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

Solothurn, 1–7 Dec. 15

Dear Friend,

As you do not wish any further discussion, I will not deal with the first six pages of your letter, nor with some views expressed in your accompanying letter,²⁴⁹ which seem debatable to me.

Your explanation of the resistance against understanding is very good in my opinion. It is my impression that the first step toward appreciation of the extravert is made by no longer wanting to understand him. I believe that the most important problems of the extravert cannot be grasped intellectually at all, just as the most important problems of the introvert cannot be grasped by feeling. I can imagine that it is as difficult to appreciate a problem by way of feeling, without wanting to understand it intellectually, as it is difficult—according to my experience with introverts—to understand something intellectually, without wanting to accept it with our feelings. I learned this by realizing that I have to accept as facts the problems of the introvert, which can be understood only intellectually.

Just as the introvert must see that there is “also” the devil lurking behind his wish to understand, the extravert must see that there is “also” the devil lurking behind his compulsion of feeling himself into the other. (For the extravert, understanding means “feeling into.”)

²⁴⁸ The extant correspondence ends with this and the following three letters from Schmid. Transcription and translation of all four letters are based on photocopies kindly made available by Hans Schmid’s grandson, Florian Boller, through the mediation of Ulrich Hoerni of the Stiftung der Werke von C. G. Jung. No further letters from Jung have been found at this time.

²⁴⁹ Schmid probably refers to the two parts of the previous letter, that is, Jung’s exposure of his general views and his outline of introversion/extraversion and the functional types, which occupy the first six and a half pages of the previous letter, on the one hand, and the following passage on Birgitta of Sweden and the dangers of “understanding,” on the other (see note 242).

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