This is a good article from a Myers Briggs site about Jung's type. Even though this is from an MBTI lens, Jung's statements predate both MBTI and socionics, and the historical scholarship is the best I've seen on this subject.
Why Jung Is INFJ, Part 1 & 2
How Jung Saw Himself
By Ryan Smith
Much has been written on the matter of Jungs type, and while the INFJ assessment seems to be gaining traction, many professional typologists still believe Jung was INTJ. Simultaneously, Jungs own self-assessment (as an ITP type with inferior Feeling) does not appear to have many supporters left.
Whatever type Jung was, however, it seems to me that: (1) A thorough discussion of Jungs type and review of the evidence is lacking and (2) Jungs personality presents us with a lot of noise from those aspects of his personality that do not pertain to type. (Indeed, as Jung himself said, the question of his personality was a tricky one to resolve.)[1]
In this series of articles, I will attempt to discuss the matter of Jungs type, handling not just the question of his type, but also these other areas of his personality, as well as the question of how Jung saw himself. Before we begin, however, it serves us well to note that we were not the first to identify Jung as INFJ. As far as we can tell, that honor belongs to Keirsey and son.
How Jung Saw Himself
The question of Jungs self-assessment is an intriguing one. As is now familiar to most, Jung publicly identified his type as Introverted Thinking with Sensation (Ti-S-N-Fe) on one occasion and Introverted Thinking with Intuition (Ti-N-S-Fe) on another. Less well-known are a number of loose asides and partial self-identifications given by Jung elsewhere. Adding to our troubles, there is a somewhat strident myth in the Jungian community that Jung has somewhere identified himself as an Introverted Intuitive with Thinking (Ni-T-F-Se) type. But as we shall see, that interpretation owes more to wishful thinking than to anything Jung himself said.
Having reviewed a great deal of material, some of it unpublished, I have never found anything to suggest that Jung ever identified as anything but a Ti-dominant type. At the same time, however, it is nevertheless obvious that Jung as with so much else in his life was at pains to install opaque qualifiers and secret outs in his recorded statements about his own type. Since Jung was so cagey and disobliging, it is not enough to read this or that and then attempt to interpret it in isolation when seeking to understand how Jung saw himself. One must trace the broad contours of his thinking on the matter in order to understand both what he was saying and what he was attempting to hide.
We start at the beginning.
1915: EFs and ITs
Prior to coming up with the present-day scheme of typology as a system of four functions (F, T, S, N) and two orientations (E, I), Jung had collaborated with his colleague Hans Schmid-Guisan on a typology consisting of only two types: The Extroverted Feeler (EF) and Introverted Thinker (IT). As the two freely admit in The Question of Psychological Types, they based their rough typological schemes on their own psychologies: Schmid-Guisan was to be the EF and Jung the IT. These original types were created out of an opposition, formed between just two parties in an intimate microcosmos where it was not possible to see the full view. Of Schmid-Guisans type, John Beebe has said (and we agree) that he was an ENFP (Ne-Fi-Te-Si) type. However, like Jung, Schmid-Guisans personality seemed to possess more than its normal share of quirks, stemming from elements of the psyche outside of type. While certainly no intellectual bystander to Jung in their correspondence, the picture of Schmid-Guisan that emerges from those letters is that of a jovial, intensely caring and enthusiastic personality who lovingly put people at the center of his world. In the tightened duality of just these two personalities, it would therefore be easy for the more brooding and self-centered Jung to conclude that since he was colder than Schmid-Guisan, he must therefore have been his opposite.
Even before the existence of the Intuitive type, then, Jung had formed an impression of himself as a Thinking type. Since the EF/IT system suggested an oppositional scheme between the two types, it is also likely that Jung had not only formed an image of himself as a Thinking dominant type, but also as a type with inferior Feeling. Of course it is still possible that upon discovering the existence of the Intuitive type, Jung took a step back and re-evaluated his previous self-assessment from scratch. But while we cannot be sure, the evidence suggests that he probably did not do so. For example, as I have pointed out in my review of The Question of Psychological Types, much of the terminology that made sense in the EF/IT system of Jung and Schmid-Guisan is carried over into Psychological Types itself with little to no modification. The material pertaining to the old schema of two types (EF/IT) was imported into the new system where it tends to make less sense. It seems to me that just as Jung did not expend much critical thought on how the old material would fit into the new system, so he probably did not take care to seriously consider the possibility of he himself being anything but an IT (Ti-dominant) type at least not until 1925.
What Happened in 1925?
In 1925, Jung gave his famous Seminar on Analytical Psychology, the contents of which were supposedly secret knowledge. In Jungs own lifetime, to be allowed to read the minutes from that seminar required many hours of Jungian analysis as well as Jungs personal permission.
In this seminar, Jung describes a series of complicated personal transformations, involving dreams, mythological considerations, and personal fantasies (so-called active imaginings), which Jung apparently regarded as real (since they were ostensibly messages and lessons sent to him through the Collective Unconscious). Into this highly personal and opaque mix, of which Jung himself says that he is not telling the participants of the seminar everything, Jung throws in some typological terms, which are for the most part applied very loosely. He does say, however, that (in his own opinion) he used to be an ISTP (Ti-S-N-Fe) type until some psychic transformation happened. Jung then continues this murky narrative for quite some time, until he reveals a chart saying that Intuition is now superior. This statement has been taken by theorists such as Beebe, Giannini, and others to mean that Jung now identified as an Ni type with auxiliary thinking. In my opinion, however, there are several problems with such an interpretation; for example, speaking of the chart Jung himself says that it is very much better to leave the figures as they are, namely as events, experiences (and in the very next lecture, he speaks of himself as an Introverted Thinking-dominant type with inferior Feeling again). Therefore, it is in my opinion dangerous to rely on the extraordinarily personal and murky Seminar of 1925 as the sole source of Jungs self-assessment. I have my own opinion of what the 1925 lecture might mean too, of course, but my interpretation will make more sense if viewed alongside Jungs other statements about his type. We set it aside for Part 2.
If Jung Had Known That He Had Misidentified Himself, Would He Have Said so in Interviews?
Let us say, for the sake of argument, that theorists like Beebe and Giannini are right and that Jung actually did change his self-assessment in 1925. If he had done so, would he have publicly admitted that he had had a change of heart? Or would he for some reason or other have continued to claim that he was a Ti type (even if that was not his true view)? Such questions are usually very hard to settle, but there may be a way for us to settle it by proxy, namely by examining the case of how Jung spoke of Alfred Adler.
In Psychological Types, Jung had said of Adler and Freud that:
Now of course, one can argue that Jung is here only talking about their views and not their types, but most people (including Jungians themselves) took this statement (and others like it) to mean that Freud was an E type and Adler an I type.
Psychological Types was published in 1921, but in a private latter, dated 1941, Jung returns to the matter of Freuds and Adlers types:
In a (public) interview given in 1955, Jung was asked about Freuds and Adlers types:
REFERENCES
[1] Jung, quoted in Bair: Jung (Little, Brown and Company 2003) p.640
[2] Jung: Psychological Types §91
[3] Jung: Letters vol. 1 (Princeton University Press 1973) p. 301
[4] Jung: C.G. Jung Speaking (Princeton University Press 1987) p. 257
[5] Jung: Psychological Types §91
What Jung Said About Himself
By Ryan Smith
In Part 1 of this series, we saw that:
Here in Part 2, we are going to present and discuss all of Jungs statements about his own type.
1915-1916: The Question of Psychological Types
As we saw in Part 1, Jung originally developed typology as a system of only two types (EF and IT) along with his colleague Hans Schmid-Guisan. As with the modern-day (two orientations, four functions) system of typology, this early system also characterized the introvert as retaining a subjective disposition towards exterior occurrences while the extrovert was thought to be more objective in his attitude.
Of the two types available at this time, Jung identified himself as the IT type:
So in the EF/IT duality, Jung strongly identifies with the IT type, while regarding his correspondent, Schmid-Guisan, as an equally strong exemplar of the EF type.
1919: Personal Letter to Sabina Spielrein
In the years between 1916 and 1921, the F/T dichotomy was eventually complemented by the discovery of the S/N dichotomy. As a historical aside, there seems to be considerable disagreement as to who discovered this dichotomy. What is clear beyond all doubt is that the Dutch analyst Maria Moltzer gave a talk advocating N as its own function (or type) in 1916 (and even Jung credits the discovery of the N function to her).[3] On the other hand, the Jung biographer Deirdre Bair has also made discoveries indicating that the S/N dichotomy could have been discovered even earlier by Hans Schmid-Guisan. Furthermore, Jungs assistant and personal successor, C.A. Meier, has offered statements to the effect that the S/N dichotomy was in fact discovered or developed by Jungs lover and fellow Jungian analyst Toni Wolff, going as far as to say that she may have written considerable parts of Psychological Typesunder Jungs name.
As I have detailed in previous writings, and as numerous people who were personal acquaintances of Jung have attested, Jung was not above stealing other peoples ideas and passing them off as his own. This makes it hard to determine who discovered or developed the S/N dichotomy, though it seems certain that the honor does not belong to Jung. In my opinion, the idea of N as a function or type was most likely conceived by Moltzer or Schmid-Guisan (or both) around 1916 and then developed into a definite dichotomy by Toni Wolff or Jung (or both) in the period between 1917-1921. This is what the evidence suggests and would moreover fit well with their personal types of ENP (Moltzer and Schmid-Guisan) and INJ (Jung and Wolff) though strictly speaking, one should not assign such determinative power to typology.
In any case, in 1919, while the four functions/two orientations scheme was being finalized, Jung sent a personal letter to his former patient and lover Sabina Spielrein. Though some writers have suspected that Jung also passed off some of her ideas as his own, I have not personally seen any evidence to that effect with regards to typology.[4] At any rate, in 1919 Spielrein and Jung were living in different countries, yet still exchanged letters from time to time. In one of these letters, Jung reports on the development of his typology, and notes down the following:
1921: Psychological Types
Although Jung does not explicitly declare his own type in Psychological Types, he does drop a few hints. Under the heading Summary of the Extraverted Rational Types, Jung states the following:
As usual in the professional writings of Jung, we get that fleeting vagueness and ambiguity of phrase which many of his readers have complained about and which Jung himself would be the first to admit (and even praise) about himself.[8] Certain well-known names in the field of typology seem to have read Psychological Types and come away with the impression that Jung does not identify as any particular type in that book. However, I cannot see how one can take the above passage to mean anything but that Jung identifies as a Thinking or Feeling dominant type in the above passage.
1925: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925
We come now to the infamous Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925, which we also touched upon in part 1 of this series. Here, Jung first identifies as a Ti-S-N-Fe type:
It all seems clear enough, so why the multiple scholarly headaches over Seminar of 1925? Well, for one thing, because later in the seminar Jung identifies as a different type:
As noted, Jung used intellect as a synonym for the thinking functions (although this parlance is no longer in use today).[12] Concerning the admins opinion here on the site, we personally think that all types have the ability to be intellectual, and that Jungs use of intellectual as a synonym for Thinking seems to break the stated aim of crafting a psychological typology in favor of the more straightforward, William James-like approach to typology where mental contents are prioritized over cognitive structures.
In the seminar, Jung tells the story of a dream or vision he had, which supposedly caused his type to change. At any rate, where Jung first said he identified as a Ti-S-N-F type, he now says that he identifies as another type. But which type is implied? Opinions are divided here.
![]()
In my assessment, it is clear enough that Feeling is still identified as the inferior function. However, this reading flies in the face of the interpretation of the American typologist John Beebe and others, who have used the passage to argue that Jungs new type after the vision should be that of an Ni-T-F-Se type.[13] As far as I understand it, Beebe et al. base their interpretation on a diagram furnished by Jung himself, which says that after the vision, his Intuition is now superior.[14] However, in my opinion, Beebe et al. are reading too much into this claim, since superior does not necessarily mean dominant. Recall, in fact, that in Latin, superior merely means above. Square this with Jungs ubiquitous fondness for Latinisms (and his considerable proficiency with Latin) and the reading that Jung changed his self-assessment from Ti-S-N-Fe to Ti-N-S-Fe seems much better supported by the entirety of the text.
Some readers might then ask why Jung should be cautious to identify as someone whose Intuition was superior to his Sensation, since in modern typology, Intuition is commonly perceived as being more attractive and alluring than Sensation. The answer is that Jung did not view the matter this way. He saw Sensation as being synonymous with empiricism and science, whereas Intuition was a slightly mad form of psychic adaption; one that the younger and middle-aged Jung certainly did not wish to apply to himself. That this is so can be seen, among other things, in Jungs own phrasing that as a scientist, thinking and sensation predominated in him (emphasis added). As the Jung biographer Gary Lachman has pointed out, Jung held grave doubts about his status as a scientist vis-à-vis poet or artist and desperately wanted to be the former. It was not easy for him to square his preference for Intuition with the way he wished to present himself. (Naturally, Jungs take on typology here implies that ones vocation dictates ones type to a very large degree and that type can change two claims that few modern typologists would agree with.)
C.G. Jung (1934 / published 1988): Nietzsches Zarathustra: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1934-1939
Next is Jungs seminar on Nietzsche. When Jung started developing the theory of psychological types in 1916, he first suspected that he might be the same type as Nietzsche. However, by the time he published Psychological Types, Jung had come to believe that Nietzsche was an Ni-Ti-Fe-Se type (whereas Jung thought of himself as some variant of Ti-dominant type).
In the seminar on Nietzsche, Jung says the following of Nietzsches type:
Now Jung is of course speaking of Nietzsche here, but a logical reading of the above quote entails that Jung is unwittingly implying that he is someone with better Feeling than Nietzsche (I have heard of X, but Nietzsche had not because his Feeling was undeveloped). However, as readers of Jung will know, Jung frequently utters statements that, if thought through logically, would imply some conclusion that it is fairly obvious that Jung did not wish to make. So while Jung may technically be saying that his Feeling is better than Nietzsches (which was in his opinion tertiary), one should probably avoid taking him at his word here.
C.G. Jung (1957): The Houston Films
Another instance where Jung speaks of his type is found in the Houston Films. Here Jung says:
The use of past tense adds another layer of ambiguity to Jungs record. The thinking type, as I thought my type to be But as we have seen, Jung never identified as anything but a Thinking type. So unless the past tense is utilized because he opts to speak of the whole affair of typology in the past tense (which is possible), Jung here adds another trap door or secret escape to avoid professing his type in public. Now why might that be? We will look further into that question in later sections of this series.
C.G. Jung (1959): The Face to Face Interview
In Jungs televised interview with the BBC, we get what is perhaps the most famous of Jungs statements on his own psychological type. When asked by the interviewer, Jung answered as follows:
The reason Jung refers to himself in the past tense here is fairly clearly because he is speaking of his own type at the time where he was breaking with Freud and coming to terms with this development by writing Psychological Types. So what is important to note is that Jung is not answering what type he is now, at the time of the interview in 1959, but rather what type he was from ca. 1913 (the break with Freud) to 1921 (the publication of Psychological Types).
In spite of Jungs coy finale saying that this gives us all the necessary data for diagnosis the statement has nevertheless caused confusion and has of course been endlessly debated. How can we interpret it? It has everywhere been taken to mean that Jungs two uppermost functions are Thinking and Intuition according to himself, and that his two lowermost functions must be Feeling and Sensation. Yet beyond that, there is wide disagreement. For example, in their Submission Guidelines for authors writing on psychological type, the Center for the Application of Psychological Type detail Jungs type to be INTP or INTJ, meaning either a thinking type or an intuitive type.[18]
With regards to Jungs statement, I propose that the following reading comes closest to what he is trying to say: He identifies as a Thinking dominant type. Being most certainly characterized by thinking must trump having a great deal of intuition too. I cannot imagine how anyone could in good faith conceive the statement to mean that Jung is here ascribing greater weight to his Intuition than to his Thinking.
As for the next part of the statement that Jung had a definite difficulty with Feeling and that his relation to reality was not particularly brilliant no one interpretation stands out as more salient than its contenders. The part about his relation to reality can either be taken to mean that Jung is identifying as an introvert or that he is denigrating his Sensation function. In my opinion, the latter interpretation makes more sense given Jungs general mode of expression when speaking about typology.
However, since we have established that Jung identifies as a Thinking dominant type in the first part of his statement, and there is nothing in this second part of the statement of equal lucidity, we should conclude that Jungs inferior function is Feeling, as Jung himself advises us to do in A Psychological Theory of Types, and indeed, in every other place that he talked about his type besides.[19]
Thus, the function order that Jung professes here must necessarily be: Thinking Intuition Sensation Feeling. It is unclear whether Jung alludes to his introversion or not, so strictly speaking we cannot say that he is identifying as either an introvert or an extrovert in the statement above. However, as Jung has identified himself as an introvert on numerous occasions, both before and after, and never as an extrovert, it is reasonable to couple Jungs self-assessment as a Thinking type on this occasion with his consistent self-assessment as an introvert, as he did on numerous other occasions.[20]
So Jung (again) identifies as an introverted Thinking type. The remaining orientations of Jungs functions go unspecified in the interview, but according to Jungs own schema of function orientations in Psychological Types, the complete orientation of his functions would be either Ti-Ni-Se-Fe or Ti-Ne-Se-Fe.[21]
(1961): E.A. Bennets C.G. Jung
A short and simple biography of Jung was published by his personal friend shortly after Jungs death. According to Bennet, Jung read the manuscript and made many suggestions and corrections.[22] Bennets text, which is supposedly approved by Jung himself, says that Jung has the psychology of the introverted Thinking type.[23]
But then Bennet also says that Jung thought Freud was an extroverted feeling type (a claim which Jung supposedly would then also have approved).[24] As far as we know, however, Jung never thought of Freud as an extroverted feeling type, but rather thought him a Sensation type in A Contribution to Psychological Types in 1913 (if one can even speak of such a type with regards to the state of the theory in 1913).[25] Later still, in the 1950s, Jung revised his assessment of Freuds type so that he now regarded him an introverted Feeling type, albeit one who falsely pretended to be an an extraverted thinker and empiricist.[26]
In other words, while the claim that Jung saw himself as a Ti type is unlikely to raise any eyebrows, there is nothing anywhere in the records to suggest that Jung ever thought of Freud as an extroverted Feeling type. Indeed, as has been revealed with the publication of Jungs letters, Jung rather thought of Freud as an introverted Feeling type. The type claims in Bennets book do not seem reliable, and on the whole it seems more likely that either Jung was negligent in reviewing Bennets book or Jung did not really review the whole of the manuscript. Personally, Bennet strikes me as trustworthy, whereas (as even Jung scholars have to admit) Jungs record is less than stellar when it comes to factual reality and telling the truth. Indeed, for my part, I concur with Freuds characterization that there is a kernel of dishonesty in [Jungs] being. The most likely scenario, to my mind, is that Jung did approve the book, but did not bank on Bennet telling the public that Jung had actually put his stamp of approval upon the text, but I admit that this is no more than an educated extrapolation.
Conclusion
REFERENCES
[1] Jung, in Jung & Schmid-Guisan: The Question of Psychological Types (Princeton University Press 2013) p. 40
[2] Jung, in Jung & Schmid-Guisan: The Question of Psychological Types p. 41
[3] Jung: Psychological Types §773n68
[4] Skea: Sabina Spielrein: Out from the Shadow of Jung and Freud (Journal of Analytical Psychology 2006)
[5] Jung, quoted in Covington & Wharton: Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis (Brunner Routledge 2003) p. 58
[6] Jung: Psychological Types §104
[7] Jung: Psychological Types §601
[8] Jung, quoted in Shamdasani: Jung Stripped Bare (Karnac Books 2004) p. 48
[9] Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 (Princeton University Press 1991) p. 69
[10] Jung seems to be implying Ti-Si-Ne-Fe; however, in Psychological Types §637, Jung had seemed to imply Ti-Se-Ne-Fe as the general rule.
[11] Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 p. 100
[12] Jung: Psychological Types §540
[13] Actually, in Beebes system an INTJ (Ni-Te-Fi-Se-Ne-Ti-Fe-Si) type.
[14] Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 p. 97
[15] Jung: Nietzsches Zarathustra (Princeton University Press 1988) p. 1043
[16] Jung, in McGuire & Hull: C.G. Jung Speaking p. 341
[17] Jung, in McGuire & Hull: C.G. Jung Speaking p. 435-6
[18] CAPT: Submission Guidelines (Capt.org) p. 27
[19] The one-sided emphasis on thinking is always accompanied by an inferiority of feeling, and differentiated sensation is injurious to intuition and vice versa. Jung: Psychological Types §955
[20] Of course, given Jungs qualification that the type is nothing static. It changes in the course of life, it is theoretically possible, though highly unlikely, that Jung is conceiving of himself as an extroverted thinker in 1959, and then as an introverted thinker before and after that. A further instance of Jung assessing himself to be an introvert: After this break I had with Freud I found myself completely isolated. This, however disadvantageous it may have been, had also an advantage for me as an introvert. Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 p. 25
[21] Jung: Psychological Types §637
[22] Bennet: C.G. Jung (Barrie and Rockliff, 1961) p. viii
[23] Bennet: C.G. Jung p. 18
[24] Bennet: C.G. Jung p. viii
[25] Jung: A Contribution to Psychological Types, included as an appendix to Psychological Types, §880 says: This is the theory of Freud, which is strictly limited to empirical facts, and traces back complexes to their antecedents and to more simple elements. It regards psychological life as consisting in large measure of reactions, and accords the greatest role to sensation.
[26] Jung, quoted in Kaufmann: Discovering the Mind: Freud, Adler, and Jung (Transaction Publishers 1992) p. 311
Why Jung Is INFJ, Part 1 & 2
How Jung Saw Himself
By Ryan Smith
Much has been written on the matter of Jungs type, and while the INFJ assessment seems to be gaining traction, many professional typologists still believe Jung was INTJ. Simultaneously, Jungs own self-assessment (as an ITP type with inferior Feeling) does not appear to have many supporters left.
Whatever type Jung was, however, it seems to me that: (1) A thorough discussion of Jungs type and review of the evidence is lacking and (2) Jungs personality presents us with a lot of noise from those aspects of his personality that do not pertain to type. (Indeed, as Jung himself said, the question of his personality was a tricky one to resolve.)[1]
In this series of articles, I will attempt to discuss the matter of Jungs type, handling not just the question of his type, but also these other areas of his personality, as well as the question of how Jung saw himself. Before we begin, however, it serves us well to note that we were not the first to identify Jung as INFJ. As far as we can tell, that honor belongs to Keirsey and son.
How Jung Saw Himself
The question of Jungs self-assessment is an intriguing one. As is now familiar to most, Jung publicly identified his type as Introverted Thinking with Sensation (Ti-S-N-Fe) on one occasion and Introverted Thinking with Intuition (Ti-N-S-Fe) on another. Less well-known are a number of loose asides and partial self-identifications given by Jung elsewhere. Adding to our troubles, there is a somewhat strident myth in the Jungian community that Jung has somewhere identified himself as an Introverted Intuitive with Thinking (Ni-T-F-Se) type. But as we shall see, that interpretation owes more to wishful thinking than to anything Jung himself said.
Having reviewed a great deal of material, some of it unpublished, I have never found anything to suggest that Jung ever identified as anything but a Ti-dominant type. At the same time, however, it is nevertheless obvious that Jung as with so much else in his life was at pains to install opaque qualifiers and secret outs in his recorded statements about his own type. Since Jung was so cagey and disobliging, it is not enough to read this or that and then attempt to interpret it in isolation when seeking to understand how Jung saw himself. One must trace the broad contours of his thinking on the matter in order to understand both what he was saying and what he was attempting to hide.
We start at the beginning.
1915: EFs and ITs
Prior to coming up with the present-day scheme of typology as a system of four functions (F, T, S, N) and two orientations (E, I), Jung had collaborated with his colleague Hans Schmid-Guisan on a typology consisting of only two types: The Extroverted Feeler (EF) and Introverted Thinker (IT). As the two freely admit in The Question of Psychological Types, they based their rough typological schemes on their own psychologies: Schmid-Guisan was to be the EF and Jung the IT. These original types were created out of an opposition, formed between just two parties in an intimate microcosmos where it was not possible to see the full view. Of Schmid-Guisans type, John Beebe has said (and we agree) that he was an ENFP (Ne-Fi-Te-Si) type. However, like Jung, Schmid-Guisans personality seemed to possess more than its normal share of quirks, stemming from elements of the psyche outside of type. While certainly no intellectual bystander to Jung in their correspondence, the picture of Schmid-Guisan that emerges from those letters is that of a jovial, intensely caring and enthusiastic personality who lovingly put people at the center of his world. In the tightened duality of just these two personalities, it would therefore be easy for the more brooding and self-centered Jung to conclude that since he was colder than Schmid-Guisan, he must therefore have been his opposite.
Even before the existence of the Intuitive type, then, Jung had formed an impression of himself as a Thinking type. Since the EF/IT system suggested an oppositional scheme between the two types, it is also likely that Jung had not only formed an image of himself as a Thinking dominant type, but also as a type with inferior Feeling. Of course it is still possible that upon discovering the existence of the Intuitive type, Jung took a step back and re-evaluated his previous self-assessment from scratch. But while we cannot be sure, the evidence suggests that he probably did not do so. For example, as I have pointed out in my review of The Question of Psychological Types, much of the terminology that made sense in the EF/IT system of Jung and Schmid-Guisan is carried over into Psychological Types itself with little to no modification. The material pertaining to the old schema of two types (EF/IT) was imported into the new system where it tends to make less sense. It seems to me that just as Jung did not expend much critical thought on how the old material would fit into the new system, so he probably did not take care to seriously consider the possibility of he himself being anything but an IT (Ti-dominant) type at least not until 1925.
What Happened in 1925?
In 1925, Jung gave his famous Seminar on Analytical Psychology, the contents of which were supposedly secret knowledge. In Jungs own lifetime, to be allowed to read the minutes from that seminar required many hours of Jungian analysis as well as Jungs personal permission.
In this seminar, Jung describes a series of complicated personal transformations, involving dreams, mythological considerations, and personal fantasies (so-called active imaginings), which Jung apparently regarded as real (since they were ostensibly messages and lessons sent to him through the Collective Unconscious). Into this highly personal and opaque mix, of which Jung himself says that he is not telling the participants of the seminar everything, Jung throws in some typological terms, which are for the most part applied very loosely. He does say, however, that (in his own opinion) he used to be an ISTP (Ti-S-N-Fe) type until some psychic transformation happened. Jung then continues this murky narrative for quite some time, until he reveals a chart saying that Intuition is now superior. This statement has been taken by theorists such as Beebe, Giannini, and others to mean that Jung now identified as an Ni type with auxiliary thinking. In my opinion, however, there are several problems with such an interpretation; for example, speaking of the chart Jung himself says that it is very much better to leave the figures as they are, namely as events, experiences (and in the very next lecture, he speaks of himself as an Introverted Thinking-dominant type with inferior Feeling again). Therefore, it is in my opinion dangerous to rely on the extraordinarily personal and murky Seminar of 1925 as the sole source of Jungs self-assessment. I have my own opinion of what the 1925 lecture might mean too, of course, but my interpretation will make more sense if viewed alongside Jungs other statements about his type. We set it aside for Part 2.
If Jung Had Known That He Had Misidentified Himself, Would He Have Said so in Interviews?
Let us say, for the sake of argument, that theorists like Beebe and Giannini are right and that Jung actually did change his self-assessment in 1925. If he had done so, would he have publicly admitted that he had had a change of heart? Or would he for some reason or other have continued to claim that he was a Ti type (even if that was not his true view)? Such questions are usually very hard to settle, but there may be a way for us to settle it by proxy, namely by examining the case of how Jung spoke of Alfred Adler.
In Psychological Types, Jung had said of Adler and Freud that:
Freud would like to ensure the undisturbed flow of instinct towards its object; Adler would like to break the baleful spell of the object in order to save the ego from suffocating in its own defensive armour. Freuds view is essentially extraverted, Adlers introverted. The extraverted theory holds good for the extraverted type, the introverted theory for the introverted type.[2]
Now of course, one can argue that Jung is here only talking about their views and not their types, but most people (including Jungians themselves) took this statement (and others like it) to mean that Freud was an E type and Adler an I type.
Psychological Types was published in 1921, but in a private latter, dated 1941, Jung returns to the matter of Freuds and Adlers types:
I discriminate between the ordinary ego-consciousness of the man and his creative personality. Very often there is a striking difference. Personally a creative man can be an introvert, but in his work he is an extravert, and vice versa.
Adler, whom I met as a young man, being of my age, gave me the impression of a neurotic introvert, in which case there is always the doubt as to the definite type.
Freud as well as Adler underwent a change in their personal type.
Adler, I suppose, was never a real introvert, therefore as soon as he had a certain success he began to develop an extraverted behavior. But in his creative work he had the outlook of an introvert. The power complex which both of them had showed in Freuds personal attitude, where it belonged. In Adlers case it became his theory, where it did not belong. This meant an injury to his creative aspect.[3]
(Bear in mind that this was a private letter, not meant for public circulation.) Here, even in spite of hedging his bets by discriminat[ing] between the ordinary ego-consciousness of the man and his creative personality, Jung admits that he now supposes that Adler was never a real introvert. No big problem, since every major theorist in the field of Jungian typology has had to revise and update their assessments, right? Well, perhaps Jung thought otherwise.Adler, I suppose, was never a real introvert, therefore as soon as he had a certain success he began to develop an extraverted behavior. But in his creative work he had the outlook of an introvert. The power complex which both of them had showed in Freuds personal attitude, where it belonged. In Adlers case it became his theory, where it did not belong. This meant an injury to his creative aspect.[3]
In a (public) interview given in 1955, Jung was asked about Freuds and Adlers types:
Interviewer: Youre an introvert.
And Adler?
Jung: He is equally introverted.[4]
So even though Jung had come to the conclusion that Adler was an extrovert, and the interviewer is clearly asking Jung about Adlers personal type (and not Adlers theoretical standpoint), Jung still says that Adler is an introvert. He remains consistent with his previously printed and public views on the matter, even though his private letters reveal that he thought he had probably been wrong about Adler and that he was most likely never a real introvert. So, by extension, if Jung had changed his view of his own type, maybe he would not have said so in public interviews either.
That still leaves the case for Jung self-identifying as INJ rather wobbly, though. In the scholarship on Jungian typology, the majority of theorists have assessed Jung to be an Ni (INJ) type an assessment that we agree with. However, we must be careful not to let our own wishful thinking exude a retroactive influence over the historical record. It may be tempting to bend the evidence to fit ones preferred conclusion, but in all of the instances of Jung discussing his own type that we are aware of, he never identifies as anything but a Ti (ITP) type. Some type practitioners do not like the idea that Jung could have been wrong with regards to his own type, but as the man himself said it is often very difficult to find out whether a person belongs to one type or the other, especially in regard to oneself. In respect of ones own personality ones judgment is as a rule extraordinarily clouded.[5]
Conclusion to Part 1Jung: He is equally introverted.[4]
So even though Jung had come to the conclusion that Adler was an extrovert, and the interviewer is clearly asking Jung about Adlers personal type (and not Adlers theoretical standpoint), Jung still says that Adler is an introvert. He remains consistent with his previously printed and public views on the matter, even though his private letters reveal that he thought he had probably been wrong about Adler and that he was most likely never a real introvert. So, by extension, if Jung had changed his view of his own type, maybe he would not have said so in public interviews either.
That still leaves the case for Jung self-identifying as INJ rather wobbly, though. In the scholarship on Jungian typology, the majority of theorists have assessed Jung to be an Ni (INJ) type an assessment that we agree with. However, we must be careful not to let our own wishful thinking exude a retroactive influence over the historical record. It may be tempting to bend the evidence to fit ones preferred conclusion, but in all of the instances of Jung discussing his own type that we are aware of, he never identifies as anything but a Ti (ITP) type. Some type practitioners do not like the idea that Jung could have been wrong with regards to his own type, but as the man himself said it is often very difficult to find out whether a person belongs to one type or the other, especially in regard to oneself. In respect of ones own personality ones judgment is as a rule extraordinarily clouded.[5]
- Jung had identified himself as an IT type prior to the formation of the present system of types and most likely carried his old self-identification uncritically over into the new system, causing him to identify as a Ti type.
- To our knowledge, at least, Jung has never publicly identified as anything but a Ti (ITP) type. Though he does present a chart in the secret Seminar of 1925, saying that Intuition is superior, there are several problems with simply taking this statement to mean that he now identified as an Ni (INJ) type (see above).
- On the other hand, the theorists who believe that the Seminar of 1925 constitutes proof that Jung had changed his self-assessment to INJ have the point going for them that, judging by Jungs public statements on Adlers type, Jung may not have wanted to admit to the public that he had changed his mind about his own type.
- However, in my opinion (and that of my co-admins) the account given in Seminar of 1925 is still pretty shaky, and need not even mean that Jung identified as INJ. There is another interpretation that makes just as much sense, which we shall see in the next part of this series.
REFERENCES
[1] Jung, quoted in Bair: Jung (Little, Brown and Company 2003) p.640
[2] Jung: Psychological Types §91
[3] Jung: Letters vol. 1 (Princeton University Press 1973) p. 301
[4] Jung: C.G. Jung Speaking (Princeton University Press 1987) p. 257
[5] Jung: Psychological Types §91
What Jung Said About Himself
By Ryan Smith
In Part 1 of this series, we saw that:
- Jung, when asked in public, always said he was a Ti (ITP) type.
- There is a secret seminar where Jung identifies his Intuition as superior.
- Some theorists take this to mean that Jung secretly identified as an Ni (INJ) type.
- Jung was not always honest about his own type assessments in interviews.
Here in Part 2, we are going to present and discuss all of Jungs statements about his own type.
1915-1916: The Question of Psychological Types
As we saw in Part 1, Jung originally developed typology as a system of only two types (EF and IT) along with his colleague Hans Schmid-Guisan. As with the modern-day (two orientations, four functions) system of typology, this early system also characterized the introvert as retaining a subjective disposition towards exterior occurrences while the extrovert was thought to be more objective in his attitude.
Of the two types available at this time, Jung identified himself as the IT type:
as I am one of those people who must a priori always have a viewpoint before being able to enter into something, I could not be assured by simply going ahead in my personal relations
[1]
As I belong to that category of people who never take the element of feeling sufficiently into account, as opposed to the intellect [i.e. Thinking] A man of your kind, however, who is as much devoted to feeling as I am to the intellect [2]
As I belong to that category of people who never take the element of feeling sufficiently into account, as opposed to the intellect [i.e. Thinking] A man of your kind, however, who is as much devoted to feeling as I am to the intellect [2]
So in the EF/IT duality, Jung strongly identifies with the IT type, while regarding his correspondent, Schmid-Guisan, as an equally strong exemplar of the EF type.
1919: Personal Letter to Sabina Spielrein
In the years between 1916 and 1921, the F/T dichotomy was eventually complemented by the discovery of the S/N dichotomy. As a historical aside, there seems to be considerable disagreement as to who discovered this dichotomy. What is clear beyond all doubt is that the Dutch analyst Maria Moltzer gave a talk advocating N as its own function (or type) in 1916 (and even Jung credits the discovery of the N function to her).[3] On the other hand, the Jung biographer Deirdre Bair has also made discoveries indicating that the S/N dichotomy could have been discovered even earlier by Hans Schmid-Guisan. Furthermore, Jungs assistant and personal successor, C.A. Meier, has offered statements to the effect that the S/N dichotomy was in fact discovered or developed by Jungs lover and fellow Jungian analyst Toni Wolff, going as far as to say that she may have written considerable parts of Psychological Typesunder Jungs name.
As I have detailed in previous writings, and as numerous people who were personal acquaintances of Jung have attested, Jung was not above stealing other peoples ideas and passing them off as his own. This makes it hard to determine who discovered or developed the S/N dichotomy, though it seems certain that the honor does not belong to Jung. In my opinion, the idea of N as a function or type was most likely conceived by Moltzer or Schmid-Guisan (or both) around 1916 and then developed into a definite dichotomy by Toni Wolff or Jung (or both) in the period between 1917-1921. This is what the evidence suggests and would moreover fit well with their personal types of ENP (Moltzer and Schmid-Guisan) and INJ (Jung and Wolff) though strictly speaking, one should not assign such determinative power to typology.
In any case, in 1919, while the four functions/two orientations scheme was being finalized, Jung sent a personal letter to his former patient and lover Sabina Spielrein. Though some writers have suspected that Jung also passed off some of her ideas as his own, I have not personally seen any evidence to that effect with regards to typology.[4] At any rate, in 1919 Spielrein and Jung were living in different countries, yet still exchanged letters from time to time. In one of these letters, Jung reports on the development of his typology, and notes down the following:
Bleuler and Freud are extravert. Nietzsche and Jung introvert. Goethe is intuitive and extravert. Schiller is intuitive and introvert.[5]
(It is worth noting that Jung eventually seemed to settle for Goethe as an Fe-N-S-Ti type and Schiller as a Ti-N-S-Fe type, and hence not as Intuitive types, which this letter might otherwise be taken to imply.)[6] With regards to Jungs own type, however, he simply identifies as an introvert here.1921: Psychological Types
Although Jung does not explicitly declare his own type in Psychological Types, he does drop a few hints. Under the heading Summary of the Extraverted Rational Types, Jung states the following:
I call the two preceding types [Thinking and Feeling] rational or judging types because they are characterized by the supremacy of the reasoning and judging functions.
But I am willing to grant that one could equally well conceive and present such a psychology from precisely the opposite angle. I am also convinced that, had I myself chanced to possess a different psychology, I would have described the rational types in the reverse way, from the standpoint of the unconscious as irrational, therefore.[7]
As usual in the professional writings of Jung, we get that fleeting vagueness and ambiguity of phrase which many of his readers have complained about and which Jung himself would be the first to admit (and even praise) about himself.[8] Certain well-known names in the field of typology seem to have read Psychological Types and come away with the impression that Jung does not identify as any particular type in that book. However, I cannot see how one can take the above passage to mean anything but that Jung identifies as a Thinking or Feeling dominant type in the above passage.
1925: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925
We come now to the infamous Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925, which we also touched upon in part 1 of this series. Here, Jung first identifies as a Ti-S-N-Fe type:
As a natural scientist, thinking and sensation were uppermost in me and intuition and feeling were in the unconscious and contaminated by the collective unconscious.
Sensation as an auxiliary function would allow intuition to exist. But inasmuch as sensation (in the example) is a partisan of the intellect [i.e. Thinking], intuition sides with feeling, here the inferior function.[9]
So Jung identifies as an Introverted Thinking type with auxiliary Sensation (of an unspecified orientation).[10]
So Jung identifies as an Introverted Thinking type with auxiliary Sensation (of an unspecified orientation).[10]
It all seems clear enough, so why the multiple scholarly headaches over Seminar of 1925? Well, for one thing, because later in the seminar Jung identifies as a different type:
As I am an introverted intellectual [i.e. Thinking type], my anima contains feeling [that is] quite blind. In my case, the anima contains not only Salome [i.e. Feeling], but also some of the serpent, which is sensation as well.
Feeling-sensation is in opposition to the conscious intellect plus intuition, but the balance is insufficient.[11]
Feeling-sensation is in opposition to the conscious intellect plus intuition, but the balance is insufficient.[11]
As noted, Jung used intellect as a synonym for the thinking functions (although this parlance is no longer in use today).[12] Concerning the admins opinion here on the site, we personally think that all types have the ability to be intellectual, and that Jungs use of intellectual as a synonym for Thinking seems to break the stated aim of crafting a psychological typology in favor of the more straightforward, William James-like approach to typology where mental contents are prioritized over cognitive structures.
In the seminar, Jung tells the story of a dream or vision he had, which supposedly caused his type to change. At any rate, where Jung first said he identified as a Ti-S-N-F type, he now says that he identifies as another type. But which type is implied? Opinions are divided here.
In my assessment, it is clear enough that Feeling is still identified as the inferior function. However, this reading flies in the face of the interpretation of the American typologist John Beebe and others, who have used the passage to argue that Jungs new type after the vision should be that of an Ni-T-F-Se type.[13] As far as I understand it, Beebe et al. base their interpretation on a diagram furnished by Jung himself, which says that after the vision, his Intuition is now superior.[14] However, in my opinion, Beebe et al. are reading too much into this claim, since superior does not necessarily mean dominant. Recall, in fact, that in Latin, superior merely means above. Square this with Jungs ubiquitous fondness for Latinisms (and his considerable proficiency with Latin) and the reading that Jung changed his self-assessment from Ti-S-N-Fe to Ti-N-S-Fe seems much better supported by the entirety of the text.
Some readers might then ask why Jung should be cautious to identify as someone whose Intuition was superior to his Sensation, since in modern typology, Intuition is commonly perceived as being more attractive and alluring than Sensation. The answer is that Jung did not view the matter this way. He saw Sensation as being synonymous with empiricism and science, whereas Intuition was a slightly mad form of psychic adaption; one that the younger and middle-aged Jung certainly did not wish to apply to himself. That this is so can be seen, among other things, in Jungs own phrasing that as a scientist, thinking and sensation predominated in him (emphasis added). As the Jung biographer Gary Lachman has pointed out, Jung held grave doubts about his status as a scientist vis-à-vis poet or artist and desperately wanted to be the former. It was not easy for him to square his preference for Intuition with the way he wished to present himself. (Naturally, Jungs take on typology here implies that ones vocation dictates ones type to a very large degree and that type can change two claims that few modern typologists would agree with.)
C.G. Jung (1934 / published 1988): Nietzsches Zarathustra: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1934-1939
Next is Jungs seminar on Nietzsche. When Jung started developing the theory of psychological types in 1916, he first suspected that he might be the same type as Nietzsche. However, by the time he published Psychological Types, Jung had come to believe that Nietzsche was an Ni-Ti-Fe-Se type (whereas Jung thought of himself as some variant of Ti-dominant type).
In the seminar on Nietzsche, Jung says the following of Nietzsches type:
I have heard of mothers wanting to be paid for their love only too often. Nietzsche had not because he was a man with very developed intuition and intellect [i.e. Thinking], but his feeling developed slowly.[15]
Now Jung is of course speaking of Nietzsche here, but a logical reading of the above quote entails that Jung is unwittingly implying that he is someone with better Feeling than Nietzsche (I have heard of X, but Nietzsche had not because his Feeling was undeveloped). However, as readers of Jung will know, Jung frequently utters statements that, if thought through logically, would imply some conclusion that it is fairly obvious that Jung did not wish to make. So while Jung may technically be saying that his Feeling is better than Nietzsches (which was in his opinion tertiary), one should probably avoid taking him at his word here.
C.G. Jung (1957): The Houston Films
Another instance where Jung speaks of his type is found in the Houston Films. Here Jung says:
I saw first the introverted and extraverted attitudes, then the functional aspects, then which of the four functions is predominant. Now mind you, these four functions were not a scheme I had invented and applied to psychology. On the contrary, it took me quite a long time to discover that there is another type than the thinking type, as I thought my type to be of course, that is human. It is not. There are other people who decide the same problems I have to decide, but in an entirely different way. They look at things in an entirely different light, they have entirely different values. There are, for instance, feeling types. And after a while I discovered that there are intuitive types. They gave me much trouble. It took me over a year to become clearer about the existence of intuitive types. And the last, and the most unexpected, was the sensation type. And only later I saw that these are naturally the four aspects of conscious orientation.[16]
The use of past tense adds another layer of ambiguity to Jungs record. The thinking type, as I thought my type to be But as we have seen, Jung never identified as anything but a Thinking type. So unless the past tense is utilized because he opts to speak of the whole affair of typology in the past tense (which is possible), Jung here adds another trap door or secret escape to avoid professing his type in public. Now why might that be? We will look further into that question in later sections of this series.
C.G. Jung (1959): The Face to Face Interview
In Jungs televised interview with the BBC, we get what is perhaps the most famous of Jungs statements on his own psychological type. When asked by the interviewer, Jung answered as follows:
[Interviewer: Have you concluded what psychological type you are yourself?]
Jung: Naturally I have devoted a great deal of attention to that painful question, you know!
[Interviewer: And reached a conclusion?]
Jung: Well, you see, the type is nothing static. It changes in the course of life, but I most certainly was characterized by thinking. I always thought, from early childhood on and I had a great deal of Intuition, too. And I had a definite difficulty with feeling. And my relation to reality was not particularly brilliant. I was often at variance with the reality of things. Now that gives you all the necessary data for diagnosis![17]
Jung: Naturally I have devoted a great deal of attention to that painful question, you know!
[Interviewer: And reached a conclusion?]
Jung: Well, you see, the type is nothing static. It changes in the course of life, but I most certainly was characterized by thinking. I always thought, from early childhood on and I had a great deal of Intuition, too. And I had a definite difficulty with feeling. And my relation to reality was not particularly brilliant. I was often at variance with the reality of things. Now that gives you all the necessary data for diagnosis![17]
The reason Jung refers to himself in the past tense here is fairly clearly because he is speaking of his own type at the time where he was breaking with Freud and coming to terms with this development by writing Psychological Types. So what is important to note is that Jung is not answering what type he is now, at the time of the interview in 1959, but rather what type he was from ca. 1913 (the break with Freud) to 1921 (the publication of Psychological Types).
In spite of Jungs coy finale saying that this gives us all the necessary data for diagnosis the statement has nevertheless caused confusion and has of course been endlessly debated. How can we interpret it? It has everywhere been taken to mean that Jungs two uppermost functions are Thinking and Intuition according to himself, and that his two lowermost functions must be Feeling and Sensation. Yet beyond that, there is wide disagreement. For example, in their Submission Guidelines for authors writing on psychological type, the Center for the Application of Psychological Type detail Jungs type to be INTP or INTJ, meaning either a thinking type or an intuitive type.[18]
With regards to Jungs statement, I propose that the following reading comes closest to what he is trying to say: He identifies as a Thinking dominant type. Being most certainly characterized by thinking must trump having a great deal of intuition too. I cannot imagine how anyone could in good faith conceive the statement to mean that Jung is here ascribing greater weight to his Intuition than to his Thinking.
As for the next part of the statement that Jung had a definite difficulty with Feeling and that his relation to reality was not particularly brilliant no one interpretation stands out as more salient than its contenders. The part about his relation to reality can either be taken to mean that Jung is identifying as an introvert or that he is denigrating his Sensation function. In my opinion, the latter interpretation makes more sense given Jungs general mode of expression when speaking about typology.
However, since we have established that Jung identifies as a Thinking dominant type in the first part of his statement, and there is nothing in this second part of the statement of equal lucidity, we should conclude that Jungs inferior function is Feeling, as Jung himself advises us to do in A Psychological Theory of Types, and indeed, in every other place that he talked about his type besides.[19]
Thus, the function order that Jung professes here must necessarily be: Thinking Intuition Sensation Feeling. It is unclear whether Jung alludes to his introversion or not, so strictly speaking we cannot say that he is identifying as either an introvert or an extrovert in the statement above. However, as Jung has identified himself as an introvert on numerous occasions, both before and after, and never as an extrovert, it is reasonable to couple Jungs self-assessment as a Thinking type on this occasion with his consistent self-assessment as an introvert, as he did on numerous other occasions.[20]
So Jung (again) identifies as an introverted Thinking type. The remaining orientations of Jungs functions go unspecified in the interview, but according to Jungs own schema of function orientations in Psychological Types, the complete orientation of his functions would be either Ti-Ni-Se-Fe or Ti-Ne-Se-Fe.[21]
(1961): E.A. Bennets C.G. Jung
A short and simple biography of Jung was published by his personal friend shortly after Jungs death. According to Bennet, Jung read the manuscript and made many suggestions and corrections.[22] Bennets text, which is supposedly approved by Jung himself, says that Jung has the psychology of the introverted Thinking type.[23]
But then Bennet also says that Jung thought Freud was an extroverted feeling type (a claim which Jung supposedly would then also have approved).[24] As far as we know, however, Jung never thought of Freud as an extroverted feeling type, but rather thought him a Sensation type in A Contribution to Psychological Types in 1913 (if one can even speak of such a type with regards to the state of the theory in 1913).[25] Later still, in the 1950s, Jung revised his assessment of Freuds type so that he now regarded him an introverted Feeling type, albeit one who falsely pretended to be an an extraverted thinker and empiricist.[26]
In other words, while the claim that Jung saw himself as a Ti type is unlikely to raise any eyebrows, there is nothing anywhere in the records to suggest that Jung ever thought of Freud as an extroverted Feeling type. Indeed, as has been revealed with the publication of Jungs letters, Jung rather thought of Freud as an introverted Feeling type. The type claims in Bennets book do not seem reliable, and on the whole it seems more likely that either Jung was negligent in reviewing Bennets book or Jung did not really review the whole of the manuscript. Personally, Bennet strikes me as trustworthy, whereas (as even Jung scholars have to admit) Jungs record is less than stellar when it comes to factual reality and telling the truth. Indeed, for my part, I concur with Freuds characterization that there is a kernel of dishonesty in [Jungs] being. The most likely scenario, to my mind, is that Jung did approve the book, but did not bank on Bennet telling the public that Jung had actually put his stamp of approval upon the text, but I admit that this is no more than an educated extrapolation.
Conclusion
- Thus, from a review of all of Jungs statements about his own type, we can conclude that Jung never identified as anything but a Ti type with inferior Fe.
- Jung did, however, identify as Ti-S-N-Fe in early life, an assessment he had changed to Ti-N-S-Fe by 1925.
- However, while Jung never identified as anything but a Ti type, he was always coy and ambiguous in the way he talked about his own type. Some of this ambiguity must be chalked up to Jungs general lack of conceptual clarity, but even allowing for that, Jung still seems especially reluctant to simply present the details of his self-assessment.
- Many (or perhaps even most) modern typologists hold that Jung somehow identified as an Ni type, since he was obviously an Intuitive. The critics are likely correct that Jung is an Intuitive type, but that does not entail that Jung ever said that he was (or thought of himself as such). And as we have seen, none of Jungs own self-assessments have him identifying as an Intuitive type. In the absence of more textual arguments, the contention of those typologists who hold that Jung identified as an Ni type with inferior Se must be regarded as wishful thinking.
REFERENCES
[1] Jung, in Jung & Schmid-Guisan: The Question of Psychological Types (Princeton University Press 2013) p. 40
[2] Jung, in Jung & Schmid-Guisan: The Question of Psychological Types p. 41
[3] Jung: Psychological Types §773n68
[4] Skea: Sabina Spielrein: Out from the Shadow of Jung and Freud (Journal of Analytical Psychology 2006)
[5] Jung, quoted in Covington & Wharton: Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis (Brunner Routledge 2003) p. 58
[6] Jung: Psychological Types §104
[7] Jung: Psychological Types §601
[8] Jung, quoted in Shamdasani: Jung Stripped Bare (Karnac Books 2004) p. 48
[9] Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 (Princeton University Press 1991) p. 69
[10] Jung seems to be implying Ti-Si-Ne-Fe; however, in Psychological Types §637, Jung had seemed to imply Ti-Se-Ne-Fe as the general rule.
[11] Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 p. 100
[12] Jung: Psychological Types §540
[13] Actually, in Beebes system an INTJ (Ni-Te-Fi-Se-Ne-Ti-Fe-Si) type.
[14] Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 p. 97
[15] Jung: Nietzsches Zarathustra (Princeton University Press 1988) p. 1043
[16] Jung, in McGuire & Hull: C.G. Jung Speaking p. 341
[17] Jung, in McGuire & Hull: C.G. Jung Speaking p. 435-6
[18] CAPT: Submission Guidelines (Capt.org) p. 27
[19] The one-sided emphasis on thinking is always accompanied by an inferiority of feeling, and differentiated sensation is injurious to intuition and vice versa. Jung: Psychological Types §955
[20] Of course, given Jungs qualification that the type is nothing static. It changes in the course of life, it is theoretically possible, though highly unlikely, that Jung is conceiving of himself as an extroverted thinker in 1959, and then as an introverted thinker before and after that. A further instance of Jung assessing himself to be an introvert: After this break I had with Freud I found myself completely isolated. This, however disadvantageous it may have been, had also an advantage for me as an introvert. Jung: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925 p. 25
[21] Jung: Psychological Types §637
[22] Bennet: C.G. Jung (Barrie and Rockliff, 1961) p. viii
[23] Bennet: C.G. Jung p. 18
[24] Bennet: C.G. Jung p. viii
[25] Jung: A Contribution to Psychological Types, included as an appendix to Psychological Types, §880 says: This is the theory of Freud, which is strictly limited to empirical facts, and traces back complexes to their antecedents and to more simple elements. It regards psychological life as consisting in large measure of reactions, and accords the greatest role to sensation.
[26] Jung, quoted in Kaufmann: Discovering the Mind: Freud, Adler, and Jung (Transaction Publishers 1992) p. 311