Resource References (from "Course Resources" thread)

1. Tracking the Elusive Human, Chapter One: "A Capsule Summary of the Eight Types"

2. Living Together, Loving Together: Chapter Eight

3. Psychological Types slideshow: slide nine.

For those of you who already have familiarity with Jung's psychological types via the Meyers-Briggs test and other resources, this will seem like more review material. We will be going into deeper material in future conferences, so hang in there. For now, however, we need to slowly build a foundation of understanding.

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So far, we have discussed the two attitudes -- Extraversion and Introversion -- and the four functions -- Sensation, iNtuition, Thinking and Feeling. The next piece is to see how they work together, and I think slide nine of the slideshow gives the clearest picture of this.

The key point, here, is that E and I work through the Four Functions; there is no E and I apart from or independently of the functions, as Perceiving (S and N) and Judging (T and F) pretty well sum up what goes on in our consciousness.

We introduce here the term, Primary Type. This refers to which function (S, N, T or F) you have most strongly developed, and whether this function is more Introverted or Extraverted. The four functions multiplied by the two attitudes gives us eight Primary Types.

You might be wondering why not just four Primary Types -- S, N, T or F? The reason is that the E or I attitude working through the functions makes for very different manifestations of the these types. Extraverted iNtuitives are significantly different from Introverted iNtuitives, for example, as are EF and IF types. The E or I attitude determines whether the function will be focused on the outer or inner world, respectively, so you can see why there's such a difference in the manifestations.

Tracking the Elusive Human has a nice discussion of each of the eight types, with real life examples for illustration. There are also lots of summaries on the Internet, like the one at the URL below:
http://www.augustana.edu/users/psjohnson/jungtypes.htm

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Reflection and Discussion

1. Which primary type do you identify with most?

2. Which primary type do you identify with least?

3. What questions/comments do you have about this conference?

4. Share an experience of how/when you see a particular type in action -- it doesn't have to be your own or about your own type.

5. If this seems a little complicated, please read over the previous conferences.

As I mentioned earlier on the Perceptive Function thread, Intuitive Sensing is my primary function. Noticing details and a strong memory are things I don't have to work at...they just happen sometimes.

I have not trusted my Intuitive function very much in the past. If something isn't verifible with real data, I have a hard time trusting it. However, a very wise spiritual guide has been encouraging me to pay attention my intuitive side and to trust it.

As I mentioned on the other thread, I welcome any suggestions for engaging the extraverted intuition (my shadow).