What MBTI type was Carl Jung

[Mole]

This stings. I've been trying for years to receive adequate psychotherapy but it's difficult for me to get it. It's not out of choice.

Here, all I need is a referral from my GP to get free psychotherapy. Or I have found free psychotherapy in the University and in the hospital. Also I notice the cost of psychotherapy can be quite small.

If you want money to pay for psychotherapy, there are number of sites on the internet where we can solicit donations for a specific purpose, such as psychotherapy.

I think the problem for many of us is that we prefer fantasy to psychotherapy.

 

[reckful]

I think it's funny to type one of the people who created this whole system, or another method on it. Like, it's kind of ironic? Lol.

He allegedly typed himself as INTP and ISTP.

(From CelebrityTypes -- I use that website a lot.)

Buuut wait! There's a complication...

Jung's function stack was different from the one (the Harold Grant function stack) that's most popular at MBTI forums. I don't think there's much doubt that Jung viewed his own function stack as Ti-Ni-Se-Fe (at least at the time he wrote Psychological Types), and you can read more about that, and about why that would translate to a modern MBTI INTJ, in this post.

 

[Eric B]

[MENTION=3521]Eric B[/MENTION] haha, it's good you're checking all the angles on this, anyway, let's do it: well apart from the "introverted intellectual side" part about Nietzsche, the Cuvier/Nietzsche example is given as follows

The order is

objective factor vs subjective factor

Darwin vs Kant

Cuvier vs Nietzsche

Pretty sure those two points together make it very unlikely that he's saying Cuvier is the Ti of the two, whilst Nietzsche the Te of the two.

I think he was just meaning Nietzsche's thinking is more introverted compared to Cuvier's thinking than is Kant's thinking function introverted compared to Darwin's own.

The thing is on average, Jung seems to be perfectly happy treating the dom/aux on a similar footing in these kinds of contexts and many others, so I don't think he was really thinking about thinking being either dominant vs auxiliary in Nietzsche in this particular context: for all practical purposes, he was just saying Nietzsche is a Ti type (he's also a Ni type), and he's just even more severely a Ti type

I should also reiterate again (which I had forgotten for the moment) that there was ambiguity as to whether the auxiliary and tertiary were really "two auxiliaries", so again, NiTi would suggest INFJ. Inasmuch as the tertiary can "inflate" and seem stronger than it is, and people get stuck in the so-called "loops" of the dom. and tertiary, that's what would seem to explain that best to me.

 

[VILLANELLE]

Buuut wait! There's a complication...

Jung's function stack was different from the one (the Harold Grant function stack) that's most popular at MBTI forums. I don't think there's much doubt that Jung viewed his own function stack as Ti-Ni-Se-Fe (at least at the time he wrote Psychological Types), and you can read more about that, and about why that would translate to a modern MBTI INTJ, in this post.

I didn't read all of that, but that's a very interesting post, especially talking about how he felt types aren't static. I guess it's more about developing the functions and such, as you get older. I don't really have any idea what his type is, I was just throwing a life preserver out here for a grab, I guess you could say. I think he'd be INTJ too, and I'm basically just agreeing with you because I am. It does make sense, though. 'Cause he said he was more of a thinker or something.

 

[Mal12345]

I think it's funny to type one of the people who created this whole system, or another method on it. Like, it's kind of ironic? Lol.

He allegedly typed himself as INTP and ISTP.

(From CelebrityTypes -- I use that website a lot.)

This has been stated and Celebrity Types has been cited many times on this subject. Jung stated in an interview, which can be viewed on YouTube, that he became more sensory-based as he grew older. As for seeing him as an INTP, that is not in the interview.

Study the man and make your own determination. Read about his life. Make an effort instead of merely reading one website which you happen to trust for whatever mistaken reason.

 

[GavinElster]

I should also reiterate again (which I had forgotten for the moment) that there was ambiguity as to whether the auxiliary and tertiary were really "two auxiliaries", so again, NiTi would suggest INFJ.

Well yeah, Jung/von Franz would probably be fine saying the aux/tert are just the two auxes, but in practice, I think often he viewed it as if the top two are conscious/bottom two unconscious -- but yes he did seem to allow the possibility that the 2nd and 3rd both serve the dominant, or at least von Franz seemed to I think.

But Nietzsche's feeling is considered by Jung to be inferior, like his sensation (see Zarathustra Seminar). So he probably saw Nietzsche as overall NiTiFeSe, not NiTiFiSe.


I don't think I can personally think of that as "INFJ in a NiTi loop" or anything like that, because Jung's base operating assumption seems to be your conscious functions are in the conscious attitude -- unlike where the default would go Ni pairs with Fe with tertiary Ti. But sure, loosely maybe.

 

[GavinElster]

I don't think there's much doubt that Jung viewed his own function stack as Ti-Ni-Se-Fe (at least at the time he wrote Psychological Types)

You mean at the time of his interview with Freeman? What about the whole thing about "As a natural scientist, thinking and sensation were uppermost in me..." -- which appears to be closer to the time of writing Psychological Types, and pre-date his interview with Freeman, which is where I thought he gave T+N as > S, F.

By this interpretation, he'd probably have changed his view from something like TiSi>NeFe to TiNi>SeFe. Am I being nuts? Obviously the TiNi one is the most recent, and probably the one he'd ultimately go with, but still, just for the record and all...

 

[reckful]

You mean at the time of his interview with Freeman? What about the whole thing about "As a natural scientist, thinking and sensation were uppermost in me..." -- which appears to be closer to the time of writing Psychological Types, and pre-date his interview with Freeman, which is where I thought he gave T+N as > S, F.

By this interpretation, he'd probably have changed his view from something like TiSi>NeFe to TiNi>SeFe. Am I being nuts? Obviously the TiNi one is the most recent, and probably the one he'd ultimately go with, but still, just for the record and all...

Jung identified himself as a J-dom ("rational type") in Psychological Types, which means Ti-dom, because there's no way he viewed himself as an Fi-dom, and I've never heard anybody respectable suggest he was an extravert. And it's clear that by the time he gave the Freeman interview, he thought of himself as an N, although I consider the Freeman interview ambiguous on the Ti-dom vs. Ni-dom issue.

That "natural scientist" stuff is from a transcription of a 1925 seminar — four years after Psychological Types was published — where Jung is answering a question from a "Miss Hincks." The quote turns up on the internet periodically in the context of discussions of Jung's type, and nobody ever really knows what to make of it. Jung was around 50 at the time, and it kind of sounds like he's talking about what he was like during some earlier period when he was a "natural scientist" (he says T and S "were uppermost in me") but it's really not clear — nor is it entirely clear whether his follow-up example (which clearly involves a T-dom with an S-aux) was intended to be him (during an earlier period or at any time).

For anyone else who may be interested, I've put that quote in the spoiler, along with what he said in the Freeman interview.

Here (again) is what Jung said in that BBC TV interview with John Freeman (when he was 84):

JF: Have you concluded what psychological type you are yourself?

Jung: (chuckling) Naturally I have devoted a great deal of attention to that painful question, you know.

JF: And reached a conclusion?

Jung: Well, you see, the type is nothing static. It changes in the course of life. But I most certainly was characterized by thinking. I overthought from early childhood on. And I had a great deal of intuition, too. And I had definite difficulty with feeling. And my relation to reality was not particularly brilliant. I was often at variance with the reality of things. Now that gives you all the necessary data for the diagnosis.​

And here's the quote from that 1925 seminar transcription:

As a natural scientist, thinking and sensation were uppermost in me and intuition and feeling were in the unconscious and contaminated by the collective unconscious. You cannot get directly to the inferior function from the superior, it must always be via the auxiliary function. It is as though the unconscious were in such antagonism to the superior function that it allowed no direct attack. The process of working through auxiliary functions goes on somewhat as follows: Suppose you have sensation strongly developed but are not fanatical about it. Then you can admit about every situation a certain aura of possibilities; that is to say, you permit an intuitive element to come in. Sensation as an auxiliary function would allow intuition to exist. But inasmuch as sensation (in the example) is a partisan of the intellect, intuition sides with the feeling, here the inferior function. Therefore the intellect will not agree with intuition, in this case, and will vote for its exclusion. Intellect will not hold together sensation and intuition, rather it will separate them. Such a destructive attempt will be checked by feeling, which backs up intuition.

Looking at it the other way around, if you are an intuitive type, you can't get to your sensations directly. They are full of monsters, and so you have to go by way of your intellect or feeling, whichever is the auxiliary in the conscious. it needs very cool reasoning for such a man to keep himself down to reality. To sum up then, the way is from the superior to the auxiliary, from the latter to the function opposite to the auxiliary. Usually this first conflict that is aroused between the auxiliary function in the conscious and its opposite function in the unconscious is the fight that takes place in analysis. This may be called the preliminary conflict. The knock-down battle between the superior and inferior functions only takes place in life. In the example of the intellectual sensation type, I suggested the preliminary conflict would be between sensation and intuition, and the final fight between intellect and feeling.​

I agree that the 1925 transcript involves Jung characterizing himself as a Ti-dom with an S-aux if you assume that his follow-up example was intended to be him (which is not entirely clear). In any case, it's pretty clearly Jung saying that, at some point in his past (when he was a "natural scientist"), he had S and T preferences, meaning (assuming introversion) he was either ISTP or ISTJ.

But on top of the uncertainty as to what time period he's talking about there, another significant complication is that, as further described in this post, Jung mostly located the concrete/abstract component of S/N in his very broad notion of what E/I involved.

By the time Jung gave that BBC interview 30 years later, he'd clearly concluded he was an N, but it's unclear whether that was because his concept of intuition had changed to something more consistent with Myers' concept or because he thought his type had changed from S to N — although the Freeman interview certainly has an I-was-this-way-from-the-start flavor. ("I overthought from early childhood on. And I had a great deal of intuition, too. ... And my relation to reality was not particularly brilliant. I was often at variance with the reality of things.")

In any case, the Jung who published Psychological Types in the 1920s (and gave the 1925 seminar) was a Jung who believed that the core aspect of an N preference involved a preferential focus on, and a special ability to perceive, contents of the collective unconscious that reflected "possibilities as to whence [something] came and whither it is going" — which is the primary reason Jung's portrait of the "introverted intuitive type" has a strong mystical visionary flavor that a typical INT is not all that likely to identify with. So I suspect the main explanation for Jung's self-characterization (during whatever the relevant period was) as an IST was (1) that Jung recognized the abstract-theorizer, troubles-with-practical-reality characteristics that would make him an N by today's definition, but thought of those characteristics as part of his introversion; and (2) that Jung assumed that any scientist whose science involved real-world physical phenomena was demonstrating an S preference (whereas we understand today that the ranks of physical scientists are very well-populated with N's), and assumed that an N preference would have involved more of a primary (and mystical) focus on less down-to-earth stuff.

 

[GavinElster]

and it kind of sounds like he's talking about what he was like during some earlier period when he was a "natural scientist" (he says T and S "were uppermost in me")

That's a good point that it could be significantly earlier than the present--I'll admit I was sort of thinking that it was the same period roughly, but you're absolutely right. The question would be how much earlier (I'll have to read and see if I can decode) -- that is, was it so much earlier that Jung no longer identified with it. I mean, at least in that part, I'm pretty darn sure it was about Jung, even if later he gives the example just generically of thinking>sensation>intuition>feeling.
But basically the previous line seemed to be specifically a question about *his* type/functions. So I surmise from that+his response that he was really talking about himself in that line.

Jung tended to view himself as a scientist, though, so if he was stating in this quote that a natural scientist orientation corresponds to thinking+sensation, I'd guess he still identified with that. Unless he somehow was very specifically meaning *natural* to indicate something more sensation-related. That is possible, of course. Like he could have meant natural sciences~physics/biology/chemistry or something of that nature, as opposed to being a psychiatrist. I'm unaware of his past employment. Or it could refer to where he went to school for all I know -- maybe he had to study some kind of more traditional medicine -- what I do remember is something about psychiatry not being very big in that day, and it being a sort of major decision to go that road.
(Now obviously, he still viewed himself most likely as SOME kind of scientist at the time of the Freeman interview -- however, he didn't make such a quote about natural scientists/thinking+sensation then, which is why there's nothing weird about his saying he always was more thinking+intuition.)

I agree with all the rest of the stuff, like his concept of introversion resembling a lot of things we'd identify with modern N. But basically, my point is if Jung had a pretty wild idea of introversion, it's pretty plausible he saw himself as a TiSi type for a time, just his Si is so out there that we might as well call it N in some ways.

that Jung assumed that any scientist whose science involved real-world physical phenomena was demonstrating an S preference (whereas we understand today that the ranks of physical scientists are very well-populated with N's

Yeah, I mean, part of the thing is there's a continuum between extreme-N and extreme-S. The experimental physicist sure as hell is less pragmatic/down to earth than say, your average accountant. But if we're going to associate N just with things like the uber-theoretical physics or metaphysics or whatever, then you get closer to Jung (metaphysics would correspond to some of his Ni mystics) -- because there it's genuinely speculation-very-far-from-observation.

he had S and T preferences, meaning (assuming introversion) he was either ISTP or ISTJ.

Going to lean the TiS, not SiT, though, because he did say his inferior was feeling (and yeah, I know he sometimes refers to the third function as inferior too...but on balance, given his follow-up paragraph, where he painstakingly seems to explain how intuition sides with feeling when sensation sides with thinking, declaring feeling *the* inferior function, and just the way he's explaining this sounds to me a lot like when he called his inferior feeling, he probably meant *the* inferior, not one of two inferiors). Basically, the follow-up paragraph's context seems overwhelmingly leaned to a situation where he does want to distinguish the fourth function as truly the inferior, not a situation where he's just treating the bottom two on the same footing as inferior.

 

[GavinElster]

Errrr, seriously what on earth. I cannot for the life of me decode what period of time he was talking about (that is, when he was addressing his inferior function/feeling). That's the only way I can be sure about what time period he was addressing. I've even seen some of the questions from participants reference earlier seminars, which makes it especially bad.

 

[GavinElster]

fair warning to reader -- this post is brain-dump-ish, just my collecting various pieces of (possible) evidence.

Okay, update: I think when Jung is questioned about (presumably) his inferior function a bit before the "As a natural scientist..." quote, the part of the seminar being referred to might be in Lecture 4, around end of page 34 through page 35 at least. By the surrounding contexts, e.g. page 33, it seems to me like this was neighboring when he discovered extraversion/introversion as ideas, except in pg. 33 he seems to admit this was around the times he made what he considers a blunder -- identifying extraversion with feeling, introversion with thinking. My knowledge is this refers to his correspondence with Hans Schmid-Guisan, or roughly that period. That appears to be around 1915.

So on balance, if Psychological Types is published a bit later than this, it stands presumably in between that and the 1925 seminar.

edit: pages roughly 33-34, Jung seems to be suggesting pretty clearly that he could have presented his book on types (obviously Psychological Types) as coming from his experiences finding the differences between extraverts/introverts....but he then admits a more personal/embarrassing side to it that he says most would probably try to keep hidden, and there he seems to go into discussion of his inferior function/his encounter with it. Assuming this personal/embarrassing side/encounter with his inferior, unconscious side IS the thing that the woman was asking him about prior to the "As a natural scientist" quote, then that period -- the "were"/past tense he seems to be referring to -- would refer to this period, which is very close to Psychological Types.

another edit: Another possible reference that the woman could have been asking him about is on p. 53, where Jung seems to reference a slaying of hero en route to get at the inferior, but again, this is cited as very close to his writing Psychological Types, and appears related to the stuff in 33-4, having to do with the untold/embarrassing side to his "impure thinking".

If all my leaps here are correct, I'd guess at time of writing Psychological Types, Jung considered himself a TiSi type. But hey, who knows.

But in any case, the subject of Jung dealing with his inferior seems like it could very well be related to this theme he discussed many times in various different lectures in the 1925 series, all having to do with episodes that related to his work on Psychological Types being developed/part of the story of it. If that is indeed the case, chances are pretty decent that the "As a natural scientist.." quote does apply to describe the Jung of Psychological Types.

It's also from a purely logical standpoint maybe more likely: how would Jung be trying to bring up the inferior function if he didn't already have a theory of what the inferior function is in the first place, which means it seems likely it doesn't pre-date Psychological Types too much, particularly as the Schmid-Guisan letters reveal a Jung already seemingly much more ignorant about the subject of types, with a much more rudimentary theory, which might mean he developed many of his ideas from 1915 onwards.

(However, as a counter-point to this "purely logical standpoint" interpretation, it is, of course, possible Jung was just dealing with attempting to assimilate/bring up the unconscious, and interpreted that as trying to bring up the inferior function after the fact.)

 

[GavinElster]

Here is a list of relevant quotes from Introduction to Jungian Psychology: Notes of the Seminar on Analytical ... - C. G. Jung - Google Books

p. 33-35:

All of this is the outside picture of the development of my book on the types. I could perfectly well say this is the way the book came about and make an end of it there. But there is another side, a weaving about among mistakes, impure thinking, etc. etc. which is always difficult for a man to make public....Now at this time, inasmuch as I was actively thinking, I had to find a way to reserve myself, so to speak, and to pick up the other, the passive side of my mental life. This, as I have said, a man dislikes to do because he feels so helpless. He can't quite manage it, and feels inferior--it is as though here were a log being tossed about in a stream, and so he gets out of it as soon as possible. He repudiates it because it is not pure intellect--even worse than that, it might be feeling...since my anima had been definitely awakened by all that mythological material I had been working with, I was forced now to give attention to that other side, to my unconscious inferior side...What I did then in order to get at this inferior, unconscious side of me was to make an exact reversal of the mental machinery I had used in the day....I gave all my libido to the unconscious in order to make it work, and in this way I gave the unconscious a chance...I watched the creation of myths going on, and got an insight into the structure of the unconscious, forming thus the concept that plays such a role in the Types.

p. 53:

Thought I could not grasp then the significance of the hero killed, soon after I had a dream in which Siegfried was killed by myself. It was a case of destroying the hero ideal of my efficiency. This had to be sacrificed in order that a new adaptation can be made; in short, it is connected with the sacrifice of the superior function in order to get at the libido necessary to activate the inferior functions...With all of this I give you the impure thoughts that lay back of the Types, where I have carried into abstract terms the contest between the superior and inferior functions, first seen by me in the symbolic form of the slaying of the hero

 

[reckful]

If all my leaps here are correct, I'd guess at time of writing Psychological Types, Jung considered himself a TiSi type. But hey, who knows.

Jung was born in 1875 and trained to be a doctor, before switching to psychiatry, which he practiced starting around 1900.

His break with Freud and midlife crisis happened in 1913, when he was 38. He mostly went into isolation for around seven years, started work on the Red Book, and developed the typology that he published in 1921 as Psychological Types.

During that 1925 seminar, he seems to be referring to the ST period of life as a past phase, when he was a "natural scientist," and so "thinking and sensation were uppermost in me" ("were" in the past tense).

It doesn't really make sense to me that in 1925, when he was traveling and giving lectures on his typology, he would have viewed 1921 (when he published Psychological Types) as some now-concluded "natural scientist" phase of his life. I'd think his med school years and practicing psychiatrist/doctor years would be the likelier candidate for what he meant by his "natural scientist" years.

It's also pretty hard for me to believe that Jung would have thought that his strange "Si" descriptions had much to do with him. And yes, those were first and foremost descriptions of Si in an Si-dom, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have felt that he related reasonably well. (Don't forget that he thought Ti-aux Nietzsche made for a "sharp" example of introverted thinking.)

Comparing his Si-dom description with his Ni-dom description (the unheeded prophet ahead of his time), it's a lot easier for me to see Jung, in 1921, thinking of himself as Ti-Ni than as Ti-Si.

 

[GavinElster]

During that 1925 seminar, he seems to be referring to the ST period of life as a past phase, when he was a "natural scientist," and so "thinking and sensation were uppermost in me" ("were" in the past tense).

It doesn't really make sense to me that in 1925, when he was traveling and giving lectures on his typology, he would have viewed 1921 (when he published Psychological Types) as some now-concluded "natural scientist" phase of his life. I'd think his med school years and practicing psychiatrist/doctor years would be the likelier candidate for what he meant by his "natural scientist" years.

Well, we know what period he was referring to, qualitatively, if not quantitatively -- we just don't know what exact date that is; Jung was, in his "As a natural scientist" quote, referring to the period asked about just lines before, where he was bringing up the inferior function, presumably a period discussed in the seminar earlier, given the fact this was a question asked by a seminar participant, presumably.

I'm not sure I make of the past tense that it was a far away, now-long-gone period -- much of the seminar (including the portions I see as possibly the part of his life asked about by the woman) seems to deal with periods that were relevant to his work on either psychology of the unconscious or psychology of types. Not things belonging to some distant period before he really affiliated with psychological issues. So I'd far from dismiss that this was just a recent past event he learned from, unless there's compelling reason.

So, while in my long list of possible interpretations, I did grant you that Jung may have been talking of a phase when he was into more "traditional" medicine, honestly I'm not inclined to think he was talking about such a time -- it would be very weird if he were trying to delve into his inferior function/unconscious at such a time, and such a time is what the woman who asked him the question referred to. It seems like he'd HAVE to have moved on to psychiatry/psychology/whatever by that time.

And yes, those were first and foremost descriptions of Si in an Si-dom, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have felt that he related reasonably well. (Don't forget that he thought Ti-aux Nietzsche made for a "sharp" example of introverted thinking.)

For all practical purposes, Jung seems to refer to the conscious functions in the plural, and so I'd say basically that if his top two were thinking+sensation, he would have felt he related quite well to the introverted sensation type portrait, in the same sense as he felt Nietzsche should have corresponded to the introverted thinking type portrait well.

I sympathize with your incredulity in a sense, because after all, Jung changed his mind later on, and I'm inclined to think he was thinking more clearly later on, but we have to remember Jung had quite a complex about being seen as a traditional scientist, one who observes reality carefully, not some wild mystic. He even declared people who called him a mystic, reportedly, to be idiots. So it really wouldn't surprise me that he'd have rationalized (however strangely) into believing that he's a TS type.

In fact, Jung probably would view his data on the collective unconscious being evident in his patients as legitimate empirical data -- even if you or I would scoff at this definition of "empirical." Basically, ESPECIALLY because Jung's concept of introversion includes a huge meat of what we'd call "N" today, it really wouldn't surprise me if he thought he's a thinking>sensation>intuition>feeling type at Psychological Types' time of writing...even if he eventually decided he's too crazy to legitimately have a good relation with reality/thus had intuition>sensation.

Basically I'm not saying Jung DOES resemble a sensation type so much as he was probably telling himself that -- just because you or I would view him as a mystic/prophet doesn't mean Jung saw himself as that (in fact, I'd if anything say that he DID NOT see himself that way until maybe later), at least in the earlier days when he kept the illusion of being closer to a traditional scientist. Or even if not probably, at least it's a very legitimate possibility, but personally I'm leaning probably.

This odd mix of performing scientific analysis of empirical data (T+S) AND being in touch with the collective unconscious (introversion) would probably be the exact mix someone who has rationalized that he is doing real science but is still coming up with theories like the collective unconscious would think he exhibits.

It's also pretty hard for me to believe that Jung would have thought that his strange "Si" descriptions had much to do with him.

Also, just in general on this point, I think one has to get used to the fact that Jung, on many occasions, just refers to the top two functions without treating them as "function-attitudes"; I would give more weight to what Jung thought a typical TS type is (scientist) vs TN type (speculative intellect) than I would to what Jung thought introverted sensation types are like.

That is, while it is TRUE that Jung probably would pick TiSi (if he were a thinking+sensation type with introversion) over, say, TiSe, I'm less inclined to worry about whether he fit the Si portrait in his eyes than to worry if he fit both thinking+sensation separately and introversion separately -- since that is how he seemed to think of type. And it seems to me pretty incredibly plausible that he may have seen himself as a traditional scientist (not a wacky mystical scientist) with strong introversion for a long period, before he agreed he's an intuitive.


There's an additional point here, which is that, while I fully agree Jung would've seen someone with aux-Si as an introverted sensation type, we ALSO need to remember that his portraits in Ch. X seemed to at least somewhat overemphasize what these guys look like without a strong auxiliary in the picture (e.g. his Ti-type portrait treats the other three as inferior functions). Yes, yes, I know that it's still emphasizing the common and typical features, so it's not completely/radically divorced from what the types are like even in normal cases, but basically it's reasonable to suspect the Si-portrait is MOST aptly viewed as emphasizing the irrational type features, and I'd like to think THAT is why Jung would not have fully seen himself in it.

If anything, as a self-perceived rational dominant, Jung would be more inclined to view the T+S features as reflective of him than the especially-irrational type features. And the T+S type features are basically traditional scientist features -- which again, while he factually WAS a traditional scientist only when he was training to be a doctor, probably, he probably THOUGHT of himself as a traditional scientist for a while.

Not because he'd have instead seen himself in the mystics/cranks/prophets portrait of Ni types.

 

[reckful]

I sympathize with your incredulity in a sense, because after all, Jung changed his mind later on, and I'm inclined to think he was thinking more clearly later on, but we have to remember Jung had quite a complex about being seen as a traditional scientist, one who observes reality carefully, not some wild mystic. He even declared people who called him a mystic, reportedly, to be idiots. So it really wouldn't surprise me that he'd have rationalized (however strangely) into believing that he's a TS type.

In fact, Jung probably would view his data on the collective unconscious being evident in his patients as legitimate empirical data -- even if you or I would scoff at this definition of "empirical." Basically, ESPECIALLY because Jung's concept of introversion includes a huge meat of what we'd call "N" today, it really wouldn't surprise me if he thought he's a thinking>sensation>intuition>feeling type at Psychological Types' time of writing...even if he eventually decided he's too crazy to legitimately have a good relation with reality/thus had intuition>sensation.

Basically I'm not saying Jung DOES resemble a sensation type so much as he was probably telling himself that.

Buuut see, I'd say that Jung arguably described Si-doms as the folks with the worst relation to reality of all the eight types.

There's more in this long post, but as Jung saw it, Si-doms were awkward, touchy eccentrics, detached from reality, who inhabited "a mythological world, where men, animals, railways, houses, rivers, and mountains appear partly as benevolent deities and partly as malevolent demons."

In describing what he referred to as "the reality-alienating subjectivity of this type," Jung said that an Si-dom "has an illusory conception of reality," and that the relation between the actual physical world and the Si-dom's perceptions of it is "unpredictable and arbitrary." Both because of that and because, in Jung's view, the Si-dom's thinking and feeling functions "are relatively unconscious and, if conscious at all, have at their disposal only the most necessary, banal, everyday means of expression," Jung said that not only is it typical for Si-doms to be unable to really communicate their views to the world in understandable ways — an Si-dom also typically "fares no better in understanding himself."

Jung grouped Ni-doms and Si-doms together as the "most useless of men" from the standpoint of achieving practical, real-world results — but taken as a whole, I'd say the Ni-dom portrait is considerably more flattering than the Si-dom portrait.

 

[GavinElster]

Buuut see, I'd say that Jung arguably described Si-doms as the folks with the worst relation to reality of all the eight types.

Both because of that and because, in Jung's view, the Si-dom's thinking and feeling functions "are relatively unconscious and, if conscious at all, have at their disposal only the most necessary, banal, everyday means of expression," Jung said that not only is it typical for Si-doms to be unable to really communicate their views to the world in understandable ways — an Si-dom also typically "fares no better in understanding himself."

I'd say a couple things to this:

- Again, I strongly think the Ch. X portraits emphasize the irrational/rational distinction much more strongly than is applicable in cases like a natural scientist with presumably conscious thinking+sensation--the bold would not apply. If you look at the extraverted rationals, Jung all but says the perceiving functions are super-repressed, and the analogous statement applies to the introverted irrationals

- While it's true Jung would most likely prefer, were he considering himself an introverted TS type, to see the S as introverted, I think it's much more relevant to consider what TS means and what introversion means than to consider if Jung saw himself in the Si portrait.

When Jung says someone is a thinking+sensation type, I think he's on balance calling that person someone who observes reality closely+is scientific, more than I think Jung is saying they have one of these crazy abstract impressionistic Si freaks in themselves even if they happen to be introverts.

I would say just close your eyes, forget all the knowledge you have about the attitude of the auxiliary, and just ask yourself: given what Jung has said about thinking and sensation, is it plausible he considered himself a thinking-sensation type at one point, even in his psychiatric career. I'd say absolutely.

Now you may say hey, why should I forget that??? Because I claim you're maybe getting maybe too hung up in the difficulty in imagining HOW someone who identified AT ALL with the Si portrait could be a natural scientist of any kind (that is, someone whose job it is to observe reality). It's just weird that on the one end, you'd expect an introverted natural scientist to be an introverted thinking+sensation type -- but on the other hand, then they would have to identify with the crazy Si portrait!!!! I'm just claiming this weirdness shouldn't throw you off, and that what Jung probably meant is just that he identified with thinking+sensation and introversion at the time of writing Psychological Types.

OK, now yes, we can open our eyes and say, yes this has the weird implication that if forced to pick, Si>Se for Jung at that time....but I'd not dwell on that part as much as the most relevant thing to figuring how Jung typed himself. I'd say if you have a really hard time imagining how there could be any connection between someone who saw himself as a scientist observing reality closely and the Si portrait, dismiss that as a quirk of Jung's reasoning, an inconsistency or weirdness in it, rather than viewing it as a significant source of doubt in how Jung probably saw his own type.

I mean hell, Jung basically says introverted sensation disobeys the principle of sensation!!!!

Sensation, which in obedience to its whole nature is concerned with the object and the objective stimulus, also undergoes a considerable modification in the introverted attitude.

So if you start dwelling on this too much, it might not help.


But basically, another strong difficulty accepting the possibility that Jung was talking of some medical-school phase is that Jung was directly responding to a woman asking about his bringing up his inferior/experience with it, correcting her that his inferior was feeling, and then going on about thinking+sensation being uppermost. That tells me he probably viewed thinking+sensation as uppermost in him in a time when he was practicing psychology of the unconscious/quite possibly types.

 

[GavinElster]

Also!!! EVEN if we grant that Jung's "natural scientist" quote applies to his days in medical school to train as a doctor, unless you believe Jung did not consider himself an introvert, the logical implication is he identified with the Si-dom portrait in his doctor days which is even more implausible than his identifying with it in his phase writing Psychological Types!

This is why I'd think it is best to just forget your qualms with the Si-dom portrait altogether when deciding this issue.

 

[reckful]

But basically, another strong difficulty accepting the possibility that Jung was talking of some medical-school phase is that Jung was directly responding to a woman asking about his bringing up his inferior/experience with it, correcting her that his inferior was feeling, and then going on about thinking+sensation being uppermost. That tells me he probably viewed thinking+sensation as uppermost in him in a time when he was practicing psychology of the unconscious/quite possibly types.

I was less focused on med school than on his 13 (or so) years as a practicing psychiatrist before his 1913 crisis year. And I still have trouble understanding why he would have viewed the studies he was engaged in during those years of relative isolation (after 1913) as putting him in the "natural scientist" category.

ADDED: And I'd also say that in 1925 he was pretty much still doing what he'd been doing in the year he published Psychological Types (1921).

 

[GavinElster]

I was less focused on med school than as his 13 (or so) years as a practicing psychiatrist before his 1913 crisis year.

But either way, if Jung was talking in response to a question about bringing up the inferior function, isn't the most likely period some time neighboring the writing of Psychological Types--not distantly before it? Even 1915, Jung's ideas on the inferior function/etc were probably much less developed. So you'd have to argue Jung was bringing up the inferior without knowing he was doing that, but "bringing up" doesn't sound like a passive act...sounds like an effort to confront the unconscious directly.

And regardless of what period it was, do you really have an easier time imagining Jung identifying with the Si-dom portrait before he became associated with Psychological Types or the collective unconscious? If not, is the Si-dom portrait being wacky relevant to deciding if it was a distant-past or near-Psychological-Types past he was talking of?

ADDED: that's why I prefer to ignore the weird inconsistencies about Si-types being....supposed to orient towards reality (being sensation types) yet apparently not really doing that in any recognizable traditional sense (since apparently introverted sensation opposes the principle of sensation+leads to an illusory concept!)...and focus on the basics: thinking+sensation, forget the attitude, is what Jung was saying in the "natural scientist" quote, and it seems on balance, he probably just meant to portray himself as a traditional scientist, which I think he definitely wanted to see himself as -- again, rebuking people who called him a mystic.

 

[reckful]

But either way, if Jung was talking in response to a question about bringing up the inferior function, isn't the most likely period some time neighboring the writing of Psychological Types--not distantly before it? Even 1915, Jung's ideas on the inferior function/etc were probably much less developed. So you'd have to argue Jung was bringing up the inferior without knowing he was doing that, but "bringing up" doesn't sound like a passive act...sounds like an effort to confront the unconscious directly.

And regardless of what period it was, do you really have an easier time imagining Jung identifying with the Si-dom portrait before he became associated with Psychological Types or the collective unconscious? If not, is the Si-dom portrait being wacky relevant to deciding if it was a distant-past or near-Psychological-Types past he was talking of?

Looking back at more of the context of that 1925 quote, I see what you're getting at in terms of the implication that he was a "natural scientist" at some point while he was engaged in the heavy-duty dream analysis, etc., which would seem to line up better with the post-1913 timing.

In any case, though, what I have the most trouble with is imagining Jung feeling like he related pretty well to those Si descriptions at the time he was composing them — i.e., in the year or two leading up to the publication of Psychological Types.

But as you've noted, there's no doubt that Jung ended up concluding that he was an N, and it sounds to me like by 1959 he'd probably concluded that he'd pretty much always been an N — and therefore that whatever period of his life he'd referred to in 1925 as his "natural scientist" period was quite likely a period that, later on, he essentially reclassified as an NT period.