The Nature of Introverted Feeling: A Sword Planted Firmly in the Ground

How does introverted feeling actually present itself?  Is it strong?  Fluffy and accommodating?  What do you think of when you imagine someone who prefers introverted feeling?

Last night, I was Skyping with my friend and colleague, Sue Blair,  about the nature of introverted feeling.  According to Jungian theory, individuals who are INFP and ISFP use introverted feeling as a dominant cognitive function and individuals who are ENFP and ESFP use it as an auxiliary function.  In all 4 of these types, introverted feeling is a big part of how they see the world and how they operate.

Sue Blair will be a keynote speaker at the 2013 Association for Psychological Type Conference in July.   One of her many contributions to the type community is creating visuals to represent the eight cognitive functions.  Recently she conducted a workshop in England that included creating these visuals.

In the workshop, one overall observation was that if the cognitive function was dominant or auxiliary for an individual, the visual representation tended to be positive.  If it was a non-preferred function, it tended to be a more negative visual.  I am not surprised by that because as an ENFP, contemplating introverted sensing reflexively brings up a picture of confusion for me, someone struggling with incomplete thoughts, almost like someone sitting in a care center at the twilight of life not being able to recall much of anything.  Since it’s a blind spot for me, my picture is one of deficiency.

Meanwhile, introverted feeling is my auxiliary function.  In the workshop, introverted feelers used the visual of a sword planted firmly in the ground.  To me, that was exactly IT.  Introverted feeling is definitely not pliable but a way to assess relevancy with conviction.  In fact, I harken back to when I was in coaching classes and someone made this remark about me:  “You are very easy going and playful until someone hits on something that really matters to you.  Your posture changes.  Your face changes.  It’s clear that you feel strongly about that issue.”

It will be interesting to see Sue’s presentation at the APTi conference in Miami on all of the type functions presented in visuals.  I suspect her presentation will spark some interesting discussion. Click  here if you want information about her talk or to access information about the conference in general.