Jung Vs. M&B

[QuickTwist]

It has come to my attention that Jung had a very different way of looking at things than the Myers and Briggs way. It seems that Jung's primary purpose for his system, which relies heavily on Introversion and Extraversion and not as much on the cognitive functions, was to determine whether a person had something wrong with them IE. too much introversion or extraversion and then classified them into different cognitive functions from there so he could see which was predominant in their thinking IE. Ni, or Ti, or whichever CF you chose, to determine a disorder or something similar. Now it seems as though the Myers Briggs way was to assume that all persons had some classifications loosely based on the Jung system and put more predominance on all of the classifications and not in total consideration in relation to I/E. So naturally some questions have come to my mind regarding these differences.

Did Jung see the MBTI as a gross misinterpretation of his system?

Do we as users of either system give the appropriate consideration to both systems when determining type?

How has the MBTI mostly taken over as a pop psychology trademark instead of a recognised system by the psychological community?

Do we put too much faith in this system which is not now used to produce a diagnosis?

What do we know about the relationship between the two women and Jung himself.

When does it get to the point where knowing both systems enough, you begin to see flaws within the system, or at least think about these differences and what it means to be overcommitted to the process while not taking the time to see things from a distance and place the system(s) in their appropriate place as tools to which should not be taken as dogmatic? (this has been my struggle for a good while)

There are many things that I don't know about either system and am contemplating where the relevance of type is enough to give clarity to a, what I see as, murky mix up between two systems that may or may not be in their own right valued as they should/could be.

Thoughts?

 

[Red myst]

When does it get to the point where knowing both systems enough, you begin to see flaws within the system, or at least think about these differences and what it means to be overcommitted to the process while not taking the time to see things from a distance and place the system(s) in their appropriate place as tools to which should not be taken as dogmatic? (this has been my struggle for a good while)



Thoughts?

Apparently, for you, the "when does it get to the point" is NOW.
I think it is inevitable that anyone who spends enough time contemplating the two systems finds contradictions and inconsistencies. Neither is absolute, and neither can be reconciled 100% with each other. They each have different purposes and is some ways complement each other. I think in the end, you settle down to your own personal view of what it means to you. Kind of like Architect has formulated his own way of looking at it. The functions are there, Jung observed them and classified them, he did not invent them. You are free to examine all of the data and formulate your own opinion of them.

 

[Reluctantly]

...
Did Jung see the MBTI as a gross misinterpretation of his system?

Do we as users of either system give the appropriate consideration to both systems when determining type?

How has the MBTI mostly taken over as a pop psychology trademark instead of a recognised system by the psychological community?

Do we put too much faith in this system which is not now used to produce a diagnosis?

What do we know about the relationship between the two women and Jung himself.
...
Thoughts?

I'm pretty much in alignment with Functianalyst on persCafe (http://personalitycafe.com/cognitive-functions/102674-food-thought-no-ability-grow.html). Ima CopyPaste because I'm lazy:

"

I received an interesting blog from Dr. Linda V. Berens earlier this week, regarding the hindering of one’s growth when emphasizing the four-letter codes or as I see it on the forum, an emphasis on the dominant function by insinuating no use of the inferior. I have repeatedly commented on not only this but the, as Dr. Carl Jung calls, “childish parlor games” when believing we can type others, classifying ourselves with type (S vs N, T vs F, etc.). During a conference in Paris, Dr. Berens said,

One of the most talked about presentations was that of Steve Myers. His topic was “Can Psychological Type Be a Barrier to Individuation?” Since writing the material on his website, he has further articulated what is involved in this growth process. Currently, Steve differentiates between Myers Briggs Theory and Psychological Type Theory as Jung meant it to be. He frequently quoted Jung’s writing on this topic so I want to share some of these with you.

Classification is nothing but a childish parlour game… My typology is… not in any sense to stick labels on people at first sight… Any typological terminology superficially picked up… serves no other purpose than a totally useless desire to stick on labels. C.G. Jung, Psychological Types, pp. xiv-xv

The transcendent function… comes… from experiencing the conflict of opposites. You can find a detailed exposition of this problem in my Psychological Types. C.G. Jung, 1939, Letters 1, p. 269
Individuation is closely connected with the transcendent function, since this function creates individual lines of development, which could never be reached by keeping to the path prescribed by collective norms. C.G. Jung, Psychological Types, p. 449

The persona is always identical with a typical attitude dominated by a single psychological function, for example, by thinking, feeling or intuition. This one-sidedness necessarily results in the relative repression of the other functions… In consequence, the persona is an obstacle to the individual's development… C.G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, pp. 288-289

Dr. Berens interprets Steve Myers’ and Dr. Jung’s information this way:
My understanding of Steve’s message is that when we focus the use of type on identification of one side of the dichotomies used in the MBTI® instrument we limit development. We become identified with those preferences and do not focus on holding the tension of the opposite side, which is what encourages development.

I have long said that the ‘functions’ of Sensing, iNuiting, Thinking, and Feeling are not types, but are instead processes. A process is an activity that we can engage in and use. It is not the driver of who we are, but the means to help us be who we are. An important aspect of who we are is the pattern of our personality that has been there from the beginning. I often say, ‘Patterns rule processes.’ We use the processes in service of the pattern, but more on that later.

As to Extraversion and Introversion, Steve provides another quote from Jung.

These contrary attitudes are in themselves no more than correlative mechanisms: a diastolic going out and seizing of the object and a systolic concentration and detachment of energy from the object seized. Every human being possesses both mechanisms as an expression of his natural life-rhythm… A rhythmical alternation of both forms of psychic activity would perhaps correspond to the normal course of life. C.G. Jung, Psychological Types, p. 5

I am going to respond to Dr. Berens to not only the confusion between MBTI and Psychological Type in the manner explained above, but more importantly the difficulty in people studying type by applying MBTI tools. Again, they are two separate systems and using MBTI tools to apply Jung’s function-attitudes (or cognitive functions) simply does not work. There are no forced choices in Psychological Type theory. If one claims to use one function-attitude, they must use the other. Jung not only says it is rare to use a dominant function 100%, it results in one-sidedness and creates an imbalance. In other words, anyone dominating with for example Ti, Ni, Ne, etc, claiming they do not use the compensatory opposite (Fe, Se, Si, etc.) are essentially admitting their inability to grow. I know that is not true since it is apparent that the inferior function is being used in some manner, based on posts. So I would like to simply say a claim of not using the compensatory opposite function for your dominant means you’re attempting to apply Psychological Type theory in an erroneous manner, or you are superficially seeing yourself as a persona.
​

"

 

[scorpiomover]

Did Jung see the MBTI as a gross misinterpretation of his system?

I think he saw it as an alternative description.

Do we as users of either system give the appropriate consideration to both systems when determining type?

Usually don't give appropriate consideration to either one.

As an example, whenever someone crazy comes up, consensus says that MBTI and Jungian typology cannot be applied to the mentally ill, and you've just posted that those are the only types of people that we can be sure that Jung wrote about, and MBTI is largely based on Jungian typology.

How has the MBTI mostly taken over as a pop psychology trademark instead of a recognised system by the psychological community?

It's mostly used to explain why "we" are so much more intelligent than "them", why all our inadequacies are not our fault, and how society should make women date us because we were born this way, (until we get a girlfriend in which case we stop complaining), how we can make fun of others by claiming their type makes them irrational and crazy, by blaming the failure of relationships on stupidity of the other partner due to their type being too stupid to understand that we are right, and things like that.

Do we put too much faith in this system which is not now used to produce a diagnosis?

Doubt so. We put too much faith in pop psychology.

What do we know about the relationship between the two women and Jung himself.

Briggs was Myers' mother. Jung once sat on a lecture Myers gave on MBTI at a bookshop. Never criticised her afterwards. Think he said something nice to her.

When does it get to the point where knowing both systems enough, you begin to see flaws within the system, or at least think about these differences and what it means to be overcommitted to the process while not taking the time to see things from a distance and place the system(s) in their appropriate place as tools to which should not be taken as dogmatic? (this has been my struggle for a good while)

It means that you've reached the point where it is evident that whatever the system is, it doesn't fit into your dogma of what such systems should be, but you aren't yet at the point where you see the dogma in yourself, and keep trying to externalise it by blaming other things/people for not living up to your ideals.

 

[QuickTwist]

@Scorpio, you kinda talked about the blame game. I think part of this is engrained in us and is very hard to combat -at least for me. How do we go about not blaming others for the actions we should own up to?

[Edit] What I am trying to say is that the blame game shows up in our subconscious. How do we change our subconscious?

 

[Black Rose]

What I am trying to say is that the blame game shows up in our subconscious. How do we change our subconscious?

I realized that no matter how others act towards me that I should accept them as they are as what they are from their point of view. The reason we blame is the type pride where we must always be right and them wrong. If you train yourself to allow for disagreement and respond in a calm respectful manner you become humble and never debate to win but to have conversations for understanding.

 

[scorpiomover]

@Scorpio, you kinda talked about the blame game. I think part of this is engrained in us and is very hard to combat -at least for me. How do we go about not blaming others for the actions we should own up to?

[Edit] What I am trying to say is that the blame game shows up in our subconscious. How do we change our subconscious?

Jung said that our subconscious is there to balance the actions of our conscious. We can leave it to our subconscious. But if we want a better result, hadn't we better do it ourselves, so that our subconscious doesn't have to, and so then we can do a much better job of it than our subconscious?