Our often-used shorthand illustration with a line drawn between the four allegedly conscious function-attitudes and the four “unconscious” ones is misleading because consciousness is not a sufficiently reliable characteristic for distinguishing these two sides of the psyche’s typology. It’s related to what distinguishes them, but only as a secondary and fairly unpredictable characteristic.
2013 June
Both articles in this issue discuss type distortion and the legacy of a prevailing cultural typology—one within a family and the other, on a national scale. Have you personally experienced or witnessed type falsification? What do you think caused it? Did your family, hometown, or nationality have a cultural type? How did this type legacy affect you and others?
China has emphasized Se and Ne, leaving itself at present with a relatively weak Ni, even though Ni is China’s natural superior function and its historical birthright. A strong Ni, for example was the consciousness that gave birth to the three great Chinese religions: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, all of which anticipated Jung’s notion of the Self.
Individuation (which, within the conceptual framework of the type model, is essentially synonymous with ‘type development’) is usually unpleasant, and a positive outcome is far from guaranteed. So why do so many regard it as the psychic purpose of human existence? Why do we do it? What drives us to it? What has been your experience?