The Rise of the Intuitive Introvert (Carl Jung Explains)

Interview with Dr. Carl Jung (1957)

One of the most difficult types is the intuitive  introvert. The intuitive extrovert you find them  

all hunters, bankers, gamblers. But the  introvert... he has intuitions as to the  

subjective factor, namely The Inner World. Very  difficult to understand. Because what he sees  

are most uncommon things and he doesn’t like  to talk of them. If he’s not a fool. Because  

he would spoil his own game by telling what  he sees because people won’t understand it.

When the introverted intuitive would  speak what he really perceives, then,  

practically no one would understand it. He  would be misunderstood. And so they learn to  

keep things to themselves. And you hardly  ever hear them talking of these things.  

That is a great disadvantage but it is  an enormous advantage in another way.

In human relations. For instance, they come  into the presence of somebody they don’t  

know and suddenly they have inner images.  And those inner images give them a more or  

less complete information about the psychology of  the partner. You know that is… but it, of course,  

can also happen that they come into the  presence of somebody who they don’t know  

at all and they know an important piece  out of the biography of that person and  

are not aware of it and tell the story  and then the hat is in the fire. So,  

the introverted intuitive has, in a  way, a very difficult life, although,  

one of the most interesting lives. But it is  difficult, often, to get into their confidence.

The things that are interesting to them, or are  vital to them, are utterly strange to the ordinary  

individual. A psychologist should know of such  things. You see? When people make a psychology,  

as a psychologist ought to do, well, it is the  very first question: "Is he introverted or is  

he extroverted?" He would look at entirely  different things. Is he a sensation type? Is  

he the intuitive type? Is he thinking? Is he  feeling? Because, you see, these things are  

complicated. And, they are still more complicated  because the introverted thinking, for instance, is  

compensated by extroverted feeling, by inferior,  archaic, extroverted feeling. So an introverted  

thinker may be very crude in his feeling,  like for instance the introverted philosopher.

Irevelato Introduction

Welcome, dear lover of wisdom,  to another video from Irevelato,  

where we unveil the wisdom of humanity's  greatest luminaries. If you've ever felt  

misunderstood for having a rich inner  world of complex images and ideas, then  

today's exploration of Carl Jung's work on the  introverted intuitive type is essential viewing.

Jung's incisive analysis in this  excerpt will shine a light on the  

unique gifts and challenges of those who  perceive the contents of the unconscious  

with almost the same clarity that others  perceive the external world. He reveals  

the astonishing creative potential of  this psychological type, while also  

cautioning about the difficulties they face in  relating their inner visions to outer reality.

Whether you recognize yourself in Jung's  description or simply wish to better  

understand this fascinating dimension of the  human psyche, I invite you to watch with an  

open and curious mind. As Jung himself wrote, "Who  looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes."

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I'm truly grateful that by watching these videos,  you allow me to do what I love: explore ideas and  

share them with others. Remember, you are always  welcome in the Irevelato community. And now,  

without further ado, I present to you Carl  Jung on the introverted intuitive type.  

Make yourself comfortable, and let's allow  this visionary thinker to illuminate us.

Intuition

Introverted intuition is directed to the inner  object, a term that might justly be applied to the  

contents of the unconscious. The relation of inner  objects to consciousness is entirely analogous  

to that of outer objects, though their reality is  not physical but psychic. They appear to intuitive  

perception as subjective images of things which,  though not to be met with in the outside world,  

constitute the contents of the unconscious, and  of the collective unconscious in particular. These  

contents per se are naturally not accessible to  experience, a quality they have in common with  

external objects. For just as external objects  correspond only relatively to our perception  

of them, so the phenomenal forms of the inner  objects are also relative—products of their  

(to us) inaccessible essence and of the peculiar  nature of the intuitive function. Like sensation,  

intuition has its subjective factor, which is  suppressed as much as possible in the extraverted  

attitude but is the decisive factor in the  intuition of the introvert. Although his intuition  

may be stimulated by external objects, it does  not concern itself with external possibilities but  

with what the external object has released within  him. Whereas introverted sensation is mainly  

restricted to the perception, via the unconscious,  of the phenomena of innervation and is arrested  

there, introverted intuition suppresses this  side of the subjective factor and perceives  

the image that caused the innervation. Supposing,  for instance, a man is overtaken by an attack of  

psychogenic vertigo. Sensation is arrested  by the peculiar nature of this disturbance  

of innervation, perceiving all its qualities,  its intensity, its course, how it arose and how  

it passed, but not advancing beyond that to its  content, to the thing that caused the disturbance.  

Intuition, on the other hand, receives from  sensation only the impetus to its own immediate  

activity; it peers behind the scenes, quickly  perceiving the inner image that gave rise to  

this particular form of expression—the attack  of vertigo. It sees the image of a tottering  

man pierced through the heart by an arrow.  This image fascinates the intuitive activity;  

it is arrested by it, and seeks to explore  every detail of it. It holds fast to the vision,  

observing with the liveliest interest how the  picture changes, unfolds, and finally fades. In  

this way introverted intuition perceives all the  background processes of consciousness with almost  

the same distinctness as extraverted sensation  registers external objects. For intuition,  

therefore, unconscious images acquire the dignity  of things. But, because intuition excludes the  

co-operation of sensation, it obtains little or no  knowledge of the disturbances of innervation or of  

the physical effects produced by the unconscious  images. The images appear as though detached from  

the subject, as though existing in themselves  without any relation to him. Consequently,  

in the above-mentioned example, the introverted  intuitive, if attacked by vertigo, would never  

imagine that the image he perceived might in  some way refer to himself. To a judging type this  

naturally seems almost inconceivable, but it is  nonetheless a fact which I have often come across  

in my dealings with intuitives. The remarkable  indifference of the extraverted intuitive to  

external objects is shared by the introverted  intuitive in relation to inner objects. Just as  

the extraverted intuitive is continually scenting  out new possibilities, which he pursues with equal  

unconcern for his own welfare and for that of  others, pressing on quite heedless of human  

considerations and tearing down what has just been  built in his everlasting search for change, so the  

introverted intuitive moves from image to image,  chasing after every possibility in the teeming  

womb of the unconscious, without establishing any  connection between them and himself. Just as the  

world of appearances can never become a moral  problem for the man who merely senses it, the  

world of inner images is never a moral problem for  the intuitive. For both of them it is an aesthetic  

problem, a matter of perception, a “sensation.”  Because of this, the introverted intuitive has  

little consciousness of his own bodily existence  or of its effect on others. The extravert would  

say: “Reality does not exist for him, he gives  himself up to fruitless fantasies.” The perception  

of the images of the unconscious, produced in such  inexhaustible abundance by the creative energy of  

life, is of course fruitless from the standpoint  of immediate utility. But since these images  

represent possible views of the world which may  give life a new potential, this function, which  

to the outside world is the strangest of all, is  as indispensable to the total psychic economy as  

is the corresponding human type to the psychic  life of a people. Had this type not existed, there  

would have been no prophets in Israel. Introverted  intuition apprehends the images arising from the a  

priori inherited foundations of the unconscious.  These archetypes, whose innermost nature is  

inaccessible to experience, are the precipitate  of the psychic functioning of the whole ancestral  

line; the accumulated experiences of organic  life in general, a million times repeated,  

and condensed into types. In these archetypes,  therefore, all experiences are represented which  

have happened on this planet since primeval times.  The more frequent and the more intense they were,  

the more clearly focussed they become in the  archetype. The archetype would thus be, to  

borrow from Kant, the noumenon of the image which  intuition perceives and, in perceiving, creates.  

Since the unconscious is not just something  that lies there like a psychic caput mortuum,  

but coexists with us and is constantly undergoing  transformations which are inwardly connected with  

the general run of events, introverted intuition,  through its perception of these inner processes,  

can supply certain data which may be of the utmost  importance for understanding what is going on in  

the world. It can even foresee new possibilities  in more or less clear outline, as well as events  

which later actually do happen. Its prophetic  foresight is explained by its relation to the  

archetypes, which represent the laws governing  the course of all experienceable things.

The Introverted Intuitive Type

The peculiar nature of introverted  intuition, if it gains the ascendency,  

produces a peculiar type of man: the  mystical dreamer and seer on the one hand,  

the artist and the crank on the other. The artist  might be regarded as the normal representative of  

this type, which tends to confine itself to the  perceptive character of intuition. As a rule,  

the intuitive stops at perception;  perception is his main problem,  

and—in the case of a creative artist—the shaping  of his perception. But the crank is content with  

a visionary idea by which he himself is shaped  and determined. Naturally the intensification  

of intuition often results in an extraordinary  aloofness of the individual from tangible reality;  

he may even become a complete enigma to  his immediate circle. If he is an artist,  

he reveals strange, far-off things in  his art, shimmering in all colours,  

at once portentous and banal, beautiful and  grotesque, sublime and whimsical. If not an  

artist, he is frequently a misunderstood genius, a  great man “gone wrong,” a sort of wise simpleton,  

a figure for “psychological” novels. Although the  intuitive type has little inclination to make a  

moral problem of perception, since a strengthening  of the judging functions is required for this,  

only a slight differentiation of judgment  is sufficient to shift intuitive perception  

from the purely aesthetic into the moral sphere.  A variety of this type is thus produced which  

differs essentially from the aesthetic, although  it is none the less characteristic of the  

introverted intuitive. The moral problem arises  when the intuitive tries to relate himself to  

his vision, when he is no longer satisfied with  mere perception and its aesthetic configuration  

and evaluation, when he confronts the questions:  What does this mean for me or the world? What  

emerges from this vision in the way of a duty or a  task, for me or the world? The pure intuitive who  

represses his judgment, or whose judgment is held  in thrall by his perceptive faculties, never faces  

this question squarely, since his only problem is  the “know-how” of perception. He finds the moral  

problem unintelligible or even absurd, and as far  as possible forbids his thoughts to dwell on the  

disconcerting vision. It is different with the  morally oriented intuitive. He reflects on the  

meaning of his vision, and is less concerned with  developing its aesthetic possibilities than with  

the moral effects which emerge from its intrinsic  significance. His judgment allows him to discern,  

though often only darkly, that he, as a man  and a whole human being, is somehow involved in  

his vision, that it is not just an object to be  perceived, but wants to participate in the life  

of the subject. Through this realization he feels  bound to transform his vision into his own life.  

But since he tends to rely most predominantly on  his vision, his moral efforts become one-sided; he  

makes himself and his life symbolic—adapted, it is  true, to the inner and eternal meaning of events,  

but unadapted to present-day reality. He thus  deprives himself of any influence upon it because  

he remains uncomprehended. His language is not the  one currently spoken—it has become too subjective.  

His arguments lack the convincing power of  reason. He can only profess or proclaim. His  

is “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”  What the introverted intuitive represses most  

of all is the sensation of the object, and this  colours his whole unconscious. It gives rise to a  

compensatory extraverted sensation function of an  archaic character. The unconscious personality can  

best be described as an extraverted sensation  type of a rather low and primitive order.  

Instinctuality and intemperance are the hallmarks  of this sensation, combined with an extraordinary  

dependence on sense-impressions. This compensates  the rarefied air of the intuitive’s conscious  

attitude, giving it a certain weight, so that  complete “sublimation” is prevented. But if,  

through a forced exaggeration of the conscious  attitude, there should be a complete subordination  

to inner perceptions, the unconscious goes over  to the opposition, giving rise to compulsive  

sensations whose excessive dependence on the  object directly contradicts the conscious  

attitude. The form of neurosis is a compulsion  neurosis with hypochondriacal symptoms,  

hypersensitivity of the sense organs, and  compulsive ties to particular persons or objects.

Summary of Introverted Irrational Types

The two types just depicted are almost  inaccessible to external judgment. Because they  

are introverted and have in consequence a somewhat  meagre capacity or willingness for expression,  

they offer but a frail handle for a telling  criticism. Since their main activity is directed  

within, nothing is outwardly visible but reserve,  secretiveness, lack of sympathy, or uncertainty,  

and an apparently groundless perplexity.  When anything does come to the surface,  

it usually consists in indirect manifestations  of inferior and relatively unconscious functions.  

Manifestations of such a nature naturally excite  a certain environmental prejudice against these  

types. Accordingly they are mostly underestimated,  or at least misunderstood. To the same degree as  

they fail to understand themselves -- because  they very largely lack judgment -- they are  

also powerless to understand why they are so  constantly undervalued by public opinion. They  

cannot see that their outward-going  expression is, as a matter of fact,  

also of an inferior character. Their vision is  enchanted by the abundance of subjective events.  

What happens there is so captivating,  and of such inexhaustible attraction,  

that they do not appreciate the fact that their  habitual communications to their circle express  

very, little of that real experience in  which they themselves are, as it were,  

caught up. The fragmentary and, as a rule, quite  episodic character of their communications make  

too great a demand upon the understanding  and good will of their circle; furthermore,  

their mode of expression lacks that flowing  warmth to the object which alone can have  

convincing force. On the contrary, these types  show very often a brusque, repelling demeanour  

towards the outer world, although of this they are  quite unaware, and have not the least intention  

of showing it. We shall form a fairer judgment of  such men and grant them a greater indulgence, when  

we begin to realize how hard it is to translate  into intelligible language what is perceived  

within. Yet this indulgence must not be so liberal  as to exempt them altogether from the necessity of  

such expression. This could be only detrimental  for such types. Fate itself prepares for them,  

perhaps even more than for other men, overwhelming  external difficulties, which have a very sobering  

effect upon the intoxication of the inner vision.  But frequently only an intense personal need can  

wring from them a human expression. From an  extraverted and rationalistic standpoint,  

such types are indeed the most fruitless of  men. But, viewed from a higher standpoint,  

such men are living evidence of the fact that  this rich and varied world with its overflowing  

and intoxicating life is not purely external, but  also exists within. These types are admittedly one  

sided demonstrations of Nature, but they are an  educational experience for the man who refuses to  

be blinded by the intellectual mode of the day. In their own way, men with such an attitude are  

educators and promoters of culture. Their life  teaches more than their words. From their lives,  

and not the least from what is just their  greatest fault, viz. their incommunicability,  

we may understand one of the greatest errors  of our civilization, that is, the superstitious  

belief in statement and presentation, the  immoderate overprizing of instruction by  

means of word and method. A child certainly allows  himself to be impressed by the grand talk of its  

parents. But is it really imagined that the child  is thereby educated? Actually it is the parents'  

lives that educate the child -- what they add  thereto by word and gesture at best serves only to  

confuse him. The same holds good for the teacher.  But we have such a belief in method that, if only  

the method be good, the practice of it seems to  hallow the teacher. An inferior man is never. a  

good teacher. But he can conceal his injurious  inferiority, which secretly poisons the pupil,  

behind an excellent method or, an equally  brilliant intellectual capacity. Naturally  

the pupil of riper years desires nothing better  than the knowledge of useful methods, because he  

is already defeated by the general attitude, which  believes in the victorious method. He has already  

learnt that the emptiest head, correctly echoing  a method, is the best pupil. His whole environment  

not only urges but exemplifies the doctrine  that all success and happiness are external,  

and that only the right method is needed to  attain the haven of one's desires. Or is the  

life of his religious instructor likely to  demonstrate that happiness which radiates  

from the treasure of the inner vision? The  irrational introverted types are certainly  

no instructors of a more complete humanity.  They lack reason and the ethics of reason,  

but their lives teach the other possibility, in  which our civilization is so deplorably wanting.

The Principal and Auxiliary Functions

In the foregoing descriptions I have no  desire to give my readers the impression  

that such pure types occur at all frequently  in actual practice. The are, as it were,  

only Galtonesque family portraits, which  sum up in a cumulative image the common  

and therefore typical characters, stressing these  disproportionately, while the individual features  

are just as disproportionately effaced. Accurate  investigation of the individual case consistently  

reveals the fact that, in conjunction  with the most differentiated function,  

another function of secondary importance,  and therefore of inferior differentiation  

in consciousness, is constantly present,  and is a -- relatively determining factor.

For the sake of clarity let us again recapitulate:  The products of all the functions can be  

conscious, but we speak of the consciousness of  a function only when not merely its application  

is at the disposal of the will, but when at  the same time its principle is decisive for  

the orientation of consciousness. The latter event  is true when, for instance, thinking is not a mere  

esprit de l'escalier, or rumination, but when  its decisions possess an absolute validity,  

so that the logical conclusion in a given case  holds good, whether as motive or as guarantee  

of practical action, without the backing of any  further evidence. This absolute sovereignty always  

belongs, empirically, to one function alone, and  can belong only to one function, since the equally  

independent intervention of another function  would necessarily yield a different orientation,  

which would at least partially contradict the  first. But, since it is a vital condition for  

the conscious adaptation-process that constantly  clear and unambiguous aims should be in evidence,  

the presence of a second function of equivalent  power is naturally forbidden' This other function,  

therefore, can have only a secondary importance,  a fact which is also established empirically. Its  

secondary importance consists in the fact that, in  a given case, it is not valid in its own right, as  

is the primary function, as an absolutely reliable  and decisive factor, but comes into play more as  

an auxiliary or complementary function. Naturally  only those functions can appear as auxiliary whose  

nature is not opposed to the leading function.  For instance, feeling can never act as the  

second function by the side of thinking, because  its nature stands in too strong a contrast to  

thinking. Thinking, if it is to be real thinking  and true to its own principle, must scrupulously  

exclude feeling. This, of course, does not  exclude the fact that individuals certainly  

exist in whom thinking and feeling stand upon the  same level, whereby both have equal motive power  

in consciousness. But, in such a case, there  is also no question of a differentiated type,  

but merely of a relatively undeveloped  thinking and feeling. Uniform consciousness  

and unconsciousness of functions is, therefore,  a distinguishing mark of a primitive mentality.

Experience shows that the secondary function  is always one whose nature is different from,  

though not antagonistic to, the leading function :  thus, for example, thinking, as primary function,  

can readily pair with intuition as auxiliary,  or indeed equally well with sensation, but,  

as already observed, never with feeling. Neither  intuition nor sensation are antagonistic to  

thinking, i.e. they have not to be unconditionally  excluded, since they are not, like feeling,  

of similar nature, though of opposite purpose,  to thinking -- for as a judging function feeling  

successfully competes with thinking -- but  are functions of perception, affording welcome  

assistance to thought. As soon as they reached  the same level of differentiation as thinking,  

they would cause a change of attitude, which  would contradict the tendency of thinking. For  

they would convert the judging attitude into  a perceiving one; whereupon the principle of  

rationality indispensable to thought would be  suppressed in favour of the irrationality of  

mere perception. Hence the auxiliary function  is possible and useful only in so far as it  

serves the leading function, without making  any claim to the autonomy of its own principle. 

For all the types appearing in practice, the  principle holds good that besides the conscious  

main function there is also a relatively  unconscious, auxiliary function which is  

in every respect different from the nature of the  main function. From these combinations well-known  

pictures arise, the practical intellect for  instance paired with sensation, the speculative  

intellect breaking through with intuition, the  artistic intuition which selects. and presents  

its images by means of feeling judgment, the  philosophical intuition which, in league with a  

vigorous intellect, translates its vision into the  sphere of comprehensible thought, and so forth.

A grouping of the unconscious functions also takes  place in accordance with the relationship of the  

conscious functions. Thus, for instance,  an unconscious intuitive feeling attitude  

may correspond with a conscious practical  intellect, whereby the function of feeling  

suffers a relatively stronger inhibition  than intuition. This peculiarity, however,  

is of interest only for one who is concerned  with the practical psychological treatment of  

such cases. But for such a man it is important  to know about it. For I have frequently observed  

the way in which a physician, in the case for  instance of an exclusively intellectual subject,  

will do his utmost to develop the feeling  function directly out of the unconscious.  

This attempt must always come to grief, since it  involves too great a violation of the conscious  

standpoint. Should such a violation succeed,  there ensues a really compulsive dependence of  

the patient upon the physician, a 'transference'  which can be amputated only by brutality,  

because such a violation robs the patient  of a standpoint -- his physician becomes his  

standpoint. But the approach to the unconscious  and to the most repressed function is disclosed,  

as it were, of itself, and with more adequate  protection of the conscious standpoint,  

when the way of development is via the  secondary function-thus in the case of a  

rational type by way of the irrational function.  For this lends the conscious standpoint such a  

range and prospect over what is possible and  imminent that consciousness gains an adequate  

protection against the destructive effect of  the unconscious. Conversely, an irrational type  

demands a stronger development of the rational  auxiliary function represented in consciousness,  

in order to be sufficiently prepared to  receive the impact of the unconscious.

The unconscious functions are in an archaic,  animal state. Their symbolical appearances in  

dreams and phantasies usually represent the battle  or coming encounter of two animals or monsters.