The Thinking Types: Jungian Typology

1408541I will actually get around to reading Marie-Louise von Franz’s book on Jungian typology and read about all of the elements. I always feel slightly offended with the typing.  I am the watery type (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces), so this means being psychologically opposite to Air. Watery types are usually described as being really bad at politics (I am). I agree with Liz Greene’s types that water tends to have more insight and wisdom about people, whereas airy types (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius) deal with the realm of ideas in general. According to Franz, the Air signs cannot express feelings at the appropriate moment.

“Many people discover relatively soon in life that the realm of their inferior function is where they are emotional, touchy and unadapted, and they, therefore, acquire the habit of covering up this part of their personality with a surrogate pseudo-reaction. For instance, a thinking type often cannot express his feelings normally and in the appropriate manner at the right time. It can happen that when he hears that the husband of a friend has died he cries, but when he meets the widow not a word of pity will come out. They not only look very cold, but they really do not feel anything! They had all the feeling before, when at home, but now in the appropriate situation they cannot pull it out. Thinking types are very often looked on by other people as having no feeling; this is absolutely not true. It is not that they have no feeling, but that they cannot express it at the appropriate moment. They have the feeling somehow and somewhere, but not just when they ought to produce it.”
― Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung’s Typology