I've been discussing with a friend of mine (he posts here sometimes as Currere) some issues related to DCNH and personas, drawing some parallels with Enneagram and general life experience. I thought I'd share some of the ideas we've come up with.

The Harmonizing subtype (the IP persona types -- I prefer Gulenko's term "persona type" over the one he uses more commonly, "energy type") is all about creating and maintaining harmony, balance, and peace. Ni-Harmonizing and Si-Harmonizing do this in opposite ways: Ni-Harmonizing feels incapable of creating harmony in the external world, and so detaches from the world in order to create and preserve harmony internally, within the self. Si-Harmonizing does feel capable of creating harmony in the external world, but at the expense of maintaining harmony internally: it detaches from the self to create and preserve harmony in its interactions with others.

Si-Harmonizers become chameleons, changing themselves to become whatever is needed to maintain harmony and avoid conflict and pain in the surrounding world. They can outwardly seem quite engaged, but "going with the flow" to this degree comes at the expense of "losing one's self" -- they become quite out of touch with who they really are, what they really want, etc. They need an Ne-Creative to see through the external reality to the potential underneath, to cause them to confront their true selves.

Ni-Harmonizers, by contrast, withdraw into themselves whenever the external world is not in harmony. They live in their imaginations, in an unreal world of ideas, safe from the chaos of the outer world in the cocoon of their minds. They appear detached and somewhat otherworldly, disconnected from the normal concerns of others. They need an Se-Creative to show them the world in a new light, and cause them to confront external reality.

That's the main insight we've had. We were also starting on Creative subtypes (EP persona types). I would say that Ne-Creative abstracts from the physical world to create lofty new ideas, whereas Se-Creative takes hold of the physical world and rearranges it in creative new ways.

The above thoughts are based largely upon our observations of an Ne-C-LII, an Ni-H-LII, an Si-H-ILE, and an Si-H-ESE. I don't pretend it's a finished theory, just sort of a work in progress as we try to figure out how these ideas work out in Real Life.