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Describe and evaluate Carl Jung’s theory concerning personality
types and show how they might usefully help a therapist to
determine therapeutic goals.
Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organised set of characteristics
possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations,
and behaviors in various situations (Ryckman 2004). The word "personality"
originates from the Latin persona, which means mask. Significantly, in the theatre of
the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask was not used as a plot device to disguise
the identity of a character, but rather was a convention employed to represent or
typify that character.
Carl Jung was among many great personality theorists who drew inspiration and
guidance from the ancient models like astrology and the Four Temperaments. The
oldest being one devised by oriental astrologers. They classified personality
character in terms of the elements – fire water air and earth. Those under fire had a
fiery nature and corresponding temperament and fate, etc. The Four Temperaments
or Four Humours can be traced back reliably to Ancient Greek medicine and
philosophy ( 400BC), notably in the work of Hippocrates - the 'Father of Medicine')
and in Plato's ideas about character and personality. It was believed that in order to
maintain health, people needed an even balance of the four body fluids: blood,
phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These four body fluids were linked to certain
organs and illnesses and also represented the Four Temperaments or Four Humours
of personality. The Greek physician Galen (AD 130-200) later introduced the aspect
of four basic temperaments reflecting the humors: the sanguine, bouyant type; the
phlegmatic, slugish type; the choleric, quick-tempered type; and the melancholic,
dejected type. Galen also classified drugs in terms of their supposed effects on the
four humors. He thus created a systematic guide or selecting drugs, which although
scientifically incorrect were the foundation stone of treating psychological and
psychiatric illnesses.
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Carl Jung approached personality and 'psychological types' (also referred to as
Jung's psychological types) from a perspective of clinical psychoanalysis. He was
one of the few psychologists n the twentieth century to maintain that development
extends beyond childhood and adolescence through mid-life and into old age. He
focused on establishing and developing a relationship between conscious and
unconscious processes. Jung believed that there was a dialogue between the
conscious and unconscious and without it the unconscious processes can weaken
and even jeopardise the personality and this is seen in one of his central concepts of
individuation. He believed that individuation is a life long process of personal
development that involves establishing a connection between the ego and the self
which could be brought to its highest fruition if worked with and the unconscious was
confronted. (Stevens 1999)
Jung, like Freud, referred to the ego when describing the more conscious aspect of
personality. Unlike Freud he did not seek to minimise the unconscious side of the
personality, but instead gave it equal status, complimentary to that of the conscious.
He referred to the integrated personality as Self; the centre of the total psyche,
including both the conscious and the unconscious. The Self includes all of a person’s
qualities and potentials whether or not they become apparent at a particular stage of
life. The goal of therapy is to guide the client to become a whole a human being as
personal circumstances will allow.
It was out of Jung’s confrontation with the unconscious, both in himself and in his
patients, that he slowly elaborated his psychology. His book Psychological Types
(1921) acted as the compass by which he tried to understand how he differed from
Freud and Adler, but more importantly, could begin to chart the internal world of
people. He had a deep appreciation of creative life and considered spirituality a
central part of the human journey. There is a whole literature relating Jungian
psychology and spirituality, primarily from a Christian perspective. This literature
includes writings by Kelsey(1974,1982) and by Sanford (1968, 1981). Caprio and
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Hedberg's (1986) Coming Home: A Handbook for Exploring the Sanctuary Within is a
practical guide for spiritual work in the Christian tradition. It contains striking personal
stories, excellent illustrations, and useful exercises. (Frager & Fadiman 2005)
Jung's description of personality states that in order to identify a psychological type it
is necessary to determine whether a person is oriented primarily toward his inner
world ( introversion) or toward external reality ( extraversion), known as the
fundamental attitude of the individual to emphasise its importance.
Introverts are people who prefer their internal world of thoughts, feelings, fantasies,
dreams, and so on, while extroverts prefer the external world of things and people
and activities.
Today the words have become confused with ideas like shyness and sociability,
partially because introverts tend to be shy and extroverts tend to be sociable. But
Jung intended for them to refer more to whether you ("ego") more often faced toward
the persona and outer reality, or toward the collective unconscious and its
archetypes. In that sense, the introvert is somewhat more mature than the extrovert.
Our culture, of course, values the extrovert much more. Jung warned that we all tend
to value our own type most, (Boeree 1996) This warning is applicable to therapists
today as it is important not to allow personal feelings to take place when working with
clients.
Both introvert and extravert overvalue their strengths and each tends to undervalue
the other. To the extravert, the introvert seems egotistical and dull, and to the
introvert, the extravert appears superficial and insincere (Fordham, 1966). Jung
believed that a person remained an extravert or introvert without change for the
whole of his life, and that heredity determines whether the libido is directed inward or
outward. Whether a person is an introvert or extrovert they need to deal with both
their inner and outer world. And each has their preferred way of dealing with it, ways
which they are comfortable with and good at. This hypothesised stability of the
introversion-extroversion trait is consistent with empircal research using Non-Jungian
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measures of introversion and extraversion. (Cloniger 2000) Jung suggested a link
between each of the attitudes and certain neurotic disorders which will be discussed
later.
We now find the introvert-extravert dimension in several theories, notably Hans
Eysenck's. In Eysenck’s (1982) view people are biosocial animals and that
psychology stands at the crossroads of biological sciences and social sciences. He
states that psychology must become more of a true science with methodology in all
that the therapist does in order to permit personality theorists to make predictions
that can be tested and therefore make possible the development of the causal theory
of personality, which he believes will inevitably help the therapist with clients
presenting problems.
Jung compared the conscious part of the psyche (ego) to an island that rises out of
the sea. We notice only the part above the water, even though there is a greater land
mass below the water – much like an iceberg, the unconscious lies below (Fordam
1953). The personal unconscious is a reservoir of experience unique to each
individual consisting of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories that have been
put to one side or repressed but not always covered by sea and therefore can be
reclaimed. Whereas the personal unconscious is unique to every individual, the
collective unconscious is shared or “transpersonal” and consists of certain
potentialities that we all share because of our human nature, because we all live in
groups and in some form of society or family life. He believed that the collective
unconscious did not develop individually but was inherited and consisted of pre-
existent forms, the archetypes. An archetype is a universal thought form or
predisposition to respond to the world in certain ways and is crucial to Jung’s concept
of the collective unconscious because it emphasises potentialities in which we may
express our humanness. He believed that they appeared to us in dreams, art, ritual,
myths and symptoms.
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Eysenck believed that from a point of view of
science, Jung’s contribution to the study of
personality types had been primarily negative as he
permitted mystical notions to override empirical data
and sought to go beyond descriptive analysis to the
causal analysis of personality. Eysenck went on to
review the theories and came to the conclusion that
most people fall somewhere between the middle of the two extremes of those whose
emotions are labile and easily aroused and those who are stable and less easily
aroused. He suggested that the basic dimensions of personality may be summarised
as show in the diagram above.( Diagram 1) .
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Further work by Eysenck tied personality differences to visceral brain activity and he
showed that because introverts have sensitive nervous systems they are more easily
conditioned and that also makes them more vulnerable to anxiety based neuroses if
the visceral brain activity is high, whereas the extravert has a less sensitive and more
inhibited cortical process and therefore are slow to develop conditioned response.
Because socialised behaviour depends on a well conditioned response in childhood
extraverts were more likely to develop psychopathic disorders if their visceral brain
activity is high. This theory is speculative and Eysenck acknowledged that his
hypothesis “must stand and fall by empirical confirmation” (1965) Despite his
scientific data Eysenck, like Jung,
advocated that human behaviour has
both biological and social causes but
that there is a strong genetic
component. Perhaps therapists could
look at the behaviour and traits of a
client’s close family when working with
them in order to better understand the “nature/nurture debate”
Jung suggested that people tend to develop two functions, usually one rational
function and one irrational function. There are four basic ways, or psychological
functions which are thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition; one of these becomes the
primary or dominant function and the other the auxiliary function. (See Figure 1).
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Jung’s Four Psychological FunctionsRational Functions
Irrational Functions
Thinking (process of cognitive thought) Feeling (function of subjective judgement or valuation) enabling decision making
Sensation (perception using the physical sense organs Intuition (receptivity to unconscious contents) providing the information on which to make judgements
Fig 1.
Fig 2. (Stevens 1999c)
Therefore it is unusual to find thinking and feeling sensation and intuition, develop in
the same person. The dominant function is directed toward external reality if the
person is an extravert, or toward the inner world if the person in an introvert (O’Roark
1990). The rational functions of thinking and feeling can be conceived as a pair of
opposites as can the irrational functions of sensation and intuition. The extraverted
thinking sensation type would have an introverted feeling-intuitive shadow and vice-
versa. (See Figure 2 above)
The fundamental attitudes of extraversion or introversion can be combined with four
psychological functions in eight different ways to make up eight psychetypes. (See
Figure 3 below). These eight psychetypes are helpful in giving the therapist a more
complete picture of the client’s personality and help to identify the function that the
individual uses for dealing with the less preferred direction, known as the auxiliary
function. Jung cautioned that types rarely occur in a pure form and that there is a
wide range of variation within each type, that people of a specific type may change
as their personal collective unconscious changes in response to external or indeed
internal influences which will motivate the individual to seek change in their lives. The
therapist needs to be aware of that every client responds differently. Jung viewed
emotional disturbance as a person’s attempt to reconcile the contradictory aspects of
personality. One side of the psyche, such as the conscious, adaptive, social persona,
may be exaggerated at the expense of the darker, unconscious aspects, the shadow
side. For example the Extraverted sensation types who may appear to be superficial
and soulless and actively seek thrills and distractions but have a shadow side of
intuition which when activated by an inner event will gives rise to negative hunches
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that are way off beam and may manifest as paranoid or hostile behaviour for no
apparent reason. (Stevens 1994b)
The Extraverted Types The Introverted Types
Thinking: Tend to live according to fixed rules; try to be objective but may be dogmatic in thinking; repress feeling
Thinking: Have a strong need for privacy; interested in ideas rather than facts; may have problems with practical issues and relationships with people are not important; repress feeling
Feeling: Tend to be sociable: seek harmony: respect tradition and authority; tend to be emotional; repress thinking
Feeling: Superficially reserved but sympathetic and understanding of close others; may appear mysterious and indifferent; thoughtful and hypersensitive; repress thinking
Sensing: Emphasise the objects which trigger experience and enjoy new sensory experiences; strongly oriented toward reality; repress intuition
Sensing: Emphasise the experience which events trigger rather than the events themselves. Tend to be passive, calm and artistic; repress intuition
Intuition: In touch with the unconscious, very creative and adventurous; find new ideas appealing: tend to make decisions based on hunches rather than facts; in touch with their unconscious wisdom: repress sensing
Intuition: They are mystic dreamers, concerned with possibilities rather than what is currently present. Seldom understood by others. Repress sensing. Jung described himself as an introverted intuitor.
Fig 3. Adapted from Cloniger (2000b) and Engler (1999)
To usefully help a client and determine therapeutic goals it is necessary to determine
whether a person is primarily orientated toward their inner (introversion) or outer
world (extraversion) and next to assess which are the dominant and auxillary
psychological functions of the client.
Jung said that people connect ideas, feelings, experiences and information by way of
associations in the unconscious in such a way as to affect their behavior. These
groupings he named Complexes. They may be organised around a particular person
or object and the therapist may use this knowledge to bring to the forefront of the
client’s consciousness a situation which they may be finding difficult to disengage
from. Jung wrote of a man who knew that he was suffering from an imaginary growth
but could not stop himself from believing it. (Engler 1999 b) Today we have MRI and
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other techniques to help people see that their unconscious worries are unfounded,
but even with all this technology to hand counseling and cognitive therapy may be
appropriate.
The therapeutic goal of Jungian therapy is to help the client reconcile unbalanced
aspects of their personality which present in a number of differing ways of
psychological disturbance. Examples include: extreme negativity, addictions, degrees
of paranoia, sudden religious conversion, inappropriate attachments to unsuitable
partners, hysteria, mania, depression, hypochondrias or schizoid personality traits as
Jung himself had as a boy. By understanding his theory and how each type may
present the therapist can help them unlock the shadow sides of their personality. It is
a process in which the client is helped to come to terms with the place of self within
their own world and also to help them see that they are part of a greater collective
unconscious. Much of Jung’s work was about the interconnectedness of all people
and cultures. Today more than ever as we seek to become “one world” Jung’s work
with eastern as well as western religions and cultures seems more and more
appropriate. The work of Hans Eysenck through empirical studies across the world
has shown that personality types exist in all cultures and therefore concludes that
there is a genetic component to personality types. “Such cross cultural unanimity
would be unlikely if biological factors did not play a predominant part” (Eysenck,
1990) But like Jung he believed that environmental factors probably determine how
much an individual will develop to their full potential. The use of appropriate
assessment techniques can be invaluable in helping a therapist to develop the
untapped potential within the individual and is so doing contribute to the collective
unconsciousness and synchronicity of the planet as a whole.
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References Boeree G. (2006) Carl Jung 1875 - 1961 http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/jung.html Accessed 28/08/10
Cloniger S. C. ( 2000) Theories of personality: understanding Persons (3rd Ed) New Jersey: Prentice Hall
Cloniger, S. C. ( 2000b) Theories of personality: understanding Persons (3rd Ed) New Jersey: Prentice Hall p 91)
Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction. (5th Ed) p82 Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction. (5th Ed) p75 Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
Eysenck , H.J. (1982) Personality, genetics and behaviour: Selected papers. New York Praeger in Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction. (5th Ed) p 310-111 Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
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Eysenck, H. J. (1990). Biological dimensions of personality. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 244-276). New York: Guilford. In Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction. (5th Ed) p315 Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
Frager, R., & Fadiman, J. (2005). Excerpt from Personality and Personal Growth (6th ed.)New York: Pearson Prentice Hall pg. 56: http://www.itp.edu/about/carl_jung.php
Fordam, F (1953) An introduction to Jung’s psychology. Baltimore. Penguin. In Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction. (5th Ed) p74 Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
Furnam, A (1990) Can people accurately estimate their own personality test scores? European Journal of Personality, 4(4), 319-327 in Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction.p87 (5th Ed) Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
Jung C, (1933) Jung 'Psychological Theory of Types'. Modern Man in Search of a Soul, p. 98 (cf. C.W., 6). http://www.cgjungpage.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=852&Itemid=41#Contents2 Accessed 30/08/2010
O’Roark, A.M. (1990). Comment on Cowan’s interpretation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Jung’s psychological functions. Journal of Personality Assessment, 58, 277-299 in Cloniger S. C. ( 2000) Theories of personality: understanding Persons (3rd
Ed) New Jersey: Prentice Hall p 90
Stevens, A. (1994a) Jung A Very Short Introduction. p38. New York: Oxford University Press Inc
Stevens, A. (1994b) Jung A Very Short Introduction. p91. New York: Oxford University Press Inc
Stevens, A. (1994b) Jung A Very Short Introduction. p90. New York: Oxford University Press Inc
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