# Lenore Thomson's Introverted Feeling



## surgery (Apr 16, 2010)

*All the information in this post comes directly from Personality Type: An Owner's Manuel by Lenore Thomson. I own nothing. Please excuse any typos.

http://personalitycafe.com/isfp-articles/131286-lenore-thomsons-isfp.html#post3317477
http://personalitycafe.com/infp-articles/131285-lenore-thomsons-infp.html#post3317473

Introverted Feeling*

“Like the other Judging functions, *Introverted Feeling prompts us to reason and give meaning to our experiences*. This function is somewhat less accessible, however, than the three already discussed. *Although it encourages us to evaluate a situation, like Extraverted Feeling, its right brain character ties us to experiences as it’s happening. Thus, we may not recognize Introverted Feeling as a form of Judgmen*t. We tend to regard the viewpoint it encourages as ‘intuitive’ or empathic” (365).

“Whatever types we happen to be, we use all four means for Judgment in one way or another. For example, if we were assembling a bookcase:

* _Extraverted Thinking_ would prompt us to reason with causal logic: to make sure we understand the instruction manual and the predictable consequences of following the steps.

* _Introverted Thinking_ would prompt us to reason with situational logic: to deal with immediate variables as they happen. Perhaps the holes in the second shelf don’t line up with the holes in the groove it’s supposed to occupy. Our step-by-step instructions don’t cover this possibility, so we have to consider our options and their probable effects on the whole project” (366).

* _Extraverted Feeling_ would encourage us to Judge the finished bookcase in terms of general social expectations. For example, we might page through books and magazines about interior design, trying to determine whether this particular bookcase would look ‘right’ in the living room” (366).

* *Introverted Feeling would prompt us to make the bookcase our own—that is, to give it a place among the things that matter to us*. Maybe we’ll use it for the books we love best. Maybe we’ll put our collection of miniatures on the top shelf. We’ll try something, change it, try something else, until the elements come into harmony for us and we’re and we’re happy with the arrangement” (366).

“Although Introverted Thinking and Introverted Feeling both prompt us to reason perceptually, as a situation is happening, the preside over different areas of Judgment. Introverted thinking is dispassionate and impersonal, prompting an interest in systemic logic: the probably consequences of immediate choice. For example, if we drill new holes into our shelf groove, we will have to compensate at other points in the process?” (366).

“ITPs, for whom Introverted Thinking is primary, are usually creative technicians of one sort or another who reason literally in terms of patterns and emerging variables. Paul Simon, for example, talks about the constant evolution of a song has he exploits its structural potential, incorporating a snatch of Bach here, a gospel chord change there, each decision affecting the whole, creating new consequences and possibilities” (366).

“*Introverted Feeling focuses our attention differently. It encourages a personal relationship with an evolving pattern, a will to gauge the situation by an experiential ideal*. For example, if we use Introverted Feeling to make a good spaghetti sauce, we won’t follow recipes or measure ingredients. We’ll sample the sauce as we’re making it, gauging its taste, smell, and texture by their ideal outcome and adjusting for circumstantial variables so the emerging patterns stays on track” (367).

“*Although this process might be called aesthetic judgment, it doesn’t operate on the basis of artistic principles. Its basis is living, breathing, firsthand experience*. If we’ve never encountered a decent spaghetti sauce, we wouldn’t use Introverted Feeling. We’d turn to objective Judgment: acquire a recipe (Extraverted Thinking) or ask a friend for advice (Extraverted Feeling). We might even use Introverted Thinking and experiment. *To invoke Introverted Feeling, however, we have to know the difference between a good outcome and a bad one—know with our senses, in our bones*” (367).

*The Moral Dimension of Introverted Feeling
*
“*As noted, using Introverted Feeling doesn’t make us ‘feel’ reasonable. We may not even feel like we’re acting on ‘knowledge.’ We feel receptive, creative, guided by perceptions we can’t explain*. We tend to make this distinction, however—between a rational approach to life and a creative one—because we associate reason so firmly with the left-brain functions, particularly the generalized standards and logical control encouraged by its direct opposite, Extraverted Thinking” (367).

“*The situation is complicated by the fact that only 6 percent of Americans use Introverted Feeling as their primary approach to life*. *This means that a great many types associate this function largely with its bottom-rung potential for impressionism and sentimentality*. The stereotype is particularly common when aesthetic Judgment takes on a moral dimension” (367).

“*Moral choices prompted by Introverted Feeling are not derived legal principles or the social obligations that accrue to our roles in the world*. *They’re derived from the subjective experience of being human, our will to deal with a situation in terms of human ideals*. *Decisions made on this basis are frequently misunderstood as a product of emotion or a deliberate rejection of structural authority*” (367).

“For example, in an episode of the syndicated series _La Femme Nikita_ about a hit woman in training, *the heroine is led by Introverted Feeling to ignore statistical risks and rescue the kidnapped child of a fellow recruit*. Afterward, her immediate superior counsels, ‘You’re a good operative, Nikita. Don’t let your humanity get in the way” (368).

“*This is precisely what Introverted Feeling does: it bypasses structural considerations and puts human value first. Such discrimination is unquestionably illogical, but it’s in no way irrational. Indeed, to place human value above statistical risk isn’t possible without the ability to reason*” (368).

“*One might even suggest that it’s the rational character of Introverted Judgment that separates us from the species who share most of our DNA*. Our closest primate relatives can be observed to use Extraverted Judging skills. They recognize a hierarchy of relationships, react to social cues, sacrifice their options for a wounded mate or an infant. They can be taught to perform calculations, to manipulate signs, to abstract general concepts. *But they can’t be taught to defy statistical odds purely for the sake for human value*” (368).

“In fact, no one learns to make such decisions by way of formal instruction. *As stated, Introverted Feeling is trained by subjective life experience*. *IFPs, who depend on this function as their primary means of reasoning, need enough objective experience to recognize the moral potential of their Judgment. Without it, they don’t appreciate the difference between purely circumstantial values and values that link them with the larger human enterprise*” (368).

“*Some of our values, after all, are shaped by a specific context, and they’re irrelevant when circumstances change. Others are quintessentially human, and, as such, unconditional. Unconditional values can’t be erased from the human psyche, no matter what kind of social system is in place. To express them is to see through the divisions external distinctions reinforce*” (368).

“One might consider, in this regard, the famous incident in 1880, when Texas Ranger rounded up a group of Apaches in New Mexico and began lynching three an hour until someone revealed the hiding place of their chief. A U.S. Cavalry troop rode in and not only objected to the tactics but arrested the Rangers for murder. These troopers were the ‘buffalo soldiers,’ former slaves who had been recruited for duty on the Western frontier. Hard experience had taught these men a good deal about institutionalized inhumanity” (369).

“Indeed, they anguished over the conflict between proving themselves competent soldiers and colluding with their former masters in the kind of discrimination they had known firsthand. This conflict has nothing to do with sentimentality. It measures the basis of collective identity against the criterion of unconditional human value” (369).

“*As suggested, Introverted Feeling is not a substitute for Extraverted Judgment. It won’t solve the analytical problems that logical and causal reasoning are designed to address, and it won’t establish a basis for predictable social interactions. But, conversely, it addresses aspects of human reality that Extraverted reasoning cannot*” (369).

*Without a Song
*
_Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ offers an interesting portrait of a people who operate without Introverted Feeling—a species called the Vorta—and it’s instructive to consider the way these humanoids understand life. The Vorta were genetically engineered by a race known as the Founders, who have no permanent form. Their purpose is to manage the Founder’s objective affairs (politics, business, military strategy) among the ‘solid’ species on satellite planets (369).

In their malevolent wisdom, the Founders left Introverted Judgment out of the Vorta’s genetic code, and although an occasional administrator regrets his inability to appreciate art or to carry a tune, the Vorta believe such capacities irrelevant to their basic commission. What the Vorta don’t recognize is their consequent lack of wholistic perspective—at all levels of application” (369).

“For one thing, they can’t appreciate military strategy, which requires Introverted Thinking. They understand battle plans only it terms of the limited goals they’re meant to achieve and the time it ‘should’ take to reach them. More significantly, these creatures have no conscience. They don’t recognize the possibility of questioning what the Founders have ordered them to do, and they’re not capable of empathizing with the people their actions affect” (369).

“As stated, aesthetic judgment has a moral valence that goes beyond matters of art and music. It gives us the capacity to see a situation whole, apart from the assumptions we’ve absorbed for a particular community-and to determine, or that order perspective, the integrity of our actions. Extraverted Feeling, with its emphasis on prevailing social behaviors, can’t provide this wholistic aspect of decision making” (370).

“Indeed, the Vorta are perfectly capable of demonstrating social affinity with others. They smile when required, say the right things—but no one _ever_ believes them. One might consider a recent cartoon character who describes social correctness as the ability to smile and lie, as in ‘Nice to see ya! Have you lost weight? How’s the family?’ *Without some capacity for Introverted Feeling, our relational behaviors are purely strategic; they have no subjective content*” (370).

“*It should not be supposed, in this regard, that Introverted Feeling is opposed to Extraverted Feeling. Both involve the ‘right’ ordering of our relationships and loyalties. Their different effects in the brain, however, see to it that they produce inverse results*” (370).

“*Introverted Feeling relies on the inward, right-brain criteria of experience and empathy to mark off decisions that go beyond our roles in society to affect us as humans beings. Law and custom, after all, are the lowest common denominator of a defined community. We associate character and humane behavior with the moral imperatives shaped by inner values*” (370).

“One might consider the following story from _Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit_:”

‘In one bus seat, a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh flowers. Across
the aisle was a young girl whose eyes came back again and again to the man’s
flowers. The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively, he thrust the
flowers into the girl’s lap. ‘I see you love the flowers,’ he explained, ‘and I
think my wife would like for you to have them. I’ll tell her I gave them to you.’
The girl accepted the flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus ad walk
through the gate of a small cemetery.’

“The meaning and force of this story depend entirely on whether the listener has an inner point of reference, on trained by personal experience. Who the people are, what city they’re in, what faith they practice, their racial and social makeup—none of it matters. The story bypasses all that to focus on the quintessentially human” (371).

“*IFPs, who use Introverted Feeling for their dominant approach to life, are drawn, more than any other type, to medical and religious occupations, and particularly to organizations like the Peace Corps, Doctors without Borders, and Habitat for Humanity, which allow them to take humane action transcending conventional Extraverted conceptual and social boundaries. But Introverted Feeling can also precipitate feelings of self-doubt, because the type’s ideals generate expectations that are larger than an Extraverted life can accommodate*” (371).

“IFPs may, for example, have the sense that they don’t fit in, and they can be lonely underneath their ‘live and let live’ exterior. They feel called to do something meaningful and good, something that will bring their values into the fabric of the community, and if they have no way to do this, they don’t know who to define themselves. They may believe they’re ‘making do’ until their purpose becomes clear to them and their ‘real life’ begins” (371).

*Secondary Influences
*
“Although ISFPs and INFPs are both motivated by Introverted Feeling, they’re prompted by their secondary Extraverted function to develop and express their values differently” (371).

* “*ISFPs, who relate to the world with Extraverted Sensation, are engaged by material reality as it exists, and their values, accordingly, are product of concrete experience*”

* “*INFPs, who relate to the world with Extraverted Intuition are engaged by patterns of meaning, and their values are a mixture of experience and the mental impression of alternate patterns*” (371).

“Extraverted preference plays such a strong role in determining the IFP’s interests and behaviors that core similarities between ISPFs and INFPs can be difficult to see. *ISFPs literally require sensory engagement to bring their Judgment into play, so they’re inclined to be physically active and may be restless when they aren’t*. They resemble ESPs in this respect more than they do their speculative INFP kindred” (372).

“Indeed, the behavioral distinctions between ISFPs and INFPs have lead David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, in _Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types_, to dispute the idea that ISFPs are Introverted Feeling types at all. As mentioned in Chapter 19, Keirsey and Bates believe the ISPs should be classified together with ESPs as SPs types.

‘SPs, they say, are temperamentally distinct from INFPs: insubordinate, easily
bored, wanting excitement, risk, chance, and tests of luck; uncomplicated in
motivation…ISFPs are misunderstood…because the Jungians have cast them
as ‘introverted feeling types,’ and therefore very much like the INFPs. Watch
a few thoroughgoing ISFPs and you’ll find they have very little in common with
INFPs’ (372).

“Although the outward behaviors of ISFPs and INFPs are unquestionably influenced by opposing Extraverted Preferences, Keirsey and Bates have been led to the demands of their temperament theory to ignore the IFP’s _inner_ motivation. *Introverted Feeling is a way of looking at life, a lens ground by direct experiences of good and evil, but it has to be adjusted for immediate outward conditions, rather like a camera*” (372).

“*ISPs understand these outward conditions by way of Extraverted Sensation, so they’re adjusting their lens for concrete changes in their physical environment. INFPs understand external conditions by way of Extraverted Intuition, so they’re adjusting for hidden patterns and unrealized potential. The clarity of focus IFPs are trying maintain, however, is consistent, and this is determined by Introverted Feeling*” (372).

*How Introverted Feeling Works
*
“*Introverted Feeling works in the background of awareness*, very much like Introverted Thinking. *It moves us to adjust rationally to a situation while it’s happening. As stated, the process is a bit like using a camera whose lens has been ground by our personal experiences of good and bad situations. We’re looking through this lens at the outer world, but we’re also making adjustments for unexpected variables, for circumstances as they exist here and now*” (373).

“It’s easiest to see the nature of this process when IFPs make art—that is, when they ‘take a picture’ with their typological camera and bring a bit of their vision into the objective world. *Elvis Presley, for example, illustrates a classic ISFP perspective, in which outward expression is determined by one’s concrete interests and experience*” (373).

“By the time he was eighteen, Presley had absorbed as many forms of music as exist around him—blues, gospel, hillbilly, pop—but he drew no formal distinctions between them, and no Extraverted Judgments about the ‘slots’ American society had determined for them. All he saw was what was ‘good’ and what wasn’t. The consistency of his Judgment unified those influence into a sound that changed the direction of popular music—a forced people to recognize some of the radical and social barriers in the music business” (373).

“*It should be emphasized, in this respect, that ISFPs who use their subjective experience to focus on what is unconditional in human nature don’t necessarily make art that coincidences with social prescriptions for ‘good’ behavior*. They’re more likely to do as Elvis did—touch on some vital human principle that society has attempted to isolate as a class or racial problem” (373).

“*INFPs demonstrate exactly the same kind of Judgment, but their Extraverted arena is more likely to involve patterns of meaning*. For example, director Errol Morris uses film to explore the mystery of human endeavor—why we persist in doing things that may well disappear when we do” (373).

“In _Fast, Cheap & Out of Control_, he finds overlapping themes in four disparate pursuits, interview a lion tamer, a topiary gardener, a robotic scientist, and an expert in mole rats. None of these fields has an apparent external relationship with the others, but each man is obsessed with what he does, and Morris weaves his subjects’ remarks in away the ultimately manufactures a whole narrative. Both interviews and visuals begin to blend into each other, revealing patterns, themes, and relationships that turn the film into a poetic elegy to the entire human project” (374).

“*IFPs don’t need to be artists in the conventional sense of the word, but they do need some way to integrate their outer and inner realms*. An INFP psychologist of my acquaintance addresses this problem by hosting a regular gathering of people who have influenced, at various points in her life, her ideas about spiritual growth and practice” (374).

*How Introverted Feeling Operates in Different Types
*
“Once it’s clear how Introverted Feeling operates, its character is apparent in all types who use it—as are the differences in its outward expression” (374).

*EFPs
*
EFPs, as dominant Extraverted Perceivers, take outer reality for granted—as it happens to them. They like people, enjoy the unpredictable nature of direct experience, and have a tendency to live in the present. Accordingly, most EFPs take jobs that involve a rapidly changing environment and interaction with others, and *they use Introverted Feeling to find common human ground with the people they’re meeting*” (374).

“*When Introverted Feeling is minimally developed, EFPs use it only to support their Extraverted motives, and they rely too much on outer experience for their self-image*. Such types are good at identifying with others, but they seem unpredictable, because their basis for relationship is shaped by whatever people they happen to be dealing with. They’re hurt and puzzled, however, when others question their inconsistency, because they’re trying so hard to connect with others in a empathic way” (374).

“*The better EFPs develop Introverted Feeling, the more they recognize their power to support unconditional human values in those aspects of life that society has overlooked*. ESFPs tend to do this concretely, by acquainting themselves with the facts and reaching out the people who need them. The late Princess Diana, for example, took her Sensate world for granted but used her advantages in that realm—her wealth, fame, and charisma—to attract the world’s attention to the poor, the sick, and the displaced” (375).
“ENFPs are more likely to focus on patterns of understanding, attempting to change people’s ideas about prevailing social or psychological structures, or to show people, by prophetic example, the creative’s benefits of a new approach” (375).

*IFPs
*
*Oriented by Introverted Feeling itself, IFPs don’t reinvent themselves with each experience they have. They depend on Extraverted Perception to control their outward experience—to ensure tits connection with their values*. The difference is immediately clear if we compare Princess Diana, who lent her Sensate celebrity to popular causes, and Mother Theresa, who limited her Sensate world to an arena of direct service” (375).

“*When Extraverted Perception is minimally developed, IFPs use it only to support their Introverted motives and don’t get much experience outside the situations that engage their Judgment. They need enough Sensation or Intuition to recognize the difference between subjective preference and unconditional human values. Otherwise, they’re inclined to use their lens like a magnifying glass, emphasizing the importance of their own experiences at the expense of everything else. Or they’ll depend on others for objective structure and social relationship, ‘going along’ with required Extraverted activities without being fully engaged by them*” (375).

“*Even an artist as successful as Elvis Presley ultimately used his wealth and social status to conform his environment to exactly what he thought worth his time and effort*, and his total absorption in that world became legendary. For all his savvy as a self-schooled musicologist, *he reneged on any task that required an Extraverted Thinking perspective, and so depended on others to make his objective decisions*: he established no organized way of paying his session men, allowed his manager to determine his professional direction, and set no limits on his own appetites” (376).

“*The more IFPs develop their Extraverted Perceiving skills, the less they discriminate among their experiences, and they more they accord value to direct knowledge of many areas of life*. Such types acquire the ability to take life as it comes, their values like rocks beneath the surface of moving water, giving them a certain path” (376).

“For example, the popular Sister Wendy Beckett, of _Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting_, was led by her values to construct a cloistered life for herself, and she spent much of her time absorbing information on art. It was her ability to locate the common human aspects of art that brought her to public attention, and she took the opportunity to teach on film. Although her consequent celebrity may seem paradoxical given her primary vocation, *IFPs who develop their Perceiving skills pay little attention to outward distinctions*” (376).


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## surgery (Apr 16, 2010)

*All the information in this post comes directly from Personality Type: An Owner's Manuel by Lenore Thomson. I own nothing. Please excuse any typos.

IFP Types
*
“*As stated, IFPs constitute about 6 percent of the population-nearly all of them ISFPs, who rely on their Sensate skills for information about reality. INFPs, who make up scarcely 1 percent of us, rely more on their ability to find meaning and potential in what they see*” (376).

“This difference is amplified by popular culture, in that some 40 percent of Americans deal with external reality by way of Extraverted Sensation. Thus, ISFPs have more opportunity than INFPs to develop their secondary function and to relate to others on that basis. *Most are drawn to hands-on professions that allow them to meet the sensory and physical needs of others*—medicine and social work for example, or cooking, or making music. They’re also likely to be artists—painters, potters, jewelers, instrument makers, and so forth” (377).

“INFPs, on the other hand, have more flexibility than ISFPs, because they’re not as dependent on physical action to express their values. They’re more inclined to seek meaning and depth in their work, in areas like psychology, spiritual development, editing, and special education. INFPs resemble ENFJs in this respect, who go into many of the same professions” (377).

“It should be emphasized, however, that ENFJs are Extraverted Feelings types, who act as social advocates. They help people to realize their potential in away that society will ultimately accept. *INFPs are advocates of inner world, the values that connect us to other living beings in a fundamental way*. They go where they feel needed, helping to nurture these values or to support people who have fallen through the cracks of a prevailing social system” (377).

“Although ISFPs don’t have the same interest in psychological and social theory, *they have the same drive to connect their outward experience to fundamental humans ideals*. They, too, go where they’re needed—healing the sick, tending to the lost, taking care of animals or nature. *But these types are also attracted to Sensate activities that make them feel in harmony with a whole environment*: playing a sport or an instrument, spending time in the woods, letting go to attachments and just ‘being’ (377).

“*Indeed, most IFPs have some investment in an activity that will express their fundamental sense of harmony with life*. If there career can’t satisfy them in this way, they’ll create a ‘space’ for themselves in their off-work hours, where they can make contact with that still point inside. *Such activities are not necessarily ‘artistic.’ But they usually solve some medium in which the type can grasp the structural patterns of the inner world*—listening to music, painting a mural, tending a garden, practicing a discipline, attending worship” (377).

“For example, a young ISFP of my acquaintance collected comic books and spent his leisure time drawing larger-than-life-heroes and villains. Having lost his father in childhood he identified very strongly with factional characters like Batman—Introverted heroes for whom tragedy had galvanized special powers and the ability to fight for the common good. He had a particular affection for film star Bandon Lee, charismatic son of the late martial arts expert Bruce Lee” (378).

“As suggested earlier, the Sensate nature of popular entertainment tends to be consistent with Introverted manner of Judgment, and ISFPs are able to use it for rational perspective. It gave this particular young man a way to construct meaning from an otherwise random childhood event: to see a universe in which all events, however pointless and irrational they may seem at the time, have a large archetypal purpose” (378).

“When Brandon lee also died, in a freak accident, the young man felt a sense of grief he could scarcely explain. The integrated universe he had glimpsed by way of Lee’s image seemed lost, along with the connection he felt to others who appreciated Lee’s work. He finally came to terms with the situation by creating a ritual of his own. He set up an altar in his room and every year, in the month of Lee’s death, places fresh flowers at the altar and says special prayers” (378).

“One of Jung’s enduring ideas is that the unconditional aspects of human reality are normally mediated by cultural images and rituals, which tie prevailing social assumptions to large human truths. When collective images no longer make this connection for people, individuals are forced to appropriate those larger truths for themselves. IFPs, in some respects, are living illustrations of how this psychological process works” (378).

“*They recognize by way of their own experience an unconditional value that links them with humanity as whole, and they’re moved, accordingly, to sacralize the event that revealed it to them*. The will to make art or perform is an extension of this motive, in that it universalizes the IFP’s experience, making it a window on larger meaning” (378).

“IFP thus have a wide range of self-presentations. Some are drawn to a life pared to the human essentials and they seem Zen-like or otherworldly; others are determined to help others, apart from conventional assumptions about status and powers. Some make art that weds the individual situation with its universal import; yet others put themselves on the line. Breaking the law for a higher moral purpose, and willing to pay the price” (379).

“*In all these cases, IFPs are holding with ideals that are larger, and more stable, than a universe of chance and possibility can contain, and the effort to do so gives them an almost karmic sense of good and bad*. To be attached, to care about objects sets in motions the archetypal drama of opposites. *One cannot seek the good without contending eventually with the other side”* (379).

“Like ITPs, Introverted Feeling types can be challenging for left-brain Judgers. Types oriented by Extraverted Feeling, for example, believe that having values is to do the right thing in the right circumstances, even when subjective desire encourages them to do otherwise” (379).

“*IFPs have the inverse idea. Value, for these types, is a fateful claim from within that aligns one’s behaviors with a larger purpose, notwithstanding perceived circumstances or social obligations*. *This is what makes the IFP’s behaviors seem irrational to an outside observer. They can’t be causally deduced from the objective situation*” (379).

“*Indeed, this is why matters of spiritual motivation are almost invariably couched in Introverted Feeling terms*. One might consider the following quote used by Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement:

To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda or even in stirring
people up, but in being a living mystery; it means to live in such a way that one’s
life would not make sense if God did not exist” (380).

*Introverted Feeling in Pop Culture
*
“The increasingly Sensate nature of popular culture has ensured a corresponding increase in the popular association of spiritual awareness with the development of Introverted Feeling. One can see this association in the extraordinary number of books devoted to creating sacred ‘space,’ workshops altars, and personal rituals that resonate with our ‘authentic self” (380).

“One can see it as well in our media pantheon of SFP icons. From Luke Skywalker to Buffy the vampire slayer, these heroes are usually quiet, reluctant sorts, their values ripening under force of dysfunctional social paradigms, pressing them into action against the chaotic forces of darkness” (380).

“This is clearly Introverted Feeling writ large, and as I’ve implied, such images have genuine typological valence. They reflect the hunger of a Sensate society for values more enduring than the pleasures of surface experience. Moreover, as the story of the ‘buffalo soldiers’ makes clear, to bear the brunt of a society’s inhumanity can train a viewpoint that has evolutionary potential for human consciousness” (380).

“*There are a number of problems, however, with the iconization of Introverted Feeling imagery. One is the fact that however easily it lends itself to expressions of spiritual awareness and political prophecy, Introverted Feeling is not tantamount with spirituality*. Although it offers a profound way of witnessing to the sacred, each function provides its own means of spiritual witness and vocation” (380).

“*More significantly, the human values that Introverted Feeling brings to awareness are just that—Introverted. They don’t offer a basis for an objective social system. If anything, they offer a basis for disattachment from social conditioning*. This is what gives them the power to change hearts. *The only kind of world in which Introverted Feeling could possibly obtain as a primary source of social Judgment is a chaotic, unpredictable one in which the systems designed to protect the community have no power to do so*” (380).

“*The hard reality, however, is that Introverted Feeling acquires prophetic power only by virtue of its relationship to a framework of common expectations. It indisputably calls a society to account, but it doesn’t suggest a substitute paradigm for social relationships*” (381).

*The Water of Life*
“An interesting anecdote speaks to this last point. Mother Teresa was reportedly giving a speech on a hot summer’s day. Her voice was becoming hoarse, so a man is the audience went out of the crowded auditorium into a nearby kitchen and poured her a glass of water. When he walked up the long aisle to the podium and gave it to her, Mother Teresa scarcely looked at it. She handed it off to one of the people seated on the dais” (381).

“So the man went back into the kitchen and poured another glass. The same thing happened—not once, but again and again, until everyone on the dais had a glass of water, along with several members of the audience. The man was in a quandary. He envisioned himself spending the rest of the afternoon trying to serve all the people in the auditorium” (382).

“This story gibes us a perfect capsulated image of Mother Teresa’s IFP strengths: her disregard for issues of status or privilege; her single-minded selection of variables related to her values; and her ability, in that single-mindedness, to offer her audience an object lesson. With utter clarity, the people who watched the little drama could appreciate the immensity of the task Mother Teresa had set herself in the world” (382).

“*But the story also illustrates, with equal clarity, how Introverted Feeling will invert collective standards of Judgment, elevating subjective values over Extraverted social expectations*. *If Mother Teresa’s behavior was deliberate, an attempt to show her audience what reality looks like when unconditional human value supplants conventional assumptions about statue and power, it was also shrewd*,* because her ability to make this point was dependent on this social assumptions*” (382).

“*A society that trains its members to rely only on Introverted Judgment for their choices doesn’t turn out members who are more charitable and caring; it turns out self-oriented people who judge every social situation in terms of their own experience*. For example, a recent ad for a workshop on alternative holiday celebrations reads:

‘Images of merriment and warm, loving relationships can be painfully
contradictory to one’s personal experience of the holidays. Bring your authentic
self as together we seek to forge connections that will carry us through the
holidays in a new, enlivened way’ (382).

“This view empathic and well meant. People who are grieving when others are celebrating may need help to see beyond commercial imagery to the deeper Christmas message of renewal in a time of darkness. But the ad also suggests the frame of mind that develops when Introverted Judgment becomes our primary sources of moral perspective. *Collective rituals lose their objective character: they no longer shape our relationships with others; they seem, merely, to exhort us to false conformity*” (382).

*The IFP’s Inferior Function
*
“*Like all Introverted functions, Introverted Feeling is an individual viewpoint: something we bring to reality form within ourselves. As stated earlier, it can’t be used without direct experience*. This is what makes it so hard to legislate the behaviors it impels. To advance toward a society organized beyond external distinctions requires the will to ignore conflicting interests and needs” (383).

“*Indeed, IFPs feel precisely this kind of tension when they try to adapt to objective world to their inner one. It’s as though some unformulated answer that would reveal the interconnectedness of the universe were trapped inside them, and all the questions people ask are too small, can’t contain what they have to give*. This is one reason IFPs turn to archetypal imagery—media figures, Gothic or Arthurian romance, goddesses—to represent their deepest values” (383).

“These all-encompassing images resonate with their inner sense of passion and idealism. But archetypes that have no organic connection to real experience are so all-encompassing that everyday life falls short of them. IFPs can end up living frugally on anticipation, waiting for the right situation to claim them. Meanwhile, the Extraverted tide of social expectations carries them into situations they haven’t entirely thought out” (384).

“Such types seem laid-back, accommodating themselves to others’ routines and structures, doing what’s required of them and more, but they aren’t really engaged. Congenial, good-natured, positive thinking, impressionable, and somewhat unassertive one the surface, their inner life is a tinderbox of yearning for something they can’t define” (384).

“Like Introverted Thinkers*, IFPs need to develop their Extraverted skills well enough to invest themselves in life as it really is*. *Otherwise, they spend too much time protecting themselves from situations uncongenial to their inner realm, and their least-developed function, Extraverted Thinking, gets out of control*” (384).

“As stated in other chapters, all types use the skills their inferior function supplies, and IFPs are no exception. When their values lead them to pursue mathematics, accounting, medicine, or science, for example, IFPs are just motivated and capable as Thinking types” (384).

“*What’s difficult for these types is the approach to life Extraverted Thinking fosters. To understand reality by way of general principles strikes IFPs as cold and dehumanizing. It reduces people to categories, robs them of their self-experience. IFPs don’t see this viewpoint as part of their own makeup, so it remains primitive and undeveloped, forming the basis of their stereotypes about others*” (385).

“*IF IFPs don’t develop enough Extraverted Sensation or Extraverted Intuition, they get no Extraverted experience to speak of, and Extraverted Thinking goes too far away from their conscious goals. It floods them with impulses in conflict with their self-image, pushing them to use other functions*” (385).

“Like all types, IFPs don’t recognize this internal drama as an opportunity to grow. They simply feel unhappy, and *an inferior Thinking perspective focuses their attention on impersonal structures in the outer world*” (385).

“*Such types acquire an increasing impressions that they aren’t fulfilling their purpose in life—that they’ve compromised their values for the sake of others’ structural priorities*. This impression may involve a personal relationship, the workplace, a school situation, a church organization, or apolitical structure and it’s important to recognize that tit always has some basis in reality. *IFPs who haven’t developed their Extraverted side can’t help but drift into situations determined by others’ needs and interests*” (385).

“*The solution to this problem lies in sharpening their Sensate or Intuitive skills. IFPs need to see their situation for what it is and figure out how to nourish and express what they believe in a creative way. If they’re contending with Extraverted Thinking impulses, however, IFPs have no incentive to do this. They’re too busy defending the boundaries they’ve been accommodating, hoping to eliminate them from the picture*” (385).

“To their surprise, others are threatened by their self-assertion, and the type feels hurt and angry. After all, if IFPs have spent half their lives accommodating boundaries uncongenial to themselves, they expect the people who support these boundaries to make some compromised in return” (385).

*Using Extraverted Perception as a Defense
*
“*It’s very hard for IFPs to see their part in this kind of external conflict, because the structural boundaries they’re confronting are very real*. They simply feel stalemated. They’re dissatisfied with the situation as it is, but they don’t want to leave, and they don’t know how to change it. *This experience of paralysis is always an indication that a type is avoiding a secondary conflict within*” (386).

“*IFPs who develop Extraverted Perception invariably see the difference between purely subjective values, which make them feel personally comfortable, and values that are unconditional, part of every human situation they encounter*. Once they recognize this distinction, they don’t have to change people’s minds. They see right through the Extraverted limits of a situation and align themselves with its fundamental axis, thereby changing people’s hearts” (386).

“Sometimes this happens by virtue of necessity. An INFP pianist of my acquaintance was led by his inner values to pursue a career in ministry and found himself assigned for ten years to a music development program in Taiwan. That assignment forced him to develop his Extraverted Intuition, because his accustomed behaviors had been shaped by a culture vastly different form the one he was now in” (386).

“Given the fact that all his experiences were brand new, he had no opportunity to focus on the limits and boundaries he was encountering. He simply played the cards he was dealt, contending with the self-reflected back to him for his colleagues and students. In the process, he _consciously _recognized the utility of Extraverted Judging structures to collaborate with others and to organize the information he needed” (386).

“As a result, his perspective broadened. He found that he had a real gift for unifying people of diverse backgrounds and theologies, and when he returned to his home province, he was put in charge of some 150 churches” (386).

“*IFPs who are resisting their Extraverted sides invest the out world with too much power over them. Under the influence of Extraverted thinking, they use their secondary function not to take in information but to categorize it as congenial or alien to their inner values. In consequence, they devalue the aspects of a situation they find unacceptable*” (386).

“ISFPs tend to mount this defense with their Sensate immediacy. Convinced that people are trying to define and predict them they frustrate these expectations, usually by refusing social identity or doing something patently illogical. Mother Teresa did his consciously when the nice man was trying to bring her a glass of water. She wanted her audience to see the difference between rendering service to a person and making no distinctions whatsoever among people. But underdeveloped ISFPs will do this kind of thing unconsciously, attempting to maintain subjective control” (387).

‘INFPs are more likely to use their Intuition to distance themselves from others’ categories and definitions. These types will meet people’s expectations in a job or relationship that doesn’t really claim them, while investing their ‘real’ selves elsewhere” (387).

“Ultimately, IFPs in contention with unconscious Thinking impulses find themselves in a quandary because their dominant function urges them to make peace—to find common ground with others, to grand people’s right to be who they are. Such types may double their efforts to see the good in people and to be charitable about all else, but the effort simply perpetuates situations they don’t want to be in” (387).

*Turning to the Tertiary Function
*
“*The more these types struggle to conform the outer world to their inner one, the less contact they have with the Extraverted character of their Perception. They begin to rely, instead, on their tertiary function, Introverted Sensation or Introverted Intuition, for information about reality*” (387).

“As we’ve seen in chapters 15 and 17, Introverted Perception fosters a strong identification with ideas and priorities that exist apart from prevailing cultural assumptions. This kind of identification is important for Extraverted Judging types, who are inclined to subordinate their immediate experience to others’ expectations” (388).

“Introverted Feeling types, however, already believe they’re subordinating their authentic selves to others’ expectations. Their tertiary function persuades them they’re absolutely right about this. The problem is their situation—others’ behaviors, others’ beliefs, others’ ideas, others’ lack of tolerance and understanding” (388).

“INFPs, who turn to Introverted Sensation, becoming deeply concerned about the discrepancies between their self-experience and others’ expectations of them. They may literally avoid situations that force them to compromise, narrowing their perceptual world to the people and experiences that make them feel ‘like themselves’” (388).

“ISFPs, whose tertiary function is Introverted Intuition, are more likely to pursue an alternate lifestyle, attempting to embody their social critique. Sometimes INFPs do this, too, but they don’t anticipate the conflict this will generate in their lives” (388).

“An INFP minister, for example, spent a great deal o his time preaching the virtues of vegetarianism to a congregation raised on meat and potatoes, quite certain of his moral rectitude, and was shocked when he was fired because church members didn’t trust him to care about their domestic and spiritual problems” (388).
“It should be emphasized that many IFPs are involved in issues of social justice and work hard to make systems more compatible with human values. Some opt for pacifism or maintain a diet in harmony with their values. These are honorable choices, and I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t be made or that making them is an indication of a problem” (388).

“My point is that IFPs who make these choices under the influence of their tertiary function are doing so defensively. They’ve turned their values into a left-brain system of classification that allows them to categorize other people as good or bad and defines their experiences before they actually have them” (388).

*Developing the Secondary Function
*
I want to share story here because it focuses on the question of defining experience in advance of having it. Sometime in the mid-seventies, when I was passionately interested in Sufi philosophy, I went to a conference on new methods of education. I think it was ‘Education for the Right Side of the Brain.’ I went because a number of presenters were Sufi thinkers, one of them, a man named Idries Shas, whose books I treasured” (389).

“I was s excited about seeing Idries Shah in person that I invited several friends to the conference to hear him. As it happened, his presentation was the last before lunch, and people were already a little restless. He was introduced with great fanfare, and I was really surprised to see him walk up to the podium. He was uneasy and a bit irritable, and he seemed woefully unprepared. He could barely get through a sentence without stuttering and clearing his throat and starting over again” (389).

“We all looked at each other. He was terrible! He hemmed and hawed and made a number of crass jokes and seemed annoyed about being there at all. People started to walk out. I thought about walking out, too, but I had such respect for the man’s books that I didn’t want to abandon him. I was definitely uncomfortable and embarrassed, however, because I had told my friends how special he was” (389).

“Well, within ten minutes of the start of the presentation, the audience had dwindled from five hundred to about fifty people spread out all over the auditorium. Dr. Shah looked around, satisfied, and then asked those few of us to come up front and sit together. I no longer remember exactly what he said, but it went something like this:

“You are here because you’re interested in alternative kinds of education. One of the things standing in the way of changing a system is the expectations that people bring along with them. The people who left were disappointed because I did not meet their expectations as a teacher. You, who put aside your preconceptions and gave me a chance, are the people I want to talk to” (389).

“Now, I’m not going to tell you that the man thereafter turned into the best speaker I ever heard. He didn’t. But he turned out to be an excellent teacher. And what he did—by frustrating the expectations of the people who wanted him to confirm what they already thought—explained a lot of what I’d seen in other Sufi teachers who seem dot deliberately disappoint their followers in order to show them how their expectations were closing them to real experience” (390).

“I remember one teacher who scandalized people at a weekend retreat by roasting a pig and inviting everybody to eat and drink with him. Many of his staunches followers went home incensed because they were expecting two days of fasting and praying and chanting. The man was showing us how a relationship with God transcends our investment in outward form, even a good and proper outward form” (390).

“Dr. Shah’s point can help IFPs understand what’s at stake in the cultivation of their secondary function. When they resist an experience before they actually have it, life can no longer teach them by way of surprise. They’re surrendering their strongest skills” (390).

“Well-developed IFPs are so present to their immediate situation that they seem utterly without expectation. They know what unconditional values are truly unconditional, so they have no reason to make predictions about how an experience will meet or not meet their needs” (390).

“This frame of mind doesn’t blind IFPs to objective reality; it opens their eyes to it. It tells them exactly what’s important and exactly what isn’t” (390).

“Indeed, IFPs sometimes resist their secondary function because it strikes them that accepting reality for what it is will make them ordinary. They want to fight for the good, to make a difference. A classic _Mash_ episode speaks poignantly to this issue. As in most stories that deal with Introverted Feeling, the world portrayed is an unpredictable one, the system inadequate to relieve pain and suffering” (390).

“It’s Christmastime, the doctors are demoralized, the patients maimed and dying, and Father Mulcahy feels utterly ineffective. He isn’t a doctor; he can’t save anyone’s life. No one is asking him for advice; his confessional is empty, his services unattended. All he can do is give people the last rights. By Christmas Eve, however, he realized that it’s his consistent kindness in a world gone made that keeps the others going and gives them faith in a higher moral order” (391).

“IFPs need to take a cue from the Sensate mythologies around them and recognize that when a social system isn’t doing enough, being exactly who they are can transform lives. Like Father Mulcahy in that classic _Mash_ episode, IFPs are not always seen as heroic, but the cumulative effects of their actions accomplish extraordinary things” (391).

“Well-developed IFPs are at home in themselves, in harmony with life, and they teach largely by example. They don’t have to preach; their values are expressed in the dispatch of ordinary life choices. Indeed, they’re the most compassionate of the types, recognizing that even the most wretched of lives can be changed by hope and an appeal to dignity and human worth” (391).


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Her descriptions are kind of getting there, but don't totally make it imo (I mean, they aren't problematic, but not totally boiled down to something incredibly realistic either). Some of this can be Fi related in an archetypal sense, but I'm not convinced introverted feeling is really that "overthetop moralistic" - sort of depends on the individuals, really - I mean, what feeling fundamentally boils down to is evaluation of likes/dislikes (hence, a rational mode with rational aims) and meaningful summations of stuff, etc. Ways of emphasizing and rationalizing significance. They might have a moral sense in-so-much as this feeling is quite removed from the concerns of others (just not personally connected and influenced by others at face value - their motivation comes from within and is directed toward themselves), so they might operate heavily on the basis of "what's right for me is right for everyone else" - a personal integrity (which Fe types tend to lack largely). I'm not sure though that a pure interest in human suffering and whatnot can really be significantly linked to dominant Fi - I mean, if they can personally relate, it might, but if they can't, I kind of doubt they would be that amenable to the influence of emotional manipulation in favor of such causes (that's more Fe "take everything at face value" reasoning). A lot of that stuff about an interest in morality is, imo, almost too unoriginal to constitute type largely - it's more like an archetypal manifestation of that kind of feeling at times, but I'm not convinced it's necessarily the natural modus operandi of it. Being interested in causes in general though is more like a side effect of a strong feeling preference, but not necessarily the be-all, end-all of it (it's mainly just evaluative and interested in basically what appeals to feeling values and tones - you know, like a good atmosphere of human endeavor, just stuff they like in general, the human element in a general sense, having their own standards of evaluation and expectations for the world to live up to, etc.).This description, like most, ends up equating the word "values" with morality too much, when in fact, values don't necessarily have to be related to this - they can broadly refer to ideals and likes/dislikes. I'm pretty sure I know Fi doms who really aren't that interested in morality and such at all as a subject - they're more influenced by reasoning in accord with personal ideals, which is quite different from saying that they are these moral, saintly creatures (I mean, some are nice and merciful, which I can see a connection to strong feeling empathy and that, but to relate this to a person's moral complex is a huge stretch - there's a such thing as having a kind of normal egotistical empathy as well that's not saintly, self-sacrificing, truly derived from moral beliefs, etc. stereotypes at all - it's rationalized merely from the experiences of the individual and is thus, quite original). Some don't really seem concerned with morality at all - some can be quite self-absorbed and unconcerned with the consequences of their actions (inferior thinking).


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## surgery (Apr 16, 2010)

JungyesMBTIno said:


> Her descriptions are kind of getting there, but don't totally make it imo (I mean, they aren't problematic, but not totally boiled down to something incredibly realistic either). Some of this can be Fi related in an archetypal sense, but I'm not convinced introverted feeling is really that "overthetop moralistic" - sort of depends on the individuals, really


What do you mean by "Fi related in an archetypal sense"?

You're right, though, Introverted Feeling isn't "overthetop moralistic." And Thomson doesn't define it that way. Her bare minimun definition of Fi is that "[Introverted Feeling] encourages a _personal_ relationship with an evolving pattern, a will to gauge the situation by an experiential ideal" (367). That doesn't have anything to do with morality. She simply states that Fi prompts people to evaluate information by personal experience.



JungyesMBTIno said:


> I mean, what feeling fundamentally boils down to is evaluation of likes/dislikes (hence, a rational mode with rational aims) and meaningful summations of stuff, etc. Ways of emphasizing and rationalizing significance.


Agreed. I think that author would also agree. Here's what she says about how Feeling (Fe and Fi) first develops:

"In our early years, as we're acquiring Sensing experiences and learning to Intuit their potential, we are also beginning to develop 'ideas' about experiences that occur with some regularity. *Some of them feel good, and we like them. We smile and laugh and show our pleasure, attempting to make them happen again. Some of our experiences feel bad, and we try to avoid them*. We fuss and cry and push people away" (40).

"This is our fist, natural use of the Feeling function. We're not only building up our ideas about 'how things are' and using those ideas to give our world rational coherence; *we're also making judgments about what is happening to us. We're deciding what's important to us*. *In a primitive, infantile sense, we're expressing our values*" (40).

"It should be recognized, however, that these *personal evaluations* are visible in others--*in our display of pleasure or distress*" (40).




JungyesMBTIno said:


> They might have a moral sense in-so-much as this feeling is quite removed from the concerns of others (just not personally connected and influenced by others at face value - their motivation comes from within and is directed toward themselves), so they might operate heavily on the basis of "what's right for me is right for everyone else" - a personal integrity (which Fe types tend to lack largely).


Agreed.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that Fi is so self-referential that it doesn't necessarily lead people to experience direct concern for someone's face value feelings. Like Jung said, "It is a feeling that seems to devalue the object." As in, Fi users probably aren't thinking, "I'd better do x, because he's feeling y." In my personal experience, this is true. Most of my experiences with empathy are based in my ability to consciously reflect how _I_ would feel in someone else's situation. More often than not, though, there's not much need to actively reflect. The experience of empathy just occurs as a gut reaction.



JungyesMBTIno said:


> I'm not sure though that a pure interest in human suffering and whatnot can really be significantly linked to dominant Fi - I mean, if they can personally relate, it might, but if they can't, I kind of doubt they would be that amenable to the influence of emotional manipulation in favor of such causes (that's more Fe "take everything at face value" reasoning).


You're right, it can't. But, again, the author's not trying to.



JungyesMBTIno said:


> A lot of that stuff about an interest in morality is, imo, almost too unoriginal to constitute type largely - it's more like an archetypal manifestation of that kind of feeling at times, but I'm not convinced it's necessarily the natural modus operandi of it. Being interested in causes in general though is more like a side effect of a strong feeling preference, but not necessarily the be-all, end-all of it


Again, the author does not intend to define the "modus operandi" of Fi as an "interest in morality". Rather, she's suggesting that Fi users need to consider the moral potential of their ability to "establish a personal relationship with information" as a point of growth. She repeatedly recommends that IFPs develop Extraverted Perception in order to help them distinguish "unconditional human values" from "values that are purely circumstantial." 

She does this when writing about Fi-doms not because other types can't recognize "unconditional human values", but rather because Fi, being an "experience-based", "situational" function, will have an easier and probably more fulfilling time developing a lifestyle built around serving people in a way that existing structures (that are also meant to help people) might ignore.

For example, she writes:

"Moral choices prompted by Introverted Feeling are not derived from legal principles or the social obligations that accrue to our roles in the world. They're derived from the subjective experience of being human, our will to deal with a situation in terms of human ideals."

That sounds like a really lofty statement because it makes it seems as if Fi users are naturally going to understand what's best for all people and avoid selfish decisions. I don't think this is what she means, though. She's saying that Fi users bases their sense of morality on first hand experience. For this reason, they often go beyond the conditioned aspects of our existence to identify aspects that are shared between humans regardless of time, space and surface traits. For example, reasoning that giving money to the needy is important because you know how it feels to be hungry is a decision based in Fi. It doesn't matter the fact that you may be "the holiday season", which means that socially, you are already obligated to give gifts to several relatives, spend time and money on friends co-workers, etc, or that your money will be going to people whom you don't know and could be potentially abusing your money by spending it on drugs or alcohol. All that matters is that you took into account their circumstances by reflecting on your own self-experience.

However, reasoning that you're not going to show up for work on time because you're just feeling too sad is also based on Fi. It's not moral. It's not a universal human ideal, as much as some Fi users might complain about how it should be. The point is, you've look at your how feelings and reasoned them more important than structural issues of other people's time and expectations.

The author clearly leaves open the idea that morality can be made on other principles that are not rooted in self-experience. 

Which is why she later writes:

"IFPs, who depend on this function as their primary means of reasoning, need enough objective experience to recognize the moral *potential *of this Judgment. *Without it, they don't appreciate the difference between purely circumstantial values and values that link them with the larger human enterprise*" (368).



JungyesMBTIno said:


> I'm pretty sure I know Fi doms who really aren't that interested in morality and such at all as a subject - they're more influenced by reasoning in accord with personal ideals, which is quite different from saying that they are these moral, saintly creatures (I mean, some are nice and merciful, which I can see a connection to strong feeling empathy and that, but to relate this to a person's moral complex is a huge stretch - there's a such thing as having a kind of normal egotistical empathy as well that's not saintly, self-sacrificing, truly derived from moral beliefs, etc. stereotypes at all - it's rationalized merely from the experiences of the individual and is thus, quite original). Some don't really seem concerned with morality at all - some can be quite self-absorbed and unconcerned with the consequences of their actions (inferior thinking).


Definitely true. I am sure there are a lot if IFPs who wouldn't want to study the philosophy of ethics. There are definitely IFPs who are self-absorbed and not saint-like. However, I disagree that the idea that a "normal egotistical empathy" that is derived from "personal ideals" and the "experiences of the individual" is not a form of morality. Even if it is based on self-experience and may not be very well thought or a truly beneficial ethical codes, that does not mean that it's not attempting to deal with "good" or "bad/"right" and "wrong"; it's an attempt to define morality, even if it's poorly developed.



JungyesMBTIno said:


> This description, like most, ends up equating the word "values" with morality too much, when in fact, values don't necessarily have to be related to this - they can broadly refer to ideals and likes/dislikes.


Let me reiterate that the point of the article isn't to say that Fi equates to morality. 

She clearly states:

"As suggested, Introverted Feeling is not a substitute for Extraverted Judgment. It won't solve the analytical problems that logical and causal reasoning are designed to address, and it won't establish a basis for predictable social interactions" (369). 

"A society that trains its members to rely only on Introverted Judgment for their choices doesn't turn out members who are more charitable or caring; it out self-oriented people who judge every social situation in terms of their own experience' (382).

So, overall, I disagree that this article over emphasis values, especially Fi values, with morality. She clearly accounts for that misconception in the article. I also disagree that it fails to "boil" Fi down to something "incredibly realisitic." I think her base definition of Fi is extremely on point; it expresses Fi in away that makes what Jung wrote extremely accessible without changing it. And, for writing an article that supposedly covers millions of people, she did an extremely poignant job at articulating things about myself that I would have trouble explaining in my own words, so ;( 

There's nothing wrong with this article, imo.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Yea, it's fine. Just one of those things I try not to take as gospel (because then, we get into debates as to what differentiates a feeling type from someone who doesn't lead with it, what differentiates feeling from typical feelings in a cognitive function sense, etc.). I did get a bit nitpicky. I'm sure, as a dominant feeling type, you know what you're talking about. It just tends to bug me how lacking in straightforwardness a lot of the information online is about feeling (sometimes, it's about values, then it's about evaluation (which is what Jung thought and I + others here agree with), then it's about complexes (which is questionable to a great extent in most regards), sometimes, they're driven by inner yearning (I guess...then again, could be coming from complexes as well), then, they teach others messages through their actions (maybe, then again, Jung kind of implies the same about Pi doms...quite possible, but vague - her example sounds a little like intuition as well - sounds like someone in touch with their thinking as well if they're big on consistency, so once again, slightly vague, but certainly possible), sometimes, these types are depicted as psychic in "knowing who other people are" - okay, I get what she's getting at, but I think "authenticity of relations and relating" might sort of get the point across in a less vague way (the former sounds closer to intuition than feeling to a large extent, unless the person is an empath, which is definitely not the case with most feelers - that's a rather unusual ability, they "feel their way through stuff" - quite true, then again, got to be careful not to mix this up with sensation or intuition, which can also kind of do this in their own ways), etc.). Very good stuff at face value - just the kind of stuff that shouldn't be interpreted as gospel statements, which is a pretty huge issue here with anything people read online (unless it's Jung, Von Franz, a few others (Sharp, etc.), who people just have to be able to decipher to get rather than accept at face value).


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## Teen Rose (Aug 4, 2018)

What is Feeling?
Feeling is primarily a process.....that imparts to the content a definite value in the sense of acceptance or rejection. In the same way that thinking organizes the contents of consciousness under concepts, feeling arranges them according to their value. Feeling, like thinking, is a rational function, since values in general are assigned *according to the laws of reason*... 
(Carl Jung, Psychological Types, Chapter XI - Definitions)


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## Teen Rose (Aug 4, 2018)

What is Feeling?
Feeling is primarily a process.....that imparts to the content a definite value in the sense of acceptance or rejection. In the same way that thinking organizes the contents of consciousness under concepts, feeling arranges them according to their value. Feeling, like thinking, is a rational function, since values in general are assigned *according to the laws of reason*... 
(Carl Jung, Psychological Types, Chapter XI - Definitions)


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