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Jung, Myers, Keirsey, etc. on Freud’s Type

* Though Odajnyk seems to say in his book that Freud was an ISFP (early life) and then an ISTJ (later life), this is actually an error in the editing process surrounding the publication of the book. Odajnyk’s true assessment of Freud is as we have listed above: As an INF type with F dominance (early life) and then as an IST type with T dominance later in life. Our source is personal correspondence with Odajnyk.

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Historiographical Note on Freud’s Type

Like our assessments of Aristotle (ENTJ) and Steve Jobs (ISTP) we are the first to suggest the type of ISTJ for Freud and also the first parties to argue that claim within the literature. As with our other assessments, our type-assessment of Freud is now starting to show up in copy-pasted forms in other places on the internet (rarely with credit or acknowledgement) but when we published in (ca. 2010) there were no other parties arguing the claim.

Of the scholarly assessments listed above, most of the Jungian writers are probably not voicing an independent opinion, but trying to echo Jung’s assessment of Freud as either an EST or Fi Type. Most of them knew that Jung thought Freud was either of these types, but Jung’s full, later assessment of Freud (Fi with N) was not a point of public knowledge, even to orthodox Jungians. Similarly, Myers probably echoed Jung’s assessment of Freud as EST when she wrote that Freud was an extrovert in Gifts Differing. But that time, ironically, Jung no longer believed that Freud was an extrovert, yet Jung never owned up to his mistake in public, and kept saying that Freud was an extrovert in interviews, even though his private letters (published posthumously) reveal that Jung had really come to think of Freud as an INFP.

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As you can see, the assessments of Freud’s type are all over the place. As we have previously said, Freud is a sort of psychological sphinx; a man who had both advanced knowledge of human psychology and purposefully tried to hide his true personality in his conduct and writings. As such, the most fitting statement on the wide deviations of opinion is the following, as made by Jung:

“Freud is a very neurotic character. … This makes it hard to determine his type.”

Or by the philosopher Karl Jaspers:

“[To the investigator] Freud himself remains an opaque personality.”

Or as the prominent Freud biographer Peter Gay would have it:

“As every biographer of Freud must ruefully acknowledge, that great unriddler of mysteries left behind some tantalizing private mysteries of his own.”

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