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originates from the Latin persona, which means mask. Significantly, in the theatre of
the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask was not used as a plot device to disguise
Carl Jung was among many great personality theorists who drew inspiration and
guidance from the ancient models like astrology and the Four Temperaments. The
character in terms of the elements – fire water air and earth. Those under fire had a
fiery nature and corresponding temperament and fate, etc. The Four Temperaments
or Four Humours can be traced back reliably to Ancient Greek medicine and
and in Plato's ideas about character and personality. It was believed that in order to
maintain health, people needed an even balance of the four body fluids: blood,
phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These four body fluids were linked to certain
organs and illnesses and also represented the Four Temperaments or Four Humours
of personality. The Greek physician Galen (AD 130-200) later introduced the aspect
of four basic temperaments reflecting the humors: the sanguine, bouyant type; the
phlegmatic, slugish type; the choleric, quick-tempered type; and the melancholic,
dejected type. Galen also classified drugs in terms of their supposed effects on the
four humors. He thus created a systematic guide or selecting drugs, which although
psychiatric illnesses.
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Carl Jung approached personality and 'psychological types' (also referred to as
one of the few psychologists n the twentieth century to maintain that development
extends beyond childhood and adolescence through mid-life and into old age. He
unconscious processes. Jung believed that there was a dialogue between the
conscious and unconscious and without it the unconscious processes can weaken
and even jeopardise the personality and this is seen in one of his central concepts of
development that involves establishing a connection between the ego and the self
which could be brought to its highest fruition if worked with and the unconscious was
Jung, like Freud, referred to the ego when describing the more conscious aspect of
personality. Unlike Freud he did not seek to minimise the unconscious side of the
personality, but instead gave it equal status, complimentary to that of the conscious.
He referred to the integrated personality as Self; the centre of the total psyche,
including both the conscious and the unconscious. The Self includes all of a person’s
qualities and potentials whether or not they become apparent at a particular stage of
life. The goal of therapy is to guide the client to become a whole a human being as
It was out of Jung’s confrontation with the unconscious, both in himself and in his
patients, that he slowly elaborated his psychology. His book Psychological Types
(1921) acted as the compass by which he tried to understand how he differed from
Freud and Adler, but more importantly, could begin to chart the internal world of
central part of the human journey. There is a whole literature relating Jungian
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Hedberg's (1986) Coming Home: A Handbook for Exploring the Sanctuary Within is a
practical guide for spiritual work in the Christian tradition. It contains striking personal
stories, excellent illustrations, and useful exercises. (Frager & Fadiman 2005)
Introverts are people who prefer their internal world of thoughts, feelings, fantasies,
dreams, and so on, while extroverts prefer the external world of things and people
and activities.
Today the words have become confused with ideas like shyness and sociability,
partially because introverts tend to be shy and extroverts tend to be sociable. But
Jung intended for them to refer more to whether you ("ego") more often faced toward
the persona and outer reality, or toward the collective unconscious and its
archetypes. In that sense, the introvert is somewhat more mature than the extrovert.
Our culture, of course, values the extrovert much more. Jung warned that we all tend
to value our own type most, (Boeree 1996) This warning is applicable to therapists
today as it is important not to allow personal feelings to take place when working with
clients.
Both introvert and extravert overvalue their strengths and each tends to undervalue
the other. To the extravert, the introvert seems egotistical and dull, and to the
introvert, the extravert appears superficial and insincere (Fordham, 1966). Jung
believed that a person remained an extravert or introvert without change for the
whole of his life, and that heredity determines whether the libido is directed inward or
outward. Whether a person is an introvert or extrovert they need to deal with both
their inner and outer world. And each has their preferred way of dealing with it, ways
which they are comfortable with and good at. This hypothesised stability of the
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measures of introversion and extraversion. (Cloniger 2000) Jung suggested a link
between each of the attitudes and certain neurotic disorders which will be discussed
later.
Eysenck's. In Eysenck’s (1982) view people are biosocial animals and that
states that psychology must become more of a true science with methodology in all
that the therapist does in order to permit personality theorists to make predictions
that can be tested and therefore make possible the development of the causal theory
of personality, which he believes will inevitably help the therapist with clients
presenting problems.
Jung compared the conscious part of the psyche (ego) to an island that rises out of
the sea. We notice only the part above the water, even though there is a greater land
mass below the water – much like an iceberg, the unconscious lies below (Fordam
individual consisting of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories that have been
put to one side or repressed but not always covered by sea and therefore can be
potentialities that we all share because of our human nature, because we all live in
groups and in some form of society or family life. He believed that the collective
unconscious did not develop individually but was inherited and consisted of pre-
predisposition to respond to the world in certain ways and is crucial to Jung’s concept
express our humanness. He believed that they appeared to us in dreams, art, ritual,
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Eysenck believed that from a point of view of
most people fall somewhere between the middle of the two extremes of those whose
emotions are labile and easily aroused and those who are stable and less easily
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Further work by Eysenck tied personality differences to visceral brain activity and he
showed that because introverts have sensitive nervous systems they are more easily
conditioned and that also makes them more vulnerable to anxiety based neuroses if
the visceral brain activity is high, whereas the extravert has a less sensitive and more
inhibited cortical process and therefore are slow to develop conditioned response.
extraverts were more likely to develop psychopathic disorders if their visceral brain
activity is high. This theory is speculative and Eysenck acknowledged that his
hypothesis “must stand and fall by empirical confirmation” (1965) Despite his
Jung suggested that people tend to develop two functions, usually one rational
function and one irrational function. There are four basic ways, or psychological
functions which are thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition; one of these becomes the
primary or dominant function and the other the auxiliary function. (See Figure 1).
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Fig 2. (Stevens 1999c)
Therefore it is unusual to find thinking and feeling sensation and intuition, develop in
the same person. The dominant function is directed toward external reality if the
person is an extravert, or toward the inner world if the person in an introvert (O’Roark
1990). The rational functions of thinking and feeling can be conceived as a pair of
opposites as can the irrational functions of sensation and intuition. The extraverted
thinking sensation type would have an introverted feeling-intuitive shadow and vice-
Figure 3 below). These eight psychetypes are helpful in giving the therapist a
more complete picture of the client’s personality and help to identify the function that
the individual uses for dealing with the less preferred direction, known as the
auxiliary function. Jung cautioned that types rarely occur in a pure form and that
there is a wide range of variation within each type, that people of a specific type may
indeed internal influences which will motivate the individual to seek change in their
lives. The therapist needs to be aware of that every client responds differently. Jung
aspects of personality. One side of the psyche, such as the conscious, adaptive,
aspects, the shadow side. For example the Extraverted sensation types who may
appear to be superficial and soulless and actively seek thrills and distractions but
have a shadow side of intuition which when activated by an inner event will gives rise
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to negative hunches that are way off beam and may manifest as paranoid or hostile
Thinking: Tend to live according to fixed Thinking: Have a strong need for privacy;
rules; try to be objective but may be interested in ideas rather than facts; may
dogmatic in thinking; repress feeling have problems with practical issues and
relationships with people are not
important; repress feeling
Intuition: In touch with the unconscious, Intuition: They are mystic dreamers,
very creative and adventurous; find new concerned with possibilities rather than
ideas appealing: tend to make decisions what is currently present. Seldom
based on hunches rather than facts; in understood by others. Repress sensing.
touch with their unconscious wisdom: Jung described himself as an
repress sensing introverted intuitor.
world (extraversion) and next to assess which are the dominant and auxillary
Jung said that people connect ideas, feelings, experiences and information by way of
or object and the therapist may use this knowledge to bring to the forefront of the
from. Jung wrote of a man who knew that he was suffering from an imaginary growth
but could not stop himself from believing it. (Engler 1999 b) Today we have MRI and
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other techniques to help people see that their unconscious worries are unfounded,
but even with all this technology to hand counseling and cognitive therapy may be
appropriate.
The therapeutic goal of Jungian therapy is to help the client reconcile unbalanced
Jung himself had as a boy. By understanding his theory and how each type may
present the therapist can help them unlock the shadow sides of their personality. It is
a process in which the client is helped to come to terms with the place of self within
their own world and also to help them see that they are part of a greater collective
unconscious. Much of Jung’s work was about the interconnectedness of all people
and cultures. Today more than ever as we seek to become “one world” Jung’s work
with eastern as well as western religions and cultures seems more and more
appropriate. The work of Hans Eysenck through empirical studies across the world
has shown that personality types exist in all cultures and therefore concludes that
would be unlikely if biological factors did not play a predominant part” (Eysenck,
1990) But like Jung he believed that environmental factors probably determine how
much an individual will develop to their full potential. The use of appropriate
untapped potential within the individual and is so doing contribute to the collective
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References
Boeree G. (2006) Carl Jung 1875 - 1961 http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/jung.html
Accessed 28/08/10
Eysenck , H.J. (1982) Personality, genetics and behaviour: Selected papers. New
York Praeger in Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction. (5th Ed) p
310-111 Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
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Eysenck, H. J. (1990). Biological dimensions of personality. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.),
Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 244-276). New York: Guilford. In
Engler, B. (1999) Personality theories, an introduction. (5th Ed) p315 Boston:
Houghton Migglin Company
Frager, R., & Fadiman, J. (2005). Excerpt from Personality and Personal Growth (6th
ed.)New York: Pearson Prentice Hall pg. 56: http://www.itp.edu/about/carl_jung.php
Furnam, A (1990) Can people accurately estimate their own personality test scores?
European Journal of Personality, 4(4), 319-327 in Engler, B. (1999) Personality
theories, an introduction.p87 (5th Ed) Boston: Houghton Migglin Company
Stevens, A. (1994a) Jung A Very Short Introduction. p38. New York: Oxford
University Press Inc
Stevens, A. (1994b) Jung A Very Short Introduction. p91. New York: Oxford
University Press Inc
Stevens, A. (1994b) Jung A Very Short Introduction. p90. New York: Oxford
University Press Inc
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