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

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, 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?

 

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 ;-)

 

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, 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?

 

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, 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, 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...