The Arms and their Shadow
In the first part of this article I emphasized archetypal roles (hero and anima/animus) that are intimately associated with the experience of personal identity and showed their relationship to typology. I noted that these particular roles, centered as they are on the qualities of the superior and inferior functions, help to define the “spine” of personality. Becoming conscious of this axis between the superior and inferior functions allows someone to know who he or she is and makes it easier for the person to hold to that identity with integrity in dealings with others.
When we turn to the auxiliary and tertiary functions, we find that they too define an axis, which is often diagrammed as a cross bar to the vertical spine. I refer to what is represented by this crossbar as the “arms” of the personality. Functions creating this horizontal axis are concerned less with issues of identity than with ways of caring and being cared for by others…
Click here to continue reading the article in PDF
Originally published in Typeface, a publication of the British Association for Psychological Type, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Autumn 2007)
Reproduced with permission.
You will need Acrobat Reader to read the file.
Get PDF Acrobat Reader Free
