Within psychology, little interest is nowadays shown in the study of psychological types. In recent introductions into psychology, psychological typologies (like those of Kretschmer, Sheldon and Heymans) are hardly mentioned.

Preface

Within psychology, little interest is nowadays shown in the study of psychological types. In recent introductions into psychology, psychological typologies (like those of Kretschmer, Sheldon and Heymans) are hardly mentioned. Maybe this is the main reason why relatively little attention is paid to the work of Carl Gustav Jung involving psychological types.

The first part of this paper consists of a short survey of the substance of Jung's typology theory. Special attention is paid to the relations between the four types which are basic to that theory. Hereby (and this is new) these four basic types are translated in terms of two polarities: the polarity introversion/extraversion and the polarity yin/yang. This implies that, in terms of a basic personality description, it is not only important to question whether that person is more introverted or more extraverted, but also whether that person is more yin or more yang.

Furthermore, a relation is laid between Jung's typological model and his model of the Self, as Jung describes it in his book "Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self". By regarding the four basic functions as the building stones of the Self, Jung's notions 'Individuation' and 'Self' gain in meaning; moreover, the relation between Jung's book "Psychological Types" and his other work becomes clearer.

The core of Jung's typology

Basically, Jung's typology is simple. Jung bases his typology on four functions of consciousness, namely: feeling, thinking, intuition and sensation.

Feeling and thinking form a polarity, just as intuition and sensation do. According to Jung, people are equal to the extent that every person possesses these four basic functions. Differences between individuals are based on the fact that the influence of each basic type is of a different strength within each person.

From this reasoning, Jung comes to the following four basic types of persons:

1. the feeling type
2. the thinking or rational type
3. the intuitive or contemplative type
4. the sensational or pragnatic type

Every person can be classified according to one of these four basic types. The person's basic type determines the typical way of experiencing and valuating reality. Before going further into the theoretical aspects of the basic functions and relations between them, the types are briefly described in terms of behaviour, which for example can be observed during a meeting. This way a quick understanding of the four basic types, the foundations of Jung's typology, is obtained.

The feeling type focuses himself particularly on the feelings that exist between people. He attaches importance to fine relations between the members of the assembly. It is the type that wants to keep people together. Results are of less importance.

The rational type focuses himself particularly on substantial research results. He is the type that wants to have a firm, objective and analytic research to be done before he decides anything.

The intuitive or contemplative type wants to see the subject of the meeting in a larger, more inclusive and strategic context. This type hates rash action, and is as such opposite to the next type.

The sensational or pragmatic type wants to actually put something into effect, and do it as fast as possible. In the end there will be time enough for things to be reflected.

Each type, seen from its own point of view, is in the right; each type represents an essential dimension of reality. Many conflicts and tensions between people can be brought back to differences in the way people look at reality and value reality. According to Jung's model, the rational type is mainly apprehensive of the feeling type, while the intuitive type is rather apprehensive of the sensational type and vice versa.

The four basic functions in relation to each other

So the four basic functions on which Jung bases his typology relate to eachother as polarities.

A lot has been said about the polarity feeling—thinking; it is a familiar polar opposition. This does not hold for the intuition -sensation polarity. For a good understanding of the functions of intuition and sensation, it is important to take note of Jung's remarks on intuition. According to Jung, intuition (next to sensation) is a feature of the psychology of the child. In Jung's words: "She (intuition) offers the child the ability to perceive mythological images (the pre- phase of ideas) which are opposite to the sensational impressions of the child" (Jung 1975, p.375). Next to the sensational impressions like cold, moistness and pain, the child also experiences all kinds of (psychic) images, that present themselves in a sort of dreamworld. The intuitive function could thus be described as the image-creating (fantasy) function, a counterweight to the physical or sensational function. This way, the polarity intuition sensation refers to the well-known polarity spirit -body or psyche -matter.

If you look at it this way, the intuition's image-creating spiritual function stands opposite to the sensation's physical function, even though they belong together.

Put in a scheme:

	Intuition (spirit)
Feeling (soul)		Thinking (mind)
	Sensation (body)

What is important here is the fact that the polarity feeling - thinking is a mirror image of the polarity intuition — sensation. To put it differently: the function of feeling resembles the function of intuition; thus the function of thinking resembles the function of sensation. Feelings, like psychic images and ideas are, so to speak, created according to other principles than thoughts and sensations. Thoughts and sensations are constructed step by step. This is not the case with ideas and intuitions.

An intuition (meaning insight) breaks through in the form of a Aha-Erlebnis, and after that, something has changed, but how it happened is not easily rendered in an exact, logical way. The same goes for feelings. Feelings and intuitions are formed, one could say, in a more holistic way.

This difference between on the one hand feelings and ideas and on the other thoughts and sensations, resembles the difference that is made by Ornstein between intuitive and rational consciousness in his book on the human consciousness [Ornstein 1974, p.79]. To characterise this distinction, Ornstein uses the following notions:

Intuitive Consciousness	Rational Consciousness
holistic (Gestalt)	analytic
global	specific
diffuse	focal
analogical	logical
parallel	serial
receptive	active
involuntary	arbitrary
yin	yang

From now on in this article, the notions yin and yang are used to distinguish between the functions of intuition and feeling and the functions of sensation and thinking. In principle, one could use notions like receptive versus active (structuring) or holistic versus analytic. In this context it is interesting to see how in an American questionnaire, which is totally based on Jung's typology (the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), the notions 'perceiving' and 'judging' are used, which have a lot in common with the notions receptive and active. According to the introduction to this questionnaire, 'perceiving people' prefer a more receptive attitude towards reality, whereas 'judging people' prefer a more structuring and organising attitude [Myers, 1989].

The notions yin and yang are chosen, because they (can) imply more meanings. Yin and yang are rather abstract notions. Furthermore, they suggest that the one pole can never be disconnected from the other one: there is something of yin in yang and something of yang in yin. Something to that effect perhaps also accounts for the functions that Jung distinguishes.

If we then look at the functions of feeling and sensation on the one hand and the functions of thinking and intuition on the other, we could call the first pair the extraverted functions (directed towards the outside) and the second pair the introverted functions (directed towards the inside).

By means of feelings and sensations, man is able to be in direct contact with actual reality; by means of his ideas and thoughts man distances himself from actual reality. This corresponds with the distinction that Van Raalten makes in his book 'Individualiteit' between, on the one hand, consciousness of experience and, on the other, consciousness of thought [Van Raalten 1984, p.99]. Van Raalten further makes a distinction within consciousness of thought between practical mind and reason, where reason resembles the dimension of intuition or the world of ideas and 'practical mind' resembles Jung's dimension of thinking.

So the four basic types of consciousness functions can be characterised by means of the notions yin and yang and the notions introversion extraversion. If one would like to ascribe these notions to the separate functions, one could call the function of feeling the more extraverted function and the function of thinking the more introverted one. Besides, the function of intuition can be characterised as the more yin function and the function of sensation as the more yang function. This becomes clear when the four functions are translated into terms of basic attitudes that one can have towards reality.

Emotion—extraverted attitude:
subjective, personal, involved, emotional

Thinking- introverted attitude:
objective, non-personal, distant, rational

Intuition -yin attitude:
passive -receptive, non-intervenient, intuitive

Sensation -yang attitude:
active- structuring, intervenient, sensational

The attribution of the notion yin to the function of intuition can also be understood from the fact that the autonomous function of intuition, which creates ideas and images, asks for a passive-receptive or non-active (yin) attitude. On the other hand, action and the urge to structure (a yang attitude) is important for acquiring sensations.

Furthermore, one can say that man is aimed at the outside world via the function of feeling (feeling is pre-eminently an extraverted, outgoing function), and at the inside world via the function of thinking. Thinking needs a quiet place to work. Besides that, thinking, compared to intuition, is more of an active structuring than a passive receptive occupation.

If we look at the way Jung uses the notions intoversion and extraversion in his book 'Psychological Types', we can see that Jung separates these notions from the basic functions.

Jung uses these notions to get from four to eight types by discriminating within each basic type a more introverted and a more extraverted variant. In the following scheme, another differentiation is shown, namely a differentation in terms of the adjacent functions.

Intuitional type	Sensational type
1. Extraverted variant	3. Extraverted variant
2. Introverted variant	4. Introverted variant
Thinking type	Feeling type
5. Yin variant	7. Yin variant
6. Yang variant	8. Yang variant

In this scheme, a distinction is being made between a more extraverted and a more introverted intuitional type (1+2 in the scheme above) and a more extraverted and introvered sensational type (3+4). Furthermore, a distinction is being made between a more yin and a more yang thinking type (5+6) and a more yin and a more yang feeling type (7+8). From the idea that the notions introversion-extraversion and the notions yin-yang resemble eachother (and, like the basic types, are eachother's mirror image), this is not so different from Jung's ideas.

Instead of talking about an introverted and extraverted variant, one could also talk, from the bounding of these notions to the functions, about a more rational and a more feeling variant, or in the case of an intuitional type, about an intuitional type that has rational thinking as the supportive function and an intuitional type that has feeling as the supportive fuction. This corresponds nicely to Jung's idea of a secondary or supportive function with every major function [Jung 1975, p.336].

Finally, one could combine Jung's eight types and typological orientations or basic life attitudes, like those that Lievegoed distinguishes in his book 'De levensloop van de mens' (1977) and Holland in his book 'Making vocational choices' (1973).

Below, a typological orientation is given per type.

1. feeling intuition type: (artistic) expressive orientation
2. thinking intuition type: (theoretical) philosophical orientation
3. feeling sensation type: (commercial) enterprising orientation
4. thinking sensation type: (executive) organising orientation
5. intuitive thinking type: (administrative) controlling orientation
6. sensational thinking type: (research) investigating orientation
7. intuitive feeling type: (social) caring orientation
8. sensational feeling type: (technical) crafts orientation

Returning to the heart of the matter: this article focuses on the idea of coupling the notions yin and yang and the notions introversion and extraversion to Jung's basic functions. If this coupling is correct, two polarities or questions must be applied for the description of someone's personality: the question whether a person has a more introverted or more extraverted nature, and the question whether that person has a more yin or a more yang nature. These notions are the more abstract expressions of the basic functions. The fact that this doesn't mean that someone is determined for good, becomes clearer when Jung's typology and his idea of the process of individuation are coupled, which is the theme of the next paragraph.

The relation with Jung's notions 'Individuation' and 'Self'

Jung has written an entire book on the notion 'Self', which takes an important place in his thinking. According to Jung, the Self is "the objective whole, the antithesis of the subjective ego psyche or the archetype that underlies ego- consciousness" [Jung 1979, p.222]. The ego, following this description, is subordinate to the Self. In his book on "the concept of the Self", Jung indicates what important symbolisms from ancient (alchemist) documents, belong to the Self.

Important symbolisms of the Self are the circle, the quaternity and the cross. In Jung's words: "the circle and quaternity symbolism appears as a principe of order, which depicts the union of warring opposites" [Jung 1979, p.195]. It is rather obvious when reading 'quaternity' and 'warring opposites' to think of the distinction between the four basic functions of Jung's typology. When these basic functions are seen as the elements of the Self, this notion gains more significance.

From the idea that the four basic functions of consciousness are the elements of the Self, one can define the Self as the state in which the four basic elements or functions of consciousness form a unity or are in balance. The ego is then the state in which there is an imbalance between the functions in a person, in the sense that certain functions dominate at the cost of other functions. In the model of the basic functions, one could place the ego and the Self on the intersection between the basic functions. This way the ego and the Self form the fifth element on which everything turns (the quintessence).

One could say that every human being starts his life from the Self-consciousness, and then returns via the situation of the ego-consciousness to the situation of the Self-consciousness, but on a higher (more conscious) level (it is possible to think of 'returning to being a child' here, but in a more aware way). Translated to the model of basic functions, this means that initially these functions are evenly balanced in a human being, but at the start of the ego-consciousness (approximately the first year of life), an imbalance occurs within that person, which eventually has to be solved. The human being has to return to oneness or individuation.

Jung claims that this process takes place at the age of about fourty. As a rule, people of that age have strongly developed their characteristic function, but that doesn't complete the case. At that time, a person feels that he is missing something or has neglected certain important matters. In the case of a rational type it is mainly the feeling function that has been underdeveloped; in the case of the intuitive type it is the sensational function. This underdeveloped function can also be described by Jung's notion 'a persons's shadow'. The integration of a person's shadow can be a difficult process. The so-called 'midlife' crisis can probably be reduced to this, next to other legitimate explanations.

The more the polar functions have been separated (dissociated), the more difficult this integration is. For example, the intuitive type can be alienated from the concrete physical reality in such a way, that it loses every contact with reality and gets stuck in a sort of ideal or fantasy world (schizophrenia). The opposite holds for the sensational type. This type runs the risk of being absorbed by all kinds of sensational stimuli in such a way that it loses every contact with the deeper spiritual layer in itself. What is important when integrating an underdeveloped function, is to find a new centre in oneself that is broader than the ego, and from where tensions in the ego can be transcended. One can call this the Self, or, in Jung's words: "the archetype that underlies ego-consciousness".

It can be said of this Self-consciousness that humanity as a whole is growing towards it with difficulty, just like the time when humanity grew towards the ego-consciousness. And like every child that reaches by itself the ego-consciousness, every human being could perhaps in the future reach Self- consciousness by itself. Our starting point is then that the ego-consciousness and the Self-consciousness are phases in the consciousness-evolution of mankind, and that every human being is walking through this evolution in fast motion (the so called recapitulation theory in developmental psychology).

© Jasper Razenberg 2000. The Netherlands.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

{/viewonly}