Podcast - Episode 0274 - Personality Types And Insecurity

20 comments

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  • Wendy Gossett
  • August 28, 2020 at 3:58 pm

  Hi Guys!
  I work in typology with children and families. I just did a webinar on mental illness, drug addiction and suicide and used the MBTI statistics that IP’s are in the number 1 and 2 slots for most suicides.(INTP is number 4) In this episode you talked about them being secure as well as EJs. Fi and Ti are self contained and need to be right as you say, but I think it gives the most rigorous internal checklist that the individual can never live up to, or perhaps they feel the most misunderstood and unheard. The Fi brain is wired to be the best listener of all types, yet they don’t feel listened to or aren’t able to articulate their feelings in an accurate way (Te inferior). The Ti brain is completely unique and disassociates, with Ne co-pilot they also have very high ideals causing them to always fall short in reality.

  I have always taught that the NF temperament tends to be more insecure because they have such high ideals. I am an ENFJ and have always struggled with insecurity far more than my IJ friends. Now it depends on whether you are talking about interpersonal security or safety. IJs are worriers, but tend to not get as ruffled with interpersonal. Their worries are more perceiving in nature…their physical safety.

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  • Michael (A.A)
  • December 13, 2019 at 11:03 pm

  It’s less us NTs are insecure of our own logic, than it is that we are insecure of how our logical abilities allow us to adapt to feeling roles in society. Can we be liked for our intelligence? Can we help people with our logical abilities? Can you impress a potential romantic partner with a large knowledge of their favorite subject? As an NT growing up, it’s so hard to access feeling functions directly, and often since we lack confidence in doing things like talking about feelings, finding social acclaim or forming deep genuine relationships, we do so by what we do best with our strengths. Our own logic.

  Like Antonia, I also was insecure about this growing up, but calmed down as I got older. I am, still somewhat insecure about Fe and Si functions though. Er, maybe more than that. If anything, what more immature NTs around this don’t realize and something I wish I could tell my younger self is that you can’t really solve everything with logic, especially more emotional issues. Sure, you could do so to some extent, but you really have to learn to understand and communicate emotions directly, yourself. And I wish I could have told people around me when I was younger to be more patient, because much of society seems to underestimate how hard it is for NTs to grow from directly emotional standpoints. I actually do recommend at the start, except for when you really need to, indirectly solving loneliness issues with logic. Though, not in immature ways that only serve to make things better only in the short term, such as bragging about intelligence or finding an elitist attitude around it, but supporting people in the everyday problems they need in life by using logic to help solve others’ problems. I feel oddly embarrassed about the practice but I had this routine around listing the progress of what I learned regularly, and somehow that served as a reminder around my confidence issues around it. Learning how to communicate my ideas well by reading on how to write articles, doing improv, public speaking tips and even how to express emotions through writing in fiction, non-fiction memoirs or poetry somehow helped improve my confidence because people take me more seriously if I communicate things well. Often if a less experienced NT is doing a lot of effort around intelligence insecurities, the root is not in improving intelligence itself, but knowing how to communicate this knowledge to others so people can recognize it to start building confidence, haha. Though if it’s really because of that, study habits resources such as Thomas Frank’s Youtube channel, Scott H. Young’s blog or the Learning How to Learn course free on the site Coursera and Crash Course Study Habits on Youtube also helps. It’s a win-win for everyone.

  I found finding advice around this was difficult, not only because insecurities around intelligence seem to be rarely discussed compared to ones like money securities, beauty insecurities, parenting insecurities and success insecurities if you ask me. This is partly also because it’s mostly NTs with this insecurity, and I know by experience being one myself that NTs are the least likely to admit it or open up about it. If you attempt to talk about this in other typing communities, NTs would often talk about the NTs have no feelings myth, and I find that personally very frustrating.

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  • Joanna
  • July 28, 2019 at 9:18 am

  Wow. As a fellow INTP, I feel understood just from reading your comments. If I didn’t know you wrote them, I could probably be convinced that it was me.

  I have a strong urge to elaborate on this, but my battery is about to die. Which is probably for the best as I’d like to be asleep before the sun comes up.

  PS. I don’t expect you to recognize yourself in me based on this post, but I’m sure I’ll have more to say after I listen to this episode—something I now want to do after reading your post (which I meant to lead with before I was struck by this eerie familiarity.

  PPS. My one sentence PS is longer than my entire message.

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  • Seely
  • July 9, 2019 at 11:49 pm

  Hi Jessica, I relate a lot to what you said. I grew up around Te types myself, & it was a difficult experience. Now I have a Se boss, & I find the experience of going from being around people with such a tight grip to someone with such a loose grip kinda confusing. (Not that I want to be micromanaged! But some guidance & expectations would be useful).

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  • Alex
  • June 21, 2019 at 1:23 am

  How does the insecurity of your 3 and 10 year old functions compare to that of your polr function in socionics?