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PHQ | QUESTIONS FROM COMMUNITY: In this episode Joel and Antonia talk about INTP vs INFP.
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42 comments
Well said, Wanderer. I would add that as an INTP who is female and creative, I hope other creative INTP females don’t listen to this and convince themselves they can’t be INTPs because they’re creative females. I lived that error for years and always felt like my supposed type held me back, held me down.
When I “was” INTP I would have responded by saying something like, “All of this is me and here’s why: blah blah blah blah.” No enthusiasm, no joy, but lots of fascination.
Here’s me NOW, responding to this post:
Well, this episode went up in 2015 and now it’s 2020… time to acknowledge how wonderful a resource this site is. :-) I had to listen and re-listen to this episode after the in-depth INFP episode made me cry and laugh and pump my fists with recognition. And THIS one… with utilizing ANGER?! All the feels from excited to nervous to guilty to scared.
Background: I grew up a kid who loved books and thinking about everything and just wanting to find my big purpose and be a person who inspired. But I was surrounded by a family without emotion and I didn’t learn how to have/feel/express emotions at all. I was nudged into hard sciences but rebelled slightly with a Geography degree, but still felt not quite right, and never worked in my field at all. Then I spent 15 and then 3 years in two rational-spearheaded relationships and was such a strong INTP that I also diagnosed with Aspergers. I couldn’t feel stuff. I rewatched people jumping from the towers on 9/11 just to get sad.
And then… I broke free, started FEELING things (with a lot of therapy and even more self-inquiry), and figuring out my MEANING. Now I’m “back” to where I should be… an INFP. I love freely, I welcome heartbreak and joy, I hurt openly. I still have problems really letting my emotions process but I’m working on it. I’m trying to be patient…this has only happened in the last few years and over the age of 40.
So here’s my theory about INFPs that type as INTPs… we could be just stuck in an unhealthy and emotionally traumatic situation and believe that feelings are unsafe so we go with analysis and logic as much as possible. I thought I was a happy INTP for years – it seemed to suit me. Well, it did suit the me of then. But I could not connect with people and I had no meaning in my life. And (pursuant to the INFP episode), I did a lot of self-harm in the form of extreme exercise and an eating disorder. So that I didn’t have to feel things intensely.
Once I realized that feelings are okay, intensity is okay (and awesome!), and my life felt more like a roller coaster but that ALSO was okay… all of the rest of my latent INFP behaviors popped out. Writing poetry. Exploring “woo” spirituality. Tapping into my intuitive perceptions and figuring out if they work in reality.
I AM SO HAPPY for this site. Seriously. I hope my comments help with the crossover of the types and the mis-typing that can happen even between types that are not super similar.
Whenever I listen to or read about this topic it doesn’t ever clarify anything. I first tested as INTP nearly 20 years ago. It fit in many ways and in some ways not. I never identified with being cold or emotionless and I have more of an interest in the arts than the sciences. I don’t like sci-fi, am very empathetic (although frequently I screw up at expressing sympathy) and am pretty “feminine”. However I don’t like attachment to ideology and see nothing as sacred – it’s all open to being questioned. But I’m a spiritual person and the spiritual nature of reality fascinates me far more than hard sciences and definitely more than socio-political causes (yuck). I don’t have a desire to change the world.
Anyway I began to think that INFP fit better and began to test as such or at least borderline. JH Vanderhoop’s description of INFPs in Conscious Orientation was a good fit. But when it comes to Jung, I was left with the impression of simply being a Introverted Rational (which is both thinking and feeling). With my understanding of Jung’s ideas, most people aren’t these pure types. That’s usually interpreted to mean you have an auxiliary function, etc. But I think there’s the real possibility that an ego can simply be “introverted rational” or “extroverted perceiving”. When you look at enneagram as the emotional aspect of ego fixation, you don’t see 8 pure type egos. The 5w4 or 4w5 pretty much appears to be an introverted rational who prefers intuition, not a clear cut thinking or feeling type.
I keep circling back to this conclusion because I’m not able to reconcile all this information in a more satisfactory way. It feels like the copout conclusion though. Oh well.
And contrary to many websites, INTPs aren’t all technical and cold logicians. Their thinking is INWARDS, and they’re often happy doing all the logic onto themselves, not others. (In other words, they aren’t all about hard sciences or tough analysis, they can be good psychologists too, for instance as they do well with giving form to abstract concepts)
INFPs on the other hand, aren’t all about altruism and healing. They best do those to themselves and they can be good financial planners for instance, as they do well with warming up even the hardest pursuit.
And I also think INTPs are worse than INFPs when it comes to Te. This is where things can be wrongly understood. INTPs are REALLY GOOD with self-contemplation and have an internal focus, every personal viewpoint of theirs is a product of thorough thinking (even if the base of the thought is individual), even their gut feeling have to be proven its efficacy to be accepted. Te, on the other hand, is something they see to be unnecessary or unnatural to them (they don’t want to lead or be led, independence is the key.) These people are annoyed by Fe and dismiss Te.
For INFPs, they’re worse with Fe than INTPs. They excel with self-feelings, once again, it’s all WITHIN them, not external. (Or in other words, every thought of theirs must be approved by an appropriate gut feeling), and they feel Fe is unnecessary (intuition is the key). These people are annoyed by Te and dismiss Fe.