I believe that type development requires flexibility. Any enrichment of flexibility has the residual of building capability for type development. The ability to flex from what is comfortable to what may be required was the only definition that others have offered and has been repeated many times. The often repeated statement is that type development is knowing which function to use and using it. But to do so requires flexibility.
A second element of development is flexing between functions and attitudes. Such that the individual who is constantly reliant on, say, Extraverted Thinking learns that a particular situation may really call upon Introverted Intuiting and she flexes to achieve that shift from judgment to perception. This requires awareness of the nature of the functions, the impact of the functions, and the capability to select the function that will achieve a desired outcome. So if you really want to develop a greater resource in your Introverted Intuiting (Ni), you need to learn as much about this mental resource and its utility as possible.
A third element of development is the enrichment of the functions themselves. Jung wrote about the concrete and abstract dimensions of the mental functions, and the way he wrote about these things, it is somewhat confusing as some have interpreted his comments regarding how extraversion drives concreteness and introversion drives abstraction. I think it goes deeper.
Many people do not develop their functions in a complex manner. Sadly, many individuals learn about their preference and the typical description and the exploration stops. Many—keeping with the example above—people who Extravert Thinking seem to believe that being critical and logical is sufficient, when in fact, that is a basic and elementary expression of the function. In its fullness, deeply enriched, Extraverted Thinking begins with the assumptions of multivariate explanations and causes, is more driven in pursuit of hypotheses about deep structures than conclusions, and is profoundly elegant in seeing and articulating complex principles.
To develop functions in a complex manner requires you to become a student of your own psychological type system—that is, the nature of your current use of the eight functions. You also have to understand that the development of each function requires different experiences and insights for each function. In a very real sense, you go from seeing and using your mental functions (Si, Se, Ni,Ne, Ti,Te, Fi, Fe) as simple instrumental ways of perceiving and judging to complex inter-related systems of information and processing. This is when—for example—Introverted Sensing (Si) goes from being focused on repeatable, verifiable information to understanding the structure of information itself with its own integrity, which is like going from a photograph to a Georgia O’keefe painting such as Black Place I or Sky Above Clouds IV.
Each of the eight functions serve us in very different ways, and the more we learn about how it serves us, the greater our appreciation for its power in our lives and its potential for enriching our choices.
Does this resonate? What is your reaction and thought?
What I hope the Pearman Personality Integrator does is initiate the personal journey of discovery.
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