Latest Articles
Finding the Way Home to the Body
Karishma Sharma
September 1, 2024
Intuitives must engage with and deepen into the body’s knowing, enter into conversation with the body and be open to its revelations. Coming into relationship with the body has opened channels to the depths of my being, making me conscious of the guidance within, informing me of my innermost needs, and allowing me to accept the paradoxes of the inner world.
Trading the American Dream for Real Life
Sofia Taboada
June 11, 2024
The competent, professional, independent persona that I had painstakingly crafted over my entire adolescence and adulthood was taken from me. The woman who had climbed the ranks to become a successful executive at the pinnacle of the corporate world, with her glamorous jet-setting lifestyle, was gone. I had experienced an enormous personal defeat and, having no recourse left, I realized I had reached rock bottom.
The Rhetoric of Paranoia in an ESTJ Culture
Erika Raney
March 6, 2024
In this patriarchal and heavily capitalistic culture that privileges the thinking functions, feeling seems to dominate the unconscious collective psyche. In the rise of cults of personality in their contemporary manifestation, the inflated extraverted thinking function establishes a goal; then anything that does not adhere to that universal aim is excised. In this crusade-like paradigm, connection to the genuine feelings and needs of a diverse community is lost as unhealthy extraverted thinking tightens its grip on power.
From the Archives
Unraveling Tragedy
Shirl Hughes Terrell
January 22, 2019
My sister’s life illustrates the impact of a lack of positive parental guidance on the development of personality and what happens if the inner parent fails to develop. Family tragedy deprived Christin of a compass with which to navigate psychic turbulence during midlife. While few people succumb to such crises, many lack the tenacity to face them.
Mine, Yours, and Ours
Khrystine Kelsey
October 16, 2019
Being married is easily the hardest thing I have ever done. Marriage is an all-consuming project that requires energy, commitment, and sustained effort. Unlike my other projects, I can’t just ignore my marriage until inspiration strikes. Mostly, there’s no faking it. As an introvert in an extraverted world, faking it is a lot of how I survive.
Question of the Day IV
Mark & Carol The Editors
October 4, 2011
Is it INTJ or INTP? Sometimes the MBTI code’s judging/perceiving (J/P) dichotomy is extremely difficult to nail down—showing a low preference clarity on the report and proving elusive to verify. INTJ vs. INTP seems especially problematic. Why is J/P so difficult? Do you have any tips for verification?
Red Book Ruminations IV
Mark Hunziker
December 1, 2011
It is no small matter to acknowledge one’s yearning. For this many need to make a particular effort at honesty. All too many do not want to know where their yearning is, because it would seem to them impossible or too distressing. And yet yearning is the way of life. If you do not acknowledge your yearning, then you do not follow yourself …
Partnering Type with Graphology
Lisa Schuetz
May 2, 2011
The blank piece of paper symbolically represents our universe. How we put writing on the paper—how the pen moves across the paper—represents how we see ourselves fitting into life and how we navigate through it. Extraversion is characterized by a tendency toward expansion. There is an emphasis on centrifugal movement (movement away from the body).
The “Forever 27” Tragedy
Zachary Kampf
July 3, 2019
The environmental wounds to Cobain’s natural INFP disposition left his ego vulnerable to an anima invasion. It was she who allowed the instinctual power of the unconscious, in both its creative and destructive properties, to flow through the inferior function and overrun his personality, attempting to restore order by instigating archetypal modes of adaptation.
Question of the Day I
Katherine W. Hirsh
October 3, 2010
Where in your own life have you seen efforts to pathologize, punish or otherwise stigmatize particular ways of being, including personality preferences?
The Ugly Duckling
Christine Drucker
September 8, 2016
The image of the ugly duckling growing into a beautiful swan is a powerful and transformative symbol of hope and fulfillment for INFJs. As a metaphor for differentiation and the individuation process, the Ugly Duckling tale illuminates the struggle to separate from the demands of others in order to recognize the value and beauty of one’s essential self.