Update on Jung’s Type

There has been quite a bit of buzzing about Jung’s type code since I posted my previous “News Flash!” on the topic, which happened to garner the following challenge by Jonathan.

He writes:

> Check out this BBC interview with Jung, particularly the portion
> beginning at about 8:30 in the first link and carrying on into the
> second link:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMWF5bKjE1c&feature=related
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihJzEIxcTxc&feature=related
>
> Straight from the horse’s mouth, he seems to be claiming to be dominant
> T, inferior F, auxiliary N, and almost certainly an introvert.

And here is my reply:

Jonathan, thank you for locating that interview — due to my recent discovery about Jung’s type code, I was about to go hunting for the recording where he spoke on camera about his type preferences. You’ve saved me a great deal of effort.

As regards your interpretation of what Jung said, allow me to offer a counterpoint…

Notice that Jung says to the interviewer he was “characterized by Thinking,” followed by his admission, “I had a great deal of intuition too.” In my experience, most INTJs are “characterized by Thinking” and less renowned for their intuition. Experienced typologists know that it’s common for introverts to be better known for their extraverted auxiliary process than their introverted dominant process. This would easily explain why Jung is “characterized” that way, even when it does not truly represent him. He goes on to say, “I had a great difficulty with Feeling”; and then emphasizes, “my relationship to reality was not particularly brilliant; I was often at variance with the reality of things” — which seems like an indication of his inferior extraverted sensing function and the struggles he had with it over his lifetime.

At no time does the horse, er, Jung speak the terms “introvert,” nor “dominant,” “auxiliary,” “tertiary,” “inferior” — one can only infer them by the order in which he conveys these processes. Yet if one continues such logic, and considers the order in which he speaks of Feeling and Sensation, it becomes impossible to construct a valid type code, since none of them has an order of preferences that correspond to the sequence Jung used:

Thinking
iNtuition
Feeling
Sensation

So something would have to shift in order to derive a commonly-known four-letter type code.

The temptation is to rearrange Feeling and Sensation - and yet I suggest it is more accurate to rearrange Thinking and iNtuition. As mentioned above, people with a preference for introversion are typically “characterized” (per Jung’s term) by their auxiliary process.

It was to Stephen Abrams he actually declared himself to be an “introverted intuitive,” which unequivocally means that his dominant process would have been iNtuition in the introverted attitude. I therefore submit that he did not misrepresent himself on the BBC interview - it is merely the interpretation most people have given it (understandably misled by the particular sequence he employed) that leads one to suppose he had a preference for Thinking as a superior function. However, the facts of the interview are that he did not outright say that.

I invite you to view the YouTube clips again with this particular interpretation in mind so as to verify for yourself the validity of my assertions.

Type Insights
insights into psychological type models