[INFJ] What does it mean if I am an INFJ but lack compassion for people who are suffering?
- Thread starter Shinehah
- Start date
-
- Tags
- uncompassionate
It could mean a lot of different things. How close are these people to you? Are you referring to anyone specifically or humanity as a whole?
MBTI mostly refers to ego functions, except the fourth function which bridges conscious and unconscious. You still have an unconscious psyche, including the Shadow. The Shadow can be sadistic. The functions are but a fraction of who you are.
P.S. The more you consciously believe these feelings to be wrong and reject them, the stronger they will get. It doesn't mean you have to act on them and laugh openly at the misery of others but, shit, look at Youtube or, well, we call it You've Been Framed (fail clipson TV). This and laughing at more 'serious' suffering have the same emotional root. If it bothers you, explore it...but be mindful that it is a part of you, even if it is strong at times.
@Shinehah
If you are lacking empathy for yourself it is very hard to be empathetic toward another person.
If you lack empathy toward yourself then your emotions and motives can be more unconscious to you as well.
Not saying that this is you personally, but it tends to be people who haven’t processed their own feelings and life that tend to make fun of others or laugh at their pain.
This is most likely from one of two things - you are insecure and unhappy with your own life.
Or - somebody treated you this way in the past or mirrored it for you and you haven’t had time to process that this is not acceptable.
Let me know if I’m way off base, these are the most common reasons, but humans are complex creatures!
This a rather entertaining video that may or may not shed some light on it for you.
[video=youtube;uyKeI_xjPVU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uyKeI_xjPVU[/video]
If you are lacking empathy for yourself it is very hard to be empathetic toward another person.
If you lack empathy toward yourself then your emotions and motives can be more unconscious to you as well.
Not saying that this is you personally, but it tends to be people who haven’t processed their own feelings and life that tend to make fun of others or laugh at their pain.
This is most likely from one of two things - you are insecure and unhappy with your own life.
Or - somebody treated you this way in the past or mirrored it for you and you haven’t had time to process that this is not acceptable.
Let me know if I’m way off base, these are the most common reasons, but humans are complex creatures!
This a rather entertaining video that may or may not shed some light on it for you.
[video=youtube;uyKeI_xjPVU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uyKeI_xjPVU[/video]
Last edited:
It's an enormous waste of energy to worry about who you're supposed to be and I think it causes a kind of indifference. I suggest that you start thinking about who you actually are and what you actually feel. You'll be happier - eventually.
Which is the fourth function? Do you mean the JP preference? What do you mean by ego functions? Do you mean Freud's definition of ego?
Last edited:
I, personally, stick to Jung. He doesn't talk about J or P.
Jung names 4 functions of the ego. The ego is consciousness, i.e. what I am aware of now. So, for example, I am conscious of the fact that Paris is the capital of France but until I went to use that as an example, that knowledge was unconscious...
The Freudian idea of the unconscious tends to focus on the troubling aspects of the personality but 'unconscious' is an adjective, not a noun.
So, you have 4 functions: Intuition, Feeling, Thinking and Sensing.
Jung says that all people have all of these but have a preference of which they use first and which they tend to neglect.
The tricky part is that both the 4th function, no matter what it is, and Intuition, involve the unconscious.
The unconscious is both subjective (personal) and objective (transpersonal). The 'Collective Unconscious', therefore, is better called the 'Objective Psyche' because what was unconscious can become conscious. The reason he calls it the 'Collective Unconscious' is because some contents simply cannot become conscious...they are too mysterious and/or abstract. Whether they will remain so, or whether they will become more palatable to the ego (consciousness) is something we will have to wait and see about.
Thoughts are not just made by people. They also come to people. In fact, before the emergence of the ego from the 'Objective Psyche', people were unable to differentiate their own consciousness from their surroundings, hence paganism and the idea of 'tree spirits' or 'river spirits' and so on.
To cut a long story short, the function that is least agreeable to your conscious attitude will always work against you in a way. It's like it's not even trying to do its job. That's why an Intuitive might suck at Sensing...because sensing is slacking off and the unconscious is always working against what you might call 'Willpower' to prevent you becoming too one-sided in anything you do. Therefore, because you (ego) have little control over 'Sensing', the unconscious has as much control as you do...it's inbetween conscious and unconscious.
There are no conincidences. The reason you're in the right place at the right time is because the unconscious psyche makes it so. If you find yourself in the opposite situation, you're trying to hard to be in total control of your own life.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
This would be so atypical for a dichotomies INFJ as to even warrant considering if it disqualifies you from being one.
Note that functions-theories are many in number, and do not correspond well to the MBTI instrument's exact measurements.
So yes you can be a Jungian-F type roughly but not MBTI-F type. They're not unrelated, but MBTI-F places a greater emphasis on compassion. Jungian F includes such things, but it isn't slanted towards positive feeling-judgments of humanity.
Please keep in mind Jung did NOT have the same models or ideas about type as either the MBTI community or my own version (which is based on readings of many authors/synthesis).
For instance, he would never say that someone's top two function-attitudes are Ni and Fe. More likely Ni and Fi, and if Fe, then Fe would be mostly unconscious. Jung's emphasis was on the attitude type introvert-extravert, and all of the conscious psyche fell under sway of one or the other -- or very nearly all.
Note that functions-theories are many in number, and do not correspond well to the MBTI instrument's exact measurements.
So yes you can be a Jungian-F type roughly but not MBTI-F type. They're not unrelated, but MBTI-F places a greater emphasis on compassion. Jungian F includes such things, but it isn't slanted towards positive feeling-judgments of humanity.
Please keep in mind Jung did NOT have the same models or ideas about type as either the MBTI community or my own version (which is based on readings of many authors/synthesis).
For instance, he would never say that someone's top two function-attitudes are Ni and Fe. More likely Ni and Fi, and if Fe, then Fe would be mostly unconscious. Jung's emphasis was on the attitude type introvert-extravert, and all of the conscious psyche fell under sway of one or the other -- or very nearly all.
Last edited:
To me it could mean that you have been hurt by others or that you are burned out from compassion fatigue. If you are an empathic INFJ it could even mean that you can spot someone who is using their circumstances to garner sympathy. On one hand you may feel a sense of guilt for not having the feelings that you are "supposed to" have but on the other your well-tuned sixth sense is telling you something is not quite right.
I have actually been in this situation before. I had a former friend who claimed to have a number of terrible illnesses. Everyone around us always seemed to have a great deal of empathy and compassion for her and I felt very guilty for not feeling the same. I felt like I had to be the worst friend anyone could have. And yet no matter what I did my sixth sense simply would not produce the "right" emotions. Eventually it turned out that this person was not really ill or suffering at all but had actually lied about her condition to manipulate others.
This is one of the perks of being an INFJ. We do not just pick up on genuine emotions. We can spot the fake ones too!
I have actually been in this situation before. I had a former friend who claimed to have a number of terrible illnesses. Everyone around us always seemed to have a great deal of empathy and compassion for her and I felt very guilty for not feeling the same. I felt like I had to be the worst friend anyone could have. And yet no matter what I did my sixth sense simply would not produce the "right" emotions. Eventually it turned out that this person was not really ill or suffering at all but had actually lied about her condition to manipulate others.
This is one of the perks of being an INFJ. We do not just pick up on genuine emotions. We can spot the fake ones too!
Laughing at another person's pain is a sociopathic response. If it's not nervous laughter and you truly find someone else's pain funny, you need help figuring out why you react this way and what basis the response has in your personality.
Bad in what way? What are some things you found funny that you think you shouldn't have?
I am both extremely empathetic and cold-shouldered, the former to ones I love and the latter to human beings in general.
But;
What I can say for certain from my experiences, is that if something is weighing on me too heavily, I'll "shut down" the sensory channels, in essence, in order to continue on with my daily routine without feeling the pain of what someone is going through. I go through periods of intentional numbness because my empathy cripples me if I let it, and letting it take hold is obviously very natural for the INFJ.
But;
What I can say for certain from my experiences, is that if something is weighing on me too heavily, I'll "shut down" the sensory channels, in essence, in order to continue on with my daily routine without feeling the pain of what someone is going through. I go through periods of intentional numbness because my empathy cripples me if I let it, and letting it take hold is obviously very natural for the INFJ.