"Psychological type is a theory of personality developed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung to explain the normal differences between healthy people. Based on his observations, Jung concluded that differences in behavior result from individuals' inborn tendencies to use their minds in different ways. As people act on these tendencies, they develop predictable patterns of behavior. Jung's psychological type theory defines eight different patterns, or types, and gives an explanation of how type develops." Carl Jung 1875 - 1961 — Isabel B. Myers, Introduction to Type®, 6th Edition, p. 6. The core idea is quite simple. Each moment in which our mind is engaged we are either taking in information or organizing that information and drawing conclusions. Jung called "taking in" Perceiving and "organizing and drawing conclusions" Judging. Example:  We observe that we are hungry (Perceiving), we decide to get something to eat (Judging), we come up with possibilities of where to eat (perceiving), we decide on a restaurant several blocks away (Judging), we notice it is raining (Perceiving), we decide to eat next door (Judging). And so it goes, back and forth all through the waking hours of our life. Exercise:  Try it - go through a portion of a day naming each step of your mental activity: perceiving -judging - perceiving - judging and on and on. Have fun with it. Each time you do this your understanding of this basic idea will increase. THE EIGHT JUNGIAN MENTAL PROCESSES Jung identified eight mental processes. Step 1:   He observed two kinds of Perceiving:   Sensing Perception  —  What is: the facts   INtuition Perception  —  What could be: the possibilities   He observed two kinds of Judging:   Thinking Judgment  —  What is logical/objective   Feeling Judgment  —  What is the impact on people - relational These are the four basic Jungian Functions.    Step 2: He observed that each function as it was used in the outer world of extraversion has a different flavor than when used in the inner world of introversion. He defined these differences which gives the eight basic mental tools:   Extraverted Sensing Introverted Sensing   Extraverted INtuition Introverted INtuition         Extraverted Thinking Introverted Thinking   Extraverted Feeling Introverted Feeling HOW DOES THE USE OF THESE MENTAL TOOLS FORM TYPE? Everyone uses each of these tools some of the time; however, we are innately different in our preferences for which we use and it is these differences which develop our personality and psychological type. Jung believed that each person has one process (one of the 8 listed above) that develops early and serves as our dominant function. For example, if the dominant is extraverted sensing, then we are an extraverted sensing type, etc. These are the eight dominant types. They are described by Jung in Psychological Types. HOW DID MYERS AND BRIGGS EXPAND JUNG'S MODEL AND CREATE SIXTEEN TYPES? back to top