The Ego's Effect on Us

[tcaudilllg]

I've come to an important conclusion regarding our types. Although we approach type socially as a means of apprehending the world around us, type is also a means for our own self-defense; particularly the ego.

I just discussed with an ENFj how they were using routine to hide their emotions, effectively concealing their true self. The point of conducting the routine, of course, was to raise the excitement of people around them. Doing this allowed them to escape the troubled feelings they would have been reminded of from their past, had they used +Ne to actually analyze the -Fi emotion themselves....

Can other ENFjs cooberate?

[UDP]

Can you go over again how this relates to the title of the thread?

I'm not ENFj so I cannot relate.

[bibliophile8]

It seems obvious to me that one's ego is used for self-defense, at risk of deceiving ourselves and suppressing our other functions. Can't leading Ti be seen as only a defense to cover up inadequate Fi? But I don't seem to understand your ENFj example. Maybe I don't know enough about that particular type. Let me try to break it down. The ENFj is suppressing their +Ne through routine, while also suppressing their -Fi. Both of these being secondary ego functions. (That's not the right terminology I'm sure, but you know what I mean.) They suppress them by emphasizing their +Fe and probably -Ni in some form or another. So in this case you're showing how the ego can turn on itself, or at least not always help us?

Yeah, I'm not ENFj either. Just trying to understand.

[tcaudilllg]

It seems obvious to me that one's ego is used for self-defense, at risk of deceiving ourselves and suppressing our other functions. Can't leading Ti be seen as only a defense to cover up inadequate Fi? But I don't seem to understand your ENFj example. Maybe I don't know enough about that particular type. Let me try to break it down. The ENFj is suppressing their +Ne through routine, while also suppressing their -Fi. Both of these being secondary ego functions. (That's not the right terminology I'm sure, but you know what I mean.) They suppress them by emphasizing their +Fe and probably -Ni in some form or another. So in this case you're showing how the ego can turn on itself, or at least not always help us?

Yeah, I'm not ENFj either. Just trying to understand.

That's what I'm trying to say, yes.

[Blaze]

in the enfj example, how can Fi and Ne be suppressed ego functions? they're unconscious and they're strengths, so there's no need to defend them. i would think the superego functions are what is defended, since they are conscious and weak.

[tcaudilllg]

in the enfj example, how can Fi and Ne be suppressed ego functions? they're unconscious and they're strengths, so there's no need to defend them. i would think the superego functions are what is defended, since they are conscious and weak.

There are the nature of the threat; it is Fe and Ni which are trying to defend against them.

[krieger]

Why, type is a set of assumptions as to how the world works, that allow a person to predict future motions of the world. It determines which events we hold as fundamental to the world's workings, which we hold as 'logical', and which we, in turn, hold as contingent and unimportant. A type is an opinion. One that is so deeply lodged in the nature of a person that it could never be relinquished. It is only natural that this opinion needs to be defended.