And some links about Jungian types:
http://www.innerexplorations.com/catpsy/t1c1.htm
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm
Carl Jung's Psychological Types
And some links about Jungian types:
http://www.innerexplorations.com/catpsy/t1c1.htm
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm
Guidelines for Reading Jung
Carl Jung had a lot to say about types; indeed, he is the father of modern typology. However, it's often difficult to extract anything objectively valid from his work due to his rambling style of writing. One must use discipline when reading Jung, either for learning or for validation of one's own ideas.
Point 1 - Do not assume that what Jung was talking about in the previous sentence is what he is talking about in the current one. Jung had a natural sense of his own importance, perhaps to an exaggerrated degree. (he attests to the same in his memiors). His theories would often allow him to make broad philosophical points -- points he observed most professional philosophers as being too... "self-convicted" to observe -- and felt it necessary that someone at least should state these truths. He does so casually, and often at the most inappropriate moments in his discourse -- one does not make a philosophical point when trying to explain something of a purely technical nature, or else the meaning of what is being discussed becomes lost in the muddle. Jung's points, similarly, must be dissected sentence by sentence, sometimes even phrase by phrase. He may make a point, for instance, about a given trait having some kind of vice, and then mentioning "as [insert tragic fable character here] reminds us", and before you realize it the last two sentences of the paragraph have become a very convoluted and far from clear argument for the virtues of the vice, with something about King Midas thrown in.
Point 2 - Jung was a psychologist who tried to see everything in terms of personality functions, the first such of his kind. He often sat with what today we call personality disordered people; at the time there were no such designations and thus, no labels for chronic behavior beyond "some sort of madness or hysteria". In his type essays, Jung discerns that person X who was dominant in function Y also had the peculiarity W. He makes mistakes sometimes of correlating W with Y, and presents a picture of a type that is prone to various disorders. This doesn't mean that Jung was unreliable, only that at the time people believed personality to be a matter of choice on basis of common instincts; specialization was barely known and Jung was the first since Plato and Aristotle to suggest such existed in the mind itself. (and certainly the first since Darwin's theory of natural selection, on basis of which the mental specialization theory finds foundation).
There is also another consideration too, that is less talked about in liberal circles especially. This is the tendency of people to become personality disordered by proxy from contact with chronically personality disordered persons, thus causing a neurosis that clouds the reasoning of what is an otherwise healthy mind. We can say with certainty that Jung was aware of such scenarios -- this was of course, Freud's position (not taken to the extreme Freud did that EVERYONE was disordered because of a bad experience) -- but nonetheless Jung does not discriminate, the reason for choosing against such being deference to cognitive psychology on the matter of chronic behavior. (as illustrated by his similar position on schizophrenia). The point is that Jung did not feel confident in his capacity to distinguish between chronic and temporary forms of neurosis; and although these positions of disorder/type correlation are to be taken lightly, he himself should not be held responsible for them because they were, arguably, the responsible standpoints in the context of his time. Instead of taking his correlations for granted, they should instead be investigated by the reader until either proven or disproven on objective grounds.
Introduction to Jung
Can anyone here point me towards a good introduction to the overall works of Carl Jung? Books, websites, whatever. I'm interested in learning more about his theories of how the mind works, beyond the ideas that became Socionics. I know bits and pieces, but I don't have an overall picture.
Quaero Veritas.
You can try reading through Psychological Types. The whole book, not the little chapter from the end that's available online.
Cool, thanks. One of the hardest parts of deciding to study something new is surveying the broad field and wondering where to start digging first...
Quaero Veritas.
it's a must read for everyone who want to use socionics. Cause it gives another perspective on types. instead of information, jung focusses more on function of the mind. very interesting book.Originally Posted by Krig the Viking
Cool, thanks. One of the hardest parts of deciding to study something new is surveying the broad field and wondering where to start digging first...
I've got more books of Jung, but they are quite useless. He wasn't always a genius...
Carl Jung's Psychological Types
If anyone's interested:
Psychological Types.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage
Looks like the same text (chapter 10) that can be read here: Classics in the History of Psychology -- Jung (1921/1923) Chapter 10
Yeah, this link has been posted dozens of times on this forum (which is no reason to stop.)
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