Hippocrates was an ancient Greek physician who is credited with describing people as being one of four temperaments, with those temperaments being determined by a configuration of four bodily fluids called “Humours”. Galen, who came a little later than Hippocrates, would expand the applications of this idea.
Ideally, you wanted these four humours to be balanced. This was a sign of good health and vitality.
From time to time, however, it was possible that your humours would become out of balance. This would then lead to personality changes, health conditions, etc. and measures had to be taken to compensate for the potential shifts in your humours based on environmental factors.
This may seem a little silly to us now, but at the time was a radical departure from the religious and superstitious traditions of the day. Prior to Hippocrates, everything that you experienced was by the will of the Gods, and had very little to do with environmental factors. Here was a new idea about how your bodily fluids were causing you to get sick, feel depressed or melancholic and I suppose it opened up people to the ideas that they actually had some control over their thoughts, feelings and actions.
The Human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed. Pain occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess, or is separated in the body and not mixed with others
-Hippocrates (On The Nature of Man)
According to Hippocrates and Galen, depending on which fluids were out of whack, you could observe clear temperamental differences. Those differences were then categorized as follows;
SANGUINE
Sanguine types were said to be more social, personable and active. They were charismatic and restless. They took unnecessary risks and lived a little on the edge from their peers. Sanguine types were said to have an imbalance of the blood.
CHOLERIC
Choleric types were goal focused, independent and generally type - A personalities. They were also thought of as being rude or ill-tempered and could have violent outbursts. To be Choleric was to have an excess of Yellow Bile.
MELANCHOLIC
Introverted and detail oriented, often to the point of perfectionism. Melancholic types were prone to anxiety and anxiousness generally, and were a little more socially reclusive. They were also more often depressed. To be Melancholic meant you had too much Black Bile.
PHLEGMATIC
Phlegmatic people tended to be laid back peacemakers. Easy-going, unassuming and genuinely interested in helping others, without trying to draw any attention to themselves. to be Phlegmatic, meant that you had an excess of Phlegm.
The fascinating thing about the Humours model, is just how long it persisted. It originated some time around 170 AD and was ultimately the foundation for some expansion by people like Avicenna around 1000 AD and then Culpeper around 1640.
That’s almost 1500 years!
Maybe we can chalk a lot of that time up to the dark ages and the return of some bizarre superstitions, but there exists some evidence that this actually persisted as a generally accepted medical phenomenon.
Anyway, it wasn’t until the late 1700’s that people started to take another look at these four types and start making their own observations. Several theorists, philosophers, physicians and psychiatrists came up with different names to categorize people in different ways, based on observable characteristics.
They, of course, did not always agree with where these temperaments came from, but they did all agree that they did not come from an imbalance in bodily fluids.
Some of the heavier hitters when it came to Personality type profiles were Alfred Adler, Carl Jung and Isabel Meyers.
ALFRED ADLER
A Freudian protege turned quasi-nemesis, Adler has contributed much to the field of Psychology and Psychoanalytics. Where we are concerned with Adler today, however, is his work on Typology.
While Adler was not completely sold on the idea of there existing locked in personality “types” he apparently could not help but notice that people tended to fall into a couple of different categories. He described them as the Getting, Socially Useful, Avoiding and Ruling.
Getting: Overly dependent on others for their needs and to handle difficulties for them. Sensitive and self-preserving, low energy and easily overwhelmed. Prone to conditions such as OCD, neuroticism, phobias, anxiety, agoraphobia, etc.
Socially Useful: Very outgoing personalities, striving to make positive impacts on their communities and families. Driven for a cause.
Avoiding: Generally very risk avoidant, and can not stand the thought of failure and defeat. This extends to virtually all areas of their lives including relationships. If the risk is too great of failure, they generally will not attempt it.
Ruling: Generally power hungry and will to do pretty much whatever it takes to arrive at the top of whatever hierarchy they’re climbing. Prone to Narcissism and Anti-Social personality disorders
Here we see some similarities in what Adler observes with that of Hippocrates, with each of Adler’s types roughly corresponding to Hippocrates’ Humours. While Adler would absolutely reject the idea of these types being determined by a build up of blood of phlegm in the system, it is interesting that his categorization is so similar.
CARL JUNG
Good ol’ Carl.
There is no room to expand on the work of Carl Jung here (nor would I dare to attempt such a thing) But he is an important hinge in our understanding of type in how we got from ancient Greece to a website that will tell you which Harry Potter character you are based on your answers to a couple of questions.
In 1921, Jung published a book entitled “Psychological Types” which dealt with some of the problems he saw between Freud and Adler’s ideas (they had been in pretty stiff competition with each other up to this point). Perhaps seeing himself as some sort of unifier of the two headstrong Psychoanalytic giants of his day, Jung weighed in;
“The characteristic animosity between the adherents of the two standpoints arises from the fact that either standpoint necessarily involves a devaluation and disparagement of the other. So long as the radical difference between [Adler's] ego-psychology and [Freud's] psychology of instinct is not recognized, either side must naturally hold its respective theory to be universally valid”
- Jung
Jung concluded that Freud’s approach and Adler’s approach were two sides of the same coin, with Freud’s being a matter of extroversion, and Adler’s, a matter of introversion. He would then take the opportunity to advance his own ideas, having firmly put Freud and Adler in their places and arguing that the use of their respective theories be limited, presumably in favor of his own;
“This discovery brought with it the need to rise above the opposition and to create a theory which would do justice not merely to one or the other side, but to both equally. For this purpose a critique of both the aforementioned theories is essential. Both are painfully inclined to reduce high-flown ideals, heroic attitudes, nobility of feeling, deep convictions, to some banal reality, if applied to such things as these. On no account should they be so applied...In the hand of a good doctor, of one who really knows the human soul...both theories, when applied to the really sick part of a soul, are wholesome caustics, of great help in dosages measured to the individual case, but harmful and dangerous in the hand that knows not how to measure and weigh”
-Jung
Jung introduced the idea of Four Psychological Functions, which operated on a kind of sliding scale between Introversion and Extroversion. They are;
Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuition.
So, on the scale of “Thinking” you would have an introverted thinking type, or an extroverted thinking type.
Jung defined Thinking as;
"that psychological function which, in accordance with its own laws, brings given presentations into conceptual connection."
And differentiated between Extroverted and Introverted thinking this way;
Extroverted Thinking;
"In accordance with his definition, we must picture a, man whose constant aim -- in so far, of course, as he is a pure type -- is to bring his total life-activities into relation with intellectual conclusions, which in the last resort are always orientated by objective data, whether objective facts or generally valid ideas. This type of man gives the deciding voice-not merely for himself alone but also on behalf of his entourage-either to the actual objective reality or to its objectively orientated, intellectual formula. By this formula are good and evil measured, and beauty and ugliness determined. All is right that corresponds with this formula; all is wrong that contradicts it; and everything that is neutral to it is purely accidental."
Introverted thinking;
"The introverted thinking type is characterized by a priority of the thinking I have just described. Like his extroverted parallel, he is decisively influenced by ideas; these, however, have their origin, not in the objective data but in the subjective foundation. Like the extrovert, he too will follow his ideas, but in the reverse direction: inwardly not outwardly. Intensity is his aim, not extensity. In these fundamental characters he differs markedly, indeed quite unmistakably from his extroverted parallel. Like every introverted type, he is almost completely lacking in that which distinguishes his counter type, namely, the intensive relatedness to the object."
And so on through the other types;
FEELING
"primarily a process that takes place between the ego and a given content, a process, moreover, that imparts to the content a definite value in the sense of acceptance or rejection [...] Hence feeling is also a kind of judging, differing, however, from an intellectual judgment, in that it does not aim at establishing an intellectual connection but is solely concerned with the setting up of a subjective criterion of acceptance or rejection."[1] Also Jung made distinctions between feeling as a judging function, and emotions (affect): "Feeling is distinguished from affect by the fact that it gives rise to no perceptible physical innervation's."
Extroverted Feeling;
"loses its personal character -- it becomes feeling per se; it almost seems as though the personality were wholly dissolved in the feeling of the moment. Now, since actual life situations constantly and successively alternate, in which the feeling-tones released are not only different but are actually mutually contrasting, the personality inevitably becomes dissipated in just so many different feelings."
This is understood to be referring to an extroverted feeler’s desire to align themselves to their external world, in an effort to live harmoniously with their surroundings.
Introverted Feeling;
"Introverted feeling is continually seeking an image which has no existence in reality, but which it has seen in a kind of vision. It glides over all objects that do not fit in with its aim. It strives after inner intensity, for which the objects serve at most as a stimulus. The depth of this feeling can only be guessed—it can never be clearly grasped. It makes people silent and difficult to access; it shrinks back like a violet from the brute nature of the object in order to fill the depths of the subject. It comes out with negative judgments or assumes an air of profound indifference as a means of defence."
SENSATION
"that psychological function which transmits a physical stimulus to perception. [...] not only to the outer stimuli, but also to the inner, i.e. to changes in the internal organs. Primarily, therefore, sensation is sense-perception, i.e. perception transmitted via the sense organs and 'bodily senses' ….On the one hand, it is an element of presentation, since it transmits to the presenting function the perceived image of the outer object; on the other hand, it is an element of feeling, because through the perception of bodily changes it lends the character of affect to feeling."
Extroverted Sensation;
“To feel the object, to have sensations and if possible enjoy them—that is his constant aim…Once an object has given him a sensation, nothing more remains to be said or done about it. It cannot be anything except concrete and real; conjectures that go beyond the concrete are admitted only on condition that they enhance sensation…What comes from inside seems to him morbid and suspect…Once he can get back to tangible reality in any form he can breathe again.”
Introverted Sensation;
"the subject perceives the same things as everybody else, only, he never stops at the purely objective effect, but concerns himself with the subjective perception released by the objective stimulus. Subjective perception differs remarkably from the objective. It is either not found at all in the object, or, at most, merely suggested by it … Subjective sensation apprehends the background of the physical world rather than its surface. The decisive thing is not the reality of the object, but the reality of the subjective factor, i.e. the primordial images, which in their totality represent a psychic mirror-world. It is a mirror, however, with the peculiar capacity of representing the present contents of consciousness not in their known and customary form but in a certain sense sub specie aeternitatis, somewhat as a million-year old consciousness might see them. Such a consciousness would see the becoming and the passing of things beside their present and momentary existence, and not only that, but at the same time it would also see that Other, which was before their becoming and will be after their passing hence."
INTUITION
"It is that psychological function which transmits perceptions in an unconscious way. Everything, whether outer or inner objects or their associations, can be the object of this perception. Intuition has this peculiar quality: it is neither sensation, nor feeling, nor intellectual conclusion, although it may appear in any of these forms."
Extroverted Intuition
“Whenever intuition predominates, a particular and unmistakable psychology presents itself. Because intuition is orientated by the object, a decided dependence upon external situations is discernible, but it has an altogether different character from the dependence of the sensational type. The intuitive is never to be found among the generally recognized reality values, but he is always present where possibilities exist. He has a keen nose for things in the bud pregnant with future promise… his eye is constantly ranging for new possibilities, stable conditions have an air of impending suffocation. He seizes hold of new objects and new ways with eager intensity… As long as a possibility exists, the intuitive is bound to it with thongs of fate.”
Introverted Intuition
"Intuition, in the introverted attitude, is directed upon the inner object, a term we might justly apply to the elements of the unconscious. For the relation of inner objects to consciousness is entirely analogous to that of outer objects, although theirs is a psychological and not a physical reality. Inner objects appear to the intuitive perception as subjective images of things, which, though not met with in external experience, really determine the contents of the unconscious, i.e. the collective unconscious, in the last resort. … Although this intuition may receive its impetus from outer objects, it is never arrested by the external possibilities, but stays with that factor which the outer object releases within. … Introverted intuition apprehends the images which arise from the a priori, i.e. the inherited foundations of the unconscious mind. These archetypes, whose innermost nature is inaccessible to experience, represent the precipitate of psychic functioning of the whole ancestral line, i.e. the heaped-up, or pooled, experiences of organic existence in general, a million times repeated, and condensed into types. Hence, in these archetypes all experiences are represented which since primeval time have happened on this planet. Their archetypal distinctness is the more marked, the more frequently and intensely they have been experienced. The archetype would be—to borrow from Kant—the noumenon of the image which intuition perceives and, in perceiving, creates."
Wow. That was a lot, and I hope you’re still with me!
What it all boils down to is essentially this;
Jung took his studies of typology a lot more seriously than Adler did, and while he found some usefulness in what Adler was doing, believed it to be quite limited. He went on to advance his own ideas about psychological functions utilizing this scale system between extroverted and introverted variations of the above mentioned four functions.
While not technically four types anymore, and certainly having absolutely nothing to do with blood and bile, its a continuation on a theme and a radical leap forward from his contemporaries, Freud and Adler.
We owe an incalculable debt to Carl Jung and the work he has done with his Psychological Types. Pretty much everything you read out there today about personality and temperament type has its roots deeply planted in the Jungian earth.
In the next post we will follow Isabel Myers as she attempts to codify the work of Jung on personality type and make it into a practical tool, accessible to the layman, and from there plot our departure from Myers to the work of David Keirsey.