My Quest to Understand the INFJ

If you want to be like an INFJ all you have to do is put faith in things that don't make a shred of sense and trust it; live on your impulses, go by 'vibes' or feelings you get that you might otherwise rationalize or ignore and feel overly emotional about everything. It's hard to get in such a frame of mind, but this can be achieved if you imitate behaviours of an INFJ. Focus on people as your main priorty: overanalyze every little detail and make things out to be something bigger than they are. When someone tells you something, assume their intentions and why they are telling you things; never ask them, assume that whatever they are telling you is a lie to hide the truth.

Seek the truth but ignore the facts when they come your way; completely disregard the facts because they aren't important, they don't point out what you want them to. Investigate areas of interest such as astrology, ghosts, mediums etc. Do not be skeptical of any mystical mysterious thing. Instead, be intrigued and 'open-minded'. Establish strong values that you are emotionally connected to and get extremely defensive when they are questions; avoid conflict at all costs, be avoidant if you have to.

Neglect your responsibilities the majority of the time but take care of things enough to be 'secure'. Develop strong visions and begin to believe you have an innate ability to understand people. Don't argue with people if you can avoid it, and only show your strong opinions with people you are close to; this might be difficult because the line between standing up for what you believe in and trying to please the people around you is very thin with an INFJ.

 

The problem might be Ni, Duty. To understand an INFJ you have to understand how to use Ni...and that's pretty down the list for most INTPs. The process we predominantly use is not one you're used to using. Plus the way we describe it isn't going to be a concrete way. We're very abstract - to make us be concrete calls us to choose a process we're not comfortable using. It can be done, but we might not explain it sufficiently for you.

There's not a 1-2-3 step process for being who we are and trying to make it so means we have to become someone we're not to describe it. Which is difficult for anyone.

If you can be patient with us, you'll probably get the answer out of us eventually.

 

The problem is you want concrete answers to these questions and these are very hard to give.

My suggestion is to try and Use your other abilities besides just T.

You want clear instructions and I don't think we can give them.

word

Then you have to be willing to get past your own functions which you haven't been able to do so fair.

Everything I've seen from you is from T and its not changed.

As long as you come from a T prospective you won't be able to understand.

Yes very very true.

The INFJ is not like deductive logic. We aren't an equation to figure out.

We are a personality that rely heavily on Ni and Fe. Which is not what you want to hear I'm sure.

So get past your T and you might figure out who we are.

 

Don't go away frustrated, though. If your hypothesis is INFJs are not psychic, then we need to look at that definition. What does it mean to be psychic? If psychic abilities simply means intuiting things that the average person does not because one looks at all the subtle subconscious clues, then yes. INFJs are psychic. If you're talking about psychic hotline, then I doubt anyone is psychic.

Give us your concrete definition for psychic, and we'll tell you if we are or not, as concretely as we can.

 

You wanted answers I gave you them honestly.

You aren't getting this. There is not an easy way to explain this to you.

And you must be willing to work things out on your own as well.

I can't give you step 1 step 2.

But I can say try using feelings and any gut feelings you may have that will get you closer. It won't be full proof but maybe that will work.

 

The way I use Ni is if someone says, "Whoa, you are awesome." I ask myself, Are they being complimentary? Snarky? If it's the former, are they annoyed at me for doing something or are they just having a bad day? Then i use my Se to pick up further clues to verify or deny one or more of my assumptions (tone of voice, body language, facial expression). My mindset is "There is always something below the surface." I hope this helps. Basically just question things. Ex. This person is saying one thing but is there more to it?" Also, just go with your gut and don't overanalyze yourself. When INFJs overuse Ti, it stumps their Ni. In a sense, to get into the shoes of an INFJ, I think you have to downplay your Ti and go w/ your gut using Ni. I think this might help you step into the INFJ mindset.

 

(note, this a quick reply - I haven't read the whole thread so far - sorry, I'll get around to that soon)

This a good observation, but I would add that social expectations is but one area in which we INFJs notice patterns. INTPs are have their own patterns, however, their patterns of behavior are less determined by circumstance than other types, as you have noted.

I suspect that the 'psychic' lable gets applied to INFJs because we are able to read certain signs which communicate feelings/intention which are not ordinary means of communication.

Ordinary means: speech, writing, commonly understood hand and facial expressions, etc.
Uncommon/unconscious means of communication: posture, subtle movements, tone/pitch of voice, breathing rate, etc.

The term psychic, if it means the ability to receive information communicated by another person, especially if that person is not conscious of having communicated it, could be applied to INFJs.

 

Hi Duty, - it was amusing to read your argument. Having myself spent a lot of time around "T" types, I can understand why you got frustrated in the end.

I can support your reasoning, because "reading" people in social situations can in fact be attributed to Ni and Fe going on unconsciously in the background of the mind. And if someone does not emit any information to the outside - we cannot read their minds. At least not on a normal day

However there are some cases when it cannot be explained by this simple reasoning. You can read about them here. Examples are: feeling someone’s pain over great distance, knowing what song will play next on the radio etc. I had some of these experiences myself, though their validity as “supernatural” is questionable of course.

 

INFJ's are psychic.
Some more than others.
Sorry. That's just the truth of it.

We can project and pick up thoughts. That might lead some to claim telepathy, but that would be mis-nomer.

Anyone can be psychic. That's what yoga and Eastern religion is all about is: no faith needed; dont take our word for it. try it yourself.

Psychic skills can be learned by any one. There are various methods. One good book is: Your Sixth Sense: Activating Your Psychic Potential.

Slant, dont know your personality type, but I say dont close yr mind to things. 15 is too young for that. You got another 80 plus years of life in you. Be open.
Know that this physical level of reality is not the ONLY level of reality. Look deeper. See farther.

 

Hear that slant? yerr goona live to 95+. A psychic said so.

 

I want to, too!

Duty - perhaps you could pose specific questions to us rather than trying to get us to explain our thought process. I don't know if it would help.

 

Hey Duty, another INTP here.

I hope it's not too late to write this.
It seems you were a little outnumbered in this thread.
I hope I can help clarify things for you using a language (NT) you are more familiar with.

Your opening post was fashioned, whether intentionally or not, to an NT. I see nothing wrong with it myself, but I also understand exactly why it came across the way it did to many here.

Though you've been accused of drawing premature conclusions about the nature of INFJs, I know this is not so, because INTPs rarely make concrete decisions. We may state them as such, but only to probe another NT type to disprove them and enlighten us with their observations of the argument we presented.

However, to adequately communicate with NF types, it's more complicated for us. The best method I've learned for communicating with NF types is to use a sort of dual-filter for my thoughts.

Let me explain this further. We usually use Ti as our primary filter. The data received by Ne is analyzed here and either judged as reasonable or not. From this we form logical constructs and models. I'm sure you're familiar with this, but I only wrote this so we both know what we're talking about.

The second filter is to predict the reactions that said models will bring from people when presented before their eyes. This is sometimes difficult for us, I know. It's true that for some types, this comes naturally, while for some of us, we would require a Ph.D in psychology to make these predictions.

Our Ti-Ne core can help predict reactions form people to a certain extent, but truly Fe would be the most adequate function to use for this as it can make us feel whether a sentence would be appropriate or not if posted. Sadly I realize many INTPs do not have a developed Fe function.

However, ideally, once your logical model is formed, then analyze and foretell what types of reactions your audience (in this case INFJs) will have to your model. If you can predict certain phrases will yield controversial responses, then adjust them. The more you practice this, the better you will become at it.

We usually skip this filter altogether and just state our logical constructs and models without any awareness of how they may be perceived. Consequently the reactions we get are not what we desired, an I believe this is due to our unawareness/lack of knowledge in human psychology or what may be to some NF types; common knowledge.

Even if you cannot summon the will to do this out of genuine care and consideration (Fe) for them, at least do it considering the logic that unless such an approach is taken, you will not received the desired data in return, hence your efforts will be vain.

~Auburn~

 

initial thoughts:

Do other infjs claim to be physic ? That's absurd and ludicrous
Does Fe really 'measure' social ritual? I thought that was another function.(if they value tradition and ritual, I guess I could see it)
Infjs get interested in intps in order to understand then, am I getting this correct?

<offtopic>

why do you think people can change their mbti over time? i'm quite interested in your answer.

Edit: His post didn't come off NTish to me, but hey, I tend to spend my time on the intj forum. Maybe i'm different

 

I appreciate your interest in learning how we function. Most people would cast us off as weird and leave it at that. We may be able to predict what people are about to do or say due to memorized observations of human nature. We might experience more synchronicities?