This idea is not uncommon - that thinkers have just as many feelings, but are less proficient in dealing with them - and I see some merit in it. Sure, we do well at controlling the expression of our feelings, and minimizing emotion in decision making, but that is not so much working with the emotion as shutting/cutting it off. We keep our tiger in a sturdy cage, perhaps because we haven't had too much luck training him, so we are reluctant to let him out. (Of course he may not respond well to training while confined to a cage . . . )
My point was that we are not incapable of training the tiger. Learning emotional self-care has been the difference been many NTJs I've known who become successful personally and professionally, and those who don't. Is it as innate to those types who are Fi-dom or aux? Maybe. Maybe not.
Conversely, there are FPs who are virtual emotional Dr. Doolittles out there who wreak havoc because of a basic worldview that "Whatever tiger wants, tiger gets." Being able to fluently access and identify the content's of one's given emotional state is a necessary, but not sufficient component of emotional self-regulation. The other half of that equation is being able to contextualize one's emotions, and possess the maturity to have some objectivity around one's own subjectivity. To be able to not only know you're angry or heartbroken, but know how to maintain until you're in an appropriate space to release those feelings.
NTJs, especially INTJs, are pretty damn good about knowing that there's a time and place for things, and the world does not just stop spinning because you have a bad case of feels.
I think a successful, healthy adult relationship (regardless of the types involved) requires two people who respectively have some degree of proficiency in both aspect of emotional self-regulation, or what you're going to have instead is a hot, codependent mess. Both partners should be whole in their own right or emotional outsourcing will ensue.
Sort of apropos to this: I was just reading an article from my
new muse entitled "Why Everyone You Date is A Psycho", and couldn't help but think of past member threads from INTs about some of their romantic histories:
When you suppress your emotions and shun intimacy, the only people whose emotions are intense enough to break through are those who are emotionally unstable. By suppressing yourself, you unknowingly self-select for others who overexpress themselves. These men tend to get particularly hooked on these over-emotional women because it allows them to experience their own emotions vicariously through the drama of the woman they’re with.
Interesting though. I know you'd like to think you're not agreeing, but you just exhibited the point. "Memories don't mean much to me....". Exactly. Thinker. No? Memories, and the emotion/sentiment associated with them have great meaning to me. Feeler. Yes? (i.e. The original statement - I feel deeply about what you find trivial.) If I'm off base, please do expound.
The distinction is not around judging functions as NFPs and NTJs are both Te/Fi, but instead one in perceiving functions. Preferring Ni/Se means I'm more oriented towards the present and future than an Ne/Si user like yourself whose intuition is based off Si data, which tends to be rooted in the past. There are TJs out there who theoretically very much value their memories--they just happen to be STJs.
"If a type is best known for long-term planning (as NTJs are), we're probably capable of a fair degree of emotional self-regulation." Until something you didn't plan for happens (entrevues associated unexpected emotion ______here; typically anxiety) So, I fail to make the association between excellent long-term planning and a knack for emotional self-regulation. Do you mean emote regulation?
No, I did meant "emotional self-regulation". Mostly because emotional self-regulation is a
pretty well established concept in psychology. And "emote regulation"
is something google corrects to "remote regulation".
Did you plan the emotions you were going to feel before you felt them because you knew exactly how you, and all those in that scenario, would feel and react before it happened? Therefore, you will have processed through said emotions, if felt in the first place, and then processed through every possible sentiment others could have, and the effect it has on you, and the effect it has on the environment, and this one time, at band camp.... This is a scientific impossibility.
I wrote at length above in response to Coriolis regarding my views on emotional self-regulation. You're welcome to read what's there for the gist of it. I will add to that that part of emotional maturity is the ability to deal effectively with uncertainty. I may not know everything that will come to pass, nor do I have control over everything in my environment.
What I can control, however, is how I respond to things. It is up to me how I choose to respond to adversity, and how I will derive meaning from it. You're correct in saying that it is unreasonable for
anyone to either know or control every single one of the things that you mentioned, but an emotionally mature person with reasonably defined boundaries wouldn't set themselves up for failure by expecting it of themselves. I confident in myself that whatever loops life throws at me, I'll handle it when I get there, and I'll be ok.
I've personally witnessed an NTJ's "this is not how I planned it in my head" melt down. Because no where in his mind did he expect me to swing him around and kiss him on the lips.
That bad, huh? Lol.
No one could ever plan for every single life event therefore regulating on set emotion. Isn't this why most NTJs "retreat" to process and begin the endless "why?" examination?
No, we introvert to process things because our dominant perceiving function is...introverted. Honestly, I'd be happy to set you up with some primers on functions if it would help.
Summary: I'll just stay in my head because I like it better here than the real world. (Said no NTJ...ever.) *Holds up sarcasm sign just in case*
I've heard a lot of NTJs say that...again our dominant perceiving function is Ni. It's especially true of INTJs. Your writing is not making it clear whether that was the joke or not.