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Unhealthy versus Healthy - A Failure of Typology

rav3n

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Well then, why don't you set a good example and start by telling us why you are getting defensive over this word? What stake do you have in the ability to call others' behavior healthy or unhealthy without criticism?
Ha...a good defense is a good offense, no?

I hold no stake. You're welcome to call me healthy or unhealthy or not. You're also welcome to challenge me, as you've just done.
 

Mal12345

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This particular experiment (which occured in 1973) is more complicated than that.

Mislabeling by a medical expert is not the main fault here; the patients clearly falsified their symptoms, which was a violation of patient/doctor relationship (since the doctor cannot draw proper conclusions if the patient is falsely reporting information and actually doesn't need the help they are pretending to need).

Thomas Szasz.
 

entropie

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I accept everybodies opinion, but have a very clear set of opinion for my own and it would take you some time to convince of something new. I have never called someone being unhealthy or such in the way he represents the mbti functions, but I know of the problem and I am not completly guilt-free. To me it has occured that especially Fe user have a certain way of etiquette, while especially Fi user try to vote for their individuality. I sometimes have a hard time accepting the wanted uniqueness of Fi user cause it appears to me like they need to stand out of the crowd or have "an extra sausage roasted" like they say in german. On the other hand I am not dumb and want people to live their individuality aswell. It's just complicated when my infp girl comes home and tells me how the others treated her bad and I know in an instant what she did wrong and with what better strategy she could have get rid of the others, by just following some sort of felt Fe etiquette.

I am learning to cope with that at the moment and I want to build more respect for other opinions. I am tho convinced that tho I may develop tolerance, my opinion will stay the same and if someone calls me dumb or not-open minded because I hate it to stand out of the crowd with my opinion, so be it.
 

InvisibleJim

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Ha...a good defense is a good offense, no?

I hold no stake. You're welcome to call me healthy or unhealthy or not. You're also welcome to challenge me, as you've just done.

As I've explained already, it's a weak understanding of cognition that leads to labeling others as having unhealthy cognition. The OP is typology, it is clear that if a person is neurotic or delusional then that is unhealthy; however, you just can't have 'unhealthy' Fi or 'unhealthy Ni-Te'.

An individual can like/dislike the aspects of other types or their cognitive functions; however, just because you dislike the thinking style of another individual does not an unhealthy thinking style make.

It's a pretty simple idea, but many people seem to wish to use imagined agenda to create a destructive prose rather than addressing the technical aspects of the topic.

The problem here is simple, you have decided that a good offense is a good defense - have you considered if it is more important to offend others leaving them hostile to you or to convey technically accurate and useful information/opinion for other people by using mutually agreed and relevant definitions and analysis?
 

entropie

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As I've explained already, it's a weak understanding of cognition that leads to labeling others as having unhealthy cognition. The OP is typology, it is clear that if a person is neurotic or delusional then that is unhealthy; however, you just can't have 'unhealthy' Fi or 'unhealthy Ni-Te'.

An individual can like/dislike the aspects of other types or their cognitive functions; however, just because you dislike the thinking style of another individual does not an unhealthy thinking style make.

It's a pretty simple idea, but many people seem to wish to use imagined agenda to create a destructive prose rather than addressing the technical aspects of the topic.

The problem here is simple, you have decided that a good offense is a good defense - have you considered if it is more important to offend others leaving them hostile to you or to convey technically accurate and useful information/opinion for other people by using mutually agreed and relevant definitions and analysis?

Imo tho I'ld still say it's as equally bold to assume that there could be such a thing like a healthy function use, as it is bold to assume everybody is using the functions the same healthy way.

A fierce defender of independance might say that the difference in function use is a sign of individuality and I agree that's great. But how do you approach said people when they should ask for help ?
 

Lark

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I dont think its a failure, typology is an express of cognitive preferences and as a result strengths and weaknesses, when crisis or challenges result in strengths being overtaxed and weaknesses prevailing there's no better definition of unhealthy functioning. Plus in addition to MBTI's labelling of preferences there's Jung's typology of self and shadow, possibly even his model of archetypes constellating or becoming complexes in the conscious/unconscious, to be considered too. Developmental and cultural factors will effect whether or not someone is able to perform healthily whatever their cognitive preferences.
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

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Typology is all about how one will communicate so if the message is brought across and understood correctly I think that function was used correctly.
 

Orangey

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Typology is all about how one will communicate so if the message is brought across and understood correctly I think that function was used correctly.

...the corollary being that if the message is NOT brought across and understood correctly, then that function was used incorrectly?

First of all, I really don't think personality systems are meant to be used in that kind of normative way.

Second, how would you be able to diagnose mis-communications? Is it the sender's fault (was the function that he used unhealthy) if the other person doesn't understand? Or is it the receiver's fault? Moreover, what about different types of communication that involve functions but don't conform to the standard sender-receiver model, such as artistic expressions? Functions obviously have other uses than strict verbal communication.

Third, how do you know which behaviors are the result of which functions? If you can't even know that, then what is the point of trying to categorize specific behaviors as good or bad uses of a function? It's all bullshit.
 

INTP

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Typology is all about how one will communicate so if the message is brought across and understood correctly I think that function was used correctly.

no. typology is all about how we perceive and think(make judgments of thoughts and perceptions). that does reflect on our natural communication styles in some levels, but communication is half learned and half about natural tendencies on particular ways to communicate
 

Mal12345

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no. typology is all about how we perceive and think(make judgments of thoughts and perceptions). that does reflect on our natural communication styles in some levels, but communication is half learned and half about natural tendencies on particular ways to communicate

That only refers to the MBTI and other cognitive styles typologies. It does not describe typology in general. Reflect was focusing on types of communication styles even if he was thinking of the MBTI or something similar.
 

entropie

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A communication style that is so objective and independant from what one has half-learned and from ones natural tendency I yet have to meet
 

Xander

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Can you have an unhealthy function?

Would you say that an F who has internalised the function so that they are caring more about their own wants and don't tend to pick up on other's wants then that is an unhealthy F?
 

Thalassa

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Can you have an unhealthy function?

Would you say that an F who has internalised the function so that they are caring more about their own wants and don't tend to pick up on other's wants then that is an unhealthy F?

No, just an amoral one. A T could equally be as concerned with themselves versus not givng a shit about others.

I don't think what you've proposed here is even about functions.
 

Xander

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No, just an amoral one. A T could equally be as concerned with themselves versus not givng a shit about others.

I don't think what you've proposed here is even about functions.

So being Amoral isn't unhealthy. This begs the question of what is? All I'm thinking is that without an established set of parameters for what is healthy and what is not then you can't say either with conviction no matter what system you use to describe it. Surely before anyone can judge some kind of consensus on the elements which make up "unhealthy" is needed?
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

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...the corollary being that if the message is NOT brought across and understood correctly, then that function was used incorrectly?

First of all, I really don't think personality systems are meant to be used in that kind of normative way.

Second, how would you be able to diagnose mis-communications? Is it the sender's fault (was the function that he used unhealthy) if the other person doesn't understand? Or is it the receiver's fault? Moreover, what about different types of communication that involve functions but don't conform to the standard sender-receiver model, such as artistic expressions? Functions obviously have other uses than strict verbal communication.

Third, how do you know which behaviors are the result of which functions? If you can't even know that, then what is the point of trying to categorize specific behaviors as good or bad uses of a function? It's all bullshit.

Hm, those are good points. I would say that when it comes to the miscommunication and where it is occuring it could be either persons fault. Variables that get in the way are things such as the thoughts complexity, the vocabulary that one has to describe the thought (though complexity of thought might be limited to do this in the beginning), the person who's listening capacity for understanding. If we look at art, I suppose it's best to say that if the person explaining their idea to a person who asked them their motivations for creating it and what it's supposed to express, and the person speaking is trying to describe his feelings behind it, and they aren't congruent with the art itself, perhaps the person painting misperceived, barring the above variables are met. Of course, how we perceive certain things is different too, so the person listening may not be able to perceive what is being explained, and the person painting may be correct in their own right, but if we go with this logic then technically we're all right, concepts like that don't usually tend to work out so well with humans. Hm, actually, it might not be completely out of our grasp if we look at it from the perspective that we're all right. Let's say someone painted a piece of paper red, that's it, and another looks at it and says this makes me feel hot. The painter looks at it and says I was trying to make you feel cold. With this knowledge the person who was judging misjudged and the person painting misperceived. That example leads me to the concept that both could be wrong.

I am unable to answer your first and third question mainly because I don't know. I think it has to do with trusting the person to describe, or show what they feel, or thought in the best way they know how, but we can never really know this for sure.

No cigar.

Why? Just curious on your thoughts.

no. typology is all about how we perceive and think(make judgments of thoughts and perceptions). that does reflect on our natural communication styles in some levels, but communication is half learned and half about natural tendencies on particular ways to communicate

I guess my reasoning was that eventually we all try to express what we see and so eventually we would need to make that communication clear to those who are watching and if it doesn't make sense... Well, I talked about that in Orangey's part.
 

Thalassa

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So being Amoral isn't unhealthy. This begs the question of what is? All I'm thinking is that without an established set of parameters for what is healthy and what is not then you can't say either with conviction no matter what system you use to describe it. Surely before anyone can judge some kind of consensus on the elements which make up "unhealthy" is needed?

I think they've already described it. It's a highly stressed state for the individual, where they're in their Jungian shadow. An ENFP acting like an STJ outside of particular situations is not an especially happy ENFP.

I think unhealthy implies a person who is full of negative emotions, or who is in a highly stressed state, or who is forcing themselves to be something they're not. Unhealthy also implies other psychological issues like depression, anxiety, anger, et al.
 

entropie

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you should see an entp acting like an isfj. The house has never been so tidy in all your life ! :D
 

InvisibleJim

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I think they've already described it. It's a highly stressed state for the individual, where they're in their Jungian shadow. An ENFP acting like an STJ outside of particular situations is not an especially happy ENFP.

I would take exception that description; this is actually a 'healthy' way to cognitively deal with the stressed state! :D What would be unhealthy would be to continue the same action and expect a different result!
 

Thalassa

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I would take exception that description; this is actually a 'healthy' way to cognitively deal with the stressed state! :D What would be unhealthy would be to continue the same action and expect a different result!

If you believe there's no such thing as unhealthy, that living in someone's shadow under long-term stress is okay, we're going to have to agree to disagree, because from personal experience, that is no fucking way to live, unless it's a very specific situation that needs handling.
 
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