Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey - Inner City Books

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A Psychological Compass
The four functions are somewhat like the four points of the compass;
they are just as arbitrary and just as indispensable. . . . But one
thing I must confess: I would not for anything dispense with this
compass on my psychological voyages of discovery. 10
Why do we move through life the way we do? Why are we better at
some activities than others? Why do some of us prefer to be alone
rather than with other people—or at a party instead of reading a
book? Why don’t we all function in the same way?
From earliest times, attempts have been made to categorize individual
attitudes and behavior patterns in order to explain the differences
between people. Jung’s model of typology is one of them. It
is the basis for modern “tests” such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI), used by corporations and institutions in order to classify
a person’s interests, attitudes and behavior patterns, and hence
the type of work or education they might be best suited for.
Jung did not develop his model of psychological types for this
purpose. Rather than label people as this or that type, he sought
simply to explain the differences between the ways we function and
interact with our surroundings in order to promote a better understanding
of human psychology in general, and one’s own way of
seeing the world in particular.
After extensive years research, Jung identified eight typological
groups: two personality attitudes—introversion and extraversion—
and four functions—thinking, sensation, intuition and feeling, each
of which may operate in an introverted or extraverted way.
In Jung’s model, introversion and extraversion are psychological
10 “A Psychological Theory of Types,” Psychological Types, CW 6, pars. 958f.
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