What MBTI type was Carl Jung

[GavinElster]

It's known that Jung focused on the dominant, and not so much the auxiliary, to the point that it's not always clear which attitude the auxiliary would be in.

To be honest, my (pretty close, at least in my own view) reading of Jung is that it's pretty unambiguous how to decide the attitude, even if you're right that it's not always going to be one or the other: the two are in the same attitude if the auxiliary is differentiated, and not, if not. In fact, Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz would habitually refer to someone with developed auxiliary X as someone of type X -- for example, this is why, despite typing Nietzsche as having Ni>Ti in Ch. III, Jung refers to Nietzsche as a Ti type in Chapter X of Psychological Types.

There were times in life when Nietzsche had relied mostly on intuition, with the auxiliary undifferentiated, and it's reasonable to suppose then he may have been considered to have extraverted thinking.



The reason I'm so confident is Jung didn't assign an attitude foremost to a FUNCTION but to consciousness (with the opposite being relegated to the unconscious). So what determined the attitude of the function was whether it was conscious/differentiated, rather than undifferentiated/unconscious. My sense is that if someone had a conscious/differentiated auxiliary, say feeling, with dominant intuition, we could call them both an intuitive type and a feeling type. Hence, if they were an introvert, they'd both be a Ni type and a Fi type -- this seems to be how Jung thought about things. We could phrase this as their having "NiFi", but I'm trying to phrase it most direct to how Jung seemed to think of it on close reading.


Now, this raises a definite point of contention, because my understanding is Beebe is modeling cases where the dom and aux are both differentiated as having opposite/alternating attitudes. I don't think that has a place in Jung's theory.

However, it IS possible to define the meaning of the auxiliary having an attitude with some subtlety/care, outisde the bounds of strict Jungian theory but a reasonable extension of it, so that you can probably appeal to either option (as an example, maybe you do something analogous to socionics, where you split between strong and valued, and say that NiTi are strong, but NiTe are valued -- this wouldn't be Jung's idea, but it would be less contrary to the spirit of his idea for a variety of reasons).
An interesting twist on this is to view the attitude as involving two things: one the direction of energy flow, and two something more cognitive/less about energy -- I can see an argument where having a balance of e/i in cognition, but having more of a this-way or that-way in an energetic sense could be legitimate.

Because, after all, in cognition, it is hard to consistently process the world as not involving external and internal aspects. The inherent nature of reality seems to always involve both, hence to represent reality, one will always have both to have a coherent picture.

I think here, I'm exploiting that Jung always was unclear on one point about the consciousness of the auxiliary: he expressly says in Chapter X at one point that only the dominant is truly conscious, yet in other instances he treats dom/aux as both overall-conscious. I think Jung never made much of this, but I think internal to his theory there's potential to make more use of it than he did/hence a legitimate direction to spin in.

 

[GavinElster]

And while I agree Beebe is plenty Jungian, I think he's also the most MBTI-ified Jungian analyst with repute and involvement in type. The points I brought up about Jung's definitions of the functions are pretty specific, at a level that it would be easy to see someone diverging from orthodox Jung interpretation on the attitude would also diverge on.

 

[Eric B]

Jung seems to have changed certain things, and was unclear and ambiguous on some of them. That's why Myers and Beebe and others had to fill in for him.
Like he did treat the attitude as being held by the individual (or "consciousness" in general, a you said), so that people were "introverts" and "extraverts" just like classic temperament held (and aso, supposedly, ambiverts); but later is quoted as saying that there are no introverts or extraverts; the attitude lies with the function.
So I guess that's where he would say that when the dominant function only is differentiated, it will bear the dominant attitude, where the undifferentiated functions will all bear the opposite (unconscious) attitude. But then, I once heard that he said, that the auxiliary ought NOT be differentiated, because it would take on the preferred attitude and compete with the dominant for control. So perhaps what he was describing about the differentiated aux. with the dominant attitude was hypothetical, or perhaps unusual.

So for that reason, the view I've taken on is that only the dominant is normally "differentiated" (in its own right), and the other functions become connected with the complexes (which are what Beebe has highlighted), so that it's the Parent that orients the auxiliary to the opposite attitude, the Child that orients the tertiary to the dominant attitude, etc. So though they're technically "differentiated" by the complexes it's not really, if you understand differentiate to refer to the ego's dominant only.
This may be an extension of whatever it is he actually taught, but it clarifies it, and seems to fit experience as well.

 

[Jaq]

His type was JUNG, duh...

 

[GavinElster]

But then, I once heard that he said, that the auxiliary ought NOT be differentiated, because it would take on the preferred attitude and compete with the dominant for control.

I'd be very interested to see where you saw this, but my thought is it may not indicate any significant divergence from his view in Psychological Types. For one thing, we should note that in Chapter X, Jung BOTH says that there can only be one conscious function/one function with absolute sovereignty AND says later the following not a little bit down the page

A grouping of the unconscious functions also takes place in accordance with the relationship of the conscious functions. Thus, for instance, an unconscious intuitive feeling attitude may correspond with a conscious practical intellect

That is, conscious function*S* in the plural -- where he's roughly treating the aux and dom as conscious, but where he probably means the aux is conscious *due to serving the dom, rather than serving inferior*.

So I guess the most likely interpretation to me seems that Jung is saying that one should not allow the auxiliary to obtain absolute sovereignty/become fully conscious/usurp control from the dominant, but still, the dom-aux pair constitute conscious functions in the appropriate sense.

Further support to this interpretation: von Franz (who is much younger than Jung) goes with Jung's tendency to refer to someone with secondary X as type X -- that is, having secondary thinking merits being called a "thinking type" as much as having dominant thinking.
This suggests again that, while both von Franz/Jung may caution against trying to become the type corresponding to the auxiliary, as von Franz writes in her lectures on the inferior, often it's hard to even tell which is dom vs aux without looking to the inferior....


Hence, this suggests to me that, unless Jung abandoned thinking of the attitude as belonging to consciousness, even with his caution on differentiating the aux, he would generally assign the attitude of consciousness to both of the conscious functions (as he does to Nietzsche in Ch. III of Psychological Types+reconfirms in Ch. X that Nietzsche's secondary thinking is introverted).


So now I'd love to see the place where Jung suggests that the attitude really belongs to the function. That seems to be a sort of huge change, because in Psychological Types, it overwhelmingly gives the impression that he's viewing the 2 attitudes as the main things, and just listing peculiarities of each function in each attitude.
Even so, I'd stand by my claim that *at least* Psychological Types Jung really didn't seem to leave much room for the interpretation of having someone with developed auxiliary in the opposite attitude -- and he EXPRESSLY typed Nietzsche as a NiTi type with both developed.

Parent that orients the auxiliary to the opposite attitude, the Child that orients the tertiary to the dominant attitude, etc. So though they're technically "differentiated" by the complexes it's not really, if you understand differentiate to refer to the ego's dominant only.

Alright, I mean I grant that's a possible view. But I guess I have to ask this: isn't it better to be more conditional, and just say from one point of view, the aux serves the dom (DUH, that's what auxiliary means), thus it is working in the same attitude, but from another point of view, it branches out, since technically even aux is not fully conscious because it's not independently conscious?
I get the idea, it's cool, basically the Child is stubbornly clinging to the dominant point of view, whereas being a parent gets you out of your comfort zone while shouldering responsibility, hence you develop the opposite attitude.

But basically, the only problem I have with accepting this completely is that Jung already had a way of getting compensation for the dominant's one-sidedness, and that came from the unconscious/inferior. While both these views are internally consistent, why adopt one over the other (unless, as I did above, you find a way to sneak in both)? The aux has a special role, since it is modifying the dom, yet is not the dom, so in a way I think treating it as a) serving ego b) serving a complex might work holistically. The idea of the aux helping get to the inferior (since the dom won't do it!) is good, so I see a road to the aux having something to do with the inferior attitude -- I just can't wholly abandon the aux having something to do with the dom attitude either, because hey, it's aux, it's not just a stand-alone function, and I think this goes with why Jung refers to the dom-aux pair from one POV as the "conscious functions".

 

[Eric B]

The first citation, was from a private discussion with a Jungian, and it made sense to me. I don't think it clashes with what Von Franz taught, as that's how we all use it today, taking from the MBTI code, where those are the two middle letters of the type.
Consciousness has different meanings, or we could say, different levels. So since the Parent archetype is close to the ego in the hierarchy, then the auxiliary will become technically “conscious”, but not in the same way as the dominant (i.e. DIRECTLY, to the ego). So then “conscious functions” will in one sense be synonymous with “PREFERRED” functions (the ones that fill in the type code), as we put it today, and yet it also refers to the one with “sovereignty” in the ego (the ego's “main operating charter” as it was also put, to me), which is the dominant.
I think a big problem with Jung was his not clarifying these terms and their different contexts, which is part of what makes him so hard to read, as you can never be completely sure of what he means by them.

Compensation is probably less with the inferior because of the fact that it is far from consciousness, so the aux. is the "best shot at attitudinal balance".

The other citation is "Strictly speaking, there are no introverts and extraverts pure and simple, but only introverted and extraverted function-types." This is attributed to Psychological Types, Appendix: "Four Papers on Psychological Typology", p. 523. (see Carl Gustav Jung) As PT was a collection of his works, I take it this was a later statement of his, where he revised the theory.

 

[GavinElster]

I don't think it clashes with what Von Franz taught

No of course not; I was just mentioning von Franz because I think she's a good reflection of the probable late-Jung's views. She seemed to go along with him/worked closely with him.

Basically, the point there was that Jung had two ways of calling functions conscious: sometimes he said just the dominant is conscious, other times he referred to the dom-aux pair as "the conscious functions" -- and I think his meaning is just that from one perspective, since the aux can't be absolutely sovereign, it's not ever truly conscious, but since it goes so well with the dominant in pairing with it, it can be considered conscious (and again, hence the willingness to call an auxiliary thinking person a "thinking type" -- rather than reserving that for the dominant).


The relevance of this to our discussion is that I'd guess the meaning of cautioning against differentiating the auxiliary might just be in the sense of "don't let it become absolutely sovereign" -- technically, if the auxiliary does not operate for its own principle, and is always conscious only in its modification of the dominant, this means it's not really SEPARATED from the dominant's principle, hence it's not differentiated in the psyche.
And hence, if Jung viewed the aux/dom as "the conscious functions" and only cautioned against differentiating the auxiliary in this absolute, full sense, I'd imagine he'd still stick to his Psychological Types view of allowing dom/aux in the same attitude (which there's decisive proof he allows given his Nietzsche typing).

The other citation is "Strictly speaking, there are no introverts and extraverts pure and simple, but only introverted and extraverted function-types."

Alright, that actually is much less unexpected/consistent with what I know of Jung than if he said there are only introverted/extraverted functions -- rather than function-types. This is in the direction of just dealing with 8 function-attitudes, but a function-type, strictly speaking, is much closer to the conscious attitude of a person.

Basically, I'd have been flabbergasted if Jung started going from the "there are 4 functions" view to "there are 8 functions" view -- in modern lingo we almost refer to the function-attitudes as 8 functions -- that is, information processing modes. Whereas I'd have expected (and it appears that's confirmed here) Jung to stick to function-attitudes mostly in context of types of individuals.



Just going by Jung's writings, where he's OK referring to the function-attitude types separately (e.g. he calls Nietzsche an introverted thinking type in Ch. X, despite his being an introverted intuitive dominant type), it's possible he'd be open, based on this quote, to calling someone an introverted thinking type and an extraverted intuitive type simultaneously.

Albeit, I still think in the normal case, he tended to think of the top two functions as going together.

A grouping of the unconscious functions also takes place in accordance with the relationship of the conscious functions.

So I'd wager he'd prooobably still think of most people as being things like an extraverted intuitive-feeling type or introverted sensation-thinking type or whatever, where the attitude gets tacked onto the conscious pair. Though strictly, this hyphenated use is more found in von Franz's writings than Jung's.

 

[Eric B]

Basically, the point there was that Jung had two ways of calling functions conscious: sometimes he said just the dominant is conscious, other times he referred to the dom-aux pair as "the conscious functions" -- and I think his meaning is just that from one perspective, since the aux can't be absolutely sovereign, it's not ever truly conscious, but since it goes so well with the dominant in pairing with it, it can be considered conscious (and again, hence the willingness to call an auxiliary thinking person a "thinking type" -- rather than reserving that for the dominant).

The relevance of this to our discussion is that I'd guess the meaning of cautioning against differentiating the auxiliary might just be in the sense of "don't let it become absolutely sovereign" -- technically, if the auxiliary does not operate for its own principle, and is always conscious only in its modification of the dominant, this means it's not really SEPARATED from the dominant's principle, hence it's not differentiated in the psyche.
And hence, if Jung viewed the aux/dom as "the conscious functions" and only cautioned against differentiating the auxiliary in this absolute, full sense, I'd imagine he'd still stick to his Psychological Types view of allowing dom/aux in the same attitude (which there's decisive proof he allows given his Nietzsche typing).

It makes the most sense to me to say that the aux. would take the dominant attitude if it did manage to differentiate itself into "sovereignty", and so that's why it shouldn't be differentiated.

Really, what is "the auxiliary? We say it's s "function", but really, it's referring to a functional position within the psyche. A function (a tangible, implicational, technical or humane perspective of a situation) cannot "do" anything (like move to "take" anything), and neither can a mere "position" in a stack. These are all metaphorical constructs, but we often get into treating them like "things" that can do stuff. Consciousness lies with a psyche; not the perspectives it employs.
That's why it makes more sense that those positions are really set by the complexes, which are lesser senses of conscious "I" within the psyche. These are what can "do" things, like take the attitude, and position in the stack.
So since the "parent" is about support, and also "balance", that's why it becomes #2, and also the attitude opposite the dominant.

Alright, that actually is much less unexpected/consistent with what I know of Jung than if he said there are only introverted/extraverted functions -- rather than function-types. This is in the direction of just dealing with 8 function-attitudes, but a function-type, strictly speaking, is much closer to the conscious attitude of a person.

Basically, I'd have been flabbergasted if Jung started going from the "there are 4 functions" view to "there are 8 functions" view -- in modern lingo we almost refer to the function-attitudes as 8 functions -- that is, information processing modes. Whereas I'd have expected (and it appears that's confirmed here) Jung to stick to function-attitudes mostly in context of types of individuals.

Just going by Jung's writings, where he's OK referring to the function-attitude types separately (e.g. he calls Nietzsche an introverted thinking type in Ch. X, despite his being an introverted intuitive dominant type), it's possible he'd be open, based on this quote, to calling someone an introverted thinking type and an extraverted intuitive type simultaneously.

Albeit, I still think in the normal case, he tended to think of the top two functions as going together.

So I'd wager he'd prooobably still think of most people as being things like an extraverted intuitive-feeling type or introverted sensation-thinking type or whatever, where the attitude gets tacked onto the conscious pair. Though strictly, this hyphenated use is more found in von Franz's writings than Jung's.

Some people take that statement to support eight "function" units (which they also call "cognitive processes"), but I would go along with it being "function types" (based on four functions in either of two attitudes), and the whole "types" including the auxiliary.

 

[GavinElster]

That's why it makes more sense that those positions are really set by the complexes, which are lesser senses of conscious "I" within the psyche.

Sure, that's a reasonable approach; the "ego-complex" could be thought of as the most conscious of all sense of "I" -- the one that feels most like you directly are doing something. The idea that the complexes are what are doing something is very reasonable.

that the aux. would take the dominant attitude if it did manage to differentiate itself into "sovereignty"

It certainly would in that case, and that's not advisable, sure; there does appear to be a certain subtlety though here that I've been trying to bring up in Jung's two uses of "conscious" in describing the consciousness of functions. Since you like thinking in terms of complexes, I'll phrase it this way: it might be that the auxiliary is neither exclusively attached to the Parent nor to the Ego (well, you'd call it Hero).

This corresponds to the fact that, as Jung seems to have written, you can think of the auxiliary as either not a conscious function or as a conscious function, depending on whether you're appealing to the fact that it can pair seamlessly with the dominant, or if you're appealing to the fact that it can stand for its own principle--in this latter case, you have to view it as not conscious, else you'd have the problem about a second thing acquiring sovereignty. So the aux can be seen as conscious (by which I mean attached to the ego complex) only in so much as it pairs seamlessly with the dominant.


I always used to think of complexes (besides the ego-complex, if we count that) as basically unconscious, not as lesser degrees of conscious, but now I think of it, you're right that there's no reason to make such a sharp distinction. In fact, one might argue that when mystics speak of self-transcendence, it is recognizing that the special place afforded to the "ego complex" is illusory/that the other ones are equally you.

 

[GavinElster]

Basically there are sort of various angles on what it means for the secondary to have an attitude in line with/opposite the dominant

- When the secondary is seen as an auxiliary (that is, pairing seamlessly with dominant), I guess I've observed the following:

a) to the extent e.g. perceiving insights are subsumed into dominant judgment, I find most often the aux-perceiving occurs in the same attitude.

b) whereas, the holistic worldview one is led to, which most often acknowledges all of rational, irrational, e and i, seems to involve the aux in the opposite attitude

- when the secondary is just acting as its own function, perhaps here the idea that a separate non-ego complex is driving it applies best. That is, something like the Parent. In this case, it would be the closest to the secondary just acting as a separate function of its own principle -- not as a complement to the dominant.


Alright, observed isn't the right word. This is my mental intuition.

 

[Eric B]

I think it may seem like the auxiliary might be in the dominant attitude because it's serving the dominant, which of course takes on the dominant attitude. So for me, it's TiNe, and the iNtuition might seem to come from the individual, because it's the Thinking that is oriented from the individual. But the actual intuitive perspective is stimulated by the environment, and this likely by the Parent complex.
Apart from the complexes, again, the functions are not "differentiated" at all, but the products simply all mixed together in the data we take in. (that's when it would be "neither exclusively attached to the Parent nor to the Ego". It is employed by the ego for it's goal according to the dominant function, however. So then the differentiated dominant can use intuitive products, and it will seem to be individual-oriented, but it really isn't in any solid way.

Complexes, being products of the psyche, which is bigger than the ego, are unconsciously controlled. But the complexes closest to the ego (according to the archetypal stack) can be conscious along with their associated functional perspectives.

 

[Mole]

There are far more important things than fantasising about Carl Jung's type, for in reality Jung suffered from a psychosis that was concealed by his followers for seventy years, an in reality Jung sexually abused his female patients, and in reality Jung failed to complete his psychoanalytic training with Dr Freud, and in reality the Aryan, Jung, got his revenge on the Jew, Dr Freud, by driving him out of his home and killing his extended family, and in reality Jung voluntarily took his orders from Reich Marshall Hermann Goering.

 

[GavinElster]

I think it may seem like the auxiliary might be in the dominant attitude because it's serving the dominant, which of course takes on the dominant attitude.

But the actual intuitive perspective is stimulated by the environment, and this likely by the Parent complex.

When you say "actual intuitive perspective," I assume you mean the same thing as Jung does when he speaks of a function operating with sovereignty/by its own principle (rather than subordinate to another's principle). In this case, I'd say yes, the intuitive perspective corresponds to the Parent complex.

But basically once again, in the spirit of Jung's idea that there seem to be two ways of defining the consciousness/not (by which he basically meant attachment to the ego complex aims) of the auxiliary, that is, where only the dominant can be conscious from one point of view (the one you're using, as far as I can tell) and where the auxiliary is conscious from another definition -- that is, since UNLIKE say the inferior, its principle does not need to be repressed by the dominant, and in fact operates seamlessly with it.

In some ways, this sort of conditional view is why I really like at least the idea of socionics in giving "strong" TiNi to a LII. That isn't to say I'd phrase it exactly the same way, as "strong" and "valued." But basically the idea has at least elements of the right flavor, it seems.

 

[Eric B]

It seems like we're agreeing on the differentiated form of a function, but it's some form of an undifferentiated form we have questions about. And the way I see it, is it's either "differentiated" by an associated complex, or it's undifferentiated. A case of it becoming "differentiated" on its own (what I believe is what you're talking about) is only hypothetical, and not how it actually plays out.

With Socionics, LII is supposed to be TiNe, which matches INTP, but the version of Socionics that uses the modified MBTI letters denotes it "INTj", where "j" indicates the dominant function (Ti-judgment) rather than the preferred extraverted one. This was to try to be true to Jung's "rational/irrational" pole.
The problem starts when people try to make the types match MBTI, so they play off of the ambiguity of Jung's language and try to say that the INTj's "TiNe" really "works like" MBTI's Te and Ni, so that it now matches INTJ. So INTp, which is NiTe, would have the functions act like Ne and Ti, matching INTP. (One person somewhere kept asking me if I identified with INTp, but INTj always fit better, despite that shuffling of the functions).

I've never seen anyone say TiNi, though if they can re-engineer both functions to make them match, I guess they can do only one function and reinterpret Ne as Ni, as I explained above. Socionics' three letter code is the same as the three letter form of Jung you alluded to, that indicates dominant by reversing the second and third letters of the code rather than adding a forth letter, so that INTP is IT-N (introverted Thinking with iNtuition), and since its still "I", then the N can be assumed to be part of the introverted type. But in actual practice, the inward focusing T type will need to go outward to inform his dominant and the aux/parent will take on the role of supporting it as such). That's the way reality gets divided, at least in a more balanced way.

 

[Wunjo]

I am amused how people are getting focused on Jung's psychosis which was ''uncovered'' by another Jungian called Sonu Shamdasani who also happens to be the founder of the Philemon Foundation with an American Jungian analyst... but, in any way, Jung's followers were concealing his psychosis. Interesting, I remember Sabina Spielrein —one of the patients who Jung ''abused'', then became an analyst herself, though in a consensual way, though this consensuality will of course be attacked by implications and/or allegations of psychological driving which would prove nothing but only raise questions that are mostly non-falsifiable to a point, which would deem Jung innocent of until proven guilty— saying that Jung possessed histrionic traits. Yes, Jung did went through a period which can be described as psychotic, so did dear old Sigmund, after his dearly valued father died, but a lot less people create controversy about his psychosis, I wonder why, though I do not diagnostically accuse Freud of being psychotic, rather the conscious blindness of the Freudians to the subject is what I find odd.

Anyway, I fancy Horney better than Freud when it comes to theories about neurosis and Jung better than Freud, when it comes the wholeness of man. Though I really wish that my lines should not be interpreted as a display of animosity towards Freud, we owe him greatly.

But hush, I am an INFJ, so my opinion about Jung and Freud is probably biased.

Which does not change the fact that most people are sad excuses for manipulators, how low the art has fallen these days.

 

[reckful]

in reality the Aryan, Jung, got his revenge on the Jew, Dr Freud, by driving him out of his home and killing his extended family, and in reality Jung voluntarily took his orders from Reich Marshall Hermann Goering.

To whom it may concern:

Mole has been making these same allegations about Jung's cooperation with the Nazis for a long time, and I've called him out — and pointed him to sources that correct him — more than once. (More in this post and the posts it links to.)

 

[GavinElster]

And the way I see it, is it's either "differentiated" by an associated complex, or it's undifferentiated. A case of it becoming "differentiated" on its own (what I believe is what you're talking about) is only hypothetical, and not how it actually plays out.

Well what I'm saying is if you translate Jung's meaning of a function being conscious, in your language, this would most likely translate to it being differentiated by the ego-complex/Hero to you. So I'm (as far as I can tell) actually talking of the same thing you are -- differentiated by a complex.

Probably what you were referring to in what I was saying is when I keep bringing up a function being deployed true to its own principle -- that's what I meant by it being deployed of its own principle/not repressed by another. Roughly translated, this in Jung's world but your language corresponds to a function being differentiated by the ego, because when he (short form) said differentiated, without further qualifier, I believe he meant by the ego -- it being the center of consciousness in his view.

The question on the table, if we get on board with your idea that a complex--besides the ego-- can differentiate a function(-attitude) is whether the *secondary function* is differentiated by the ego-complex or by something else (e.g. the Parent), OR if that question has a conditional answer.

I would strongly guess the most consistent reading of Jung is he'd say the thing in italics, if he got on board with the slight extension of his language/theory. The reason being his two uses of the word "conscious" function. In his world, the more important use (at least in Psychological Types) appeared to correspond to the case where the aux is differentiated (though never fully--this I think corresponds to your quoted cautionary remark) by the ego, not by some other complex, and thus it's no surprise he thought of it being in the same attitude as the dom.

I'm sure I win a medal in thoroughly convoluting, but my point is actually very clear and simple to me at least. Sorry if it's hard to read.

 

[Mole]

One thing we can say about the fantasy world of mbti is that it is morality free.

 

[Pionart]

I think he was an INTP. Lots of intellectuality, logical judgements, A is B.

 

[Mal12345]

I think he was an INTP. Lots of intellectuality, logical judgements, A is B.

That's his tertiary Ti.