Are you really INFJ? ;-) this deeper text by Lenore Thomson will tell you

[Andy Quellenlicht]

imo, lenore thomson has contributed profoundly to the understanding of the mbti-types. i scanned her text (Lenore Thomson, Personality Type, A Practical Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others Through Typology, 1998, Boston & London, Shambala). hopefully, it will serve as a basis for many interesting, vivid and deep discussion. it's a dense and demanding text. to me, it's worth the effort to study it thoroughly. you'll get in abundance...

i believe that the disctinction between infj und infp will become easyer with this text. so, pick 1 or 2 paragraphs and comment on it. if you are infj, do you identify? if not, are you sure, you're an infj? it's by reading this text i became sure of being infj.

View attachment Lenore Thomson, Personality Type, Test, Basics, INTJ, INFJ, ISFP, INFP.pdf

read chapters 17 and 21. I suggest to limit this thread to the discussion of these 2 chapters.

an entire website tries to understand this book.
http://greenlightwiki.com/lenore-exegesis/

 

[bickelz]

I don't know if I agree that INJ's as a whole are left brainers. The only left brain characteristic Ni possesses that I can think of is it's linear process of working towards a conclusion. But the only reason Ni is linear is because it works to get to a conclusion.

 

[subwayrider]

This is gold. Thank you. At the very least, I'm more confident I'm INJ. I'll come back to this.

 

[InvisibleJim]

I will give $5 to the person who spots the most important piece of information in the article.

*starts beating an old dead horse with the same broken and bent stick as before*

Otherwise, knowledge is power, guard it well.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

I don't know if I agree that INJ's as a whole are left brainers. The only left brain characteristic Ni possesses that I can think of is it's linear process of working towards a conclusion. But the only reason Ni is linear is because it works to get to a conclusion.

bickelz, that's the whole point of lenore thomson's text: infj is bound to language in a syntagmatic way! in contrast, infp will be a right brainer. that's why i believe that this text makes a very clear distinction between infj and infp.

you type yourself as a infj. are you a holistic person? this would be a right brainer according to thomson. i you consider yourself as a holistic person, what are the infj-features you identify with?

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

I will give $5 to the person who spots the most important piece of information in the article.

jep, this is a long an demanding text. imo it is worth the effort, because almost every paragraph goes much deeper than the myers-briggs-stuff. and: as a true intj, lenore thomson has a systematic and linear approach, which makes understanding easy for linear people like me ;-)

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

This is gold. Thank you. At the very least, I'm more confident I'm INJ. I'll come back to this.

I'll post the general distinction of F and T according to l. thomson another day. imo, it makes it very clear. F is judging with reference to people (it's not a "feeling" thing, like c. g. jung pointed it out in his "typology"), T is judging with reference to a sequence not linked to people (like numbers).

 

[Sebastian]

Like INTJs, INFJs have a tendency to use their secondary function for protection - for example, to distance themselves from a relationship that demands too much of them emotionally. They are entirely capable of meeting the expected surface demands of a situation, all the while nursing secret criticisms of a partner or a friend.

INFJs need to watch that tendency, because as soon as they feel emotional distance, they begin to turn away and look for something new. Not that they will literally leave a committed relationship. They go through the motions of life, but inside the mind, they've mounted the dappled horses of imagination and are surveying inner kingdoms.


Seems so true, but I'm all over the place at this point in my life so I'm not sure if I'm agreeing because of a behavioural dysfunction or because it's an intrinsic part of my personality.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

sebastian, the motivation of an e5 (as you type yourself) and secondary Fe (INFJ) is quite different. e5 needs distance in order not to be overwhelmed by the incoming flood of date and demands. at the botton of e5, there is anxiety and fear (as with all head-e-types).

with INFJ, to "motivation" (the function) is different: they are perceivers on an unconscious level (Ni). when feeling emotional distance, as perceivers, they relativate every bond in order to free perception, i.e. they look for something new.

can you relate to this?

 

[Annabreher]

More confident in my type now. Thank you.

-Anna

 

[Motor Jax]

nice, very nice.. it was quite engaging, to say the least... loved it

 

[grt$5vb]

So much to read, and I am just jumping around, and reading it all out of order. Thank you.

 

[This]

I don't agree with the right brain/left brain dichotomy otherwise everyone right side dominant (read right handed) would be left brain dominant and INFJ and everyone left side dominant (read left handed.) would be right brain dominant and INFP. Clearly this is not the case. Aside from this however I think some ok points are drawn, It's important to remember though that type has more to do with the way your processes work than it does with your actual behaviors or motivations.

 

[Ciergan]

INFJs are a bit like Merlin, summoned by the voice of Nimue deep within the enchanted forest. The song they hear is calling them elsewhere, beyond the cultivated borders of common consensus. When they are able to use their Extraverted Feeling function well, they bring that song back into the public domain, finding a way to integrate it into the fabric of the community. INFJs who don't do this can get trapped, like the great wizard of Camelot, in a kind of enchantment that robs them of their very genuine powers of discernment and insight.

This. I've been on those weird emotional journeys that ended up going nowhere because I couldn't project them back into anything meaningful externally.

Excellent insight and phrasing--she writes like a therapist.

 

[MindYourHead]

I don't agree with the right brain/left brain dichotomy otherwise everyone right side dominant (read right handed) would be left brain dominant and INFJ and everyone left side dominant (read left handed.) would be right brain dominant and INFP. Clearly this is not the case.

I'm of the same opinion regarding this peice.
Very interesting read though. I'm about 1/2 way through it.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

about right- and left-brain: read the thomson's text in my other thread from today; you'll see what she means by it and what is not implied.
from a neurological viewpoint, left- und right-brain locations are more poetic metaphors for very complex structures. nonetheless, it can be a usefull metaphor, especially to distinguish the linear and holistic modes of the mbti-functions.

 

[bickelz]

bickelz, that's the whole point of lenore thomson's text: infj is bound to language in a syntagmatic way! in contrast, infp will be a right brainer. that's why i believe that this text makes a very clear distinction between infj and infp.

you type yourself as a infj. are you a holistic person? this would be a right brainer according to thomson. i you consider yourself as a holistic person, what are the infj-features you identify with?

I think you're implying that INJs aren't holistic thinkers but we are. Ni converges onto conclusions based on it's input, which is usually pretty broad. In a sense, Ni is linear because it is trying to move towards one conclusion but irl, Ni can still be taking input while working towards a conclusion. Depending on the input and type of question, INJs can veer off into all sorts of different directions or even give up and become apathetic about it.

It seems like she's saying that "Js are organized" and "Ps are messy" in a way because J doesn't mean left brained.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

bickelz, the point with Ni-first is: one after the other, put all the inner chaos (Ni) in a linear structure, in language - this is what is so different from Fi-firsts (INFP). you can be a holistic thinker and be INFJ, but with Ni first, you will explain your holistic worldview in a linear way, i.e. you will try much more than INFP to put it into language. that's why INFPs explain their worldview in another way than INFJs.

"Intuition, often described in self-help literature as a holistic right-brain activity, operates this way only in its Extraverted form. The left brain also Intuits, in an Introverted, language-oriented way, encouraging us to move beyond the boundaries of accepted terms and explanations." p. 59 So Ni wants to be liberated from all perspective, but this is done with reference to language.

"• Extraverted Intuition would move us to unify our sense impressions with their larger context, thereby creating new options for meaning and response. For example, as we lie on our blanket in the sun, perhaps we hear music in the distance. Someone passing by mentions a great restaurant in town. Suddenly were thinking: Hey, there must be an amusement park nearby. If it's on our way to town, we can check out the rides before we look for the restaurant that passerby was talking about. In fact, maybe the guy knows about other places we should consider. Where did he go?

• Introverted Intuition would prompt us to liberate our sense impressions from their larger context, thereby creating new options for perception itself. For example, we might find ourselves wondering why people feel so strongly about getting a good tan. We remember reading somewhere that before the Industrial Revolution, being tan marked one as a manual laborer, because it suggested .work out of doors. After the Industrial Revolution, it was pale skin that suggested manual labor, because it indicated work in a poorly lit factory. Such correlations aren't relevant today, but a good tan is still considered attractive. Why is that? We consider raising the question as a topic of conversation, but were pretty sure our friends will think were observing a situation instead of enjoying it.

Because we usually associate Intuition with "feelings" and hunches, the conceptual nature of Introverted Intuition may be difficult to appreciate. Like its Extraverted counterpart, Introverted Intuition is a Perceiving function, but its also a left-brain function. The left brain won't focus on many things at once. It depends on words and signs to make outward experience predictable and orderly."

Tell me what you mean when you say that you are a holistic thinker. how does it show?

 

[Sebastian]

sebastian, the motivation of an e5 (as you type yourself) and secondary Fe (INFJ) is quite different. e5 needs distance in order not to be overwhelmed by the incoming flood of date and demands. at the botton of e5, there is anxiety and fear (as with all head-e-types).

with INFJ, to "motivation" (the function) is different: they are perceivers on an unconscious level (Ni). when feeling emotional distance, as perceivers, they relativate every bond in order to free perception, i.e. they look for something new.

can you relate to this?

I seem to perceive things quite well, over the past 10 years I have become more and more in touch with this aspect of myself... to begin with it felt a bit like magic and I had fun watching myself say "I KNEW that was going to happen!"... or... "I KNEW they would say that!".... without really knowing how I knew.... over time I have been able to "reverse engineer" the insight after-the-fact and discover the network and threads of thoughts and insights that led to the perceptions that bubble to the surface... I am slowly becoming more relaxed, confident and trusting of myself because I'm learning to relax into these perceptions as they happen. They are not magical, I can see why a mystical mind would think that, but the "INTJ" in me knows the thoughts have a very logical basis. I feel that this process does give me some "color" from what I suspect would otherwise be a rigid and hyper logical mind. But, I ramble, incoherently at times trying to explain... and I don't really know enough about MBTI to be talking about it I suppose.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

sebastian, do you see yourself as INFJ or INTJ? in your post, you're talking about yourself as INTJ, in your portrait, INFJ is mentionned...til now, i haven't met an enneagram-5 that would be INFJ...