# A Question about Feeling



## Jewl (Feb 28, 2012)

I have a fairly basic understanding of Fe versus Fi, but I'll admit I'm getting myself confused all over again. There's just so much conflicting information about these two functions. And here is what I have noticed: 

Most people claim the main difference between Fe versus Fi is where your values come from. If you use Fe, your values come from the external world, and you adapt to the values around you for the most part. If you use Fi, your values come from the internal world, and you stay true to those values. I've never felt like this way of understanding Fe and Fi as being entirely correct. 

Then there are those that say Fe-doms are the ones who always adhere to social rules and all that jazz. 

I'm sure I'm not the only one confused by this, nor will I be the last person to ask what is the correct way of viewing these two functions. I think that because of this understanding, lots of people end up disliking to call themselves Fe-doms. 

My loose understanding was that it wasn't what Fe or Fi valued, but rather what they were concerned with -- consensus with others or consensus with their Self? But perhaps I've got a flawed view. 

@_JungyesMBTIno_ and @_LiquidLight_, I'd love to hear your opinions on this (probably for the millionth time on this subject too ) if you feel like it.


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## Hrothgarsdad (Mar 29, 2012)

I'm Fi-dom and see that as placing my personal values over external values. In practice, for instance, living in the closet deeply offended my sense of self. On small matters I can accommodate outside values, but when push comes to shove, I need to be true to myself. Coming out allowed me to assert my values.


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

I am also confused.

I think one problem that I encountered was that people often suggest that Fi users tend to be less wishy washy about their values, and I inferred that it must be because they had more well developed ethical systems.

But really, an ethical system is going to be influenced more by thinking functions. It requires using the thinking functions to evaluate its consistency in various situations, and its universality. And that requires logic more than Fi or Fe--it seems. So, I think that the idea that value consistency depends on Fi or Fe is misleading. 
Maybe an Fe person is more likely to feel or be influenced by group values than an Fi person, but an Fe person might have a well developed ethical system that they look to when making important value related decisions. An Fe person might be aware of the inconsistencies between various socially accepted beliefs, and be forced to have a strong ethical system in order to have their own consistent beliefs.

Edit: And I can see how looking to an internal ethical system for value decisions can seem to be Fi because it is looking internally, but an ethical system isn't something most people are born with (or, a fully developed system isn't, anyway). So, what if the individual developed their system for externally derived reasons--like because it is considered much more socially appropriate to have an ethical system, and also because consistent values are important for social harmony. Think of all the times when people do terrible things because they aren't consulting their own personal ethics, but are just going with the crowd--that type of mob mentality is dangerous for social harmony and so might bother an Fe person who values social harmony.


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## AstralSoldier (Jun 18, 2012)

meltedsorbet said:


> I am also confused.
> 
> 
> > > I think one problem that I encountered was that people often suggest that Fi users tend to be less wishy washy about their values, and I inferred that it must be because they had more well developed ethical systems.
> ...


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

To Jung values in the sense that you are referring did not come from the Feeling function but rather from your moral complex or somewhere else. The feeling function deals with evaluating your emotions.

When you have an emotional reaction to something, you need a function to tell you whether or not that reaction is say good or bad, positive or negative and it is the Feeling function that sorts that all out for us. It rationalizes in a way the Thinking function cannot, because thinking would only try to apply conceptual logic or reason to something that is fundamentally illogical or unreasonable, your emotions.

People get confused because they think Feeling = emotions and this is not the case. Feeling is how we understand our emotions. Literally how we evaluate things. Whether or not we find something good or bad, beautiful or ugly and so on. It's one of the reasons why people like Hillman in his lecture on the feeling function says things like people with well differentiated Feeling often have a better (or more refined) sense of taste because their reactions to things are more nuanced (as opposed to a Thinking type who might just be more interested in something conceptual like how much the object costs or how functional it is). 

When Feeling is used in the extraverted fashion this simply means that the standard for gauging is an external one. An objective one set by the world around us. We know something is good, or beautiful or whatever because we look to the world around us to validate it. With introverted feeling it is an internal image that we judge against. Some internal ideal of say beautiful or ugly that we judge things against. But understand this is why Feeling is referred to as a judgment function. Has nothing to do with morals or ethics, but everything to do with making value judgments based on your feeling-tones or emotional reactions to events or objects. You have to have a way to sort those things out, your thinking function can't do it, and your perception functions simply perceive what is going on not make sense of things, so that leaves a function, Feeling to handle the rest.

I think people often get confused by the 'internal image.' Jung is really speaking almost archetypal. Something down in your soul that resonates deep within you, a standard by which you can judge the worth of things that can never truly be articulated in the outside world. What happens is that people think that just because they've internalized something as their own, that it must be introverted feeling, but this isn't really the case. This is why we can't apply morality to the feeling function as people try to do. If for example I feel very strongly about say abortion rights, that is still extraverted because the value (that women should have a right to choose or that births should never be aborted) is one that has come from outside of me. Those aren't my ideals pro or against, they come from society and factors external to who we are. We have just adopted those ideals one way or the other as our own, but they did not come from within us initially. People get confused and think because they believe passionately about some issue it must be Fi, but this isn't so. Most of these things are typically not feeling related at all. If you get riled up about an issue, what's happening is, it likely is activated some complex you have about the issue, say a moral complex and causing an emotional reaction, which then your feeling function tells you is good or bad. Not the other way around. 

This is a long, long topic, but I would suggest, if you can find it on Amazon (it's pretty cheap) read James Hillman's lecture on The Feeling Function and it will all clear up. I think along with Introverted Sensation, the Feeling function is one of the most misunderstood functions out there partially due to the fact that it was mistranslated from the get-go. In German there are a number of ways to translate value or evaluation and somehow it got mistranslated into Feeling in English, which apparently would confound Jung when he lectured in English speaking countries because everyone thought he was talking about being emotional, not the process of rationalizing emotions.


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## Planisphere (Apr 24, 2012)

@meltedsorbet nailed it on the head. Fi and Fe get their consistencies from different sources. Fi pulls consistency out of the individual's own mind, while Fe pulls consistency out of the group(s) the individual is a part of. Therefore, we can assume that Fe is more likely to have a better time navigating social constructs than Fi; however, although Fi has it's issues in larger social constructs, it is better suited to understanding the individual's own desires without taking into account others'.

Of course, there is an alternative definition I found rather interesting:

Fi - "Much of their decisions are based on how they themselves, or others in relation to them personally, feel in contrast to considering how "the big picture" is affected (such as groups of people.) Fi is generally associated with the ability to gain an implicit sense of the subjective 'distance' between two people, and make judgments based off of said thing."

Fe - "They enjoy a loose atmosphere where anything goes, where people don't have to watch too carefully what they say for fear of offending others. This means these types try not to be too thin-skinned, taking jokes with a grain of salt. However, they are very conscious of the fact that the way something is said is very important to how it will be received, so they tend to add emphasis, embellishments, and exaggerations here and there to keep people engaged."

Of course, in different positions, these functions take on different roles.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Julia Bell said:


> I have a fairly basic understanding of Fe versus Fi, but I'll admit I'm getting myself confused all over again. There's just so much conflicting information about these two functions. And here is what I have noticed:
> 
> Most people claim *the main difference between Fe versus Fi is where your values come from. If you use Fe, your values come from the external world, and you adapt to the values around you for the most part*. If you use Fi, your values come from the internal world, and you stay true to those values. I've never felt like this way of understanding Fe and Fi as being entirely correct.
> 
> ...


This thread's a nice companion to this current thread. In that thread, @fourtines' OP describes a fairly common misunderstanding that Jung would have expected an I_FJ to be outwardly emotionally expressive (because of their Fe auxiliary) — in substantial contrast to an I_FP, who Jung described as characteristically concealing their deep passions behind an unexpressive exterior. In my posts in that thread, I've pointed out that Jung's Fe descriptions are descriptions of Fe _as manifested in extraverts_, and that Jung actually said it was characteristic of _all introverts_ to experience deep/turbulent emotions and to conceal those emotions behind unexpressive exteriors. (And I also noted that Myers acknowledged that the majority of Jung scholars took the view that an introvert would have both an introverted dominant function _and an introverted auxiliary_, in which case you wouldn't really expect an I_FJ to be an "Fe type" anyway.)

The idea that, if you're an Fe type, "your values come from the external world" and "you adapt to the values around you" and you're concerned with "consensus with others" rather than "consensus with [your] Self" represents a similar kind of misunderstanding — especially if you're expecting that to be characteristic of an _introvert_ with Fe as their (supposed) auxiliary function. Jung believed that _extraverts generally_ tended to adopt the majority values of their time, while _introverts generally_ tended to be independent minded. In fact, Jung said that the fact that a value was favored by the majority could lead an introvert to reject it just for that reason.

Here's Jung describing extraverts and introverts:



Jung said:


> "[W]e shall come upon individuals who in all their judgments, perceptions, feelings, affects, and actions feel external factors to be the predominant motivating force, or who at least give weight to them no matter whether causal or final motives are in question. I will give some examples of what I mean. St. Augustine: "I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." ... One man finds a piece of modern music beautiful because everybody else pretends it is beautiful. Another marries in order to please his parents but very much against his own interests. ... There are not a few who in everything they do or don't do have but one motive in mind: what will others think of them? "One need not be ashamed of a thing if nobody knows about it."
> 
> [The previous examples] point to a psychological peculiarity that can be sharply distinguished from another attitude which, by contrast, is motivated chiefly by internal or subjective factors. A person of this type might say: "I know I could give my father the greatest pleasure if I did so and so, but I don't happen to think that way." ... There are some who feel happy only when they are quite sure nobody knows about it, and to them a thing is disagreeable just because it is pleasing to everyone else. They seek the good where no one would think of finding it. ... Such a person would have replied to St. Augustine: "I would believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." Always he has to prove that everything he does rests on his own decisions and convictions, and never because he is influenced by anyone, or desires to please or conciliate some person or opinion.


So... that's what Jung thought, and that's the main reason the _majority values_ focus was there in his Fe-dom descriptions. To Jung, it was first and foremost an extravert characteristic, rather than an Fe characteristic.

Was Jung right to identify this as predominantly an E/I issue? Well, not exactly, I wouldn't say. All other things being equal, I'd say an introvert is more likely to be independent-minded than an extravert, but I think S vs. N is the biggest factor — and, among the S's, and as I think Keirsey rightly noted, SJs are the most likely to be majoritarian/traditional in their beliefs. But, as a final note, Jung assigned what's arguably the lion's share of the modern conception of S/N (the concrete/abstract duality) to E/I, with the result that, when Jung looked out at the world and spotted what he thought was a definite "extravert," he was presumably more often looking at what we'd consider an ES than an EN — and, conversely, the cussedly independent/individualistic "introverts" he spotted were presumably more often INs than ISs.


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## Jewl (Feb 28, 2012)

@LiquidLight, that does help clear up quite a bit of my confusion.  Thanks. The idea of Feeling dealing with values did confuse me a bit because that word is very broad. I didn't really connect it to emotion or morals, but just thought of Feeling as looking at something and deciding its worth. Eh, sorry, judging functions are somehow harder for me to understand than perceiving functions. Perceiving functions make sense to me. 



> When Feeling is used in the extraverted fashion this simply means that the standard for gauging is an external one. An objective one set by the world around us. We know something is good, or beautiful or whatever because we look to the world around us to validate it.


What exactly do you mean when you talk about looking to the external world to validate our emotional reaction to something? This has been the hardest part about Fe for my brain to wrap around, for whatever reason. Do you mean something along the lines of: "Well, my emotional reaction to _____ is right because everybody else has this same reaction?" Because that's immediately where my brain wants to go, and I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly. 



> What happens is that people think that just because they've internalized something as their own, that it must be introverted feeling, but this isn't really the case. This is why we can't apply morality to the feeling function as people try to do.


Yes, I've seen this a lot. That was one of the things that confused me about Fe versus Fi. 



> This is a long, long topic, but I would suggest, if you can find it on Amazon (it's pretty cheap) read James Hillman's lecture on The Feeling Function and it will all clear up. I think along with Introverted Sensation, the Feeling function is one of the most misunderstood functions out there partially due to the fact that it was mistranslated from the get-go. In German there are a number of ways to translate value or evaluation and somehow it got mistranslated into Feeling in English, which apparently would confound Jung when he lectured in English speaking countries because everyone thought he was talking about being emotional, not the process of rationalizing emotions.




I bet it is. I bet you're tired of answering questions about Fe ad Fi. XD I'll do so. It's about time I picked up real literature on all this stuff anyways. o_o I definitely agree. ^_^ Haha. That's probably why ESFJ has one of the worst stereotypes. I think that is starting to die down a bit here on PerC. Hopefully. I know I used to think that Feeling meant "emotion". I mean, I got the impression that there was more to it than that in a way, but everybody else seemed to refer to it as literal 'feelings'. Fail.


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## MuChApArAdOx (Jan 24, 2011)

reckful said:


> This thread's a nice companion to this current thread. In that thread, @fourtines' OP describes a fairly common misunderstanding that Jung would have expected an I_FJ to be outwardly emotionally expressive (because of their Fe auxiliary) — in substantial contrast to an I_FP, who Jung described as characteristically concealing their deep passions behind an unexpressive exterior. In my posts in that thread, I've pointed out that Jung's Fe descriptions are descriptions of Fe _as manifested in extraverts_, and that Jung actually said it was characteristic of _all introverts_ to experience deep/turbulent emotions and to conceal those emotions behind unexpressive exteriors. (And I also noted that Myers acknowledged that the majority of Jung scholars took the view that an introvert would have both an introverted dominant function _and an introverted auxiliary_, in which case you wouldn't really expect an I_FJ to be an "Fe type" anyway.)
> 
> The idea that, if you're an Fe type, "your values come from the external world" and "you adapt to the values around you" and you're concerned with "consensus with others" rather than "consensus with [your] Self" represents a similar kind of misunderstanding — especially if you're expecting that to be characteristic of an _introvert_ with Fe as their (supposed) auxiliary function. Jung believed that _extraverts generally_ tended to adopt the majority values of their time, while _introverts generally_ tended to be independent minded. In fact, Jung said introverts would tend to avoid adopting a value _simply because_ it was what others valued.
> 
> ...


Your post are always so damn confusing. And what does introverts and extroverts have to do with an introverted function ? The OP is asking about a specific function that happens to be introverted, she isn't confused with what it means to be an introvert vs extrovert. 

Not only introverts use Fi, so trying to explain it using introverts in general is only making it appear even more confusing for those reading it.

You seem to have a positive interest with functions, although i must say that for someone who uses Te in the Aux position, i can hardly understand things your write. It appears more like Ti, because everything looks backwards to me 
@Julia Bell, i hope you get an understanding for the difference between the two. I don't think i can explain it any better than Liquidlight, and certainly can't articulate it any better. Fi is too complex to articulate, i believe Liquidlight explained in his post why that is. Good luck girl, keep on plugging. One day you will wake up with this huge lightbulb moment, it will become crystal clear


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

@reckful I think is making the point that introverts in general tend to be unexpressive because of the nature of introversion itself regardless of the function. We have to remember, though that Jung's descriptions deal with both the function itself and how that function represents in a type. So he describes Introverted Feeling, for example (almost in a conceptual vacuum) and then describes an Introverted Feeling type, who of course is using all four functions, their complexes and a whole host of other things going on. But I should also point out that Jung himself was not really seeing INFPs or INFJs because to him those types likely would not have existed or been the exception (I'm one of those who thinks that he saw the auxiliary function as being the same attitude as the dominant different from Myers). He is talking specifically about someone who leads primarily with dominant Feeling and a repressed Thinking function, which doesn't always translate neatly into MBTI types for a number of reasons.


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## Jewl (Feb 28, 2012)

MuChApArAdOx said:


> @_Julia Bell_, i hope you get an understanding for the difference between the two. I don't think i can explain it any better than Liquidlight, and certainly can't articulate it any better. Fi is too complex to articulate, i believe Liquidlight explained in his post why that is. Good luck girl, keep on plugging. One day you will wake up with this huge lightbulb moment, it will become crystal clear


Haha, thanks.  Here's hoping. ^_^ I think I'm getting close to understanding Feeling better. Then it's on to Thinking. Although I've already asked many questions, Thinking is still somewhat of a mystery to me. There's always more to learn.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

MuChApArAdOx said:


> Your post are always so damn confusing. And what does introverts and extroverts have to do with an introverted function ? The OP is asking about a specific function that happens to be introverted, she isn't confused with what it means to be an introvert vs extrovert.
> 
> Not only introverts use Fi, so trying to explain it using introverts in general is only making it appear even more confusing for those reading it.
> 
> You seem to have a positive interest with functions, although i must say that for someone who uses Te in the Aux position, i can hardly understand things your write. It appears more like Ti, because everything looks backwards to me


Well, I suspect you might not find my posts quite so confusing if you were a little more acquainted with Jung, who spent more of Psychological Types discussing _introversion generally_ and _extraversion generally_ than he spent discussing all eight of the functions put together.

The OP asked whether Fe/Fi corresponded to the difference between people inclined to adopt community values and people inclined to be true to their own individual values, and I pointed out that Jung basically viewed that as a difference between _extraverts and introverts_, rather than an Fe/Fi difference — with the result that Jung would have expected an Fe type to be a community values person if they were an extravert (e.g., an ESFJ) but an individualist if they were an introvert (e.g., an INFJ with Fe as their auxiliary), and likewise would have expected an Fi type to be a community values person if they were an extravert (e.g., an ESFP with Fi as their auxiliary) but an individualist if they were an introvert (e.g., an INFP).

I hope this helps clear things up for you.


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

I'm going to post some notes from Hillman that might help clear things up about the function. The word affect, or affective is a psychological term dealing with physiological or emotional reactions to psychological stimuli (crying or laughing would be sort of extreme examples). 



> Jung came upon the role of feeling experimentally; his earliest description sof feeling stem from his association experiments, where he found pure affective reasons ("yes, "bad," "like," etc) to stimulus words, rather than associations in the stricter sense. Already in this early work during the first decade of the 20th century, we can trace two aspects of the concept of feeling: on the one hand, feeling as a function which "likes," relates, makes judgments, connects, denies, evaluates; on the other hand, feelings as contents (hopes, longing, angers) which act in his word association experiment as factors faciliating or disturbing associations. In his first attempts to work out the theory of the types and the concept of functions, Jung did not differentiate introversion from thinking or extraversion from feeling (to @reckful's point). These early confusions may have been in part due to his own psychological quotient (Jung was likely an Introverted Thinking type).
> 
> First we usually confuse feeling with sensing. Pain and pleasure are primarily sensations (feeling comfortable, feeling itchy, feeling exhauted). However, pain has a feeling dimension in addition to the pure sensation, inasmuch as it is bound with suffering or displeasure. Pleasure too has a feeling dimension (joy for instance), so that we can feel disappointed or unhappy from a painful punishment or glad through a delicious dinner. Often we use the expression "I feel" when we mean more accurately "I sense."...
> ...but Jung's use of sensation and feeling is more sophisticated: we can feel events as objective values outside in ethical actions and art objects, and so, too, we can sense inside our own subjective processes.
> ...


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## MuChApArAdOx (Jan 24, 2011)

reckful said:


> Well, I suspect you might not find my posts quite so confusing if you were a little more acquainted with Jung, who spent more of Psychological Types discussing _introversion generally_ and _extraversion generally_ than he spent discussing all eight of the functions put together.
> 
> The OP asked whether Fe/Fi corresponded to the difference between people inclined to adopt community values and people inclined to be true to their own individual values, and I pointed out that Jung basically viewed that as a difference between _extraverts and introverts_, rather than an Fe/Fi difference — with the result that Jung would have expected an Fe type to be a community values person if they were extraverted (e.g., an ESFJ) but an individualist if they were introverted (e.g., an INFJ with Fe as their auxiliary), and likewise would have expected an Fi type to be a community values person if they were extraverted (e.g., an ESFP with Fi as their auxiliary) but an individualist if they were introverted (e.g., an INFP).
> 
> I hope this helps clear things up for you.


Yes, i know, i don't have near as much knowledge about Jung as you, that is a given. I know your intentions are good, and for those who have the understanding you have can follow well.

Although when people are confused about how a particular function works , its been my experience to keep it simplified, it's probably a better way of approaching it. Using examples of how Fi is applied in the real world, patterns and behaviours is what people will likely understand . Then comparing that with examples of how Fe would operate.

Personally from my own observations i don't see Fi processing any differently for any type who uses it, whether that be introverts or extroverts. The only difference i see is the stacking, where it sits and how much of it is applied to the real world. Dom vs Aux, vs tert etc.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

LiquidLight said:


> I'm going to post some notes from Hillman that might help clear things up about the function...


Hillman's take on Feeling is very Jungian, which I'd say makes it somewhat inconsistent with most modern perspectives on the MBTI F preference (and the corresponding Big Five _Agreeableness_ dimension).

I think it's fair to say there's been somewhat of an evolution of the consensus among MBTI theorists over the years about what the T/F preference is really about, from a more Jungian perspective — T's making decisions based on principles/logic and F's based on values/emotions — to viewing the essence of T/F more in terms of the F's _people orientation_. And I think that evolution has been a good thing, but I think it's yet another reason there may be more inconsistency between different sources concerning what T/F is about than any of the other three MBTI dimensions. A typical modern MBTI-related book is all but certain to retain the "Thinking" and "Feeling" labels for the dimension, and will generally pay some kind of lip service (at least) to T's somehow being more logical about their decision-making while Fs make greater use of "feeling" (as some kind of alternative rational process) and/or "values" and/or "emotions." But if you look at the actual examples given of T's and F's making decisions, the differences almost always hinge on the F's people orientation. The relevant "emotions" coming into play for the F (that make the difference) are generally emotions they have concerning people/relationships and/or concerns for other people's emotions, and likewise the "values" that play the greater role for the F than the T are generally values relating to people/relationships.

As one example, Lenore Thomson is (as you know) an MBTI theorist whose work is focused more on the cognitive functions than the MBTI "dichotomies" — making her, at least in some people's eyes, more _Jungian_ — but Personality Type: An Owner's Manual includes half a chapter on Thinking vs. Feeling. Not surprisingly, her discussion of how the Feeling preference develops starts out with a Jungian-sounding paragraph or two about a child exploring her world and, in addition to exercising logic and learning to put things in impersonal categories (her T side), developing her capacity to decide what's good and bad, and what's important (her F side). But, lo and behold, by the time we get to the table where Thomson sums up the qualities that tend to characterize an adult with an F preference, it turns out that an orientation toward _people and relationships_ is really the heart (no pun intended) of the F preference. Here's the F side of Thomson's table, _in its entirety_:


*Feeling gives us:*the ability to make decisions personally, based on shared values and relationshipsan interest in how people feela reliance on consensus, morality, mercy and loyaltya commitment to social obligation, empathy, and responsibility to othersthe ability to anticipate people's needs and reactionsan interest in human relationships and the values they illustratea good sense of body language and vocal intonation -- how something useful was said and why

Keirsey also emphasizes an F's people/relationship orientation. Here's part of his description of the difference between NTs and NFs:



Keirsey said:


> As with the NT, the NF is future-oriented and focused on what might be. But, rather than thinking about the possibilities of principles as does the NT, the NF thinks about the possibilities of people, "actualizing the potential" of others and of himself. As with his perception of himself, so it is with the NF's perception of others: Whatever is, is never quite sufficient. The thought that the visible is all there is is untenable for an NF. ... [NFs'] hunger is not centered on things but people. They are not content with abstractions; they seek relationships. Their need does not ground in action; it vibrates with interaction.


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

Yes the Jungian perspective doesn't seem to hold that feeling types must necessarily be people-oriented, only that they might appear to be especially if the function is wrapped up in a persona. But I don't think Jung (or any of the Jungians) are saying that people or humanistic events or things are a prerequisite or necessarily the impetus for robust feeling or that a people-focus represents the substratum of feeling-types. Also I don't think Thomson's list there is terribly inconsistent with what Hillman says in another chapter, but I think the causal factors are different. I think Hillman might argue these perspectives, behaviors, etc., as effects of psychological processes, the feeling function included, and not necessarily caused by the feeling function explicitly.



> Extraverted feeling ought not to be confused with the persona. Although in Jung both refer to the process as adaptation, extraverted feeling is a function of personality. It is a manner of performing and can be an expression of an individual style. By means of it a person gives values and adapts to values in ways which can be highly differentiated, uncollective and original. The persona, on the other hand, is a fundamental archetype of the psyche referring to the manner in which consciousness reflects with society. The person in Jung's stricter usage of the term, therefore does not refer to something individual. A developed persona would mean a developed reflection of the collective consensus. If one is a prisoner, or an addict, or a hermit, or a general,, one can have a developed persona by behaving in the styles and form collectively belonging to these patterns of existence. They are archetypal patterns. Feeling may have little or nothing to do with this adaptation, for one can be connected very well to the collective through thinking, intuition and sensation. In a nutshell: classically, the persona is a collective way of playing a role in the world; the feeling function is an individual instrument of self-affirmation.
> 
> In all, the feeling-type is generally oriented by the feeling function, which means that he steers his life according to the feeling values and the processes in relationship. To go beyond this simple statement would be to fall again under the influence of the cliches that feeling types (a) have more feelings, or (b) have special kinds of feelings or (c) have only good or superior feelings.




I think it is interesting that Hillman lays out a number of pet-peeves about how people see the Feeling function colloquially (no doubt in response to the more modern articulations of it -- Hillman only died last year so would've been well aware of the modern type movement).

After going off about the fact that feeling should not be associated 1:1 with music, or women or eros he says


> Another usual view is that warmth, gaiety and enthusiasm are the same as feeling, and that feeling-types can be recognized by their outgoing relatedness. However, an intuitive person, or somebody who has not quite grown up, or a hysterical person can also display these same, sometimes charming, virtues and yet have misplaced and inappropriate feeling. The uninhibited bring to a situation a free flow of feelings; this is not to say that they bring as well a differentiated feeling function. I tis also claimed that people who are cold are not feeling types. Nevertheless, feeling can be expressed in cold, exact, remote manners, as in diplomatic language and in realms of aesthetic tastes where classical formulations and accuracy can be compared with the exquisiteness of mathematical formulae.
> 
> Another pet notion about Feeling types is that wherever they are present an atmosphere of good feeling prevails. Feeling types, however, by their insistence upon values and the structures in which these values are embedded, may often be highly intolerant of deviations or of values which are new. Feeling types take time, so that often they inhibit movement with their slowness because they tune into an atmosphere. If it is not to their suiting, they subtly impose their feeling world or disturb the one taking place by undercutting it. If they do not like the atmosphere and cannot change it, they may spend the evening in silence, unable to take part at all, meanwhile passing silent judgments, or attempting, if extraverted, to turn things into adapted sociable channels. The importance of ideas, the beauty of wild intuitions, or sensations just as they are, are not enough. Things must be evaluated and related to.
> 
> ...


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

It's not that Fi types never care how other people feel, or that Fe always does. Fe can be cruel and shaming and exclusive, and Fi can feel strongly for the plight of another, or treat other people a certain way because it means so much to themselves (like my ENFP friend says she's always considerate of sleeping people because she takes sleep so seriously herself and I'm like OH MY GOD YES). My ESFJ friend can be a right bitch at times, and woe to anyone trapped in a stark raving mad pack of ENTPs who think you're being a big baby and want to tertiary-high-school-Fe shame you out of deviating from the "group feeling." 

Fi and Fe can both be caring, and both can be assholes. It's just that Fi feels things at a deep internal place of value, and will stand by that, even to their detriment at times...however, MATURE Fi can even reason how their own feeling tones benefit others in the big picture (I disagree that Fi is never big picture); for example, if the Fe types tell me I'm being rude and impolite by expressing this thing, but I know that by expressing this thing I'm getting what I feel is a very important ethic OUT THERE to benefit not only myself but others (who may be beyond the scope of the immediate Fe-rules group saying tsk tsk) then I'm not being a selfish asshole, I'm being just as helpful in the big picture as an Fe type, just not by Fe organizational standards.

One reason I realized my INFP friend was indeed an Fi type rather than Fe is because she says, "hey don't do this because it's proper, or someone in authority says it's right or wrong, can you do it for me (or for this person, or for this specific reason)" and she validates and easily forgives individual disruptions of feeling, even when inappropriate. It was hard to tell with her at first, though, because one of her Fi values is harmony, so I presumed Fe, but her reasoning and even broad scope behavior isn't Fe at all. I also think it's why she can so quietly and stubbornly resist the ministrations of her Fe dom mother, and just kind of does what she thinks is best, and will just calmly say "I disagree" but carry on with her personal feeling of what is right, and explain that she and her mother are two very different women. I'll say.


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## Kynx (Feb 6, 2012)

I think we all assess data using both logic and feeling. We are always feeling something, even at very subtle levels, such as contentment, security, acceptance, etc. So every piece of logical information we process is also accompanied by a feeling tone or mood, which is also processed by value and importance then assigned to a particular situation or set of circumstances. Thinkers follow the logical guideline part of the information and Feelers follow the emotional guideline. F's are sensitive to emotions and can recognise the low level effects of feeling. These feelings are not brought into consciousness clearly enough to be analysed and understood and given names. Whereas thinkers on the other hand, are sensitive to logical inconsistencies rather than to feeling inconsistencies, so feeling doesn't intervene in thoughts until it's amplified to a level that we can recognise it clearly as anger or jealousy or happiness. 

I believe the difference between Fi and Fe, is that an Fe type collects the external information and builds their value system from the feeling tones and moods that they aquire from external education as they go through experiences. They're educated that x feeling + y feeling = xy feeling and that is a good outcome. So when they experience the same combinations of feeling again, internally it feels correct because it matches the expected mood that's already been built into their value system derived from experience and education. 

An Fi type can be taught that x+y = xy but when they put the feelings together, something from within them intervenes and they end up with z. Doesn't matter how much they try to make it xy, because xy doesn't feel correct, z does. They don't always realise how they got to z, but it feels as true and correct as everything else that is known and recognised as being true and correct.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

James Hillman completely captured my pet peeves with some dominant F types I know (this is the minority I know) when he mentioned the judgmentalism around "being human" tendencies of some for whatever immature reason. I've seen those Fi/Fe doms IRL (more often Fi doms who aren't afraid to destroy social comfort zones, but I can't say there aren't Fe doms like this either) who have these obnoxious judgments about how someone doesn't act "human" enough for them *blech - those judgments make me want to puke, I'm not even kidding* - those people sound like they think they're so great just because they exist and think that being fundamentally like everyone else (human, duh) justifies the greatness of their convictions. Then I think, "um, duh, not everyone is as secure as you/has the same values as you - just let them be." It's amazing how this is a very real phenomenon that I never could explain to myself until I basically got into this stuff - I always used to think, "get a life" about some of these people. I don't have a problem with people evaluating this way in general, but the people that take this seriously seem like total hypocrites to me who act like they hold the key to being human, yet they deny most aspects of being human, so of course they don't. Usually I'm tempted to say "get a vocabulary." I think knowing about the values system stuff Hillman explained makes this more rational in a sense though, but I can't help but think in a public setting that some of these particular people might end up alienating themselves in the end if they're not careful (they tend to look like snobs).


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## Yedra (Jul 28, 2012)

reckful said:


> _Whatever is, is never quite sufficient. The thought that the visible is all there is is untenable for an NF. ... [NFs'] hunger is not centered on things but people. They are not content with abstractions; they seek relationships. Their need does not ground in action; it vibrates with interaction._


This part is interesting. When I think or observe I just want to see what is true, factual, logical etc., there is no censorship in the inner world (for the most part) But no matter how true or logical something is, if its application comes at the expense of other people's dignity and integrity, I find it useless. When it comes to decision making there is this final layer of consideration for others that comes over the raw and impartial observation.


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