Why Freud is ISTJ

Comment: Freud has got to be an INTJ. It seems unlikely that an Si-dom would have invented a field as abstract, personalized, and disconnected from reality as psychoanalysis. Almost every quote on your infographic could just as easily apply to an INTJ. Freud didn’t use a data-oriented approach; he generalized from his own and his patients’ subjective experience, and then organized his intuitions into a (vaguely) logical system. Pure Ni-Te. What’s more Ni than dream interpretation? He’s treated today more like an abstract literary lens rather than a concrete scientist.

Additionally, look at his relationship to tradition. He wasn’t dominated by it – he was a great innovator who beat to his own drum, but he allowed a lot of Victorian norms to creep into his ideas about women and the Oedipus complex, which he then tried to pass off (along with the rest of his subjective interpretations) as pure fact. Speaking as an INTJ, this can be a real weakness for us. His thought is in many ways very similar to Nietzsche’s (will to power vs. libido and “desire to be great), and Nietzsche is the ultimate INTJ. Additionally, Freud had none of the hallmarks of the ISTJ, beyond a careful, methodical approach, which could describe any IJ. Nor does his thought match the thought of the ISTJ.

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