Typology and Disorders

[Fukyo]

While browsing the INFJforum recently, I read something interesting. Someone claimed that their mother was an ESFJ with Aspergers. While I can't be certain of either diagnosis, the premise itself intrigued me.

Why?

Anyone familiar with the more superficial aspects of typology and Aspergers would quickly declare the combination to be an outrageous oxymoron, and indeed most would be inclined to agree that it's impossible to have a Feeling function (esp.Fe) in your top 2 and be an Aspie. Likewise, the same consensus prevails with the Schizoid Personality disorder, which is often correlated with the INTP and INTJ.


My line of thinking suggests that it is indeed possible to be a Feeling type and have a similar disorder, however a few things need to be considered first.

Type is not a disorder, so equating it with disorders doesn't make any sense in the beginning. The only thing that could be considered is the correlation of type, but special attention needs to be paid on what is being correlated, the manifestation of type or the type itself, and of course....

It should be expected that having a disorder of any kind will distort the external and probably internal picture of a person's type to varying degrees, which means that even the perception that an individual has in regards of their type may not be very reliable.


In relation to Autism, some speculations have been made on the Lenore's wiki that suggest that a Feeling function may not necessarily be tert/inferior:

Spoiler

Connection to Autism? A page on autism has some ideas which resonate with these hypotheses. Excerpt:

"At this point I want to return to what I have called the manipulation of people's interest systems. This is intended to be a factual and not a judgmental description: it means taking hold of other people's interests and attempting to line them up with our own. Because of the turn-taking contract adverted to earlier, it also means letting other people take hold of one's own. The nett effect of a successful conversation is to leave both parties with their interest systems reciprocally altered so as to maximize their similarity. It's all very agreeable when it works out, and the feeling states of both parties are in harmony. This has long term consequences. Those who enter into this game have emotions which are repeatedly tuned to the rest of society's those who haven't entered the game early find it hard to fit in, even if they want to. What is more, the lack of a reflective loop deprives people with autism of the one device people without autism have for exercising some internal control over their emotions - inadequate though that device is to the task. *To sum up, in individuals with autism emotions are not integrated, either internally within the individual or externally within society at large. They are not adapted to accommodate other people's and may be hard to recognize both for others and for the individual who is experiencing and expressing them. They are not spread thin, so are liable to overload. And, in the absence of reflection emotions are both outside the individual's control and unavailable for enriching the meanings of their memories. " The link may help explain why INTPs in the Myers-Briggs sense often have tendencies that are similar to Asperger's Syndrome (a high-functioning form of autism). From the standpoint of Lenore's ideas, autism seems to guarantee the poor development of extraverted feeling. (although autists still have Fi). Myers-Briggs often presents Feeling in a very simplistic manner: Fi is about experiencing emotions, and Fe is about displaying them. The extraverted/introverted distinction is simply used to denote whether the emotions are being displayed externally, or "bottled up inside." Yet this quote on autism demonstrates why Lenore's distinctions between Fe and Fi have much more explanatory power than Myers-Briggs. The ideas that emotions can be "tuned in" to society (or not) to varying degrees shows that Feeling is not just about the experience and display of emotion. Feeling has another dimension: the degree to which emotion is integrated with social expectations and with other people's emotions.

As you've noticed it is said that it should guarantee a poor development of Fe though, which has some plausibility to it, when you consider how many IFJs come to think of themselves as Thinking types because of their unexpected pattern of function usage and development.

Another type enthusiast, goes as far as to loosely (I hope) correlate the manifestations of Dominant - Tertiarty loop in an individual with personality disorders, in this thread.

ISTP/INFJ: Ti/Ni or Ni/Ti--Schizoid Personality Disorder. These types are socially incompetent for lack of trying, because they see little to no value in significant interaction with others. They live in their own abstract worlds, constantly second-guessing themselves as Ti poses a framework for a problem and Ni shoots it down as too definitionally precise. Without any real external input, these two functions will dream up all sorts of elaborate systems and implications for them, only to repeat their own self-defeating behavior, never bothering to emphasize putting any of its intense ideas into practice. Frequent disregard for rules, laws and other forms of behavioral standards is common, as no function provides any significant sense of external influence. If Se/Fe were doing its job, the user would recognize the value of connecting with others and of paying attention to their needs, preferences, habits and appearances.

Thoughts?

 

[DesertSmeagle]

This actually applies to me. Im an ENTP, or a very extraverted intp, but i have social anxiety disorder, so i never socialize or talk while im at college. I sit there in the back and keep to myself, just observing the class. But then i get home and make videos.

Im a social reject, due to the anxiety disorder, yet i also think like an extraverted person. If i didnt have that disorder, most people would like me, but a few people would hate my soul..Like the fat ugly stupid girl that pretends to be smart in mypsych class.. if i opened my mouth in class, shed leave every class in tears.. She actually challeneged the teacher today, in a retarded way..we are talkin about brain cells and parts, and out of nowhere she says. "do you know about the 7th cranial nerve cell?" teacher says,"ya, i do"", the fat fuck says, "well can you tell me where it is?"teacher says "not off the top of my head"...she just said that to show the class that she thinks she is smart, and was probably ridiculed in the past, so shes trying to make up for it by acting like shes smarter than everyone, in order to feel important, becasue she feels so unimportant..like a hardcore conspiracy theorist...sry ranting

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I was thinking maybe genetics are involved.

 

[Black Rose]

so shes trying to make up for it by acting like shes smarter than everyone, in order to feel important, becasue she feels so unimportant..like a hardcore conspiracy theorist

I wouldn't consider myself hardcore just yet.

 

[Black Rose]

Thoughts?

Can an ENFJ be diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder and still be ENFJ?
I didn't really trust the psychologist that examined me. Said I had strange ideas.

 

[Anthile]

I've been wondering that for, well, years now. What is a personality? Do personalities even exist? Is a personality not the shade of the neurosis? Is it not an anomaly, a reaction to the hostile world surrounding us? The enneagram connects every of its nine types with a vice and a virtue which determine what we strive for, what we live for and what is our downfall.
Even though the existence of cognitive functions seems to be a proven fact for now, we still have no answer whether or not types do exist. The remarkable overlap of schizoid/schizotypal personality disorder and INT-types (and INF-types, but to a lesser degree) cannot be a coincidence. But here we have to ask the hoary question: to what degree are these disorders really disorders? Besides the term disorder we often hear the term mental illness thrown around which suggests that being schizoid/schizotypal is something like an infection that can be cured and is generally treated as a distinct entity. I don't think one can separate mental disorder and personality. You can't remove it like a tumor and expect that you're perfectly normal afterwards. All of this leaves three possibilities:

1. People with mental disorders have personality types completely outside of the MBTI.

2. There are no personality types, only mental disorders in varying degrees.

3. It's all just a strange coincidence.

 

[Words]

My internal logic and experience agrees with this specific disorder being a separate entity from the theory of hierarchal cognition. To jump further, I disagree with dominance of function equating to 'difficulties in social interaction'. Although a relationship exists, it must be clarified that the connection is accurately in the approach of 'indirectness'. An example is my own Inferior Fe resulting to a wider range of social acceptance as oppose to my Fe Aux or Dominant acquaintances. Of course, we still have to consider "external familiarity". Connection and Relationships does not solely rely on Fe: it is mixtures of personality that brings relationship in vivid form.

The origin of confusion is the vague definition, if not the entire system itself.

 

[DesertSmeagle]

I've been wondering that for, well, years now. What is a personality? Do personalities even exist? Is a personality not the shade of the neurosis? Is it not an anomaly, a reaction to the hostile world surrounding us? The enneagram connects every of its nine types with a vice and a virtue which determine what we strive for, what we live for and what is our downfall.
Even though the existence of cognitive functions seems to be a proven fact for now, we still have no answer whether or not types do exist. The remarkable overlap of schizoid/schizotypal personality disorder and INT-types (and INF-types, but to a lesser degree) cannot be a coincidence. But here we have to ask the hoary question: to what degree are these disorders really disorders? Besides the term disorder we often hear the term mental illness thrown around which suggests that being schizoid/schizotypal is something like an infection that can be cured and is generally treated as a distinct entity. I don't think one can separate mental disorder and personality. You can't remove it like a tumor and expect that you're perfectly normal afterwards. All of this leaves three possibilities:

1. People with mental disorders have personality types completely outside of the MBTI.

2. There are no personality types, only mental disorders in varying degrees.

3. It's all just a strange coincidence.

Ya. there seems to be a correlation between INTs and schizoids and depresion type disorders, but I dont think that one causes the other. Something causes both. So all of us that have some kind of personality disorder or depression and are INTs, have something in common which created our personality and disorder. Now we can only ask what is it that we all have in common?

Probably something that developed when we were younger. Maybe the thinking developed as we were younger, and we somehow got interested in science and philosphy. Then we get older and these things that we are still interested in become socially unacceptable which leads us to introversion. Then the time we spend not doing social things we are home thinking and developing our thinking further, while gaining pleasure from being alone, and not getting the stress of not being around people that dont accpept you for being different. This pleasure of being alone leads to introversion, and in some cases depression, because sometimes your peers wont accept you. Then while your alone,and slightly depresed, you think about why your depressed, and the depression leads to depressing thoughts.Your thinking is super developed by now and you think about depression, which most likely leads to negative thoughts. So then you just keep thinking about it, and it justleads to deeper depression, which leads to personality disorders and anxiety.. Its like depression or anxiety could mix with your thinking, and snowball effect into something bigger and more severe.

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

The way i see it, there are definately specific personalities, they were made up to classify different patterns of behavior by humans ourselves, i feel the need to compare saying personalities arent real, to saying gravity isnt real, we cant really explain what is causeing what we see, but we slapped a name on it and accept its existance. (not saying anyone said they doubted the existance of personalities, just felt like posting this)

And i am not very confidant with the more detailed thoughts im having about disorders realted to type, it is hard to say if the disorders cause different cognative development, making it imposibble to accurately type the person, or maybe some disorders cause an imbalance in what cognative functions are prefered, despite still maintaining the same "firing order", making it possible to type, but causes irregularities. Then there are some disorders that are probably just over emphasized traits of a personality.

It is hard to just make assumptions, i dont really know a lot about disorders.

 

[DesertSmeagle]

Ya. Personalities are just like everything else in psycholgy. You can't physically interact with them. They exist only in your mind... Not just literally haha but observationally.. I guess.. And who knows what else exists in the mind.. It's like there is no body part for the subconscious but we know it exists.