True Personality Typing

JUNGIAN TYPOLOGY POST# 11: JUNG'S FUNCTIONS IN A NUTSHELL

Hello, everyone, for the next several days, I will be posting a whole backlog of posts to my blog, in several different categories of posts, but I felt that this was the most important of the posts, so I'm posting it first.

People seem to have all kinds of weird ideas of what Jung's functions actually are. A lot of those , we can thank Grant and Beebe for. So I will write a short and brief summary of what Jung actually says the functions are in Psychological Types Chapter 10. All these summary descriptions are pulled out of that chapter

Jung's functions:

Jung says there are 4 functions: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition.

Thinking and feeling are *rational* functions. That means they are involved in human interactions. In the MBTI, they are called *judging* functions because they are involved with decision making.

Sensation and intuition are *irrational* functions. That means they are involved in non human interactions. In the MBTI, they are called *perceiving* functions, because they are involved in thought processing.

Thinking focuses on *tasks*.

The role of thinking is to *make decisions* through *evaluation/analysis*

Conscious *extroverted* thinking is thinking projected outward. Therefore, an extroverted thinker will *externalizing* their decisions. They evaluate and analyze things *outside* of other things. [This usually involves them writing, slowly and methodically, a well thought out plan, with many goals attached. Their decisions lead them to be quite successful in life and confident in what they do, and how they believe it should be done]

Conscious*introverted* thinking is thinking projected inward. Therefore, an introverted thinker will make decisions by analyzing and evaluating in the opposite direction. Therefore, introverted thinkers evaluate and analyze things *inside* of other things. [That's why an introverted thinker generally decides "no", until they can be assured that all the potential pitfalls they see in their internal analysis will be addressed.]

Jung believed *unconscious* functions balance out the conscious functions, but when things get out of balance, the unconscious functions take on a life of their own. Marston (forefather of DISC), who's life's study was the conscious and unconscious said, in his book The Emotions of Normal People, "Whatever we don't like about a person's behavior comes from their unconscious ". And after reading Chapter 10 numerous times, it has become apparent to me that Jung believed Marston's statement wholeheartedly. Here's what he had to say about unconscious thinking:

Unconscious extroverted thinking (in conscious introverted feelers), when out of balance, is characterized by defensiveness and egotism, which leads to stubbornness and uncooperative behavior

Unconscious introverted thinking (in conscious extroverted feelers), when out of balance, is characterized by negative and depreciating thoughts about oneself, which leads to immature behavior responses and mental illness

Feeling focuses on *people*

The role of feeling is to *make decisions* through *hunches/gut reactions*

Conscious *extroverted* feeling is projected outward. That looks like a person making decisions that will create harmony and unity in their relationships (interpersonal).

Conscious *introverted* feeling is projected inward. That looks like a person making decisions that will create harmony and unity inside of themselves (intrapersonal).

Unconscious extroverted feeling (in conscious introverted thinkers), when out of balance, is characterized by attitudes that don't encourage relationship formation, and a withdrawal into solitude

Unconscious introverted feeling (in conscious extroverted thinkers), when out of balance, is characterized by attacking those who don't agree with the extroverted thinker, and those who want to change the extroverted thinker's plan

Sensation focuses on *tangibles*

The role of sensation is to: observe a *tangible* object in *reality*

Conscious *extroverted* sensation is projected outward, and it comes across as enjoying the experience with the object in the moment

Conscious *introverted* sensation is projected inward, and it comes across as a subjective view of the experience. [This subjective view, I have observed is usually a precedent, but it can also be a personification of an object, or internal biological functions associated with experiencing the object as well.]

Unconscious *extroverted* sensation (in conscious introverted intutives), when out of balance, is characterized by lack of self control and self restraint, which leads to addiction

Unconscious *introverted* sensation (in conscious extroverted intuitives), when out of balance, is characterized by one not trusting their observations, which leads them to ignoring reality, until reality ultimately rears its ugly head

Intuition focuses on *intangibles*

The role of intuition is to: observe an *intangible* object in the *unconscious*

Conscious *extroverted* intuition make assumptions about the missing idea *outside* of the concept . [Therefore, they create something bigger and better than the original, because they looked on the outside for the missing puzzle piece]

Conscious *introverted* intuition makes assumptions about the missing idea *inside* of the concept. [Therefore, they refine a concept with their own interpretations like INFJ Isabel Myers did with the concepts I'm discussing here, much to Jungians' dismay]

Unconscious *extroverted* intuition (in conscious introverted sensors), when out of balance, is characterized by distrust in their ideas, which leads to seeing danger in everything, being self-protective, irrational fears and phobias

Unconscious *Introverted* intuition (in conscious extroverted sensors), when out of balance, is characterized by distrust in their ideas, which leads to being suspicious, not trusting people, being nosy, irrational fears and phobias

[My personal experience and additions]

Everything else is a paraphrase of Jung

I hope everyone finds this helpful 👍

DISC POST #7: CONSCIOUS/UNCONSCIOUS AND DIFFERENTIATION ARE ACTUALLY MARSTON'S THEORIES

Well, guess what, everyone! I was able to obtain a bootlegged download of Marston's book, "The Emotions of Normal People". I did a quick read through, to look at the main topics of the book, etc. I'm going to go back and read it in more detail, and then when I'm done with my more detailed read, I will post a book review, like I did for Gifts Differing.

But even from my quick survey read of the book, I was able to discern that conscious/unconscious and differentiation are actually Marston's theories, not Jung's.

The first half of the book completely talks about how all people have a conscious and unconscious that dictate their thoughts and behavior. It even gives a neurological basis for the existence of a conscious and unconscious. Marston talks about case studies he did on thousands of people in prisons and schools regarding the existence of the conscious and unconscious. He mentions that if someone's conscious is [extroverted], their unconscious will be [ introverted], and that if someone's conscious is [introverted], their unconscious will be [extroverted]. He also mentions that anything we don't like about a person's behavior comes from their unconscious.

At the point he wrote the book, Marston believed that D and C were conscious/unconscious pairs , as were I and S. We now know that that's wrong, and the conscious/unconscious pairs are actually D and S, and I and C. However, everything else Marston had to say about the conscious/unconscious was very accurate and true to what is known today.

In the second half of his book, he focuses more on his case studies he conducted in schools. He followed the children in the case studies from the beginning of elementary school to the end of high school, and he paid close attention to their development of Dominance, Inducement (as he calls it in the book), Submission (as he calls it in the book), and Compliance. He notes specific age groups when particular traits seem to be developing more (like Dominance in adolescent boys). He suggests that once the adolescence period is over, that we tend to have one pattern that is clearly our highest, but throughout youth and adolescence, our highest pattern is more at the mercy of our gender and age, and not so much our conscious and unconscious. Boy, that sounds kind of like a conversation about differentiation, doesn't it? Yep, I'd have to say differentiation was Marston's theory as well.

Now, notice how in Psychological Types, Jung mentioned the conscious/unconscious and differentiation, but he never went into detail about them. Well, now we know why. They were not his theories! And being as Jung was an INTJ/ High C, and High C's are all about doing the right thing, he probably didn't want to reveal too much about his friend, William Marston's research before Marston went public with it. The fact that Jung didn't say too much or go into detail, was so that his friend William Marston could get credit for his discoveries and research in the end, and not Jung. Gee, that sounds very much like Compliance in action. Good job, Jung, of being Compliant.

Anyway, in summary, I thought it was interesting to see how the concepts of conscious/unconscious and differentiation actually originated in DISC, and Jung brought them over into his theory. Well, remember how I said I was not not sure exactly where Marston was in Jungian typology, but that he was probably just as present there as Jung was in DISC? Well, now we know where Marston is in Jungian typology-in the theories of conscious/unconscious and differentiation 😉👍