Jung Personality Types

“DESCRIBE AND EVALUATE CARL JUNG’S THEORY CONCERNING PERSONALITY TYPES AND SHOW HOW THEY MIGHT USEFULLY HELP A THERAPIST TO DETERMINE THERAPEUTIC GOALS?”

Personality is made up of the characteristic thoughts, feelings and behaviours that make a person unique. The influence of genetic and hereditary factors alongside upbringing, culture and experience are recognised as influencing an individual’s personality. Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. In the therapy situation the personality of the client will have an influence on the way that the therapist helps them to meet their therapeutic goal. Carl Jung’s theory of personality suggests that there are distinct personality types into which each individual can be placed. His theory can be applied in a counselling situation to help the therapist meet the client’s goals but in recent years most researchers believe it is impossible to explain the diversity of human personality with a small number of discrete types.
The idea that we can understand ourselves and others by categorizing the ways in which we experience, respond, and behave toward the physical and social world has a long tradition. Jung was inspired by the ancient Greek physician Galen, Galen’s theory of temperament was based on the four basic body fluids (humors): blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. According to their relative predominance in an individual, they would produce, respectively, temperaments designated sanguine (warm, pleasant), phlegmatic (slow-moving, apathetic), melancholic (depressed, sad), and choleric (quick to react, hot-tempered).   “Whereas the earlier classifications were based on observations of temperamental or emotional behaviour patterns, Jung’s model is concerned with the movement of psychic energy and the way in which one habitually or preferentially orients one-self in the world.” (Sharp p12).
Jung tried to reconcile the theories of Freud and Adler. He proposed...