INFJs and INTJs from Lenore Thomson's book
Here's some interesting observations on the INTJs and INFJs and how they relate to their world. I highlighted and italicized what I have found to be true for me all these years.
Lenore Thomson Benz:
Introverted Intuition
Most types rely on Introverted Intuition to contend with ambiguities of meaning and perception - that is,
to see that a situation can be interpreted in more than one way...It may seem peculiar, therefore, to depend on this function for one's primary understanding of reality...It should be emphasized that INJs are very much ENPs in this respect. Where Extroverted Intuitives see many behavioral options, INJs acknowledge many conceptual standpoints. They experience no need to declare one inherently better than another. Indeed
these types have the disconcerting habit of solving a problem by shifting their perspective and defining the situation some other way. [personally I find this is why we make such awesome mediators]
[There is a] framework of beliefs and expectations that we maintain. Some are dictated by society; others are a matter of subjective experience - our gender, our name, our history, our vocation, our background. Knowledge is facilitated, limited and directed by boundary conditions.
INJs have an unusual awareness of how such conditions determine our conceptual vocabulary, and their Intuition leads them to discern aspects of reality that aren't being acknowledged. Thus, many INJs choose professions that allow them to work with questions of language and terminology - as editors, mathematicians, psychologists, theologians, poets and programmers. Any field that involves conceptual signs and categories is likely to interest these types. The difficulty, of course, is that an INJ's Intuition often takes the type beyond the reach of existing vocabulary....INJs are often frustrated by the limits of the language they are using to test the freight of their Intuitions - whether their means of expression involves the written word, mathematics, musical or scientific notation, meta psychology, or art. As they shift vantage points, they're obliged to invent new terms, reinterpret old ones or use words like "post-modern" to avail themselves of the categories their Intuitions are pointing beyond.
Because INJs can't develop their primary skills without analyzing the way things are generally described and understood, these types are likely to experience themselves as different from others. Constituting only two percent of the population, young INJs can feel isolated, unable to fit in even when they want to. Before their skills are well-developed, it's difficult for these types to justify the questions that occur to them. After all, Introverted Intuitions are not really ideas. They're like trains at the edge of articulated knowledge. You can't claim them or advocate them. You put on a hat, grab hold of a boxcar door, and see where they go.
INFJs in particular, who need others' encouragement and approval to establish a positive self-image, struggle with feelings of alienation, and they often develop an ironic sense of humor that protects them from self-revelation and assures them of positive relationships. INTJs do this also, but they're not as reluctant to ask questions ans summarily reject the answers.
INJs have no choice but to cup Intuition's small flame against the hard wind of others' beliefs and opinions...Once INJs learn to do this, they have to learn to STOP doing it. Such types are never satisfied with what they know, and it takes a real effort for them to set limits and make use of the knowledge they already have.
In fact, an INJ who feels well-informed is likely to have so much information that imposing order on it and sharing it with others is almost impossible.
[contrasting Ni & Ne]...ENPs are most visible in the first blush of discovery, when they're excited and optimistic. They aggressively seek feedback from the people around them, and they welcome others' involvement in formulating their Intuitions and carrying out their plans.
INJs are least accessible in the discovery process. Like the prince in the story of "Cinderella", they're solitary, sometimes obsessive, fitting Intuition to expressible terms like the glass slipper to potential brides. Until they've managed a good enough fit between their inner reality and an outward vocabulary, INJs may not even know what they're after, and they won't involve others in formulating their plans.
INJs understand context as a mental phenomenon, something that people bring to the outer world from within. Thus, they don't see "wholeness" as an integrated endpoint. Wholeness, for INJs, is the chaotic beginning - raw sensory (Ni) input without meaning...One might also suggest that the Internet is a pretty decent reflection of the way INJs think. Information is constantly proliferating in all different directions. One click of the mouse and your entire perspective shifts. You give away one idea and in return you get access to more data than you'll ever be able to look at.
Because INFJs use Se to relate to the outer would, they may seem more outgoing than they really are. Their personal approach and ability to find common ground with others combines with their intuitive need for innovation and alternative views, and they frequently find themselves in positions of authority. They may not seek leadership, but they are often elected by others to serve on boards and committees. People appreciate their ability to listen and to consider group feelings and values.
Thus, it should be recognized that INFJs are more like INTJs than they initially appear. Their primary relationship is to their inner world, and they are receptive to others only up to a point. Indeed,
these types often find that their sympathy and perceptive listening have been mistaken for an overture of friendship, which they didn't intend. [I have experienced this a lot in my lifetime] Unlike INTJs however, their sense of the unexpressed is not impersonal and causal; it is intensely personal and oriented by emotional awareness.
Their intuition takes them into psychological areas that other types are likely to keep at bay. Because they don't usually know right away the import of what they're intuiting, they may "go along" with a questionable situation until they can get a hold of how they actually feel about it. This tendency can be confusing to others, and it is often misinterpreted as reckless experimentation.
Like INTJs, INFJs have a penchant for abstraction and symbolic representation. If interested, they excel in the fields of science, math and medicine. However, they are not generally motivated by sheer intellectual challenge.
INFJs require a sense of meaning in the work they do. They are more likely than INTJs to personalize their skills - as teachers, psychologists, consultants, ministers and family doctors. They are particularly sensitive to others' feelings of exclusion, and they may address or try to rectify inequities of status or opportunity within the context of their profession.
Such types can be quite tenacious in pointing out the discrepancies between stated beliefs and actual behavior. This is the arena in which their intuition is most evident. INFJs wrestle all their lives with the conflict they perceive maintaining harmonious relationships and expressing emotional truth, and it is a central issue in the books, novels, plays, and psychological articles that INFJs write. Their 1 percent representation in the population belies the tremendous influence these types have in shaping cultural ideas about identity and being true to oneself.
INFJs are exquisitely sensitive to nuance and suggestion - all the ways we unwittingly express how we feel, who we are, what we believe about ourselves and others. They are not interested in the precision of language, as INTJs are, but in its rich possibilities for metaphor and multiple layers of meaning. They often have a gift for verbal imagery or poetic expression, and they are sometimes capable of raising to consciousness something that others can only dimly sense.
INFJs frequently express themselves indirectly, depending on unstated implications to carry their meaning, and they can be put off by too direct a reference to something that is of great value to them.
Because INFJs are so alert to the unsaid, they may find it difficult to sort out their own emotions from the mood and feelings they discern in others. Young INFJs, in particular, are sometimes labeled hyper-sensitive or melodramatic, because their self-experience is tied to others emotional boundaries.
Optimally, they bring their emotional insights into the community as art, or they use them to help others come to terms with conflict in their own lives. INFJs are also capable of turning their inner experience into trenchant social commentary - by finding their truest voice and using it, perhaps in the ministry, or in the kind of edgy comedy of a Richard Pryor (I think also perhaps Dave Chapelle anyone?). Types who do this can become a potent focal point for others' unexpressed fears and yearnings. However, the pressure of speaking one's own truth in a public forum is ultimately taxing for most INFJs.
The INFJs sense of physical well-being is very much allied with their relationships and emotional investments. They want very much to be liked, buy they're afraid of being hurt, and they often develop a sense of humor that helps them to maintain a wide range of friendly contacts. Such types are by turns highly sociable and maddeningly inaccessible.
INFJs have to find some way to sort out their feelings from the feelings of others - in not in writing or art, then in an expression of religious faith, or the effort to help others to express themselves.
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.
In general, these types do create their own reality, and it is one of great riches - a storehouse that artists, poets and writers draw from for their material. However, if their inner life is not balanced with reality, they may feel so different from others that they become self-conscious and defensive. They may be drawn to dysfunctional people, romanticizing their ability to see something in them that others cannot see.
INFJs are a bit like Merlin, summoned by the voice of Nimue deep with 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 Extroverted Feeling function well, they bring that song back into the public domain, find 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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KLFBMKG/?tag=infjs-20
