It has always bothered me when people offer pat answers to complex problems. Telling someone who is overweight that he should simply eat more healthily is but one example. If I were asked to give a name to it, I guess what I am protesting is behaviorism. Behaviorists suggest that if we want a desired effect (e.g., to lose weight), all we need to do is set our mind to it and willfully change our behavior (e.g., decide to eat less). This would be great, if only human beings had a inordinate supply of willpower or if we were nothing but machines that could be easily reprogrammed at will. But we all know this is not how we operate. Indeed, most of us struggle to do certain things we know would be good for us.
One reason we struggle to live more optimally is we tend to focus on the immediate rather than the deeper sources of our dysfunctions. Returning to our earlier example, I would argue that most people are not overeating because they are addicted to food. Rather, they overeat because food serves as a way of soothing or escaping boredom and dissatisfaction. Taking this a step further, we can inquire into why we are bored and dissatisfied, for it is here we start approaching the root of the problem. Namely, we often feel bored, depressed, and restless because we are failing to function authentically according to our personality type. We fail to do what we are best at, what we were born to do.
When we function authentically according to our personality type, regularly employing our dominant and auxiliary functions, we tap into a wellspring of life, energy, and vitality. We experience what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as “flow
This is essentially the same truth I was intuiting when I was studying chronic pain. Namely, I realized that many chronic pain sufferers, by focusing exclusively on physical causation, were overlooking the important role of psychosocial factors with respect to maintaining, as well as potentially overcoming, their pain. As is true for those looking to lose weight, it is difficult to overcome chronic pain if one cannot glimpse what it looks (and feels) like to live authentically. If all one knows is a life of pain and suffering, it can be difficult to imagine anything different. It is ironic then, that one of the things that may help chronic pain sufferers the most—psychotherapy—is the very thing they vehemently resist. This is consistent with Freud’s observations of psychological resistance.
The unfortunate part of all this is that most people are not living authentically or are only doing so sporadically. SP, NP, and NJ types are compromising their authenticity by populating mundane office jobs. Similarly, Feeling types are working as engineers and scientists, Thinkers are entering people-oriented careers, Sensing types are occupying visionary roles, and INJs are pursuing the visual or performing arts. In our relationships, we content ourselves with dysfunction and mediocrity, convincing ourselves that this is somehow normal and natural. But regardless of how hard we try to justify and convince ourselves of the rightness of our actions, we cannot fool our own psyche, which keenly discriminates between authentic and inauthentic functioning. This is why we are bored, restless, and depressed, willing to try nearly anything to ease our discomfort. And this is precisely why understanding type theory and the inferior function is so critical, illuminating our unseen self-deceptions and pointing us toward more authentic and satisfying ways of living.
