#lenore thomson

Perceivers (xxxP) tend to be characterised by the need to constantly leave the room open for more information and freedom to quickly react to opportunities as they arise. 

This manifests as resistance to structure (adaptability), constant revision of settled matters (indecisiveness), starting many different projects (inspiration and responsiveness), fickleness (low obstacle tolerance), and even moodiness (strong receptivity).

To Judging types, Perceivers can appear as an undisciplined and non-conscientious bunch. To always be unprepared and react in the moment means that this is the only option they ever have, which is in direct opposition to what Judgers believe freedom is: the ability to devise a plan and therefore influence the world according to one’s vision and will.

If all you can do is react to what life throws at you, that’s not freedom.

However, to understand Perceiving types a little better, Lenore Thomson likens them to surfers: 

The goal may be the perfect wave, but you can’t control the wind or the tides or the weather. What’s important is to go with it in a glorious leap of faith, co-creating the experience as it’s unfolding.

What this means is that P types have a lot of faith in their ability to improvise. But what happens when they can’t do it? 

If improvisation doesn’t work, however, the experience is simply ruined. Once you’ve fallen off the board, there’s nothing more to be done. The moment is gone. P types in this situation are crushed and disappointed and feel exposed as inadequate. 

Indeed, when P types find themselves contending with circumstances in which they have neither skills nor experience to count on, they die a thousand deaths, anticipating all manner of awful things that could go wrong.

That is unlike J types, who don’t invest their self-worth in the successful outcome of one moment. 

The receptivity of P types also manifests as being easily influenced by the ideas and views of each new person they come in contact with, or an article or book they read; especially if the P user lacks T or F function development. 

Whether that leads to overhauling their whole wardrobe, reshuffling their social circle, or making a career or major switch, the change will only last insofar as their attention can be sustained. If the resulting change does not produce enough stimulation or desired feedback, it will once again be abandoned for the new shiny thing.

Perhaps the most interesting part is how this tends to translate into mood cycling: “[P]eriods of enthusiasm and receptivity alternating with periods of overload and withdrawal; P types often experience their legitimate need to withdraw as a feeling of disappointment and depression.”

The P types, as such, should come to accept that some degree of consistency is necessary to eventually balance out the moods and learn to utilise Ne or Se function in a more fruitful manner. In other words, instead of always switching tracks, the NP and SP types should learn to ride out the dull and mundane moments, and eventually redirect their energy to optimising or improving that which already exists, as opposed to tearing it down. 

Hi there, I just published ‘Notes on Judging Attitude’; a write up on the opposing perspective. 

If you need links, here’s the book:

Part 1

“Although we are born with the capacity for many different combinations, we adapt to our environment by developing only one or two —  usually the ones that come easiest to us, modified by opportunity and social expectation. The process is very much like becoming fluent in a language. When we’ve developed a particular way of interacting with the world, we tend to use other, less-developed functions with something like a behavioral accent.”

*Warning: Wall of Text

INTRODUCTION AND SHORT DESCRIPTIONS

Conflicting ways of assigning meaning

Humans have four fundamental ways of giving consciously understood meaning to what they experience--which we will call "functions". Each of them can be used in a way that is independent of or grows out of socially accepted beliefs and morals--that is, in an Introverted or an Extraverted attitude. Each combination of function + attitude provides the vocabulary and ground rules for developing an epistemological and ethical perspective on life. No one of them, however, provides enough for a full life that incorporates all your potential, talents, and callings.

Each way of assigning meaning leads to very different conclusions in everyday life about what is trustworthy and what is important. It is not possible to develop a coherent, functioning self by holding all of the perspectives in a balanced manner. As people become adults, they usually develop their epistemological and ethical perspectives along one pattern of assigning meaning. This is a person's Dominant Function.

Eventually, they reach difficulties in their lives that cannot be resolved within the rules of the Dominant Function. At this time, they need to turn to an alternative way of making sense of things that modifies their dominant attitude without nullifying it. This natural alternative attitude is the person's Secondary Function. It's natural partly because we've been developing it all along. Extraverts have been using their secondary attitude to hold a piece of themselves in reserve--to cultivate a perspective that enables them to respond in ways not obviously dictated by their situation. Introverts have been using their secondary attitude to cultivate a definite place for themselves in the world.

 Introverted Function Attitudes

The Introverted perspectives draw upon our innate, inherited potential to think and understand, without regard to present-day opportunities or social conventions.

Introverted Sensation (Si) tunes you in to the chaos, unpredictability, and unknowability of the concrete world, leading you to value whatever few signs you can find that have stable meaning. For example, the stripes of tabby cats might hold a particular meaning for you, and you might come to treasure that. As an epistemological perspective, Si leads you to view anything from outside a familiar context as dangerous and untrustworthy. You are in tune with the fact that nearly all possibilities lead to destruction. For example, if you're designing an airplane, nearly all combinations of the variables fail. Of the possible combinations of wingspan, wing placement, wing shape, fuselage shape, and so on, there is only a tiny subset that make an aerodynamically workable plane--and then only if you get a whole lot of other things just right, too. All of life is like that, only much more complicated. We live only in the small islands of the world that we've grown up with and are suited to us. And we can't possibly know why these small islands are relatively safe. As an ethical perspective, Si leads you to protect the integrity of the things and signs that we depend on. This usually takes the form of setting up barriers against the unpredictable. For example, saving for a rainy day (hardships come at unpredictable times) or inspecting buildings for fire safety (so people can trust that "being inside a building" is a sign of safety against the elements). Within these barriers, where all is trustworthy and familiar, we can survive and enjoy what is precious to us--for a while.

 Introverted Intuition (Ni) focuses on what is inexpressible--the incommensurable and chaotic things that exist outside of any conceptual framework. For example, what do you hear in the theme-and-variations movement of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 131? There is a meaning there, but you can't put it into words. Any attempt to put it into words will result in only a tawdry parody of the reality. Better to remain silent. As an epistemological perspective, Ni leads you to view all signs as meaningless or even deceptive, not necessarily connected to what they're supposed to represent. The true reality is something that exists beyond all signs and appearances, and can only be apprehended by a kind of direct intuition. To learn truth, one must learn to see through appearances--to make contact with a reality that cannot be seen or said. As an ethical perspective, Ni leads you to hold yourself apart from and unaffected by the meanings that others attach to words and events--to keep your own vision pure and pursue your own path regardless of evidence, reasons, or the opinions of others.

 Introverted Thinking (Ti) makes sense of the world by apprehending it in terms of effects emerging from a cause, or a harmony of elements. For example, the way a beautifully made desk appears to emerge from a single idea. As an epistemological perspective, Ti leads one to trust only things that you understand first-hand for yourself, preferably through direct, hands-on interaction. You must see for yourself how a given thing or subject makes sense. Knowledge must emerge from the concrete reality itself, not from preconceived categories or criteria, and the search for knowledge must follow wherever logic and the subject matter lead, regardless of how people feel about it. As an ethical perspective, Ti leads you to do what is best for the system regardless of reward or gain or social conventions that define right and wrong behavior. For example, the sense of "natural law" that guides Clint Eastwood to do what needs doing in Old West towns regardless of the law.

 Introverted Feeling (Fi) makes sense of the world by relating everything to universal human needs and callings. For example, understanding the actions of a bully as the expression of an unmet need to be connected and feel important. Understanding that, we can see the bully without judgement: we can see him as a living being not so different from ourselves, seeking to fulfill his needs just as we do, but in a way that creates unnecessary conflict. As an epistemological perspective, Fi leads you to take whatever a person thinks or believes as an expression of that person's unique nature--not to criticize it because it fails to live up to some externally imposed criteria like whether or not it's "logical" or "appropriate". As an ethical perspective, Fi leads you to act out of empathy regardless of the social status or "deservingness" of the beneficiary. Fi leads you to view all living things as equal in value, all needing to thrive in interpersonal harmony without giving up any of their uniqueness.

 Extraverted Function Attitudes

The Extraverted perspectives lead you to use present-day opportunities and circumstances as the ultimate building blocks of your beliefs. Extraverted perspectives provide ways to negotiate through the present-day world, making sense of situations quickly and knowing where you stand in relation to them and what you want to do.

Extraverted Sensation (Se) makes sense of the world by attending to what exists concretely here and now, and trusting your instincts. As an epistemological perspective, Se leads you to believe only in what you can see and experience concretely, and to trust your immediate, gut-level responses to it. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, then it's a duck. Whatever a sign means is obvious and inescapable; if a sign's meaning is not obvious, then it's meaningless. Whatever is physical, immediate, gut-level cannot be faked and must be right. For example, if you sense that someone is up to no good, then you trust that sense. If you have an impulse to paint the town red, then you go out and do so. As an ethical perspective, Se leads you to believe that life is to be lived right now, "in the moment", responding to things immediately and without thought. What matters most in life is what makes the biggest perceivable impact, whatever stands out in a way that can't be ignored. Se leads you to develop a persona that is attractive and "hip" according to the conventions of your society and your time--to go with the flow without stopping to question the direction. If something isn't fun, then don't do it.

 Extraverted Intuition (Ne) makes sense of the world by seeing ways to incorporate what is known into a broader context--breaking through the limits of current concepts. For example, sensing, before nearly anyone else, that high-bandwidth communication networks would "change the rules" of commerce. As an epistemological perspective, Ne leads you to practice "out of the box" thinking. There are never any final answers, just more and more opportunities to shift concepts and make sense of things in new ways. Whatever we think things mean today, we'll probably find out tomorrow they mean something different. As an ethical perspective, Ne leads you to take risks and dive into the unknown--stacking the deck to some extent by diving into areas that look especially fertile, but genuinely entering the unknown and allowing it to send your mind in new directions. If you don't know, just guess! Try something, and information will come to you--but only if you stir up the pot. From an Ne perspective, life is a succession of opportunities to pounce on, each opportunity opening up more that you can't yet see.

 Extraverted Thinking (Te) makes sense of the world by viewing things "objectively": in terms of categories and measurements that can be defined in advance of observation. For example, defining the specifications of a wheel that make it acceptable for use on the road. Stable categories and measurements enable people to define shared goals and enforce agreements fairly. You can tell whether the wheel met the specifications or not; anyone can tell, because the specifications are defined independently of both the wheel and the person doing the measuring. As an epistemological perspective, Te leads you to be concerned with logical and empirical justification. No conclusion may be accepted until it has been grounded on a firm foundation of other facts that have themselves been firmly established. What has not been tested is unknown; what cannot be tested is meaningless. As an ethical perspective, Te leads to a life of "rational hill-climbing": making every decision according to well-defined criteria for what counts as better and worse. You might not know how to get to your goal, but at each decision, you take the choice that leads closer to it: you improve your position at every opportunity. Moral codes in a Te worldview emphasize keeping one's promises. Justice is understood as a social agreement negotiated by all parties, which specifies rewards and punishments that must be enforced fairly according to objective rules.

 Extraverted Feeling (Fe) makes sense of the world by viewing it in terms of where you stand with other people: interpreting signs that indicate the category of your relationship. As an epistemological perspective, Fe leads you to view every sign as an expression of people's loyalties. A simple example is that displaying a flag demonstrates your loyalty to country. What matters is how you go above and beyond efficient means to an end. For example, throwing a party in someone's honor is not "necessary" for survival: it's a gesture that goes above and beyond survival, expressing your feelings for the guest of honor in a way that all can understand. From an Fe perspective, words are never neutral descriptions of fact: your choice of words, your choice of topic, is a declaration of your feelings and loyalties. As an ethical perspective, Fe leads you to believe that "life is with people": to understand one's value and meaning in terms of your standing in the community--in terms of the people whom you influence and their feelings about you.

 INTROVERTED FEELING

Quasi-defining statements

p. 41: "When we use Feeling in an Introverted way, it operates as a kind of inner flame--a sense of personal values that may be difficult to explain or express directly but whose character informs our choices and inclinations."

p. 366: "Introverted Feeling ... encourages a personal relationship to an evolving pattern, a will to gauge the situation by an experiential ideal. For example, if we use Introverted Feeling to make a good spaghetti sauce, we won't follow recipes or measure ingredients. We'll sample the sauce as we're making it, gauging its taste, smell, and texture by their ideal outcome and adjusting for circumstantial variables so the emerging pattern stays on track."

p. 367: "To invoke Introverted Feeling, we have to know the difference between a good outcome and a bad one--know with our senses, in our bones [on the basis of living, breathing, first-hand experience]."

p. 370: "Introverted Feeling relies on the inward, right-brain criteria of experience and empathy to mark off decisions that go beyond our roles in society to affect us as human beings. Law and custom, after all, are the lowest common denominator of a defined community. We associate character and humane behavior with the moral imperatives shaped by inner values."

 p. 371: "An inner point of reference, one trained by personal experience. [Bypassing matters of social standing] to focus on the quintessentially human."

Proposed definition #1

Introverted Feeling (Fi) is the attitude that everything that is manifest (apparent, observable, described) is the expression of a soul or life force, in terms of which everything ultimately makes sense. Everything that happens is the result of a soul expressing its unique nature.

From this attitude, each living thing is completely unique, and has unique needs. Every living thing needs to express itself and grow in its unique way. None of this can be put into categories or measurements, at least not without blotting out that utter uniqueness of each living thing. Because we are all living things, even though each of us is unique we can still connect to the life force as it exists in others. From an Fi standpoint, the way to respond to things is in a way that is faithful to that underlying life force.

 Proposed definition #2

Introverted Feeling (Fi) is the attitude of judging things good or bad based on how they harmonize or clash with a living being's inner essence. That inner essence or soul, and how things in the environment get along with it or conflict with it, is knowable only first-hand--ultimately, only by that soul. It is known by attending to one's own emotions in response to things. What you like is good--for you, not necessarily good for others. What you don't like is bad--for you, not necessarily bad for others. Anything outside your own soul is irrelevant to evaluating anything or choosing your course in life.

As a language of Ego Orientation

As a Dominant Function, Fi leads IFPs to live a life based on empathy and harmony between self and others--and/or to see life as a never-ending conflict between souls that are intrinsically different and opposed. ISFPs typically seek out a space in which they can be completely and spontaneously themselves, following their artistic impulses without regard to social expectation or definition of any sort. Some do their best to live life as a soap opera: creating and living out intense drama wherever they go. INFPs typically seek to understand the world in terms of drama, emotion, and people seeking their own unique callings (perhaps Garrison Keillor is a good example of that). Some, like John Gray, attempt to help others understand each other through empathy with each other's differences, and thereby find peace and synergy.

Developed Fi naturally leads people to favor mercy or forgiveness for people who have done heinous acts--anything from theft to murder to genocide--acts that, under the ordinary laws that make a society manageable (see Extraverted Thinking), would usually merit their imprisonment or execution. From a developed Fi perspective, the criminal is still a living soul, still unique and precious despite whatever he may have done. If we walked in his moccasins for a while, maybe we could see it his way. Without condoning his crimes, maybe we could see how we ourselves could have done the same things under similar circumstances. This use of empathy as one's ultimate anchor of orientation leads to a resolute non-judgementalness. First empathize--find something in your own heart that lets you see how someone could feel and act the way he did--and then you will probably find that you no longer feel hatred or a desire for retribution.

As a Secondary Function, Fi typically leads EFPs to tune into the unmet needs and callings of others--as an avenue to making a sale, as a way to intuit what would entertain people, as a channel to political gain by demonstrating that you understand people's pain (e.g. Bill Clinton), as a way to chart a course through life based on a calling felt to be unique to them. Sometimes it leads them to sense a higher calling to answer to, a sense that their actions have cosmic meaning by virtue of how they aid or hinder life.

As a Tertiary Function, Fi typically leads ITJs to retreat into solitary actions that have no constructive worldly effect but are aimed at providing a justification for calling themselves good people. Another example is obsession with the purity of one's soul. For example, being a vegetarian while working at Taco Bell--not out of any great love for animals (the person might hardly know anything about what cows are like), but to be able to say, "Well, at least I never ate any animals." Or engaging in pointless acts of honor, like maintaining super-self-control or "doing one's duty" or going down with the ship. Nothing is gained by going down with the ship; it's a hyper-introverted act aimed at providing a rationalization for one's goodness without regard to real-world consequences. Nearly all of these tertiary-Fi acts involve refraining from action viewed as unethical rather than taking positive action that would accomplish something. They're a retreat from the world--or rather, a rationalization for disregarding worldly matters.

As an Inferior Function, Fi typically leads ETJs to acts of self-destructive hedonism, creation of opera-like drama in their lives and the lives of those around them, obsession with "integrity" (like going down with the ship), instant and irresponsible abandonment of anything they don't like (the opposite of going down with the ship), and bizarre solitary acts of atonement for the harms they've done to others. Sometimes inferior-Fi leads ETJs to preach and even practice a sort of hyper-selfishness, e.g. Ayn Rand and the Landmark Forum. "I'm doing fine, so why should I give a damn about you?" (Very different from highly developed Fi, which leads you to see all people as connected and the highest joy of life as the experience of that connection.)

Tertiary and inferior Fi also sometimes lead TJs to view large numbers of people as "troglodytes": soulless or stupid creatures whose rotten situations in life derive only from their own intrinsic rottenness-of-soul. To take a comic example, Lex Luthor's lamentation in Superman, "Why is the world's greatest criminal genius surrounded by nincompoops?"

Perhaps the most typical manifestation of tertiary and inferior Fi is an attitude of psychologizing other people: a sort of pseudo-empathy in which one explains other people's behavior in terms of pitiful needs and psychological flaws that anyone would be ashamed to have. "Notice the defensiveness. He clings desperately to his ideas. Such weakness." (Nearly all psychological theories offer plenty of ammo for psychologizing, including Lenore Thomson's ideas.) Where developed Fi leads you to find something in your own soul in terms of which to truly understand someone else and see things their way, tertiary and inferior Fi typically lead you to find something in your own soul that you despise, in terms of which you can "explain" them and justify putting them down.

 Naturally, you can see plenty of dominant-style Fi in ETJs, secondary-style Fi in IFPs, and so on--even inferior-style Fi in IFPs.

Introverted feeling is judgement with an emotional slant that causes the individual to view the object on a Subjective level. It is primarily a silent inaccessible function that is difficult to conceptualize. Therefore, unlike its extraverted counterpart, Extraverted Feeling, it is entirely individualistic, with a leaning toward the mystical. Introverted feeling is generally disconnected with typical external stimuli. Introverted feeling is only concerned with the external to the extent that the object has some relevance to a deep, internal value. Its primary objective is to harmonize ideologies, concepts, relationships etc. with the internal guiding force.

Whatever the individual values the most will dominate the motivations, goals and chief objectives of the individual. For example, if the primary value is God, then all other values will find themselves inexorably subjugated to this primary one. Often, unbalanced introverted feeling will create in the individual dramatic mood swings and decisions based on illogical rationales. However, at its best, introverted feeling provides a navigational quality that creates in the personality tenacity, idealism, honor, relationship wisdom and a unfaltering value system that is seldom compromised.

Introverted feeling is a counterpart to Extroverted thinking, as are all inferior elements to the dominant. Everyone attempts to accomplish the inferior through the dominant. By following first principles and proverbial logic (Te) i.e. literal proverbs, they accomplish being "good"(Fi). Though the elements look different they simply reverse the horse and carriage. An Fi will look at a business tycoon and blame them for the state of the poor. A Te realizes that simply feeling bad for the poor won't accomplish anything, because you can't take emotions to the bank (a common Te proverb) you need to actually DO something. Even if you don't FEEL for them, building a huge corporation and then donating your equity to charity is worth more than a single person volunteering their entire life. For this reason, even though still hated by a generally large amount of people, Bill Gates (textbook ENTJ according to typology forums) is more effective in donating ~$30 billion to build business around the globe for the poor and promoting philanthro-capitalism than an army of Mother Teresa's.

 INTROVERTED THINKING

Quasi-defining statements

p. 42: "When we use Thinking in an Introverted way, we get a mental image of the logical relationships in an entire system. For example, if we're crocheting an initial into a sweater, we're likely to draw a picture rather than work out the logical relationships analytically."

p. 342: "Introverted Thinking is a right-brain form of judgement that makes us aware of a situation's many variables. When we use it, we recognize our power, as individuals, to exploit some variables at the expense of others."

 p. 343: "This kind of awareness is not only impersonal: it's graphic, immediate, and wholistic. It prompts no predetermined categories of good and bad. Variables that have unusual or perverse potential are accorded the same consideration as variables that assure a socially appropriate outcome."

p. 287: "As a right-brain function, Introverted Thinking is not conceptual and linear [contra Extraverted Thinking]. It's body-based and wholistic. It operates by way of visual, tactile, or spatial cues, inclining us to reason experientially rather than analytically."

p. 288: "The right brain, with its all-at-once approach to life, doesn't require exact predictability before it takes action. Its decisions are based on probabilities, and it leaves room for the random and the unexpected."

p. 290: "These perceptions aren't peripheral. They're crucial to our intended effect. And they aren't reflexive. They're unspecified. As we're selecting and responding to them, we're not defining them and telling ourselves about them in a left-brain way."

As a Dominant Function:

p. 292: "Introverted Thinkers understand reality only in terms of their ability to 'converse' with it, to take part in its 'becoming'."

 As a Secondary Function:

p. 210: "Unlike Extraverted Thinking, which is conceptual and generalized, Introverted Thinking motivates strategic action in a specific situation. When ENTPs use it, they don't start with abstract rules and apply them, step by step, to bring about a goal. They recognize themselves as part of an ongoing process, and they keep adjusting their behaviors in terms of the whole picture."

p. 210: "When combined with Extraverted Intuition, Introverted Thinking can be highly cerebral, and it usually involves a complex imaginal pattern of relationships. For example, an ENTP might enjoy playing chess, because such types can usually anticipate the results of many potential combinations of moves. An ENTP salesperson might pull together a host of small details and recognize in one mental image how a customer is likely to respond to a product. An ENTP cultural historian might see how a seemingly insignificant detail in a popular movie actually defines the underlying ethos of a culture."

 Proposed definition #1: Orientation to underlying cause

 Introverted Thinking (Ti) is the attitude that beneath the complexity of what is manifest (apparent, observed, experienced) there is an underlying unity: a source or essence that emerges and takes form in different ways depending on circumstances. What is manifest is seen as a manifestation of something. From a Ti standpoint, the way to respond to things is in a way that is faithful to that underlying cause or source and helps it emerge fully and complete, without interference from any notion of self. The way to understand that underlying essence is to learn to simultaneously see many relationships within what is manifest, to see every element in relation to every other element, the relationships being the "signature" of the underlying unity. This can only be experienced directly, not second-hand.

 Proposed definition #2: Orientation by "the groove"

Introverted thinking is a form of mental representation in which every input, every variable, every aspect of things is considered simultaneously and holistically to perceive causal, mathematical, and aesthetic order. What you know by Ti, you know with your hands, your eyes, your muscles, even a tingling sensation "downstairs" because you sense that everything fits. Every variable is fair game to vary, every combination of variables worthy of consideration; the only ultimate arbiter is how well the parts form a unified whole rather than a jumble.

Orienting by Ti, you track causal harmony: you are part of the system, you do your part to fit in with that overall way that things make sense and harmonize. You get into "the flow" or "the zone". You need a gestalt sense of order to know what to do--a sense that you feel in your body, in your mind, in everything at once. "I get it." Without that, you are lost.

For example: You hear a Brahms piece that you've never heard before, and you're sure it's Brahms. How can you tell? You can't name a criterion, like the pitch of the notes, the number of notes, or some simply measurable criterion like that (see extraverted thinking). You know "all at once" because of the way in which the notes all relate to each other. You sense the overall pattern as an indivisible gestalt way in which the music makes sense.

For example: You are composing a piece of music, and you sense that something "doesn't fit". A dominant seventh chord here just doesn't fit the style of the piece. You take it out and replace it with a peculiar series of ambiguous chords, bridging two sections of the piece in a way that leads to but doesn't give away what is to come. Ahh, now that's right. That's what the piece really wanted. It's not what "you" wanted, it's what the emerging causal harmony of the music wanted. "Your" only job is to create faithfully to that emerging harmony--to follow the groove.

What is that groove? What distinguishes the harmonious whole from the jumble, or the almost-whole? This cannot be said, it can only be pointed to. It cannot be defined in advance of knowing it. It cannot be defined separately from the physical material that it potentially exists within. You can "say" it only by directing someone's attention to the parts and how they fit together. You acquire terms of discourse--a vocabulary of things to say--only through "conversation" with the material itself: interacting with it, letting it take shape. Once you've found the groove, you can explore it endlessly--the infinity of ways in which the underlying Idea of the Whole necessitates the arrangement of the parts, the infinity of different ways that the same Idea can be realized in different parts and different situations, and what that Idea is.

 In contrast to the "linear thinking" necessitated by extraverted thinking's representation in terms of verbally defined criteria, Ti takes in everything at once and converts it into a "way in which the whole fits together." You can't stop and explain each step as you go; there are no steps, only flow, only finding the groove and going with it.

In contrast to other attitudes, especially left-brain and Feeling attitudes, Ti does not lead you to experience a sense of self. There is no "you" who is separate from the process in which the material takes on the form that is natural to it. Whether people find the way the parts want to arrange themselves into a harmonious whole offensive, whether you find it pleasant or painful, whether you personally like it or not--you see these as distractions. Your job is to get yourself in harmony with it. The Idea of the whole must become real, and it must be necessitated by the nature of the parts. What "you" create must already be there, as form latent within the material, already yearning to exist. You bring no notion of self to your work except perhaps that of midwife to Nature.

This last paragraph is a fairly high-fidelity description of using Ti as a dominant function, at least to this INTP reader. Midwife to Nature was especially apt. Writer, would you describe Introverted Feeling similarly to this?

 High-bandwidth understanding

Introverted Thinking leads you to relate whatever you are doing to some larger principles that you have identified. Hence, Ti is like having some kind of book in your head, which describes the inner workings of things. When interacting with reality, you are constantly writing and re-writing your book. To deal with anything, you have to be able to understand in terms of the observations in your book. Whenever you are dealing with any new system, you start writing a new chapter on it in order to attain complete understanding of it.

This approach may seem very cumbersome from an extraverted standpoint. You don't really need to understand how a bicycle works in order to ride one. You don't have to actually understand a subject in school if you simply cram and memorize. You don't have to understand computers to check your email. Yet Ti leads you to desire complete understanding of whatever you are doing, instead of looking up the correct procedure, or asking your friends for help, or kicking it when it's not working. With Ti, you don't simply try to understand a system well enough to manipulate it. You try to become such an expert on how it works that you could write a book about it if you had to, even if your expertise is unusable or useless to everybody (sometimes even to yourself).

Hence, Ti is a kind of high-bandwidth understanding, because it leads you to try to understand the entire causal, aesthetic, or logical mechanism of any system of interest. This kind of understanding takes much more time and effort to develop, but it is more flexible once attained, because it allows you to deal with aspects of reality that cannot be described through social norms or sets of discrete procedures.

 True knowledge comes through the fingers

In a sense that everyone understands, true knowledge comes through the fingers, not through the ears or the eyes.

To illustrate what we mean by that, consider what happens when someone tells you how to do something moderately complicated with a certain computer program (say, MS-Word or Excel). They tell you how to work it, but that day you don't operate it yourself (maybe they were telling you over the phone when you weren't at a computer). When you finally try it yourself the next day, you can't get anything to work. All sorts of crucial details are missing from your memory. Or perhaps you remember everything perfectly, but they forgot to tell you something crucial. Now consider what happens when someone sits down in front of you and demonstrates how to operate the program. They run through the whole thing and explain as they go. The next day, you try it yourself for the first time. And barely anything works, again because crucial details are missing. And now consider what happens when they show you how to work the program by having you sit down at the computer. You type as they tell you what to do and point things out on the screen. Every time they forget a detail, you catch it immediately, and they supply the missing info. Every time you run into something you don't understand, you just ask them right away, or they tell you without your asking because it's obvious what you need to be shown. When you work the program again the next day, you're not a pro yet, but you can actually do stuff.

What's relevant here is not the sense of touch, but whether you are actively engaged with the tool. When you interact with the tool using your very own body, the reality of the tool becomes known to you in a different way than when someone tells you or shows you how to use the tool. You understand in a right-brain way rather than a left-brain way. The reality of the tool is guaranteed to have shown itself, because you had a concrete experience with the tool, not just a verbal or symbolic representation of it. The causal relationships of the tool get burned into your brain in a way that transcends words. You could try to translate your understanding into a linear stream of words, but you would indeed be translating: the actual knowledge that you have is not linear and not words. It's an "all at once" thing, and it seems that the knowledge resides in your hand. Or in other words, you have come to understand the tool in the Ti way.

Another example: Let's say you want to make a tower out of random irregular objects. For example a book, an eraser, a pencil and a cup.

A Te approach would be to think of the tower as a list. And try to reduce variables to a minimun. For instance, you would only use the book closed to keep variables down. If you use every object in only one way you only have 24 combinations in total. That way you can be sure that you make the best choice. Then you can decide to put the book with the biggest base first. So you put the book first, then the cup, the eraser and the pencil. Done.

Ti, on the other hand, would encourage you to pick two objects and try to add more. Feel them, consider all the possibilities. Once you are very familiar with each object you can picture everything in your mind. You can see how they fit and how they interact with each other in time. But you don't longer think in 'objects', you think in gestals. You see everything as a fluid. For instance, you consider now the table and your breath as part of the system. You are familiar with the everything in a way that you can consider things like keeping the book open, or taking pages out of it and add them elsewhere to keep balance. After playing with everything a little you see how it would work best and you just do it.

Goals

Perhaps the notion of a goal explains why Lenore calls Ti Subjective:

p. 288: "We have to recognize, in the midst of action, which variables are best taken into account and which are irrelevant to our goal."

p. 290: "When we're Thinking in an Introverted way, we're coordinating our behaviors with the variables in a situation related to our intended effect. This is a matter of logic, limitation, and goal orientation--all the things we associate with a rational approach to life."

p. 287: "Subjective logic--a way to coordinate our behaviors logically with immediate sensory data: the position of the ball, the skill of the batter coming up, the distance we can probably slide, the actions of the other players."

p. 287: "When we use (Introverted Thinking), we're not structuring experience before it actually exists. We're engaged by conditions here and now, and we're adjusting to them in light of their impact on our goal."

Perhaps in these passages Lenore is describing Ti as something other than a Dominant Function. My own experience is not one of seeking goals. Seeking a goal usually seems to me unpleasant, going against the grain of things. My own experience, and I think what most ITPs report, is more an attempt to coax something out, to give form to some idea that I won't fully understand until it's been given form. A goal known in advance of this process would interfere with the process; it would corrupt the idea so that what emerges wouldn't be pure.

EXTPs do not seek goals either, not in the TJ sense. I recognise opportunities. My goal then is to exploit them, but I often meander because of what I discover along the way (or because of sheer laziness). I have an idea of what I want, but that idea is very flexible, and I go where emerging discoveries and circumstances take me.

Semiotically Disoriented in dominant-Ti style

p. 293: "Unless the man had direct involvement in the unfolding process and could exert some effect on its logical outcome, he didn't know how to relate to it."

 As a Language of Ego Orientation

As a Dominant Function, Ti leads ITPs to follow a quest of figuring out the workings of the world firsthand. ITPs want the world to make sense. If they lack the power to command nature to follow its own harmony and rules, at least they can make sure that their actions make sense (at least to themselves). Whether their actions please anyone else, or follow social custom is simply irrelevant. Social rules usually appear arbitrary and meaningless to ITPs, because the goal of those rules is to meet human needs, not to follow the principles of how the ITP thinks the world should work. For ITPs, the world is a set of systems that are governed by certain underlying rules and principles (physics is an example of such a system). ITPs seek to grasp an inductive understanding of the system as a whole though firsthand observation. For an ITP, humans (even oneself) are simply represented as another set of variables in the system.

As a Secondary Function, Ti helps ETPs find some order and continuity in their quests for sensory or mental stimulus. Ti also helps them figure out how to get whatever Se or Ne impels them to want. need more...

 As a Tertiary Function, Ti leads IFJs to.... ?

...."advise others on the wisdom of their choices"(edited from Lenorep.231 on INFJs.) vis a vis Ti as a primary attribute. Also, tertiary Ti leads to an important emphasis on personal experience. Yet unlike dominant and secondary Ti, tertiary Ti can often lead sweeping generalizations induced from sparse evidence. Tertiary Ti leads can lead to a narcissistic focus on your own experience, or the experience of people who stand with you. If someone disagrees with you, then they must be naive. This kind of narrow view is often used defensively. Especially when combined with dominant Ni, tertiary Ti can be used to defend bizarre theories that are completely unfalsifiable.

As an Inferior Function, Ti typically causes EFJs to aspire to behavioural standards that aren't defined by typical social norms. EFJs with low confidence may reject or even demonize Ti, preferring to instead go along with the observable expectations that others place on them. Because it is so adverse to the standpoint of Extraverted Feeling, Ti may sometimes seem too cold or emotionally detached, and thus EFJs might avoid it out of fear of losing their sense of self in the community. EFJs who can accept an introverted stance will realize that things don't have to be determined by what can be observed, and that they don't always have to agree with others just to get along; they can introduce their own ideas, think with their own minds, and determine how the world works through their own subjective perceptions.

 As an Ethical Perspective

As an ethical perspective, Ti leads you to do the best for the system regardless of your relationship to it.

Take, for example, this anecdote from an interview with Vince Vaughan, who played "Trent" in the movie Swingers.

Vaughn: The teachers thought I was crazy. I was sort of a wild kid. But I always felt like, if a kid is getting up to give a speech and he's starting to cry, he's gotta go to school with us for the rest of the year, and your f***in' with him, making him stand up there. I'd tell the kid to sit down. And they'd say, "You can't tell him that, it's my class." And I'd say, “Give him a break on the speech, he just f***in’ cried in front of you." What do you want? He's gotta go and hang out, he's gotta go to school for the rest of the day. You want him to sit up there the whole period and cry? And then when high school comes around he's the guy who cried forever? So I would get in a lot of trouble for that kind of stuff. I was always confident enough to say, "This is f***in' crazy."

 Vaughan is probably motivated by introverted feeling also, but his justification of his actions clearly demonstrates introverted thinking. It makes no sense that someone should have to give a speech when they are crying. Vaughan doesn't only employ pathos, but he appeals to the long-term consequences that the teacher's arbitrary use of power would cause on the kid, such being made fun of. In doing so, he violates the rules of extraverted judgement that students should not question teachers. From his standpoint, there is nothing wrong with doing so, because he is appealing to principles that are much larger than arbitrary classroom rules and transcend the social roles of "student" and "teacher."

...but doesn't 'transcend' the roles of student and other students, since his reasoning is that he thinks people will make fun of the kid? Is it innately good or bad to cry while giving a speech? Does the kid want to give said speech or not? Vaughn doesn't seem to care.

On another note, another great example of dominant Ti would be the character (an ISTP) Dustin Hoffman plays in "Tootsie" in fact that whole film is a Ti-Fe theme movie basically. And the clearest dominant Ti moment was probably the first arguement that Dustin Hoffman's character has with his (extraverted thinking?) agent.

A similar simple example of the Ti approach to ethics would be a student correcting a teacher when they get something wrong. Of course, from the standpoint of Je, correcting a teacher is not acceptable because it subverts the authority of the teacher. Yet from the standpoint of Ti, the teacher only holds authority to the extent that they are true to the material. Hence, by correcting a teacher, you aren't subverting their authority, but rather showing that their authority is an illusion in the first place. Your loyalty is to the material being taught, not to the teacher.

Another example: Suppose a new theory in biology says that rape behavior in humans is an evolutionary product which ensured that the losing males can pass on their genes. If you're not oriented to Ti and you have feminist leanings, you would probably object angrily to this theory because it views rape as natural. If you're oriented to Ti, you would judge this theory only according to the objective evidence. Whether the theory attacks your position is irrelevant; if the evidence is good then you have to accept it.

 The Connection between Critical Thinking and Introverted Thinking

According to some of the definitions of Introverted Thinking, it seems as though this function can be described as taking a holistic, right-brained approach to observing and understanding the variables, causality, and inner-mechanics of an idea or situation. This information is generally too specific to subjective experience and too ethereal for most Extraverted Thinking to understand.

The aspects of this general definition which seems to illuminate a connection between this function and most notions of Critical Thinking would be in how Critical Thinking is, much like Introverted Thinking contrasted to Extraverted Thinking, involved in understanding the logical consistency inherent in the mechanics of an argument, idea or any system of principles which rely on self-consistency in order to function reliably. Critical thinking, unlike problem-solving, is less directed towards the application of ideas to a conflicting situation, and more concerned with the overall logical cogency of an intellectual construct, regardless of the construct's intentions towards the external. Furthermore, in order to use critical thinking effectively, one needs to have an understanding of a "situation's many variables", in order to judge that the "larger picture" is being sustained by the smaller components acting in synchronicity with one another, regardless of one's ability to interpret the rules from more linear processes.

Usually when I've come across the phrase "Critical Thinking" in practice, I've understood it to mostly refer to analysis of a claim or argument with the aim of (a) treating it as an idea to evaluate at second hand, and (b) rejecting it as being insufficiently justified (even though Critical Thinking is seldom, if ever, explicitly defined this way). By "second hand", I mean that the Critical Thinker treats the claim completely as something other people said rather than from first-hand experience, and consequently treating the claim without much regard for context, especially theories that would make it more or less plausible.

For example, when evaluating a claim of alternative medicine, one would ignore all theories within which the claim is meant to be understood, and view it simply as a recipe for cure: "perform this procedure, get these measurable results" rather than "attune yourself to this aspect of life, and from that attunement, perform this procedure, and you'll shift the person's body toward more harmony" (i.e. you have to be in tune with the theory to even perform the procedure). The basis for rejection is usually something to do with bias on the part of the person supplying the facts. "This person is a practitioner of the procedure, who charges a lot for it, so of course they're going to make a lot of factual claims that seem to support it."

Of course, the term "Critical Thinking" is vague, so different people probably use it to stand for many different things. The way I've just described it, though, suggests a left-brain state of mind. The emphasis on bias and the theory-less, context-less way of interpreting a claim suggest Introverted Intuition, and the emphasis on repeatable procedures and measurable results suggests Extraverted Thinking. Here's a (wow, testable!) hypothesis: maybe most people who get heavily invested in Critical Thinking are NTJs.

While I understand your mention of repeatable procedures and measurable results, and how that refers to the concept-based extraverted thinking approach, you seem to refer to an observation one makes ABOUT those procedures and measurable approaches. The Critical Thinking itself deviates from left-brain processes ( to some degree, anyway) in how there are usually very vague rules and concepts one applies when looking for "unjustified argument" as you put it, and correctly so, I believe. Seeing as though Extraverted Thinking, as defined by Lenore Thomson mainly anyway, seems to emphasize the extraction and application of predefined rules and concepts, and seeing as though Critical Thinking has to do with reacting to the immediate, structural aspects of an argument, I would argue that it seems Critical thinking is at least somehow aligned with Introverted Thinking. So far as Introverted Thinking doesn't rely on predefined rules to apply in order to make judgements about immediate, structural aspects of a situation. However, this comparison relies on Critical Thinking as being seen as a sort of "fuzzy logic" system, that is best dealt with by someone using a subjective criteria for deciding "the best questions to ask". Subjective, rational reaction seems to be very much Introverted Thinking. However, the closer the subject of critical thinking gets to FORMAL reasoning, and the land of clearly defined, concrete rules, the closer I believe this type of thinking gets to Extraverted Thinking. Also, your mention of "contextless" information is interesting. Indeed, Introverted Thinking is very much aligned with the ideas of looking at form and context. I think this may simply indicate something about the improvisational aspects of Introverted Thinking, and how the way one deals with a subject can change based on it's relation to environmental variables. In that sense, one could potentially state that there is form and context that is created WITHIN the set that is being looked at critically, which constantly evolves one's reaction to the entire situation, or subsets of it. I'd like to try and flesh this out more, but I'd like have to refresh my memory on some more specific examples of Critical Thinking.

 Perhaps the less popular "Design Thinking" is more aligned with Introverted Thinking?

Far forethought based on inductive reasoning of current social/personal/etc situation. Less a focus on human dynamics than the tools, scientific methods, etc... that humans will use in the future.

Opposing View: Far forethought and distant extrapolation from the present suggest extraverted intuition rather than the "body-based reasoning" and "conversation with the material" that Lenore speaks of. Lenore's theory would be that NTP types often engage in this kind of extrapolation, since it brings to bear the "holistic, imaginal" orientation of Ti as well as the orientation toward context and the currently unknown that characterizes Ne. STP types, however, understand the world no less in holistic, Ti terms, but their emphasis is more on the present, especially on matters that bring immediate payoffs, are immediately verifiable, and connect with others by being immediately apparent and emotionally impactful (extraverted sensation).

(X)

Dominant            Extraverted Thinking

Secondary           Introverted Intuition

Tertiary                Extraverted Sensation

Inferior                 Introverted Feeling

Like ESTJs, ENTJs reason conceptually, with deductive and inductive logic. But these types are not content to negotiate structural relationships within a system. ENTJs want to be in charge of a system, to improve it, to realize its functional potential.

Such types are not advocates and administrators so much as natural leaders - decisive, charismatic, impelled by the courage of conviction, and able to manage power with confidence and determination. Their energy and ambition in the service of an idea can put one in mind of ENTPs. But ENTJs don't share the Perceiver's holographic visionary perspective. Like all types who use Extraverted Thinking, ENTJs need factual and material predictability for their skills to operate well, and their left-brain orientation gives them a ruthlessly linear approach to goals and decisions.

Given their common primary functions, ENTJs are most like INTJs in their process of thought. Both types are fascinated by the translation of mental concept into material form. INTJs, however, are oriented by the subjective, irrational, Perceiving viewpoint of Introverted Intuition. Such types are alert to the limits of a rational theory or vocabulary. They're driven to pull unexpressed possibilities into the existing framework.

ENTJs are oriented by the objective, rational, Judging viewpoint of Extraverted Thinking. They're alert to aspects of an organized system that have no functional purpose, and they're driven to rid the system of their influence. They're immediately aware of a discrepancy between a stated objective and the procedural strategies designed to bring it about. They can't tolerate wasted efforts, repeated problems, or the need to say something more than once.

It may be useful in this regard to note that the word decision comes from the same French root as the words scissors and excise. An ENTJ's decisions corroborate this etymological history. The intelligence of these types is incisively critical. They're almost compelled to point out an illogical premise or an unjustified conclusion and get things in rational order.

Like ESTJs, these types think hierarchically, but always with an eye toward appraisal and discrimination. Just as INTJs believe that nothing expressible can be finally true, ENTJs believe that nothing exists that can't be improved.

One of my ENTJ college professors was consistently in trouble with the school's board of directors because he believed that no one could accumulate and use knowledge well enough to deserve an A + .

ENTJs have an abiding sense of their own authority, and they often find themselves in a position to lead. They don't push for direct control. They assume it, and people respond accordingly. A recent T-shirt slogan, "Team effort . . . is a lot of people doing what I say," pretty much covers their frame of mind.

Like ESTJs, they have the capacity to sacrifice everything to the realization of a plan. Their strength, their strategic ability, and their pragmatic approach to rules and policy (if it works, use it; if it doesn't, change it) motivates others to follow them - and to earn their respect. It should be granted, however, that ENTJs don't pay much attention to the effect they have on others in the emotional realm.

Of all the types, ENTJs are probably most inclined to separate the cerebral from the feeling level of life. A verbal exchange about ideas requires no basis in friendship and has nothing to do with liking or disliking someone.

Verbal communication is quite flatly a means of knowledge and information. ENTJs can experience a kind of hunger for verbal input. They may have the sense that all the information in the world is available, can be sifted through, possessed, applied, if one just had the time and opportunity.

Their determined focus on the conceptual makes for a great deal of tolerance for alternate points of view. So long as a belief can be logically justified, the type will grant it validity and discuss it, without feeling any need to approve or disapprove its existence. It is the type's investment in logic itself that tends to be unyielding.

Indeed, these types have a deep investment in the precision of conceptual form. They are invariably articulate and aggressively verbal, and they discover quite early in life that the well-chosen phrase is a many-splendored thing: it convinces, dissuades, and wounds as well as communicates.

Young ENTJs quickly learn the utility of cold sarcasm to distance themselves from a situation that strikes them as unreasonable or not worth their time. And they're astonished by the power inherent in the form, because they themselves are nearly impervious to signs of criticism from others.

Introverted Intuition gives them a sense of being outside the framework that determines people's ability to judge them accurately. They may even escalate the situation just because they can.

From an ENTJ's perspective, most people are illogical, and their opinions don't matter - except insofar as they determine the nature of our social assumptions. And it is here that the ENTJ's powers of analysis are usually trained - on the gulf between our Thinking-oriented system and people's actual capacity for Judgment.

It should be emphasized, in this respect, that ENTJs are motivated by the collective nature of their dominant function. Their focus is ultimately not on people's inability to Judge so much as on the possibility of improving the systems that enable people to Judge soundly and well. These types regard knowledge as power, and they have a genuinely democratic approach to its dissemination.

Like ESTJs, the identity of ENTJs is tied up in what they know how to do, and they generally need to work or teach in order to feel like themselves.

These types are far more impatient than ESTJs, however, because they're driven by the concomitant need to set things right. They can have a hard time recognizing that others are motivated differently than they are and may need signs of praise, approval, and personal interest. They may even see these motives as a sentimental weakness that ought to be overcome.

The cutting edge for ENTJs is their tendency to dismiss the importance of direct experiences that don't meet their standards of principle or logic. The abstract nature of impersonal knowledge can move them to construct systems that are highly efficient but leave no room for human value. ENTJs need more input from Introverted Intuition than they're usually willing to entertain.

Because Introverted Intuition coincides with our Sensate society's least developed inclinations, ENTJs share with INJs the burden of the collective unconscious. However, where INJs can be pushed by society's imbalance into a compensatory use of their dominant function, ENTJs are more likely to deny the existence of Introverted Intuition in themselves. They associate it with its inferior use in culture at large - irrational ideas about how things are, for example, along with the suspicion that secret knowledge is being hidden behind "official" explanations for social policy.

Sometimes ENTJs will, in fact, maintain complicated conspiracy theories about why bureaucracies work the way they do. But most such types work hard to hold a line of defence against anything that can't be proved with hard evidence. They experience themselves as the last bulwark against a rising tide of inferior Perception, and their weapon of choice is Occam's razor, a rule in science that requires any explanation for the unknown to be attempted in terms of what is already known.

In truth, ENTJs need a way to get outside the terms of what they already know - not in order to entertain irrational theories of causality, but to recognize the value of experience that doesn't fit into their rational framework. If they use Introverted Intuition only for critical purposes, in the service of their Thinking approach, they gradually lose sight of any objective but conceptual mastery.

Like ESTJs, the more logical and impersonal ENTJs become, the less objective and realistic they are. Their least conscious function, Introverted Feeling, moves outside their conscious control, flooding them with motives they don't understand. ENTJs experience the resulting conflict as something that's happening to them, caused by others. For example, they may feel controlled by people's needs or expectations, or hampered by institutional inefficiency and authoritarianism. Ultimately, they begin to draw from their tertiary function, Extraverted Sensation, to keep their Thinking boundaries intact. Like all tertiary functions, Extraverted Sensation is not well developed in these types. It can overwhelm them with impulses they normally keep at bay - encouraging, for example, a strong attraction to graphic images of perceptual and visceral intensity. Under most circumstances, ENTJs regard this side of themselves as potentially out of their control, and such impulses push them to hold more firmly to their dominant Thinking position.

However, because our culture has become increasingly Sensate, ENTJs are actually encouraged to live out this part of themselves, as though it were more "authentic" than the behaviors demanded by the social roles they've assumed. For example, there are any number of institutionalized programs and movements designed to push people beyond their logical perspective to "get in touch" with their "real feelings."

ENTJs who are resisting their secondary function are indisputably out of touch with their subjective perceptual side. However, a concerted effort to bypass their rationality and gain access to behavioral immediacy doesn't make them more aware of what they feel. It plunges them into their inferior functions. They're moved to act on primitive, unadapted Sensate impulses - as though authenticity of self-required the translation of these impulses into direct behavior and they were strong enough to risk others' disapproval for the sake of personal truth.

ENTJs who cultivate their secondary function don't experience impulses that directly conflict with their rational approach to life. They experience doubt about the absolute nature of logic. Reality is never going to be perfect. It's here and now, with all its messiness, missteps, and myriad possibilities for understanding.

When ENTJs wrestle with this Introverted point of view, they don't try to locate their wilder selves outside the boundaries of what they've established. They recognize that they've been systematically eliminating the untidy aspects of life from their focus of attention. Their situation isn't the problem.

It's the way they've conceptualized it. The freedom to change and the ability to love are all tied up with life's imperfections, and they can't be eliminated from the picture.

ESTJ

Dominant            Extraverted Thinking

Secondary           Introverted Sensation

Tertiary                Extraverted Intuition

Inferior                 Introverted Feeling

  ESTJs see reality as a kind of puzzle whose pieces must fit together logically if they are to understand the whole picture. They have an incisive understanding of organization and complexity. Theirs is not, however, the nuts-and-bolts approach to life that characterizes a born technician. ESTJs reason conceptually, one step at a time. The problems that absorb them are too complicated to be solved by common sense or intuition. They require the negotiation of structural relationships by way of logic.

ESTJs observe facts, draw tentative conclusions, predict what will happen next, then check their predictions against real-life consequences. Anything that can't be proved by hard evidence is ruled out. In the inimitable words of Sherlock Holmes, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

ESTJs generally want their abilities to be useful to others. They're like ISJs in this respect. However, they don't have the ISJ's self-experience as a rescuer or caretaker. ESTJs see themselves more as advocates – people whose position and knowledge permit them to represent a system and to negotiate its structure for others. Such types may be administrators, salespeople, lawyers, public officials, business managers, detectives, financial advisors, teachers, investigators, and so forth.

Although ESTJs need interaction with people, they're not group oriented in the way ESFJs are. They don't want to make their plans in terms of others' ideas and approval. They want to play their part in a larger system and be accountable for meeting their objectives. When they socialize, their conversation tends to be impersonal and factual - about the work they do or information that strikes them as interesting.

Such types have a strong sense of principle. They know what they believe about how things should happen, and they try to live according to the rules they've set for themselves. Unlike Introverted Thinkers, they're not interested in purely abstract reasoning or speculative theories that can't be practically applied. For example, they may discuss the pros and cons of a potential strategy, but they want the analysis to culminate in a concrete decision that makes sense to them and meets their standards.

ESTJs think hierarchically. They define their priorities and attend to them, one by one, in descending order of importance. They understand the value of the proper chain of command. They want to know where they stand in the assessment of others, and they want this standing to be deserved.

For ESTJs, people are like buildings: The deeper the foundation, the higher they can go. Progress is earned by the hard work one invests, and it's always a step-by-step affair. Each stage requires the genuine mastery of defined tasks and is marked by specific rewards. To skip a step or to be rewarded for merely personal reasons strikes them as unfair and a potential threat to the system as a whole.

Because they think in terms of organizational structure, ESTJs are able to put aside their immediate interests for the sake of a principle or procedure.

They can make and act on hard decisions that require personal sacrifice. This is one reason ESTJs have traditionally been in managerial positions in Western society. They gain people's cooperation by earning their respect and making them feel safe and contained. No matter how lousy they feel or how hard the snow is falling, they can be counted on to show up and do their part.

It should be noted that ESTJs are inclined to assign higher priority to impersonal obligations than to personal ones. Their impersonal responsibilities are usually to an organized social system, whereas affective priorities strike the type, inaccurately, as self-oriented, and they're accustomed to putting aside subjective interests for the sake of collective demands. Accordingly, a partner may accuse them of being incapable of showing or acting on their feelings.

In general, they believe their investment and consistency in maintaining a personal relationship are evidence enough of their emotional commitment.

On the other hand, these types can be quite sentimental about the personal traditions of a family or society - birthdays, holiday get-togethers, rites of passage, and so forth - which have a strong collective aspect and can be justly treated as high-priority affective obligations.

In general, ESTJs are cautious about sharing their personal life unless they feel close to someone. They are also cautious about physical proximity. They tend to associate physical contact somewhat indiscriminately with an infringement of personal boundaries, which may be either violating or arousing - or a combination of the two. A casual touch on the hand or a shared hug of victory can be awkward for them.

ESTJs are probably most comfortable in relationship when they're sharing their knowledge or using it on behalf of another. They may relate best to their children, for example, when they're helping them with homework, showing them how to do things, or clearing a path for and supporting their career ambitions. They're frequently drawn to the camaraderie of teaching and mentoring. Retired ESTJs will often train the people who follow them and enjoy advising others who are starting out in the same profession.

In truth, the identity of these types is tied to what they know how to do, and they may need to work or teach in order to feel "like themselves." Those ESTJs who elect to be homemakers are likely to systematize and run a highly efficient household. All such types can experience a serious "loss of self" if they discover that their knowledge is no longer useful to others.

ESTJs don't have the determined need of ESTPs to know something before everyone else does. They want to know enough to stay on top of their game. If the parameters of a profession change, they may resist starting all over again at the "entry level" of how-to knowledge. They may try to find a place for themselves where they can continue to do what they know best.

However, once they realize that ideas or procedures are becoming an accepted part of the "system," ESTJs will generally adjust and stay with the collective flow.

People sometimes take the ESTJ's gradual approach to change for an investment in the status quo, as though such types didn't want to try anything new. But ESTJs are not conservative by temperament. Like all J types, they need a sense of the predictable before they act. They won't embark on a quest until they have a plan that's likely to work. The only way to make such a plan is to base it on what they know - the facts they can count on, the experience they really have.

Once they've mapped out the territory between intent and objective, ESTJs become resourceful and inventive. They're excited and inspired by the challenges of implementation. If a new device will do the job, they'll try it. If something doesn't work, they'll drop it. If they can't find the right tool, they'll fashion a makeshift one out of what they have on hand.

This isn't improvisation so much as a matter of directed focus. ESTJs are persistent, patient, and able to gather all their energies in the service of the task they're working on. They divide projects into a series of steps, and they complete each one in turn.

This is one reason ESTJs dislike being interrupted in the middle of a project. They lose their momentum. They also lose their place. Once distracted, they can't return to their stopping point and begin again. They have to regroup. They may go back and repeat the steps already taken, so they're sure they understand what the next step should be.

The ESTJ's systematic approach is of inestimable value in the impersonal realm, particularly when an enterprise requires that nothing important be left to chance. The type can run into problems, however, when others' priorities are in conflict with the ones they've established. The classic stereotype is the ESTJ who has organized a vacation trip in advance and is frustrated by the unpredictability of the real experience.

It is in this respect that ESTJs can lose sight of options and possibility. They may hold with a predictable method of doing something simply because it has worked in the past, even if it isn't the most realistic or humane one under the present circumstances. Such types need to take in enough immediate data to keep their logic flexible and geared to situations as they really exist.

This is the purpose of their secondary function, Introverted Sensation, their best source of immediate subjective information. By using this function, ESTJs become aware of the data that lies outside their rational categories, some of which must be taken into account when they make their plans.

Like all Extraverts, ESTJs tend to believe their Introverted life consists of the impulses and desires left over once they've adjusted to the shape of a social role. These types, however, have a particular problem in this regard.

They're motivated to ignore all aspects of life that can't be logically justified by their outward responsibilities. As a result, ESTJs may dismiss experience that controverts their general ideas about what a situation's priorities are. They may ignore real-life problems that don't relate to their perceived obligations.

They may not take others' personal or physical needs into account - or their own - until conflict in these areas forces their attention to matters of human or subjective welfare.

When ESTJs use Introverted Sensation only to support their Extraverted Thinking assumptions, they're inclined to mistake being impersonal and logical for being objective and realistic. As a result, their Thinking function becomes too narrowly focused. They lose sight of the variables that don't make rational sense to them.

The more impersonal and logical they try to be, the more they push the personal and subjective aspects of life out of awareness. Introverted Feeling, their least conscious function, gets out of their control, and it begins to work against their dominant position.

ESTJs who are flooded with the personal and subjective motivations of inferior Feeling usually respond by increasing their efforts to stay impersonal, logical, and in control. They stick firmly to what they know how to do. They don't realize how emotionally invested they are in the specifics of this knowledge. They become one-sided, and their careful systematics congeal into a penchant for perfectionism.

For example, they may not recognize when a task requires a "good enough" approach or even a "quick and dirty" one. They approach all situations with the same relentless attention to what they consider important. They literally don't see other options, and they may have little curiosity apart from their particular arena of expertise.

Ultimately, they draw from their tertiary function, Extraverted Intuition, which permits them to rationalize their imbalanced approach. It focuses their attention on the negative possibilities for action that conflict with their image of a reasoned way of life.

Such types experience a sense of conflict, but they see it as an exterior one. They worry about others' weakness and impressionability. They believe that people need them to take over and manage things for them. Indeed, they may keep others in a position of dependency, making decisions on their behalf, oblivious to needs or potential that can't be related to their particular understanding of life.

These extreme ESTJs don't experience themselves as controlling. They genuinely believe they're doing the right thing. They simply don't recognize the value of much beyond their own structure and resources. This unfortunately includes their own needs - insofar as they exist apart from their ideas about how things should be.

For example, such types may be starved for genuine personal contact, but their options for intimacy seem to exist apart from the rational framework they've set up for themselves. They may experience a division of self in this regard. Their tertiary function will encourage them to satisfy that hunger only perceptually - by overeating, drinking too much, or engaging in impulsive behaviors apart from their everyday routines.

For many ESTJs, life itself eventually forces a crisis of the secondary function. The type can, as Jung so nicely put it, coerce "the untidiness and fortuitousness of life into a definite pattern" for only so long. The so-called acts of God are always part of the fabric. Moreover, an ESTJ who shuts out inner conflict is merely projecting it into the outer world, where it causes problems that can't be solved without a conscious Introverted perspective. Such types may, for instance, unwittingly push others to live out their inferior functions, and the resulting relational conflicts can shatter the ESTJ's illusions about partnership, family roles, or the institution of marriage.

When ESTJs recognize that their rational concepts fall short of real life, they are plunged into the experiential realm of Introverted Sensation, and they undergo a conflict of faith. This inner conflict is never entirely resolved.

But ESTJs who accept it and wrestle with it gradually come into their own. They develop a sense of principle that goes beyond the aspects of life they know how to control and justify. They become realists in the true sense of the word - able to accept and take into account the irrational and personal aspects of life.

Well-developed ESTJs are more than advocates for an organized system. They are advocates for the sake of principle itself. They may find themselves standing with and for the real people a society's institutions are meant to serve. Their reason doesn't lock them into an impersonal, logical straitjacket. It gives them the ability to see the essential truth of any situation.