What exactly does it mean to reach individuation in relation to our cognitive functions?
To attempt an answer to this question about individuation, I will first explain some basic terms/ideas to make the meaning of this question more easily digestible.
According to Carl Jung’s understanding – the father of analytical psychology:
Individuation – is known as the process of transforming one’s psyche by bringing the personal and collective unconscious into conscious.
What does this mean in modern english?
Individuation is basically about reaching your full potential. It is the process of reaching our full potential by becoming all that we can uniquely be.
So the question being posited is:
What exactly does it mean to reach your full potential?
And more specifically,
What could reaching our full potential mean in relation to developing our cognitive functions?
You see, each of the 16 MBTI types have 4 cognitive functions (out of 8) that they will have relatively easy access to, in an order that is unique to them and causes different personalities to emerge. An INTJ, like myself, has cognitive functions in the order of Ni/Te/Fi/Se , while an ESFP will have cognitive functions of Se/Fi/Te/Ni. Merely because of the order of our functions, despite sharing the same ones, the different personality types will have very different ways of perceiving life.
As we grow older and experience new stimulus in our environment, individuation happens, where the 4 cognitive functions we are naturally inclined to using, start to develop in different ways from people who share the same personality type as us. Because of the effect of our environment, the same personality types can seem extremely different because of the way their cognitive functions are developed and used differently.
So my question is really asking what does it mean for us to reach our full potential within the context of these thought processes that become very unique to us over time? How do we know if we are on the right track to maximizing our potential?
Here are some theories on individuation I have come across in the discussions I have had:
#1: The Jesus Christ Theory
I call this the Jesus Christ Theory because it assumes that reaching our full potential is about maximizing all our cognitive functions as high as possible. Generally, this seems to be what society implicitly encourages when they expect you to get all A’s on every single class in high school or when in college , they expect you to understand every single aspect of some subject that most professionals in the field don’t even know or care for. To make this idea more clear, here’s a chart below that illustrates this concept through an INTJ type.
As you can see, all the functions are supposedly developed in this INTJ, who has maximized everything. But let us say we were to assume that another individual, one with the personality type of an ESFP instead, maximized all their functions. Wouldn’t the end result of this individual be the same? Are we all really supposed to be aiming towards a homogenous set of skills and abilities? This explanation of reaching our full potential seems rather bland to me as it assumes that individual perfection is maximizing our abilities in all ways.
And my guess would be that the INTJ who would try to achieve the Jesus Christ Theory’s results, would probably end up having growth that looks rather mediocre, like this:
If you are too focused on trying to be good at everything, chances are that you will likely end up mediocre at everything. This leads me to believe that individuation is not about trying to maximize all your functions. Rather, I believe individuation is about what the word implicitly implies in its etymology: becoming our own individual to the best that we can be, which leads to the next point.
#2: Type Maximization Theory
The next theory I have termed – Type Maximization theory says that maximizing our potential would mean that we invest time into developing our cognitive functions in a way that will reflect our natural talents.
Consider the INTJ, whose first 4 functions are Introverted Intuition, Extroverted Thinking, Introverted Feeling, Extroverted Sensing. Naturally, his strongest function is introverted intuition and it becomes progressively weaker with each following function. We may examine the INTJ who is uninformed about MBTI and has naturally been following his interests. We may find him at these levels of growth as a young adult:
As we can see, his dominant function, introverted intuition, has developed to a relatively strong point and his extroverted thinking is beginning to develop as well, along with his introverted feeling and extroverted sensing. He has not begun tapping into the other functions at all. We can see that he is naturally showing talent in his top 4 functions and has little inclination to develop the others (unless of course, environmental factors have led to the development of other functions, which is quite common).
How is this young adult to proceed in the concerted development of his growth, armed with the knowledge of cognitive functions?
I venture to say this: He should develop his dominant and auxiliary functions to the peak while giving consecutively less and less attention to his other functions unless it is called upon in his internal desires or environmental conditions to develop another function to the required levels.
An INTJ who has used cognitive functions as a guide to his development may eventually find his growth to end up like this:
An INTJ has the potential to reach extremely high levels with his dominant and auxiliary functions, introverted intuition and extraverted thinking, because it is natural to him. It is akin to being able to become extremely dextrous with your natural right hand after 10,000 hours of practice compared to using your left hand for 10,000 hours and not achieving the same level of dexterity. Rather than trying to work on the naturally weak left hand, otherwise – the naturally weak functions, a person should at-least focus on the dominant and auxiliary functions of their MBTI type if they wish to master themselves and reach individuation.
Often, I feel many people are using and developing their functions in a way that is very intrinsically wrong for them since they do not understand themselves or they are forced to develop the wrong functions because of the need to work and produce monetary income. However, if more people understood themselves, and accepted themselves rather than trying to meet the standards that society respects, they could happily find their own place in the world by enjoying tasks related to the maximizing of their functions.
Each person has an internal calling that is very individual to them because of the influences of their environment, and through the skills that develop from their hopefully maximized dominant and auxiliary functions, they may very well be able to reach individuation and create a unique influence on their world for the better.
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