CORRELATIVE MECHANISMS

OUTER CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH WE LIVE

A TYPE WILL BE PRODUCED

GENERAL BASIC ATTITUDES

A REFLECTIVE AND CONTEMPLATIVE AIR

DISPLAYS MANY IMMEDIATE REACTIONS

INFLUX OF UNCONSCIOUS CONTENTS

This difficulty is met with mainly in people who are given to express themselves more profusely than others

Naturally it also depends very largely on the attitude of the observer whether he seizes hold of the conscious or the unconscious character of the personality

Generally speaking, a judging observer will tend to seize on the conscious character, while a perceptive observer will be more influenced by the unconscious character, since judgment is chiefly concerned with the conscious motivation of the psychic process, while perception registers the process itself

But in so far as we apply judgment and perception in equal measure, it may easily happen that a personality appears to us as both introverted and extraverted, so that we cannot decide at first to which attitude the superior function belongs. In such cases only a thorough analysis of the qualities of each function can help us to form a valid judgment

We must observe which function is completely under conscious control, and which functions have a haphazard and spontaneous character. The former is always more highly differentiated than the latter, which also possess infantile and primitive traits. Occasionally the superior function gives the impression of normality, while the others have something abnormal or pathological about them

The sort of demons that introversion and extraversion may become is a daily experience for us psychotherapists. We see in our patients and can feel in ourselves with what irresistible force the libido streams inwards or outwards, with what unshakable tenacity an introverted or extraverted attitude can take root

Introversion and extraversion are not traits of character at all but mechanisms, which can, as it were, be switched on or off at will. Only from their habitual predominance do the corresponding characters develop. The predilection one way or the other no doubt depends on the inborn disposition, but this is not always the decisive factor

There is something intrinsically irritating about this conflict of attitude, and, at bottom, it is the cause of the most heated and futile scientific discussions

The two fundamental mechanisms of the psyche, extraversion and introversion, are also to a large extent the normal and appropriate ways of reacting to complexesextraversion as a means of escaping from the complex into reality, introversion as a means of detaching oneself from external reality through the complex

In the natural course of a person's life, extraversion and introversion may alternate as dominant attitudes. Jane and I observed this process among pre-literate peoples when we spent some time on a tiny little island called Aitutaki. It was quite startling to us to watch the Polynesians flip back and forth from extraversion to introversion. I often had the experience of talking with one chap who one minute would be very animated and the next minute would stop right in the middle of a sentence and just lean up against a palm tree. He'd be off somewhere; God knows where he went! Then after about five minutes, suddenly he would plug in again and be back in business. Absolutely amazing! I've seen the Navajos do his sort of thing, too

In our highly competitive society, one of the attitudes is more or less dammed up in order to produce a supposedly more efficient performance. As a result a definite, one-sided type is established. However, it's never possible to suppress completely the opposite attitude, as both are basic psychological factors in every individual