Bridging psychological type and depth psychology
Being married is easily the hardest thing I have ever done. Marriage is an all-consuming project that requires energy, commitment, and sustained effort. Unlike my other projects, I can’t just ignore my marriage until inspiration strikes. Mostly, there’s no faking it. As an introvert in an extraverted world, faking it is a lot of how I survive.
Later, I reflected that my tone, out of awareness at time of utterance, was the element to which she was reacting as a feeling type, and that my insistence on staying on topic showed up in her experience as my controlling her. Such was my first conscious application of Beebe’s sobering formulation of the monster-in-play when our eighth function breathes fire at another’s dominant function.
My sister’s life illustrates the impact of a lack of positive parental guidance on the development of personality and what happens if the inner parent fails to develop. Family tragedy deprived Christin of a compass with which to navigate psychic turbulence during midlife. While few people succumb to such crises, many lack the tenacity to face them.
If the dreamer is willing to work a dream from a psychological type perspective and the therapist has the knowledge to do so, then bringing type to dream work can be helpful. I utilize this approach either when I see an aspect of psychological type present or when I cannot make heads or tails of a dream by taking other approaches.
The type code had another unintended effect, which was to elevate the E-I and the J-P dichotomies to the same level as the functions. I had always thought of myself as an Introvert and nothing else. I had also been taught that I was a Judging type and I had been told that “J’s decide quickly,” but that was not true for me. So there were holes in my preference framework where my experience did not fit what I was taught.
10 / Culture and Cultural Typology / Personal Development, Health, and Spirituality
May 2, 2012 4
“What do you want?” asked one of the boys, his crossed arms over his chest authoritatively. “I want a drink of water,” I told him, but as I made a move to go around him, he stepped in front of me again. Before I could say anything or react in any way, he told me, “You can’t drink here. This fountain is for people. No monkeys allowed.”
In the business world I have the privilege and challenge of leading a group of people where our typology is diverse. Sometimes, when we need each other most, we let each other down as the stress ignites the respective shadow functions within each of us. In the scenarios described herein, the ESTJs may have expected me, their ENFJ leader, to respond in crisis with warmth and sensitivity; but the stress of crisis became a game changer . . .
