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In this episode Joel and Antonia dive deep into the needs and challenges of the INTP personality type.
In this podcast on the INTP personality type you’ll find:
INTP – Accuracy/Exploration in Genius system
INTPs have a crucial role that they play in our society. That task may seem a little thankless, which helps us understand some of the challenges they face.
Deep down inside, INTPs care more than they let on.
The Driver for INTP is Introverted Thinking (Ti), which we have nicknamed “Accuracy.”
What makes analytical sense? Decision-making process.
Driver = Flow State = the most rewarding thing you can do.
Ti works the best when it is without social obligation.
The opposite of Ti is Fe “Harmony.” Fe is about connecting and social interaction.
INTPs in the survey revealed their greatest challenge was in connecting with other people.
Copilot – Ne “Exploration” – is pattern recognition. Interaction with the environment without being attached to any outcome. A zoomed out process that allows you to explore your terrain.
Podcast Introverted Intuition vs Extraverted Intuition
When Ti and Ne are combined it is a fascinating combo of zooming in (Ti – surgical approach to data) and zoomed out (Ne – an overall view of patterns).
Together, these cognitive functions create radically new ideas.
Creating patterns and frameworks and architecting new maps and models requires them to be a bit destructive – like Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
Ti works the best when removed from the social bias component.
Emotional connection influences info.
INTPs often show up saying things that other people don’t want to hear, which is their gift to the world.
They are the great destroyer of outdated paradigms or untruths.
INTPs will always look for the strictest vetting process in their chosen field.
We are such social creatures we don’t appreciate it when people call us on our BS/Belief Systems.
We make extraordinary technical strides when we overturn the social norm.
INTPs break things down to their fundamental nature and depersonalize them.
Sometimes frameworks only get so far, and they get stuck because they run out of new frameworks for ideas.
The copilot process for INTPs is Extraverted Intuition, which we have nicknamed “Exploration.”
Exploration gives INTPs access to bigger frameworks and increases their territory, so they have more structures to hang fresh data on.
It is imperative for INTPs to grow their Exploration process.
The alternative is to stick with what you already know. If you don’t take in more territory, your framework may be radically off because you are missing a vital piece of info that’s just outside your existing territory.
Exploration allows INTPs to go out and experience things. Travel is essential to INTPs.
Going outside their comfort zone is imperative. All growth happens outside the comfort zone.
Sometimes we graft our identity to old pieces of info and INTPs overturn the things with which we identify.
But the INTP must first go through the uncomfortable terrain of change and challenge before they can do it for others.
INTPs need to be students of experience, life, and interaction.
The Survey revealed the INTPs struggle with a lack of motivation.
The INTPs that have the greatest motivation have decided they are going to bring their gifts to the world.
The more somebody rests on their laurels and holds back the more they feel a lack of inspiration and motivation.
The 10-year-old process is Introverted Sensing, which we have nicknamed “Memory.”.
Memory often means doing the thing that is known and comfortable. Finding a familiar context and staying there perpetually.
Frameworks don’t expand with Si. So, INTPs double down on Ti and continue to clean slice concepts and data until things become absurd. Without the input from Ne, they keep dividing until there’s nothing left.
Emotion is the seat of motivation, which is an INTPs blind spot. If INTPs double down on their thinking process, they avoid the emotions that will get them motivated.
Emotion is about finding the meaning behind things.
Exploration helps expand frameworks of mind and increase the narratives with which INTPs work.
Why does the data matter?
Ne gives meaning to the data. Without meaning, there is no motivation.
To see the narratives of our lives we need to zoom out.
Get outside yourself and explore beyond your comfort zone.
INTPs can have belief systems.
INTPs love absurd humor. Monty Python. Sketch comedy.
Even falling in love is nothing but a narrative.
INTPS who do the best are the ones who connect with other people through contribution.
INTPs can appear cynical because society doesn’t always honor their gift of radical honesty.
The natural state of an INTP is to be childlike and approach life with wonder and curiosity. Then they get the message that they are unacceptable which leads to cynicism.
Nobody can sustain a feeling of brokenness indefinitely. They either become depressed or resentful.
“You are not broken.”
“You are okay.”
We are seeing more and more media acknowledging the role of geeks and people who influence our technological world.
We see their contribution, but they are harder to reconcile in our day to day life.
We love truth. It reverberates through our spinal cord.
Society is getting ready for entering into a space of radical honesty, but it still means pushing people outside their comfort zones.
Modern technology is forcing us into a state of transparency; most technology is invented by INTPs.
The more INTPs show up as doing their job of being radically honest, the more we will head toward transparency as a society.
In the past, honesty brought death.
We can’t have real harmony without radical honesty, and we can’t have radical honesty without the need to connect with others.
The 3-year-old process is Extraverted Feeling (Fe), which we have nicknamed “Harmony.”
Healthy INTPs can become almost worshiped. They show up with so much credibility. They haven’t rejected Fe, they made it part of their aspiration and decided to use it to make others happy. Their intent is positive.
Podcast How To Love Yourself
Agape – Principled love. We are all in this together.
INTP men/women at the top of their game have many admirers.
Sometimes by solving problems for themselves, an INTP can find a way to solve for a larger demographic.
Female INTPs feel isolated because most women are Fe dominant, and men are usually looking for women to behave a certain way.
Spend more time in your copilot and understand why you struggle to fit in. Then go and find the context that will appreciate you for your gifts.
INTP women are polarizing. Birds of paradise. Not everyone’s going to love you, but some will and they are looking for you.
Pay for the privilege of finding your tribe. Conventions, Seminars, Cons, etc.
Online communities. Reddit.
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98 comments
It would be great to hear a podcast that addressed Myers-Briggs typology and trauma.
I realize that these comments were made months ago, however, since neither Antonia and Joel have responded I thought I’d address the issue. I am both an INTJ and a trauma survivor. I have worked in a peer support capacity with other trauma survivors. I have also done professional course work on trauma studies. I know quite a bit about the subject as well as Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram.
Here’s a brief response:
Catarina’s description is quite typical of most survivors of childhood trauma insofar as those with CPTSD are challenged to stay present because of the nature of flashbacks and dissociation. This means an individual is spending a lot of energy living in ‘survivor mode’ (either FIGHT, FLIGHT, FREEZE, SUBMIT). Those were really the only options as a traumatized child, and to the extent one continues to relive those experiences, one continues to live in survival mode. Dissociation is a flight response that a child will naturally fall back on as a means of surviving what could be a life threatening situation. A child growing up in an abusive or dangerous childhood environment will also tend to SUBMIT (i.e. comply with the wishes of one’s parents in order to receive love and support). “Mirroring the behaviors of the adults in my life as a child” as Mentsh describes below is part of the submit response of the child. We are often conditioned to mirror the behavior of our parents (I think Antonia talks about this is one of the podcasts). This kind of behavior, while it can be useful as an effective survival strategy, does not facilitate healthy childhood development. And we tend to carry these behaviors forward into our adult lives.
Back to Catarina’s specific comments: “It felt like I changed identities during the process”. This is a common experience among people who have done trauma therapy work. This is because as a person integrates childhood parts of themselves (as they work through trauma) they are less fearful, more emotional regulated and more present. The individual no longer needs to stay in survival mode or necessarily identifies as being a survivor. One’s perception of self shifts as a space opens (expands within oneself) to explore various aspects of one’s being. The trauma survivor is no longer tethered or limited in action and thought to the trauma. Feeling "detached from [one’s self] is something I experienced as feeling like a ghost moving through life. I think this is very much connected to the concept of soul death or soul murder that occurs as a result of the disintegrating aspects of the trauma experience itself. Trauma survivors often feel alienated and cut off not only from others but themselves. Trauma recovery becomes an invitation to become reacquainted with one’s lost soul.
These experiences are unique to those with complex trauma histories. It’s not something that is common to all personality types in general. No personality type is immune from the effects of childhood trauma however. Also, not everyone that experiences the after effects of childhood trauma develop CPTSD. Sometimes this stuff flies under the radar of the unconscious (i.e. – we are not always fully aware as adults that we were traumatized or the full extent in which childhood abuse effected our subsequent development). Regardless of its manifestations, these experiences deserve to be honored and talked about. Part of the challenge that we in the CPTSD community experience is that others do not want to see. People are often uncomfortable with the topic of childhood sexual abuse (much more common and prevalent in our society than what people want to admit). There is far too little understanding among those in the general population. Too much silence on the topic.
I could discuss by theories of how this is all related to enneagram and Myers-Briggs typology, but this is not my website. I am developing a greater appreciation and enthusiasm for the work that Antonia and Joel are doing here at Personality Hacker. I think there is a lot of potential to reach the trauma survivor audience. I hope they take it up as a topic of exploration. Those in trauma recovery are often challenged with identity issues. While I believe everyone can benefit from this kind of personal development work, the difference it can make for someone who has experienced deep wounding can be life affirming and result in a transformational shift of consciousness.
Thank you Antonia and Joel. You’re inspiring me to take up this topic and start working on my blog again. Important stuff!
Hi, INTP female here. One thing that’s always bothered me is what the intp profiles say in the career section. I constantly see sites saying that engineering or the maths or computer technical jobs are perfect for the intp. But I feel like they’re missing out on a huge part of the intp personality that would make those jobs tough. And that’s the np part. I have a very hard time making myself focus on the day to day, rote, mindless drudgery that math involves. I remember struggling to focus in school because nothing was interesting and the things we were learning seemed pointless in the scheme of things. Math was especially a pain because I just could not see the point in learning it beyond the basics when I knew I would never go into a math based career. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t pick it up quickly. I did better on the homework because I could take my time to fully integrate and work through problems to understand them. I could also teach the concepts to my friends incredibly well- to the point where they would get B’s and A’s on the tests and I would get C’s. The worst was when I was in my lab classes. It was almost impossible for me to follow these research steps and write down all the numbers that had no benefit to me. It wasn’t like we were performing groundbreaking experiments to learn something never before known. We were doing mindless, annoying, repetitive research. I ended up using my brain power to find ways to efficiently do the experiments with as little actual work involved as I could. Half the numbers were made up and I spent class wondering when I could get back to doing something mentally stimulating.
So I guess what I was saying is this: how can engineering and the other jobs usually listed for an intp actually be the best career path when repetitive busy work is the bane of our existence?
And what would the actual best type of career be for an intp who can’t stand repetitive busy work, and who doesn’t take orders well/ balks at authority?
Men who flirt with women without actually having any feelings for them tends to give them a bad reputation. I’ve seen this happen before. Healthy women will avoid a man exhibiting this behavior. It’s kind of a “if he won’t commit to me I won’t commit to him” kind of thing. If your only desire in a relationship is to get laid, you’ll attract the kind of girl who also just wants to get laid. Nothing more. That or you’ll attract women who are so insecure they think they have to give you sex to make you love them. If you want to attract the kind of woman who will help you grow as a person, your main objective should not be sex.
I am an INTP woman and my career as a environmental scientist is deeply rewarding. It involves complex problems that you need to use all of your talents to solve. Some of the main tasks include developing a conceptual site model, undstanding all regulatory requirements, researching the contaminant of concern, reviewing potential remediation methods, and overseeing the work in the field. You are doing your little part to “save the world” and it is greatly satisfying!
I have never felt such an urge to make a long and insightful comment about a podcast. Naturally, I listen to podcasts about whatever “new thing” I’m trying to learn at the time, but never really engage. I’d just like to start by saying thank you for such a deep dive into the INTP personality!
I was originally typed as an INFJ, and although I could heavily relate to the intuitive part, I had this nagging sense of doubt. I finally figured out I was an INTP when my whole life basically stopped until I figured out what my personality was, because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I am fairly confident in my INTP status now, and would like to share a few thoughts that I have about the INTP personality.
The thing that I resonated most in this episode was Antonia’s analysis of what happy/successful INTPs are like.
I guess the best way to explain is through my brief life story as a 20 year old (if anyone even cares haha):
I grew up in a household that valued family, and with a mom that pushed me out of my comfort zone every chance she got. I was forced to play team sports my entire child life, and although I was athletic, I did not like them most of the time! I never felt like people respected me, so I made it my mission throughout all of high school to get a college golf scholarship. I ended up getting a full scholarship, and temporarily enjoyed that sense of respect I got from my peers, but that’s not what this insight is about.
I then spent the first two years of college in a mild-moderate depression. During this period, I was not putting much effort into my long distance relationship, my golf, or my social life. I was basically watching Netflix and doing school work on the side. This past year, I told myself that no matter what happens, I’m going to work my butt off in EVERY aspect of my life, regardless of how uncomfortable I am doing so. Most of my “discomfort” actually comes from playing competitive golf.
And when I say “discomfort,” I’m talking more about that feeling where your stomach is flipped upside down, your entire body is almost paralyzed, and all you want to do is go to your room and be alone forever.
Basically, golf stresses me out. A LOT.
But here is what I have noticed, which rings true with what Antonia mentioned:
The periods of my life where I have jumped out of my comfort zone have been the most satisfying times in my life. I’ve felt so much motivation every morning to get up and work on getting better as a person.
That being said, I’m only 20, and I’ve got a long way to go… I’d be lying if I said I had everything under control right now.
To be honest, right now, my life feels like a 1000 piece puzzle, and I haven’t even finished the border yet :(