In this article I discuss the implications of INFPs Ni id, their Fi dominant, and much of the solution that lies in their Ne auxiliary. I compare INFP’s predominant themes to INFJ’s overriding themes to give a feel for the difference between these two types that are often mistaken for each other.
Keep in mind that much of this article is in the nature of a preliminary expectoration and as such is largely unedited. But, in the spirit of hastening to deliver information on this much needed topic, I offer up my rough notes on the subject.
Also, I am mainly talking about INFP women.
If you have any questions, leave a comment. I will be making future articles on the basis of these questions.
Themes of INFP (INTP too) compared with INFJ
- Private fantasies behind closed doors (Ni id of INFP)
- Moon in implied fixed fire sign (Ni id of INFP)
- Astrological 12th house in other implied fixed fire sign (Ni id of INFP)
- Childish, children’s stories, “softened” Ni
- Floaty raft on a vast ocean, vast field of space in which INFP inhabits feeling rather small
- Comparison to INFJ’s nearness, closeness, immanence, intensity, strong sense of self, mission, to do something
- INFP is propelled by their environment (like jellyfish), things “happening to” them or for them. INFJ is propelled from within, the burning, the mission etc.
- Because of most important divide between N and S and perceiving’s primacy, IJ egos are primarily reactive in orientation. It’s as if INFPs sense of self or strong self comes from N rather than Fi dominance. This brings in the helpless, dependent, “happening to” aspect.
- J is to P like civilization is to man’s vaster earlier history. Nietzsche’s Truth and Lies and Ti in particular.
- INxPs personalize their Ni, making it complex, inextricable, and inexplicable. INFJs can usually be characterized by a relative simplicity of Ni expression, something very basic like an OS. ENxJs, even more so. The difference between the Sun and Moon. The complexity and tangling of the astrological 12th The 12th house is like an impossibly tangled string of yarn. Something that is all fucked up and totally lacking in order and method.
- Compare id’s underground quality in the respective flavors of Fi in literary symbolism (Tell-Tale Heart, Underground Man) to Ni (Alice’s descent into Wonderland). Compare Alice to Dorothy of Wizard of Oz and Sarah of the movie Labyrinth. Things “happening to” them. Dorothy and Sarah strike me as ENFPs, more goal-oriented and active.
- Compare this “happening to” quality of INFPs to a similar thing in INFJs in literature. For INFP it is practically a necessity and a positive thing for things to “happen to” them (like intrusion of the fantastic into the mundane) in order for them to go anywhere. It is often a “happening” in the form of a fairy tale, some fantastic event or visitation. With INFJ, these happenings are often negative and tragic in nature such as the death of Hamlet’s father, the intrusion by the very real world in Notes Underground, the “committing” of a future moral action such as murder (Raskolnikov, Hamlet, Tell-tale Heart) and the ramifications of that, to take one’s own life (Steppenwolf, Hamlet), and basically the musing over mortal miseries (Ni musing over one’s inherited position as a subject (moon, id) and the inferior lost function)
- INFJs vs. INFPs core crisis. INFJ = the concern and crisis in the real world and taking action in it with all one knows and feels. INFP = needing to have fantastic things “happen to” them in order for them to progress. Examples: Alice’s childish boredom, Sarah’s and Dorothy’s need to go “over the rainbow”, not so much as a need to escape cruelty and harshness, but, to escape the humdrum, more of an Si thing
- Ne = strange worlds like Oz, Wonderland, and Labyrinth, Harry Potter, which INFPs need to be in the matrix of, to enter into, to be visited upon them in order to progress. Extreme passivity of Fi or Ti as dominant with aux. Ne. The action of the world is necessary for them. A strange world acting upon them. With INFJ, a strange person acting upon the real world, or at least, that is their crisis. An INFP can hardly act on the real world, or they can, but not in the grandiose way that INFJs envision taking some bold and decisive world-altering action. Actually, passivity (no action) is the form of protest of INFP, like in a political sense, “let it be”. But, for INFJ, “the action” is everything. “The act” is so saturated and mulled over. And they have to be “the one” taking the action. INFPs don’t do this at all. It is not their crisis.
- The theme in INFP (and NP) literature of simple protagonists that can either be defined simply as “good” or “common” but are special in the sense that they are privy to a fantastic world of some sort, so the theme of being “charmed” or “lucky.” Ordinary people in extraordinary situations. With INFJ, it is rather the reverse, extraordinary people in ordinary situations. INFP examples: Snow White, Cinderella, Harry Potter, Princess Diana. ENTP examples: Cat in The Hat, Arthur Dent of Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, Kate Schecter of the book The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul.
- INFP theme and crisis of being bored in their humdrum life and wanting to live out a fairytale, go over the rainbow, visit the Goblin king, to follow the emissary of the strange intrusion into real world (white rabbit), but, ultimately to want to arrive back home in the company of the familiar and really appreciate it. To have that security, hearth, family, and so on that they crave, INFP needs to go on the fantastic adventure, which is the Ne aux.
So, in conclusion (how use Ne aux. well = “be used”)
INFPs are very dependent on outside circumstances and fate. And this in their most positive aspect of Ne. It is like “being open” to lucky chances, breaks, unfolding events, kind of Jupiterian in its most classical astrological description. “Going with the flow” “Allowing” Being in tune with the universe, non-causal, non-willing, waiting, and so on.
It seems the more an INFP tries to cause something to happen or their own preconceived notions or calculate, strategize, well, that shit won’t work out for them too well. That’s their inferior and the Western way.
Ne can’t be used really. Maybe the least of any function, it cannot be used or willed as an aux. type thing. I think the hero’s journey for INFP (and INTP too) is to be as “zen” and “loose” and “open” and “guileless” as possible. There are no capacities, tools, positive traits of character as such. “Be empty” “Be open” “Be here now” No goals. I think the gift of this aux. is allowing the universe to act without interfering with it. The degree to which one does not interfere or interject personal concerns such as how one is going to pay the bills, land a husband, etc. is a successful use of Ne aux. In a sense, one does as little as possible and nothing is left undone. “It’ll happen”. Somehow. In some way that you can’t see yet. Trust, faith, hope, optimism in the benevolence of the universe and that everything is unfolding as it should. No mistakes. That type of shit. Obviously, this has implications for new-age ideology, especially as this combines with Fi or feeling in general, which is open and passive to the higher unfolding itself.
When in their Ni (INTJish) id, I think INFPs are more prone to try to get what they want, to set things up, to act out of that special and entitled feeling and upbringing, but, I think this backfires with them a lot. When they are trying to live out a myth of their own specialness and exemption the universe intrudes (?) When they think they are right, have certainty, etc. they are often treading on thin ground (12 house Ni). This often looks childish and absurd and hopelessly complicated and tangled up the nature of their Ni intuitions. But, INFPs have a innate boon of feeling that they are special and that perhaps something special is waiting for them in the outer world. They don’t have to do anything to prove this specialness. INFPs have little to prove to the world in that impactful way of Se action.
What many of them want is to be swept off their feet and shown something wonderful, something extraordinary, fantastic (like a palace or some place of high and noble birth) and settle in that place as a princess.
Of course they could always write or create this fantastic world, like Rowling. But, I think INFPs innately want “to experience” this world rather than create it, especially the women. Like I said there is this main aspect or theme of Ne aux. of being open to experience. A release from judgment and preconceived notions about what is “proper” and what isn’t.
INFP has a lot of underground dignity that is very strong and unshakeable. They know they are princesses and noble and good deep down. Whatever transpires in the world in the form of indignities doesn’t touch them deep down in the way it does an INFJ.
But, they can be very stubborn and intractable deep down, which is where they need to let their Ne take over. They need to tune in to what the universe wants, what is emerging, and not fight it with childish insolence and indignance about what this rather spoiled and bratty child wants. That is INFP in the negative. Like when a child doesn’t get what they want.
Open to what? Love
And so we finally get around to what INFP is really trying to be open to – the possibilities of love. INFP has love to offer and as we all know, love is infinitely yielding, affirming of the other, building up, putting into (the spark into my dying dad’s chest wound). This is not selfish love (that’s more the Scorpio variety). This is Piscean love, which goes by another name – unconditional love. Yes, that’s what INFPs have to offer in their highest guises, a love that is beyond all conditions, particularities, places, persons. It is universal love. It’s Jesus love (but without the tragedy, heaviness of a final sacrificial act etc.).
INFPs give of themselves in all the multivariate ways that do not seek ego-recognition. They are happiest when they can give love.
But, so, this love is kind of reactionary to Ne. It’s like INFP has love to give. That is their core identity. But, in order to properly give it, they have to untie it from any particular agenda, person, etc. Their INTJ id can get in the way here.
An INFP may have all these reasons why they will not love this, that, and the other thing. Their danger in the exclusivity of love, but, not in the same way or for the same reasons as INFJ. With INFP it is more a matter of them putting their love on certain conditions that have to be met, not necessarily the burning jealousy, intensity of emotional depths and burning through that INFJ paramours meet, but more, in a certain materiality and provisionary status. Like subjecting a person to a multitude of criteria for partnering in the exclusive nesting sense. INFPs are looking for a stable person that won’t disturb them too much in their functionary princess role. He must be a good lover, a good provider, a good husband, a good father, a bit of a strapping lad but not a brute. Basically, she wants a guy that will quietly worship her and attend to her. She’s a little princess, see? Not a queen. And not some hardcore dominant figure. But, she expects to be placed on a soft cushion of sorts and be beheld by a man that is a tad less noble than her.
But, anyway that is all love in the conventional sense. And what she will provide is a sort of glue, salve, connective tissue of adoration, respect, and home is where the heart is type thing. A house ain’t a home. An INFP is a homemaker in the highest sense of that word. She adds that feeling of home and hearth, the tenderness, the return from the hard world.
But, outside of this rather exclusive relationship there is something that calls to her. Adventure. Romantic adventures. She needs romance, to be silly in the head.
Personal growth? O yes. Expanding one’s horizons. Many INFPs are likely to start out in this somewhat narrow (though admirable) conception of love and the fairytale marriage to the perfect guy, a prince of a man. And all their activities in one way or another will focus on this setting up or landing of this sort of relationship. It’s calculated and careful because there is so much that needs to be there for this perfect partner to be accepted and take her into the good life while she takes him into the good life.
But, no, I see a malaise while she is dwelling in her perfectly setup marriage, a sort of mistake or error that she makes in pursuing this exclusive setup. She will get bored. Now, this is nothing akin to the INFJ version of this. INFPs do not play mind games and control trips and devouring ecstasies and all the sort of dark things that attend INFJ relationships when they grow bored. No, it is more in the nature of a subtle drifting away, going on automatic pilot type thing. Nothing overtly dramatic or stormy (even if muted as it often is in INFJ). No, just the humdrum life and a feeling of something missing from her fairytale story.
What is missing is the wider world. The universe in its infinite potentials. The larger designs outside of personal families.
Many INFPs are fairly naïve and inexperienced. They don’t have a lot of experience in relationships. They more try to get it right the first time and stick with it. And because so many people do not fit their conception of the kind of partner they are looking for (because they ask so much in this regard), they often dwell in their lonesome, either in their own private (and often scarcely noticeable) worlds or in a relationship. INFPs screen most everyone out for eligibility into the domains of their love.
And so, that is what it is that is being called for – an expansion of the parameters of their innate gift of love. With INFP in their beginnings there is always this concept of who is deserving of their love. Because they know they have a lot of love to give, but whoever is going to be on the receiving end of this wonderful gift better be worthy. Judgment. He better be Prince Charming.
The problem in its extreme is that she essentially screens everyone out. No one could possibly meet her criteria and so she sighs and passes it off as some sort of error of the world and the people in it.
But, this is more her error. And this error may be amplified in the West (America in particular) because we are conditioned to make plans and strategize to get what we want, to make it happen. This doesn’t work too well for INFPs.
Her very sense of her own specialness can backfire and get in her way rather than help her get what she wants.
And often she doesn’t know what she really wants. In a particular sense.
But, what does work for her is learning to expand the circumference of what her love can encompass and impart value towards. Many INFPs are very judgmental in a moral sense of the decisions people make. And they consider themselves innately virtuous and good in the moral sense.
For example, while focused on her fairytale life and dream she will have largely been ignoring everything else that doesn’t fit in with this personal vision. This is her form of selfishness. But, INFPs really have little time for the truly sordid and dark elements of life, unless we are talking fairytale darkness. They do not want to see it in its barest aspect. This is a lady who likes to remain in the light and her worldview can be just as simple and uncomplicated as that: there is good and evil. Case closed. You are either one or the other. This is her basic classification system and way of understanding the world.
But, Ne is completely unmoral. It’s just the universe. No judgment. Ne is asking her to widen her conception of love, what is loveable, etc. Essentially what it is saying is embrace everything, love all without judgment, or even more accurately, spread your gift of love and affirmation over a wider compass without concern for return. There is no limit to love or any resources in the universe. There is no ultimate deserving or non-deserving. Everything deserves love. There is no concept of “measure” in Ne.
Think Red Cross or alleviating peace-keeping missions. Focusing on the troubles of other people far and wide and doing something about it. Tending, succoring, alleviating, commiserating, and relieving distress and misery. The realization that the lack of love in the world is what often causes “evil” or people to do evil things.
Acting as a refuge or respite for the tired, hungry, and poor.
INFPs are very innocent, and strangely enough, unpsychological. They never really take on the miseries of anyone. They have some base protection against things crawling deep inside them and fucking with them (unlike INFJs who have this mucho bigtime). It is like they are always children, but, that they need to take their childlikeness out into the world instead of brooding at home. INFPs have a gift for always seeing the same things anew. They have a built-in system for avoiding getting jaded and cynical. They are emotionally resilient. Things bounce off them and their light chambers.
OK, that’s all for now. Leave questions and comments below.
What are you…. a genius? I am surprised you can get into the psyche of another type better than I can get into my own type. Incredible. I’ve heard the princess or aristocratic comparison for INFPs before and have never been receptive. My dad would make reference to this and it would hurt my feelings actually. Reading your post I finally got a glimpse into what others are seeing when they say that. Your writing is amazing, and your perception is so clear. I really think you are a genius for this stuff.
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I saw another post of yours where you say sometimes you can’t get too caught up with the letters when typing others. I’ve experienced this too. If I go too much by the theory of the letters I miss the “whiffs” of a type. Sometimes you get a whiff and it’s your brain literally recognizing a pattern in a bunch of signs given off by the person in from of you. You’ve seen all these signals before, it’s an … ENFP. Etc. I’ve had better luck with this kind of typing. But then you go on to communicate the whiff in language, and get right down to the bottom of things. You’re so free in your writing. I absolutely love it.
Haha. I find the INFPs I know to be very lovable. But in a kind of…dandelion puff kind of way. Lovely and hardy but also very floaty…just bobbing gently atop the oily surface of this wretched world without submersing themselves in it.
Whenever any kind of deep dark topic comes up between myself and the INFPs I know (racism, poverty, all the awful woes of society and such) the conversation tends to drive me nuts. But then I have to pull myself back and laugh. Like, I’m sorta irritated in my high-strung, cranky soul but I also can’t help but be entertained by the bizarre turns the conversation takes.
“Whenever any kind of deep dark topic comes up between myself and the INFPs I know (racism, poverty, all the awful woes of society and such) the conversation tends to drive me nuts.”
Do you think this goes for poor/minority INFPs too? I may be wrong but it seems like you see the “default” INFP as belonging to the ethnic majority of the country they reside in, being heterosexual, not being poor, etc.
Do you consider INFP’s to be empaths?
Yes.
What’s the healthiest way for INFPs to express/unload the deep, dark, painful or angry Fi emotions, since we don’t have Fe? How does Ne assist in that?
Miss May, I suggest we consult. I think I can help you with your concerns. But, I would have to get more in depth with you. Contact me at blake@stellarmaze.com if interested. Also, check out the Consulting Services tab at top menu to see the nature of information you should send to me if you are interested in consulting.
It’s not that I don’t want to answer these questions, but, I feel you are asking something that is beyond the scope of a comment. It seems to me you are trying to get at something that requires a personal talk. So, let’s do it if you are interested.
I love this article! It’s amazing how you come up with these in-depth descriptions. And I have a princess complex, it’s embarrassing, but I thank you for fleshing it out.
“But, INFPs have a innate boon of feeling that they are special and that perhaps something special is waiting for them in the outer world. They don’t have to do anything to prove this specialness”
Yes, it’s a bit like I’m expecting positive things coming my way, eventually. I can’t help but think of my life as an on-going story most of the time (is this an INFP thing or does everyone do this?). I’m not intentionally viewing my life that way, as a story where everything falls into place eventually, but it’s just how I function – I’m good at suspending reality and subjecting it to my own perceptions. And I’m really not good at the opposite and don’t like it when I have to be. That sounds awful…but I’m not purposefully neglectful of reality! I think. I promise I think I’m not. Lol.
Yes, things “happening to” me is what I thrive on. That and daydreaming, haha. I like the way you describe this: “like intrusion of fantastic into the mundane.”
“Because of most important divide between N and S and perceiving’s primacy, IJ egos are primarily reactive in orientation. It’s as if INFPs sense of self or strong self comes from N rather than Fi dominance. This brings in the helpless, dependent, “happening to” aspect.”
I’m sorry, could you please explain this a little more?
“Like I said there is this main aspect or theme of Ne aux. of being open to experience. A release from judgment and preconceived notions about what is “proper” and what isn’t.”
I can’t explain why, but the way you summed this Ne aux theme in these two sentences was extremely satisfying to me – and I think it’s something I crave.
“But, INFPs really have little time for the truly sordid and dark elements of life, unless we are talking fairytale darkness. They do not want to see it in its barest aspect.”
I’m interested in experiencing, reading about, and defining all facets of all human emotions/desires/realities, even painful, truly dark, brutally real and honest ones — but when it comes to actual experience, I want to stay safe, while still feeling the thrills, just nothing too drastic or harmful – only fairytale darkness, as you put it. Haha.
Thanks for the article, Blake!
Thanks for reading this comment of me talking about myself.
Interesting stuff. Any chance you can elaborate on two things?
“Private fantasies behind closed doors (Ni id of INFP)” – can you explain more about how this might be different in INFP vs INFJ?
The other thing I’m curious about is this: “I think the hero’s journey for INFP (and INTP too) is to be as “zen” and “loose” and “open” and “guileless” as possible. There are no capacities, tools, positive traits of character as such. “Be empty” “Be open” “Be here now” No goals.”
To me (I think I’m an INFJ, but who knows) this actually sounds like a very desirable state of being. To just be in a flow state. To not be planning. To just respond to what comes. And one that is also likely to produce the work an artist wants to produce, for whatever that means in this context. I’m curious if this is not a desirable state for all types, I think. Thoughts?
Long standing INFP here wanting to chime in…
Gotta say from personal experience that Ne aux. is a magical thing! It brings that wondrous quality to all the mundane things, just like you describe. Once I start sharing my love with everything and everyone, it doesn’t really matter who I am with or what I am doing. My love ignites the outside and I watch it and I am in a mild state of ecstasy. No drugs needed. Though this sounds totally new age-y, it is true. If I am tuned in to my Ne aux., every morning as I leave the house turns into a magical journey. And every evening as I come back home, I feel happy as well. As long as I have allowed for that Ne to manifest throughout the day, the loving home is a very welcoming and necessary place (Fi dom?).
My question is about sexuality. Are INFPs who are actively manifesting their Ne aux. doomed in monogamous relationships? Another type that does not do well in that kind of setting??? 🙂
Spreading that sweet INFP love so naturally and eagerly translates into sexual expression for me. Whenever my love rays are met with opening up of a person on the other end, a connection is formed and it wants to express itself, to finish its journey in a sexual way. Not all the time, but sometimes. If that journey of the love ray is forcefully cut short, it feels like ohhh, such a downer.
Expressing the Ne aux. or being in the flow of the Ne aux. does not gel well with the western culture. It’s frustrating! I can’t spread my love as openly and freely and naturally as I want!!! Damn it!!!
I think my perfect relationship would be to have one intimate life long term love partner and at the same time to have multiple other sexual and loving partners, these little journeys on the side. Life permeated with great amount of trust and love and openness. A fairy tale?? You could say so. 🙂 I have never seen one in real life, that’s for sure.
That sounds appealing to me as well.
Nice!!!
So, my INFP mom has lots of vampire stories in her mind. She has never written them down. Apparently, it’s all very close to the Twilight vampire stories. She says that she created whole families, sagas and worlds. If only she had written it before Twilight appeared…
Once I understood that she was an INFP, I started realizing that these vampire stories are probably characteristic of the INFP imaginary. A vampire might be one of the INFP’s favourite monsters.
I think a vampire is very analogous to the King Goblin of Labyrinth. An underground, dark entity, not living, not dead, that brings this strange and extraordinary world with him. And allows the INFP to enter this world. Because the INFP is noble, capable of communicating and enduring their company.
And I would say that vampires represent a sort of eternal Fi love? Oh, and they also have a dark Te (inferior Te) in the form of the the biting/blood contract, a dominance and control over the loved one.
I bet my mom is a princess hanging out with the vampires in her imaginary worlds! 🙂
Oh, I think she could write it down and it could be successful even after release of Twilight.
Now this reminds me of something I experienced few years ago. It was winter and I was all gloomy for some time and one evening coming back home I just stopped in front of my door and wished something like vampire came from behind me, leaned to my throat and light kiss would turn into sharp bite and I would let it and be grateful and this dark creature would finish me. And then I opened the door, stepped into light and warmth, put on smile and buried this fantasy under chatter with family and typical evening doings.
OK, I couldn’t resist asking the question: what about Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey? 🙂
I think she’s INFP and he’s ENTJ. He’s a sort of prince charming, with his empire, which would make her a princess. And they met by chance, nothing was planned. And he let her into his own extraordinary world, even though she was just a normal girl.
Also, like you said, he’s a forceful lover, but not a brute. Actually, I was intrigued when I started reading the book, because I’d heard all the hype and comments about the dom sexual theme in it, and then, when I started reading it, I was thinking “Come on, that’s all of it? This guy is a gentleman! That’s boring. He could really do so much more.”
I haven’t finished it yet. Maybe things will get harder in the end. But I don’t know. I think this is where the INFJ hard, Se-based sexual fantasies, more shocking to me, are contrasted with the more romantic and Te-based INFP fantasies of the author.
I was curious enough to read the first book and surprised by how bland it is. At worst the sex is mildly transgressive – the kinkiest part is when they’re negotiating a contract for their relationship and he wants to control her diet and exercise regimen and what parts of her are waxed. It seemed very soft-focus romance for dullards to me, I didn’t get it. (No judgment! I didn’t find it “wrong”, I just didn’t get it as a book.)
I am curious, Blake, if you agree, and why, that possible INFJ tendencies toward what you’ve elsewhere referred to as “hard submission” come out of Se? Is the 4th function typically where sexual leanings in fantasy live? I would have imagined, I think, that in INFJs a tendency to eroticize power dynamics would come from Fe, so there must be something I’m not understanding.
Hoping to know where you were going with this:
“J is to P like civilization is to man’s vaster earlier history. Nietzsche’s Truth and Lies and Ti in particular. ”
So, when I think of J or P, I tend to see that P is less concerned with rules, and social norms like growing your hair out as a man, or just not being concerned with getting caught for going against the law in little ways. Pot smoking, building without a permit, stuff like that. They’ll do it and be like naw, whose gonna know? where I will fear the repercussions and am sure it’ll come back at me and I can see down the line, just how it can. So also wondering if that was related at all to the above you said.
And I admire this boldness, so much, and feel silly and uptight, cause I often agree with their point, and I don’t object morally to what is going down cause these things are rarely a moral issue, but I can’t seem to help my anxiety in these cases that concern societies repercussions for getting caught. I’m not actually an over anxious person, I just veer from the potential law drama. I prefer to stay under the radar, invisible.
Also:
INxPs personalize their Ni, making it complex, inextricable, and inexplicable. INFJs can usually be characterized by a relative simplicity of Ni expression, something very basic like an OS. ENxJs, even more so.
I’m sorry, what is an OS? I’ve had a lot going on and my comprehension is down.
Thanks for this last, seriously, the more puzzle pieces in this game, the better!
OS = operating system, as in the operating system in a computer. Without some kind of OS a computer can’t do anything at all. One thing an OS does is schedule and prioritize the many processes running on a computer at any given time. It is always busy and needs to be on top of everything at all times to prevent crashes. And so what is a computer running on top of this OS? Programs of one sort or another. Well, one might say that the dominant program that the computer is running (but, however, doesn’t have to run) is akin to the auxiliary function.
An ego-orientation serves a similar function to an operating system in the human psyche. No ego = no psyche.
So, Ni as a dominant function (ego-orientation) is very basic and in the background of all the multivariate processes running at any given time in the psyche of an INFJ (or INTJ). Its operation is implied by all else that is taking place on top of it (or in the context of it), but, it is rarely, if ever, a thing that comes directly to the fore. It is implied in everything one does though. With Ni, this implies a lot of inferential activity.
Simply put, an OS manages all the hardware and software on a computer and itself is a form of software, the only software that a computer is required to run if it is to function at all.
Well, it appears by this analogy, that the id function would be akin to the basic hardware of the computer, all that is hardwired into the computer. Yep, that makes sense.
So, try having Ni hardware and see how far you get 🙂
I mean, it is hard, but where is it?
I’ll never understand what Ni id hardware is because I cannot see it!!! Weeeee.
“I mean, it is hard, but where is it?” Ha! Beautiful!
Well now, the Id as hardware is something to contemplate for sure. I can see it better in me, undoubtedly so because of your Fi Id explanations. Trying to imagine the “–complex, inextricable, and inexplicable– ” Ni.
What I am getting is that it can’t be trusted. I mean the owner doesn’t trust. Like I daren’t trust infantile Fi. Who let the dogs out?!
I am curious how differently the Ni Id manifests for INTPs and what their liberation would be.
This article made me think of the movie “The Never Ending Story”. It perfectly aligns with that INFP fantasy of the normal person being sucked into a grand quest of great import in an alternate and fantastical universe. I love these articles, I could relate big time to this one, everything about it spoke to me personally. Indeed, I do think my biggest problem is just waiting for things to happen to me instead of the other way around. I think I can be a bit of a polyanna in thinking things will just work out for the best. Laying around and day dreaming about other worldly loves, places, and adventures is definitely another thing I’m highly prone to doing.
“J is to P like civilization is to man’s vaster earlier history. Nietzsche’s Truth and Lies and Ti in particular.”
I think this merits further development because I’m not too sure where you want to take this.
If civilisation, by Nietzsche’s lights, is the implied contract to lie according to fixed convention and to deploy customary metaphors as a means to be truthful, then truthfulness requires an essential forgetfulness that we are using no more than token propositions to achieve expressive commonality in our respective descriptions of the world.
But in the state of nature that preceded this collective illusion, a more fundamental naïvety predominated our descriptions of the world. These descriptions were guileless and far more individualistic than what collectivity could either support or tolerate. So in an interesting and radical reworking of the Hobbesian myth of bellum omni contra omnes, Nietzsche implies that Truth is the Leviathan that makes our lives a little less solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
But as with everything in Nietzsche, it’s all a lot more complicated; particularly since he privileges all that causes suffering and change insomuch as that which does not kill us makes us stronger. And for Nietzsche, decadence began with Socrates and the drive to rationality. What we may have gained in intelligibility we’ve lost in vitality.
I happen to agree with Nietzsche that the problem of Socrates is the crucible of Western civilisation. Jesus may have the bigger fandom, but [the myth of] Socrates has had a far greater, if less evident, impact. Jesus died for our sins, but Socrates died for our stupidity. Nevertheless, Nietzsche reckons that Socrates was guilty as charged; he corrupted the youth and infected the mind of Plato (a very pissed-off INFJ with a bone to pick and an axe to grind) with the illusion of Truth.
In another comment, I have written that INFJs were the children of Apollo. Ni is our gift of insight, but we also have inherited the Apollonian rationality in our love of Ti. We seek intelligibility and all too often become dazzled by the illusions of rational visions and go into hermit mode to reside in these visions. It also explains why some INFJs can equally embark on crusades to enforce their visions as forms of totalitarianism (Truth = Leviathan; cf. Plato’s Republic).
Where I’m getting muddled is whether you think P is the path to authentic, vital descriptions of the world and whether P is where we ought to be looking for new expressions of life. To reframe the dichotomy, if J’s are the Apollonians, then the P’s are the Dionysians who wake us up to the chaos, the instinctual and the irrational.
“I think this merits further development because I’m not too sure where you want to take this.”
Yes, it definitely merits further development but it would likely have to be in an article all by itself. What I was briefly alluding to was Nietzsche’s essay “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” and how Ti, as one of the four forms of the judging function, is often what is being referred to as “the truth” when in fact it is really just a name that a person had previously assigned to “represent” or “stand in” for that truth. Nietzsche says don’t fool yourself that you have found the truth when you have only found the very thing that you made up to stand in for that still unknowable truth. In other words, we fool ourselves with language. Much of modern day civilization relies on this deception of language. For example, we fool ourselves into thinking we are very “far along” as a species when if you scratch the surface a bit, you will see that underneath our so called civility lies an abyss of unknown things. We put names on those things to feel like we have some sort of power over them (which in many cases is true) but we don’t really know what they are in that primary perceiving sense. As a matter of fact, the more judgments we formulate, often in the form of written language, the more that what we pass on as a species, generation to generation, is a bunch of second-hand (and third-hand and fourth hand and so on) experience. The primacy of the original perception increasingly becomes lost, and moreover, is less likely to be experienced by the newer (and more civilized) generations for the very reason that there are so many preexisting judgments that have already been made on the matter at hand. Essentially, they are being told “that is the way it is (or was)”. These exist as facts or primary encoded experiences of some other original perceiver.
A civilized society can be characterized by greater and greater proliferations of laws governing conduct, commerce etc. and great tomes of books (or webpages) all offering second-hand experience of the truth in the form of language.
This dependence on books was one of the great criticisms that Nietzsche had of the philologists of his day (Nietzsche started out as a philologist, which is a person who studies the origins of language).
Much of Nietzsche’s philosophy is influenced by his early training and brilliance in studying the roots of language.
After his repudiation of this brilliant and distinguished academic path that he was on, he spent the last 10 sane years of his life seeking out primary experience. Getting back to the perceptual. Now, for an introverted intuitive, this doesn’t necessarily mean having a lot of varied experiences in the outer world (which Nietzsche certainly didn’t), but in the nature of introverted intuition (one of the four perceiving functions) lies primary and essential direct perception of what could be called “reality” or “truth”. It isn’t second-hand and passed down via some formalized and highly organized and codified system of symbols. Such as language is.
So, yeah, the J/P dichotomy, especially J in the Ti sense of static and encoded definitions vs. the highly dynamic, in flux, chaotic, and unencoded P function of introverted intuition. For INTJs, this is an especially relevant theme of their development. They have an early basis and development in Ti similar to how INFJs have the same in Fi and how INFPs have such in Ni.
In other words, just forget that bit about J and P and Nietzsche’s Truth and Lies and the allusions to civilization in these notes. I probaly shouldn’t have included it in the context of this article, which is supposed to be about INFPs more or less.
The reason I did is because I was in a big hurry and working according to fixed time constraints. I would rather focus more on the INFP-specific stuff here. I’ll write an article in the future specifically about Nietzsche’s relation to Ti, language, and the implications this has for civilization as a J entity. It’s really more relevant as pertains to the INTJ type.
Also, I want to commend you on the highly erudite nature of your comment. Color me impressed 🙂
Beautiful. Thank you. <3
I have been thinking about it for some time and when you mentioned hearth and making home a nice place to come back it has been confirmed. Hestia is INFP. She has no partner in mythology but according to some psychological essays, woman with strong Hestia archetype can find good partner in man with strong Hermes archetype. I think that Hermes is quite ENTP kind of person. I know you wrote that golden pairiNg is ENTP and INFJ, but could it work also with INFP?
Hi Blake,
In the spirit of Thanksgiving I just wanted to thank you for your hard work. I’ve learned a lot from this site especially from your comments which helps clarify the material.
I found this article particularly insightful. I guess I just enjoy articles about INxPs; they really help me differentiate. I had some interesting thoughts and questions while reading it but they seem to have escape me. Oh well, I guess they were of no real importance if I can’t remember.
Again, thanks.
A.
PS: If anyone else reads this comment and values the opinion of some random lurker, I think you guys should all donate to Blake. Even if it’s just a couple of dollars. I understand that not everyone can but it is just my opinion that you should.
Well, I think that fills my quota for assertiveness today. Take care. 🙂
Thanks A, I appreciate that 🙂
Thanks for the reminder, A. I so value your insight as well, Blake. Keep up the good work and Happy Thanksgiving!
Blake,
You also have some male infp readers too.
Mark
Ask me a question.
Blake,
The first thought that comes to mind is Te compared with Fi and Ne. Fi and Ne has this feedback loop of perceiving. Ne influencing emotions, my state, causing a shift in perspective, how I feel about this person, thing, idea. Empathy with the person, thing, idea and seeing it’s possibility. This can cause a sense of instability. Then to reach out for stability via Te. Done that a lot and then there is a plan, there is some stability, there is something concrete. It’s like comparing fire to concrete. The fire of Fi with Ne versus the concrete of Te.
To progress in life there requires a certain direction. An avenue. If there is no direction the compass spins around and around, action spins around and around. What Te provides is the defined pathway. There is a road the two sides of the road is the Te, which extends in a straight line to the horizon. Then comes along Ne and sees this thing and another thing influencing Fi and now that road stops and back to circling until the Te comes along along again. Another straight road then Ne and Fi team up together and your circling, going through the process of ideas and possibilities and how they relate to how I feel about them.
What would you recommend as a solution, things to think about to break out of the Fi/Ne vs Te loop. Because just living in Fi with Ne is the reason I think there is that stay at home attitude. Just day dreaming and things happening in your head. But once you step outside the door and meet the road there are decisions to be made. Do I turn left here, or do I turn right here. Just through caution to the wind? I generally don’t think so because of the general attributes of a homebody like you mentioned Olin your article.
Meditation is a benefit that Zen experience of a quiet mind does work. Any other thoughts or suggestions?
Mark
Also, great writing. It’s like intellectual candy for me.
I would recommend scheduling a consult with me to discuss these possibilities. I am too busy to give thorough answers to all the comments I now receive. Check out my Consulting Services in the top menu tab. I have very reasonable rates.
Blake,
Thanks for putting yourself out here. Your efforts and content here I (an infj) receive as inspiration to push onward on my own artist path. I honor your verbal dexterity and ability to walk the razor edge of our dualistic language to express the re-visionary, ‘hair-splitting’ notions you do here. I struggle to explain my process in rhyme or reason of making art as I do for the last 20 +years. I have found it helpful indeed to identify the internal thinking tredmill and work to get off and into a external flow and create from there. I appreciate Dylan’s retort to those who inquire for an explanation to his music: something like “why should I do that work for you, I already wrote, sang and recorded it for you?”
Any way I will send a donation to you soon as i can. I’m not real flush at the moment. I would give you a lot if i could, your work has value to me and my evolution.
looking forward to your words on infj male.
Peace,
Jason
Ps. do you know the literary work of Haruki Murakami? I don’t read many novels but his writing I find gets right inside me. Maybe he’s an infj?
Agree with you on Dylan. He was challenging the consensus opinion on what the artist’s role and responsibility was. And I couldn’t agree with him more. Why should the artist tell you what their work means. For starters, why would you assume they actually know? Also, why assume they are a reliable source for what their work means, even if they think they know what it means? I find this a very interesting conception.
I do not know of Murakami so I cannot comment on what his/her type is.
Weird.
I asked Blake about Murakami a while back as well.
I suspect he is an INFP, though honestly I quite often get the two mixed up. Furthermore I don’t have any concrete reason on why he’s INFP over INFJ. His writing always gave me more of a dreamy sense of the world even if it is dark. Most of his protagonist seem to drift aimlessly rather than have a sense of conviction. They also focus around the everyday person perplexing on why things happen to them.
Sorry if this doesn’t make much sense but maybe can discuss it.
I’m really interested in why you think Murakami is an INFJ 🙂
Hey A,
Ahhh Murakami:-) Like i said previously Im not a regular fiction reader and real far from a qualified book critic but Murakami’s writing seems to hold me fascinated. I think its the ease with which he incorporates metaphysical nuance into a plot line that makes perfect sense . The result for me is a story that reflects the way I like to perceive and muse on life. I mean take ‘Kafka on the Shore’ and Nakata’s ability to talk with cats and how subsequently we learn the differing communication styles of cat species and that, as some of us knew, cats hold important information if only we knew how to listen;-)
Also his sense of time intrigues me aswell. His notion of the moment easily contains the heavy essence of another. How true that is for me. I find my ego relaxes reading him. there are amazing unseen forces and ways about our world that flow right through us / we are enmeshed with. Maurikami seems to dive into the emotional possibilities of being human like most cherished novels do i suppose but his inclusion of time as a subtle and other-than-linear character, I think enables his writing to express human emotional reality with an appropriate context of mystery.
I know little of the whole personality type paradigm. I’ve really just been taking in infj. I’m still learning the nuance difference say between infj and infp with great thanks to Blake’s work and writing here:-) I have a much better understanding of astrology and would say for me Murakami speaks to my sun moon square. Taurus to Aquarius respectively. Moon conjunct Jupiter. Sun conj. Venus.
His writing exposes the challenging experiential juxtaposition of a cool and detached yet tuned-to-the myriad-of-human-emotional-possibilities type of awareness with, simply stated, an awareness of a lush hilly pastoral setting with steaming-fresh cow patties nearby. So for me Murakami grounds and affirms the multidimensional experience of being human on earth.
Hi Mr. Blake,
Foremost your writing is one of the joys of the internet, straight up you need to be published for something (anything you care enough to write about I’m sure will touch millions). Anyways , I have 2 problems that I figured I’d invite your opinion of as you are the most social typologist I “know.” That’s a mild compliment, because literally how much time in a week do commit to this blog (its astounding just contemplating the endeavors you could be taking)?
To be super quick I believe that Problem No. 1 is that I do not know who I am with enough absolution to protect me from anything. Rationally, I see that a vacillating identity incompletes an unconvicted integrity to one’s values. Without integrity all my volition is inevitably doomed to be scattered amongst whatever breeze happening to pass me by (rightly so as unjustified existence to me is tantamount to noncompliance with living or frankly death). Although under duress my life without vision is reminiscent of what I imagine wanting to be yanked from the Matrix must feel like, a life of perceived uselessness is obviously murderously maddening, but I’m not suicidal and or murderous as I’ve never decomposed that far down.
So I probably initialize an identity crisis every other day for at least a few hours or at most for weeks (which is incompatible with successfully living out my vision for my life and more less just leaves me more angsty). I describe my perspective on my exacerbatory life as rational knowing that my reasoning is clearly subjective, and this is where the Problem No. 2 arrives… it took me awhile to realize, but I don’t consciously operate in an objective frame of reference. Literally, it was almost unfathomable to understand how objectivity works growing up, but now as an aspiring nuclear engineer/physicist I understand that the scope of the frame makes all the difference. Exploring this understanding, if I would say Ti is more rational than Te because Ti essentially tries to synthesize one absolute “objective” truth, someone would probably say something to the effect of dismissing my non-empirical drawn correlations as inescapably subjective.
Questions:
1. Why does your article primarily address female INFP’s?
2. If I’m wrong about being an INFP that would humorously suck (as when I thought I was an INFJ things almost make sense), but assuming I’m correct how could an INFP jump start his willpower?
3. What can a person hope to define/identify in all of existence if not his/herself?
4. What is an INFP, but an enigma of an intelligent domesticated pet?
5. I’m being treated for ADHD, is it possible that psychological and physiological disorders are just manifestations of deleterious developments/habits of personality types (excluding the autism spectra, prion, virus, bacteria, and or parasite related handicaps)?
Good Morning @ Thanks,
Kontrastjin
Hey Mr. Blake,
Honestly, I hope you haven’t read my above post yet as I’m about to say just forget about it… Why? You’re awesome and keep doing the thing you do, but honestly I know my real problem its procrastination. The deeper story of where and what it all means is almost irrelevant in the crisis I’m now. Typology as of right now is merely an addictively intriguing game I play to continue being distracted under the pretense of “working” to find my identity to find the solution to my “obfusticating-blessed-kid-who-struggles-to-muster-the-one-thing-needed-to-just-fucking-do-it” life problems. So anyway, Godspeed to you and everyone else here! I have to let this go for awhile if I really want to heal myself. Deuces…
Godspeed! Indeed.
I’m an INFP too and your second comment is the most accurate thing I’ve ever read, thank you.
1. Why does your article primarily address female INFP’s?
Because I know considerably more about the female INFP than the male of the species.
2. If I’m wrong about being an INFP that would humorously suck (as when I thought I was an INFJ things almost make sense), but assuming I’m correct how could an INFP jump start his willpower?
INFPs don’t really have willpower as such. Probaly of all types, they are most reliant on the currents of the universal will and in picking up on those currents and going with them. In line with this, INFPs don’t seem to have strong goal orientations such that they are driven relentlessly towards a goal with the proverbial iron will. Again, this is just not their shtick. And I will be the first to admit, that INFPs are infuriatingly hard to understand. Often, they don’t understand themselves or what they are driving at. They sort of gently drift on currents. They have a subtle will. However, most of this is in the worldly sense of goals and ambition. If it has to do with a relationship, an injustice, an abuse of power, then, they can be highly motivated and tenacious in this sense. INFPs are very stubborn in clinging to their core values. The way they go about moving towards them is often indirect, but, always returning again and again. And they will not budge from these core values.
3. What can a person hope to define/identify in all of existence if not his/herself?
God, cars, trains, other people, the universe, math, the ten-thousand things. Which could all be you in the final analysis. So, yeah.
4. What is an INFP, but an enigma of an intelligent domesticated pet?
Right 🙂
5. I’m being treated for ADHD, is it possible that psychological and physiological disorders are just manifestations of deleterious developments/habits of personality types (excluding the autism spectra, prion, virus, bacteria, and or parasite related handicaps)?
I think that any particular disease manifests as a continuum of type. ADHD seems most related to Ne in my book. Autism seems most related to Ti with the according Fe deficit.
i’m fairly certain i’m an INFP but now this article has me questioning that. mainly the prince charming/princess parts. not that i don’t like romance, but… much of this sounds very much like a 2 or 9 INFP (not sure if you’re into the enneagram though.) which there are a lot of, but not all of us. i am interested in the astrology associations. something i’ve been thinking about myself.
I am into the enneagram. The way I see it INFP falls at 9 enneagram almost exclusively. If this is not the case, then, the 9 enneapoint and the INFP type have the most affinity for each other.
It is possible that there is a brand of INFPs that fall at enneatype 6/5. I have noticed that there does seem to be an INTPish type that doesn’t really perform like the INTP under close examination.
Part of the problem with INFP identification is that of all the types INFP seems to be the one that is most lacking in clear definition. It is the type that takes on external and conditioning influences the most. So, depending on the conditioning (astrological influences being very important in this respect) you can get some fairly diverging instances of the INFP type.
I think it is easiest to type an INFP from the manifestations of their Ni id, which is a deep and underground impulse.
But, you’re right, not every INFP will have that fairytale mythology going on overtly. Many INFPs are heavily guarded in letting down their defenses. So, you would kind of have to get to know them over time.
What many of them most project is “nothing”. They have a way of protecting themselves by not projecting anything overt. What you are likely to see in many of them is an unassuming visage. It isn’t friendly. It isn’t unfriendly. It’s closed. It’s open.
INFPs can be very closed and unfriendly towards strangers or those they don’t know or aren’t comfortable with. But, then lo and behold when they do open up, they can be absolutely open and unprotected. If they trust you. They can be a completely different person behind closed doors. I think this is true with INTPs too.
It’s also true in a general sense with introverts. But, still, dominant Fi can be very cold and unfriendly. Jung describes it that way and I think he means upon first impression – if this dominant Fi type doesn’t know you. If they do know you and like you and trust you they can be very open and childlike with a person.
I guess what I’m saying is that INFP is the least amenable to casual scrutiny.
what about 4w5 INFPs, i think we are less “unassuming” than 9s. there are tons of us. i think we project, but maybe not in a verbal way that you are speaking of. i’ve definitely been called aloof. i don’t have a fairytale thing going on inside either. what i’m saying is, i think you’re speaking more of what INFPs project from the outside but you’re misunderstanding the inside (which is expected maybe) but it makes more sense to focus on how a type functions in the world by their cognitive functions, not really to make archetypes out of the types. i mean i can look at my INFJ friend and see her actions but read about INFJs and understand the motivation and the 2 aren’t always in agreement (?) (hope that makes sense.)
I don’t know of any INFPs at 4w5 enneatype. You got some famous examples you’d like to share?
well, i don’t really know. i’m not great at typing celebrities, but if i had to guess, i’d say robert smith of the cure. and nick drake.
I would type Nick Drake as an INFJ and a pretty classic one at that – dark, introspective, sensitive, real. Robert Smith could be an INFP. And yes, I can see why you would type him as a 4 – the tortured gothic pining moody mopey happy ampy thing.
What about Michael Stipe of REM? I would type him as INFP. He has that moody, introspective, shiny, happy thing. INFPs seem to combine a certain low-key dourness with an upbeat poppy geeky thing. Would you consider him a type 4?
are you trying to be insulting with your remarks about INFPs? because they do come off that way, but also a lot of them are incorrect stereotypes, so. anyway, no i don’t think nick drake is INFJ. not in the least. i’m not sure about michael stipe. probably a 4. lots of “introspective” musicians are 4s.
Are you trying to be insulting with your remarks about INFPs?
No, I’m not trying to be insulting. It’s purely incidental 🙂
because they do come off that way, but also a lot of them are incorrect stereotypes
Well, then, some of them are correct too. Plus, how would we know if some of them were incorrect? Which ones are correct and which ones aren’t correct?
See, you don’t think Nick Drake is remotely close to an INFJ. So, we aren’t even speaking the same language.
What seems likely to me is that a lot of people that you would consider INFPs, I would consider INFJs. So, my purpose in writing this article and INFP vs. INFJ was to define my terms for what I think these two types look like. There is definitely overlap between these two types.
What difference does it make? Nick Drake is an INFPish INFJ or an INFJish INFP. He was obviously one of those quiet and sensitive types. Either INFP or INFJ can be so. I think we could agree that he wasn’t an ENTJ. Or an INTP. Or anything else besides one of those two types. Well, could he be an ISFP? Maybe that could be a distinct third possibility.
So, an introverted dominant type with feeling predominating over thinking. I don’t see ANY Ne in him at all. However, let’s say for the sake of argument that it is turned off as auxiliary functions often are. To support your assessment of not INFJ, I don’t see any Fe in his expression either. So, I think we are seeing Fi with some form of intuition. I would argue that Nick Drake was showing MUCH MORE Ni in his expression than Ne. He has none of that Ne quirkiness or upbeat giddy pop happy shiny lovey energy that I associate with Ne aux. for INFP. What he had was a gentle, reflective, musing, melancholic, downer, dark river, deathly, winterish vibe. With hints of tasteful coloration like in the title of one of his albums Pink Moon.
There is a searching there. I see Ni and Fi predominating. INFPs have that. INFJs have that too as I’ve written about the Fi id position of INFJ. So, it is really a matter of semantics too. When we see strong Fi with introspection and such we think INFP, but, I also think INFJ because of the Fi id position. The difference in Fi between the two types is what is differentiating. INFJ has a harsher form of Fi at a harsher and more negative position, the id position. INFPs have a softer form of Fi at a more neutral position, the dominant position.
INFJs have the feeling of drowning in Fi. It threatens to sink them. INFPs have a more normative experience of Fi. It’s there all the time as a constant climate. Like a fish in water, they need it to breathe.
With an INFJ, it is more like being on this dark river trip or some severe subterranean deep-dives into highly charged waters. Like being in an undertow or quicksand.
INFPs don’t tend to experience Fi that way. Rather, Ni is like that for them, their id function.
Anyway, there is a lot of overlap between these two types, which is the reason I wrote this article to attempt to differentiate them. But, at the end of the day, why focus so much on how they are so different. They are very similar too. It’s OK. And, beyond a certain point, it feels ridiculous pointing out how different they are. If you see it, you see it, if you don’t, you don’t. It doesn’t have to be that serious or dire.
Let’s create a type called INFP/J. Nick Drake can be the first member.
A lot of INFJs thought they were INFPs for years and vice-versa. This means that there is enough similarity between the descriptions of the two types for people to viably see themselves in the other type.
The primary distinction I made in my INFJ vs. INFP article is the distinction between the terms “hard” and “soft”. And I still stand by that – I think INFPs are generally “softer” romantic types, whilst INFJs are “harder” romantic types. By “romantic”, I mean the NF types.
To return to our contention over Nick Drake, yes, I could see that someone might see him as a “soft” type of romantic type. But, I don’t. He would be a “hard romantic” to me. Throughout Nick Drake’s music I hear this monotonic insistence on staying in one vein, to sort of stay on that dark river trip. INFPs ALWAYs have more brightness in their expression, a kind of happy, optimistic, loose quality. I do hear it in Robert Smith’s expression via The Cure.
yeah, i don’t agree with your soft/hard thing either so we are already in disagreement there…
nick drake just seems way more Fi to me, judging from what i’ve read of his biography. also don’t agree about all INFPs being optimistic. ian curtis was an INFP too.
i mean it’s one thing for me to *observe* INFJs but that’s quite different from their functions/what drives them and knowing them on a more intimate basis. i think the same could be said for INFPs or any type. what i’m trying to say is you seem to be looking through a very particular lens but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true.
i mean it’s one thing for me to *observe* INFJs but that’s quite different from their functions/what drives them and knowing them on a more intimate basis. i think the same could be said for INFPs or any type. what i’m trying to say is you seem to be looking through a very particular lens but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true.
The bottom-line is that neither you nor me nor anyone else knows who is or isn’t an INFJ. I think the only thing that we know about INFJ by definition is that they are a temperament type that has Ni dominance, Fe auxiliary, Ti tertiary, and Se inferior. I think most everyone would agree to that. But, all those functions and positions are WIDE OPEN to interpretation.
You say that I could be wrong. So could you.
You too are using a particular lenses, are you not?
I think Ian Curtis was an INFJ, so that is nothing in favor of your counterargument.
As I have already said before, there are probaly many people that you would consider INFPs that I would consider INFJs.
Also, did you know Nick Drake or Ian Curtis on an intimate basis? Yet, you are making an opinion of what seemed to drive Drake function-wise (Fi).
Aside from typing people that you don’t know intimately, what leads you to disagree with the soft/hard thing?
yeah i can’t say 100% they are most definitely INFPs, but reading/watching interviews, they say things/act in ways that seem INFP.
people do know what INFJ and INFP are though, and i can usually tell by the use of Fi or Fe. it’s fairly obvious. that doesn’t mean i can understand every INFJ or INFP, i wouldn’t say i could, but i can notice how they use functions.
i disagree with the hard/soft thing because i know INFPs are not flighty unicorn loving hippie dippie airheads like you make them out to be. some fit this stereotype, yes and they are 9s and 2s. 4 INFPs are quite different…like i said before. speaking from an astrological standpoint, i doubt my placements are considered very typical INFP at all, but i can see it with knowledge of my whole chart. i just don’t think typing people should be so cut and dry/black and white/stereotyped. that’s why i disagree.
As a fellow 4 w 5 INFP I get what you are saying on this comment thread, and while some of the stuff in this article is correct, I think it misses the point by insisting on the archetype, a as perceived reflection, so much, it reduces the INFP to this kind of “manic pixie dream girl” and underestimates the depth that the type can have, despite making some pretty accurate statements. I use both the myers-briggs and enneagram a lot, and especially if there is heavy childhood trauma, the relation between the two systems is not so clear cut, as one is more of a blueprint for functioning and the other more of a general aura, reflecting intergenerational trauma and integration of external influences. I have INFP cognitive preferences, but childhood trauma pushed me to develop into a 4w5 enneatype, perhaps with some 9-is tendencies. I am definitely not a 9, as much as I would have loved to have been one, some of my best friends are 9´s though 😉 . If I had grown up in a less frightening and intense environment, possibly I could have been. What´s interesting to me is that I think people wouldn´t be prone to type me as an INFP from afar, but it´s very obvious to them I´m a 4, and obvious to me (now) that I´m INFP. I lived a bunch of really unhappy and turbulent years trying to understand why I was such a disaster in certain jobs that I was very “talented” at (translating/copywriting for example) until I realized that I had basically been living my life as an INFJ and I was not at all, and all that pressure to take quick decisions was wearing me out. As for famous examples, the chances of a 4w5 INFP getting *really* famous are slim, not because we don´t make great art in lots of different disciplines, not because we aren´t eccentric or prone to a certain notoriety in our communities, but because we are often self-sabotaging, deadline and paperwork allergic, averse to seeking the limelight and giving the public what they want, and so critical of the very structures of the system that could make us famous that we are more busy culture jamming at a grass-roots level than producing easily digested work capable of saturating a large scale audience. All that being said, Moses Sumney could be an INFP, the type of wordplay he uses is too ambiguous, dense, visual and layered for it to be from any other type.
If INFP’s have Ni in that deep dark quicksand way that you describe INFJ’s as having Fi then it would make sense that a lot of them could be type 4s when in throes of that. I think in these articles and in most of your articles describing the INF differences it seems like you’re comparing a higher more balanced version of an INFP to a more unstable version of an INFJ.
Maybe it’s just that more unhealthy Ni INFP’s can be type 4’s. Also what do you think about someone like George Orwell? He’s often typed as an INFP. It makes sense that he wrote 1984 while severely ill with tuberculosis on a relatively isolated Scottish island, seems like the kind of situation where Ni id could emerge. What do INFP’s who havent tapped into their Ne auxiliaries at all look like?
there are tons of INFP 4s, i don’t think they have to be “unhealthy Ni types” to be so. 4 makes a lot of sense with INFPs. not all INFPs are these whimsical unicorn lovers this article touches on. it’s odd that one would think so, honestly.
I agree with Kate. There’s a significant part of INFPs that are type 4. All INFPs aren’t “bright unicorns”.
And as I have already said, if that is the case, then those INFPs are likely to be INFJs. In my book.
i think i, and other INFPs know our4selves better than you 😉
exactly, mathilde. there’s a woman on personality cafe that describes us 4 INFPs perfectly, maybe i should direct people to her. no unicorns or rainbows in sight…
What’s an INFP’s relationship with Fe?
Hey there,
This is somewhat unrelated but how would one go about determining whether they are INFP or ISFP. Before you think: look up functions, I have for 4 years haha…. I just can’t tell which I use. I definitely know I’m an Fi dom, and I highly identify with Ne’s desire to be completely unmoral and open-minded (yet totally judgmental of people according to my personal code). The thing I’ve never identified with Ne is the forming of multiple possibilities and using lots of metaphors. I can’t plan that far into the future in metaphors, and multiple possibilities don’t often just pop up into my head, although I’m aware of them and don’t like ruling them out. From the ISFP article, I do see my own susceptibility of being “very weak yet very strong” in the way of ditching someone when one-on-one vs in an intimate setting, yet don’t because I’m pretty stubborn in following my Fi code. I do have the instinct to poke and prod and play with people, admittedly, because I like to see how they’ll react and sometimes like to see how far I can push, which you seemed to attribute to Se. I also do pay attention to status within a group, to “coolness”, and I think it’s shallow and stupid and I hate it about myself, but it is a trap I inevitably fall into. I care about outside validation with my choice in partner, although I believe love should be unconditional and I am extremely loyal once one has met my conditions.
What I don’t agree with in the ISFP article personally is that we don’t build ideals the way NFs do. I am always building ideals for myself, the world, and my especially in my relationships (friends, partners, idealizing people). This is why I doubt I’m ISFP, although that’s what I commonly label myself.
I don’t expect you to actually respond to this 100% (I’m sure you’re busy) but I am sure hoping so because I can’t ever figure out my type! :’P
Blake do you have any opinions about depression and anxiety as related to certain cognitive functions and types?
I wish things bounced off of me and that I had “some base protection against things crawling deep inside them and fucking with them”. But then I came from an abusive childhood and struggled with the repercussions of that my whole life. I also can’t relate to being a princess, especially since I long to protect the underdog and tear down all “royalty” from their high places. But I suppose I can understand what you mean about INFPs believing they’re special. It took a lifetime and many hard knocks to start to see this tendency in myself, and also to see the ways in which it was hurting me. I have more humility now, but I’m still learning to have faith in the Universe, people and, most of all, myself.
Hi, watch this :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-erfXFv4yYw
Blake, I decided to revisit this post because one of your advice has put me in danger:
“There is no ultimate deserving or non-deserving. Everything deserves love. There is no concept of “measure” in Ne.
Think Red Cross or alleviating peace-keeping missions. Focusing on the troubles of other people far and wide and doing something about it. ”
I’ve recently been exploited and emotionally manipulated by a sociopathic narcissistic because had so much empathy for him – even though he is a despicable parasite (not even a human being).
Instead, I think we should ultimately listen to our Fi and use our other functions (Te/Ne, for instance) in order to serve its purpose. Fi tells me that someone is not being authentic and can’t be trusted. I should have listened to my gut feeling.
But that isn’t Blake’s advice in this post… He is not saying to trust people blindly or that you shouldn’t rely on your instincts and experiences when dealing with your personal relationships.
The way I have interpreted his post is that INFPs function best psychologically and energetically when their love is channeled on a “macro” level or as you yourself quoted Blake in your post “focusing on the troubles of other people FAR and WIDE and doing something about it”- the image that comes to my mind is the Statue of Liberty, asking the world for “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. Volunteering. Charity. Activism. That kind of thing.
I’ll let Blake answer for himself if he chooses to, but I wanted to pitch my thoughts because I quite agree with where he’s going with this post.
Hi LM519, Thanks for responding. I agree with what you said when it comes understanding Ne in this context: it has helped me plenty to open up to the world and promoting a cause that I believe in (that’s why I had great enjoyment from my volunteer stuff while I was at University). As well as simply experiencing the world and connecting with humanity through reading books (primarily fiction).
However, I think INFPs (or at least myself, on a personal level) have problems with having unconditional empathy and love where we become drained – becoming everyone’s dumping ground or trying to “save” people who we think are broken and then end up hurting us. This might be a different point entirely, from what Blake has said, but I do think it’s important to raise some flags. I am working hard to set some boundaries on my Ne/idealism/imagination so that I don’t get too removed from what’s reality and what’s within my interest.
Yes, infp who had limited experience.
Female sexuality problem too. Takes a while to figure out everything, especially if you are too cautious to open your heart.
In other ways, too much experience, too much enmeshment.
When I first read this ages ago, I was like cool. Now I see it and think oh my god it is actually quite scary….
‘There has been a mistake’ …. It is like debarking on the wrong planet sometimes as infp. Something is terribly wrong. This must be some enormous cosmic joke. The song Space Oddity in reverse. With a stronger sense of mistake, cuz in that song it sounds quite dandy. No this isn’t dandy at all. It is alarming.
The Ne usage is really tricky. That “hero’s journey” has no appeal to this infp because Helping people far and wide….how? Smiles is nothing. Ne help isn’t a thing?
The closest example to the ever growing circles I can think of is to get over personal pain by realizing that it is simply big collective pain. That actually does help. You think well, we are many fools here. This is just one of the ways some people experience this place. This appears, remarkably, to be the real deal. Just have to live with it and many others are just as confused.
Oh I think I get it. It is a surrender. (But that is Si not Ne?). You just say, so be it. I am lost. Then I guess you try to introduce random element into your life? How else is stuff supposed to happen to you? What does this mean? This sounds a bit like the infp would do well to be a nomad or wanderer or something. But how does the married infp with work children responsibilities have things randomly happen to them?? Is the surrender to also not expect these random things? Just complete surrender.
We have got one strange auxiliary.
I still remember this description. Fi and Ne both deal with emptiness. …Tough pill to swallow, but I believe this is true in some bizarre way. This is where you really gotta surrender cuz that’s just plain weird.
Can someone explore the INFP again, but from a male perspective? I’ve always read of the INFP as being characterized as female, but there actually are male INFPs out there. I haven’t read ANYTHING in all my years of reading about MBTI which refers to their general psyche. You seem like a brilliant person; I’d love to read your thoughts on the matter (or anyone other learned person).
Yeah, I know. This is a great omission from Myers-Briggs literature. And I too am guilty of this. The thing is that I am less certain about INFP men than INFP women. Also, INFP is a very feminine type so I think the men of this type tend to have great trouble with this temperament, especially in American (and Western ?) society.
So, one thing that happens is that INFP men are harder to identify because I think they often mask their innate INFPness with more masculine and culturally acceptable qualities for how men should behave.
One thing that they tend to mask (to protect themselves) is that touchy-feely quality that INFPs have. Instead, they may just be touchy. I think I have noticed that some INFP men are pretty defensive.
At any rate, you are right, the matter deserves more exploration.
In my recent article on INFP (Anaconda Pajama Face) I gave some examples of male INFPs. For example, I think Louis CK and Tim Burton are INFP men. I think Robert Smith of The Cure may be an INFP man. Also, Paul Reubens of Pee-wee Herman fame.
I for one find Louis CK to be quite fascinating to study. I think he is quite an instructive example of what it could look like when an INFP man comes out of the closet, so to speak.
I don’t know how many times I’ve read this & other INFP posts. At first I refused so much of the stuff you wrote here and then I accepted and then refused again. It went on for a while. But now I can’t even believe how accurate this is. Like in the time it took me to look at myself I actually told myself these things like “you’re behaving like a kid who doesn’t get what they want.” Where was that from? This!!
Thank you for being you and being so gifted. Reading these make me feel real
Majority of the INFJs mistype as INFPs. I was one of them. I realized I was an INFJ when I read the typeinmind.com’s description of NiFe. That was when I realized I wasn’t an INFP and why I couldn’t relate to the “crybaby, quirky, daydreaming, manipulative, selfish” stereotype of INFPs.
As an INFJ I’m sure you could relate to the manipulative and selfish stereotype quiiite a bit. ; )
At the end of the day, I come home tired and low. I wonder why my outer methods don’t bring inner happiness. I did everything right, so why do I still feel like crap? My mom thinks I’m great, my grandma thinks I’m amazing… they feed half my self-esteem. So why do I feel like a husk of a person..?
Because I have no love in my heart for those I deem vain. And I go on with my day holding this bitterness inside, telling myself I’ll never be like them.
But then… I get home. The sadness comes on. What is it?
It’s that I don’t love them. But I must love them. They’re just like me. If only we could get past the vanity, build a bridge… love in humility without the layers of intellectualism and learned guardedness. We were love before intelligence, right?
Thank you for your article. I’ve treasured it for a long time and find long lasting meaning in it.