ILEs-ENTps and intimacy

[mu4]

I find that people react to their Super-Ego elements in two ways: fear and anger. The "fear" response leads people to try to improve and strengthen themselves in the Super-Ego elements, in order to limit the pain of future failures. This is usually fruitless of course, as there are limits to how well we can develop our Super-Ego. People engaging the "fear" response do usually acknowledge the objective worth of the Super-Ego elements, and feel some degree of shame or sadness for not being able to use them properly.

The "anger" response, on the other hand, leads people to reject the Super-Ego elements entirely, in an attempt to avoid the pain of future failures altogether. This leads to a more bitter, jaded viewpoint which rejects the idea that these elements have much if any objective worth at all. As should be obvious, this is the less healthy response.

For my part, I know several ILEs in person who, despite not being very good at it, are quite emotionally intimate with and attached to their spouses/significant others, or at least desire to be so. They do tend to limit their emotional intimacy with the majority of people, however -- the level of trust that must be attained before they open up emotionally is higher than average.

I think the 4th function work in a all or nothing fashion, we don't work at it in a active fashion. I've seen ILE/SLE's devoted to their spouses/causes/whatever and other ILE/SLE totally absent of any attachment.

Life is kinda of a crapshoot because attachments is often a matter of luck and being in the right place at the right time.

The 4th function is evaluatory, producing and inert. When I make judgements due to this function, it's firm, very personal and often times not something that I can control. While most of the time, I use my 4th function to disengage from someone, sometimes, I have a need to engage and become close to someone in a almost necessary fashion, and when that doesn't happen I fall into depression.