- The shadow types.
What are they?
Each of the 16 personalities has a corresponding personality
which is its shadow type.
Whoa, dude, that sounds weird.
Yeah, I know. It is.
So in this video, I'm gonna answer the question,
"What is your type's shadow type?"
I'm gonna explain what are the shadow functions
of your type and more importantly,
what do you need to know about your shadow functions?
And lastly, the most important thing of course,
is your shadow type your most compatible type romantically?
First of all, the term shadow, seems a little bit scary.
I mean, I hope I didn't scare you too much
when you clicked on this video.
Maybe I should have put a warning in the title,
not scary in parentheses.
No, it's not scary, okay?
Maybe in fact, it would be better to call it
something like your inverse type.
And it's very simple Simon to figure out
what your inverse or shadow type is.
All you have to do is take the first letter
and the last letter of your type
and flip them to the opposite.
And you know, it's interesting,
'cause with these two types
having the same two letters in the middle
and those two letters are called the function pair.
When two types have those two middle letters in common
the communication between them tends to be pretty clear
because those two middle letters indicate
kind of like the flavor of how you like to communicate.
However, beyond that, your type and your inverse type
very different.
In fact, while the two middle letters might be the same
when it comes to the cognitive functions
which are the real building blocks of a personality type
you got nothing in common with your inverse type.
Okay, we gotta go over to the whiteboard over here
and I will explain this.
A lot of people have asked me,
"Frank make a video about shadow functions.
What are shadow functions?
Explain them to me."
I will do so.
And I will answer the more important question.
What do they matter?
Are they important?
How are they affecting your life?
Let's use an ENFJ as an example.
Now, depending on what school of thought you were looking at
what typology website you're on
they will call these things different terms.
Sometimes it's like the four functions of your type
are the the conscious ones.
But on this channel, we're just gonna call it
your cognitive function stack.
Okay, here we have our example type.
We have the ENFJ, the first four functions
being extroverted feeling, introverted intuition,
extroverted sensing, and introverted thinking.
And of course these first two are the ones
that are preferred because it's an NF type, right?
And then these other two are the non-preferred functions.
The ti at the bottom being the fourth function
being the inferior function,
the one that tends to cause the most problems
in a types life.
The shadow is going to be the inverse of all of this.
The attitude changes.
And by attitude, we don't mean good or bad.
We're not like, "Lose the tune, man." No.
By attitude, we mean is it extroverted or introverted?
So we've just flipped the attitudes here.
The extroverted feeling becomes introverted feeling,
introverted intuition becomes extroverted intuition
and so on and so forth.
And what type has fi and ne as their top two functions?
That's right, the INFP.
So you see what we did there.
We just took first to the last letters
and we flipped them around,
and so that's your shadow type or your inverse type.
So let's take out this part.
This is still the ENFJ.
All the ENFJ here.
And these four are the shadow functions.
The shadow functions also have special terms
which vary depending on what school of thought you are in.
Number five is often called the opposing role
'cause it's opposing your dominant function.
The number six is often called the critical parent
or just the critic because in many systems,
number two is called the parent.
Seven is where it gets interesting,
some places call it the trickster
some places call it the blind spot,
some places call it the point of least resistance
or polar, we'll come back to that in a second.
And eight is often times called the demon.
Or more positively, the transformative.
Now, seven I said is interesting.
You'll hear this a lot in the MBTI nerdsphere.
They'll talk about, "I got polar si man,
I got polar te whatever."
It is often said to be the absolute weakest function
in your eight function stack.
Why is seven more weak than eight?
I think it really just comes down
to it being the opposite attitude as the dominant function.
If you're an extrovert, you're seventh is introvert.
If you're an introvert, it's extroverted.
But all this being said,
I do not think you have eight functions.
In other words, everything I just explained to you
is not FJ cannon.
"Well Frank, why did you just explain it to us then?"
Because you asked,
and because I think it's worth being aware of
because when you're out in the world of MBTI
on the forums and stuff,
you'll see people talk about these functions all the time.
Especially the polar, people are obsessed with the polar.
"Now, why Frank?
Why do you not believe in the shadow functions?"
Because in my opinion, there's no reason to.
Everything can be explained by the first four functions.
When you start to add in four more functions
so that every type has every function
and every function does something different,
it starts to get so complicated
to the point that it really starts to feel fake.
Like if we ever really wanted to make it clear
that we're just making stuff up,
throw in four more functions.
Especially when the common wisdom is that,
"Oh your fourth function, this is the weak spot.
This is the one that is in opposition to the first one."
But then we're like, "Oh no, it was actually the seventh."
So is it worth knowing generally what this is all about?
Yeah.
Is it worth studying to use
for your own personal development? No.
Every type only has four functions in their stack.
You don't need to have introverted and extroverted feeling.
It doesn't make sense to think of them as different things.
It's feeling, everyone has feeling.
Now, which way is it pointed, outward or inward?
Everyone has sensing.
It's just, it's either oriented outward or inward.
Bot to belabor the point.
"Okay Frank enough of that, you wasted enough of our time."
The question everyone wants to know,
regardless of whether the shadow functions are real or not,
the shadow type, your shadow type does exist,
your inverse type.
Are the inverse types the most compatible romantic pairing?
Your best romantic compatibility person.
Should you date them?
Because the thing is you will hear
a lot of people say, "Yes."
They will say, "This is the obvious answer.
If you are an INFJ, you should be dating an ENFP.
If you are an INTP, you should be dating an ENTJ."
And I do think in terms of friendship,
you and your inverse are really good matches
but when it comes to dating, I'm not convinced.
The problem is, as we saw on the whiteboard over here,
you and your inverse type
have no cognitive functions in common.
When it comes to a romantic partner
where you're gonna be working
through a lot of decisions together,
where you're gonna be going through
a lot of conflicts perhaps,
having nothing in common when it comes
to cognitive functions is only gonna create some obstacles.
Now, look, I have always been one who said
you can be happy in a relationship.
You can get married and find your soulmate
with literally any other type.
It doesn't matter that much.
It's not the only factor at play here, of course.
But in a theoretical vacuum with all other things
being equal and we're just looking at personality type
as the differentiator,
yeah having no cognitive functions in common,
it's not a positive.
All right. Now, when it comes to intuition and sensing,
I don't think that one matters quite as much.
That's one that you can kind of get by
without having anything in common,
but it's really the feeling and thinking cognitive functions
as it always is, that cause the problems.
And even though you share generally
the same kind of decision making with your inverse,
if you are a thinker, your inverse is also a thinker,
the issue is that one of you
has introverted thinking or feeling,
but the other one is the opposite of that.
It's gonna be extroverted thinking or feeling
or the other way around.
So for instance, an INFJ has extroverted feeling,
an ENFP the inverse has introverted feeling.
And believe it or not, while it's both feeling,
they're very different processes.
Processes.
What I think is actually a more compatible pairing
is if you take that decision making function,
and I've talked about this before in a video
about your most compatible type,
and you flip the thinking or feeling also.
So for example, I think an ENTP might be a better fit
for an INFJ.
Because the ENTP has introverted thinking
which is also what the INFJ happens to have.
Now the INFJ prefers their extroverted feeling
but they still have introverted thinking,
and the ENTP prefers introverted thinking
but they still have extroverted feeling.
So the decision making process is much more understandable
for these kind of types.
Other examples would be an INFP might get along a bit better
with an ENTJ because they both have introverted feeling
and extroverted thinking.
An INTP might get along better with an ENFJ.
Let me know what other questions you have
about the 16 personalities down in the comments below.
And until next time, stay cool and attractive.
♪ Sixteen ♪
♪ Personalities ♪
(indistinct)
♪ What have you done to me ♪