Of all his works, Carl Jung may be best known for his book, Psychological Types. In the second half of the book, Jung provides his now famous descriptions of the eight functions and personality types. Unfortunately, readers concerned with diagnosing or understanding their own personality type may skim over or miss what I see as equally valuable material in the first half of the book. There, Jung outlines and explores the “type problem.”
Jung believed the existence psychological “types,” involving a pronounced preference for a specific psychological function over its opposite, inevitably leads to a situation of psychic imbalance. In order for the dominant function to grow in prominence, favor, and consciousness, Jung felt there must be a relative diminishment or atrophying of the other functions.
While our psychological “specialization” has undoubtedly contributed to unprecedented advances in the arts, sciences, and humanities, Jung was acutely attuned to the fact that our “one-sidedness” is not without its problems. It leaves us feeling restless, imbalanced, and dissatisfied.
Jung, as well as Freud, saw the problem as involving a struggle between the goals and desires of the conscious and unconscious minds. Freud framed it in terms of a battle between instincts (id) and culturally-informed civility/ morality (superego). Jung approached it more typologically, emphasizing the struggle between the dominant (conscious) and non-dominant (less conscious) personality functions.
Despite their differences in focus, both Freud and Jung believed in the necessity of recognizing the existence and potency of the unconscious. Both felt that whatever is pruned from consciousness during the process of acculturation and individual development does not merely disappear, but is relegated to and housed in the unconscious. They also agreed that the unconscious is far from inert, but plays a salient role in psychological health and illness.
In Psychological Types, Jung lays the groundwork for understanding the conscious and less conscious functions of the various personality types. He illustrates how psychological one-sidedness, that is, over-identification with or singular use of a given function, limits our ability to experience psychological wholeness. He believed that “the more the conscious attitude [i.e., dominant function] becomes alienated from the…unconscious, the more harmfully the unconscious inhibits or intensifies the conscious contents.”
