If you were to commune with a group of sensors, with you being the only intuitive, explain the social dynamics that are likely to happen
I was raised in a family of S's in a extended family (cousins, uncles, aunts) of all S's. Immediate was ESTJ, ESFP, ESTJ, ISFP, ISTP (and me). Further all my friends growing up were S types, high school close friend group were ESTJ, ESFJ and ESFP (and me). It wasn't until I met my wife (INFJ) that I found my first, long term intuitive relationship. I'm sure I came in contact with other intuitives but the circumstances weren't there for long term friendship.
What Pmj2 says is the main part of what happens, though in my case with a quiet rebellion and I didn't lose self-esteem, but the negative reinforcement unfortunately works in other more subtle ways. First is the beating down - that's what happens continually. Even when they don't intend it or are otherwise kidding, well even their kidding around is beating you down. S types are concrete and physical so they like concrete forms of expression. They constantly are pushing S on you - especially the extraverted ones. They can't help it, it's the way they are, and they don't see it as being pushy. But to a S inferior (or tertiary) it's horribly invasive and destructive.
For example, you'll just be acting as yourself, like looking off in the distance and thinking, or coming up with an unusual idea, and then a S will loudly say something to the effect of "WAKE UP!". It's a S response, but it can shake you out of your mode so strongly as to be highly destructive. Another time I said something unusual about how plants evolved and my S buddies laughed their heads off at how off kilter it was. They "weren't laughing at me" but they were laughing at me, you know what I mean.
I have literally a million examples. Especially with an Fe inferior an INTP will feel horribly out of place and like something is wrong. In me it led to quiet rebellion, I
knew I was better than them in some sense, but it wasn't appreciated. In terms of the results the short term pain went away quickly but long term it insidiously leads to several problems.
One, your native type may not naturally develop as it might otherwise, because the other side is pushed so much. People beat the drum of needing to develop your weaker functions all the time, I beat the drum that you need to develop your stronger functions more.
Two, at midlife it will probably result in a "type crises". Jung saw this in his patients, he thought that a midlife crises was mostly due to people being forced to act out of their type earlier in life. I think that's certainly true especially for Intuitives.
At any rate my discussion here and the work I'm doing in Type is due to this early upbringing. My wife says it's like I've got PTSD, like a recovering soldier. There's a lot of truth to that. The good news is that I've made good progress and am at the tail end of the process. Basically I've been 'refactoring' my personality to strengthen the bond between it and my type. Oh, I'm the same person, just with different habits really. Some of the things I've done
- Gotten rid of too many relationships, like those old HS friends. It wasn't working out anyhow and just caused pain and trouble. Now I have a small group of close friends - two mostly an ISFP and an INTP.
- Gotten rid of hobbies and interests that were more of a reflection of my S induced upbringing, like photography. Now I like photography, but on the scale of my interests it's rather low, but takes up a lot of time, money and energy. On self analysis I realized it was mostly a response to the overbearing S around me, as a way to try and meet it halfway.
- Cleaned up my S induced attitudes to find my own attitudes. For example, going outside. I've always been a big hiker and use it to "clear my head". But again on deep analysis I found that it was really a way for me to get away from the S types and think, and frankly I didn't like it that much. I'd waste half the day by going somewhere for a hike, which would simultaneously feel good and would be a letdown. Instead I gave myself the option "how would it be if you stayed home more, but your house was really your castle?". So I built up a office and situation to that idea and found its much more satisfying. Now, instead of hiking (which I still do occasionally) I go sit in my beautiful backyard. It's enough for me.
- Religion
- Work
And so on ... the point is that I needed to reexamine everything I thought and believed to see if it
really was something I thought and believed, or if it was really something imposed from my early upbringing. Then it's a process of finding what I really thought and reprogramming myself. This takes time because the neocortex does it at night time.
PS. I'll add that having an INTP son has been a major catalyst for this too. I've learned as much from him as he's learned from me, because I can see what ideas a "native INTP" comes up with and can test against myself. For example, he said he didn't like hiking, it bored him yet I kept trying to get him to go out for hikes. Finally I took a step back and had to question myself, "did I
really like hiking that much?". After some contemplation I found that no, really I just liked hiking very occasionally and my time would be better spent elsewhere. I found I had guilt from wanting to stay indoors and be on the computer, because the S types kept telling me that was bad somehow.
