# Extraverted Intuition



## Elaminopy (Jun 29, 2011)

*Extraverted Intuition: ENTP and ENFP Types*

As a right-brain Perceiving function, Ne has a lot in common with Se. Both push us to adapt, to relate ourselves to sensory data in our immediate environment. Se, however, draws our attention to objects, and we adapt immediately to their surface features. Ne draws our attention to context and we adapt to sensory events in terms of it.

Although it's usually said that Ne gives us "the big picture," this image doesn't quite capture the cognitive process involved. If an editor-in-chief wants a "big picture" story, she's asking for an overview--a grand scheme, like capitalism or the evangelical movement, that will make sense of many different facts and events. If a CEO talks about "the big picture," he probably means the company's being downsized and people's jobs are less important than the system at large.

So it's important to understand that Ne doesn't really work this way. The all-at-once right brain can't distinguish between the whole and the part. For example, when we recognize a piece of music, we're not distinguishing the tune from the individual notes that make it up. We've grasped the sensory data as a pattern of changing relationships.

We do the same thing visually when we recognize a face. We've unified the features as an integrated pattern. People who lose this ability have no problem seeing each component of a face, but they can't appreciate them as a structural arrangement.

Ne relies on this right-brain capacity for pattern recognition, and most of us use it to get the gist of a situation very quickly. For example, at its simplest level, Ne will tell us that panther in the jungle is dangerous but a panther in the zoo is not. Unifying the panther with its context gives us the "whole picture" before we've even had time to conceptualize it.

To be sure, Se also outpaces our conceptual faculties. With Se, however, we're responding to the object itself. All that matters is past experience and whether it applies here and now. Or, as Ogden Nash once sagely advised, "When summoned by a panther, don't anther."

With Ne, we're focused on the future. Once we've grasped a whole pattern, we can envision options that don't yet exist. Indeed, one of the drawbacks of Ne is that it conjures up a future before we know very much about the present. For example, giving enough elements to suggest a star or square, we have a hard time _not_ filling in the blanks and seeing the complete image. In the same way, a strong similarity between a familiar pattern and our immediate impressions of a person or event can lead us to make unwarranted generalizations.

Perhaps, for instance, someone's body language reminds us of someone we didn't like in the past. As a right-brain function, Ne won't hand us an explicit memory of that earlier experience. it simply rummages through patters we've encountered before, like an old jukebox selecting a 45 and plunking it down on our imaginal turntable.

Suddenly we're registering all the physical responses associated with that pattern. Our throat constricts and our eyes narrow, and we "just know" this person is going to be a problem. One or two analogous sense impressions have conjured up a whole set of anticipated options.

We usually call these experiences "gut feelings," and they may tell us something important about the possibilities in our present situation. But Ne can be dead wrong and still feel like knowledge.

*The Right Stuff*

The hit-or-miss quality of Ne is a lingering byproduct of its advantage to us as a species. If our ancestors had stopped to examine all the details before they recognized a stick in their path as a snake, they wouldn't have lived long enough to bequeath their Intuitive abilities to us. Evolution tends to favor the primates who find themselves half a mile away before they know they've Intuited danger--even if they're sometimes mistaken.

Of course, our objectives today are somewhat less dire than escape from hungry competitors on the open Savannah Most of us follow in the proud tradition of _Name That Tune_ contestants, who raced each week to identify song titles from one or two familiar notes of music. That is, we're inclined to use Ne as a mental shortcut--to get the gist of a situation by focusing on as few details as possible.

For example, we may sort mail by looking at the return address of an envelope. We've assimilated enough information about credit card offers, unpaid bills, and astrologers who can't wait to send us our special lottery numbers that we can infer the substance of an entire communication from one or two lines of text. We do the same thing when we realize from the first few scenes of a movie that we've rented the same video before.

Because most of us use Ne in this casual way--to leap from a few immediate cues to a quick impression of the whole--we may not realize how finely discriminating a skill it really is. We tend to apply the word _intuitive_ as though it meant "suited by nature for a particular purpose in life."

For example, we speak of intuitive athletes, dancers, or film directors, and we mean that they're operating on the basis of untaught ability. We say that actors have intuitive chemistry with each other, meaning they "just know" what to do, without having to work at it. We speak of intuitive computer programs, which allegedly conform to our natural instincts. And we use the word somewhat disparagingly in the phrase "women's intuition," when an unsupported "feeling" has proven mysteriously correct.

Most of the people to whom we apply the word _intuitive_ in this casual way _aren't_ Intuitives--at least not typologically. They're usually Se and Introverted P types, whose right-brain abilities the left brain can't explain to itself.

*The Real Thing*

Whenever the word _intuitive_ is applied to a genuine ENP, it's almost invariably followed by the word _promoter_ or _communicator_. Such types strike us as "suited by nature" to sell themselves and their ideas. Charismatic, persuasive, and magnetic, ENPs are able to integrate diverse views in a larger pattern of meaning and to convince others that there are new and better ways of seeing reality.

The late Steve Jobs, the visionary who turned a hacker's gadget into the Apple Computer industry, appears to have been an excellent example of the type. So does Deepak Chopra, M.D., author of many books on the integrated relationship of mind, body, and cosmos.

In one of his ads, Dr. Chopra says: "The longer I practice medicine, the more I believe that the mind can change the very patterns that design the body. It can wipe mistakes off the blueprint, so to speak." No one but an ENP would make a statement that sweepingly optimistic about unrealized mental possibilities.

Apart from politicians, our most visible ENPs are probably those best-selling authors on the late-night informercial circuit who are advocating new paradigms for understanding relationships. ENPs are possessed of great drive and vision, and they have an influence on society disproportionate to their 10 percent representation in the population.

*Are Women Really More Intuitive?*

Like the association of intuition with nature skills, the attribution of intuition with women has little to do with Ne as it really exists. Historically deprived of a conceptual education, women have been presumed to be more instinctive than men, more liable to act on the basis of reflex, impulse, and emotions.

Although popular self-help books maintain quite flatly that men are "programmed by nature" to be "focused and logical," whereas women are "relational and take in the whole picture," two generations of type statistics reflect no such dichotomy. All functions are distributed more or less equally between the sexes.

Moreover, despite our assumptions, most of the apparent Ne types in the social or political landscape are male. Former President Bill Clinton, for example, is almost certainly an ENFP. His ability to communicate persuasively is undeniable, even by his staunchest critics, and his penchant for generating new options at the point of decision has irritated almost everyone. No one ever suggests, however, that Clinton's behaviors are prompted by feminine psyche.

Yet our associations persist, encouraged by increasing evidence that women have greater access to the right brain. The idea seems to be that female brains are "wired" differently from male brains, giving women more awareness of right-brain experiences and a greater incentive to conceptualize and talk about them.

From a typological perspective, however, the explanation doesn't account for the evidence. Right-brain skills _aren't_ predominantly "feminine" in character. In fact, many of the tendencies governed by the right hemisphere--mechanical dexterity, an interest in graphic representation, the ability to judge spatial relationships--are traditionally associated with masculinity.

Finally, most of the traits that popular literature attributes to the female psyche aren't Ne so much as humane: compassion for others, empathy, the ability to "read" body language. If women appear to have a monopoly on these fundamental human properties, the issue is hardly one of natural programming but of resolute socialization. The point, in any case, is that functional preference doesn't support our insistent gender mythology.

*The ENP Types*

Ne is so rapid and flexible an instrument that ENPs can operate almost like scanners, moving their attention widely over the environment, getting a gist of anything that happens to interest them. Such types are usually informed generalists, have a broad range of pursuits, basic knowledge about many things, and the ability to hold their own in a conversation about any of them.

Like Se types, ENPs are response-ready. Unless they can see new options, the possibility of change, or room for improvement, they're restless and bored. Indeed, because these types see life in terms of changing contextual relationships, they don't have much investment in the stability of material conditions--or take seriously the investment of others in those conditions. An unexpected juxtaposition of ideas, people, or images can reveal a larger pattern of meaning that changes all their priorities.

When their imagination is engaged, ENPs appear, for all the world, to be falling in love. They're not just interested in what they're doing. They're pulled in, like stars caught helplessly in a gravitational field, unable to think or talk about anything else. Whatever may have been felt or thought about yesterday is over, forgotten, without meaning. Their energies are devoted to anticipated prospects.

An ENFP analyst of my acquaintance, for example, became fascinated by chaos theory in nature. With great clarity he saw how psychological evolution could be understood as the same process in a different arena. The possibilities excited him and suggested any number of avenues to pursue.

Like most ENPs, the analyst was not motivated to work out his theory on paper or to research its practical applications. As far as he was concerned, the intuition was valid. What he needed was feedback from others to flesh it out and prove its viability.

To that end, he set up a conference series, inviting well-known chaos theorists to compare notes with interested psychiatrists and parapsychologists; offered a graduate course on psychology as a physical science; co-authored journal articles on relevant projects undertaken by his students; and promoted the subject at seminars all over the world. Within six months, he had established himself as a clearinghouse for an integrated field of ideas.

Like Se types, ENPs can make things happen very quickly. Se types, however, are concrete pragmatists. They actualize people's expectations and in the process become their focal point. One might consider, for example, the evangelist in the film _The Apostle_. Within a week of walking into a small town, he acquires a church building, assembles a congregation, and becomes role model to people who barely know him.

By contrast, the ENFP analyst appealed to people's imagination, becoming a focal point for others' inventiveness and curiosity.

Like ESPs, ENPs enjoy "being on," and they're good at anticipating an audience. But they don't create an image that others envy and want to emulate, as Se types do. Ne types are screens for people's unarticulated hopes and aspirations. They recognize how circumstances may be changed to bring unexpressed potential into play.

The all-consuming enthusiasm of ENPs in the initial stages of discovery is infectious and charismatic. ENPs are not subtle about their ideas. In the throes of white-hot certitude, the type is an idealist, an advocate, the herald of a better way, the promoter of new enterprise--in Jung's terms, the "natural champion of all minorities with a future."

Thus, where ESPs become the measure of a culture's external expectations, ENPs embody a culture's dreams and designs. Such types are inventors, evangelists, reformers, and kingmakers; if nothing else, they are intrepid motivators, able to persuade others to invest themselves in their plans and visions.

The flame of an Ne type's enthusiasm blazes only so long, however. Potential exists, after all, only when it's unrealized. ENPs lose interest in a situation once its import becomes evident to others. This is why ENPs usually take jobs that offer a wide variety of situations, a turnover of clients, or the opportunity to devise creative solutions to a succession of problems--journalism, psychology, politics, education, public relations, the ministry, emergency medicine.

Of course, Se types also move on when their interest wanes, but their motives are mercilessly clear. The excitement is gone, and the experience is over. Ne types are more difficult to predict. They may lose interest before anything of consequence has even happened. A small part of the vision, once realized, suggests the whole thing, and the Ne type feels no need to consider the matter further.

Perhaps one of the most interesting, and certainly one of the darkest, treatments of this aspect of Ne occurs in _The Devils_, Dostoyevsky's novel about the forces of change in nineteenth-century Russia. In his notes for that book, Dostoyevsky describes his chief character, Nicholas Stavrogin as a "man with an idea," which does not absorb him intellectually but merges with his own nature, so that he embodies it, and "having fused with his nature, it demands to be instantly put into action."

Like a demon love, Stavrogin courses through the lives of others, becoming the focus of their unmet dreams, raising their hopes, and unwittingly laying the groundwork for revolution. But as soon as his effect becomes apparent, his interest disappears and hie abruptly moves on, casting about for something new.

"Don't repeat my old ideas to me," he tells Shatov, unable to contain his impatience with the man's investment in him as a revolutionary messiah. And Shatov, having seen his highest aspirations reflected in Stavrogin, has no way to contend with his mentor's abrupt change of mind:
"Do you suppose I don't see from your face that some new idea has taken hold of you? Why am I condemned to believe in you forever? Could I have spoken like this to anyone else?... I was not afraid of caricaturing a great idea by my mouth because Stavrogin was listening to me... Don't you know that I shall kiss your footprints after you have gone? I can't tear you out of my heart, Nicholas Stavrogin!"​
Ne types are consistently surprised by the passionate responses they inspire in other people. Even the ENFPs, who identify strongly with people's feelings, don't react well to another's request for an investment deeper than they care to make. Their first instinct is to keep on moving before someone pins them down.

Thus, ENPs tend to live their lives in one of two ways: They become archetypal Seekers--curious, restless, living for adventure and passion, championing causes and underdogs, accumulating experiences in all manner of jobs and relationships. Or they become archetypal Companions, becoming close to people in whom they see potential, fueling inchoate dreams and ambitions.

Such types are so flexible and so quick to grasp the essence of a situation that they can do just about anything they set their minds to. But they may not stick with a situation long enough to realize the fruits of their labors. They depend on their supporters to take care of the follow-through and detail work, and those supporters wind up reaping the harvest.

Building a lifetime of temporary altars in the wilderness can, of course, be an honorable choice. ENPs are catalysts, and they can derive great satisfaction from quickening others' potential. However, ENPs need to develop enough Introverted Judgment to make that choice consciously. Without self-reflection, ENPs don't make use of their varied experiences. They "coast" on their Ne, and life seems to have no lasting meaning for them.

Sometimes these extreme types settle into a situation that feels "right" to them, one secure enough to direct and motivate them, but flexible enough to keep them from feeling bored. For example, they may enjoy being creative mavericks in an otherwise structured job situation. But at home and in relationships, where structure must be self-generated, their lack of Judgment becomes apparent, and they can be impulsive, impatient, disorganized, and unpredictable.

In many cases, such types choose a Judging partner, who can supply them with stable reference points and a basic routine. However, this largely unconscious strategy of attraction gives them no contact with their own limits and values. Although ENPs will rely on the boundaries provided by others' Ti or Fi, they also resent external limits as controlling and alient to their interests.

ENPs need to turn their Judgment inward to take personal limitations--of time, energy, resources, ability, even desire--into account. ENPs who resist this course assume that the people around them will anticipate what they need, read their moods, or fulfill the wishes they themselves don't know how to express. Given this egocentric assumption, they commit themselves to far more than they can or wish to deliver when the time comes.

ENPs don't recognize that they've overextending themselves. Without sufficient Judgment, they believe their intentions are as good as realized. It's just a matter of adding water, connecting the dots, filling in the blanks. They may not even start a project until the deadline has already passed. In consequence, ENPs are both surprised and frustrated by the problems that arise when their best intentions collide with material reality. They feel a sense of injustice, as though life were being unfair to them.

Indeed, these types can be badly hurt when people call them on promises they're not able to keep. After all, their heart was in the right place. It's circumstances that have changed. Extreme ENPs may even deny behaviors that have met with others' disapproval. An admission of wrongdoing would suggest that they _intended_ to do wrong, and they didn't. The behaviors felt right to them at the time.

People who rely too heavily on their Ne are usually caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Unwilling to acknowledge their own limitations, they're forced to depend on the limits of others. Eventually, life confronts them with problems Ne types can't handle, and their psyche pressures them to grow. They feel the unexpected pull of their inferior function, Si.


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