I wanted to add a few quotes from my notes of the Jung podcast today. It was the first of a series of three on typology and a bit significant. First Jung from vol 6 of his collected works:
"Even in medical circles the opinion has got about that my method of treatment consists in fitting patients into the system and giving them corresponding advice. My typology is far rather a critical apparatus serving to sort out and to organize the welter of empirical material, but not in any sense to stick labels on people. It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimiting of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical."
And from Darrel Sharp:
"Type tests do not show the extent to which one's type may have been falsified or perverted by familial and environmental factors. They say nothing about the way in which one's usual way of functioning may be determined by complexes and they do not reflect the ever-present compensating attitude of the unconscious. In addition, the person taking the test may be using one of the secondary or auxiliary functions to answer the questions of indeed responding out of the shadow or persona. Above all, type tests do not take into account the experiential reality that a person's typological preference can change over time."
John Bebe:
""It has not always been clear to students of Jung's analytical psychology what his famous types are types of. The commonest assumption has been that they refer to types of people. But for Jung, they were types of consciousness, that is, characteristic orientations assumed by the ego in establishing and discriminating an individual's inner and outer reality. For psychotherapists, an understanding of these different natural cognitive stances can be invaluable in the daily work of supporting the basic strengths of their client's personalities, and of helping a particular consciousness to recognize its inherent limitations. The understanding of individual differences communicated on the basis of this theory can reduce a client's shame at areas of relative ego-weakness and diminish the client's need to buttress the ego with strong defenses that complicate treatment."
So there you have it. These types of popular tests have been removed from their original context, being taken as tools for finding more concrete labels instead of for indicating the present orientations of the ego which, through the process of individuation can sometimes shift. They don't take into account that the answers might reflect various structures of the unconscious or that a less dominant function might have been applied to the test. The author of the podcast said that in analysis, he'll often use his own judgement to assess an individual's type and keep in mind that it can shift over time.
Dauer
"Even in medical circles the opinion has got about that my method of treatment consists in fitting patients into the system and giving them corresponding advice. My typology is far rather a critical apparatus serving to sort out and to organize the welter of empirical material, but not in any sense to stick labels on people. It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimiting of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical."
And from Darrel Sharp:
"Type tests do not show the extent to which one's type may have been falsified or perverted by familial and environmental factors. They say nothing about the way in which one's usual way of functioning may be determined by complexes and they do not reflect the ever-present compensating attitude of the unconscious. In addition, the person taking the test may be using one of the secondary or auxiliary functions to answer the questions of indeed responding out of the shadow or persona. Above all, type tests do not take into account the experiential reality that a person's typological preference can change over time."
John Bebe:
""It has not always been clear to students of Jung's analytical psychology what his famous types are types of. The commonest assumption has been that they refer to types of people. But for Jung, they were types of consciousness, that is, characteristic orientations assumed by the ego in establishing and discriminating an individual's inner and outer reality. For psychotherapists, an understanding of these different natural cognitive stances can be invaluable in the daily work of supporting the basic strengths of their client's personalities, and of helping a particular consciousness to recognize its inherent limitations. The understanding of individual differences communicated on the basis of this theory can reduce a client's shame at areas of relative ego-weakness and diminish the client's need to buttress the ego with strong defenses that complicate treatment."
So there you have it. These types of popular tests have been removed from their original context, being taken as tools for finding more concrete labels instead of for indicating the present orientations of the ego which, through the process of individuation can sometimes shift. They don't take into account that the answers might reflect various structures of the unconscious or that a less dominant function might have been applied to the test. The author of the podcast said that in analysis, he'll often use his own judgement to assess an individual's type and keep in mind that it can shift over time.
Dauer
