[LibertyPrime]

It's not really either. And its a really long explanation that gets at the core of Jungian psychology which you can explore more at http://personalitycafe.com/cognitiv...k-guide-understanding-jungian-psychology.html , but essentially the more conscious a function is, the more 'you' it is. So the reason we can safely call say an ENFP and Extraverted Intuitive is because they lead with dominant Extraverted Intuition. It's their default way of processing and dealing with the world and themselves. Now mind you this doesn't mean all ENPs will behave or act the same way. Quite the contrary people have all kinds of personas and social roles they adapt separate from their type. What type tells us is habituated preference. A way of processing that has become comfortable for us. The question you're asking isn't one that MBTI can really answer, but if you maybe get your feet slightly wet with Jung, you'll realize the greater implications of what he was going for when he wrote Psychological Types. Psychological Types - Wikisocion . In order to really understand it you sort of have to understand how he built the psyche and the role the functions play (and that the functions are not the sum total of personality, just one aspect of it).

There is but one problem with "understanding functions"...well its mainly my problem. I can't trust my understanding of it until I see examples and it is difficult to see to what % those ways of processing are actually mine. Stuff like this is a guess at best supported by scattered facts that keep changing/are not stable features.

All in all it is a highly problematic and inaccurate way of going about this...sadly we don't know any other ways -.- which is why after more then a year I'm still just maskarading as INFP and have no actual clue as to what type I actually am. My gut feeling just keeps telling me something is wrong with this theory.

 

[LibertyPrime]

Don't blame your issue to find your type on the theory.
In all cases I've seen, it's lack of understanding of Jung's typology theory and MBTI that leads to a person being mistyped.

According to Jung, you got 4 functions.
S, N, T and F. These functions can either be subjective (directed inward) or objective (directed outward)

Fi is for example the subjective counterpart to Fe, which is objective.
Because of that, he didn't believe that you got 8 functions, but rather 1 of each of the 4 functions (subjective or objective).
The 4 other functions were called "shadow functions" because they are the functions that you can't express, but they exist in the world.

Yes, I understood that it in the beginning (also read books on this subject), but there is a difference between understanding and actually knowing from experience.

Let me explain a bit better what I'm trying to get at: You learn a new mathematical principle right? You understand it, but you don't really know it until you apply it in practice and see for yourself how it goes. The more you apply it them better you know it.

<.< how can people "know their type" by understanding functions? It is a guess at best, maybe wishful thinking or delusion until they see what they themselves use day to day (which for me at least depends on the situation).

There can be a huge difference between what somebody thinks they are and what they actually are. Most people don't see how and what they are...they are just blind to reality (in denial sometimes, especially regarding the negative bits). Imo this is because we have no realistically objective way of measuring function use. Discerning type probably takes months/years of introspection and self analysis. Tests just suck and stereotypes are worse.