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Hi, is this thing on?

Hello ghosts of readers past! My blog, you might have noticed, is very dead. I’ve been busy with school, but I’m getting to the point where I can conduct research with real standards and real methods.

I’m currently working on a pet project, on music preference and personality. I’d love for you to complete this survey:

https://www.psytoolkit.org/cgi-bin/psy2.5.2/survey?s=RyqAj

And I will try to post the results once I get them. If they’re interesting, it may turn into a full study.

I might also try to write a post over the Xmas break about one of the personality measures used in the survey -- the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales -- and the theory behind it.

Cheers!

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Neurasthenia (via Merriam-Webster):   a condition that is characterized especially by physical and mental exhaustion usually with accompanying symptoms (such as headache and irritability), is of unknown cause but is often associated with depression or emotional stress, and is sometimes considered similar to or identical with chronic fatigue syndrome Above: A commentary on the enigmatic line between normality and disorder.

Any explanation of neurasthenia’s popularization must look at how everyday people, not only physicians, became acquainted with the disease. Aches, pains, fatigue, insomnia, and depression are part of the human condition, but it took a trained mind to identify these experiences as neurasthenia rather than something else, such as an imbalance of the humors, a spiritual crisis, or an aspect of temperament. Starting in the 1870s and accelerating into the early 1900s, information on neurasthenia became more widely available to the public, effectively training people to think of their unhappiness and discomfort as part of the neurasthenic condition. Throughout American society, representations and explanations of neurasthenia flourished, ones that blurred diagnostic boundaries normally policed by physicians and, in the process, transformed the disease into a diverse condition sometimes mocked … but increasingly recognizable by Americans … Ultimately, the popularization of neurasthenia built upon its array of symptoms and lack of a clear pathology, which made the condition protean and responsive to what varied Americans sought in a diagnosis: an opportunity to validate professional services; an advertising tool to sell products; medical flair to spruce up stories; and, ultimately, a way to understand suffering.

- David G. Schuster, Neurasthenic Nation: America’s Search for Health, Happiness, and Comfort, 1869-1920 (2011)

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What’s in a trait?

             Can we cleanly define a personality construct? This essay explores how that might not be possible, and why.

Multiple determination

Lou Gehrig’s disease (which afflicted Stephen Hawking and was the subject of the ALS “ice bucket challenge”) is a disease of the motor neurons that control voluntary movement, resulting in total body paralysis, eventually affecting the facial and respiratory systems. The cause in unknown in most cases, and there is no cure. Part of the reason for this is that there is no one way in which ALS develops. ‘Degeneration of motor neurons’ is something we can understand at the relatively macroscopic level of cells and circuits, however there are innumerable ways in which genetic mutations or other afflictions can result in this degeneration. We simply don’t have a handle on the hundreds or thousands of cell processes that can go wrong. In addition, a single malfunction might not be enough to cause a case of ALS; it might take a dozen errors operating in concert.

             There is no one-to-one correspondence between a biological process and the symptoms of Lou Gehrig’s disease. A similar problem is encountered in the field of psychiatry. For the last few decades, biologists have tried to track down the genes responsible for disorders such as schizophrenia (operating under the hypothesis that these disorders are fundamentally biochemical). However, what they have found is a massive number of genes linking to schizophrenia at a statistically significant level, but each contributing only a fraction of a percent towards the likelihood of psychosis. The resulting hypothesis is that schizophrenia is a polygenic disorder. Like ALS (and a host of other conditions), it takes many processes acting in concert to result in the disease.

             (It might be noted that some social factors have been found to be far more predictive of schizophrenia than genetic factors—but that is a different discussion.)

             Many processes, one result. How does this come about? Part of it, I think, is a trick of language. We group individual cases of ALS or schizophrenia as the same disorder, even though the biological factors at play may be totally different. Furthermore, the actual symptoms of the disorder may be mutually exclusive between two individuals (for example, a schizophrenic suffering primarily from flat affect, versus one suffering from hallucinations). Are these really the same disorder? By what criteria are we grouping them? One answer was provided by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who recognized that our cognitive-linguistic categories are not defined by a set of essential features, but by overlapping similarities. Perhaps there is no essential core of schizophrenia! With its many determinants and many manifestations, there could be many schizophrenias, which are nonetheless grouped under the same header. Our language does not represent an exact reality but an approximate one.

Personality

             Whether you prefer to use the MBTI, the Big 5, or any number of other measures, the ideas of multiple determination and family resemblance categorization is readily applicable. Investigations of what these constructs are is a favourite pastime of mine and, I assume, of most of my readers. However, these often result in headaches and inter-theory conflict. Which ones are correct? What do we do about those that seem incompatible? I will focus on introversion and extraversion as an example. Here are a few of my favourite theories:

             The 20th century psychologist Hans Eysenck saw introversion/extraversion as a measure of how outgoing and interactive a person is with others. He hypothesized that this difference was grounded in a difference in brain arousal. The correspondence is a bit counter-intuitive. An extravert would be characterised by a lower baseline level of cortical arousal, and as a result would seek stimulation to bring their level up to a desired amount. An introvert would be chronically over-aroused, and as a result would seek to minimize the external stimulation they encounter.

             Elain Aaron pioneered a new personality category, called the “Highly Sensitive Person”. While technically separate from introversion, there is a high degree of overlap and analogy. Somewhat like Eysenck’s theory, HSPs are characterized by a heightened sensitivity to sensory stimuli, or their own cognition or emotions (or a combination of these). This results in a timid and careful approach to the outside world, as they are more likely to be overwhelmed by a too-intense stimulus.

             The biological theory forwarded by many modern psychologists has to do with the dopamine reward system of the brain. Extraverts have been found to be more sensitive to activity in this circuit. In other words, they are more reward-motivated. This has the effect of pulling them more readily and eagerly into active engagement in the outside world. Specifically, this would correspond to the sub-trait of “Enthusiasm”.

             Finally, Jung thought of introversion as an attitude that favoured the inner world of the psyche, while extraversion favoured the outer world of things. However, his exploration of the types involves a lot more nuance than this general formulation suggests. Psychological Types is packed with statements and observations that often seem only tenuously related to the central theme. However, this is in keeping with the thesis of my essay. What if there is no one introversion and no one extraversion? What if the only thing binding the many versions together is our categorical mode of thought, rather than any single biological reality?

             This is perhaps a bit too strong. For example, it’s an empirical fact that the many facets of the Big 5’s extraversion are highly correlated. There must be some set of biological trends that support this. However, it’s also true that the same individual may be astronomically high in one facet and at the bottom of another for the same over-arching trait. We might conclude that there are some diffuse biological patterns out there, but they are clothed and warped by our cognitive-linguistic constructions.

             What’s the take-away here? One may be a more relaxed attitude towards any attempts to find the essence of a psychological category. It may not exist, although a diffuse “family resemblance” pattern might. That is not to say that we shouldn’t scientifically validate our hypotheses about what this pattern is made up of--just that multiple versions might exist in parallel, and that a greater precision is possible when describing two people as introverts, or when observing two cases of schizophrenia. The structure of personality is perhaps less like a series of well-defined islands and more like an ocean: A macroscopic pattern of currents that, when observed more closely, are a heterogenous assemblage of fish and flotsam.

Some links:

ALS fact sheet  https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Amyotrophic-Lateral-Sclerosis-ALS-Fact-Sheet

Genetics of schizophrenia https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5380793/

Family resemblance categories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance

Introversion and extraversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion

“Highly sensitive person” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_processing_sensitivity

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Enjoy lo-fi and cute animations? Please consider checking out and subbing to EmilyOmily, who drew the icons I used for several of my blog posts :)

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A Note on Positive Psychology vs. Depth Psychology

Read my previous post on Psycho-Cybernetics first!

In my essay on Psycho-Cybernetics, I’m in some ways going far afield from the Jungian psychology that populates the rest of my blog. Psycho-Cybernetics presents a manual for optimism and worldly success, while Jung’s philosophy of the path to enlightenment leading through the Shadow parts of the personality is very, very different. Much of Jungian psychology is a meditation on the ugly parts of life. It involves including your worst tendencies in your self-image. However, I think that’s where the reconciliation lies. In terms of their structural understanding of the psyche, these two takes are comparable.

Jung once said that the first half of life should be dedicated to forming a healthy ego, and the second half to tearing it apart and going inwards. I think Psycho-Cybernetics is just such a manual for developing a “healthy ego”. And, in terms of its focus on optimism and goal-setting, it corresponds to the extraverted side of life, albeit simultaneously involving the introverted side through its use of imagination and Stoic independence.

In one line of Psycho-Cybernetics, Maltz admits that focusing on the negative once or twice per year is probably a good thing, presumably for keeping oneself humble and aware of one’s Shadow. A friend told me that there is a season for growth, and a season for tilling the soil and reducing everything to dirt. And I think that just such a cycle is the best course for young people. It doesn’t work to be the brooding melancholic all the time, even if there is a kind of wisdom associated with it. Neither is it sustainable to be a ball of sunshine forever. Without acknowledging the wrong things in life, they erode at the structure of the mind like rats or termites eating the timbers.

In terms of Max Luscher’s colour psychology, Psycho-Cybernetics surely corresponds to the Orange-Red side of life, and Jung to the Dark Blue; to the Animus and Anima of the personality respectively; to an elaboration of the Heroic Consciousness and the Deep Unconscious.

In terms of cybernetic theory, Maltz was influenced in part by Alfred Adler, Jung’s contemporary, who pioneered many aspects of the ideas of goal-directedness and success-striving. Jung was also well aware of the teleology of the psyche. He thought it was a forward-facing thing, rather than one dictated primarily by personal history as Freud thought.

These comments might seem random and incomplete, and they are. They’re the first attempts at a synthesis, the various works I’ve summarised on this blog coming together as a mosaic. I welcome any comments or suggestions for further reading!

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Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics

             Though it was published in 1960 as a self-help book, Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics is the combination of two powerful psychological ideas. The first is that of the “self-image”, which has become well-known with the advent of cognitive behavioural therapy as well as the broader self-esteem movement. The second is the idea of the human mind as a cybernetic system. “Cybernetics” originally referred to the circuitry of guided ballistic missiles, whose navigational systems consisted of a target and positive and negative feedback mechanisms to keep in on course. In the human analogy, the goal is in response to a need or desire, and the positive and negative feedback mechanisms are our positive and negative emotions. Finally, Maltz thinks of creative imagination as the tool than can be used to influence both of the former systems to the user’s benefit and well-being. This essay will provide a summary of these main ideas and their consequences.

             The idea of the self-image or self-concept might be familiar to the reader. It states that you can’t exceed the limitations you place on yourself mentally—that you believe to be true of yourself. According to theorists, the self-image prescribes the “area of the possible”. A narrow view of yourself will limit what you can do in practice, whereas an open view may allow you to excel and discover new things about yourself. What is the self-image exactly? Maltz cites the psychologist Prescott Lecky, who thought of the personality as a system of ideas that must above all else be consistent. The “ego ideal”, or self-image, is the keystone of this system. All beliefs about the world hinge on beliefs about the self. Apart from physical limitations, all limits or possibilities stem from this complex. According to Maltz, this is why plenty of “positive thinking” psychology doesn’t work. These techniques try to change a person’s thinking about their situation or environment, attacking the periphery rather than the center. As such, the changes can’t persist.

             Maltz personally encountered the power of the self-image in his clinical practice as a plastic surgeon. Clients would come to him asking him to fix their disfigurements, which they believed were ruining their lives in one way or another. However, the vast inconsistency in the way that these clients responded to surgery alerted him to the psychological dynamics at play. Some clients would come to him with scars or abnormalities; some with perfectly normal and even handsome features, which they nonetheless saw as robbing them of happiness. The difference after surgery was even more striking. Some clients would seem completely transformed in terms of their personality. Some would stay exactly the same; and some would even insist that Maltz hadn’t touched a single thing with his scalpel. In addition, shame or pride about a physical feature was not universal but depended on the context. A scar across the cheek destroyed an American salesman’s confidence, but was a status symbol in the underground sabre-dueling rings in Germany at the time. This indicated to Maltz that the essential factor wasn’t the reality of a person’s appearance, but their beliefs about their appearance, and what those beliefs meant for their self-image.

             This ties into a larger discussion on the power of belief in psychology. Our modern scientific-materialist ethos might influence us to believe that we naturally think in terms of what is factual and real, but it’s more correct to say that we think and act based on what we believe to be true. Belief is not a late-stage function in behaviour: Though beliefs may be derived from higher cognitive processes like reasoning, they go to form the basis of our perceptual and emotional experience. For example, you might think that the fight-or-flight reflex acts pre-consciously to real things in the environment, regardless of ideas or beliefs. But if a man encounters a bear in the woods so that his blood starts pumping and his muscles jolt into action—but the bear is actually an actor in a bear-suit—then clearly the nervous system is reacting to the idea of a bear rather than a real life-threatening situation.

             The decisive influence of belief over behaviour, including subconscious or automatic behaviour, is also apparent in the twin suggestion-based phenomena of hypnosis and placebo. Under hypnosis, a weightlifter can be made to exceed their normal lifting capacity or struggle to lift a pencil. A person told that they are standing in the arctic may shiver genuinely. There are plenty of weird results to be had by suggesting an idea under the state of hypnosis. However, Maltz argues that there is no fundamental difference between behaviour under hypnosis and normal behaviour. They both simply consist of acting on what is believed to be true about oneself or the environment. In fact, in the process of changing beliefs about yourself—changing the self-image—it might be more correct to say that it’s a matter of de-hypnotizing yourself from false beliefs, provided that the new image is closer to reality. In placebo, which is the most-studied medical phenomenon and the biggest thorn in the side of pharmaceuticals, a sugar pill can have dramatic effects on a person’s somatic or mental health provided they believe they’re taking a functional, novel medicine. Most market drugs barely manage to exceed the effect produced by placebo, if at all.

             The second main idea presented in Psycho-Cybernetics is that of the mind as a cybernetic system. It’s theorized that other animals also operate under the same principle. They have a goal in mind— “get food, get water, copulate”—and positive and negative emotions—gratification and lack—to motivate them and let them know how close they are to the goal. We can surmise that they have this much since the limbic system or “emotional brain” is largely conserved between humans and other mammals. However, Maltz argues that while this animal system is dictated by instinctual goals and basic needs, we have a greater capacity to consciously set new, complex goals. Indeed, the prefrontal cortex, which is enormous in humans compared to other mammals, is the seat of planning and executive decision-making (meaning its activity can influence and override other parts of the nervous system). Cybernetics comes from the Greek word meaning “steersman”, and in this theory the conscious mind is the steersman of the whole organism.

             What significance does this have for the self-help domain? If the nervous system is a cybernetic system, then at least a significant portion of our positive and negative emotion is felt in relation to a goal. Happy feelings indicate we’re moving closer to our imagined destination, and sadness, anxiety, and anger tell us that we are off-course. But how many of us know what are goals are? They tend to be muddled, uncertain, or seemingly non-existent. Even worse, Maltz suggests that most people are oriented towards negative goals—towards failure. According to his take on cybernetic theory, our job as an “ego consciousness” is to submit goals to our automatic systems that then carry it out. This can be illustrated in a task as simple as picking up an object. The amount of muscle fibres and the pattern of contraction is huge and complex, but it is all taken care of subconsciously. We only need to target the object with our will—plan the broad strokes of the movement in our imagination—and the automatic systems take care of the rest. When we worry incessantly and picture our future failings and shortcomings, we are inadvertently orienting our nervous system towards this destination. What we expect to happen, what we believe will happen, will most likely happen: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

             Maltz offers advice on how to handle this system. For one thing, while anxiety has its uses, and was surely essential to our ancestors who had to be cautious in dangerous environments, our over-use of it manifests mostly as inhibition and failure-drive. Instead of being consumed by negative things that might happen, focus on a positive outcome. Orient yourself towards a goal that you believe will make you happy and fulfilled. Much of the fulfillment will come from incremental progress towards it, since according to the cybernetic theory, positive emotions are the positive feedback system—the “You’re on the right course” signal—but you’ll simultaneously be making progress towards a better situation. Of course, “happiness” is not the not the only—or even the recommended—goal. Any undertaking will work in the same way, whether the goal is chosen out of want, responsibility, or necessity. Picturing success and making progress towards it becomes a primary source of contentment and meaning, and picturing success rather than failure will simply make that outcome more likely.

             There is also the question of how to handle the negative feedback system. In a cybernetic system, negative feedback is used to indicate error— “You’re off course”—and once the system corrects the error, it’s over. The errors are not stored in memory. Only the right course is stored so that it can be repeated later. You can observe this in infants learning to move or speak. Random, inarticulate movements are refined into the smooth, automatic movements we spoke of earlier, as the baby gropes around and moves its limbs in a trial-and-error fashion until it figures out the desired pattern. Babbling is also thought to be the expression of all possible phonetic sounds, which are narrowed down to suit what becomes the child’s mother tongue. What this is saying is that a negative experience is to be learnt from, once, and then the associated memory can be forgotten. If a bad memory persists for a long time, it might indicate that it hasn’t been used to “correct the course”. Unfortunately, some experiences can be so painful that it’s easier to push them down whenever they’re recalled. But they may dissipate if they’re taken for what they’re worth: a lesson for the future.

             Another recommendation by Maltz is to use relaxation to your advantage. Armed with the knowledge that conscious-you is linked to a complex automatic mechanism, you can optimize it by simply not messing with it. Maltz cites the great American psychologist William James among others as offering the wisdom that once a goal is set and the die are cast, there is no more use in worrying. Reflecting on your actions as you’re doing them has an inhibiting and distracting effect. Anxiety clogs the gears and confuses the system. Therefore, developing a habit of relaxation, in whatever way suits you, is for the best. This might sound similar to the Taoist principle of Wu Wei, which translates to “not doing”, but more accurately means “not doing with undue effort” or “acting effortlessly”.

             Maltz relates these two ideas, the self-image and the cybernetic Man, by arguing that they are both subject to modification and control by humanity’s most innovative faculty: the creative imagination. Along with our materialistic belief that our accurate perception of reality drives behaviour, we also consider our ideas and beliefs to be derived from reality. The sum of our experiences from childhood to date convince us of who we are now, and we believe that this self-image is accurate. However, from Freud onwards we’ve come to know that the line between memory and fantasy is blurred. Memories are to a large extent something that we create rather than record, and with each recollection a memory changes to suit preoccupations in the present. Though features of our self-image may have their basis in past failures or admonishments from authority figures, our self-image also has a role in how memories are recorded and reproduced. This is how a person who thinks they get nothing but misfortune doesn’t recognize good luck when it comes their way, or how someone who sees themselves as a victim is always the victim of their situation. It’s also similar to the idea of “confirmation bias”, where a person only registers or perceives what they already believe.

             However, Maltz claims that we can use this blurred line between memory and fantasy, between belief and reality, to our advantage. Though nasty habits of belief or an unfortunately poor self-image can be deeply-instantiated and hard to get rid of, it’s possible through the use of imagination. Maltz argues that recollection and imagination are such similar mechanisms that our nervous system can’t tell the difference between something that is experienced and something vividly imagined. In the same way that our beliefs are abstractions from experience, we can change beliefs or create new ones by spending some time imagining ourselves, our environment, or our futures in a new light. Imagining a new self-image will instantiate it in your automatic system over time. This process doesn’t have to be equivalent with “positive delusion”. Maltz notes that most people under-sell themselves by default, and have poorer self-concepts than is realistic. Besides, trying to align value judgements with “reality” is an inherently confused affair. It usually consists of people trying to measure up to an idealized cultural standard. Maltz cites a handful of studies to illustrate the arbitrariness of the inferiority complex, including one where good students performed much worse, and experienced far more stress, when told (wrongly) that the average completion time of an exam they were given was much lower than was actually possible. Therefore, this process of achieving a reasonable self-image through prolonged imagination is what Maltz refers to as “de-hypnotizing yourself from false beliefs”.

             You can also use imagination to adjust your mood at any time. By stopping to imagine a scenario in which you feel content and relaxed, you’ll feel these emotions in the present. Then, you can just stay in that emotional state and re-enter the reverie whenever you need to refresh it or escape stress. While this may sound like a cheap trick, or another instance of positive delusion, consider that worrying—which we love to do in great amounts—is the same thing with the opposite valence. You picture a negative situation and it stresses you out for an indefinite amount of time! Emotions flare up and persist. Therefore, you can modulate them by delaying negative reactions or inducing positive emotions through imagination. This is where Stoic influence comes through in Maltz’s book. And indeed, he refers to Marcus Aurelius’ claim that “Nowhere, either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble, does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility…”.

             Imagination is also the function by which we set complex goals for ourselves, intertwining it with cybernetic theory. We have already discussed how clear, positive visualisation bears differently on our automatic mechanisms than anxious, muddled imaginings. There is not much to add on this front. A cybernetic system is properly ordered when it has a target, and a positive target is going to bring more rewards than a negative one.

             In this essay, I have summarized what I take to be the three main ideas in Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics: The self-image and the broader influence of belief over behaviour, the human nervous system as a cybernetic mechanism, and the ways in which creative imagination can modulate both of these systems. I think the self-help value of these ideas is immense, and might as well be the beginning and end of the self-help field. Most self-help books I’ve observed or explored seem to have content that appears insightful at first, but is quickly forgotten. In distilling out the psychological ideas that made Psycho-Cybernetics great, I’ve hoped to help people remember the insights by focusing on core principles and elaborating a framework rather than a method. There are plenty of methods to be found in the original book, but I think there is just as much benefit in incorporating these ideas into everyday life in one’s own personalized way.

Works cited:

Maltz, Maxwell. Psycho-cybernetics: A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life. N. Hollywood, Calif: Wilshire Book, 1976. Print.

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Introversion/Extraversion: Jung, Big 5, and the Seeking system

An essay composed of stray thoughts strung together, featuring a lazy and dishonest attempt at citation.

          There is one main difference between Jung’s concept of introversion/extraversion and that of the Big 5 model, which is considered the “Gold Standard” of modern personality psychology. In brief, Jung’s version is bipolar while the Big 5 uses a unipolar spectrum. This means that Jung juxtaposes introversion and extraversion as two different and opposed principles. Each one occupies a certain domain, namely that of the psychological “interior” and that of relation with the outside world. Neither one is exactly reducible to the other. Both have positive manifestations, meant not as a valuation, but technically: While from the outside, the extravert appears to be more engaging and the introvert more withdrawn, internally the introvert is also actively seeking something, but something different from external objects and object-relations. The introvert “seeks the subject”, or the meaning contained within—and native to—their own psyche [1].

          Meanwhile, Big 5 introversion is essentially a lack of extraversion. Extraversion is characterized by several facets: gregariousness, assertiveness, activity-seeking, enthusiasm, and more. Depending on the study and framework used, introversion—technically “low extraversion”—is mildly correlated with neuroticism, a separate scale measuring a propensity for negative emotions and moods like anxiety and depression. But overall, introversion is presented as a second-class trait, a lack rather than an active component of the personality. Other traits that are intuitively associated with introversion, like imaginativeness, are the domain of trait Openness in the Big 5. A handful of benefits are observed in introversion, such as a tendency to do better in academia, possibly because of a greater ability to focus on one or two topics for long stretches of time, and because introverts participate in fewer distractions [2]. But nowhere is introversion explicitly associated with interiority. That said, the statistics—based on a linguistic study of personality such as the Big 5—would have trouble showing this. It’s been argued that the Big 5’s lexical basis makes it prone to pro-social biases, since language itself is a pro-social tool [4]. Therefore, extraversion would make a bigger “splash” in the factor analysis than an asocial trait like introversion. Furthermore, to an observer, inwardness is often synonymous with opacity. Introverts are best defined by what they don’t reveal about themselves. A scientific investigation of introversion as a first-order trait would have to progress in more creative directions.

          What does the non-psychometric research on introversion/extraversion say? Studies have found that the mesocortical dopamine reward circuit, dubbed the “seeking” or “approach” system, is more active in extraverts than in introverts [3]. The reward system is what gives us an inner incentive to pursue certain activities and acquire things we want. It plays a part in attention by ‘imbuing’ things with salience, making us expectant of a reward, drawing our energy and gaze towards them. It is also the basis of addiction, as all addictive drugs potentiate the circuit in various ways. According to Panksepp, the seeking system does not correspond to pleasure exactly, but to the emotion of enthusiasm [5]. Enthusiasm, as you might recall, is one of the major sub-facets of Big 5 trait extraversion.

          All this to say that according to this research, the extravert is more expectant of reward, more incentivized to pursue and explore things in the environment, more enthusiastic, and furthermore that this might be the mechanical basis of trait extraversion. Introverts would have less activity of this system. My question is this: Is the difference so linear? It’s known that all people exhibit a wide array of behaviours and emotions, but that the stable psychometric traits best describe the ‘average point’ of those behaviours [citation needed]. Jung also thought the two types of behaviour are highly context-dependant, so that an introvert in an easy and familiar environment would be indistinguishable from an extrovert, and an extrovert left to ponder their often-ignored complexes would be anxious and inhibited. Furthermore, he thought that it is not that the magnitude of a bout of enthusiasm that is different, but that introverts and extraverts get enthusiastic about different things.

          First, I will round out a relation between the seeking system and Jungian psychology. In psychoanalysis, the fact that meaning is never inherent in the object but synthesized by the subject manifests itself as “projection”. It is the individual nervous system that imbues things with salience, as if the same person were both chasing and holding up the carrot-on-a-fishing-pole. Jung calls the function that creates these projections the Anima, because in his analyses of dreams and fantasies as well as mythology and folklore, he often found it personified as a woman (or as a man in the case of a woman—the Animus). For example, the Hindu goddess Maya, who spins the web of illusions that draw people out into the play of life. And this is exactly what the seeking system does: it produces the feeling of expectancy that spurs us into activity, into exploration, work, love, and sex.

          According to Jung—and this is where I think his ideas get the most complex, and as a result unlikely, but they are fascinating to share—the Anima is ‘more unconscious’ in the psyche of the extravert. Since they are more interested in things in the environment than the inner workings of their mind, the Anima—which is one of these ‘inner workings’—sits outside of the field of awareness. To perform its function, it accesses the consciousness of the extravert in a roundabout way. It projects all kinds of personal contents onto external objects, so that these objects accrue the meaning contained in the extrovert’s own soul. This contributes to the heightened salience of the outside world for the extravert. Meanwhile, since the introvert spends more of their waking life absorbed in their own psyche, they gain more direct access—not in explicit awareness, but in intimations—of the functioning of the Anima. Their attention is directed not at external projections, but at the Anima image itself and the meaning it carries internally. Salience is contained in ideas and feelings, and is extended to the outside world only insofar as things—be they books, artwork, activities, or people—correspond to and evoke this inner reality.

          If we put aside the more nebulous ideas about the location, function, and image of the Anima archetype, we can generate a simple hypothesis: Introverts and extraverts get enthusiastic about different things, based on a different principle. The relative difference in the quantity of seeking system activity might be accounted for by introverts encountering salient stimuli with a lower frequency rather than a lower amplitude—or, that the experimental stimuli are geared more towards the extroverted psychology. Jung expressed the context-dependency of this dynamic in a sort of allegory: An introvert and an extravert approach a castle in the countryside. The extravert expects to meet all sorts of positive things on the inside—gracious hosts, feasts, adventures—and gets excited about entering. The introvert, more anxious with respect to the environment, is worried about guard dogs and cantankerous keepers. However, they go inside. There they find it is filled with books and scrolls like an old library. The introvert’s eye is caught by this and that and scurries about in excitement. The extravert, meanwhile, is severely disappointed. This is not nearly as stimulating as they expected. They even start to become sour and cranky, more like the demeanour of a defensive introvert than their normal sanguine state. The extravert is drawn to the possibility of excitement and adventure; the introvert, to elaborations on ideas that are personal to them.

          In this essay I’ve made a small attempt to reconcile Jung’s older and more theoretical ideas about introversion with modern psychometric and neuropsychological research. My emphasis was on creating a unified conceptual interpretation of the facts and theories involved. Specifically, I think Jung’s ideas about introversion/extraversion as the direction of interest/flow of libido, as well as the projection-making Anima, have the potential to correspond well with studies of the mesocortical reward circuit or “seeking” system, provided we make a deeper study of the potential context-dependency of this system. If this turns out to be correct, it would open more questions about the “why” of this personality dimension, since the relative difference in seeking behaviour would be the manifestation of a deeper basis rather than the basis itself. Perhaps it is, as Jung suggested, something analogous to r/K selection theory [6]: the opposite survival tactics of “high defenses and low fertility” versus “low defenses and high fertility”. In any case, I think it is worth returning to the investigation of introversion/extroversion as a bipolar dimension, since the psychometric, linguistic Big 5 version doesn’t seem to do justice to the introverted type.

 Works cited: Lazy but getting there edition

 [1] Jung, C. G., & Baynes, H. G. (1926). Psychological types: Or, The psychology of individuation.

[2] ENTWISTLE, N. J. and ENTWISTLE, D. (1970), THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PERSONALITY, STUDY METHODS AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 40: 132–143. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1970.tb02113.x

[3] Depue, R., & Collins, P. (1999). Neurobiology of the structure of personality: Dopamine, facilitation of incentive motivation, and extraversion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(3), 491-517.

[4] Trofimova, I. (2014). Observer Bias: An Interaction of Temperament Traits with Biases in the Semantic Perception of Lexical Material. PLoS ONE, 9(1), e85677. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0085677

[5] Satoshi Ikemoto, Jaak Panksepp, The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in motivated behavior: a unifying interpretation with special reference to reward-seeking, In Brain Research Reviews, Volume 31, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 6-41, ISSN 0165-0173, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0173(99)00023-5.

[6] Eric R. Pianka, "On r- and K-Selection," The American Naturalist 104, no. 940 (Nov. - Dec., 1970): 592-597.

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Trying out a small-scope exploratory survey on personality and modes of thought. Please fill this out for me! 10 seconds if you know your Big 5 scores, 10 minutes if you don’t.

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A very philosophical piece from my friend CB’s Enneagram-focused blog. I personally don’t specialize in Enneagram, so I’d point you there for some good ~Enneagrammatical~ content. Give him some notes to motivate him!

Type Essentialism vs Type Existentialism & Type Signaling

Part I: Type Essentialism vs Type Existentialism

In brief, the philosophical ideas of essentialism and existentialism deal with whether or not things exist arbitrarily.

Essentialism is the continuation of the idea that there is a fundamental essence to every ‘thing’ that can be called a 'thing’ (Plato’s 'forms’). Existentialism counters this by saying 'things’ only exist emergently. That is, existence precedes essence, and things need to exist first before they can be said to have any kind of 'form,’ and the essence, if there, is nothing but an emergent property of the way things are arranged. (Bear with me, I have to get through the philosophical nitty gritty before the rest of this post makes more sense.)

This gets pretty heavy. Is there an Essential Chair that bestows all chairs their 'chairness?’ Rather, is the concept of a chair separate from actual chairs-in-themselves? Is each chair merely a collection of atoms arranged in such a manner that they provide enough resistance when a hominid sits on them, which we then call 'chair’? Or is there something more fundamental at work that produces the concept of a 'chair’ in our mind’s eye before the first chair is built? Let’s extend this question to types.

Is a type 9 a type 9 because there is some essential '9-ness’ that people can either have or not? Or is a type 9 a type 9 because they possess a collection of traits that correspond well enough to a collection of traits people have already observed in others and themselves and called '9’? And is integration and disintegration between the types merely the inevitable result of either overcoming these traits (even in bursts) in the first case, or those same traits reaching their breaking point before the psyche compels itself through homeostasis to return to the path of least resistance, the habits of mind being maintained that produce the 'type’ in the first place?

If types are essential, then they are like curses placed upon us, or genes that give us disorders that we then need to grow around (pardon the crude analogies). If types are existential, they are merely the product of happenstance and habit, even if the habits started before we could really realize it.

Part II: Type Signaling

Self-identifying as a type is arriving at a type that you think is a best fit. But that’s the important bit – it’s merely a best fit. What this implies is that each type is representing a collection of traits, however rooted these traits are in a common archetype. Further, claims are made that dip their toes into developmental psychology – that these are traits that emerge out of developmental factors. Even in the more esoteric approaches to enneagram, loss of contact with the 'Holy Ideas’ that each type is associated with carries a developmental aspect – that is, the loss has to happen somehow.

When we self-identify as a type, we are essentially signaling to others, 'These are the traits I identify with, and these are the traits you should expect from me. You now have a general expectation for my personality based on knowing my full tritype and instincts.’ It’s often pretty damn accurate, and I think a large part of the reason people stick around in typology communities. So long as there’s just barely enough room leftover for human individuality, I have witnessed people – myself included – actually enjoy being characterizations of their type, because it makes them feel understood and that they have a 'place at the table’ of human experience.

Inevitably, however, we run into people who display traits that aren’t 'consistent’ with their type, and we try to explain it through the framework.  Is the 9-5-4 acting 6-y because their 9 is disintegrating? Is it the wing on the 5 fix? Are they acting 7-y because their 5 fix is disintegrating? (Etc.)

These theoretical explanations may even be true – either entirely or to some degree – but it’s too easy to forget that we already have all 9 archetypes inside us. The types act as fixations along a wheel of archetypes that is dynamic enough for us to experience all of the types (or all of the fixations) on it, whether or not there’s a clear connection point between them (like 8 and 1, which are opposite ways of dealing with anger but share no traditional connection point). It’s just that more consistently than not, we will fall back on traits we are used to exhibiting, and that seems to be all this really is at the end of the day.

Type Existentialism, then, in opposition to Type Essentialism, affords us more room for either growth or individuality, because it chooses not to assume that these are inherent qualities of ourselves that we are mapping, but merely habits of the mind.

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Dr Luscher’s Colour Psychology (Colour Types)

In your adventures on the internet, you may have encountered this intriguing little test featured on colorquiz.com and other websites. Upon taking it, you may have been impressed, unimpressed, or reserved and skeptical about your results. In any case, you were probably curious about how it works. This article will provide a brief summary and introduction to the theory behind the Luscher Colour Test, and give a rundown of his related typology.

Luscher's work is supposedly quite popular internationally, especially in Europe, but most of the commentary and research on it is exclusively in German. I can't read German so I can't investigate their validity: So, in this article, we will be taking Dr. Luscher on his word, and proceeding as if his research is sound.

Luscher's theory rests on a couple of fundamental claims. The first is that our emotional and psychological reactions to colour are deep-rooted and pre-conscious. This means that we react a certain way to colours whether we mean to or not, and even whether we know it or not. Our sensation of colour bypasses our conscious brain and interacts directly with our emotional systems and our self-regulating (“Autonomic”) nervous system (abbreviated as “ANS”).

The second is that the essential meaning of any colour is the same for everyone. Their effect on heart-rate, respiration, arousal, metabolism etc. is universal. For example, orange-red is always exciting and stimulating, while dark blue always has a calming effect. However, a person's subjective attitude towards the effects produced by a colour –  their preference for the colour – can vary widely.

This attitude is what Luscher calls the “function”. When taking the colour test, you are asked to rank the colours in order of preference. The idea is that the first colours you pick – the most preferred – are tied to emotional states that you want more of. The short-form notation for this is “+”. The next most preferred colours represent your present situation and emotional state, indicated by “x”. Next are emotional states that are neither preferred nor outright rejected, but restrained, either because the person is indifferent to them or because they are inappropriate to the current circumstances. These are indicated by “=”. Finally, the last colours picked represent states that are disagreeable. They are rejected on the grounds of being unwanted, or wanted but painfully out of reach. These are indicated by “-”.

As for the colours themselves, Luscher derived their significance and meaning in a very interesting way. Influenced by Kant, he started with purely logical distinctions. He asked, What can things do in space? They might be solid, and move things out of their path as needed, like any sturdy materiel; or they might be quiescent, adapting to other shapes, like water or air. In terms of human behaviour, this could be considered the difference between acting on the one hand, and adapting or perceiving on the other. The final terms Luscher arrived at were “Autonomous” and “Heteronomous”, meaning “self-determined” and “other-determined” respectively. (Parallels to this duality include the Chinese Yang and Yin, as well as Jung’s Animus and Anima).

What do objects do over time? They change or stay the same. In terms of human attention, this becomes a focus on a single subject (the Self), a “Concentric” attitude; or a focus on many changing objects, an “Ex-centric” attitude. (This has certain parallels with Introversion and Extraversion, although they remain separate concepts).

These two distinctions created a classic quaternity: The Autonomous-Concentric, the Heteronomous-Excentric, and so on. Now Luscher changed his methods. He wondered, What emotional states fit into each category? And then, through extensive experimentation and trial-and-error, he found colours that naturally elicited those emotional states. His theory is part empiricism and part pure logic.

The four major colours that make up the quaternity are Dark Blue, Blue-Green, Orange-Red, and Bright Yellow. Their meaning is as follows:

DARK BLUE: Contented Self-Moderation

This colour elicits a feeling of tranquility. It has a universally calming effect on the nervous system (thereby allying itself with the parasympathetic branch of the ANS). It is Heteronomous and Concentric: meaning, “other-determination of the Self”. The quietude and contentment tied to Blue is a kind of peaceful surrender, a relaxation that allows a person to interact with their deeper feelings. Dark Blue is therefore associated with a certain sensitivity, as well as tenderness towards loved ones. People in this state of dissolved tranquility also tend to be easily hurt.

BLUE-GREEN: Stable Self-Respect

Green is considered one of the “psychological primaries”, but it is not technically a primary colour. It is a mix of Blue and Yellow: it contains a certain tension of light and dark; not a thing-in-itself, but a binding-together. It represents the interlocking beliefs and memories that make up our identity. It is Autonomous and Concentric, meaning “a self-determination of the Self”. It is associated with self-assertion, conviction, obstinacy, and persistence. A person with this sense of immutable identity wants to believe their principles are correct; they want to be in full control of themselves; they have feelings of pride, prestige and even superiority.

ORANGE-RED: Active Self-Confidence

This hue is universally exciting. It stimulates the sympathetic branch of the ANS, which raises pulse, blood pressure, and respiration rate. It is especially associated with arousal and aggression. Like Green, it is Autonomous and wants to be in control; however, it is directed towards external objects (Ex-centric). It is therefore a kind of striving or hunger, associated with desire, domination, and achievement. A person in the stimulated Red state wants to exercise their strength and sexual potency, and experience the present to its fullest. They may also want to be seen as a dynamic and exciting person, bragging or showing-off to convince others of their competence.

BRIGHT YELLOW: Open-Minded Self-Development

Bright Yellow is the lightest of the major colours, and is therefore stimulating like Orange-Red, but it lacks the solidity and purpose of the latter. This colour seems to disperse and disappear into brightness. It represents spontaneity, variability, exhilaration, and hope for the future. It is Heteronomous (other-determined) and Ex-centric (focused on objects), therefore people in this open-ended state are easily carried away with excitement by new people, places, and developments. It represents a total loosening or relaxation, and the possibility of escape from intolerable circumstances. It is a relentlessly cheerful colour that often becomes irritating to the exhausted or depressed.

The four colours have many parallels in our culture. In terms of the classical elements, they are Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. In terms of the Greek Humours, they are the Phlegmatic, Melancholic, Choleric, and Sanguine temperaments. In psychiatric terminology, they are the depressive, obsessive, manic, and paranoid types.

In the Luscher Colour Test, people are expected to pick the four major colours within the first 4 or 5 of their ranking. This is because they represent important psychological and physiological needs. The other four colours of the test are, by design, less appealing (with the possible exception of violet). The genius of this is that they become a foil to the major colours. If someone picks a major colour after any of the generally unappealing colours, it indicates that the associated emotional state is undergoing a kind of suppression. Something has happened to make it intolerable: A rejected Blue might be someone who cannot relax or let themselves be sensitive; a rejected Green, someone who has fallen from grace and their self-esteem or sense of identity is in tatters. Yellow and Red rejected together often means the person is sick of stimulation: they are physically exhausted, or on the other hand, psychologically withdrawn.

Nevertheless, the major colours represent basic needs, and the underlying motivation of a person is always to meet and acquire them. Therefore a rejected major colour is a “want but can't have” or a “want, but is too painful to have”. It indicates a stress point in the personality, an anxiety. When this happens, the most preferred colour takes on a compensatory quality. It becomes exaggerated and compulsive, and even if it is the “most wanted” colour of the test-taker, it never truly satisfies them.

On the flip side, one of the “foil” auxiliary colours may be picked in the first half of the test. This indicates a generally negative attitude towards life, and is also classed as an anxiety. The nature of the anxiety differs based on the colour; but if Grey or Black are picked early, it generally means that, for whatever reason, many of the major emotional states have become intolerable and the person is resorting to desperate measures to preserve themselves.

The auxiliary colours are violet, brown, grey and black. Their meaning is as follows:

VIOLET

Violet is a mixture of Red and Blue, two opposite colours. It represents domination and surrender at the same time: an “identification”, a melding-together of subject and object. It represents a desire for a sensitive, intimate, “magical” relationship. It is also something like a waking dream: everything that is thought and imagined must become reality. Violet picked first in the test is very common among children and adolescents, who we tend to consider as living in a “fantasy land”, still protected from the harsher realities of life. (This is meant as a clue about its nature, not that adults who pick Violet first are necessarily the same way). People in the Violet state want to be seen as charming and mysterious, and look for others who can charm them in the same way: they want to “cast a spell” over others and themselves.

BROWN

This hue of Brown is Orange-Red broken down by Black: Therefore it is also tied to the sexual impulse and sensuality, but its energy and vitality are gone. It mainly represents the bodily senses, physical health, and the comfort of home. Normally, it is in the indifferent “=” category, since a well-functioning body should not be the cause of much attention. However, if brown is picked early (meaning it is desired), this indicates that the person wishes for comfort, recuperation, or home. People displaced during World War II showed an especial preference for this colour. If brown is rejected or picked last, this may indicate that the person does not want to associate with any creature comforts, thinking they are made of sterner stuff. This usually produces an anxiety that is compensated by some compulsive sensuous behaviour.

GREY

The grey is devoid of colour (achromatic), and is midway between light and dark. It neither excites nor relaxes. It represents a veil of total neutrality and detachment. In the Luscher Colour Test, it acts as a kind of fence: The colours coming after it have become intolerable, and the person wishes to wall them off with a shield of non-involvement. They may go through the motions of these states in their daily life, but entirely avoid feeling them. The colours that precede grey are thought of as the only way forward, the only emotional states with which the person is allowed to engage. If grey is picked first, this means that non-involvement is the ultimate value. If it is last, it means that the person wants to experience everything, and will do anything to avoid the horror of neutrality. Grey usually occurs in the 5th to 7th picks.

BLACK

Black is the negation of colour itself. It represents a rejection of the intolerable conditions of life, a total surrender or despair. The colours picked after black have been “given up on” and the person believes they can offer him nothing. The colours picked before black are the only things left to pursue. Black has an intensifying, volatile effect on any colour it is paired with: Yellow and Black picked together, being the brightest and darkest colours of the test, usually means that some catastrophic change is soon to occur. Black is usually picked last in the test.

The Colour Test offers thousands of different possible interpretations, based on the positions, groupings, and interplay of the colours. Decades of use have led to a lot of nuance for an experienced practitioner to keep in mind and take advantage of. Generally, a human practitioner is able to spot more interesting patterns in a set of test results that an automated system like a online quiz. The guidelines for administering and interpreting the test are in the published book, “The Luscher Color Test”.

The system of “Anxiety and Compensation” featured in the Colour Test provides the foundations for an interesting typology. In “The 4-Color Person”, Luscher describes the ideal individual: Someone who is able to balance all four emotional states with their corresponding “senses of self” (self-moderation, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-development). However, most people under-value one or another colour, resulting in an anxiety with a corresponding compensation (an over-valuation of another colour). This system of colour pairs results in 32 “unbalanced” types.

The beauty of this type system is how straightforward and intuitive it is to grasp. For example, someone who over-values Red self-confidence is simply that: over-confident. An over-valuation is a compensation covering up an anxiety: In this case, that anxiety might be tied to the inability to achieve Blue contentment, so that the person is perpetually dissatisfied. Luscher nicknames this type “The Greedy Showoff” or “The Baiting Devil”, depending on whether the exaggerated self-confidence or the lack of contentment is the dominant factor. Let's look at The Baiting Devil as an example of a combination type:

The baiting devil (Over-valued Red and rejected Blue, with an emphasis on rejected Blue)

Sense of self: Dissatisfaction; Pompous Overconfidence

Behaviour: Disquiet; Agitation; Provoke people in order to create contacts and relationships and to ward off their void (a  life which is devoid of relationships), their boredom, their deserted isolation, and their discontent

Baiting devils are dissatisfied because, although highly excitable and emotionally susceptible, they suffer from their lack of responsiveness, their monotony, and their lack of relationships with others. They feel fine if there is an intense encounter and erotic fascination in a relationship. And they like tasks in which they have to commit themselves personally and totally.

Baiting devils can't stand people who hide their true feelings behind conventional cliches and, in their boredom, create a gap and a vacuum. So they bait such people. They challenge them with direct or boorish criticism. They try to strike them in their weak points. That makes the baiting devils feel superior, thereby avenging themselves for the inadequate, unsatisfying attempt at contact or for an earlier rejection.

The solution to each type-dilemma is always to accept the rejected sense-of-self, no matter how painful that is in the short-term. In this case, the Baiting Devil must accept Blue self-moderation to ease their relentless agitation and dissatisfaction caused by its suppression. Relaxing the anxiety naturally relaxes the compensation: This person will slow their compulsive and exaggerated expression of Red aggression and showiness, if their efforts are successful. The full explanation, and a description of each type, can be found in the published book “The 4-Color Person”.

In this way, Luscher subscribes to a kind of Stoic philosophy, the one that has been largely abandoned, that states that we actually have control over how we react to life's events and tragedies -- That we create our own happiness, regardless of our circumstances. He uses this analogy: When learning to ride a bike, your circumstances have an impact. You might be in a rough neighborhood (a poor locale); you might have an old, rusted, second-hand bike (having physical defects); you might not even have a teacher (absent parents).

However, none of these things could really teach you to ride that bike anyways. This is because the last, most essential step is one that no one can teach or very well explain. To ride a bike, you have to figure out for yourself the sensation of balance. Balancing the four senses of self, achieving the right middle ground that gives you freedom and peace of mind, is something that occurs entirely within yourself, regardless of environmental factors. Again, this is like the Stoic philosophy: You cannot control events, but you can control your reaction to events. Take it for what it's worth.

Sources:

Luscher, Max, and Scott, Ian. The Luscher Color Test. New York: Random House, 1969. Print.

Luscher, Max. The 4-Color Person. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Print.

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Persona, Shadow, Soul, and Self

In this article we’ll stray a bit from typology to cover another tremendously important part of Jung’s theory of personality. What we’re discussing here are archetypal complexes -- webs of associated mental contents and attitudes, centred around a universal archetypal pattern. These function like sub-personalities, with their own character and motives, which is the basis of the ancient idea of the man with many souls. The most prominent and universal complexes are the persona, the shadow, the anima or animus (generalised as soul), and the self.

First, a word about the Ego. I’ve mentioned it often but I haven’t given a technical definition. The Ego is actually a complex like the others, composed of an essential grouping of mental contents, however it is not like the others listed in this article. This is because the Ego is you -- at least, the you that you experience, that you are aware of, that you define yourself as. The Ego is the centre of consciousness proper. However, the other “souls” can come into contact or clash with the Ego, creating a distortion of your conscious character and attitude. In some cases the Ego can identify itself completely with another complex, in which case the person becomes more of a solitary archetype than an individual (for example, a mother identifying completely with her role as Mother).

The persona is the mask we wear, or the role we play, in society and in our interactions with others. It’s a compromise between the subjective individual and the collective, how he ensures that society will accept him. As such, part of the defining qualities of the persona are decided by the outside world; it has one foot in, one foot out. It tends to be associated with the individual’s most differentiated functions, especially the extroverted ones. An individual can have many different personas, as many as there are areas of his life where he demonstrates a different set of behaviours. One for work, to appease his bosses and colleagues; one for home, the face he shows his family. Sometimes, the Ego might identify with the persona, in which case the individual believes that how he presents himself is how he really is. This is problematic, since he becomes an exponent of the collective rather than a real individual.

The shadow is the polar opposite of the Ego. Whatever the Ego decides it is not, the shadow enthusiastically takes hold of. It is practically the same as Freud’s id, full of repressed impulses, desires, and animal instincts. However, it’s also the source of great creativity, inspiration, and primal energy. Society is configured to repress the shadow -- spontaneity is the enemy of order. However, Jung generally believes this is a mistake. When we suppress or “get rid of” unwelcome thoughts, feelings, or impulses, they don’t disappear but only become unconscious. Therefore, a righteous, moralistic, and pure conscious attitude means the “animal in us only becomes more beastlike”, perhaps explaining the brutality of Christian wars. (In addition to having the most explosive and sudden manifestations, a repressed shadow is also projected onto one’s enemies, providing a convenient excuse for vilification and brutality). On the other hand, when the Ego is in sync with the shadow, the creativity and spontaneity become great gifts. That said, the good always comes with the bad. Becoming conscious of one’s dark side can be an enormously painful task. All the unconscious, undifferentiated functions are associated with the shadow.

The soul is really two archetypes, the anima in a man and the animus in a woman. It is the whole existence of the opposite sex in one’s own psyche, a man’s femininity and a woman’s masculinity. As a result of cultural pressures and biological factors, the anima and animus tend to be quite unconscious in men and women respectively, although to varying degrees. They become the “inner personality” -- the secret, subtle underbelly of the individual, which warrants the alternative title of “soul”. Like other unconscious contents, the soul is projected, in this case onto members of the opposite sex (especially those who closely match the qualities and characteristics of the soul-complex. In this way, the soul constitutes our pre-formed expectations in romantic relationships). This results in a passionate attraction or aversion, and the whole phenomena of infatuation. It’s as if the other person really held a piece of one’s soul. As the inner personality, the soul has another function: it guides the individual in exploring their own unconscious, even appearing as an effective “spirit guide” in dreams. Like the persona, it has one foot in, one foot out, but the latter foot rests in the collective unconscious -- the mythological “inner world”. The soul is associated with the inferior function.

Finally, there is the self. The self is the totality of the whole personality, everything that is conscious as well as unconscious. It is also the centre, the guiding, organising, unifying principle of the psyche. According to Jung, the task of a lifetime is to know the self (“self-knowledge”, duh), and by knowing it we actualise and embody it. In practise, the self is our “inner voice”, represented in certain religions by inner divinity, and in certain cultures as an “inner man/woman” or ancestor. Since, in some ways, it is a vision of what we could potentially become, it can appear in dreams and stories as a wise old man (in men) or a wise-woman (in women), although also as a cruel senex or terrifying Earth-mother. Later on, it could appear as a hermaphrodite, since it unifies both anima and animus, and even a Mandala (“magic circle”). This article actually lists the sequence of personal development in order -- before one can start to develop the self, he has to detach himself from his persona, come to terms with his shadow, and reunite with his soul. The self is the cohesive unity of all the other aspects, which was always present but only had to be discovered and listened to. The self is associated with all the functions in equal measure.

To recap: The archetypal complexes are the many sub-personalities of an individual. The Ego is the centre of consciousness, what he considers to be “me”. The persona is our outwards face, the role we play to fit into society. The shadow is everything that is rejected by the Ego, and includes all the animal energy and impulses. The soul or anima/animus is the contrasexual aspect of a man or woman. It helps them relate to the opposite sex, and it is also the inwards face that brings them in touch with the deep unconscious. The self is the archetype of unity, the totality of the whole personality. The task of life is to know the self, and in knowing it, to become it.

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Foreword

Two things to note

When approaching these function and type descriptions, it is first off important to remember that they will appear very, very bare-bones and skeletal. This is on purpose! The descriptions are meant to give you a conceptual, and not a practical or immediately relatable, picture of each type (although they’re practical in another way, in that they help to apply the concepts dynamically, from the ground up). They are pure types, or types without a differentiated auxiliary function. This also means that the type descriptions apply only to types with that function as their dominant.

Secondly, you may notice that the descriptions seem pretty negative and gloomy. This is because Jung spends half or more of his time describing what happens when a type becomes neurotic (you’ll find this mostly in the latter half of each function and type description). Unhealthy types are characterised by an overvaluation of their dominant function and attitude. Check out The Inferior Function and Enantiodromia for more.

Alright, go get ‘em tiger.

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Thank you @funkymbtifiction @charitysplace for the reblogs!

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Introversion and Extroversion In-Depth

In this article, we won’t be exploring the introverted and extroverted types so much as the specific mechanisms of introversion and extroversion. In order to isolate these concepts, any time I mention the respective types, imagine them as hypothetical pure types. A normal type has a conscious mix of both introverted and extroverted factors. Also remember that whatever an individual is consciously, his unconscious compensates him by containing the opposite. So, an introvert is an extrovert in his unconscious, and vice versa.

Jung calls introversion and extroversion the “inward-turning of libido” and “outward-turning of libido” respectively. What he means by libido or psychic energy is not the same as Freud’s still-popular concept of sex drive -- instead, it is an abstract concept designating the weight of value and interest given to any particular mental content or external object. For example, a psychological function with a large sum of libido is going to be at the forefront of consciousness, highly active and producing thoughts, feelings, hunches, or sense-impressions that are intrinsically interesting and valuable. The unconscious, too, has a dormant sum of libido -- dormant, that is, until it activates a content like a complex or a strong emotion, which then bursts into consciousness uninvited. Conscious libido is essentially willpower; unconscious libido is akin to instinctual impulses.

Therefore, the two mechanisms designate the general flow of energy, whether it activates and confers value to external objects, or does the same to inner contents. Extroversion is an interest in the external world, in the multiplicity of objects and people, focussing on their specificity and differences. The Ego is constantly seeking to relate to the object in some way, to affect it or be affected by it, and it finds its identity in its relation to the ever-changing environment. Introversion is an interest in the inner world, on emotion-toned complexes and inner archetypes. It focuses on the similarities between things, so that it can organise them internally under the header of general ideas, which are derived in essence from the archetypes. It seeks to detach itself from the outside world, to keep the inner world in perfect stasis and harmony, and finds its identity in the changelessness of the Ego.

The two mechanisms play an important role in the emotionality of a personality. Extroversion, as the mechanism that bridges the individual and the outside world, is associated with how the individual reacts emotionally to external stimuli. Extroversion is characterised by a quick, open, and emotion-laden reactivity. We can call this the affective or emotional attitude. Introversion, on the other hand, we can call the detached attitude, as it seeks to sever ties with the outside world as much as possible. However, while calling the extroverted and introverted types “affective” and “detached” might work at a glance (extroverts appearing active and expressive, introverts appearing passive and inscrutable), it doesn’t hold up to deeper investigation. Introverts often experience the most intense emotions, while extroverts, having a conscious and well-adapted affectivity, dispense with them quickly and easily. This is because the introvert’s conscious detached-ness is compensated by a large unconscious affectivity (extroverted attitude), which finds little expression and, worse still, is empowered by the unstable, primal libido of the unconscious. The extrovert, on the other hand, is unconscious of his detached inner thoughts and feelings (introverted attitude), which have their own morbid character, but not the emotional one of the introvert’s.

This dynamic of the unconscious attitude has a reinforcing effect on the individual’s conscious personality. This is due to the projection of unconscious contents. When an extrovert projects his unconscious onto external objects, he sees in them the image of his own unconscious personality -- that is, passive, detached, inert. Because of the outside world’s apparent harmlessness, he is even more inclined to go out and interact with it freely, and in the process he reclaims his own unconscious inner world. The introvert unfortunately sees the object as having his own unconscious affectivity. The outside world is active and animated, full of things that are dangerous and fearful, reflecting the primal, daemonic nature of the unconscious. This validates the introvert’s impulse to withdraw and defend himself against the outer onslaught, which again represents his own unconscious life. (Remember, these are pure types -- the normal individual, while still not seeing objectively, projects a middle-of-the-road mixture of characteristics onto objects.)

Finally, Jung posits that the introvert is characterised by a great psychic tension or inhibition as compared to the extrovert. This is because he is always worried, consciously or unconsciously, that an external stimulus will trigger or disrupt an inner complex, or even worse, one of those volatile, primal affects. An extrovert, who acts in direct relationship to the external world, does not share this fear, and as a result is the more relaxed and disinhibited type. However, each type can act like the other in certain circumstances. An introvert in a safe and familiar environment will be allowed to forget his complexes and relax, while an extrovert left alone to contemplate his own complexes -- which are as dangerous and daemonic as the introvert’s affectivity -- will jump at the smallest noise.

To recap: Introversion and extroversion designate the movement of libido (= interest) in the psyche. Extroversion is always related to objects; it is the more affective (emotional) and relaxed mechanism. It projects the image of a passive, inert object. Introversion is related to inner contents; it is the more detached and tense mechanism. It projects the image of an active, dangerous object. An introverted attitude is compensated by an extroverted attitude in the unconscious, and vice versa. In a normal type, both the conscious and unconscious personalities will have a mix of both mechanisms.

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An ENFJ is falling down a hill, is that a problem? No, they're just TUMBLRING HAHhahHA

Interesting proposition! Let’s take this apart. First we have falling down a hill, which essentially consists of a failure in the outside world (unless, of course, it was an unconsciously influenced act which represents a psychic reality). Following this, there is the age-old question of is it a problem? Common sense would indicate your assertion, that such a failure is not a problem, to be incorrect. A failure at adaptation is almost by definition a problem, notwithstanding situations where the falling was a purposive attempt at adaptation, for example as a comedic stunt to impress a crowd or entertain a potential partner. Considering the subject in question is an ENFJ, this remains a plausible consideration. However, the falling down of the hill might, while being a temporary setback and involve feelings of pain and existential shame, have an ultimate goal in mind. It could be something orchestrated by Jung’s concept of the Self, whose manifestations often appear to us as “fate”. In this instance the falling down the hill might awaken certain complexes or feelings (unlikely in the case of an ENFJ -- neglected thoughts are far more common) that require addressing. You are correct, however, in the conclusion that they’re tumblring lmao

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The Inferior Function

The inferior function is the Achilles’ Heel of each type. The challenges of life normally make it necessary that an individual develop and rely on one primary tool -- their dominant function. However, to the extent that it receives the lion’s share of energy, its opposite (Thinking v. Feeling, Sensation v. Intuition) is deprived of it. As a result, this function consistently lags behind in differentiation and development, becoming the problem child of the whole personality, apparently with a mind of its own.

This lack of energy given to the inferior function essentially amounts to a repression. It’s important to note that this repression is not necessarily total. A Thinking type still has feelings, and a Sensation type will still receive intuitions. However, they are not guided by them per se. In fact, these contents are seldom welcome and rarely usable and productive in the same way that the products of the dominant are. This is because they float up from repressed inferior, which has one foot firmly entrenched in the unconscious. To the extent that it does operate in consciousness, it is always in accordance with the governing principle of the dominant function, often parroting or rephrasing its viewpoints. Its back is broken -- it can only function under its own principle in the unconscious.

Before we continue, we should examine the nature of “consciousness” and “the unconscious”. Consciousness has the qualities of illumination, wakefulness, and clarity. It is often represented by the Sun or the civilising Hero. Everything conscious is cleanly divided into its various parts, made useful and in alignment with the individual’s conscious goals and desires. By contrast, the unconscious is murky and hidden from view. It’s represented by the depths of the ocean, or the land below the horizon, the underworld. It contains the untamed “Nature” inside the individual, where everything blends into everything else, operates on instinct, and is not bothered by contradictions. This is the realm that the inferior function finds itself in, which has several consequences.

The first is concretism in the original sense of the word, meaning “grown together”. The inferior function intermingles with other unconscious contents, such as memory-complexes, Freudian urges, or the next-most-repressed function. In particular, the inferior function comes into contact with the mythological archetypes, which contaminate it with a certain fantastical or unreal quality. When the products of the inferior functions are expressed or enter consciousness, they carry these associations with them.

The second consequence is ambitendency. Everything in nature has both a light and a dark aspect, Yin and Yang. It is only in consciousness that these opposites come into conflict, since they have to be separated out in order to function in a directed and productive way. In the unconscious, they exist together. This means that the individual has difficulty making anything much out of the products of his inferior, since they contain their own antitheses -- they cancel themselves out. This also means that the inferior has a definite dark side. Often, a person’s nastiest moments are carried out by the inferior, destructive, vindictive, and hell-raising. On the other hand it also has a profound light side. For example, its raw, unadulterated nature means that a person is always completely authentic through their inferior, and it often brings a refreshing, childlike simplicity out of them.

The third is that, like all unconscious contents, the inferior function and its products (that are unable to enter consciousness) are projected. The conscious personality sees its own unconscious as belonging to different people and things in their daily life. The aforementioned dark aspects are projected onto one’s enemies, and the light aspects onto friends and lovers, in either case creating a strong emotional tie. This is a way in which the unconscious can reach the conscious ego in an indirect way, for better or for worse.

As long as consciousness and the unconscious are in good standing with each other, when the individual more or less acts as a cohesive whole, the inferior function provides healthy compensation to the conscious attitude, a tempering voice that helps people consider multiple angles and perspectives. However, when the personality is at odds with itself, when the Ego tries to suppress the unconscious, the healthy compensation turns into outright antagonism. The inferior function then does its best to sabotage the conscious standpoint in order to bring it back in line. This process is described in greater depth in my article on Enantiodromia.

Developing and differentiating the inferior function is something that will be covered in a subsequent article, since it’s an extensive topic in its own right.

To recap: The inferior function is characterised by a lack of energy or attention. It sinks to the unconscious, where it develops the qualities of concretism (contamination by other unconscious contents) and ambitendency (being simultaneously light and dark). Its products are also projected onto other people and things. Normally it provides healthy compensation, but in neurotic circumstances it becomes antagonistic.

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Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

The cornerstone of Jung’s psychology is the theory of the collective unconscious. A rough understanding of it -- if not more! -- is very important for understanding introversion. In my opinion, the fact that people have apparently forgotten it, that no one discusses it on internet typology communities, has caused a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. So, strap in for this one.

Jung’s predecessor and mentor, Freud, first viewed the unconscious as a receptacle (read: trash can) of thoughts, feelings, memories, and above all sexual and aggressive impulses, that people repressed in order to function in civilised society and keep up their peace of mind (or the illusion of it). Jung thought that was just one part of the picture. He thought up a deeper, older, and more fundamental part of the mind; he called it the collective unconscious, and said it was made up of archetypes.

You can picture it something like this: Just as everyone has a body that's basically the same as every other human body (four limbs, one head, a liver, a heart), so does the mind have a basic substructure common to all of us. Our bodies and psyches are only different on a surface level. That’s why Jung called this part of the unconscious “collective”, in that it’s shared by everyone -- not as a single, amorphous “psychic” blob that everyone can access, but as a structure that is born again in every individual. Some parts of it might be as old as the psyche itself, in the same way that parts of our bodies are so old that we share them with other mammals, and even reptiles.

The collective unconscious houses the archetypes. These are typical patterns of thought or cognition, the logical result of all of us having the same nervous system. Some of these structures seem to show up in our imaginations in the same way, time and time again, in specific symbols or archetypal images. Jung called them the “self-portraits of the instincts”. And, in fact, there is a lot of overlap between the concepts of instinct and archetype: Just as we think of instincts as fixed, automatic, and inborn patterns of behaviour, an archetype is a fixed, inborn pattern of mental activity. Archetypes are tied up with a myriad of facts of human existence, since they've developed over millions of years of human and pre-human life. We find the corresponding archetypal images in every culture, in all mythologies and religions, and also in our own spontaneous dreams and fantasies.

For any of our psychological functions, the influence of the outside world is the same as the influence of the collective unconscious, the “inner world”. Extroversion and introversion are where our energy goes, where we direct our interest: Whether we’re trying to grasp, shape, and benefit from something in the outer world, or if we’re trying to do the same with an inner archetype. Introverts do this through their favoured function -- Thinking builds theories with the help of the archetypal substructure; Feeling finds powerful, universal values in them. Sensation understands that the things it sees have meaning, pattern, and form; Intuition gets impressions straight from the unconscious imagination. 

Remember that while introverted functions are influenced by the archetypes, we don’t experience them directly. The archetypes themselves are just pattern and form; they’re tendency, not content. They still have to be “filled up” by our personal experiences. Once we've “brought one to life” with carefully (but organically!) organised facts, thoughts, and feelings, we can see the archetypal form beneath it all.

We can find an example of this in modern physics’ quest to find a unifying theory of the universe -- a “Theory of Everything”. This is a perfect example of Thinking basing itself on an archetype (which would make it Introverted Thinking). Namely, it’s the archetype of wholeness or unity -- what Jung calls the self --  which is often drawn as a mandala: Everything is contained within a circle. Nothing is left out. The physicists build a theory around the archetype, in a way that clearly shows just how compelling it is to them. On the other hand, an Extroverted Thinker might think that kind of project is pointless or even boring, unless he finds himself in an environment where it’s really needed (like a physics academy dominated by Introverts).

To recap: The collective unconscious is an ancient, inherited part of our minds. It’s made up of archetypes, which are fixed patterns of thought and imagination, the mental counterpart to instincts. Archetypes have evolved over millions of years, so they represent many facts of life in abstract forms. Introversion focuses interest and energy on these archetypes, so that any function, when it’s introverted, is drawn to their universal forms.