# Does Gregory House come across as emotional?



## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Old Intern said:


> The belief that you won't be a good doctor if you let yourself be caught up in too much Fe would be classic example of Ti! No persona about it. In many cases Ti is complemented with Fe, and sometimes not. I'm saying this as an NE - Ti - Fe - Se user.
> 
> Fe has an awareness of people that is just there for our consideration, so you have to say yes or no to it in the goings on of life. Lucky you, because Fi is by nature oblivious. If I know scruffy shoes are bad for a job interview, I'm not wearing a persona to do something about that. These are choices we make. I think the House character displays the frustration of someone who knows what is socially expected, and sees the silliness of those expectations in contrast to Ti solutions.
> 
> *Jung's social context was a lot different than today as far as how people spent their time and what a persons survival and role in life depended on. So just get over this persona preoccupation?*


Your functions are not your persona. Your persona is just who you present yourself to the world as - how you act. You're basically wrong about everything, because first off, Jung said introverted functions DO reference the outside world, because it's impossible for a function not to, but the process is just a self-referencing one in fully differentiated form. Choices mainly DO involve protection of the persona first and foremost - the ego would be in the background of this. And Ti is always accompanied by Fe and vice-versa (if I really need to explain why, you're just wasting my time when there are sticky threads on the obvious components of type, such as feeling and thinking pair up and intuition and sensation pair up - doesn't matter if they are compensatory, they still pair up). Showing consideration for people is not really Fe - that would be how you're conditioned to approach people via the persona (Fe might color this a certain way based on how a person EVALUATES, but it's not the process of engaging with other people - that's not a function).


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## timeless (Mar 20, 2010)

I think House is intensely emotional. He's like Spock, deep down he feels emotions 10x stronger than everyone else but has to put effort into making a cool exterior.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

Just a bit more on the persona and it's immediate relevance to the topic of this discussion:



> The persona has become one of the most widely adopted aspects of Jungian terminology, passing into almost common parlance: "a mask or shield which the person places between himself and the people around him, called by some psychiatrists the _persona_."[SUP][21][/SUP] For Eric Berne, "the persona is formed during the years from six to twelve, when most children first go out on their own... to avoid unwanted entanglements or promote wanted ones."[SUP][22][/SUP] He was interested in "the relationship between ego states and the Jungian _persona'_, and considered that 'as an _ad hoc_ attitude, persona is differentiated also from the more autonomous _identity_ of Erikson."[SUP][23][/SUP] Perhaps more contentiously, in terms of life scripts, he distinguished "the Archetypes (corresponding to the magic figures in a script) and the Persona (which is the style the script is played in)".[SUP][24]
> [/SUP]
> Post-Jungians would loosely call the persona "the _social_ archetype of the _conformity_ archetype",[SUP][25][/SUP] though Jung himself was always concerned to distinguish the persona as an external function from those images of the unconscious he called archetypes. Thus whereas Jung recommended conversing with archetypes as a therapeutic technique he himself had employed—"For decades I always turned to theanima when I felt my emotional behavior was disturbed, and I would speak with the anima about the images she communicated to me"[SUP][26][/SUP]—he stressed that "It would indeed be the height of absurdity if a man tried to have a conversation with his persona, which he recognized merely as a psychological means of relationship."[SUP][27][/SUP]


See also,

True self and false self

Bad faith (existentialism)



> Although external circumstances may limit individuals (this limitation from the outside is called facticity), they cannot force a person to follow one of the remaining courses over another. In this sense the individual still has some freedom of choice. For this reason, individuals choose in anguish: they know that they must make a choice, and that it will have consequences. For Sartre, to claim that one amongst many conscious possibilities takes undeniable precedence (for instance, "I cannot risk my life, because I must support my family") is to assume the role of an object in the world, not a free agent, but merely at the mercy of circumstance (a being-in-itself that is only its own facticity, i.e., it "is" inside itself, and acts there as a limitation).[2]
> 
> For Sartre this attitude is manifestly self-deceiving. As human consciousness, we are always aware that we are more than what we are aware of, so we are not whatever we are aware of. We cannot, in this sense, be defined as our 'intentional objects' of consciousness, including our restrictions imposed by (facticity) our personal history, character, bodies, or objective responsibility. Thus, as Sartre often repeated, "Human reality is what it is not, and it is not what it is." An example would be if one were now a doctor but wished and started to "transcend" to become a pig farmer. One is what one is not (a pig farmer), not who one is (a doctor): it can only define itself negatively, as "what it is not"; but this negation is simultaneously the only positive definition it can make of "what it is."
> 
> ...


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> I'm not trying to single you out or anything @_Old Intern_, I've really enjoyed our discussions so far, but I am going to back up @_JungyesMBTIno_ and @_Erbse_ on this.
> 
> Persona needs to be taken into account.
> 
> ...


Not just 9, but all the enneatypes do it which is why we have enneatypes. To a 1, it's important to appear as perfect in the eyes of themselves _and others_, to a 2, their sense of being needed will make them come across as often very compliant to others' needs and often helpful to a fault, to a 3, they will compromise their own sense of self entirely for the sake of success as the 3 is arguably the most malleable out of all the image types since the 3 identifies with things outside himself rather than inside himself like the 4, and the 4 has the emotional reactivity going on in order to validate their emotions, 5 tend to identify with their own intellectualism and detachment (it would be arguable that House is a 5 based on the little I've seen of the show which is why I theorize people see him as an introverted NT type), 6s obviously have their phobic/CP stuff going on persona wise, 7s their inherent narcissism, 8s the (quite often) lone wolf attitude as a way to maintain control of their environment and themselves and 9s as you pointed out, can be compliant to a fault giving up their own wants and needs in favor of others but without the pleasing aspect that comes with 2s. 

As for House himself and this isn't directed at you specifically Abraxas, I don't see the problem typing unrealistically or exaggerated characters as they can still represent _archetypes_. See what I did there in a Jungian sense? Ultimately, as archetypes, these characters exaggerated or unrealistic or not, are meant to reflect some inherent nature of who we are. If they didn't we wouldn't find the show realistic enough to actually watch it as it would break our suspense or disbelief. 

Since even rounded characters in fiction will still be fictive characters, you can add depth that archetypically make them harder to be typed, but they still represent an archetype that can be mapped out to the MBTI in particular, more so than Jung I would argue. In theory, you could fall back here on Joseph Campbell's monomyth and use those archetypes or use the archetypes laid out by say, Claude Lévi-Strauss but I disgress and I think my point remains.


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## yet another intj (Feb 10, 2013)

Hari Mohan said:


> He is mean and offensive intentionally unlike another intellectual character Sheldon Cooper. I hav read dat extroverted feelers are very expressive, so obviously modify tones, appear animated and deliver their mood pretty easily. House seems to do dat. It might be frustations with stupid people, but still it shines thru as a dominant quality.


Sheldon Cooper is not even a human being if you ask me. He's a mediocre caricature based on superficial INTJ stereotypes. Sheldon Cooper is one of those stupid people who can frustrate Gregory House easily. Gregory House is emotionally callous with attachment problems. He's constantly hurting others to test their loyalty. I think Gregory House is introverted yet expressive with his blatant claptrap mask.


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## firedell (Aug 5, 2009)

I find that people (fictional or not), who want to come off as unemotional, are usually the most vulnerable and emotional.


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## Falling Leaves (Aug 18, 2011)

firedell said:


> I find that people (fictional or not), who want to come off as unemotional, are usually the most vulnerable and emotional.


Yeah, I agree, but I think there is a difference between _wanting_ to come off as unemotional and _naturally_ coming off as unemotional (i.e. house). 

Either way though, it's a clusterfuck when those emotions do eventually decide to surface.

---

Also, to the Ti Vs Ne debate -

I can't remember which episode, but Cameron walked up to House and outwright asked him 'do you like me?'

After seriously considering it after a few moments, he replies 'no'. 

This always struck me as Ti. Of course, feeler that she is, Cameron took it personally and spent the rest of the say worrying what she had done/why that was (because 'I don't like you' must always mean 'I dislike you' :dry.

...however, there is a simpler explanation. In truth, Ti-users (or, to put it more aptly, Fe-weak people) only very rarely genuinely like people; sure, we may say that we like you, act as though we like you, but that's more down to social graces. Truthfully, in our heart of hearts, we 'nothing' you. House was just being honest. 

Of course, ENTPs can express this trait as well, it's just far more apparent in Ti-users. 

Either way, I think House's F-deficiency greatly outweighs his S-deficieny, indicating T-N-S-F function order, and not N-T-F-S. It is possible for INTPs to have a strong sense of Ne, just as it's possible for ENTPs to have a strong sense of Ti.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

JungyesMBTIno said:


> Your functions are not your persona. Your persona is just who you present yourself to the world as - how you act. You're basically wrong about everything, because first off, Jung said introverted functions DO reference the outside world, because it's impossible for a function not to, but the process is just a self-referencing one in fully differentiated form. Choices mainly DO involve protection of the persona first and foremost - the ego would be in the background of this. And Ti is always accompanied by Fe and vice-versa (if I really need to explain why, you're just wasting my time when there are sticky threads on the obvious components of type, such as feeling and thinking pair up and intuition and sensation pair up - doesn't matter if they are compensatory, they still pair up). Showing consideration for people is not really Fe - that would be how you're conditioned to approach people via the persona (Fe might color this a certain way based on how a person EVALUATES, but it's not the process of engaging with other people - that's not a function).


*JungyesMBTIno * You are not understanding me. I don't see any persona coming from the Gregory House character. So, persona and functions not being the same doesn't even apply to what I said. And that was not what I said. Of course Ti deals with external data. Our miscommunication might come from Ne - Ni and Fe - Fi differences that you and I have. 

Ne - Ti opperation is innherantly forced to deal with choosing a limit on the scope of what we are willing to deal with, period. Ne sees too much for anyone to act on in a lifetime. This is a pragmatic fact, aside from giving a rats ass about how one might be percieved in the world or about asserting identity. Nobody can fix everything in the universe, or build models of how to fix ten thing at once. Ti with Ne leading vision, becomes a bottomless pit of potential models and theories that could be tested. This is why you hear ENTP's reffering to some emotional issue as just not being their thing, "someone else can do that (better than I can)". It's not self estteem, it's not protection from being hurt, It's not wearing of a persona. Well, in some cases there could be false bravdo, but the bigger issue is all the implications and Ti endless loops of potential problem solving that could be tied up (unproductively) by focusing on relationship dynamics.

You are taking the context of Jung's description of Fe and applying it in a distorted way. Fe applies relationship dynamics, and social protocal to decision making. Jung gives a demonstration of pure Fe and then later clarifies that almost nobody opperates in pure Fe.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Old Intern said:


> *JungyesMBTIno* You are not understanding me. I don't see any persona coming from the Gregory House character. So, persona and functions not being the same doesn't even apply to what I said. And that was not what I said. Of course Ti deals with external data. Our miscommunication might come from Ne - Ni and Fe - Fi differences that you and I have.
> 
> Ne - Ti opperation is innherantly forced to deal with choosing a limit on the scope of what we are willing to deal with, period. Ne sees too much for anyone to act on in a lifetime. This is a pragmatic fact, aside from giving a rats ass about how one might be percieved in the world or about asserting identity. Nobody can fix everything in the universe, or build models of how to fix ten thing at once. Ti with Ne leading vision, becomes a bottomless pit of potential models and theories that could be tested. This is why you hear ENTP's reffering to some emotional issue as just not being their thing, "someone else can do that (better than I can)". It's not self estteem, it's not protection from being hurt, It's not wearing of a persona. Well, in some cases there could be false bravdo, but the bigger issue is all the implications and Ti endless loops of potential problem solving that could be tied up (unproductively) by focusing on relationship dynamics.
> 
> You are taking the context of Jung's description of Fe and applying it in a distorted way. Fe applies relationship dynamics, and social protocal to decision making. Jung gives a demonstration of pure Fe and then later clarifies that almost nobody opperates in pure Fe.


Everything people show to the outside world is persona. That's exactly what a persona is. You're pretty much just imagining everything else.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

What happens when two people with a preference for extraversion argue in an internet debate...


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

*Ne is concerned with opportunities and possibilities; **doing or knowing**, not other peoples perceptions about self.* 
Ne - Ti wants freedom from bordeom. Innovation or problem solving in a steady flow where competance is challenged but not to the point of being overwhelmed is the ideal. Everything in House's day-to-day work life is always new and uncertain, without being so foreign or disorganized as to be counterproductive - this is ENTP heaven. 

*JungyesMBTIno* your sense that everthing is imagined comes from an Ni perspective. 
In "Gregory House Mode" Dying Vs Cured is pretty real.


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## Borrowed Lunacy (Sep 30, 2011)

House's personality type is Lupus.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Old Intern said:


> *Ne is concerned with opportunities and possibilities; **doing or knowing**, not other peoples perceptions about self.*
> Ne - Ti wants freedom from bordeom. Innovation or problem solving in a steady flow where competance is challenged but not to the point of being overwhelmed is the ideal. Everything in House's day-to-day work life is always new and uncertain, without being so foreign or disorganized as to be counterproductive - this is ENTP heaven.
> 
> *JungyesMBTIno* your sense that everthing is imagined comes from an Ni perspective.
> In "Gregory House Mode" Dying Vs Cured is pretty real.


...  Perception of self is perception - intuition or sensation...no idea where you're coming up with the stuff you do - it's pretty out there.


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## Erbse (Oct 15, 2010)

JungyesMBTIno said:


> Everything people show to the outside world is persona. That's exactly what a persona is. You're pretty much just imagining everything else.


Actually this becomes apparent the times House is home alone, where he typically falls into despair and loneliness.

Also, remember the Episode where he walks by a pub and sees Chase, Foreman and Cameron (?) drinking, but then decides not to join. Plagued by insecurities, pain, depression.

Whatever you make of it at the end of the day, being House is not unrealistic, neither is it hard (been there to an extend) and whilst it may appear 'cool' it's far from a healthy state of being. In fact it's a constellation you'd not ever want to be - however, you are either naturally inclined to behave in such a way, or you're not. Beneath the mask you are nothing but a highly crippled, vulnerable being that has forfeited and tries to flee from the world and/or life.


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## caramel_choctop (Sep 20, 2010)

House is certainly emotional, but he doesn't express or even acknowledge those deeper, simmering emotions (fear, insecurity, happiness, sadness). So he comes across as unemotional.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

JungyesMBTIno said:


> ...  Perception of self is perception - intuition or sensation...no idea where you're coming up with the stuff you do - it's pretty out there.


What . . . . out there?
I can see the House character being completely or as nearly completely unfiltered as any human can get.
Ne - Ti combination can operate in "Flow" in a kind of self transcendent way where perception of self is irrelevant,
and other peoples perception of you is irrelevant if you believe in what you are doing (maybe you don't understand intuition being actively engaged in the real world?).

His inner satisfaction with "solving puzzles" and "making a difference" is in perfect harmony with the exterior world; he gets enough results to have a successful adaptation, while being full blast unfiltered. That he has more time to reflect or feel alone when he is actually alone, so what? 

In a book I happen to like, (written by an obvious ENTP) _The 4 hour work week,_ author said something I soooo resonated with. "The opposite of happiness is not unhappiness, the opposit of happiness is bordom".
Your not holding up a persona, by choosing priorities that some people might not understand;
Which is what I see the House character doing.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

I've decided that from now on I refuse to debate the mechanics of Jungian psychology with anyone who actually takes MBTI seriously.

It's just a waste of time.

I'm out.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

^^ Was that an INFJ door slam?

I was being actually somewhat vulnerable, in describing a parellel I see of my own way of looking at things, and "Gregory House Attitude".


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

Old Intern said:


> ^^ Was that an INFJ door slam?
> 
> I was being actually somewhat vulnerable, in describing a parellel I see of my own way of looking at things, and "Gregory House Attitude".


It wasn't directed at you in particular. Just to everyone it applies to in general.

It's simply that I don't need people to understand or agree with my point of view on this matter. I know I'm right because not only is my opinion consistent with Jung, it's confirmed everywhere I look.

I chalk it up to what Jung said in his very own words, "Western society is extraverted to all hell!"

Hence the popularity of the MBTI and Socionics.


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## DemonAbyss10 (Oct 28, 2010)

Of course he is emotional, EVERYONE is emotional. Everyone just shows it differently. 

Lets all just agree on IXTX for Dr House, since he shows major traits for INTP, INTJ, ISTP and ISTJ. Do so will leave us all feeling less butthurt in the long run >_>


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