Guest Post by Occam’s Chainsaw, INTJ —http://systematicthinker.wordpress.com

Criminal Minds

Ti: Reid has a seemingly never-ending thirst for knowledge. He sucks up as many facts as he possibly can about anything he finds interesting. His intelligence cannot be questioned, and although he isn’t loud about his brains, he asserts his reputation as the smartest one in the room pretty quickly, even without intending to. Hotchner said about Reid, “Reid’s intellect is a shield, which protects him from his emotions”. Reid will find the irrationality in whatever he comes across—e.g. when Prentiss tells him the story of the star puzzle, Reid’s first reaction is, “That doesn’t make any sense”. When Prentiss angrily snaps, “What do you mean?” Reid sets off into an explanation how one cannot possibly catch a shooting star, because it burns up in the atmosphere. When Prentiss fights back with, “But it’s a fable”, Reid simply says, “But there’s no moral. Fables have morals”. He’s constantly stating facts, oblivious to other people’s possible discomfort with them. Reid always thinks fast and in silence, only sharing the result of his thought process instead of opting to engage himself in a brainstorming session.

Ne: Reid has become an expert in many things; one of them being the case of Jack the Ripper—his Si has matured to an extent that it urges him to ground himself in details, to be thorough, to dig deeply into a topic and not just scratch the surface of it like his Ne would do it if it would be getting its own way. While Derek is the one to imagine himself in the killer’s shoes, Reid’s resort is to connect all the individual (and seemingly unrelated) pieces together to find clues and draw conclusions (Ti) from what his Ne has noticed. He bonds with Garcia through their Extraverted Intuition, and with Derek (his shadow) through Intuition and Thinking. The two boys enjoy each other’s company so much because they are a constant intellectual stimulation for each other. However, Derek admits to being inferior to Reid when it comes to mental skills; once Gideon asked Derek if he’d ever experienced what it feels like to be reminded about his own incompetence, to which Derek’s response was a gesture towards the oblivious (silently thinking) Reid, saying, “Every single day.”

Si: No matter the topic, Reid will be able to come up with any kind of random fact that can be related in a way. He tends to be awkward and clumsy, and he will not reciprocate when someone extends his hand for a shake to him. Using his wide knowledge in various fields, he can be the substitute anthropologist/coroner/ballistic/etc. of the BAU when needed, in which case he will inspect the evidences with a hawk’s eye to catch on to anything odd. Reid sticks to traditions (especially the ones he set up for himself, e.g. visiting his mother in the asylum), and he enjoys engaging in national events, like Halloween (his Ne loves the creativity that lies within). Reid isn’t good with anything physical-related.

Fe: When he was stressed out after having been kidnapped by the man with Dissociative Personality Disorder, he temporarily fell into the grip of his inferior function—he was prone to randomly snapping at people, even when they didn’t deserve it; it was just Reid feeling alienated and irritable, while at the same time not being able to figure out his own emotions, or what he was going through internally, which caused an even bigger frustration building up in him. He got a grasp of his higher functions again when he said, “I will not miss another plain” to Gideon. Under healthy functioning, Reid’s Fe cares deeply for other people’s well being.

Author’s Note: People oft times think Reid is Fi dominant—at the end of a typing I read about him, the typer said it was because of Matthew Gray Gubler’s own personality influencing the character, but in my opinion, it’s more like because people tend to mistake the two introverted judging functions. Sometimes it’s even the person who is typing themselves to misunderstand what each of these functions do, and think they use Ti, whereas they in fact have Fi. Remember that both exhibit same characteristics, but under the surface, they are still a Feeling a Thinking function—one will depend on individualistic logic, while the other will confide itself in emotional independence. Remember to always check the inferior function for confirmation; once you do, you will realize that Reid has a TiFe frame, not an FiTe—if he had the latter, he would have nitpicked everyone for their flaws/inefficiency, would have wanted to control the others, etc. while in the grip, but he showed the manifestation of inf Fe, not Te.

Please take notice that I didn’t mention his IQ of 187, his ability to read 20,000 words/minute, his photographic memory nor that he has three PhDs and three BAs, deliberately, because they have nothing to do with his thought process.