Reading Between the Letters — When the Dichotomies Are Not Enough
For many people, the dichotomies are the gateway into the world of types.
- Introverted or extroverted.
- Sensing or intuitive.
- Logical or feeling-oriented.
- Organized or spontaneous.
Within just a few minutes, you can receive a four-letter type, read a personality description, and feel that something is beginning to click. And that is no coincidence. The dichotomies are one of the most successful tools ever created for making Carl Jung’s ideas accessible to the general public. They are simple, clear, easy to learn, and allow us to quickly understand that there are different ways of seeing the world, making decisions, and living life.
But like every good map, they also have a limit.
They are excellent when we want to get a general picture, but they are less sufficient when we want to understand things in depth. At a certain point, almost everyone who becomes seriously interested in types encounters the same feeling — the feeling that they already know all the letters, but still struggle to truly understand the real people behind the types. This is the moment when the dichotomies begin to show their limitations.
The dichotomies answer the question “what” — the functions try to answer the question “why” or “how.”
The dichotomies describe preferences — they tell us what a person generally tends to prefer:
- Do they prefer the inner world or the external world?
- Are they drawn to facts or to ideas?
- Do they make decisions through logic or through values?
- Do they prefer structure or flexibility?
This is important information, but it still describes the final result. It does not explain the process that led to it.
We can compare this to two people reaching the same conclusion: the dichotomies show that both of them arrived at the same destination, but the functions try to understand which path each one took to get there.
Instead of “what” — the destination or behavior — the question becomes “why” or “how” did they reach that same destination?
And that is a huge difference.
When the letters no longer explain the differences
One of the first experiences that shakes confidence in the dichotomies is meeting people of the same type who appear completely different. In theory, two INTJs should be quite similar.
In practice?
Sometimes one of them will look like a cold and distant strategist, focused on a long-term vision, while the other will be very occupied with interpersonal dynamics, sensitive to criticism, introverted but much more emotional.
The deeper we study, the more we begin to understand that the letters alone do not explain the whole picture. They do not tell us which functions are more developed, which are less developed, how the person has developed throughout life, or which parts of their personality are at the center and which are in the shadow.
Beyond stereotypes
The dichotomies naturally create generalizations.
- INTJ becomes “the cold genius.”
- ESFP becomes “the party person.”
- INFJ becomes “the mystic.”
- ESTJ becomes “the tough manager.”
At first, this helps, because the brain likes categories — they create order. But after a while, we begin to notice the problem.
Real people almost never behave like the caricatures that have formed around the types.
- That same INTJ may be a sensitive and emotionally present father.
- That same ESFP may be more interested in philosophy than most people around them.
- That same ESTJ may be an especially warm and caring person.
Stereotypes are created when we look only at external behavior, while the functions allow us to understand the inner mechanism. And when we understand the mechanism, we can suddenly see how the same function can be expressed in completely different ways in different people.
The paradoxes within types
People are full of contradictions, and this is one of the reasons psychology is so fascinating — and also why it is so difficult to define anything in an absolute way.
- An INTJ can be very rational, yet be deeply hurt by criticism.
- An ENFP can be completely spontaneous and at the same time very rigid around certain values.
- An ISTP can appear emotionally detached, yet be exceptionally loyal to the people they love.
The dichotomies struggle to explain these paradoxes, and in fact, they sometimes create an expectation that people will be absolutely consistent.
But human beings are complex and are driven by different forces that operate in parallel: some conscious and some less so.
Some complement one another, while others exist in constant tension. The functions allow us to understand this complexity instead of trying to erase it.
The importance of functions in typing
Let’s say a person is almost in the middle on all the dichotomies.
- Are they extroverted or introverted?
- Are they sensing or intuitive?
Sometimes it is hard to know, and the result may change from one time to another. But when we look at the cognitive functions, the question changes. Instead of checking how extroverted a person is, we examine how they process information. Instead of checking how emotional they are, we examine what their natural decision-making process is.
The focus shifts from external behavior to internal structure, and this usually leads to more accurate typing.
Personal development
Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, the true importance of the functions begins.
The dichotomies describe who we are, but they do not really explain where we can develop.
Let’s say a person knows they are an INFJ.
- What now? How does this information help them grow?
- Which parts of their personality need development?
- Which areas of their life are out of balance?
The dichotomies do not provide many answers to these questions. The functions, on the other hand, create a map of development.
They point to the person’s natural strengths, and they show which abilities have received less attention — they provide a clear direction for inner work.
Behavior versus an internal cognitive process
One of the most common mistakes in the world of types is assuming that behavior directly indicates type. But people can perform the same action for completely different reasons.
Two people can be very organized — one does it out of a need for efficiency, while the other does it out of a need for stability.
And a third may do it out of responsibility toward others.
From the outside, they look similar, but from the inside, they operate from completely different places. The dichotomies struggle to distinguish between these differences.
The functions, on the other hand, were built precisely in order to understand these differences. They do not only ask what a person does.
They ask why they do it.
The “shadow” of the type
One of the deepest reasons to study functions is that they allow us to understand what is not visible: those parts of the personality that are not at the center of awareness.
Jung devoted a significant part of his work to understanding the shadow — those sides of ourselves with which we tend to identify less, or which we tend to repress.
When a person is under stress, in crisis, or going through a significant transitional period, these are often the very parts that begin to surface. The type we know changes — behavior becomes less predictable, and sometimes it seems as if the person has become someone else.
The dichotomies provide almost no tools for understanding this phenomenon.
The functions, and especially the various Jungian models, make it possible to understand how different parts of the psyche come onto the stage at different times.
From classification to understanding
Ultimately, this may be the most important point.
The dichotomies were created in order to classify — the functions were created in order to understand.
The dichotomies help us answer the question: “Which type does this person belong to?”
The functions begin to answer a different question: “How does this person’s psyche work?”
In the end, the true purpose of studying types is not to collect letters, but to understand people — and ourselves.
To understand why different people see the same world in different ways. To understand their strengths, their challenges, their potential, and their unique path of development.
The dichotomies are a wonderful beginning to this journey, but for anyone who truly wants to go deeper — into typing, personal development, understanding the shadow, individuation, and the complexity of being human — they are only the door through which we enter.
I invite you to join us and dive deeper into personality and human consciousness.
Lia Gutnik
Feel like this is only the tip of the iceberg? Let’s keep talking about it. We opened a WhatsApp group for people who understand — and are interested in — MBTI, where you can dive deeper into the types and ask about anything that interests you, without holding back.