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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

"Psychological Disorders": Just Maladaptive Qualities of Intense Myers Brigg Personality Types? Part 2

Are some MBTI types more likely to be labeled with certain "disorders" more than others? I suggest they do and list the connections that seem most obvious.




In part 1 of the discussion, I touched upon psychological disorders just being the neurotic aspects of different breeds of humans. Let's start the journey towards matching what Myers-Briggs breeds are more likely to get a certain "disorder" classification for one of their more extreme members. As a baseline, the MBTI types to be matched are acute ones (60 or more on each letter). Some disorders may require only one function to be abnormally (statistically) high such as 100 F. Therefore, not all acute MBTI types would necessary match disorder descriptions but those acute MBTI types within the already acute pool of their brethren. This is an incomplete and imperfect list that will be upgraded as the time goes on. It is to serve as a starting point for discussion.

Autism Spectrum

More likely among ISTPs -The high Sensing function of close to 100 seems key as the nerves leading to the eyeballs are thicker than in most people. Here is a great video of a speech by an autistic woman who explains that she "thinks" in images rather than symbolically. She humorously mentions that the introverted scientists/inventors/technicians in the audience are probably touching the boundary of autism in some cases and that helps them in their detail specific work. The high Introversion explains the super low interpersonal communication skills and avoidance of social situations that are energy draining for the autistic. The high T and emotionlessness explains the lack of close attachment to objects within the world during those rare times when the autistic person does decide to engage with the world (a blip of extroversion). The high P contributes to paralysis of action and super sensory overload. The brain is probably overcloked with video/audio inputs without a biological way to pleasingly utilize the data. The overall result is a person acting very much like somebody on dissociative drugs (capable of being closest to perfect robotic objective perception of the world without emotion clouding it).

Mood Disorders - Depressive and Bipolar (For emotional roller coasters to happen in the first place, one needs a super strong F function (again 90-100 range) to feel the extreme highs as well as the extreme lows. Other functions determine the specific mood disorder at work.)

Depression


More likely among ISFJs and ESFJs - Our current ENTJ/ENTP dominated society is very unfriendly to the self sacrificing SFJs. Rapid technological and cultural change, atomization of society and family by free market, and the dog eat dog interpersonal interactions are the most likely to have greatest negative impact on SFJs. Their helpfulness is not rewarded but ridiculed and duty bound SFJs are less likely to relax and party like their FP counterparts. Strong S makes them focus on their constant lack of affirmation by others in the here and now while the J contributes to an inflexible and emotionally charged moralistic system that is constantly seen by the S as being violated. Strong J also anchors the person in a depressed brooding mood with fewer interruptions into happier more elevated mode (see below).

Bipolar 

More likely among the ENFPs and ESFPs - Considering the manic extroverted phase of a bipolar person, the high E appears key contributor alongside the very high F. The high P contributes to rapid switching of moods and their uncontrollability (contrasted to long continuous brooding on a certain emotional plane by a strong J). The extroverted FP goes towards the world full of energy and inspiration but gets shot down by the cynical social environment. Acute sensitivity to criticism and a strong P to observe how such criticism is warranted from many angles creates a severe emotional collapse and withdrawal into depressive phase. The constant emotional switching adds to mental confusion and sense of lack of control. These are the people who love to party and are all over the place but face severe crashes when encountering an environmental obstacle. Extroversion must be maintained and not bottled up unhealthily.

ADHD

More likely among ENFPs, ESFPs, ENTPs, and ESTPs - Key appears to be constant switching of perceptive angles by a P over 60 and a strong extroversion that makes the person go towards the world and feel dulled when that desire is frustrated. Also appears to be just a common childhood exploration phase of toddlers and children of most MBTI types.

Schizoid Personality

More likely among ISTJs, INTJs and possibly INTPs - Schizoids are marked by social isolation, emotional coldness, and indifference to others. Very impaired social functioning, extreme loneliness, and grandiose visions of extroversion. The above characteristics are obviously caused by same strong I and T as in the autistic but the schizoids are not totally overburdened with a sensory overload. This allows them to be creative at times. Political Ponerology makes an interesting case that Schizoids (due to them spending lots of time alone looking at the fast moving world with often vengeful fantasies) write the literature and constructs that inspires subclinical and clinical psychopaths.

Psychopathy

More likely among ENTJs, ENTPs - These are human herd's natural predators and feast on it if they get into power instead of improving it. The essential elements are a maximum high T of 100 for clinical psychopaths and a T over 60 for subclinical ones (the milder ones who have a foot in both the human world and the predatory world and who make natural politicians). This makes sure there is no emotional empathy for fellow homo sapien. They literally cannot feel the way others feel and this makes most people seem irrational and weak to them. The closest they have to emotion (that they confuse the concept with) is sexual arousal and aggression. The strong E makes them go towards the world and socialize intensely with their prey while the strong N intuition allows them to rapidly learn how to mimic their prey (smile, know what words with emotional meaning to say, etc). There is debate in literature about whether the psychopaths cluster on J (left brain) or P(right brain) side or whether it's but a continuum of psychopathy. Most likely it's a continuum with different specialization of labor among predators. They share all the same characteristics except for ENTJ being mindlessly goal driven regardless the human cost (the bully) whereas the ENTP is disorganized but better able to emulate/get along with different humans and creatively exploit that ability (the Con Artist). Their lack of emotional intelligence and desire for exploitative shortcuts makes them poor technocrats, manual laborers, and high tech specialists. The subclinical ones could be steered in the right direction and made productive members of the community. They have additional "disorder" characterizations of hypomania and narcissism.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

More likely among INTPs and INFPs - The key element seems to be a super high P that can create an overflow of perceptive data creating a pseudo-hallucination effect. An N of 100 and a P of 100 can easily create conspiracy theories that aren't there.

Borderline Personality Disorder

More likely among ESTPs - These very bored emotionless people (high P and T) live on the edge and thus make good soldiers or criminals. They don't have the intuition to be psychopaths and don't interact with too many diverse people as often since they wont get along. A super high E is key and makes them seek pursue entertainment in the here and now (S) that would be overwhelming to most.

This brings to a close the brainstorming secession. Once again, the article doesn't imply that each Myers Briggs type matches a cluster of descriptions that are labeled as a specific disorder. It does imply that among intense MBTI types, there exist even more intense minority within them whose behavior (if stressed/guided enough by society) matches certain disorder descriptions more often than others.

There are certainly overlaps that I failed to mention along with some types that were excluded (for now) such as ESTJ, INFJ, ISFP, and ENFJ.

Find out which type you are here. ;)

To be continued...

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1 comment:

  1. Not sure if last post got pucblished to Ill try again ; (just delete this one if last post got through) I have ADHD (or "ADD" ) and scored INFP.

    ReplyDelete