The two opposite equally essential faces of Fe and Fi
Sept 4, 2016 17:40:42 GMT -5 by Deleted
Auburn, Heron, and 4 more like this
Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 17:40:42 GMT -5
From what I’ve been reading in this forum and mainly in the Alemin (TiNe) forum, I’ve understood that the view openly expressed in these places is that whether Fe in an individual takes a directive or adaptative form is a matter of nurturing, together with the idea that in TiNe, Fe will remain being adaptative unless the person is faced with hardships/unordinary stress (I don’t know if these hardships have been specified/mentioned yet but it doesn't seem so) in their upbringing. Instead, I’d like to propose the idea of an existing correlation between the level of psychological health and psychological integration/development of an Fe user and the fluidity between these two mechanisms of defense – in line with Jung’s idea of individuation and integration of the psique – become more complete, more thorough - and the idea of psychosysthesis, proposed by Roberto Assagioli. In this line of thought, it seems plausible to me the idea that every Fe user has actually both Adaptative and Directive Fe, but the ego identifies with one of these, whereas the other remains (more often than not) alive in one’s unconscious mind, dwelling in the shadowy part of the forest. Assagioli introduces the concept of ‘subpersonality’: we identify with some subpersonalities while we remain unidentified with some other subpersonalities - that must be integrated to consciousness, then available and easily assessed – be at hand when the moment calls. People tend to overuse some of their subpersonalities and underuse others - which is a quite limited (and repetitive) way of operating in the world (and reacting to the world). People not only overuse a narrow amount of subpersonalities (the ones they have identified with) but they also see them under a favored light (as they seem a very effective way to cope with the world) and see the subpersonalities they aren’t identified with as being of an ‘inferior’ kind… less appropriate, less healthy, a disturb, a disruption in the normal development. In this line of thought, it is understandable that Fe users who strongly identify with adaptative Fe see this modality as ‘more natural’ and 'the natural outcome in development, unless the world has ruined or broken someone’s Fe'. On the other hand, any Fe user that strongly identified with Directive Fe, will follow the same pattern but reversed: seeing the Adaptative Fe a coward modality, disconnected from one's true will, giving other people what they want to receive, instead of a straight-forward, highly honest ‘what you see is what you get’ chance of human relating and as a degree of laziness/accommodation to step into (and acknowledge the real necessity of) the combativess that life calls for in many situations in everyone’s lives. So, this way (with this bias) Adaptive Fe could be seen as a disruption (due to a stressing environment/family - if we follow the same stream of nurture-oriented outlook that I've been reading in CT) of the natural trust and confidence in the environment/others and self-confidence/total-fearless-self-acceptance to show/express in a direct way what u are truly thinking and feeling (even if it is opposite to what is expected), in straight-forward way, for fearing not being accepted/or_rejected/not_getting_reward/etc/u_name_it.
Mechanisms of Defense
This is another take to this matter that I’d like to bring up. Besides being an ethos, Fe is a function responsible for the management of the external world - we know it. The external world in its ongoing manifestation of multivaried unexpected forms, make people (Fe users included) face all sort of situations with no chance of rehearsal. The position and behavior an individual takes toward a given situation is always, to a certain degree, a coping strategy, and unconscious most of the time. It is human the tendency to overuse some coping strategies to deal with the world. I am by no means inclined to believe it is a natural start for Fe in its developmental journey, in an Fe user’s psique, to be ‘adaptative’ unless it doesn’t work and a different strategy (a straightforward, combative one) is required. This begins with observing babies who are raised in similar environments and the same family and this includes babies with the same functions stack. Studies in this direction are mandatory before anything consolidades toward any sort of belief or bias. I have had the opportunity to work as a psychotherapist for a long time and exposed to a variety of life stories and psiques and even though nurture seems to play a big role in someone’s horizontal development and level of neurosis, the coping strategies taken by an individual to cope with reality seem to be very little impacted/molded by one’s nurture, even if many times amplified by it.
There is a personal anecdote my mother often repeats to me that is suitable here. The doctor (a very wise man) who took me out of her womb and carried out all the exams in the first day of my life said to her: “Be very kind to her and hug her a lot because this baby is a warrior, with very strong ‘personality’, she knows what she wants and what she doesn’t want. Soften her." Nurture? That experienced doctor made an ex-ray of my temperamental dispositions. My mother took the doctor seriously and did what he told her – I internalized many caring bears from that and feel a big love, gratitude and compassion to the world, AND I am still a warrior just like when I was born and behave as such when the situation calls for - unapologetically. 
We can definitely stretch this to Fi. Seelie and Unseelie – they are two different approaches to the world, to people, to oneself. Each of these poles in isolation distort reality immensily. The world isn’t a good or a bad place, a safe or an unsafe place, it is all these at the same time and a realistic approach to the world requires both dispositions. The world is everything (and so are people). It has ondulations, mountains, but no definite clivages, and even the tectonic plates move nonstop. I truly equate health with completeness and a broad consciousness of reality and nature itself is the wisest example of it, in its nonsensical chaos and mathematic perfection. An optimal functioning happens when an Fi user can integrate both dispositions, having accute flexibility and PRESENCE to intuitively and realistically see if the moment calls for a seelie or an unseelie disposition
A good exercise for Fi users with prevalent seelie Fi is to feel inspired by his or her unseelie other-side and its importance to operate in a more realistic basis and the external manifestations we see in unseelie Fi users. A good exercise with Fi users with prevalent unseelie Fi is to feel inspired by by his or her seelie other-side and its importance to operate in a more realistic basis and the external manifestations we see in seelie Fi users. Exactly the same goes with Adaptative Fe users and Directive Fe users.
A factor of complication in this optimal process/movement resides in the fact that the external manifestations of the poles tend to be extreme, and easily subject to dislikes and projections of non-integrated shadow aspects.
The Three Trends (Moving Towards, Against, Away From) – Karen Horney and The Enneagram
I am conviced by experience and observation that enneagram type, tritype and instinct are all inborn, innate, not determined by nurture. I am also convinced that we are born with our CT.
It stands out clearly to me and to heron (we have been observing this and discussing this) that Fe users who have prevalence of withdrawn or/and compliant types in the tritype/trifix will inevitably develop Adaptative Fe. On the other hand, Fe users who have prevalence of assertive types in the tritype/trifix will inevitably end up having Directive Fe.
These three trends (Moving Towards, Against, Away From) were presented by Karen Horney. I suggest you to research about this topic if you don’t have previous knowledge about it, as I don’t want to write an unnecessarily long post). It seems to me and to heron that Fe users who have both 3 and 9 in the tritype are the most remarkedly Adaptative Fe users. 3s adapt to be seen under a favorable light, they are chameleons that give what the audience wants, intuitively adapting and changing color all the time to match the audience –even if the audience is only one interlocutor. 9s adapt because agreeing and avoiding confrontation and conflict is their main defense mechanism.
5 is an withdrawn type and can ‘adapt’ if it is to avoid being exposed or catch attention, they want to be invisible, disappear and be left alone as defense strategy. If this type is coupled with 3 and 9 in the tritype, this combo will be highly adaptative.
The 459 tritype, the Contemplative, being triple withdrawn has no element of assertiveness in any of the types. Jung is an example, he was 954 NiFe and had adaptative Fe.
The assertive types are 3, 7 and 8. And people with at least two of these types in the tritype will tend have Directive Fe except/UNLESS they have 9 as gut-fix, as 3 and 9 together have that ultra-adaptative effect I commented some lines above.
It seems to me that the tritypes (in Fe users) more inclined to have adaptative Fe are: 259, 269, 279 (not always), 359, 369, 379, 459, 469. The tritypes least likely: 368, 468, 458, 478 (if 4 is leading this can change in this one).
My doctor, probably not knowing the enneagram, was able to spot my gut-fix in the untamable wild warrior in me on the day I was born, only a baby with an 8 fix can be described with that level of fierceness.
Mechanisms of Defense
This is another take to this matter that I’d like to bring up. Besides being an ethos, Fe is a function responsible for the management of the external world - we know it. The external world in its ongoing manifestation of multivaried unexpected forms, make people (Fe users included) face all sort of situations with no chance of rehearsal. The position and behavior an individual takes toward a given situation is always, to a certain degree, a coping strategy, and unconscious most of the time. It is human the tendency to overuse some coping strategies to deal with the world. I am by no means inclined to believe it is a natural start for Fe in its developmental journey, in an Fe user’s psique, to be ‘adaptative’ unless it doesn’t work and a different strategy (a straightforward, combative one) is required. This begins with observing babies who are raised in similar environments and the same family and this includes babies with the same functions stack. Studies in this direction are mandatory before anything consolidades toward any sort of belief or bias. I have had the opportunity to work as a psychotherapist for a long time and exposed to a variety of life stories and psiques and even though nurture seems to play a big role in someone’s horizontal development and level of neurosis, the coping strategies taken by an individual to cope with reality seem to be very little impacted/molded by one’s nurture, even if many times amplified by it.
There is a personal anecdote my mother often repeats to me that is suitable here. The doctor (a very wise man) who took me out of her womb and carried out all the exams in the first day of my life said to her: “Be very kind to her and hug her a lot because this baby is a warrior, with very strong ‘personality’, she knows what she wants and what she doesn’t want. Soften her." Nurture? That experienced doctor made an ex-ray of my temperamental dispositions. My mother took the doctor seriously and did what he told her – I internalized many caring bears from that and feel a big love, gratitude and compassion to the world, AND I am still a warrior just like when I was born and behave as such when the situation calls for - unapologetically.
We can definitely stretch this to Fi. Seelie and Unseelie – they are two different approaches to the world, to people, to oneself. Each of these poles in isolation distort reality immensily. The world isn’t a good or a bad place, a safe or an unsafe place, it is all these at the same time and a realistic approach to the world requires both dispositions. The world is everything (and so are people). It has ondulations, mountains, but no definite clivages, and even the tectonic plates move nonstop. I truly equate health with completeness and a broad consciousness of reality and nature itself is the wisest example of it, in its nonsensical chaos and mathematic perfection. An optimal functioning happens when an Fi user can integrate both dispositions, having accute flexibility and PRESENCE to intuitively and realistically see if the moment calls for a seelie or an unseelie disposition
(this requires development of Te and Si or Se, overall horizontal development and neurosis-healing).
The same goes with Adaptative and Directive Fe. A good exercise for Fi users with prevalent seelie Fi is to feel inspired by his or her unseelie other-side and its importance to operate in a more realistic basis and the external manifestations we see in unseelie Fi users. A good exercise with Fi users with prevalent unseelie Fi is to feel inspired by by his or her seelie other-side and its importance to operate in a more realistic basis and the external manifestations we see in seelie Fi users. Exactly the same goes with Adaptative Fe users and Directive Fe users.
A factor of complication in this optimal process/movement resides in the fact that the external manifestations of the poles tend to be extreme, and easily subject to dislikes and projections of non-integrated shadow aspects.
The Three Trends (Moving Towards, Against, Away From) – Karen Horney and The Enneagram
I am conviced by experience and observation that enneagram type, tritype and instinct are all inborn, innate, not determined by nurture. I am also convinced that we are born with our CT.
It stands out clearly to me and to heron (we have been observing this and discussing this) that Fe users who have prevalence of withdrawn or/and compliant types in the tritype/trifix will inevitably develop Adaptative Fe. On the other hand, Fe users who have prevalence of assertive types in the tritype/trifix will inevitably end up having Directive Fe.
These three trends (Moving Towards, Against, Away From) were presented by Karen Horney. I suggest you to research about this topic if you don’t have previous knowledge about it, as I don’t want to write an unnecessarily long post). It seems to me and to heron that Fe users who have both 3 and 9 in the tritype are the most remarkedly Adaptative Fe users. 3s adapt to be seen under a favorable light, they are chameleons that give what the audience wants, intuitively adapting and changing color all the time to match the audience –even if the audience is only one interlocutor. 9s adapt because agreeing and avoiding confrontation and conflict is their main defense mechanism.
5 is an withdrawn type and can ‘adapt’ if it is to avoid being exposed or catch attention, they want to be invisible, disappear and be left alone as defense strategy. If this type is coupled with 3 and 9 in the tritype, this combo will be highly adaptative.
The 459 tritype, the Contemplative, being triple withdrawn has no element of assertiveness in any of the types. Jung is an example, he was 954 NiFe and had adaptative Fe.
The assertive types are 3, 7 and 8. And people with at least two of these types in the tritype will tend have Directive Fe except/UNLESS they have 9 as gut-fix, as 3 and 9 together have that ultra-adaptative effect I commented some lines above.
It seems to me that the tritypes (in Fe users) more inclined to have adaptative Fe are: 259, 269, 279 (not always), 359, 369, 379, 459, 469. The tritypes least likely: 368, 468, 458, 478 (if 4 is leading this can change in this one).
My doctor, probably not knowing the enneagram, was able to spot my gut-fix in the untamable wild warrior in me on the day I was born, only a baby with an 8 fix can be described with that level of fierceness.
but from what he described of his experience/manifestation it sounds to me like he has Fe characterized by both directiveness and what Erifrail and I have called an 'angsty disposition'. It is similar to the unseelie disposition of Fi. This angst is basically a confrontational, generally negative disposition that I've seen most often in Beta types whose Ni has developed a worldview which is disenchanted by humanity, it's part of what gives subtypes like the NiFe Covert Addict their independent, badass kind of vibe. I'm unsure if Heron would relate with this sort of description himself, but as I say, just from analyzing what he said I thought it may be the case.
I'm a bit skeptical about the idea of unconscious function modality though. I agree that Fe as a mechanism has the potential to manifest either adaptively or directively - and really, I think these are only two aspects of modality which happen to manifest in an obvious way. But, I've seen it that an individual will be capable of the approach which is most practiced. That which is not practiced is not manifested.
I do see this as part of my introverted, passive nature, but I'm not positively identified with it. I have seen the sort of attitude you describe though, most often in individuals with directive Fe who happen to have a fixation on their own way of doing things. Those with the gumption for dynamic movement may tend to look at others with less ability as 'lazy', 'weak', etc.
