How to Know if Infj Intensely Likes You
INFJs are "old souls." Many abound upwards feeling wiser than would exist predicted by their chronological historic period. Having discovered the value of their Introverted Intuition (Ni) quite early in life, INFJs grow to trust its judgments and insights. Even every bit children and adolescents, INFJs tin be found advising and counseling their friends and siblings, and perhaps even developed family members. They tend to feel happiest and most fulfilled when helping and enlightening others through their insights.
Because of their strength of intuition (and commensurate detachment from concrete reality), many INFJs report feeling like aliens in the earth. One INFJ described her experience as "a perpetual sense of deja vu." Others report feelings of disembodiment. The fact is that many INFJs (and INTJs) seem to experience the earth and their bodies quite differently than other types do. It is therefore not uncommon for INFJs to question their own sanity.
INFJs come across two people in anybody. They see the public persona, the outer beat, which everyone else sees. But more important, their Ni provides a deeper sense or impression of people, penetrating appearances and revealing hidden motives and intentions. Consequently, INFJs often feel they can come across people more clearly than those people tin can run across themselves.
To fully understand INFJs, information technology is necessary to recognize the full implications of their dominant function, Ni, existence a Perceiving function. Namely, INFJs are far less serious inwardly than they appear outwardly (ENFJs, whose dominant function is a Judging function, are characteristically more serious). INFJs' inner earth is well described equally playful, imaginative, colorful, mischievous, and daring. They dear playing with ideas, perspectives, theories, images, symbols, and metaphors.
INFJs also savour listening to music, watching movies and idiot box, and engaging with people. Perhaps more than anything, they dearest spending time engrossed in meaningful conversation, which allows them to simultaneously appoint their Ni and auxiliary Fe functions. Talking affords INFJs the opportunity to help and enlighten others through their insights. And because of their loquaciousness, INFJs may at times be mistaken for Extraverts.
A signature feature of INFJs (and INTJs) is a deep concern for quality. They long to see their Ni ideals actualized in concrete reality (Se). Consider the following excerpt from our book, My True Type:
While Se attends the appearance of things, Ni is concerned with their deeper qualities and substantiveness…While INJs are to some extent concerned with appearances, they are more attuned to the underlying quality and craftsmanship of things…ensuring that things are substantive, thoughtfully-crafted, and otherwise amenable to their Ni-Se tastes. NFJs, in particular, exhibit the almost refined (or what other types might deem expensive or pretentious) tastes of all types. The popular television comedy, Frasier, is a great example. Much of the prove'southward humor revolves effectually the sophisticated snobbiness of Frasier (ENFJ) and his brother Niles (INFJ). This includes flaunting linguistic formalisms and a high-brow vocabulary, likewise as frequent allusions to fine dining, classical music, designer habiliment, and the like.
Like the INFP, the INFJ can struggle with depression. This may stem from feeling chronically unheard, useless, or misunderstood, as well as from dissatisfaction with INFJ careers or INFJ relationships. Considering Ni perceives the world so differently and profoundly, INFJs often feel a sense of loneliness and isolation, even when they are with other people. Depression may also ascend from feeling that their ideals and insights are non being recognized or actualized in the world. They may see the globe as deafened to, or unconcerned with, the truths they espouse. INFJs may therefore question their value in a world that seems indifferent to their insights.
The INFJ personality type is amidst the rarest of the 16 types, constituting only 1-two% of the full general population. Different the INTJ type, in which males predominate, at that place is greater gender parity amongst INFJs, with nearly equal numbers of males and females.
INFJ Personality Development & Functional Stack
Each personality type prefers to use four of the viii functions first described by Jung. These four functions comprise a type's "functional stack." The relative force of preference for these four functions is expressed in the following manner: dominant, auxiliary, 3rd, and inferior. INFJs' start preference is Ni, followed past Atomic number 26, Ti and Se respectively. This is depicted in the organisation of their functional stack:
INFJ Functional Stack
Ascendant: Introverted Intuition (Ni)
Auxiliary: Extraverted Feeling (Iron)
Tertiary: Introverted Thinking (Ti)
Inferior: Extraverted Sensing (Se)
While we volition presently talk over each function in greater depth, for now, nosotros will turn to some other feature of INFJs' personality—their blazon development. Every bit is true for all types, INFJs' type development consists of three general phases. These phases roughly correspond to the ordering of the functional stack, with Ni existence the showtime function to bloom, Fe the second, on so on. Only as nosotros will see, the junior role is sort of a special instance, summoning INFJs' attention at an earlier phase than might otherwise exist expected.
Phase I (Childhood)
Early on in life, INFJs are characterized by the development and authority of their Introverted Intuition (Ni). Since they are Introverts, they may also prove meaning evolution of their 2nd role, Extraverted Feeling (Atomic number 26), which can serve every bit a useful extraverted tool for navigating the outside world. The Ni-Atomic number 26 part pair allows INFJs to make and limited judgments. INFJs are specially well-equipped to read and evaluate people, including their underlying motives.
Since Ni is a Perceiving office, INFJs should not be viewed as closed-minded at whatever bespeak in their development. Just during Phase I, they might appear overly opinionated or closed-minded, at least from without. Even if their judgments are precociously accurate, Stage I INFJs may lack some discernment regarding if and when it is all-time to limited those judgments. Moreover, their Ni-Iron conclusions have yet to be honed and tempered past their 3rd Ti, making the INFJ more than reluctant to carefully review or revise them.
Phase II (Adolescence-30s)
Once the dominant part reaches a certain threshold of strength and authorization, INFJs' junior role, Extraverted Sensing (Se), enters the picture and begins to play a more influential role. This can exist confusing because the junior is not next in line for development in the functional stack. The junior's undue influence derives from its bipolar human relationship with the dominant part. As I've discussed elsewhere, the inferior function is the primary culprit in unwise career and relational decision-making. Unfortunately, its influence peaks in Phase Ii of blazon development, which happens to exist the same time INFJs are making life-altering decisions about their careers and relationships.
In addition to the increasing presence and influence of their junior office, INFJs besides begin to open up upwards and hone their judgments by way of their tertiary part, Introverted Thinking (Ti). The logic of their Ti serves to cross-check and refine their Ni-Fe judgments. As INFJs develop their Ti, they also get more interested in exploring their inferior part, Extraverted Sensing (Se).
Phase Iii (30s, 40s, & Beyond)
Phase 3, a phase which many individuals never reach or complete, is characterized past an attempt to understand and integrate the third and inferior functions. By bringing these less conscious functions into the light of consciousness, nosotros tin amend envision our path toward wholeness. Doing then requires understanding the nature of how these functions manifest within our type and becoming more aware of our personal patterns of unconscious behavior. One time these patterns accept been fabricated apparent, they can be replaced with healthier thoughts and behaviors. Decisions and behaviors become increasingly wise and conscious, engendering a lasting sense of satisfaction and wholeness. For INFJs, Phase Three personal growth entails a deeper exploration of the nature of and challenges associated with their tertiary Ti and inferior Se.
INFJs' Dominant Function: Introverted Intuition
Intuition is generally considered a hidden process. Information technology is often contrasted with more than conscious types of rational thought. Because Intuition is ordinarily associated with the unconscious, it is often thought to have a certain magical quality, capable of delivering comprehensive answers or solutions suddenly—"out of the blue." I of the central features of Intuition is its chapters to synthesize information. It's sensitive to patterns and similarities, speedily seeing connections amongst disparate pieces of data. By seeing how everything is connected and interrelated, it is capable of discerning universal laws and structures.
What is interesting about types with dominant Intuition, including INFJs, is that this Intuitive process, which for non-Intuitives is largely unconscious, is more accessible and observable in consciousness. This seems particularly true for INTJs and INFJs, whose Intuition is directly inwardly rather than being fused with the outside world. INJs have the good fortune of witnessing and consciously participating in a mysterious process which for other types is entirely unconscious.
Because Ni affords INFJs a more intimate relationship with the workings of what most people call the subconscious mind, INFJs' routine being ofttimes assumes a sort of dreamlike quality. For INFJs, in that location is less of a distinction between their ordinary waking state and the feel of sleep. At times, this can make it difficult to separate dream from reality, making nightmares all the more agonizing for this type. It is footling wonder that many INJs, including Jung himself, find dream analysis so intriguing and important.
Considering of their ready access to subconscious or subliminal information, INFJs are commonly viewed as profound, insightful, and sometimes even psychic or prophetic. While not diminishing the unique capacities of INFJs, Ni tin can be rational, non-magical terms.
In order to sympathise Ni, information technology is start necessary to sympathize INFJ's junior function, Extraverted Sensing (Se). For INFJs, Se functions subconsciously and is constantly gathering copious amounts of sensory information from the environment. Meanwhile, their Ni is constantly working to process and synthesize this incoming data, like assembling pieces of a puzzle. Eventually, it manages to construct an impression or vision of what is happening. Because other types are not privy to the workings of this Ni-Se processing loop, information technology can seem as though INFJs' insights are magical or divinely inspired. In reality, INFJs cannot run across the future, but are simply more than skilled than almost at accurately discerning what is happening in a given state of affairs. This allows them to ameliorate envision how things might unfold should they keep along their current course. This ability to accurately "see" is why INFJs are sometimes described equally prophets or seers.
It is oftentimes said that human being beings rely more heavily on vision than nosotros do our other senses. This seems especially true of INFJs, who often ascribe a strong visual element to their Ni. INFJs often "call up" by manner of images rather than words. Their intuitions oft manifest in the form of symbols, images, dreams, or patterns. This is consistent with Jung's characterization of the Ni type as a dreamer or seer. At that place is a distinct visual character to these notions, which is why vision-related terms—foresight, insight, seer, visionary, etc.—are invariably used in describing INFJs. The visual nature of Ni might also necktie into INFJs' inferior Se, which is also a highly visual office. The departure is that Se is attuned to the specifics and details of the environment, whereas Ni is more concerned with forming an impression or theory of what is happening based on the totality of incoming sensory information.
INFJs' propensity for processing information visually may contribute to one of their signature strengths: reconciling opposites. One advantage of visual processing is information technology doesn't take the same rules or impediments of verbal processing. In some cases, problems may be better solved by employing images or symbols rather than by other means. It should not surprise usa that Jung himself hailed the value of imagery and symbols. For Jung, symbols were critical for dealing with paradoxes, including the claiming of reconciling opposing psychological functions, which he dubbed "the type trouble."
INFJs' Auxiliary Function: Extraverted Feeling
INFJs use Extraverted Feeling (Fe) as their auxiliary function. As the most interpersonal of all the functions, Iron is attuned to surveying and improving interpersonal feelings and morale. Like other FJ types, INFJs work to cultivate "practiced feelings" in the interpersonal surroundings. In lodge to survey others' feelings, Fe contributes to INFJs' ability to read emotional expressions and body linguistic communication. This, in combination with their Se and Ni, permit them to finer read, empathize, and relate to others.
Interestingly, INFJs can have a more difficult fourth dimension with perceiving and understanding their own emotions. This is due to the fact that their Feeling office is directed outwardly (i.east., extraverted) rather than inwardly. Unlike INFPs, whose Feeling function is introverted (Fi), INFJs are less equipped to manage their emotions independently. Inwardly, they deal in the currency of Intuition (Ni) and Thinking (Ti). Hence, when INFJs detect themselves in emotionally taxing circumstances, they ofttimes turn to others for help and support.
Fe besides entails an extraversion of judgment. INFJs utilize their Fe to limited their thoughts, feelings, opinions, and grievances. Fe gives voice and shape to INFJs' feelings and intuitions. In many cases, INFJs exercise not fully understand the nature of an Ni insight until given the opportunity to verbalize it. They may have a hunch or a gut feeling, only the content of the intuition can remain somewhat nebulous until information technology is expressed via their Fe. Assuming they accept not been severely censored in their upbringing, INFJs are by and large happy to share their feelings and perspectives. In fact, given the right opportunity, INFJs will often talk at length about their feelings and intuitions. Unlike FP types, who generally prefer a more dialogical format, INFJs are inclined toward monologues, which permit them to fully flesh out their ideas on a certain topic.
INFJs' Fe tin nowadays differently among strangers than it does with their intimates. In larger groups, INFJs may seem consistently cheery equally part of their attempt to cultivate skillful feelings. Many INFJs have a good sense of humor and tin be funny and engaging. Enlisting their brilliant imaginations and knack for metaphor, they can also make good storytellers. In the company of close confidants, however, INFJs use their Fe to be more than open and direct with their grievances. Since some INFJs feel similar tortured souls, their commentary may have on a characteristically negative tone. They may seem moody, pessimistic, discontented, or restless. They tin can also seem fairly intense in their advice when infused with the emotion of Iron. Consequently, their expressions tin seem exaggerated, dramatic, or irrational, peculiarly to Thinking types. They differ in this respect from INFPs, who are less disposed to melodrama in their verbiage. INFJs tin too be susceptible to self-pity and self-loathing, seeing themselves as victims. They may curse the fact that life isn't fair, feeling that they e'er cease up with the short end of the stick.
For INFJs, expressing themselves through their Fe is critical to their psychological and concrete health and well-beingness. Fifty-fifty if doing so does non provide them with firsthand solutions to the trouble at paw, they tend to feel amend once they take expressed their feelings, whether through words or tears. This is particularly important for the mates or friends of INFJs to recognize. While non necessarily looking for others to solve their issues, INFJs value emotional support, empathy, and reassurance. Without such an outlet, INFJs can brainstorm to feel isolated and depressed, turning to their inner fantasy earth every bit a means of escape. And while fantasizing may seem helpful in the short-term, it can make the real globe seem fifty-fifty less tolerable and exacerbate existing frustrations toward life.
INFJs tin can be warm, welcoming, loyal, giving, and self-sacrificing. At the same time, every bit Introverts, they need time to themselves to recharge their proverbial batteries. This creates an ongoing, even lifelong, struggle for INFJs, trying to residual their own needs and desires with those of others.
INFJs commonly feel a conflict in values between their Ni and Fe. For example, they may exist asked by a friend or relative to donate to a cause they don't believe in. This puts them in the difficult position of deciding between honoring their own perspectives (Ni) or maintaining the harmony of the human relationship (Fe). Since INFJs can take difficulty saying no, they will oft opt to oblige others, even while inwardly regretting doing so. INFJs may experience similar problems in school. INFJs are disposed to questioning the veracity of what the teacher or other students are saying, not to mention issues of character. At the same time, however, they desire to please the instructor and maintain external harmony. This can exit them feeling torn between allegiance to truth (Ni) versus Fe people-pleasing.
Considering of the strength of their Fe, INFJs demand to be careful not to abandon their Ni in the confront of outward pressures. Since Ni is their all-time and most reliable compass for navigating life, when they lose runway of it, INFJs can easily feel lost, restless, and frustrated. Hence, when information technology comes to decision-making, INFJs are wise to heed primarily to their ain inner voice.
INFJs' Third Function: Introverted Thinking
INTPs and ISTPs utilise Introverted Thinking (Ti) as their dominant function. For INFJs, Ti is tertiary, and is used to logically scrutinize and strop their Fe judgments. Ti can help INFJs think more than critically and analytically. It tin serve as an aid and cheque to their Ni-Fe, helping them discern where their ideas might fit into existing categories and frameworks of knowledge. It adds an element of logic that is less apparent in the earlier phases of their type development. For instance, INFJs who grew up in a religious habitation may be disposed to interpreting their insights through the lens of their childhood religion tradition. Equally they develop their Ti, still, they might come to question whether that wisdom might exist better understood in psychological terms.
What INFJs may perceive every bit a negative or difficult feature of their Ti is its tendency to generate self-dubiousness. As Ti butts up against the insights offered by their Ni, INFJs may temporarily distrust their most cherished and utilized manner of knowing—their Intuition. Simply personal growth is never easy, not for any type. With fourth dimension, INFJs settle into a good for you residual between their Ni and Ti, intuitively knowing how to apply their Ti without spoiling the insights proffered by their Intuition.
Less developed INFJs may see little need to use or develop their Ti. Since their Ni-Fe pairing provides them with stiff convictions about truth, taking an additional step to Ti may seem unnecessary. With time and maturity, however, INFJs can abound increasingly comfy with their Ti and recognize its inherent value.
INFJs' Inferior Function: Extraverted Sensing (Se)
Life is a continuous quest for psychospiritual development and integration. Typologically, this involves finding ways to successfully integrate the functional stack. Of the 4 functions, the inferior role—sometimes chosen the lost, missing, or repressed part—is the most difficult to access and integrate. Because information technology is largely unconscious, all types struggle to grasp and sympathize its nature. In dreams, it is often expressed symbolically equally being buried deep underground, undersea, or in a dark forest.
Despite its characteristic elusiveness, it is impossible to reach psychospiritual wholeness without the inferior part, since wholeness demands that all four functions be integrated. Because nosotros all know this intuitively, each personality blazon can be seen as striving to integrate its junior office. This quest has been perennially symbolized in religious and literary myths (east.g., searching for the "promised land" or "Holy Grail"). Some comparative mythologists have even considered information technology a universal human phenomenon (e.g., Joseph Campbell's "monomyth" or the "Hero's Journey"). In his book, Jung's Four and Some Philosophers, Thomas Male monarch nicely outlines this quest for the inferior role:
The time comes when the individual feels life is empty; something is missing. The original sense of purpose is gone and one is dispirited and confused. At this point the private feels called to make a difficult search for the rejected (i.due east., junior) function…The individual sets out on a difficult and unfamiliar journey (eastward.g., "a sea voyage," "a venture into the forest") to locate the missing office.
Here, Rex describes what nosotros might phone call "dominant function fatigue," along with a desire for something new and refreshing. The junior office is definitely up to this challenge. Engendering a type of experience that is characteristically distinct from ascendant, it is commonly described as magical, mysterious, and even blissful. The profound allure of the junior function tin can furnish a corking bargain of life energy and motivation. Indeed, the mere prospect of it often supplies enough free energy to sustain united states for an entire lifetime.
Unfortunately, pursuing, much less integrating, the inferior is not without its difficulties. Doing so typically entails a protracted ability struggle between the dominant and junior functions (i.e., Stage Ii of type development), 1 which is rarely resolved without some measure of pain and suffering. And while religious and literary myths are right in suggesting that the path to conservancy is often revealed through suffering (e.g., "refinement through fire"), this hardship tin can be minimized by understanding the psychological framework upon which the quest for wholeness is founded. This of grade includes learning about the inferior function, as well every bit how to properly integrate it.
INFJs' junior or "missing" part is Extraverted Sensing (Se). More often than not speaking, the inferior nature of their sensing makes INFJs less naturally attuned to the physical details or physical elements of life. While their Se takes in plenty of sensory information from the world effectually them, this data is synthesized and experienced through the lens of intuition (Ni). Then instead of noticing specifics about people or the surround, INFJs are more than apt to experience what nosotros might phone call an impression. They go a full general sense (i.e., intuition) of people or things, such as whether an individual seems psychospiritually healthy or unhealthy. While INFJs are experts when it comes to these sorts of general impressions, they can be rather oblivious to external specifics and details (Se).
In experiencing the world through the filter of Ni, INFJs often study a perpetual sense of déjà vu or foreign alienation with respect to their physical surroundings. Ane of our INFJ readers described it this way:
I will literally just exist sitting at dinner and suddenly realize that I am a physical existence in a room surrounded past so many things I didn't realize for the past hour. This can be a confusing and frightening feel.
This is not to say, however, that INFJs are unaffected by the physical environment. As "highly sensitive persons (HSPs)," their nervous arrangement is highly permeable and sensitive to all sorts of stimuli. This can brand them more susceptible to being overwhelmed or overstimulated than other personality types. In some cases, considering of their N-Due south disconnect, they may not realize that they are overstimulated until it'southward too belatedly.
I observed 1 INFJ, for instance, who seemed to be enjoying herself at a rather loud, strobe light laden concert. But not long later it was over, she experienced a debilitating headache and what seemed to be a "crash" of her nervous arrangement. Somehow, she had managed to remain unaware of the sensory overload until she was finer incapacitated by it.
INFJs report similar experiences with extended shopping excursions. While they may enjoy themselves for a while, sustained use of Se (i.e., browsing), combined with the noise and mayhem of crowds, can issue in a hidden sensory overload or exhaustion that somewhen catches upwardly with them.
In curt, INFJs take a tenuous relationship with the physical environment. Not only tin can the S world seem quite foreign and strange to them, but if they are non careful, it tin can overwhelm them. This is why INFJs, specially every bit children, can exist leery of new S experiences, such as trying new foods or concrete actions. Intuitively realizing their tenuous relationship to the physical world, they tend to "error on the rubber side."
As adults, however, INFJs may gradually open themselves to new S experiences. I have known a number of INFJs, for instance, who are bona fide "foodies," seeing every meal equally an opportunity to explore and experience new sensual delights. This points to the love-detest relationship that all types accept with the inferior function. Depending on the circumstances, inferior part experiences may be perceived as scary, stressful, blissful, or intriguing.
Perfectionism
Envisioning a more than ideal world isn't necessarily bad or unhealthy for INFJs. The fact is that they wouldn't be INFJs if they didn't routinely receive new impressions and visions. The upshot is not with their dreaming per se, simply with the degree to which they go attached to or insistent on the perfect materialization (Se) of their ideals (Ni). This is where INFJs' perfectionism comes to the fore.
All dominant Intuitives can exist perfectionistic, driven to run across their N ethics perfectly translated into S reality. This is why INFJs can be so item about the things they buy or the way their work is washed. In some cases, INFJs may be willing to cede everything, even their ain health, to ensure their vision finds a perfect incarnation. In such instances, any difference from their ideal may feel similar the end of the world.
INFJs are also perfectionistic when it comes to themselves. They are oft much harder on themselves than they are on others. Their Iron makes them more willing to forgive the offenses and shortcomings of others. But since they run across themselves as "knowing amend," they may fail to grant themselves the same degree of grace. They may reason that if they cannot perfectly embody their platonic of the moral life, so how could they reasonably expect anyone else to? In the words of Jesus, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the i who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
Unsure if Y'all're an INFJ or INFP?
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Related Posts:
INFJ Relationships
The "Other Side" of the INFJ
INFP Personality Profile
Famous INFJs / Celebrities:
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Niles (fictional from Frasier), Tori Amos, Robert Reich, John Oliver, Regina Spektor, Gael Garcia Bernal, Peter Joseph, Felicity Jones, Pete Buttigieg
*INFJs ordinarily examination equally Enneagram type 4 (4w3, 4w5) or Enneagram 1 (1w9, 1w2).
I would as well like to give thanks my colleague Elaine Schallock (INFJ) who kindly procured much of the textile for this profile.
Source: https://personalityjunkie.com/the-infj/
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