Yes, pretty much what I think of all counseling. I wonder if that's an INTP trait.
Well, I never went to personal therapy until my 30's because I saw it as a "waste." When I finally did go, I benefited -- but not from being told things I didn't know but by having an environment in which I could just be myself, be human, without fear of judgment or my compulsive self-restraint
The one or two times we tried marriage therapy, it was awful. We came to the first guy (who was highly touted to us by friends) with realistic problems, and he tried to quote Jung to us and gave us nothing of substance nor seemed to understand our problems. The other issue is that my spouse wanted a religious counselor and I didn't. It's kind of hard to go through therapy when the spouses don't agree on what needs to happen in therapy.
My eldest (INTP) went to therapy once or twice (when he was 13) and then said he was done, because it was "stupid" and the guy was not telling him anything new and/or useful. It was funny... exactly what I would expect an INTP to say.
I can figure this out on my own ... sort of an intellectual arrogance. But I know from discussions with my friends who've been through years (and thousands of dollars) of counseling that I can pretty much nail the issue immediately, and if not immediately, it doesn't take long. (Hmmm, maybe I should be a counselor, ha ha -- but I wouldn't have enough repeat business.) I find it laughable that they spent so much time and money on it -- but then again I know I'm constantly ruminating, whereas others aren't, thus need both a catalyst and an outlet for such things. I just have conversations with myself. It's much cheaper, and far less time consuming. :-)
Totally. That's the thing -- we are well-suited to detach and try to review our situaton as objectively as we can, although we're still human and can't do it perfectly. In life it has been a wake-up call to realize that many other people just can't do this -- which helps me realize that this is a strength I can use for myself and others, and also helps me forgive them for not being so introspective. Lord knows it meant my socializing skills were defunct for many years since I primarily was an introspecter.
My younger two children benefited from some therapy. (Bckgrnd: When my spouse and I separated, we took our kids to see therapists to help them adjust to it.) My ESFP kid loved it -- the insights were helpful to him, and the guy let him talk almost the entire time, and there is nothing more my son likes to do than talk and have people listen.
My INFJ daughter did play therapy, because she's very protective of her emotions and has trouble discussing them directly. Again, it was helpful.
But "therapy as vehicle for knowledge" for INTPs seems to be a waste of time. I think it mostly provides for us at best an affirming environment where we can explore other parts of ourselves besides our ability to perceive truths and put together a coherent big picture of our lives, since we already do that normally.
True, and there are all sorts of practical reasons that it would be difficult if not impossible. But emotionally, I could do it.
Yeah. I know what you mean. I'm capable of having sex with someone I know and care about, without being in an LTR with them or feeling guilt over it. It's more the complications (relationally) that mess things up.
Exactly ... when I was a teenager, my mother gave me a bumper sticker that said, "I'm not weird, you are." I was lucky that she "got" me; she wasn't INTP, probably ISTJ, but she understood who I was and didn't force me to be anyone else.
You are really lucky, and I'm glad for you. I feel like I never got to be myself until my late 30's because I was trying (tacitly or overtly) to please the entire rest of my family and not bring tension down on my head; even now, my parents STILL don't get me. I'm finding myself strangely broken up about that, although intellectually I totally see it and thought I could come to terms with it; I guess the desire to just have parents understand and accept one as who one is, is just a very big deal. I've had to look elsewhere for self-affirmation and very much align with the "Friends are one's family of choice" scenario because my bio-family just has no clue who I am, despite so many attempts on my part to connect. Kind of sad.
Many conventions are that way because they make a lot of sense ... I am actually somewhat conservative in some ways, the ways that I find make sense (and probably those that became conventions because they made sense). Take the nuclear family and marriage: I am sort of chafing at it right now, but I also see that being legally married is keeping me from doing some things that I shouldn't do but that I kind of want to do. I do believe that the arrangement of marriage and children for a family is (at its best) the most beneficial for raising the children. I think kids need a stable environment where they feel safe in order for them to become rational, independent adults, and that is really the goal, no? So I have no problem subsuming my own desires and instincts for that purpose.
Totally. I have the same sort of "rational" approach to everything that you do, including the nuclear family. And when we separated, our primary concern was keeping the kids stable, and I've had to take some painful things on my back because of that, but I can't help but rationally think through it and do what pragmatically is the best long-term regardless of my feelings. I also see some degree of value in social customs, which aren't always arbitrary but often developed in order to meet a particular realistic need in life. So I support things that happen to align with status quo, if I think they make sense and serve a purpose.
(I probably don't have to say it here, but that in no way means I think a nuclear family is the only way to raise good kids, or that bad kids can't come out of a stable family, or that in general functional families can't be made up of an infinite number of combinations. There are many paths ... but if it's possible, I think the one with the fewest land mines is this one.)
Totally. I think the ideal is giving kids a stable environment.
But like you say, good kids can come out of any environment. And for me, my family was horribly unstable (my father was and is an incorrigible alcoholic and I have some terrible stories about him and my doormat mother); and I've got baggage because of it that I had to work for years to get through, yet I consider myself "successful" in that I am not broken like my parents, I'm resilient and a survivor, and I always kept my head about me and didn't get sucked into a host of potential dangers that I might have been with other kids in my situation (I've managed to break out of a large degree from the negative patterns my parents live in), and I've managed to raise three stable, healthy, self-confident, sensitive kids.
I haven't caught up, but wanted to add that I did run for the hills a few years ago. I moved cross country with my dogs in tow, stayed at a hotel, found a casita on a few acres, moved in, found a job and hibernated for six months near a river amongst hills outside of a very small city. I came from the NE (NYC) and like extreme changes so it fit for a while. I would have been happier had I been retired and lived in the real mountains or on the ocean. It was an overall very good experience....I went to work, went home then hiked with my dogs all evening, drew 'art' and read. Lovely. I did something like this again but off grid a few years later living in a 15'(?) train caboose with an ex. It was awesome. I miss the coyotes howling and my solar shower.
It does sound very awesome.
And even now, when I feel I fit better into society, sometimes I secretly wish I could just move to a cabin deep in the northern woods and just live there alone, spending my days wandering or writing or reading or whatever, and not have to think about any of these other things that modern culture has foisted on us. (Although I do enjoy my electricity and hot showers!)
riiscup said:
Jennywocky, the whole "thinking of everything ahead of time" and "scared to be spontaneous and instinctive" was soooooooo me, but it was more me when I was younger, and the older I get, the more I just let go because I felt like I was missing out on a lot of experiences. Sometimes I would figure one thing was likely to happen in a given situation and decide not to do it and things would go in a total opposite direction that I would have liked to have been apart of. So, these days I actively try not to "live in my head" as someone here put it. I want to exist in my body. I want to experience, first hand, as much as I can things that there is no logical reason not to try (the risks you spoke of).
Yeah, that is exactly what I have had to try to do with my life nowadays. And honestly, I love it -- I feel like I'm finally *alive* than just cogitating about life. The moments seem magical sometimes, it's that much of a difference from how I used to live. If there is anything I regret, it is about being too detached when younger and letting too much of my life not be spontaneous, of not living more in the moment.
As a sidebar, one problem I had with dance was choreographing my own pieces. I could take someone else's choreography and tear it up, but could never create my own pieces, I hated that.
Yeah, they are two different mental paths -- creation (construction) and destruction (de-construction). INTPs are great at the latter; we are reactive typically and immediately see systematic flaws in whatever sort of thing we're versed in (which can be a computer system or a movie/book or a dance).
Creation is difficult, though. I'm creative (I've done cartooning/drawing, and music composition, and writing long stories/journal pieces)... and one of the first things I had to learn to do was shut down the mental editor and just let myself brainstorm and create. I immediately want to analyze as I am creating, but honestly that is the Kiss of Death to creativity; we gotta let it go... because the first draft(s) is always crap and we keep expecting it to be more, and then give up before we give ourselves time to work and rework.
Art is also organic; we have to DO it and put it out there so we can look at it, and the process of doing art actually helps shape our art; it's not the sort of thing that we can preformulate in our heads, it is influenced by engaging the process of creating it. Engaging the process gives us more insights that we then use to tailor what we're doing.
At least, that is what works for me. I'm disappointed sometimes in my [lack of] creativity, I keep expecting myself to be better, but I know I never get better and produce good work unless I'm willing to produce lots of junk in the process of getting to the good final outcome.
Oh and yes, little ones are more interesting when they are not yours, meaning you can send them away when you no longer have the energy for them.
Ayup... the benefit of being grandparents. (Note: No, I'm not a grandparent! But it's what they get to do.)
I think the biggest issue for me as a mom is having to pull out of my head, just when a thought is getting good, to attend to children. My kids are younger. 2, 8, 11. My daughter is in that cool language acquisition phase that is totally different for her than it was with my boys. She is so intelligent, she thinks pretty well for 2 - I think- and says the darndest things. I think my 8 year old is INTP, because he is exactly how I was at his age accept he's a boy, very very smart child. My 11 year old and I are really getting each other these days though I suspect he is going into puberty because he gets so emotional sometimes for nothing. But some of the things he talks about to me really impress me, I suspect he is my artistic child, and he is impressive in social situations - he got that from his dad. I enjoy him more and more and learn more and more about him with each passing year. It's fun!
Yeah, it's really hard to get free uninterrupted periods of time when the kids are younger, and the muse never strikes during the periods we do get; my kids are teens now and seem to want to be alone (or with friends a lot more), but that has its own sadness since it means there is necessary distance there as they actualize and grow into their independence. It's cool in that it frees us up to reclaim part of our lives again, though.
It's neat hearing you talk about them. It is also confirming that one of the INTP contributions to parenthood is seeing who our children actually are (without our domination) and enjoying them for who they are, and equipping them to become more of who they are and freeing them from whatever crap is going to subvert that.
Jenny, I like Street Fighter too. I really loved the Soul Calibur's. I never really got into Star Wars figures, but I loved transformers. Particularly, ones that transformed into more than one thing.
I remember playing around with those too. Transformation where something of the original is kept in the new is fascinating, intellectually; it's basically keeping a system intact but reshaping it in new ways to become something else. The inherent pattern -- the essence -- remains the same, though. It still is what it was; or what it was is part of what it is.
Mostly my videogaming nowadays consists of Dragon Age or MMOs (like WoW or CoH), but on rare occasion I have managed to sneak into a guy gathering and get to play a four-person shooter with them.
Another guilty pleasure is racing games (I loved Need for Speed).
I do however think I could pull off and open marriage though. In a committed relationship, you are together for many reasons, and particularly because you enjoy each other. I view open marriage as a marriage that allows sex or dating with people outside of the marriage. Sex and relationship is two different things for me. I could, back in the day, have sex with someone and not in the least want a relationship with them. I think I have found in my SO, someone I would like to always have in my life. As much as he gets on my nerves and I don't understand how he tolerates me, he also makes me happy. I truly enjoy him. And I may be able to hang out with other guys and even have sex with them and still believe that my current SO is the one that I want to be with for the long term. It would be a variety thing for me. Of course, I don't know this for absolute sure, because I don't have an open relationship, but in thinking of it, these are my thoughts. Emotionally, I truly think I could do it. And if the relationship ends, it was meant to anyway, so I take the good times and good lessons and keep on moving.
I relate to all that. Pretty much my reservation is what you've said here -- "you don't know absolutely sure" -- and I know that what seems rational to me ahead of time sometimes changes when tempered with experience. We don't remain disengaged from the exploration, it changes us. So I could guess I could handle this sort of thing to some degree, but I'm not sure if the actual person(s) I'd get involved with would change things or if I'd respond differently in the situation.
That is the scary part about "living in the moment" and engaging life, after all; when we don't engage and remain apart, we also remain the same; but as soon as we start REALLY engaging (i.e., emotionally investing), while it feels very good, it also means we open the doorway to ourselves potentially changing.
I can't promise that, if I'd get involved with a new person while still married, I wouldn't fall in love with the new person and would rather be with them instead, and marriage is a big deal to me and the risk of mucking things up would be kind of unsettling. I don't like ending up in situations I didn't think about ahead of time and have some non-messy escape hatches for.
(I know grammatically this is a mess, but I am not going to bother with it because I don't feel like it, I hope you all understand my rambling though)
Lol, no, you're fine. I apologize too like this, I guess it's just wanting people to grasp our true level of competence rather than focusing on the mistakes...
), I play tennis and ski, I go to church and work in the nursery, I have a successful husband and a nice house and a country club and a lot of shoes .... It all makes me very tired, though. 
]
