one of the most difficult things about communicating jungian type theory through MBTI language is that the letter dichotomies translate to the function dichotomies in practically the least intuitive (pun intended) way possible
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there are hardly even words to explain that the structure underlying the 4 letter abbreviations ALSO consists of dichotomies, but that they are NOT the seemingly non-interacting set of 4 discreet binary oppositions that seems to be present on the surface
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I find it to be a serious structural inaccessibility issue that it’s not remotely clear to an outsider why, for example, an INFP has more in common cognitively with an ISFP or an ENFP than an INFJ, or why INTJ is an intuition dominant type where ENTJ is a thinking dominant type
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generally, I’m fond of the function-based notation model that takes ESTJ and reduces it to TeSi, but I also find this somewhat cryptic and less pithy/immediately recognizable than the MBTI code
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something I’ve toyed with as well is reducing the abbreviation to three letters, with the 2nd/3rd being interchangeable as a replacement for the role of the 4th letter, while also making the dominant function immediately apparent: ENFP becomes ENF, INFP = IFN, INFJ = INF, etc.
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Well, Jung *explicitly* rejected the typology himself, for very similar reasons...
MBTI is huckstership, if occasionally entertaining. The rare strand of seeming insight is borrowed wisdom from Jung, IMO.
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let me clarify: my approach to type theory only includes MBTI to the extent of *language*; the psychometric test is of limited utility, but the 4 letter abbreviations are useful bc a) they don’t clash with Jung at all and b) there’s a broad precedent for them, esp. online
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this is why I speak of “notation”: because that’s the most essential contribution that Myers-Briggs made to the theory - it shouldn’t be brushed off, just as the general establishment of psychology by Freud shouldn’t
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stepping back, can you qualify “Jung explicitly rejected the typology” a bit, maybe provide a source on that? in Psych. Types, he stresses the practical utility of typology, and in fact the brunt of the text is dedicated to evidencing the existence of types across history
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I mean specifically the exercise of categorizing people into types.
I would love to, but it's one of those implausibly r emembered factoids years after reading,so I'd have to look it up.
I'm planning to do a big Jung (re-)reading this year. I'll let you know if I find it.
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perhaps you’re thinking of this passage from the foreword to the Argentinian edition?
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