Roles of the Processes
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posted by Vicky Jo at 3:15 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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9 Comments:
Bill -
you're right at the stretch goal in MY learning about type.
Double binds are interesting, because it's so hard for us to see them. My husband's auxiliary is my Trickster Te, and he claims I put him in double binds sometimes (where he "can't win"), but I don't fully grasp it myself yet. I do know that I find Te an unreliable process for me, and I often make fun of it. (Humor is common in the Trickster archetype.)
In the INFP pattern, Trickster Se might show up as "Repeatedly dressing up badly for a job interview." I think I saw it show up once in somebody anonymously sending me snarky sexual insults when they felt they couldn't win an argument with me.
Unfortunately, when we move into the Shadow realm, the examples tend to be really personal to the individual, so I'll have to ask you to sit with the question with yourself in order to make the connection.
Good luck! and please share any new insights you have.
Well that gets into the whole topic of individuation and development. You can *tell* somebody to develop until you're blue in the face, but until that person *wants* to develop, it's a waste of breath. I've been told in various ways my whole life that I should develop my introverted Sensing, but it's only when I start to notice for myself that it's becoming a problem and getting in the way of something I want that I might begin working on it. I have to become conscious of my own negative impact in this area first (which usually means dialing down my Heroic enough to notice it). THEN I will probably restrict my conversations with people around this development to people who won't shame me, who make me feel safe, and who won't push me past my limits.
Aren't you the same way?
I think it's partly about having these conversations out of context. It's possible to "interpret" your post either way, and since I'm on vacation right now and replying pretty rapidly, there's no doubt a clarity and precision are lacking that might be present otherwise.
I don't know whether another INFP would have understood better or not, but I'm a little skittish about that sort of thinking as a rule. There's some kind of idea floating around (because I've encountered it elsewhere on the internet) that if we could only stick to communicating with our own "kind," then things would be ideal. Personally, I think it's the Universe's cosmic joke that we perpetually encounter people who aren't like us, which then demands that we develop the aspects of ourselves we aren't inclined to develop without that impetus. I don't believe we are supposed to lead insular lives!
Ergo, I'm willing to let my interpretation stand. The bottom line is that we're all different, and type is one way of understanding those differences. I like this model because it doesn't "judge" differences as being good or bad -- which is a vast improvement over how human beings naturally tend to judge one another. We all have inborn prejudices. Whether we think we are superior or inferior, or the other person is damaged, incompetent, or even godlike, all manifest from the same source -- the experience of differences betwixt us.
Well remember that INFJs and INTJs both have DomNi -- they both think they *know*. So that can be a fairly vicious power struggle if you aren't type aware.
And the thing to remember is that Ni is reliable, but not infallible. While it may *seem* like there is One Right Answer, chances are there are other possibilities that could work also. It's a trap to think we're always right.
Do the archtype's positions remain the same when the heroic is an extraverted function? I'm curious how an introverted function like Si would manifest in Good Parent archtype. Is there some web site that explains all of this for at least the four primary archtypes in all 16 personalities of the theory?
No website I know of... although I vaguely remembering seeing something on Wikipedia once. My site, www.INFJ.com, has a little bit, and I have a pdf article by John Beebe available on my website www.TypeInsights.com.
Yes, introverted Sensing is still "heroic," even though it's an introverted process. (Funny, I was talking about this in my presentation only yesterday.) So perhaps a person with this pattern is working in an organization, and they're the ones who know what all the rules and traditions are; they know how to navigate the bureaucracy; they remember the reasons certain policies were instituted. They are sometimes walking "wikis" for procedures. So when a team is trying to produce a result, they may be the ones who "save the day" by sharing such information or taking care of that aspect of business. In my own experience, I'm working with such a person on a committee. She knows how to get material online for me, and what the procedures are for getting a speaker scheduled, etc. She's MY hero, because she knows and can execute all the logistics necessary to keep things running and moving forward.
People get "hooked" by the term "heroic" and think it must be an "action hero." A phrase I employ is "save the day." This doesn't always look like "hero" in the way our culture tends to represent them, but if somebody "saves the day," they are heroic! So you have to open your mind to a slightly new way of thinking about the concept of "hero."
The "Lenore thompson Exigesis" website talks about it in a way that (to me ) seems to make a lot of sense. But what is this site anyway? I know, there's nothing that makes this source official, but I've always liked the material on the site. Pth. Credentials are ovverrated. just kidding.
anyway, what the site said (that I'd like your opinion on ) was basically that it can be difficult to figure out someone's dominant function, but if you want to figure out peoples auxiliary functions, just ask them to preach. I'm really darn sure (now) that I'm DomNe, but you will almost never hear me preaching the 'importance of thinking outside the box'. But why read my narcissistic examples of myself? Do you think this is true for people in general?
Hey you! I've misplaced your email address, so send me something so I can hook up with you again.
I don't keep up with Lenore's movements, and I don't remember her saying anything like that in her book -- but I can see how it might have originated.
It's amusing that you repeated the formula, and then you go and test the formula wrong. Check your math!!
As an ENFP (unless you've changed patterns again), you would "preach" from your introverted Feeling. The way I like to say that is that ENFPs "parent" others with values.
For instance, I am enrolled in an advanced coaching course this weekend. And the instructor has ENFP preferences. So I brought a situation I am struggling with around a client. After hearing me describe the situation for a couple of minutes, she seemed to get in touch with her values and then rendered a "decision" about what I should do. So she was attempting to "parent" me with her values.
I often see ENFPs struggling with trying to parent the world with their values. Talk about an uphill battle!! One ENFP I know watches the news on TV and practically becomes apoplectic every night -- it just drives him up the wall that the rest of the world doesn't honor his values!
I found it interesting that in my coach program, which was partly created by an ENFP, what we call Rule #1 is "Nobody gets to be wrong." The temptation with many people is to go around making other people "wrong" when they don't honor your values, or do things the same way you do.
It's amazing how much suffering we can create for ourselves when we expect others to Be Like Us.
Does this answer your question, Gabe? Can you connect to the idea of yourself "parenting" others with Fi?
Let me know.
Ok, I filled out that contact form on your coaching website. Will that get to you?
I didn't test the formula wrong. I was using the 'thinking outside the box' thing as something AuxNe's preach but I don't. It made perfect sense to me when I wrote it (That right there is who the dominant operates. I will often go off on a tangent that I think displays extremely clear relevence to what I was talking about before, and then when people give me a hard time about 'rambling' I accuse them of playing dumb or giving me a hard time. That's the dominant)
By the way, I love your examples of parenting with Fi. Two weeks ago I started a facebook group called "To hell with ancient Sparta" and the only member is a close friend of mine (who is also probably ENFP). But the ancient spartans were a bunch of cave-man baby-killers!! Why the hell does everyone like them so much?
Of course Joe Butt (whoever the heck he is) warns that ENFPs who 'make value judgements aloud' risk loosing friends. I find that very condescending! Everyone has to hear about my value judgements! You FJ types get to make publicised value judgments all the time. Why should'nt I be allowed to?...for example
I'm sorry if that display of Fi right thier sent you through the roof...got a bit carried away there.
Anyway, I haven't changed types. don't worry. I know when you say that your taking shots in the dark at my Te.
So, back to INFP's and INFJ's now: Bill, would I be right if I were to conjecture that INFPs have a lot to say about 'thinking outside the box' (or some other word for Ne becuase I'm getting sick of that one)?
-The thing is, I don't know if this would come in conflict with that other part of the website- "You are what you refuse to give up" or Something. Because I think that if people were to ask themselves that, they'd identify how important they feel thier Auxiliary function is. But if they were to (this would be more difficult) Try to observe thier behavior, they'd notice the dominant function that they instinctively refuse to give up. Now I know that I don't have any idea who's talking on that Lenore-website, but "a universe of description that doesn't include itself" or "it's the lense, not what you see" sounds like a good way of showing the dominant function. Does that sound OK, or am I full of it?
-I'm pointing this out becuase this is one of the things that screwed me up when I was trying to decide my type
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