits off the innocent aspects of feminine otherness as the anima, and the less innocent as the OP. Hence, the whole "Madonna/Whore" complex, though this is said to be more for immature men who become "puers"].

There was also talk of stuff like "libido", "inner capacity for eros", "life-giving energy", and to "to recognize the instinctual aspect of oneself, the libidinal emotional stuff that's part of being alive, so that it isn't confused with the self-experience of living breathing women".

I'm really trying to figure all of this. It's like I kind of have an idea, but can't quite put my finger on it to describe. I can remember in adolescence having an ideal of a perfect female companion, and seeing females with certain aspects of this (like a bubbly face or personality), and feel that person's companionship was like a source of life or something that I needed to be whole.
As I had no luck at that time, I learned to just try to enjoy activities I liked alone, but it still wasn't as good as sharing with this other.
But then, actually marrying, and seeing other coupes, you realize that a partner really is not this total life-giver you romanticize them or an ideal of them as. They are just another person who gets tired and irritable, and has a whole lot of their own pains and annoying behaviors like anyone else.

So I still don't quite understand what this "recognizing this instinctual aspect" in one's self is. However, this is supposedly the bridge to accessing the rest of the unconscious, and thus to individuation.

Even though individuation has to do with coming to grips with the unconscious; it is not becoming all types, however. In fact, the article later says "that rather than getting drained and converted to arable land like the Zuider Zee, the unconscious remains unconscious, and, from the standpoint of the conscious ego, uncivilized. And regrettably the anima, its herald, remains largely inscrutable".
So you'll still have your preferred functions making up type.
 

Such Irony

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If you test as XXXX you're probably either demonstrate poor self-awareness or you're just really balanced. You can be really balanced and still have an underlying personality type. If you're in that situation, ask yourself how you were when you were younger and in what ways you've adapted. That should give you a clue as to what your natural tendencies are.
 

INTP

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Nope. You're one or the other but you may develop non-dominant functions.

this. even if you train the non-dominant functions in a point where you can freely use every function at any situation, not even that would mean that your type has changed from the original
 

slowriot

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To answer the question since people are really confused; No.

You have to understand that what is described by Jung and to some degree Myers Briggs literature is the extreme types. Those that exhibit traits differently from the general demographics - but still stereotypical - of the proposed type.

Most people that take the type indicator are not extreme people. So there is confusion in many to what attitude they use or function because we all use the functions but still have a preference of functions.

Thats the basics. To quote the article I put up in this thread before. "Individuation is a process informed by the archetypal ideal of wholeness, which in turn depends on a vital relationship between ego and unconscious. The aim is not to overcome one's
personal psychology, to become perfect, but to become familiar with it."


What I bolded is what I find interesting here. Because ideally what we would see as perfect is the use of every function as we needed it. But that is out of our grasp we can only become familiar with ourselves, know our potential as we are, know the potential of our preferences. And our psyche is not able to go from one so different perspective of dominance to a different one without creating a psychosis. As I understand it.
 
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