thinking Archives - Daniel Davis, LMFT

How Are You Feeling?

May 31, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

”It is our feeling function that gives a sense of joy, worth, and meaning to life . . . . No one ever succeeded in finding a reason for living by the reasoning process,” writes Robert Johnson.

“It is as if we have gained the highest technical civilization in the history of the world but at the cost of losing the simpler virtues of happiness and contentment,” writes Robert Johnson.

Every country and every culture throughout the world take on a certain character. The Italians have a reverence for extraverted feeling, says Robert Johnson. This is also true for Mexico. Whereas the Germans have a preference for introverted thinking. Within each culture there are individuals with a great variety of personality types, yet a culture as a whole makes a collective choice about what is revered. The Japanese prefer introverted sensing which can be seen in beautifully manicured Zen gardens throughout Japan.

In India, introverted feeling is revered. “One quickly sees the wealth of vocabulary and corresponding consciousness in the realm of feeling but suffering from a crushing poverty in awareness of the practical elements of science, politics, and planning. One can learn by observing a society that has exactly the opposite pattern of inferiority and superiority from one’s own,” writes Robert Johnson.

Whole cultures make a typology decision. Collectively America has made the decision that thinking is the most virtuous capacity that a human being can portray. “Our superior function has given us science and the highest standard of living the world has ever known – the envy of the third world – but at the cost of impoverishing the feeling function,” writes Robert Johnson.

Apple builds the iPhone. Boeing assembles 767 airliners. These types of accomplishments come from a highly disciplined thinking function. Bill Gates writing computer software code, late at night, is the symbol of the useful, brilliant, and noble man in modern life. The person who develops mastery with the extraverted thinking function is our contemporary hero. The development of the thinking function is the focus of most American schools and universities. In the United States, individuals with a well-developed thinking function are offered the best jobs and are the best paid. The development of the thinking function and the things produced have great value for the world.

Yet when one specializes in one function, then the opposite function is neglected. One specializes in extraverted thinking by robbing from its opposite – the introverted feeling function. “One feels this coldness around people who are who are feeling wounded, and they seem to reply to warmth or relatedness in some objective or dispassionate manner that stops all feeling ‘cold’ in its tracks. It is as if such a person is unable to see over his own woundedness and contact another on a human level,” writes Robert Johnson.

Yet it is our greatest weaknesses that provides us with the means to our greatest triumphs. In the English-speaking world, thinking is the superior function. Therefore, it is in our feeling function that our salvation lies collectively.

Unfortunately, discussing the feeling function in English is a challenge, because there are no suitable words. When we lack vocabulary, it naturally follows that we lack consciousness. “Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty, Greek three, and English only one. . . . Imagine what richness would be expressed if one had a specific vocabulary for the love of one’s father, another word for love of one’s mother, yet another for one’s camel (the Persian’s have this luxury), still another for one’s lover, and another exclusively for the sunset,” writes Robert Johnson.

No matter how much we think or things we buy – homes, cars, jewelry – we cannot soothe the suffering and wounded feelings. Money and power will not restore our creativity. “I am often puzzled in going to India to see people who have so little in an outer sense but have so much happiness,” asserts Robert Johnson.

Please watch this video by John Gallagher about personality and the feeling and intuitive functions:

Blog 58

What Kind of Attitude do You Have?

May 10, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

“Sensation tells us something exists; thinking tells you what it is; feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not; and intuition tells you (from where) whence it comes and where it is going,” writes Carl Jung.

Our attitude determines the direction and order of our psychological functions: sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition. There are four attitudes: Introverted, Extraverted, Judging, and Perceiving. Each person who prefers introversion is primarily concerned with the inner world. Someone who prefers extraversion is oriented to events primarily in the outer world. Someone who prefers judging is oriented to the outer world in an organized and methodical way. One who prefers the perceiving attitude is open and free flowing with the outer world.

There are eight psychological types:

Extraverting sensation – People who prefer this type are primarily concerned with objective reality, with how things really are. Their constant pursuit is to “have sensations and enjoy them if possible,” says Jung.

Introverting sensation – Emma Jung (who preferred introvert sensation) described herself as being like a highly sensitized photographic plate. Every detail of a situation is observed and these can be recalled at will.

Extraverted thinking – People who prefer Extraverted Thinking are good at “solving problems, reorganizing businesses, clarifying issues, and sorting the grain from the chaff,” writes Anthony Stevens. They are often concerned with outer conditions – not theories or ideas.

Introverted Thinking – People who prefer Introverted Thinking show little interest in events that take place in the outer world but basically are concerned with ideas and theories. They want to understand impersonal and objective truth. They seek justice and value fairness.

Extraverted Feeling – People who prefer Extraverted Feeling value what is culturally acceptable. They are easy to get along with. They are able to read others and then respond by caring for others when possible.

Introverted Feeling – Those who prefer Introverted Feeling have a clear sense of their internal values and generally keep to themselves. They exert influence on others by embodying their internal values.

Extraverted Intuition – People who prefer Extraverted Intuition quickly see the possibilities in a given situation. They identify patterns and connections and seek to reshape their environment.

Introverted Intuition – Individuals who prefer Introverted Intuition focus on unconscious images, like dreams and visions. They have difficulty communicating about these images and may uses abstract symbols to explain their insights.

We all have different gifts that we bring to our families, marriages, workplace, and communities. The better we are able to see each other’s gifts and collaborate together, they more we are able to accomplish together. Understanding psychological types helps us to relate well and be successful. If we observe what we do, say, and think, we will be better students and workers. Who are you?

If you want an assessment to understand your psychological type, please consider contacting me at danieldavislmft@gmail.com. Also, please watch this video by Gretchen Sterenberg on note making:

Blog 55

What Type of Person are You?

May 3, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

“Psychological Type is nothing static – it changes in the course of life,” writes Carl Jung.

“We cannot safely assume that other people’s minds work on the same principles as our own. All too often, others with whom we come in contact do not reason as we reason, or do not value the things we value, or are not interested in what interests us,” writes Isabel Briggs Myers.

All of us humans have the same psychological equipment to perceive what happens inside us as well as outside us. We use four different kinds of building blocks to form ideas about our experiences and decide how to respond to events – sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition. Virtually every one of us is born with a preference for one of these four psychological functions in a descending order. We will use all four of these functions, but our preference will determine how much we will use sensation, thinking, feeling and intuition.

Sensation is simple to explain – how one relates with material things in the world. When a person who prefers sensation type person enters a room, he evaluates the things in it. “There is a solid black table and wooden shelves. The walls are brick, and ceiling has exposed beams.”

The thinking function is rational, cool, and logical. One who prefers thinking will interpret events as they happen, working what it means. This rational psychological function is high valued and almost exclusively taught in North American schools. Our capacity to think is tested and an I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) labels us. Our place in the modern American world is almost exclusively determined by our ability to think, says Robert Johnson.

The feeling function is a way of judging using values. One who prefers feeling function responds to what happens with value judgment. “Awesome concert, Dude!” “This class bites!”

This name can be confusing, because the term “feeling” function is often confused with emotion or affect. Feeling, in this sense, is the capacity to place value on people, places, things, and events. For many, the feeling function is the orphan of these four and largely misunderstood and haphazardly named.

The person who prefers intuition is able to ‘see’ the whole picture, asserts Anthony Stevens. This is a mysterious process. Intuition is very hard to define. “It is an extraordinary and out of the world capacity of knowing without knowing how one knows,” says Robert Johnson.

These four functions are like radio stations, we can either use our thinking function or our feeling function at one time. Jung assumes that we are born with a preference for one of these. Due to this preference, we will often develop skills related to one of these functions. If we are not supported in our family and schools to develop our preferred functions, then we may have difficulty. For the psychological functions that we naturally prefer may be undeveloped. We are like a fish trying to fly. A fish needs to swim; this is what they are naturally inclined to do.

Balancing our brain helps us to use more of our mind. It is very helpful to learn over time to access all our psychological functions. Please consider watching this video on the importance of balancing your brain:

Blog 54

A Felt Sense of the Body

February 2, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Alexithymia is a condition where one has difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings. Someone with Alexithymia has trouble with thinking and regulating their emotions. This disorder appears to be partly responsible for disease and mental health issues.

John Omaha, the inventor of Affect Management Skills Training, cites research that men lack emotional sensitivity. Research indicates that emotional numbness is a one way someone responds to stressful challenges in life. Men are more emotionally numb that women. I realize that this is not a surprise to much of the world. Men, women, and children are often reminded of how men lack emotional sensitivity. Women are often better at bonding than men which is related to emotional sensitivity.

Many men have one person that they share their insecurities, fears, shame, sadness, or tragedies – their wife or girlfriend. Many men do not even share intimately with anyone. It can be a lonely world to hide our feelings and thoughts from everyone. I must add that some women do not share their insecurities, fears, shame, anger, or tragedies with anyone as well.

Women seem more playful than men. Watch children. The girls and boys are singing. The girls will be swaying and grooving with the music. The boys will be stiff as boards. It may be the due to incomplete separation from their mother. Robert Bly writes: “When a girl is two or three, she can look up at her mother and say ‘That is what I am going to be’. A boy the same age can look up at his mother and say, ‘That is not what I am going to be’. Separating from the mother is difficult for both genders; some children have good luck with it, some less good luck”. When we separate from our mothers, other boys often shame us calling us sissy or mama’s boy. This results in a wound that stays with us for a long time. Some boys are able to resolve this wound and gain more separation from their mother psychologically.

If as men, we are unable to resolve our wound separating from our mother as a young boy, then will tend to be stiff. We may become a lawyer, an engineer, or scientist. We can become obsessed with distance. He may have a tendency as an adult to treat people as if they were things, and to treat things as if they were people.

Although social support is a key factor in our psychological and physical health, many of us live lives of isolation, loneliness, and despair. We may live in bedroom communities in our neighborhoods, driving home late in our smart cars to our big screen televisions, computers, or smart phones. Some of us are overwhelmed with the responsibilities of children or work that we scarcely feel as if we have a free moment. We had friends once, but no longer find time.

Our experiences of our bodies may be numbness and pain. We may experience moments of relief when eating or drinking alcohol or having sex or playing a video game or working on the computer. Robert Johnson wrote: “We have an insatiable need of entertainment – we moderns watch TV and other screens more than seven hours a day – and for anything that might assuage our longing, especially late at night”.

Many of us remain strangers to our body sensations. Waking up to our emotions, body shifts, vital energy, erotic urges, and even aggressive impulses can be disturbing. We have become strangers to our own pleasure. We have sacrificed our joy for the seductive distractions of the commercial replacements in modern life.

From our morning caffeine, to our mid-morning sugar, to our afternoon Red Bull, and then to the big dinner and perhaps a few drinks. We may find temporary relief in our submission to much artificial assistants to climb up the daunting hill of our day, only to rest and do it all again tomorrow.

Vacations are a rarity. If someone takes time off, they must check their email and return phone calls from work matters. They may get up at 3:00 am for meetings with colleagues from around the globe. We become a source of output for the corporate profit machine. What is our reward? Where do we find relief or sanctuary if our own body no longer recognizes pleasure but only a relief from pain into temporary numbness?

Please watch this video by Nils Peterson on poetry and the body:

How Are You Feeling?

What Kind of Attitude do You Have?

What Type of Person are You?

A Felt Sense of the Body

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