Re: Still cant figure out my own Type, even though Ive got great at typing others
Carl Jung ... said that the dominant function is conscious and the rest are unconscious. ...
Accordingly, because 3 functions are unconscious, there are only 8 types. ...
As the old saying goes, you're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Jung was right or wrong about X, Y or Z aspects of personality, but on
some issues at least, the issue of
what Jung thought (rightly or wrongly) is more of a factual matter. And there's really no question that Jung thought that, for a typical one of his "types," the dominant and auxiliary would be (predominantly) "conscious functions," and the tertiary and inferior would be (predominantly) "unconscious functions" — and that that applied to extraverts and introverts both.
As Jung conceived the functions,
conscious and
differentiated were basically synonymous. As he explained in his Differentiation definition:
So long as a function is still so fused with one or more other functions — thinking with feeling, feeling with sensation, etc. — that it is unable to operate on its own, it is in an archaic condition, i.e., not differentiated, not separated from the whole as a special part and existing by itself. ... To the extent that a function is largely or wholly unconscious, it is also undifferentiated; it is not only fused together in its parts but also merged with other functions. ... Without differentiation direction is impossible, since the direction of a function towards a goal depends on the elimination of anything irrelevant. Fusion with the irrelevant precludes direction; only a differentiated function is capable of being directed.
Talking about the S, N and T functions of a Ti-dom, Jung explained:
The counterbalancing functions of feeling, intuition, and sensation are comparatively unconscious and inferior, and therefore have a primitive extraverted character that accounts for all the troublesome influences from outside to which the introverted thinker is prone.
So aha! you might be saying. Jung also describes
all three of those functions as "comparatively unconscious and inferior" — so three unconscious functions, like I said, right?
And the answer is: Jung's view was that the second function would be unconscious and undifferentiated — and fused with the other two unconscious functions, and incapable of direction — in its original, default state. But if and to the extent that the subject put the second function to use as the auxiliary, the function would be differentiated and become a conscious function.
Here's how Jung described it:
Closer investigation shows with great regularity that, besides the most differentiated function, another, less differentiated function of secondary importance is invariably present in consciousness and exerts a co-determining influence.
To recapitulate for the sake of clarity: the products of all functions can be conscious, but we speak of the "consciousness" of a function only when its use is under the control of the will and, at the same time, its governing principle is the decisive one for the orientation of consciousness. ... This absolute sovereignty always belongs, empirically, to one function alone, and can belong only to one function, because the equally independent intervention of another function would necessarily produce a different orientation which, partially at least, would contradict the first. ... This other function, therefore, can have only a secondary importance, as has been found to be the case in practice. Its secondary importance is due to the fact that it is not, like the primary function, valid in its own right as an absolutely reliable and decisive factor, but comes into play more as an auxiliary or complementary function. ...
Experience shows that the secondary function is always one whose nature is different from, though not antagonistic to, the primary function. Thus, thinking as the primary function can readily pair with intuition as the auxiliary, or indeed equally well with sensation, ... for they are not of a nature equal and opposite to thinking, as feeling is ... but are functions of perception, affording welcome assistance to thought. But as soon as they reached the same level of differentiation as thinking, they would bring about a change of attitude which would contradict the whole trend of thinking. ... Hence the auxiliary function is possible and useful only in so far as it serves the dominant function, without making any claim to the autonomy of its own principle.
For all the types met with in practice, the rule holds good that besides the conscious, primary function there is a relatively unconscious, auxiliary function which is in every respect different from the nature of the primary function. The resulting combinations present the familiar picture of, for instance, practical thinking allied with sensation, speculative thinking forging ahead with intuition, artistic intuition selecting and presenting its images with the help of feeling-values, philosophical intuition systematizing its vision into comprehensible thought by means of a powerful intellect, and so on.
The unconscious functions likewise group themselves in patterns correlated with the conscious ones. Thus, the correlative of conscious, practical thinking may be an unconscious, intuitive-feeling attitude, with feeling under a stronger inhibition than intuition.
Note that last paragraph in particular. Jung describes the tertiary and inferior functions as "the unconscious functions" and dominant
and auxiliary functions as "the conscious ones" — and don't forget Jung's Differentiation definition (quoted earlier), where he noted that "to the extent that a function is largely or wholly unconscious, it is also undifferentiated." Jung said that all the functions, to the extent that they were unconscious, were fused with each other, and that
differentiation of a function from the other functions was a necessary condition to bringing that function up into consciousness.
And it seems to me that there's really only one way to reconcile Jung's characterization of
all three of the non-dominant functions as "unconscious and inferior" — as he did in his Ti-dom description (quoted earlier) — and this reference to the dominant
and auxiliary functions as "the conscious ones," and that is that the second function would be unconscious (and undifferentiated) in its default state, but would become conscious (and therefore differentiated and capable of direction by the will) if and to the extent that it was developed and put to service as the auxiliary.
This view of the four functions (from
Psychological Types) basically remained the same 30 years later, when Jung wrote (in
Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy):
If we think of the psychological function as arranged in a circle, then the most differentiated function is usually the carrier of the ego and, equally regularly, has an auxiliary function attached to it. The "inferior" function, on the other hand, is unconscious and for that reason is projected into a non-ego. It too has an auxiliary function. ...
In the psychology of the functions there are two conscious and therefore masculine functions, the differentiated function and its auxiliary, which are represented in dreams by, say, father and son, whereas the unconscious functions appear as mother and daughter. Since the conflict between the two auxiliary functions is not nearly as great as that between the differentiated and the inferior function, it is possible for the third function — that is, the unconscious auxiliary one — to be raised to consciousness and thus made masculine. It will, however, bring with it traces of its contamination with the inferior function, thus acting as a kind of link with the darkness of the unconscious.
Note the reference to the dominant function as the "most differentiated" function — "most" being in relation to the
less differentiated (but still differentiated and conscious) auxiliary function.
Myers, on the other hand, had very little to say about the unconscious side of things. The majority of her type-related references to the "unconscious" relate to
intuition — and the notion that it involves some kind of enhanced ability to perceive otherwise unconscious mental contents — rather than to the tertiary and inferior functions operating out of a person's unconscious. What's more, when Myers talked about the flip side of someone's preferences as representing their likely areas of weakness and troubles, she virtually always described that in
dichotomy-centric terms. She talked about T's having trouble with
feeling, rather than, e.g., Ti's having trouble with Fe. And she really didn't treat E/I and J/P differently than S/N and T/F in that respect. She talked about P's needing J's to help them compensate for their P-typical weaknesses in the same way that she talked about N's needing S's to help them compensate for their N-typical weaknesses.
