INTJs in Their Own Words
"If I fail, at least I will have failed my way."
"While animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background,
man survives by adjusting his background to himself."
"What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power."
INTJs Described
"A mix of massive blind spots and lightning originality."
"Their thought is both highly abstract and extremely concrete."
"They do not demonstrate but make manifest; they do not discuss but weave an image."
"Their meanings are not crystallized but inhere in integral images and visions, grasped as an indissoluble whole."
"Their thought is like a full tide of lofty thoughts and images and words. They use these images as a cloak to cover up the rags and tatters of their argumentation."
"They strive prophetically to unite fragments into a structural whole."
By Ryan Smith and Jesse Gerroir
Although one of the most admired of the Jungian types, the INTJ is at the same time amongst the most poorly understood. In an interview in 1957, Jung himself said that the INJ types are very little understood, if not downright the "most difficult" to understand.1
When first getting into the field of Jungian typology, most people are confronted with training material that in no uncertain terms makes the INTJ out to be some breed of superhuman (e.g. INTJ as the "Rational Mastermind"). However, in Jung's own work one does not find the same idealization of the INJ types. It would seem that a certain vulgarization of Jung's original concepts has taken place.
In what follows we try to find our way back to the INTJ as the earlier authors - Jung and his students von Franz and van der Hoop – conceived the type. We try to show how, rather than being an all-around superman that is "better" than other types, the INTJ is a distinct type that is characterized by a distinct set of mental processes. We also add our own observations from real life, as well as observations from other schools of personality studies.
"Reason Can Only Follow Paths That the Imagination Has First Broken"
INTJs are independent-minded thinkers who identify clear goals and resolutely follow them. With the abstract meaning-seeking function of Intuition dominating their mental life, INTJs are naturally attuned to see novel and unexpected possibilities that are not always visible to others. However, as their Intuition is coupled with a preference for imposing structure on the outer world (Te), the reflective phase, in which the INTJ ponders ideas and weighs the options, is usually introverted and unconscious and thus rarely visible to others.
This means that even though INTJs do like to ponder possibilities in the abstract, what will most often be visible to others will not be a pondering persona. By the time the INTJ is ready to interact with others, the time for reflection will usually be over. Instead, what others observe in the INTJ will usually be an insistence on persuading (some would say browbeating) others to do things the right way, that is, my way, that is, the one version of events that the INTJ had locked onto before engaging with others. Therefore, when others interact with INTJs they are bound to experience INTJs as commandeering, compelling and exclusively concerned with pointing out "what must be done." Only the people that know an INTJ intimately will see that the true passion of the INTJ is mulling over ideas and possibilities in their own heads.
This interplay between pondering abstract, remote possibilities in their own heads and then conducting themselves with absolute, goal-oriented certainty when around other people is what gives rise to the INTJ's legendary doggedness. Of all the types, INTJs are perhaps the most stubborn and obstinate.2 This is not, however, pure pig-headedness; rather, it stems from an inability to open up to the input of others while their extroverted persona is switched on. Hence under ideal conditions, a process of exchanging ideas and coordinating plans with an INTJ should allow for some introverted time for the INTJ to withdraw and adjust to what has been said. But unfortunately, in the real world, time is often a scarce commodity and thus the much-craved introvert time of INTJs is often a luxury that the world cannot (or will not) allow. Thus:
- INTJs often have a clear vision of an attainable goal as well as a plan for how to realize it.
- Compared to other IN types, INTJs are often blessed with clear communication skills (though like all IN types, they do tend to find self-expression frustrating as they can never quite communicate the fullness of their inner mental landscape).
- INTJs are dogged in their drive to realize their goals their way, preferably with (but if necessary against) the wishes of others.
"A Mix of Massive Blind Spots and Lightning Originality"
Being conceptually minded and also frequently possessing the mannerisms and style that tend to yield high grades in the educational system, many INTJs come to place great credence in their own ideas and visions. Hence, INTJs can be reluctant to listen to the input of others in the process of pursuing their own goals.
Sometimes the INTJ will indeed be the only smart and visionary person in the room, but at other times there will be qualified opposition present which the INTJ will then tend to overlook. As history so plainly shows, even the most brilliant people have bad ideas from time to time, and thus a caveat for INTJs is that they, like everyone else, will inevitably have some bad ideas (even though most of their ideas may be sound). This means that due to the INTJ's natural reluctance to take in the input of others, INTJs will often end up steamrolling or ignoring unqualified and qualified opposition alike. Alternative methods of tackling the same problem are sometimes dismissed prematurely, just as the emotional side of the matter is sometimes ignored for "not fitting in" with the overall plan, as conceived by the INTJ.
Because their Thinking predominates over their Feeling, INTJs will often emphasize the logical side of a problem as well as identify with the rational reasons to accept or reject a given decision. However, try as they might, INTJs are not dominant Thinkers.
Even though few would admit it, INTJs also use Feeling in weighing the pros and cons of a matter. As C.G. Jung so plainly said, INJs behave as oracles and prophets – not deductive thinkers. Thus it is rather a perpetual fallacy of the literature on Jungian typology that INTJs tend to build "specialized knowledge systems" that exist outside of themselves (in fact, that is rather what INTPs do). INTJs put themselves behind their vision; to a certain extent they are their vision.3
If INTJs really oriented themselves on the basis of "specialized knowledge systems," such as the INTPs tend to do, one would expect them to be more curiously investigative of impartial critiques of their visions as well as outside correctives to them. But as the INTJ's Intuition is introverted, the INTJ is predominantly interested in viewing the matter from one angle at a time (that angle usually being their own), whereas the INTP, by contrast, uses Extroverted Intuition, and so attempts to make sense of multiple viewpoints at the same time.
This contrast is not a question of better or worse, but a question of psychological functioning: Where the INTJ will often exclude certain viewpoints, the INTP will exclude certain facts, yielded by these viewpoints. In other words, the INTP attempts to incorporate all the possible viewpoints and then select only certain facts for them to focus on in their analysis. But by contrast, the INTJ will focus on the one viewpoint that allows for the greatest overall yield, and then feel compelled to make sense of all of the facts that are intrinsic to that viewpoint.
Most of the literature on Jungian typology thus misses the point that INTJs are both personally and emotionally involved in their visions. This omission is understandable, however, as even the INTJs themselves are rarely conscious of the passionate involvement that backs their ideas - and nor do they tend to take kindly to having the passionate component of their reasoning pointed out to them.4 Nevertheless, a great deal of Fi passion often goes into the championing and pursuit of their visions as well as the tenacious defense of them.
A classic example from fiction of a dogged INTJ who brings about her own downfall, as well as the peril of those around her, can be found in the excellent book (and film) Dangerous Liaisons. Here the Marquise de Merteuil is so caught up in her own schemes - so very focused on her own ideas - that she fails to see that her ostensible rival, the Vicomte de Valmont, really loves her, even though they are quarreling. Moreover, Merteuil is so caught up in her mental machinations that she even misses the fact that she also loves him. As Jung said, the INJ types tend to focus on their plan or vision to the detriment of immediate reality.5 With regard to interpersonal affairs, this would seem to be even more true of the INTJ than the INFJ.
Of course it must be said that, in Dangerous Liaisons, the Marquise de Merteuil is an INTJ who involves herself with an ENTP and that these two types are bound to misunderstand each other often. Although the INTJ and the ENTP share a strong psychological disposition to break free of the status quo, they do not have a single function in common. So while INTJs and ENTPs are indeed mindmates in theory, the INTJ tends to find it easier to click with NFPs in practice. In real life, it is not unheard of that an INTJ finds an NFP friend or companion to help them probe their emotional life in a non-threatening fashion that allows the INTJ to retain control. Thus:
- When fighting for the advancement of their ideas, INTJs are often stubborn to the point of pigheadedness. However, while they may be intensely convincing in the here and now, the long run often reveals that, ultimately, INTJs tend to have both good and bad ideas - in real life, no person or type is above the occasional bad idea, not even our greatest geniuses.
- On the surface INTJs appear coldly analytical, but if one could peek inside their heads, one would see that their inner workings are more like those of a prophet or oracle.6
- Even though many INTJs deny it, Feeling and emotion do in fact influence their reasoning, just as Introverted Feeling augments their championing and dogged defense of the ideas they present as theirs.
- Even though INTJs rarely allow for external scrutiny of their emotional life, they, like all other human beings, do indeed stand to benefit from paying attention to, and sorting out, their emotions.
"The Impossible Was Only Impossible Until I Got Here"
To INTJs, the immediate situation is not interesting in itself. The present situation is only interesting in so far as it presents an opportunity for the INTJ to use his or her visionary talents to innovate and revolutionize the future of their field. In fact, and perhaps somewhat paradoxically, the revolution and the change is often more important to the INTJ than the field itself ever was. Indeed, as Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "One should not know more about a thing than one can digest creatively."7
The only other type besides the INTJ to have Intuition as its first function and Thinking as its second function is the ENTP. The INTJ and the ENTP share an intense feeling that the status quo is something which is urgently to be overcome through sweeping and grand innovation.8 But function-wise, INTJs and ENTPs are mirror images of each other, which, as mentioned, is one reason why they so often confound and misapprehend each other.
Because the INTJ is introverted where the ENTP is extroverted, the blistering urge to escape the status quo is less immediately visible in the INTJ than it is in the ENTP. Likewise, because ENTPs are extroverts, they are naturally more at home in the external world, whereas INTJs are at their strongest when they can mull things over in their own heads. Thus, while the ENTP will attempt to surmount the status quo through some grand change in the external, objective world, the INTJ will instead be prone to proposing a solution that rests upon some change in the internal, subjective understanding of the situation.
At its strongest, the INTJ's tendency to place a premium on the internal elements of a situation can lead to entirely new strands of thought (e.g. Marxism, Post-structuralism, Social constructivism, Keynesianism, Platonism, Lutheranism, etc.). However, at its worst, the INTJ's tendency to focus on the mental side of the issue will cause them to be satisfied with finding some new mental perspective on an objectively bad situation and then just leave it at that. Such complacency can lead the normally decisive INTJ into a state of perpetual inaction that is continuously prolonged by finding new and promising mental perspectives that stimulate the inner life of the INTJ while leaving, nevertheless, the external situation just as bad as it always was. Just like the ESP types can sometimes act too quickly, without pausing to reflect, the INJ types may tend to over-reflect and over-perfect before finally moving to act.9
One reason for this behavior on the part of the INTJ is that their primary function, Introverted Intuition, is a perceiving function that is simultaneously imaginative and directed inwards. In other words, what INJs perceive within themselves appears to them as more important and more real than both the external situation and the viewpoints of others. To many INTJs, such solipsism will eventually grow into a species of narcissism, which can be a particular problem for the INTJ.10
On the interpersonal level, the tendency of Introverted Intuition to radically reshape the building blocks that it seizes upon from the outside, while giving little heed to the original intent of their authors, can also lead to what we call "the predicament of authorship," which harks back to the philosophical problem of Identity Over Time: If I copy an idea of yours, and radically change that idea in the process, is my idea still in some sense your idea as well? This question has been debated for well over 2000 years; it is essentially a metaphysical problem. With regard to Jungian typology, it will often be the case that the INTJ attains the stepping stone of his idea from the outside, radically reshapes and further develops it, and then presents it to the world as his own idea at a later point in time. In such scenarios, others will often feel affronted; as if the INTJ stole their idea and then purposefully neglected to acknowledge it. But as already mentioned, Introverted Intuition is subjective and inwards-focused: It thinks of how the idea appears to its own consciousness before thinking about where it came from (if it even concerns itself with the question at all). This priority of own-consciousness is true of both INFJs and INTJs, but in the case of the INTJs, they are often intellectual monomaniacs to boot: Being intensely preoccupied with their own vision of how things could be, and relying on Introverted Feeling rather than the INFJ's Extroverted Feeling, INTJs tend to see even less of a reason to occupy themselves with the historical antecedents of their original sources of inspiration than INFJs do. Mapping out past etchings of the idea in order to acknowledge a debt to them is simply not relevant to their tunnel-vision drive.
In terms of narcissism, psychologists have now observed for well over a century that narcissistic individuals have a hard time coping with criticism. The more pronounced the narcissism, the greater the peril of confronting the individual with criticism. This rule of thumb is no different in the case of narcissistic INTJs. Sadly, even in cases where friends and family set out to confront the INTJ with the best of intentions, their otherwise constructive and earnest criticism of the INTJ may not always be well-received as such "critics" will sometimes experience (1) an out-of-proportion "retaliation" from the INTJ, who may react to even civil criticism from intimates as if it were a declaration of war, and (2) the "INTJ cutoff." With regard to the "cutoff," the narcissistic INTJ suddenly becomes increasingly "unavailable" to the critic, and in extreme cases the INTJ will even withdraw from the relation altogether. As a phenomenon, the "INTJ cutoff" has its roots in the fact that INTJs are inwardly far more sensitive to criticism than their outward certitude would seem to suggest. But psychologically, the outer certitude is tangled up with the inner vulnerability, as each sits directly on the cusp of the other. Thus:
- INTJs are deeply discontented in routine jobs that hold no possibility of sweeping innovation or advancements towards greater goals. (Though they may not always realize this and thus attempt to rationalize that somewhere down the line their job does offer these prospects, even though it really does not.)
- INTJs thrive in fields where they can develop ingenious mental perspectives and novel interpretations of known events. At best, this can lead to entirely new strands of thought. At worst, this leads to inaction and inactivity in the outer world as the INTJ becomes increasingly occupied by internal narratives.
- Many INTJs exhibit Narcissistic traits. Their confidence makes them appear as natural leaders, but a leader who does not know how to objectively size up the external situation can spell the peril of any group or organization. Such INTJs would do well to ally themselves with Extroverted Perceivers (i.e. Se or Ne types).
- Many INTJs have a hard time recognizing the original wellspring of their latest grand idea. The INTJ may in fact have considerably improved upon another person's idea, but to others it will seem strange when they are not credited for bringing the matter to the INTJ's attention. (Many INTJs are unaware that they are improving on the ideas of others – only a select few fail to give credit because they consciously downplay the contributions of others.)
The Conceptual Brilliance of INTJs
To many, INTJs can come across as somewhat impersonal rational beings. This image-at-distance of the INTJ owes its existence to the fact that it is hard for others to see and understand the workings of the INTJ's dominant function, Introverted Intuition. Being both rare, introverted, and subjective, the trappings of Introverted Intuition are perhaps the ones to go the most unrecognized in popular culture and among psychological laymen. Hence, in practical terms, INTJs are often mistaken for INTPs who just happen to have arrived at a particularly compelling analysis. But by and large, Introverted Intuition is not simply the "INTJ version of Introverted Thinking": Unlike the INTPs, who tend to take stock of what already exists and then analyze that in order to determine how to proceed from there, Introverted Intuition is what allows the INTJ to really shine, enabling them to envision the future of a field in a truly conceptually divergent way that is not bound by its priors, the way that INTPs are.
INTJs like to intuit out problems. What we mean by this is that INTJs often prefer to map out the entire structure governing the problem, instead of simply engaging with the problem in its present form, the way NTP types often do. INTJs will push and prod at this structure of a problem to test its limitations or walls with Te and then slowly build a mental model of the entire shape of the structure with Ni. Then, once the overall shape and pattern of the problem is grasped with Ni, and its existence empirically mapped with Te, the INTJ will be able to push for the resolution of a problem with a solution that is both brilliant and simple.
This ability to come up with conceptually novel solutions to problems through engaging with the structure of the problem in its pure form, and making sure their proposed solution is valid through testing and examination, is what grants the INTJ their insightful creativity. Very often they will push the limits of a field as an exercise in understanding, which can make them very Promethean at heart. They will push and prod and steal the fire from the gods in order to expand the sum total of human capabilities.
This pushy manner where INTJs continuously test things (even people) can come across as strange, annoying, or even intimidating to others. But it is what allows the INTJ to understand whether or not the pattern they have in mind will hold, or better yet, to discover an entirely new pattern, which is what many INTJs ultimately live for.
References
- Jung: C.G. Jung Speaking, Princeton University Press 1977 ed. p. 309
- Myers & Myers: Gifts Differing, CPP Books 1993 ed. p. 109, cf. Van der Hoop: Conscious Orientation, Routledge 1999 ed. p. 185
- Van der Hoop: Conscious Orientation p. 185, 187
- Luther: De Servo Arbitrio, section CXXXIV, cf. Van der Hoop: Conscious Orientation p. 187
- Jung: C.G. Jung Speaking p. 310
- Jung: Psychological Types, Princeton University Press 1990 ed. §658
- Nietzsche: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Regnery Publishing 1996 ed. p. 6, cf. Jung: Nietzsche's Zarathustra, Princeton University Press 1988 ed. p. 145, 1043, 1082
- Myers & Myers: Gifts Differing p. 81
- Jung: Psychological Types §663
- Van der Hoop: Conscious Orientation pp. 186-187
***
Another Look at INTJ © Ryan Smith and IDR Labs International 2014.
Cover art especially commissioned for this publication from artist Will Rosales.
Image in the article commissioned for this publication from artist Darwin Cen.