The Question of Psychological Types: The Correspondence of C. G. Jung and Hans Schmid-Guisan, 1915-1916

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Dear Friend,

Before I respond to the particular questions raised in your letter, I would like to deal with a question of terminology.

We speak of “thinking” and “feeling,” and we name the types concerned accordingly. As you know, I have introduced these types in an earlier publication, under the names of the introverted and the extraverted type.⁷⁴ For the former, adaptation proceeds via abstraction from the object, for the latter, via feeling into the object.⁷⁵ The term “introversion” thus describes an inward turning of the psychic energy, which I called “libido,” because the introvert does not comprehend the object directly, but by means of abstraction, that is, by a thinking process that is inserted between himself and the object. The attitude he assumes toward the object is a certain rejection, therefore, which can even develop into a kind of fear of the object. His primary reaction toward the object is actually not love but rather fear.⁷⁶ The ancients knew these two original powers well, the eros and phobos.⁷⁷ It is not permissible to say that fear of the object is just a repression of an unbearable love of the object, because then we could also say that the extravert’s characteristic love of the object is nothing but a repression of an unbearable fear of the object. It is more likely that in the unconscious of the introvert there is a love for the object that compensates his fear of it, while in the unconscious

⁷⁴ Jung 1913a. See the introduction for the prehistory of this pairing.

⁷⁵ Already in 1913, Jung had equated Worringer’s notions of “feeling- into” and “abstraction” with his concepts of extraversion and introversion respectively (1913a, §§ 871–73). Cf. Shapiro & Alexander, 1975.

⁷⁶ “To the introverted type the universe does not appear to be beautiful and desirable, but disquieting and even dangerous” (1913a, § 873).

⁷⁷ Greek for love and fear; in the original, written in Greek letters.

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