Psychic Redux
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posted by Vicky Jo at 3:17 AM
Thursday, June 15, 2006
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- Name: Vicky Jo
- Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
I coach people to identify and develop their natural personality strengths in order to maximize their potential.
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16 Comments:
What I know is that I meet a lot of INFJs who do NOT experience their Ni as mystical, and are left wondering whether or not they have Ni preferences because that's missing. On the other hand, I have met INFPs who claim their Ni is *very* mystical. I remember one person talking about a visit to Sedona and casting sending spirits on to the afterlife!
I gotta tell ya, I sure don't experience my Ni in that mystical kind of a way... so unless people are int he habit of making stuff up, I don't know how else to explain what's going on there. AND, because INFPs get "attached" to being mystical, they will sometimes gravitate toward claiming to have INFJ preferences because they so desperately want to be mystical.
Since you're surely better at it than me, I invite you to speculate what's going on around "mystical" and "psychic power" that confuses people about whether they have INFJ or INFP preferences.
Wonderful, Bill! I couldn't have said it better myself.
There's also something in there about "trying too hard," but I don't know what it is exactly. It might be something about wanting the impossible -- in other words, if you suppose INFJs have have psychic powers so they never get caught off-guard, you're projecting waaay too much onto them. You might as well want to be Superman.
About the INTP using Ni as something that might be "mystical." I wonder if this is what my boyfriend means when he says that he waits for ideas to come to him sometimes from a "collective unconsciousness." Now, I don't know about you, but the way he describes it sounds like the way I always get my ideas...which is seemingly from nowhere. But when he talks about how these ideas come from this collective unconscious...it sounds like something like ESP. It's amusing...and I'm still not sure about the whole "ESP is real" business.
No, ESP isn't real, but now I'll really spill the beans: in real life I roll my eyes to the ceiling every time one of my friends talks about one of these 'mystical' things, but deep down, I'm real jealous if they actually are psychic or something like that. I would like to consider myself Domni, but I really don't have ESP. I don't think it really exists except for a way for some people to try to impress others who think that the only valid insight is one that starts with, "I verily spy, with my psychic third eye". PPHPHPH. Jeez
THANK YOU for this self-disclosure! I'll ride that train with ya.
Seems to me jumping on the "roll your eyes up at the dumb flakes" bandwagon is a really sure-fire way of making sure no-one else tries to comment on psychic/mystical/intuitive matters from an open-minded perspective.
I was going to do so, but you know what? I'll save it for someone who's prepared to try to understand.
I think that for somebody to cop to the uncomfortable paradox that on the one hand they roll their eyes but on the other hand they are secretly jealous is about as "open-minded" as it gets. I have to wonder what's going on for anyone to be offended by that and suppose that's a comment on them personally...? (And amplifying it to an insult, by adding the "dumb flakes" part, which wasn't there originally.)
It seems like YOU may be missing the point. Perhaps you could try a little "open-mindedness" on your end? We're all different -- we're all entitled to our own experience. (Thank heavens!) I'd rather someone confess they aren't faultless than live life pretending they're flawless. That's what takes real humility.
As I quoted at the beginning of this site, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there." -Rumi
Okay, here is a long post. I hope it will enhance clarification one way or the other.
I have been thinking a lot about your descriptions of the infj use of ni – and every time I fail to grasp what you really mean, that alone is probably proof that it is not MY dominant function! ;-) I think it is partly because you describe it as if it is knowledge you take out and use in planning (e.g. having your wedding at Stonehenge because it would affect some peoples lives). To me, the "truth" about how to get the best from life and myself is to be open like holding an unfolded parachute behind me. I often see other people doing the opposite: reaching out to get something (the thing we do when we try so hard to remember a specific word and therefore cannot). What made sense to me was doing the opposite – just like deliberately not trying to remember anything/to reach out, but just be open and catch what is coming – and the knowledge you need will "arrive" on its own. I used to try to explain that to my friends in high school when they did not get the results they were reaching out for. Today, I know that not everybody works that way.
Sometimes this openness lets me know something that is going to happen. But I just get the outline, I never get exact details, so I can't say exactly when and how. Which makes me kind of subject to it – I know, but I cannot do something about it or try to plan against or with it. Eg. just after high school I was taking a course together with a friend. One day I just felt that on our way home in the train I was going to meet an ex-boyfriend who had hurt me badly. Therefore, when my friend asked if I wanted to go to a café instead of going straight home with the train, I happily said yes even though it would have been nice to go home to rest. I thought this was my escape from meeting him. Two hours later we went to the station to take the train home. Who was on the platform? Yes, you've guessed it.
It seems very different from what you are describing. And yes, it may feel kind of mystical –though I would never call it esp or attribute it to anything but extreme sensitivity paired with the ability to understand patterns.
Wether it is the difference between Ne and Ni or between dominant Ni and Ni in sixth position, I am not sure of. But from the top off my head, I think Ne is more about intuiting in the here and now? So Ne would be the reason why I get insight into the motivations etc. of the people I am talking to here and now and in combination with Fi I guess would make me so adept (at times) at doing/saying exactly the thing the people around me needs to be a bit consoled. ?? I am misunderstanding it completely? I think those two – Ni and Ne are the ones confusing me the most. I do not really doubt being INFP, but it is difficult to see the difference between these two functions clearly (I will try to do the exercises one of these days).
I feel like INFJ's (in my experience) of course can be caught of guard even though we are very intuitive, we are also idealistic, so in that since I have been fooled, feeling like others think the way I do and I tend to think the best of people, until my analytical side kicks in. But I often feel like I know, really know, how people are feeling, but I rarely know what they’re thinking. By people faces one can tell what someone might be thinking, but that’s more of a guess than how someone feels.
I usually judge a situation and am reacting to it before I even realize that I’ve thought about it at all. Now I work on not always having to react, it’s not always the best thing to react in order to make someone feel better or to not feel bad. In the past I’ve used my iN and enabled people, because I usually know what people want or want to hear. I realized that and want to have a more positive impact with others. So now I do often tell people what they “want” to hear if they really need it and it will be positive, but do not react, if I think it’s about a negative need. Well, just my input.
Um, that sounds like an INFP perspective to me....? (Probably not what you want to hear.)
In the first place, I think INFPs (not INFJs) tend to be the most idealistic of the types.
In the second place, I don't "know what people are feeling" per se -- I may know something's up, or fishy, but "knowing what people are feeling" that precisely seems more closely related to a Feeling type's gifts IMHO.
Using Ni to "enable people" sounds like a shadowy use of the process from over here, not a heroic use...
Anyway, maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today and grabbed the wrong end of the tiger, but this is how it landed on me in this moment. FWIW.
Hi Vicky,
Thanks for your thoughts. I test as having very little J so I always wonder whether I'm more of an INFP. I also have a hard time communicating what I experience with these things so it comes of as simplistic or "exact". When I was talking about the enabling, if you look back at my post (I know it was long) I was talking about growing as a person and noticing when I do that. I learned a lot of that at home with my mother, we got in a please me game, if you know what I mean. And I have been working on not doing that jut to make people happy.
It seems to me that novices with type talk a lot about "J" and "P," while the experts I know rarely do. When I get a Round Tuit, I have an article I plan to post on INFJs being more inclined to "P," and INFPs being more inclined to "J." That J/P dimension is not helpful in sorting between INFJ and INFP. :-(
For the record, we ALL tend to "enable" others in some way -- I'm not condemning that. People with the Catalyst temperament as a whole have a tendency toward "people-pleasing." (We like people!) The only question mark in my mind is around what function is getting used to do the pleasing. This is where Beebe's Archetypes model is very helpful.
Interesting. In my graduate studies on psychology, we talked a lot about how the J and P were not an original part of the typology so there's usually a lot of confusion. However I think it's helpful. I also feel like it important to realize that this is not a black and white kind of thing. People are not just one thing or another, of course there are inclinations. Even though I value this typology, it is only one way of thinking about personality and we are of course, more complex than 16 different categories can account for. It's helpful however, but of course it's broad. I think we start to go wrong when we try to make it an exact science.
I'm kind of confused that you would write these things -- have you read the rest of my website??
For me, the problem is when people treat the *dichotomies" as a perfect model. It's not -- it's far too simple, and it's merely the construction of the instrument, not Jung's whole model. Moreover, when you bring all the models together, there's a lot more to consider than most people realize or give type credit for.
If you aren't familiar with the 8-function model and Beebe's archetypes, then I might suggest you don't really know type enough to assess its validity yet. :-D
Thanks for the advice. You seem very attached to the model. The great thing about any idea is that it can be questioned as well as learned from.
Here's a re-frame for you. It's not that I'm attached to the model; it's that the model is apparently attached to US. It's a bit like gravity: every time you try to deny the truth of it, you end up falling over. Once you've fallen enough times, you realize you might as well get the hang of it and even take the time to learn its scope and applicability.
You may certainly "question it" or try to bend it to your own rules, but the universe is somewhat inflexible about enforcing its methods. It seems to be a weirdly undeniable phenomenon.
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