Exploring Why Carl Jung's Eight Function Theory Resonates with Modern Type Enthusiasts

Dive into episode 8 of Beyond Personality Types as host Olivier Caudron and expert Linda Berens explore why Carl Jung’s eight function theory captivates the modern personality type community. Discover the roots of Jung’s cognitive functions, the differences between dichotomies and holistic patterns, and why this nuanced approach resonates so strongly today. Whether you’re a practitioner or a type enthusiast, this episode provides fresh insights on using personality theory beyond the MBTI letters, honoring the true complexity of individuals. Perfect for anyone seeking a deeper, more compassionate understanding of personality types.

Linda Berens [00:00:00]:
Types are fascinating patterns that are best discovered holistically.

Olivier Caudron [00:00:08]:
Welcome to Beyond Personality Types, the original interStrength podcast. Every week we provide you with the better ways to use and talk about personality theories. I am your host, Olivier Caudron, a self discovery facilitator. With me is Doctor Linda Berens, internationally renowned for her innovative typology approach. Come with us beyond the indicator results to rethink what you know about personality types. Why has Carl Jung's eight function theory become almost a religion for many in the type community? And what should we really make of its popularity and usefulness? Hello. On this episode of Beyond Personality Types, we're diving deep into why the the eight cognitive functions are so trendy not just among Jungian analysts but across online communities and Thai practitioners everywhere. Why does such a complex theory meet more followers and advocates than other simpler lenses like temperaments or interaction styles? If you are passionate about personality theory, today's conversation will help you go beyond simply cracking the code of MBTI four letter types and instead truly understand the holistic patterns and complexities that shape personality.

Olivier Caudron [00:01:53]:
Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or just beginning to explore the depth of type dynamics, this episode will give you insights to refine your practice, communicate more clearly about type theories, and support people in a way that respects the full richness of who they are. Without further ado, let's see how Carl Jung's function theory can help you go beyond personality types. What do you think about the Carl Jung's eight connective function theory, Linda?

Linda Berens [00:02:32]:
I think it can be an important part of a holistic approach. It needs to be considered not in the functions themselves, but in the patterns and how they relate. Living systems are in patterns and we're living systems. We can look at any aspect of our being and look at what's the pattern and patterns don't change. They don't fundamentally change. The basic layout of our body stays the same. For example, just on a physical level, as we age, we flesh out different parts of the body. Some parts change as we exercise our muscles differently, but basically the pattern itself stays the same.

Linda Berens [00:03:13]:
So unless we've had some drastic experience or surgery or something, we look physically the same, seem to be moving in much the same way, whether it's slower or faster. It's the pattern really that rules the, the eight functions. When I started with exploring type, which is through temperament and then was exposed to the Myers Briggs, we actually had a local chapter of the Association for Psychological Type that had 2,000 members locally. When I started using the Myers Briggs and and in that community, it was mostly e and I and s and n and t and f and j and p, you know, the dichotomies.

Olivier Caudron [00:03:57]:
Which are extroverting, introverting, sensing, intuiting, thinking, feeling, judging, and perceiving.

Linda Berens [00:04:05]:
Right. So those are presented as opposite each other. And then David Keirsey came on the scene, met Isabel Myers.

Olivier Caudron [00:04:12]:
And David Keirsey is the one who came with the temperaments theory.

Linda Berens [00:04:18]:
That said we had four patterns, four personality, easy to understand fairly, temperament patterns. And then there were four variations within those patterns. That's where I came from. It wasn't too long after that, that people started talking about Jung's theory and the eight functions. At first, I was not very well accepted with, well, not me personally, but temperament. They didn't want me to talk much about temperament because it was really about the Myers Briggs and then Young and Isabel Myers' work. And then here I was coming in with temperament. What happened was I learned the eight function model and could explain those to people very quickly.

Linda Berens [00:04:59]:
That sort of helped people hear what I had to say about temperament, because then I was kind of in the groove of what was real and accurate with this theory. Along came John Beebe and he gave presentations and he talked about the roles of the processes in our personality pattern. And that emerged. And I don't even know if John came up with this or if I came up with it, but of a stick figure. Oh, and, oh, let me backtrack. Basically with, with the Myers Briggs, you had to sort of crack the code. And we, we used to spend two hours out of a full five day training, teaching people how to crack that code. And by that, I mean that the j stands for the judging process, whether it's thinking or feeling.

Linda Berens [00:05:50]:
And so it points to that and says that it's extroverted. There was this, how do you crack the code and figure out which process was dominant, which one was auxiliary, which one was tertiary and which one was inferior. And I hate the word inferior because it turns out it's a very powerful aspect of our personality. John Beebe would talk about what each of the processes look like, and he related them to archetypes, the hero or heroine, and then the helpful parent, which was the auxiliary. And then there was the puer/puella or the forever child, which is a place we play. And then there was the inferior anima anima. So I finally figured out that anima, the root of that means to animate. And so I talked about it being what we aspire.

Linda Berens [00:06:40]:
So I I made my own interpretation of it and started teaching that. It turns out that the eight functions are really hard to nail down because they look different in each role, and they look different when they're being used very skillfully and practiced than when they're used in a a less polished way and sometimes flexi way and sometimes overbearing. Yeah. So what's the pattern that's really important? In order to understand that pattern, we have to know what the functions look like. And I started talking about the the functions as having a couple of two or three different ways to express and getting at what's the essence of it and what does it look like when it's really on and done well, and what does it look like when it's not, but it's still being engaged. At the same time that I was revealing this information, one of my former students went to a John Beebe workshop and said, John has three names for the functions. Who knows? We've seem to be thinking about things in that way. I won't pretend to know what John Beebe knows about the eight functions, but I've learned a lot from him and found that the biggest gift I think is to really give some meat to the idea of the pattern, what that pattern looks like and how each process might behave in that pattern.

Linda Berens [00:08:10]:
One of those problems was we might be able to identify the function, but we don't know why somebody's using it. We don't know where it is in the pattern. We don't know if it's something they've gained skill in because they had to or whether it's something that was natural, a natural part of the pattern.

Olivier Caudron [00:08:26]:
We could start by the beginning to be sure that our listeners will understand what we are talking about. If we are talking about the in DTI, the Myers Briggs type indicator, it was already inspired by Carl Jung's theory about psychological types. And he, if I'm not wrong, he was the one coming with the dichotomies and talking about the cognitive functions.

Linda Berens [00:08:53]:
And he only talked about extroversion and introversion as a dichotomy and sensing and intuiting and thinking and feeling as dichotomies. And then he talked about extroverted thinking and introverted thinking, for example. He never talked about judging and perceiving. That was an artifact of trying to create a paper pencil and literally paper pencil forced choice instrument to help people identify what their personality pattern was. Isabel Myers created that, added that dichotomy. I remember early days in teaching the MBTI qualifying programs that we would put people into groups by j and p. And the more we did that, the more I realized that it didn't work, and we would have this continuum work before play and play before work. And I'm like, well, my work is my play.

Linda Berens [00:09:49]:
What do you mean? That energizes me. I don't like social stuff or just play that I'm not learning from. It didn't work for me to say that it was a dichotomy. And at that time we really had started looking at these eight functions in their roles in the personality.

Olivier Caudron [00:10:11]:
What's the difference then between the dichotomies and the eight functions?

Linda Berens [00:10:17]:
When I was teaching the type code, for example, e I slash s n slash t f slash j p. The heart of the typology is the two letters are in the middle. The j and the p tells you which one of those is extroverted, which one's used in the external world. It was really a matter of where's your orientation. So extroversion means that when you are extroverting, your focus is outside yourself. It's toward the external world. And when you are introverting, your focus is internal. It's an orientation.

Linda Berens [00:10:54]:
It's the direction of your energy. Habitually, you would be more inclined to be extroverted or introverted or to want to send your focus outward. It turned into the dominant process in Myers Briggs or the leading role, heroic role in Beebe's is the one that you trusted the most that was there kind of maybe emerged from the beginning. And there's even some observations and research about all things being equal, meaning you're not in an oppressive environment where you couldn't do things that leading role or dominant role would emerge first and get exercise. You could see extroversion and introversion in very young children. They would be doing the kinds of activities that would go with whatever process was extroverted and whatever process was introverted.

Olivier Caudron [00:11:44]:
It was also based on his own observations between his book, psychological types. The first part is explaining how extroverting and introverting express themselves in different situations of life, in a religion and some political situations. And then the second part is explaining his observations on himself, but also his clients. You were telling that the eight functions are not able to explain a full pattern, that it's not enough. Why not? Why it's not enough to explain a full pattern?

Linda Berens [00:12:26]:
One of the challenges with types is that there's the tendency to make a part a whole Mhmm. To label it. If people in the community talk about thinking types and they would say I'm a thinking type, and they would say that you're an intuitive type. Maybe, since there's an F in your code, they might say, well, you're a feeling type. The problem with that I see is that each function looks different in different places in the pattern. We can develop skill in each function. Actually I have in my course now, two people with STP preferences. One was trained as a social worker.

Linda Berens [00:13:06]:
One was trained in the software field. That's different. Extroverted sensing looks different somewhat in the way they talk about it. Introverted thinking looks different in the way they talk about it. They're different genders. They come from different cultures. There are all kinds of other variables that make a difference in how these things look. Yet when we put them together in a group, they go, oh yeah, we're like, I look really different than my husband.

Linda Berens [00:13:35]:
Who is also from Kansas where I was raised and also has the same patterns as I am. He looks different than I do. Not just because he's a man. There's that When you're looking at a process, we're using the same processes. And of course we have the same essential motivator pattern, the same interaction style pattern. If you want to look at pet lens, the same everything, but we still look really different. And then if you put me next to somebody who had only one letter different, let's say it was E E NTP and INTP, and all these other things were the same. They were from Kansas.

Linda Berens [00:14:12]:
They, they, they were female. They were in my age group. There's still a difference. So introverted thinking looks different for ENTP than it does for INTP. And it looks different for someone with ENFJ preferences because it is there. It's not in the code, but it's being used. So it's preference and there's use and there's skill. With the processes or the eight functions, you can develop skill and look like you're using a process and depending on it.

Linda Berens [00:14:47]:
So if all you're reading are definitions of the processes and not holistic definitions of the pattern, all you're looking at is the function, You may recognize that you use it a lot, that you have fun doing it. It's energized by doing it. And therefore, you report on some tests that it's about and you just look at it and it feels good. Feels right. Oh, that's what I am. Mhmm. And it's never what you are anyway. That's what the pattern is.

Olivier Caudron [00:15:20]:
Yeah. You're raising a a concern. Yes. You said that your husband is INTP. You have the same preference. And, you know, other INTPs, and even though you have the same preferences, you don't look alike. I have the feeling that personality doesn't exist if we are not able to say, ah, yes. We are a group of INTP or a group of INFJs.

Linda Berens [00:15:54]:
All the type conferences I've been to, every time with I've been grouped with people with INTP preferences, I have felt like I'm with my people. So John and I, you know, we have a lot of differences, but not much. We think the same way. Our son actually has our, those same preferences and he looks different than we do, but we tend to approach things, solving problems, Certain task, you know, we tend to approach the same way.

Olivier Caudron [00:16:27]:
That's where the pattern is expressing itself.

Linda Berens [00:16:31]:
Right.

Olivier Caudron [00:16:32]:
Our personality is also affected by the social condition and life experiences, as you said, the culture, the gender.

Linda Berens [00:16:46]:
Okay. I grew up in a small town in Kansas where having a woman or a young girl with a thinking preference who constantly argued with teachers was not acceptable. I felt defective to, like, to buy her sprigs and and it's and it was accurate. You know, it sent me, although I was only one point off from INFP. And when my husband and I went for marriage counseling as every good couple should, I went back and said, what were our scores? They looked them up and actually I, I, an INFP. And yet David Kersey looked at me and said that he thought I had INFP preferences. He said, I wasn't tough enough to have an INTP preference. And I just said, David, you don't know.

Linda Berens [00:17:33]:
So, you know, I could see how it's easy looking at me from the outside. I don't know if I come across as having a thinking preference and introverted thinking preference when I'm teaching. I come across kind of like that, like you're constantly giving definitions and constantly checking. And when I'm doing counseling or coaching, I don't do therapy anymore, but when I'm doing that, I'm not the same kind of person I was when I was arguing with those teachers. I've learned that you can't argue with people and win them over, that I can be right, but I don't have to be right. Somebody said to me at a type conference once, well, then would you rather be right, or would you like to be liked? I shut up real fast.

Olivier Caudron [00:18:19]:
That was the most important.

Linda Berens [00:18:22]:
Yes. That's why it's beyond personality types because we're more than our type and yet knowing what pattern fits us and what those internal psychological needs are and drivers. And what's really core to us feeling good about ourselves in a way, if it's not appreciated early on, that can help us learning what that is. And even if it's one letter off, it could help. Even if it's two letters off, it could help. Yeah. Maybe three, three, you're getting somewhere off it.

Olivier Caudron [00:18:57]:
Are the eight functions, the question of letters?

Linda Berens [00:19:02]:
It's more than the letters. And one of the things that we do, we named the processes. For example, my leading role is analyzing. That's interpretive thinking. This information out there, how does it fit? How does this work? We had names like segmenting, which is extroverted thinking preferences. They would be better at that kind of logical external organization. For me, those kinds of decisions are hard to make. That's why I have papers all over my desk.

Linda Berens [00:19:34]:
I have to have my granddaughter come help me. So we have segmenting, analyzing, connecting, and valuing that's for the judging processes and the perceiving ones, or I call them information accessing processes, experiencing, reviewing, not recalling. That's just memory reviewing, going over what's already stored interpreting, which is extroverted, intuiting and foreseeing, just introverted, intuiting. They're more than a letter, but the letter talk is so pervasive and besides that people can agree on it.

Olivier Caudron [00:20:13]:
Isn't it thanks or because of Isabel Myers that we are using letters rather than name?

Linda Berens [00:20:21]:
Yes. Because it's simpler. Easier to remember than it is several names.

Olivier Caudron [00:20:28]:
Yeah. When I explore cognitive dynamics with a group, I avoid using the letters and use the name. When I invite them to see how they analyze, how they experience, how they foresee. They really explain what's going on in their head. Having a word is stronger than a letter because behind the letter, you can hide so many interpretations. When you have a name, an apple, it's an apple. We are not talking about the a a. We are talking about an apple.

Olivier Caudron [00:21:02]:
But we still don't have an answer as to why are so many people enthusiastic about the eight functions?

Linda Berens [00:21:11]:
I have a hypothesis that there's something about looking at the eight functions gives an air of freedom that looking at a temperament or a type doesn't. People who take our training who are in those groups and some of them run groups like that around it may not be accurately identifying that way because it's easy to see how empathic I can be, For example, if you were around me in my helping profession, that's extraverted feeling or when I can't watch a single movie without crying. For some reason, there's a sort of a sense of freedom about that or a language that helps people. And if it's a generation thing, which I think it is, there's a time in our lives when we want to know who we are. It sometimes starts in our teen years, but somehow in that twenty to thirty age group, It seems like there's something that knowing these things meet some need, but I don't know what it is. I I can't explain it. There may be something that feels freer than the Myers Briggs stuff or in this time of extreme chaos, it explains some things. And if it's where someone is developing, that's where they need to hang out for a while.

Linda Berens [00:22:33]:
What are these Neo Jungians looking for? Well, Jung was in a context. Maybe they're looking for something in a different context and how is it different and relating it to that context. And, who knows why?

Olivier Caudron [00:22:51]:
As we wrap up today's exploration of Carl Jung's eight function theory and its enduring appeal, a few powerful lessons stand out for those dedicated to understanding personality in both themselves and others. This episode reminded us that while cognitive functions offer a fascinating and nuanced window into the mind, they are most useful when embraced as part of a broader holistic pattern, one that honors the complexity of living systems, not just isolated traits. We learned from Linda's rich experience that patterns, not just parts, define our personality landscape. The functions can look dramatically different depending on where and how they show up in our lives, shaped by everything from our culture and gender to our unique professional past. It's not enough, she asserts, to label ourselves or others by a function or a set of letters. True insight comes from recognizing how those tendencies interact and take shape within a larger pattern, an approach that is both more accurate and more compassionate. This conversation also underscored the importance of moving beyond oversimplified dichotomies and imprecise labels. Using real names for functions rather than just letters can unlock deeper conversations and help others understand not just what they are but how they use their strengths and navigate growth areas.

Olivier Caudron [00:24:49]:
I encourage you to read or read again the blue booklet of the Understanding Yourself and Others series An Introduction to the Personality Type Code by Doctor Linda Berens and Dario Nardi. Finally, we touched on why eight function theory is so enticing for so many. Especially in a digital ever evolving world where people crave both self understanding and flexibility. The language of functions offers a sense of freedom and nuance that more rigid systems sometimes lack. For practitioners, the invitation is clear. Go beyond surface level typing. Encourage holistic understanding. Remain open to context.

Olivier Caudron [00:25:42]:
And honor the complexity of every individual. By doing so, we not only deepen our own growth but also empower those we serve to discover their true pattern and potential. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed this discussion we'd really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review to help others find the show. Remember to subscribe if you don't want to miss next week's episode. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram at beyondpersonalitytypes. Thanks again for tuning in. We are Olivier Caudron and Linda Berens.

Olivier Caudron [00:26:35]:
Stay curious and eager to learn until we meet again in our next episode.