What is Neojungian Typology? My name is Erik Thor and I have developed my own system and way to type people. I believe Carl Jung was a genius and that his archetype approach is key to understanding the 16 personalities. I question the stereotypes and the approach used by the 16 Personalities and Myers Briggs Type Indicator models. I believe that personality is different from behaviour. I question the traditional cognitive function hierarchy. Using my approach you will:
- Learn how you can use the cognitive functions to get more motivation and energy out of your life
- Find out how you can look past stereotypes and instead type people based on their core motivations and goals
- Discover how to use Carl Jungs Archetypes to understand people and their needs
So let’s get started learning about Neojungian Typology!
Table of contents
Neojungian Typology
Neojungian Typology is about trying to connect the study of personality types to the study of positive psychology, flow, and human motivation. You do not just want to be able to quickly classify people into neat boxes, you want to understand how to use personality psychology to better understand yourself and your motivation, as well as the motivation of other people.
Because you don’t like boxes and stereotypical, shallow categorization. You want to understand what truly motivates a person, not just how they appear on the surface. There are no quick-fixes to immediately know or understand another person or who they are – you have to ask them the right questions and listen deeply. Beyond that, you are fascinated with the myths and historical archetypes that we are all connected to.
You practice Neojungian Typology if you:
- Type people based on their motivation instead of their behaviour, asking them questions about their needs and values instead of just observing their actions and decisions.
- Study people and personality psychology using an archetype approach, seeing the myths and character archetypes and how they connect to different values and situations
- Understand the difference between people’s personality type and development
How is personality different from behaviour?
While behaviour is just a metric of how you act in a specific situation, for example if you tend to be more outgoing or social, or if you tend to bemore reserved or shy, personality is whether you gain energy from social interaction or not. There are shy extroverts and outgoing introverts. An outgoing introvert is just a person that has learnt to take initiative in social settings, even if they prefer to be by themselves or to interact more one-on-one.
The personality traits described in the MBTI and 16 Personalities are very simplistic, because they focus only on how you behave in a specific situation. We have to relearn what the personality traits mean and how we can apply them to understand people.
While it is interesting to understand how a person tends to behave, we must understand that most people are too complex to be categorised in this way. While some people are almost always outgoing, or very outgoing, most people are somewhere on the middle. They may be more outgoing in specific situations, with specific people. They can also be shy in different settings. Mood is another factor – when you feel good, you are often more socially oriented. When you feel stressed, you may be less social. These triggers vary from person to person and have nothing to do with your personality type.
Carl Jungs Archetypes | Everyone has a myth waiting to happen
Humans have developed an inherent wisdom hidden in our DNA. We constantly draw from the wisdom and experience of our ancestors, and their lives and actions and way of life has been written into our very biology. There are a set of myths and archetypes that are so old that they have an universal relevance. The archetypes help us understand how to act in different situations and represent our human legacy. Historically, there have always been Rulers, Rebels, Artists, and Heroes. These roles and figures are universally relateable, and we can all recognise these roles and figures in our day to day life, relationships, in school, and at work.
Every cognitive function – and every personality trait – represents a unique archetype and connects to a million different myths and legends. By taking an interest in these things, we can better understand ourselves and our own thought process. I find the archetypes fascinating because they represent the blueprint of human life. We all have a story waiting to happen and we can learn a lot by observing and understand the archetypes. By learning from the mistakes of our ancestors, we can make smarter decisions, and live more happy, fulfilling lives.
The Neojungian Personality Traits
What are the different personality traits and how do I define them?
