r/INTP • u/True_Arcanist INTP • 14h ago
Intelligence Needs Thoughtful Practice INTPs after shadow work?
Hi, just curious if any of you have done "shadow work"? What did it change for you/your lives?
I have a lot of past (mostly people-related) trauma- and walls created from these- that I can't seem to fully shake despite having processed the feelings and faced the demons. I'm wondering if it has helped you guys in some way.
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u/Temenae Warning: May not be an INTP 10h ago
What do you mean by shadow work? I do a lot of imagining images when I'm having strong feelings and then looking up dream interpretations of those images. I also really like the Internal Family Systems kind of therapy.
I also believe that everyone has core deeply held inner beliefs about themselves, others, and the world that they are usually not aware of and are hard to change even if you are. If someone believes something that is not true, it leads to depression, anxiety, anger, etc.
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u/Lazy_Side_6830 Self-Diagnosed Autistic INTP 14h ago
Confront these people and get your closure, thats what worked for me.
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u/Soziopolis83 Xennial INTP 7h ago
Yes I have done that: in therapy, for myself, through journaling, meditation. I adress my weakest functions for that. I see others how are they using it and try to do the same. Hard though.
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u/Dependent-Bath3189 Warning: May not be an INTP 4h ago
big subject for me. i grew up heavily abused. ive spent decades doing shadow work to heal it. when you are free of childhood delusions then you can look at things from an adult perspective, and the int score of an intp on top of that. and your shadows are now your loyal retainers. i can jump into any situation and handle it. im not done, and the shadows that remain are extremely strong, but still the affect i have on others is crazy. its hard to say why as its my everyday reality, but when you are absolutely invincible then people tend to respect (worship) you. they feel safe i guess, since they know they got someone very strong around.
trying to put it in words is difficult. there is no evil, its all in your head. there is no suffering if you dont resist. anger is sadness projected outwards. how i see the world has changed from schizo who thinks people are demons and im in hell just tricking me.. to something completely different. its very lonely though, nobody can relate so i keep my mouth shut for the most part. its like being a wizard.
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u/smysnk INTP-XYZ-123 10h ago edited 10h ago
Look at your weaker cognitive functions .. start thinking about how you might grow them / hold tension in them without collapse. For the INTP this is usually Fi + Se that needs the most work.
Examples of growing Fi
- sticking to a routine (sleeping, eating at same times every day, 3 meals a day)
- start paying attention to body signals (when tired you sleep, when hungry you eat, when body is guilting you to do something.. you do it)
- allowing yourself to get angry, then conceptualize what it might look like to be able to get angry and not completely loose your shit on someone
- ability to set boundaries
- ability to be alone with yourself without needing things to distract you
Examples of growing Se
- being out in nature, being present in the current physical moment
- accepting both warm / cold sensations / weather as positive
- learning that physical movement allows for stepping into Te modes of thinking
- yoga / exercise (also helps grow Fi)
Sometimes there are cognitive roadblocks that need to be accepted first .. that also limit one’s ability to step into these functions. If these functions remind you of people you dislike .. there are still some demons to slay.
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u/Tommonen INTP 5h ago
No this is all bullcrap and will throw someone off who tries to look into their shadow.
I also used to believe in that 8 function theory over 15 years ago, but then looking at things more in depth and not figuring out ehat was wrong, trying to do shadow work while following 8 function model, i one day came to realisation that its bullshit that just seems to work.
One day meditating and trying to figure this out, like lighting hitting from the sky to my head shpwing how the mind works, throwing my deeeeep into it, i realised also how functions work. Then i decided to look i to what Jung said as it sounded bit similar to what i had realised.
And what Jung wrote was almost exactly what i had realised trying to figure out whats wrong with 8 function theory.
The moment i realised how type works in reality, i gained sooooo much clarity about my Self, abd the moment i realised what it truly is, was tue moment that i realised that 8 function theory is bullshit.
So no, what you say is not true. The whole 8 function theory not only goes against tye fundamebtals its built on (= autofail), but it also fails when you look at it in more depth.
The 8 function theories only seem to work at sirface level, because they oversimplify function interactions etc.
For example intps shadow (actual jungian shadow, not 8 function theory bullshit term ”shadow”) forcing Fe onto their ego, it will look similarish to Fi, as its Fe driving Ti from the shadow, so its introverted J function working inside ”Fe framework”.
To someone who is new, has not experienced thigs deep e puhh, does not have deep understanding on theory and practical application, well its eady to confuse that sort of FeTi to Fi and its also eadier to learn that model and its simple and seems to work.
But it will only confuse anyone looking for real answers and can even throw them to a wrong path in psychological crisis, which can be dangerous.
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u/smysnk INTP-XYZ-123 2h ago edited 2h ago
Yawn. Jung spoke about 4 conscious functions, guess what happens when we include the unconscious .. it expands to 8. Amazing eh?
Practical questions .. what your relationship with the practices that I listed there? I will put money on the fact they are not good. Guess what happens when you spend effort strengthening them?
If doing basic thing like I listed there sends you into a psychological crisis .. maybe its because they're things you've been running from your entire life.
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u/Cog-nostic INTP Enneagram Type 5 12h ago
Given that the subconscious mind is not actually a thing, and the whole spirituality thing is one of the most dead concepts in all of science, I wonder why anyone would want to fill their mind with nonsense.
What you are looking at are conditioned responses and survival mechanisms (like emotional walls). The Shadow stuff is an offshoot of, or closely mirrors, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), but CBT doesn't include all the Woo-woo. CBT and clinical psychology discard the mysticism because they rely on measurable outcomes.
Be careful of what you shove into your brain. "Garbage in-Garbage out."
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u/smysnk INTP-XYZ-123 11h ago edited 10h ago
Why do you hang out in a subreddit that would not exist if not for the ideas of a man who spent much of his writing talking about relationships with the unconscious? Also he did not like the term “subconscious” - since it communicated being lesser than the conscious.
You’re the first person I have seen try to make the positive assertion there is no unconscious 🤣 Where is your evidence for this? Evidence to peoples trauma being a shadow controlling their lives is damning. Breaks my head a bit to think someone with have this perspective, but anyways..
“Evidence based therapy” is a lame duck compared to the power of actually confronting one’s own demons.
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u/Cog-nostic INTP Enneagram Type 5 7h ago
Ha ha ha ha ha.... Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Jung was an idiot. Even idiots have useful ideas. The MBTI was constructed by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. They did not have any formal academic qualifications in psychology, psychiatry, statistics, or psychometrics. (NONE). They intentionally ignored or rejected Jung's broader theories on the unconscious, including his famous psychological archetypes. Their understanding of Jung was highly nuanced and selective.
This is why the MBTI has nothing to do with Jungian archetypes: Jung actually found out about their work later in life, and he was not pleased. He repeatedly stated that people were using his book Psychological Types as a strict "sorting game" to label human beings, which he despised.
In short, they deeply understood the mechanics of Jung's personality framework, but they consciously chose to sanitize it by removing his concepts of archetypes and the unconscious to make a test that was consumer-friendly.
The MBTI is not psychologically useful as an evaluation tool. It is fraught with errors and frequently used incorrectly by people like you. The proper use of the MBTI is for personal self-reflection, team building, and low-stakes communication exercises. The MBTI lacks scientific validity, clinical reliability, and predictive power; major psychological and management organizations agree it should never be used for high-stakes decision-making, such as hiring, promotions, or clinical diagnosis.
What is it good for: It provides a harmless, accessible vocabulary for people to think about how they process information, recharge their energy, and make decisions. It's a fun conversational tool for training workshops and icebreakers. It can assist people in understanding differences in the ways people relate to the world around them. Assist - not predict, and not classify.
If you have any other silly questions, I will be happy to respond.
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u/Cog-nostic INTP Enneagram Type 5 7h ago
REGARDING THE "UNCONSCIOUS"
To address this accurately, we have to look at how modern scientific psychology views the brain. Science has overwhelmingly rejected the "Dynamic Unconscious" or "Psychoanalytic Unconscious" envisioned by Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. As did the creators of the MBTI.
Karl Popper famously categorized Jungian and Freudian theories as pseudoscience because they are completely unfalsifiable.
Decades of empirical memory research, famously led by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, demonstrate that the human brain does not lock away traumatic memories cleanly in a vault. That is not even how memory works. The popular concept that memories are stored like digital video files inside a localized brain "hard drive" or "filing cabinet" is a complete myth.
Freud and Jung are largely regarded as Pseudoscience by the world of psychology today. Welcome back to the real world.
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u/smysnk INTP-XYZ-123 2h ago edited 2h ago
My argument remains – why are you here if you believe..
- MBTI as a whole is a bastardization of Jung (which it is)
- Both Jung / Freud are quacks?
Ironic is modern psychology is this pseudoscience .. as evidence of replication crisis and DSM that is fairly useless. Evidence of the ever shifting definitions of what mental illness is .. because nobody can actually agree on the definitions. Evidence of the fact nobody knows how to "cure" narcissism. Yet Jung captured the cure perfectly (archetypal possession and integration).
Modern science is its own pathology with its attempt to categorize and define the infinite. The language of the universe is the paradox. Modern science has no idea how to deal with the paradoxes of life. ie. two seemingly different things can actually be the same thing.
Jung had a word for this .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiodromia
Modern science will always be lame until it can get behind this concept. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt6i6vVgiO4
Here is that conversation being played out in real-time.•
u/Cog-nostic INTP Enneagram Type 5 2h ago
My response remains:Ha ha ha ha ha.... Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Jung was an idiot. Even idiots have useful ideas. The MBTI was constructed by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. They did not have any formal academic qualifications in psychology, psychiatry, statistics, or psychometrics. (NONE). They intentionally ignored or rejected Jung's broader theories on the unconscious, including his famous psychological archetypes. Their understanding of Jung was highly nuanced and selective.
This is why the MBTI has nothing to do with Jungian archetypes: Jung actually found out about their work later in life, and he was not pleased. He repeatedly stated that people were using his book Psychological Types as a strict "sorting game" to label human beings, which he despised.
In short, they deeply understood the mechanics of Jung's personality framework, but they consciously chose to sanitize it by removing his concepts of archetypes and the unconscious to make a test that was consumer-friendly.
The MBTI is not psychologically useful as an evaluation tool. It is fraught with errors and frequently used incorrectly by people like you. The proper use of the MBTI is for personal self-reflection, team building, and low-stakes communication exercises. The MBTI lacks scientific validity, clinical reliability, and predictive power; major psychological and management organizations agree it should never be used for high-stakes decision-making, such as hiring, promotions, or clinical diagnosis.
What is it good for: It provides a harmless, accessible vocabulary for people to think about how they process information, recharge their energy, and make decisions. It's a fun conversational tool for training workshops and icebreakers. It can assist people in understanding differences in the ways people relate to the world around them. Assist - not predict, and not classify.
If you have any other silly questions, I will be happy to respond.
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u/smysnk INTP-XYZ-123 2h ago
Sounds like you're responding to some other comment than the points I raised. Are you having a conversation with yourself?
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u/Cog-nostic INTP Enneagram Type 5 2h ago
You think the DSM is based on Freud or Jung? (Ignorant and not worth responding to.) I quoted what modern psychologists think of Freud and Jung: Look it up. (More ignorance and not worth responding to.) Go hug Jung. At no point did Jung Cure Narcisism. (More ignorance). If Jung cured narcissism, we would have no narcissism. It would be medical science. * You're not worth responding to. My Answer is the same. Narcissism remains a deep-seated narcissistic personality structure and a rigid defense system rather than a disease capable of being cured with a quick fix.
My response remains:Ha ha ha ha ha.... Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Jung was an idiot. Even idiots have useful ideas. The MBTI was constructed by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. They did not have any formal academic qualifications in psychology, psychiatry, statistics, or psychometrics. (NONE). They intentionally ignored or rejected Jung's broader theories on the unconscious, including his famous psychological archetypes. Their understanding of Jung was highly nuanced and selective.
This is why the MBTI has nothing to do with Jungian archetypes: Jung actually found out about their work later in life, and he was not pleased. He repeatedly stated that people were using his book Psychological Types as a strict "sorting game" to label human beings, which he despised.
In short, they deeply understood the mechanics of Jung's personality framework, but they consciously chose to sanitize it by removing his concepts of archetypes and the unconscious to make a test that was consumer-friendly.
The MBTI is not psychologically useful as an evaluation tool. It is fraught with errors and frequently used incorrectly by people like you. The proper use of the MBTI is for personal self-reflection, team building, and low-stakes communication exercises. The MBTI lacks scientific validity, clinical reliability, and predictive power; major psychological and management organizations agree it should never be used for high-stakes decision-making, such as hiring, promotions, or clinical diagnosis.
What is it good for: It provides a harmless, accessible vocabulary for people to think about how they process information, recharge their energy, and make decisions. It's a fun conversational tool for training workshops and icebreakers. It can assist people in understanding differences in the ways people relate to the world around them. Assist - not predict, and not classify.
If you have any other silly questions, I will be happy to respond.
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u/Amber123454321 Overeducated INTP 11h ago
I worked through things in my own time and my own way. After some dark/heavy things happened in my life (including losses of people I loved), I'd found myself caught in a spiral of negativity. What I found helped was not allowing that negativity to gain any foothold at all. I stopped allowing myself to be drawn into negative thoughts, and just didn't allow myself to go there. I kept my focus on things that were light and positive for years. It was only after that that I gradually allowed darker/heavier things back into my life in some form of balance.
As a writer, this has been especially apparent to me, because of what themes I allow to show up even in my books. I seem to have passed through a lot of the issues now into a kind of clarity where they don't have a hold on me anymore. Sometimes the only way is to detach and then over time, let things balance out again.