Podcast - Episode 0274 - Personality Types And Insecurity

20 comments

• 

  • James
  • May 27, 2019 at 4:51 am

  While I’m about 40 minutes into this, going back and replaying this to get a better understanding of each bit of information. Something interesting came up in regards to psychology. What I see about insecurity is that if we can’t satisfy the primary cognitive funcion’s need to overcome the insecurity, then basically the insecurity comes up and that inner voice says.“I’m not enough and if I’m not enough I won’t be loved.” in which this could elicit thoughts of shame and guilt in someone depending on their cognitive function. So for Si users like my Dad, I noticed, to be considered a good father in his cognitive functions opinion, he has to do more be more and work harder. I wondered this for awhile why he seemed so driven to do so much for my little sister even though it drives him mad to be at her house and do stuff her husband could do but doesn’t. The negative side of this for my little sister is that she can’t really develop her own skills around, doing things for herself, if my Dad comes to the rescue every time. He’s 73 now, and would like to do more for himself in terms of hobbies, but it’s that nagging Si that won’t allow it to happen. He’s an ISTJ.

  At around 45 minutes in Antonia is talking about invulnerability. I read the article on it, and Charis told me that my GF, at the time of my asking since she’s an INFJ was perhaps having a challenge with invulnerability and this for me as an INTJ as well. For her surrounding relationships, the one thing she really hasn’t done and this just dawned on me as Antonia articulated it is that she hasn’t post processed any of her past failed romances. My GF asked me once if she had to go see a therapist for trauma and I was like “no you don’t have to but it’s still better to talk about your experience of the past, if you can without it being something that puts you in a panic state, otherwise if it’s just difficult and uncomfortable, it can help to talk about it. On the other hand if you don’t talk about it, then it can eat you up inside.” That’s the advice I gave her but as of yet she hasn’t talked about it as it directly relates to herself, she actually uses proxies to express her emotions, such as saying her son feels a certain way when in reality she feels that way.
  I find it interesting too that she does have doubts about her immediate environment, especially when it comes to relationships, work, learning new things. She often uses the past as a measuring stick to determine if she can do something now or in the near future. I’ve had to reassure her a lot that she’s competent enough to handle most of what’s thrown at her. It for me can be exhausting.

  What I’m curious to know is, how can I help her manage this more?

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  • Jessica Roberts
  • May 27, 2019 at 12:09 am

  Hello,

  It resonated with me when you said that the IxxJ’s have an insecurity on being vulnerable to the outside world. I’m an INFJ and I have an insecurity of having things come at me fast and not being able to handle it well. It could be that someone said something rude to me and I wasn’t able to say the right thing to stand up for myself, or being put on the spot by someone asking me a question and not being able to articulate my answer well in the moment, or working in a fast paced work environment.

  Another huge insecurity for me is being incompetent. Currently, I am working at a job and it gives me anxiety when I can’t perform a task correctly, especially if people are watching me.

  Being insecure about being incompetent stemmed from my childhood with my ESTJ mom. As an INFJ, I was the type of kid to have my head in the clouds and not pay attention to my surroundings as much, and if my mom asked me to perform a task and I did not do it correctly she would get angry with me, or if she asked me to retrieve something and I could not find it she would get upset and tell me to “open my eyes.” I’m a sensitive person and always hated it if people are angry with me or yell at me, so as a child when my mom would get angry with me for not doing something correctly I internalized that and carried it with me to adulthood.

  My mom being an ESTJ is something I determined myself and might not be completely accurate. She passed away so I asked my family questions about her and I relied on my own memories of her to type her. However, I read something about ESTJ’s on 16Personalties that resonated with me and made me truly believe that she was an ESTJ, it said “If partners or subordinates jeopardize them through incompetence, laziness, and/or dishonestly they do not hesitate to show their wrath.” That line rang true to my experience with her and it linked to my insecurity of being incompetent. Understanding MBTI has helped me to understand and work through my childhood wound. I wanted to share that because my biggest insecurity was created by an ESTJ – INFJ personality clash.

  Thanks Joel and Antonia for everything that you do.

• 

  • Justine G
  • May 25, 2019 at 8:24 pm

  Interesting discussion (again), but I feel compelled again to bring up some unresolved issues:

  1) I have often been worried crazy about being stupid, but I don’t think that necessarily means I’m a predominant ‘T’ type. You also have to consider other things like upbringing, environment and ennea-type. I would say the predominant culture in English-speaking countries is very punitive around the issue of having the ‘right thoughts’, particularly since the advent of the Internet.

  2) I found an apparent contradiction in what you said about NTs often being insecure around IQ or intellect, and saying that INTPs are (usually) secure about their logic.

  Ignoring the (apparent) contradiction however, from this I could extrapolate that INFPs may be insecure about their convictions. This would make sense as the effect of Ne is to create alternate possibilities and this often creates doubt.

  Alternatively an INFP may not have many convictions due to a combination of the Ne creating too much doubt, an unfavourable upbringing/environment where they were effectively encouraged to doubt themselves, and maybe enneatype as well.

  3) I simply don’t believe anyone doesn’t use extraverted sensation, or if they didn’t they would be effectively disabled and unable to live a ‘normal’ life. I think the four functions that each type supposedly doesn’t use is the elephant in the room in much of the discussion around cognitive function stack. On the other hand, I don’t exactly dig the John Beebe model that treats the other four functions as some kind of bizarre/evil shadow set of witches and goblins, so I thank you for not entering down this route either.

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  • Kris Braddock
  • May 23, 2019 at 7:03 pm

  Interestingly, on second listen, I processed the mention of the insecurity completely different, almost like Si was remembering the previous listen, thus my reaction was not visceral at all. So, data set of one, but using reactions to lists of insecurities as a litmus test might be a one time spontaneous activity.

  And my Ti will not leave me alone until I correct the IxFP in my previous post to IxxP. :-)

• 

  • Kris Braddock
  • May 23, 2019 at 2:54 am

  I wonder if you could use the insecurities you talked about to very quickly identify at least the inferior function. You could make 8 very carefully worded statements, and the one the person has a visceral reaction to would be the inferior function. As you began verbalizing the INTP insecurity (and you nailed it), I knew it was coming, but I still felt instantly sick to my stomach. Other insecurities registered at a cognitive level, but only that one triggered me. (It would be interesting to see if I have the same reaction on a second listen.)

  To Joel’s point about losing our strength as we get older, while my greatest insecurity is not being understood (and thus liked, respected, appreciated), my greatest fear nearly my whole life has been losing my mind as I get older, i.e. my Ti primary function. While insecurity and fear are almost interchangeable, I wonder if there’s a distinction there.

  One final point concerning at least IxFPs is how lonely and trapped you can feel in your insecurity, i.e. trapped inside yourself where it seems no one can understand you. This podcast has helped my wife (ISFP) and I both feel validated, and in turn has helped us to begin understanding and valuing each other like more we should.

  This was supposed to be short, but us xNTPs have trouble stopping once we start! ;-)

  PS – I love your Ne-filled conversations, though they do drive my wife crazy! ;-)