Karl Jung - thinking, feeling, emotions, intuition - and where am I?

How am I doing? Karl Jung defined four basic types where our conscious and unconscious operates;

Thinking, intuition, emotions, feeling. Each of us is operating more strongly in one, and thereby weaker in another. My therapist continually asks me how I feel about things -so clearly that's the area that I've subjugated - despite the fact that I think that as a boy this may have been my strongest area. I wonder if my therapist were to meet someone who is over emotional - he would ask what they are thinking..

As a boy I think I was (and still am) very sensitive. Very sensitive to other people, very easily rejected (though I'm guessing that's as much to do with a sense of identity/security). My dad and the world pressed on me, forcing me to abandon my feelings for working things out, namely thinking/logic. I thereby built strong defences against my feelings (which hurt too much) in order to get on in the world. And to a large degree these have got me to where I am today. Married, children, managing director of my own business. However - they have also got me to the point where I have not looked to see how others feel. Because other's feelings are also too much for me - as mine are.

I somehow see feelings as weak, passive, door mat, turn the other cheek - everything which is not masculine. How can I as a man operate as a man if I feel my way through things? My dad gave me no example of how to feel as a man, and I saw my mum as far to weak emotionally - she can't talk about her mum without crying. She's sentimental, with a yucky controlling effect. No wonder I ran a mile from feeling. I didn't want that!

Interestingly a Myers Briggs test showed me as a ENFJ. Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling and needing structure/order. Intuitive and feeling. The opposite of me is ISTP. Namely Introverted, relies on the five Senses, Thinking and experiences life through perception (lack of order). My wife is an ISTJ. Common for jobs which require rational thinking, not given to too much emotion.

So deep down I am a sensitive, soft, emotional, feeling, intuitive man. But I want to project (Karl Jung calls it my theatre face) strong, capable, masculine, rational man. I must be able to keep up with banter, hold my own in a group, not appear to be the weak one. Yet to do this requires my defences - because before I had them I was the butt of jokes, couldn't hold my own in a group and did appear to be the weak one.

Coming back to Jung, he says that I have repressed my feelings/intuitive side. So my conscious mind works with the defences, but my unconscious mind says - woa - you are feeling here. It breaks out (as the unconscious does) in my IBS, exhaustion and weariness. I take stock, go to therapy, and start to look at my feelings. Woa - I have them. And they are hurting (because I have been ignoring them for so long). They have been hurt (by external influences). They are feeling hurt now - so I need to allow myself to have the space to feel again. Feel the pain, the hurt, the anger, the rejection and the rage. Presumably somewhere there must be feelings of joy - though I think I have allowed myself to feel positive things (joy, excitement, happiness, desire) and suppressed so called negative feelings (sadness, anger, rage, grief, pain, hurt).

I have never been a thinker. Not in the way others are. Theories have never interested me. Science never has either - and by that I mean relativity, chaos theory etc. Neither has philosophy, nor religion. I don't sit and ponder the questions to life. I don't read voraciously anything to do with science. Science fiction maybe, but otherwise not. Although I am bright, I am not an intellectual. I'm useless at general knowledge. Find it difficult to retain facts which don't interest me. I'm much more into people. Historically this has been leadership, mentoring, friendship. I'm not so sure where I go from here, but that's certainly been the case to now.

However, that said, I do have a sharp mind. I work things out quickly (if they are worth knowing) which I guess is my intuition. I do have a rational/logical mind - so can quickly get to the root of an issue - far quicker than anyone else - which makes me a natural leader. By working things out, again, I don't mean meaningless theories, but real life practical issues. This covers even technical issues (in the arena of computing which is what I studied at university and my business is based on) - I find this easy as computing is really just logic.

So, I can think very logically, but am also pretty intuitive. Nowhere near as intuitive as my wife however. She works people out (what makes them tick) very very quickly. In fact it quite can be quite unnerving how quickly she does it. And how accurate she can be about people and situations long before anyone else can see it.

Anyway - before I get lost in logic again, the point is is that therapy is getting me to focus on my feelings. The feelings I've repressed. I want to be a whole person, and in order to become whole I need to allow myself to feel again. And that alone is a painful process..








So therapy is taking me through the process of