INTJs: How to deal with Low Self-Esteem and Emotional Emptines

Asthma asked: As an intj how do you deal with :
– lack of confidence/ low self-esteem.
– emotional emptiness.

Low Self-Esteem

I’ve never had a problem with low self-esteem myself, but I suspect that my methods for dealing with self-criticism could apply to your question just fine.

My interior monologue often runs along these lines: Why don’t I feel anything? Why don’t I care that this person in front of me is crying? Am I a bad person? Did l have to say that? It may have been true, but it wasn’t kind. I am a terrible friend. etc.

Here’s how I deal with it. Continue reading

Dr. Eric Foreman: ISTJ

House MD

House MD Foreman ISTJ MBTI

Si: Foreman is practical and detail oriented. He trusts conventional protocols because they have worked in the past (therefore, we don’t need to find new methods). He has a hard time understanding and dealing with House’s lack of care about conventions and protocols. He’s connected to his past, though he doesn’t much enjoy talking about it with others. He’s quite serious, and doesn’t like House’s sarcasm at all. Foreman jumps to assumptions based on generalizations and social stereotypes. Continue reading

9 MBTI Typing Mistakes Tumblr Makes

9 MBTI Typing Mistakes Tumblr Makes

Credit: quotes & bullets borrowed from celebritytypes.com and expounded upon in an understandable format

If you haven’t already, read my Mistyping post for further input on what mistakes to avoid when typing people.

Continue reading

Jack Merridew: ESTP

Guest post by Andrew, ENTJ

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Jack Merridew ESTP | Lord of the Flies #MBTI #ESTP

Extroverted Sensing (Se): Jack lives for thrills, especially ones involving violence.  Upon his arrival on the island, he immediately becomes the leader of a group of hunters, whose purpose is to provide meat for all the boys.  Eventually, he goes further than hunting pigs, picking fights with other boys, especially Ralph, to satisfy his craving for more and more exciting hunts.  He loves ceremonial expressions of his leadership; when he forms his own breakaway “tribe,” he insists that the boys under his rule call him “chief.”  Jack has no desire to leave the island; he prefers to stay in his little microcosm, where he is free to live as he pleases and have fun without regard to the future.  Jack always wants instant gratification; his initial attempt attempt to be elected chief is a crude, blunt, and transparent attempt to seize power.

lord_of_the_fliesIntroverted Thinking (Ti): Jack is not already a skilled hunter when he arrives on the island; he has to learn how to hunt from scratch, using trial and error, analyzing why his early hunts failed, and correcting his tactics and techniques accordingly.  In his hunting expeditions, Jack also goes exploring; he eventually becomes more familiar with the island than anyone else does.  At one point, he uses a logical corollary to his knowledge to argue against the presence of a “beast;” he hadn’t seen any beast while he was out hunting, so therefore, the beast must not exist.  Jack is the first and foremost boy to argue against the continued use of the conch to regulate discussions; his justification is that the boys don’t need any external device to regulate discourse, since it is now clear who should do the talking – though he does not share how he arrived at this conclusion.

Jack Merridew ESTP | Lord of the Flies #MBTI #ESTP

Extroverted Feeling (Fe): Jack is a charismatic leader, mainly due to his ability to tap into the boys’ basest emotions: anger, bloodlust, excitement, and fear.  This last one is the most important: Jack plays on the fear of the beast to draw more and more boys out from under Ralph’s leadership and into his own court.  Eventually, he expands the fears of his minions beyond the fear of the beast; he starts having his subjects arbitrarily tied up and beaten, sending a clear message: the same thing can happen to anyone.

Jack Merridew ESTP | Lord of the Flies #MBTI #ESTP

Introverted Intuition (Ni): Jack has an overriding interest in hunting; he doesn’t really care much for anything else.  He hunts all day, every day, even when he is supposed to be tending the signal fire.  In time, Jack learns to strategize during hunts, to lure prey out of hiding, and to wait for the right moment to strike.  However, even though Jack can plan a hunt, he never considers what will happen afterward.  During his final hunt for Ralph, he and his followers set fire to a group a fruit trees which constitute a vital food source, which would have all but guaranteed everyone’s demise had the boys not been immediately rescued.

Continue reading

Piggy – Lord of the Flies: INTP

Guest Post by Andrew, ENTJ

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Piggy INTP | Lord of the Flies #MBTI #INTP

Introverted Thinking (Ti): Piggy is extremely logical and has his priorities right, but he finds it difficult to communicate his thoughts to others.  As a result, he is sidelined from an overt position of leadership, instead acting as an adviser to Ralph, who greatly appreciates the intelligence of his counsel.  He speaks abstractly with a view towards understanding himself, others, and the world around them; he tries to explain the presence of a “beast” Continue reading

Mickey Smith: ISFP

Doctor Who

Mickey Smith ISFP | Doctor Who #MBTI #ISFP

Dominant Introverted Feeling (Fi): Mickey has an independent streak that drives him to want to be useful. He has a strong desire to help other people and stays with Rose even as he watches her fall away from him. Even as Rose and the Doctor grow closer and Rose farther from Mickey, he doesn’t hate them or even express much anger towards them. Instead, he tags along and tries to help out. He even encourages them. Though he’s quiet about his feelings, he’s deeply sensitive and hurt when other people reject him. Mickey acts according to whatever feels right to him and determines right and wrong for himself rather than differing to other people’s opinions. Continue reading

Sodapop Curtis: ESTP

Guest Post by Andrew, ENTJ

The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton

Extroverted Sensing (Se): Sodapop is a pleasure-seeker who just loves a good adrenaline rush.  He fights, not because he hates the people he’s fighting or because everybody else is doing it, but for fun.  His penchant for physical activity led him to horseback riding in his younger years.  He did not have the discipline to finish high school, preparing to entertain himself in the present rather than prepare for his future.  He never let his life in poverty bother him; he was having too much fun to care.  Sodapop is also a huge flirt who is a big hit with the girls.  He doesn’t often consider the consequences of his actions; He gets his girlfriend pregnant, causing her to be sent to stay with her relatives in Texas and ending their relationship.

Introverted Thinking (Ti): Though Soda lacked the motivation to finish high school, he’s not stupid. In fact, he’s quite smart. Of the three Curtis brothers, it is Sodapop who best understands the situation they are in.  As the middle child, he is caught between Darry’s often harsh protectiveness and Ponyboy’s feelings of being unloved.  He can see where each of his brothers is coming from, and he has served to bridge the chasm between the two of them.  Through his whole experience, he can see that Darry and Ponyboy are drifting apart when they should be staying close to each other.

Extroverted Feeling (Fe): His role as the middleman between Darry and Ponyboy is extremely painful for Sodapop.  He often has to take sides between his brothers, something which he never likes to do.  He does so anyway for a while, just for the sake of placating the two of them and keeping the peace in their house.  Similarly, Sodapop has a need to be accepted by others as well.  He will smoke cigarettes (something which he does not otherwise do unless upset or stressed out) to put up a macho front for people he doesn’t know.

Introverted Intuition (Ni): Sodapop displays a patience in dealing with his brothers that he does not show in any other area of his life.  In the stress of being caught between his two brothers, he starts to think of the larger implications of their constant friction.  He sees that it could lead to the breakdown of the family bonds between them, and that that could only lead to disaster; united they stand, divided they fall.

Jane – Ender’s Saga: ISFP

Ender’s Saga, Orsen Scott Card

Dominant Introverted Feeling (Fi): Jane desperately needs to feel loved and accepted by the few people that she befriends. Though she doesn’t like to let it show, she is deeply hurt when Ender withdraws to be with his wife. When she leaves the filotic web to enter a human body, she is overwhelmed by the emotions she feels and has little control over them. Jane is introspective and likes to personalise her behaviour to meet the needs of the people she interacts with. She doesn’t have many friends, but and she is incredibly selective about whom she choses to reveal herself to. Even then, she doesn’t really reveal her whole self to anyone but Ender and Miro.

Auxiliary Extraverted Sensing (Se): She loves to get reactions out of people and enjoys putting on a show. Her thought process moves quickly and focuses mainly on action. At times, Jane can be very annoying and attention needing, but her swiftness to do the impossible makes her a useful ally. Though most of Jane’s life is not spent in a human body, Jane pays a great deal of attention to physical details in the human world. When she experiences them for the first time herself, she is ecstatic, but also overwhelmed.

Tertiary Introverted Intuition (Ni): Jane is more than aware of the larger implications of her existence (that people would fear a sentient computer) so she is hesitant to reveal herself to the human race. She often obsesses over individual people and concepts (Ender, for instance) and has a hard time accepting that humans don’t always operate on the vast theoretical scale that she does.

Inferior Extraverted Thinking (Te): She is a task-oriented being who knows how to organise people and technology to accomplish impossible things. She is highly intelligent and able to argue complex logic with millions of people at once. Jane communicates bluntly, through facts, and tends to reject emotional communication despite being quite emotional herself (she denies this).

Can you develop all 8 MBTI Functions?

“Can you develop all eight functions? If so, how would one go about doing that?”

Can you develop all 8 MBTI Functions?

That would be an excellent idea if you want to go nowhere in life.

I would not recommend trying to develop all eight functions, and here’s why.

You have four functions that you utilize on a regular basis, but occasionally, when you’re extremely stressed out, you can lapse into using all opposite functions (aka, your shadow functions). Continue reading

Jem Finch: ENFP

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Jem Finch ENFP | To Kill a Mockingbird #MBTI #ENFP

Dominant Extroverted Intuition (Ne): Jem has an intuitive understanding of what is going on behind the lines. He recognises danger without evidence and tries his best to stop it from going too far (he knows he and his sister are going to get jumped in the woods, and that Atticus might be in danger from the townspeople). He loves to explore new things and devises out-of-the-box methods for evading Atticus’s rules. He jumps into new situations quickly, often impulsively. Continue reading