Psychological Types
Psychological types are Jung’s account of the basic ways people take in the world and make decisions. His 1921 book Psychological Types introduced the ideas that later became the foundation of the Myers-Briggs and most modern personality frameworks, though Jung’s original purpose was clinical, not a quiz.
The two attitudes
Jung described two fundamental orientations of energy. The introvert is oriented primarily toward the inner world of thought and feeling; the extravert toward the outer world of people and things. Neither is better, and no one is purely one or the other. Most people have a habitual preference while drawing on both.
The four functions
He then identified four functions, two ways of taking in information and two ways of judging it. Sensation registers what is concretely there; intuition perceives possibilities and patterns. Thinking decides by logic and principle; feeling decides by value and what matters. Each of us tends to lead with one function and to have an opposite, less developed “inferior” function that can trip us up, especially under stress.
“Type is not a box to be sorted into. It describes the path of least resistance, and the work often lies in the function we have left undeveloped.”
Philippe Jacquet
More than a personality test
Where popular tests treat type as a fixed label, Jung saw it as a starting point for development. The neglected, inferior function frequently holds what a person most needs to grow toward. A highly rational man may need to recover feeling; a deeply intuitive person may need to come back to the body and the concrete.
In analysis
Understanding someone’s typology helps make sense of how they perceive, decide and relate, and where their blind spots lie. In Jungian analysis it is one lens among several, useful not for labelling but for guiding the work of individuation toward a fuller, more balanced personality.
Book a consultation with Philippe Jacquet, psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, London.