Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey, Ch.5

Idealists

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.

With these glowing words Albert Einstein eulogized one of the most remarkable men of the twentieth century, Mohandas K. Gandhi. Not only did Gandhi almost single-handedly free India and its then five hundred million people from their long subjection to the British Empire, but he did so without raising an army, without firing a gun or taking a hostage, and without ever holding a political office. How could one slight, soft-spoken man accomplish such an incredible feat? The answer must wait upon an examination of the Idealist character.

Like George Washington one hundred and fifty years before him, Gandhi knew he could never defeat British colonial power in armed confrontation, but, at the same time, he had no interest in waging a Washington-style logistical war. It was not in Gandhi’s nature to undertake military operations in any form. Gandhi’s interests were in ethical matters and his talents in diplomacy, so he instinctively sought to oppose the British colonial government on humane, moral, even spiritual grounds. Gandhi believed that an entrenched political and economic system could only be overthrown by acting in accord with noble principle. And so, over a period of years he developed a highly principled course of action, a form of non-violent passive resistance which he called “satyagraha.” Armed only in this manner, Gandhi courageously stood his ground even in the face of frequent incarcerations and sometimes brutal assaults, finally bringing the British to their knees through an exercise of moral authority that journalist William Shirer referred to as “soul force.”

Gandhi’s objective was political freedom for India, and yet, for all his social activism, he never lost sight of a higher goal for himself and his people. He was an Idealist, and it was his idealism that led him to seek divine truth and justice, human dignity and integrity, and true knowledge of God. Gandhi wrote in his Autobiography:

All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one’s wagon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.

Rare indeed is the man or woman with such confidence in a Certainty beyond earthly certainty, in a Truth behind the worldly illusion of truth. Truth, Integrity, Justice, Virtue: so ardently devoted are the Gandhis of this world to these ideals that we need not hesitate to call them the Idealists.

In the mid 1970s I wrote that Apollo was the guiding deity of these Idealists (Myers’s NFs). For the Greeks, Golden Apollo was the god of light, sometimes referred to as the sun-god, but more often portrayed as the god of light in the symbolic sense of the word-the god of truth or insight, of spiritual illumination or personal enlightenment. He was also the seer and the revealer, whose oracle at Delphi was the hallowed and feared voice of prophecy throughout the ancient world. And he was the healer, particularly the psychic healer, whose lyrical music purified his followers and taught them how to find inner wholeness. While some fascination with the primitive and the profane seemed to lurk just beneath his shining surface, Apollo was for the Greeks the most ideal of all the gods, a radiant figure of beauty and poetry in whom little of the savage remained.

In the 1980s I began to think of the Dolphin as an appropriate totem animal for the Idealists, because they are one of the most cooperative of all animals. Not only do they communicate in a complex sonic language, they also live in close-knit family groups, playing and hunting together, and helping family members who are ill or in trouble, holding them up near the surface with their backs or flippers so they can breathe. Even more, dolphins seem genuinely interested in relating with human beings. In captivity these friendly creatures get along well with their trainers and handlers, and they cooperate freely with researchers. And in the wild dolphins will follow ships for many miles, racing and diving around the keels, and are believed to offer a kind of mysterious guidance of ships into port, as in Scott O’Dell’s children’s novel, Island of the Blue Dolphins:

Dolphins are animals of good omen. It made me happy to have them swimming around the canoe .... I was very lonely before they appeared, but now I felt I had friends with me....

The blue dolphins left me shortly before dusk. They left as quickly as they had come, going on into the west, but for a long time I could see the sun shining on them. After night fell I could still see them in my thoughts and it was because of this that I kept on paddling when I wanted to lie down and sleep.

More than anything, it was the blue dolphins that took me back home.

In retrospect, I don’t remember coming across any of these people during World War II. The war years, for me at least, were filled with deadly dull days punctuated by terrifying hours. Everyone seemed so very concrete in what they talked about and either very utilitarian or very by the-book in what they did. The people around me seemed to be Artisans and Guardians, just as they were in high school. Indeed, the first Idealist I ever met was a classmate of mine in Junior College, and she was the girl I married after the war. At the time I did not know what to say to most girls, but I could chat for hours with her. It was a revelation. By nature a nerd, I had thought that there was some secret that other boys were on to, some special technique that one must know about and use in talking to girls; but with my new classmate no technique was required -- we just talked about what we were interested in, and totally without effort or forethought. My guess is that it was our mutual interest in things abstract, aside from our interest in each other, that made all the difference and made our daily conversations delightful. With her I could be myself; with others I could not. This wonderful companionship has lasted for over half a century.

During my years managing the work of school counselors I saw to it that most of them were Idealists. They were beautifully fitted for that kind of work and were able to learn quickly and apply effectively the many methods of corrective intervention I had managed to collect. And during my years training graduate students in the technology of corrective counseling, the vast majority of them were Idealists. They flocked to the counseling department, and rightly so. Teaching them to intervene effectively into the lives of troubled children and their parents and teachers was enormously gratifying because they were so ready, willing, and able to learn these skills-and they learned them far better than other types. At the very heart of corrective counseling is diplomatic intelligence, something Idealists are well endowed with, as I will discuss below.

I don’t think there are enough of these caring people, for they are affirmed and coveted by most of us for their enthusiasm and for their often expressed appreciation of the rest of us, whatever our temperament.

Plato’s Idealists

Plato was the quintessential Idealist, the inventor of a philosophy in which ideas are even more real than earth and its inhabitants. Plato’s word for an idealist like himself was ‘noetic’ which, roughly translated, means “intuitive thought,” that is, pure thinking done without recourse to either logical or empirical investigation. Plato saw these inspiring Idealists, and no others, as the philosopher-kings of his ideal republic, destined to serve a philosophic function in society, their job no less than to divine moral principles and the full meaning of life.

Aristotle said that happiness is “the highest realizable good” and that some men, those of “superior refinement and active disposition,” identify happiness not as the “sensual pleasure” (hedone) of the Artisans, nor as the “proprietorship” (proprdietari) of the Guardians, nor even as the “logical inquiry” (dialogike) of the Rationals, but as the “study of ethics” (ethike), which leads to an understanding of the Good Life and thus to happiness. So Plato’s Idealists, in Aristotle’s view, become the Ethical Idealists.

Centuries later Galen named this type the “Cholerics.”The word ‘choleric’ is Greek for yellow bile, one of the four humors or body fluids that were thought at the time to determine one’s predisposition to act in certain ways. Those with a choleric temperament are thus bilious, that is, easily annoyed and quick to show their displeasure, unable, in other words, to put their feelings on hold. Note that Galen was more interested in the negative side of temperament, the irascible Cholerics being seen as different from but no worse than the taciturn Phlegmatics, the over-optimistic Sanguines, and the doleful Melancholics.

During the Renaissance the Viennese physician Paracelsus chose as the Idealists’ guiding spirit the Nymphs, those rarefied, often invisible beings who watch over the different realms of nature, the forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, and the sea, and who are thought to have the power of prophecy and enlightenment. Thus water Nymphs (or Naiads) are believed to give profound insight to those who drink from their brooks and streams, and wood Nymphs can inspire great poetry, as did the “light-winged Dryad of the trees” in Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.” Nymphs are also passionately devoted to others, and their affairs are affairs of the heart. The little Mermaid in the harbor at Copenhagen symbolizes undying love, as she waits eternally for her lost sailor.

Adickes called these Idealists the “Dogmatics.” They, like his Agnostics, are autonomous beings, and thus are focused on the self, but autonomy in the Dogmatics takes the form of certitude regarding what they consider important social issues. In other words, Dogmatics are inclined to embrace some humane doctrine and cling to it tenaciously, certain as they are of its immense value to mankind. Thus, by “dogmatism” Adickes did not mean bigotry or narrow-mindedness; rather, he meant a devotedness to an ideal way of life, and an intention to invite others to join in that way of living. Note that ‘dogma,’ ‘doctrine,’ and ‘doctor’ have the same root (‘dek,’ to “teach” or “cause to accept”); thus a doctor or dogmatist is one who embraces a doctrine strongly, offering it to others for their benefit.

Spranger thought of the Idealists as the “Religious” types, in the sense of having a creed of personal ethics, a frame of moral orientation. Thus religion for Spranger was a cause, a principle, an activity pursued with conscientious devotion, not an object of piety. The religious types seek the meaning of life and the meaning of Self, refusing to believe that they are insignificant or that life is meaningless. Thus Idealists in Spranger’s view have what can be called an “Identity Seeking Personality.”

Kretschmer was first to take a careful look at the dark side of character, and he named the Idealists “Hyperesthetic,” which roughly translated means “oversensitive.” In this way he echoed Galen and Paracelsus in seeing Idealists not only as tempestuous but also as passionate. And yet Kretschmer was saying much more, namely that the kind of irrational conduct that befalls some Idealists is a matter of temperament rather than a matter of choice. If Idealists are forced by difficult circumstances to become estranged from themselves and others, they do so as if beset by negative feelings that overwhelm them and numb their will.

Like Kretschmer, Fromm examined both sides of personality, the negative as well as positive character traits. When he termed the Idealists “Receptive” he considered being a passive recipient of goods and services as bad. But he also praised this type for their responsiveness and other desirable traits, describing them as “accepting,” “adaptable,” “adjusted,” “charming,” “devoted,” “idealistic,” “modest,” “optimistic,” “polite,” “responsive,” “sensitive,” “sentimental,” “tender,” and “trusting.”

Myers’s contribution to the study of the Idealist personality is quite remarkable, no doubt because she was herself an Idealist, and so understood them better than most and approved of them heartily. As indicated earlier she named them the “Intuitive Feeling” types -- “NFs” -- and said that they are “creative,” “enthusiastic,” “humane,” “imaginative,” “insightful,” “religious,” “subjective,” and “sympathetic.” Though apparently unaware of the contributions of her predecessors, Myers by herself was clearly able to identify the more salient traits that characterize Plato’s Idealists.

The Abstract Cooperators

These different views of Plato’s Idealists, whatever they are called, all have something in common: they all imply that this temperament is abstract in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals. As we begin our study of the NF Idealist traits of character, then, let us get our bearings by looking at the underlying basis of their personality in the matrix of temperament. As shown at the side, the foundation of the Idealist temperament is their unique combination of abstract word usage with cooperative tool usage, and so they can be called the “Abstract Cooperators.”

	ABSTRACT	CONCRETE
COOPERATIVE	NF	SJ
UTILITARIAN	NT	SP

Abstract Word Usage

Abstract words refer to things that cannot be observed but only imagined, while concrete words refer to things that can be observed and therefore need not be imagined. Idealists talk little of what they observe “of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.” They talk instead of what can only be seen with the mind’s eye: love and hate, heaven and hell. comedy and tragedy, heart and soul, tales and legends, eras and epochs beliefs, fantasies, possibilities, symbols, selves, and yes, temperament, character, and personality. “Exultation is the going of an inland soul to sea past the houses -- past the headlands -- into deep Eternity,” wrote the Idealis poet Emily Dickinson, and only an NF would dare to speak of an emotion -- exultation -- in this poetic way, or to measure the journey to so great an abstraction as Eternity. All of us, of course, can observe what is before us as well as imagine what is not. But this does not mean that we do both equally. Very early in life we begin to exercise one focus of thought and language -- observation or imagination -- more than the other, and we continue to do so throughout life. Idealists opt for imagination.

Idealists are naturally inductive in their thought and speech, which is to say that they move quickly from part to whole, from a few particulars to sweeping generalizations, from the smallest sign of something to its entirety. With their focus on unseen potentials, on the not visible and the not yet, Idealists show an extraordinary sensitivity to hints of things, mere suggestions, inklings, intimations, symbols. To be sure, such inductive inferences, requiring what is called the “intuitive leap,” can be astonishing to others, especially in cases of mind reading and extra-sensory perception. At the very least, Idealists are the best suited of all the types to read between the lines, or to have a sixth sense about people, and they do indeed follow their hunches, heed their feelings, and insist they “just know” what people are really up to, or what they really mean. Even with complicated issues, NFs need hear only the first words of an explanation to feel they understand the subject fully, jumping from telling details to larger meanings. When William Blake imagined in Auguries of Innocence that one can “See a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour,” he was surely describing the Idealist’s inductive style.

Wanting to uncover meaning and significance in the world, and trying to understand what they believe is the real nature of things, Idealist thought and speech tends to be interpretive, which means they frequently comment how one thing is really something else. Not tied to observable objects like the SPs and SJs, and not disciplined by the deductive logic of the NTs, NFs spontaneously transform one thing into another, erasing distinctions, combining categories, and joining opposites. Margaret Schlegel, the Idealist heroine in E.M. Forster’s Howards End, tries passionately to connect “the seen to the unseen” in her life, a joining she imagines as the

building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire.

This zeal to connect disparate ideas is why Idealist communication is often laced with metaphors, ascribing features to people and things that belong to other people and things -- animate or inanimate, visible or invisible. NFs have no trouble saying this person is a devil, that one an angel. It isn’t that the first person acts like a devil, he is one; and the other person doesn’t simply have the attributes of an angel, she is one. And the sun smiles at us, a corporation is grasping, a train roars, and love is a rose. In just this way Gandhi described his search for what he called “Absolute Truth”: “The little fleeting glimpses ...I have been able to have of Truth can hardly convey an idea of the indescribable lustre of Truth, a million times more intense than that of the sun we daily see with our eyes.”

Beyond the vivid metaphor, Gandhi also shows the Idealists’ charming habit of overstatement, quite the opposite of the Rationals’ penchant for understatement. Idealist expression is rich in hyperbole and exaggeration, and at the same time short on gradation. NFs do not say they are “somewhat” interested in an idea, or dissatisfied “in some degree” with a person’s behavior; they are “totally” fascinated or “completely” disgusted, “perfectly” delighted or “absolutely” appalled. This is just how Eleanor Roosevelt in her Autobiography described herself as a young woman: “I had painfully high ideals and a tremendous sense of duty entirely unrelieved by any sense of humor or any appreciation of the weaknesses of human nature. Things were either right or wrong to me.”

While they tend to ignore degrees of gradation, Idealists are highly sensitive to the nuances of communication that qualify messages, the body language, facial expressions, and voice inflections which, quite often, the other character types are not even aware of. And NFs are so sensitive to the subtleties of spoken language, finding implications and insinuations in the slightest remark, that they seem to have invested language with supernatural powers, what might be called “word magic.” Word magic refers to the ancient idea that words have the ability to make things happen-saying makes it so-and it has been the basis for many books on self-improvement, The Magic of Believing, for example, or The Power of Positive Thinking. Our speech, the NF reminds us, produces results in the world, so we must be careful, very careful, about what we say. One consequence of this hypersensitivity is that now and then NFs make mistakes in attributing meanings to communications that are not intended by the senders.

Idealists can become so caught up with their insights, interpretations, and metaphors that it is almost impossible for them to keep their hands still. But unlike the SP’s paw, the SJ’s cleaver, or the NT’s claw, NFs extend their open hands to others, as if offering their counsel freely, or accepting another’s words as a gift. They will also row their hands like oars or wings in front of them, as if trying to help the flow of words and ideas between themselves and others. Or they will bring their hands together in various ways, with their palms crossed and fingers wrapped, with their palms meeting and fingers extended vertically, or with their fingers interlocked -- all as if trying to hold together two halves of a message.

Cooperative Tool Usage

Bear in mind that civilization is a cluster of cities, and that cities are clusters of tools -- streets, sidewalks, buildings, conveyances: all are tools. And the countless instruments, implements, and machines in those buildings, on those streets, and in those conveyances are also tools. Now, for all the millions of tools that enable us to do our work and live together in harmony, Idealists would have a consensus on how they are to be used. This is a slightly different shade of cooperation than that which characterizes the Guardians, who are more interested in compliance than consensus. Thus Idealists observe the many laws that govern our conduct -- building codes, tax laws, rules of the road, and many more-not simply because they are laws, but because they represent a common assent of their community, a unity of purpose or like-mindedness that NFs hold dear. Accord, concurrence, agreement, accommodation: this side of cooperation is what looms large in the consciousness of Idealists.

Acting in concert with others for the good of the group – cooperation -- is considerably more important to Idealists than the functional utility of their chosen tools and operations. In the Idealist’s view, people’s instruments and actions need to be acceptable to others, even if they prove less effective than some other disapproved instruments or actions. NFs, like SJs, regard the Artisans’ and Rationals’ utilitarian style -- get the job done any which way -- as counterproductive if not unethical and offensive. Conventional uses of tools should not be lightly set aside for the sake of increased utility without due regard for people’s feelings about working together in harmony.

Indeed, NFs can be quite suspicious of utilitarian actions which go after results too coldly or single-mindedly; they worry that the warm human touch will be lost, that good feelings will be sacrificed, and that unity will dissolve in a quest for expediency. For their part, Idealists dream of perfect interpersonal relationships, mutually supportive interactions lifted high above the fray of competition and contention. Fighting in any form is inordinately painful to NFs and they will do whatever is necessary to avoid it or prevent it. Sustaining amicable relationships through conciliation, pacification, facilitation is much more their style.

This is not to say that Idealists are indifferent to acquiring and using better ways and means of pursuing their.goals. Surely they are not at all resistant to the utility of tools, but these must undergo scrutiny lest there be some adverse consequence that undermines morale or makes for discontent among their companions. In any enterprise the NFs’ first consideration is always to foster caring human relationships -- this seems to them necessary if they are to accomplish their ends. Their ideal is to help the people in their circle get along with each other, even care about each other, and thus work with each other for the good of all.

The Diplomatic Intellect

Diplomacy is the ability to deal with people in a skillful, tactful manner, only here ‘tact’ is not the concrete term I have used to describe the tactile Artisans, but is a metaphor for the interpersonal touch or sensitivity in which Idealists seem to be both interested and particularly talented. This sensitive way with people shows up so early in NFs that it is tempting to assume they are born with it -- born to use their personal empathy and interpersonal skills to improve relations between people. Indeed, while SPs usually become more tactical, SJs more logistical, and NTs more strategic as they grow and mature, NFs become more diplomatic in working with people or personnel -- working in both ways, using their eye for possibilities to develop human potentials, and using their verbal fluency to mediate interpersonal conflicts. With their instinct for seeking common ground, with their ability to interpret each side’s communications in a positive way, with their gift for putting themselves in another’s place, and with their metaphorical language easily and fluidly turning one thing into another, Idealists are well-equipped for the difficult task of influencing people’s attitudes and actions, not only inspiring them to grow, but also settling differences among them, smoothing difficulties -- ever looking to enlighten the people around them and to forge unity among them.

Gandhi’s earliest success as a lawyer revealed just this kind of diplomatic intelligence. Having finally persuaded two Indian businessmen to settle a bitter dispute out of court, Gandhi beamed inwardly:

My joy was boundless. I had learnt the true practice of law ... to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men’s hearts. I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.

Needless to say, Gandhi’s is a striking, and uniquely Idealist, view of the practice of law.

The Idealist’s eye is always focused on inclusion, not exclusion, on what gifts people can offer each other, not what walls divide them. In just this all-embracing spirit did Eleanor Roosevelt welcome to the United States a group of refugees from Hitler’s Europe:

We Americans are well aware that this is not a one-sided relationship. We are offering you a home and a haven, to be sure. However, you ... are bringing us your skills, your talents, and your cultures. We are grateful to you for broadening our scope and enriching our country which consists of newcomers just like you.

Perhaps Idealists are given to diplomacy because they are so deeply disturbed by division and discrimination. Conflicts and controversies unsettle them, disputes and debates set them on edge, even the Rational’s insistence on clear-cut definitions and discrete categories can seem antagonistic to them. Idealists consider all such differentiations (religious, ethnic, political, logical, and so on) to be artificial impositions onto the common experience of humanity, and they prefer to focus on what they call those “shared experiences” and “universal truths” that project similar talents and potentials into everyone, and that minimize differences. Only rarely do NFs entertain the idea that their global belief that “down deep, everyone’s alike” might itself be an artificial imposition onto the experience of other types.

Interest, Practice, Skill

Any skill is acquired by practice, increasing precisely in the degree it is exercised, and diminishing in the degree it is neglected. Neural cells are like muscle cells; if they aren’t used they lie dormant and even degenerate.

In addition, there is a feedback relation between interest and ability. We improve in doing things we’re interested in doing, and have greater interest in things we do well. Interest reinforces skill, skill reinforces interest,

and neither seems to be the starting point. So the Idealists’ lifelong interest in diplomatic action fuels their daily exercise of diplomatic skills, and as diplomatic skill increases so then does interest in it, precisely and exclusively measured by the amount of practice.

Now, in a sense every individual has not one but four IQs, and it is virtually impossible for one person to develop all four of his or her capabilities equally. The kind of operation practiced most develops most, while that practiced least develops least. In normal development the Idealists instinctively practice diplomatic actions far more and far earlier than the others, and therefore end up more highly skilled in diplomacy than in logistics and strategy, and much more than in tactics. Of course, circumstances can sometimes induce Idealists to develop those operations that do not come easily to them, and with lots of practice they can even show a good deal of talent in their short suit, tactics. For example, as adults NFs often try their hand at tactical activities such as gourmet cooking, ceramics, sculpting, painting, or playing a musical instrument, and given enough practice they can come to be quite skilled in these hobbies.

Note in the chart below that the NFs’ diplomatic skills develop far beyond their tactical skills. Also, note that their strategic and logistical skills can be almost equally developed, depending of course on circumstances equalizing the amount of practice they are given.

	Logistics
SJ	Tactics
Guardians	Diplomacy
	Strategy
	Logistics
NT	Tactics
Rationals	Diplomacy
	Strategy
	Logistics
NF	Tactics
Idealists	Diplomacy
	Strategy
	Logistics
SP	Tactics
Artisans	Diplomacy
	Strategy

The reason for this potential equality in their second and third suits is that NFs share abstractness of thought and speech with NTs, the strategists, and they share cooperativeness in implementing their goals with the SJs, the logisticals, and so have some interest and aptitude for long-range planning and for managing supplies and services. SPs, by the way, have the same potential as NFs for developing their logistical and strategic skills, but for the opposite reasons: SPs share concrete communication with SJs and utilitarian implementation with NTs. Thus, the NFs and SPs usually end up mirror images of each other in their IQ profile, just as happens in the case of NTs and SJs.

Diplomatic Role Variants

While Idealists all share diplomatic intelligence, they differ significantly among themselves in the sorts of diplomatic roles they feel drawn to practice. In broad terms, Idealists are interested in following the path of what I call the “Mentor” or the “Advocate,” and these lead to four diplomatic role variants, the “Teacher” (ENFJ), the “Counselor” (INFJ), the “Champion” (ENFP), and the “Healer” (INFP), all Idealists in essence, but quite unique in their diplomacy. Consider this chart of the NF diplomatic roles and role variants, mirrored by their most skilled intelligent operations:

Diplomatic Role Variants	Teacher [ENFJ]	Councelor [INFJ]	Champion [ENFP]	Healer [INFP]
	Mentor	Mentor	Advocate	Advocate
Working with Personnel	Developing	Developing	Mediating	Mediating
	Educating	Guiding	Motivating	Conciliating

Diplomatic Mentors

Taking the role of Mentor is deeply satisfying to some Idealists, particularly the scheduling Idealists, those who prefer a clear agenda or program, and who are comfortable directing others to act or to think in certain ways. Mentoring is the act of developing the mind or mentality of others, and Mentors are so enthusiastic and charismatic -- in a word, so inspiring -- that without seeming to do so they can help others to grow, kindling in them a passion for learning and guiding them in the search for their true nature. There are other less benign kinds of mental influence, of course, brainwashing and mind-control, for instance, but fortunately Mentors are diplomatic in their directiveness, which means they are ethical and benevolent with others, sensitive to their needs, and wanting the best for them.

Mentors work to develop human potential in two different but related ways, depending on whether they are inclined to be the outgoing, expressive Teacher or the reserved Counselor.

Teachers are naturally able to take control of almost any group of learners with extraordinary confidence and creativity, as classroom teachers, certainly, but also as journalists, clergy, lecturers, therapists, personnel consultants -- in any situation where the quest for learning takes place. These expressive Mentors see themselves less as instructors (installing mental structure) than as educators or facilitators, dreaming up imaginative learning experiences that call forth each learner’s potentials, always with the intention of broadening, edifying, enlightening, illuminating, improving, and refining the attitudes and actions of pupils or students.

Counselors tend to be more private in their style of facilitating personal growth, but they still work enthusiastically with their clients, guiding them along the pathways that their nature allows them to follow. These quiet Mentors have profound insight into the emotional needs of others, a keen intuition about their buried feelings, and they can affect their clients in unconscious ways, encouraging and enabling them to get in touch with themselves. Counselors advise, appeal, prescribe, recommend, shepherd, suggest, urge -- all with the intention of helping others discover those things that enhance their well-being.

Diplomatic Advocates

The probing Idealists, those who prefer open-ended experience, and who tend to give information rather than issue directives, take the role of Advocate. To the Idealists, advocating is literally “giving voice” to views and positions, beliefs and causes -- ideas that people often can’t put into words for themselves -- in order to nurture rapport and understanding between people. Advocates act on behalf of others, in support of others, serving as their client’s activist, adherent, ambassador, enthusiast, exponent, proponent, supporter -- whenever speaking up and standing up for others can help resolve differences and bring about justice. As with mentoring, there are other less honorable kinds of advocating, for example, propagandizing and proselytizing, which emphasize one side against the other. But the NF’s diplomatic advocating is most often done with the hope of mediating disputes and bringing people together.

Advocates work to bring harmony to others in two complementary ways, either as the expressive Champion or the reserved Healer.

Champions are eager to go everywhere and to experience, first hand, all the meaningful things happening in their world. Once these outgoing Advocates have explored issues and events, they are filled with ardent conviction and enthusiastically champion -- adopt, embrace, espouse, fight for, and go to bat for -- the truth of a cause or an ideal they have come to believe in, all in an effort to motivate (to encourage, even to inspire) others to settle their conflicts and to act justly and wisely.

Healers are deeply committed to personal conciliation, that is, to preserving or restoring, as the case may be, the wholeness and health of those near and dear to them. Healers are spiritual go-betweens, acting as a bridge between conflicting factions, with the hope of assisting others to find health through inner peace. In this way healing is a matter of acceptance, accommodation, reconciliation, forgiveness, resolution, reunification -- all in the interest of mending relationships between people or making whole a divided self. Healers are deeply reserved in nature, and are thus more comfortable working out of the limelight; indeed, they need to retreat periodically to private places to contemplate the mysteries of life, and to regain their own threatened wholeness. But when their ethical view of events thrusts them into public roles, they can be quite effective as leaders, filled as they tend to be with an exalted sense of mission.

Comparing the Diplomatic Role Variants

Every Idealist plays these four roles well, but no one Idealist plays them all equally well. What distinguishes Idealists from one another is the structure of their intellect, that is, their profile of diplomatic roles. Some Mentors are better as Teachers of groups, others as Counselors of individuals, even though teaching and counseling often develop side-by-side in the same person, with Teachers counseling students in and out of class, and Counselors holding group sessions or teaching seminars. In the same way, some Advocates are better as Champions of causes, others as Healers of conflicts, even though Champions want to bring healing to warring factions and Healers are forever championing ideals. Consider the following chart of the four NF role variant profiles:

	Champion
Champion	Healer
ENFP	Teacher
	Councelor
	Champion
Councelor	Healer
INFJ	Teacher
	Councelor
	Champion
Healer	Healer
INFP	Teacher
	Councelor
	Champion
Teacher	Healer
ENFJ	Teacher
	Councelor

Notice that the Teachers (ENFJs) are the exact opposite of the Healers (INFPs) in likely diplomatic development, just as the Counselors (INFJs) are exactly opposite of the Champions (ENFPs). Thus Teachers are usually able to help even resistant students learn what they need to do or know, while they are less inclined to heal people in their times of conflict. The reverse holds for Healers, who are likely to leave no stone unturned in making others whole, while being rather hesitant to take on a group of learners, especially if resistant to learning. It is also the case that Counselors are eager to guide those in need of it for long periods of time and with untiring effort, but less eager to serve as a champion for someone with a burning cause. Lastly, Champions, with their contagious enthusiasm, are likely to be the best of all at fighting for causes, though not the best at giving counsel. However, even with their long and short suits, Idealists will tend to practice, and thus will develop, any one of these four diplomatic skills well above those strategic, logistical, or tactical skills developed by the other temperaments.

Detailed portraits of the four Idealist role variants can be found below, after a general overview.

The Interests of Idealists

All of us have interests, but we certainly don’t have the same interests, mainly because our interests are reciprocal with our abilities. Thus we are interested in doing what we do well, and tend to do well in what we are interested in doing. The interests of Idealists are diametrically opposite of those of Artisans and quite different from those of Rationals and Guardians. These differences are best seen when charted:

interests	Idealists	Artisans	Guardians	Rationals
Educational	Humanities	Artcrafts	Commerce	Sciences
Preoccupational	Morale	Techniques	Morality	Technology
Vocational	Personnel	Equipment	Materiel	Systems

At school the Idealists are typically drawn to courses in the humanities and not to commerce or science. Some will dabble in the arts and crafts, seeing it as a romantic thing to do, but they rarely stick with that sort of thing long enough to become more than enthusiastic amateurs. Preoccupied from early on in morale building, they have little interest in acquiring new techniques or in developing a watchdogging morality, and, far from being preoccupied with learning about new technology, they are often averse to it. At work, given their diplomatic skills, they are best off doing personnel work rather than working with tools, materiel, or systems. Let us then consider the Idealists’ interests in the humanities, morale, and personnel.

Educational Interest in the Humanities

Most Idealists show little interest in buying and selling, nor do many pursue careers in the physical sciences. Some will try their hand at the fine arts (usually without much patience), but they find their true niche in the studying and teaching of the humanities, or, more generally, in professions which involve transmitting ideas through words. NFs prefer working with words, and need and want to be directly or indirectly in communication with people. Those who work at it come to speak and write fluently, often with poetic flair, and often make excellent students and teachers of literature. The fictional narrative in any of its forms -- stories, poems, legends, myths -- is their delight and their strength, and not only are themes and characters meaningful to Idealists, but stylistic details and symbolic motifs loom for them with amazing significance. NFs are so easily moved by literature, and interpret it with such intuitive ease, that they can inspire their teachers, and their own students, with their insight and enthusiasm.

But Humanities is not confined to the study of literature. Idealists heavily populate the social sciences, particularly the fields of mental healing and personal or religious counseling -- professions directed toward human metamorphosis, or the unfolding of the mind and heart toward greater self-understanding and spiritual peace. NFs find great satisfaction in the mental health services, where they tend to take the most humanistic of approaches, those advocating growth models of counseling and psychotherapy rather than the more confronting or controlling models. The human potential movement, with its encounter groups -- so popular in the 1960s -- was chiefly the creation of NFs like Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, and in its time served to focus interest in the Idealist’s pursuit of personal growth and self-actualization. NF ministers, priests, and rabbis also tend to take on the role of group or individual counselor, the spiritual guide who helps the members of a congregation learn how to become more loving and more reverent human beings. The movement after World War II called “religious existentialism,” stressing a new humanistic or being-centered theology, was certainly the work of Idealists, developing from Soren Kierkegaard through Martin Buber, Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich.

Preoccupied with Morale

Morale has to do with the state of one’s spirits, and Idealists, from the time they are children, seem preoccupied with how those around them, their loved ones, their classmates, or their circle of friends, are feeling about themselves. Thus NFs are concerned with others’ feelings of worth, or with their self-image -- their self-esteem, self-respect, and self-confidence. And they want to do everything they can to keep people feeling good about themselves, to lift their spirits, to brighten their mood, to boost their morale. Many Guardians have a similar interest in helping others, but they are more preoccupied with morality, people’s sense of right and wrong, than with nurturing a positive self-image. Both NFs and SJs are guardians of the Good (‘morale’ is the French feminine of ‘moral’), but one cares for happiness and the other righteousness. Perhaps it is because of their preoccupation with morale that Idealists are drawn to the studies of the humanities and seek out occupations in mentoring and advocating.

Vocational Interest in Personnel

In the workplace Idealists have one very special talent: they are drawn to and can do wonders in recruiting, training, deploying, advancing, and counseling personnel. With their insight into people, their interest in human potential, and their glow of enthusiasm, NFs shine when they take on the job of finding quality employees, of guiding them into the right positions, and of helping them develop over the course of their careers.

Not only in business, but at school as well, individual development is the Idealists’ domain, which is to say they are naturally good at influencing the growth and maturation of others. Teaching, counseling, interviewing, and tutoring come easily to Idealists, and are highly intuitive pursuits for them. Even without much formal training, NFs seem able, in Faber and Mazlish’s phrase, to “talk so others will listen and listen so others will talk,” and this with young and old and with male and female. Indeed, the Idealist sees education not so much as a process of training and certifying, but more as an invitation to a personal relationship, as one UCLA writing teacher explains:

Education has often functioned as a gatekeeper ... the intent is to evaluate people and keep them out or let them in. The way I view education is really very different from that. It’s an invitation. It is an attempt to bring people into a kind of conversation, into a set of ideas, into ways of thinking, talking, writing, and reading that are new to them. If you see education as an attempt to bring people in, then you automatically see it as a relationship. And if the relationship works right, it is a kind of romance.

Forming personal relationships, especially relationships which help others fulfill themselves, is of prime importance to Idealists, and they instinctively communicate caring for others and a willingness to become involved. Teaching is this sort of personal, in some sense romantic, occupation for NFs, and so is counseling, where they can be uncanny at divining the nature of others’ distress, at soothing those of low self-esteem, and at helping uncover their latent potential. And when championing causes and healing divisions NFs, naturally empathize with others, becoming personally engaged and finding themselves seeing through another’s eyes.

But close involvement with others can be troubling. No doubt because of their compassionate identification with others, Idealists are often turned to for moral support, and they seem to have little natural buffer against becoming caught up in others’ troubles. Idealists become involved so instinctively that they can easily become weighted down with too many troubled relationships. Idealist counselors, in particular, have to learn to disconnect themselves from their clients to some extent, or risk being emotionally overwhelmed.

The Orientation of Idealists

We are born into a social field and we live out our lives in that field, never, for long, stepping outside of it into some no-man’s-land disconnected from social reality. Of course we can be disoriented for short periods of time, owing to a surprise, a danger, or a shock. But we soon reorient ourselves and return to our ordinary waking social frame of reference. Indeed, we are the most social of all the animals, with our choice of social membership groups creating our life-long framework, and with our sociability ending in massive and complex societies. Whatever we think or feel, say or do, occurs, must occur, in the iron crucible of social relationships. Each act and attitude is shaped and governed by a prevailing outlook, perspective, or point of view determined by our social matrix. We are oriented always from a certain angle, slant, or standpoint, something Adickes spoke of as a built-in vantage point or viewpoint -- what he called our “Weltanschauung, “ or “worldview.”

But different personalities have different perspectives, viewing time and place as well as past, present, and future, differently. Consider the following chart in making these comparisons:

Orientation	Idealists	Artisans	Guardians	Rationals
Present	Altruistic	Practical	Dutiful	Pragmatic
Future	Credulous	Optimistic	Pessimistic	Skeptical
Past	Mystical	Cynical	Stoical	Relativistic
Place	Pathways	Here	Gateways	Intersections
Time	Tomorrow	Now	Yesterday	Intervals

Here it is claimed that Idealists are altruistic about the present, credulous about the future, mystical about the past, their natural place is on the pathways to understanding and their natural time is tomorrow. How different the other temperaments in the way they view these things. So let us look closely at these five dimensions of orientation so that we will not be surprised when our Idealist friends, in their devotion to altruism, for instance, prove to be less practical, or less stoical, or less skeptical than we are.

Altruistic in Looking Around

All of us have a point of view, a way of construing what we see around us -- our perspective on the here and now. Our temperament dictates what sort of perspective we develop and hold to. The Artisan perspective is practical, the Guardian dutiful, the Rational pragmatic, all so different from the altruistic perspective of the Idealist. Altruism is the belief that it’s bad to be self-serving and good to be other-serving, or put another way, that our greatest happiness comes in selflessly giving to others, even when this involves self-sacrifice. This is by far the most metaphysical of the four worldviews, and the ever-skeptical Rationals will sometimes doubt the Idealists’ motives, reasoning that if the payoff for altruism is self-satisfaction, then, paradoxically, Idealists are being selfish when giving to others, and altruism is only the illusion that one is acting selflessly. Idealists, however, are quite comfortable with paradoxes, and quite sincere in reaching for this goal of sacrificing for others, as Mark Twain, a notoriously skeptical Rational, came to appreciate about Joan of Arc, the altruistic Maid of Orleans whose life fascinated him:

What could have put those strange ideas in her head? ...Grieving and brooding over the woes of France had weakened that strong mind, and filled it with fantastic phantoms -- yes, that must be it.

But I watched her, and tested her, and it was not so. Her eye was clear and sane, her ways were natural, her speech direct and to the point. No, there was nothing the matter with her mind; it was still the soundest in the village and the best. She went on thinking for others, planning for others, sacrificing herself for others, just as always before. She went on ministering to her sick and to her poor, and still stood ready to give the wayfarer her bed and content herself with the floor. There was a secret somewhere, but madness was not the key to it.

Few Idealists are as saintly in their altruism as Joan of Arc, of course, but even ordinary NFs often dedicate their lives to helping others. Idealists see potential good in everyone, and they will gladly give of themselves to cultivate that potential, to help others grow and develop. This is why teaching and the ministry attract NFs, but also why missionary work can call to them, as does community volunteer work and the Peace Corps.

But altruism also serves another, more coveted purpose for Idealists: self-actualization. To put others first is the best way for NFs to rid themselves of selfishness or egocentricity, which they see as the great stumbling block to self-actualization. Thus, NFs believe that as they let go of selfishness they get a clearer and clearer picture of who they really are -- a glimpse of their true nature, unfettered by worldly fears and desires. And the clearer the picture becomes, the closer they come to the spiritual essence they believe is inside them. As Gandhi explains it:

If I found myself entirely absorbed in the service of the community, the reason behind it was my desire for self-actualization. I had made the religion of service my own, as I felt that god could be realized only through service.

Credulous in Looking Ahead

Idealists are credulous. They believe in things easily and without reserve -- exactly the opposite of their skeptical cousins the Rationals. NFs are really quite innocent in their credulism. They see good everywhere, and in everyone, as if believing that goodness is real and permanent in the world, and thus they are quick to join causes and to go on missions, especially if they believe personally in the leaders of the movement. After pledging themselves to some individual or group, NFs are the most loyal of all the types, and will often use their enthusiasm to win followers and to advance the cause. NFs may even exhibit an unusually passionate devotion to a cause, or to a cult, though more to the persons involved than to the principles espoused. And in extreme cases they can lose their perspective and come to have what Pierre Janet called a “fixed idea” about their beliefs, clinging to them rigidly, unmoved and unmovable by any appeal to reason or experience.

However, while Idealists can get caught up in a movement, they do not stay involved for very long if it fails to have deep, lasting significance, with some hope of bettering the conditions of people in the world. For example, when the Flower Power movement of the 1960s was centered in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, it was chiefly populated by SPs, but it was joined by many NFs who watched the SPs living in the moment, spontaneously, and who wanted to experience this freedom themselves. But they could neither be unconscious of self nor give up their concern for the future, so the movement held them only for a brief time and they left, disenchanted. As fast as the NFs moved into the communes, they moved out to search elsewhere for self-actualization and ways to express their unique identities. So, while Idealists are apt to be passionate in pursuit of their beliefs, they can also appear to be intellectual and emotional butterflies, flitting from idea to idea, from person to person, or from cause to cause, dilettantes in their pursuit of meaning and authenticity.

Mystical in Looking Back

Unlike the Rationals, who tend to rationalize their misfortunes and setbacks, seeing them as neutral events relative to one’s individual pointof-view, Idealists are more metaphysical in their explanations, and will usually take one of two enigmatic attitudes when trying to come to terms with life’s difficulties.

Some Idealists believe that accidents are mystifying and inexplicable -- that bad things simply happen, and cannot be accounted for by any rational means. These NFs are content to live with a mysterious sense of causation, bravely accepting that the whys and wherefores cannot be known or communicated, even though such an attitude can make them appear at best naive, and at worst in denial, as if hiding their head in the sand.

Other Idealists attribute the cause of unhappy events to some power above themselves, not so much to the influence of bad Luck or Divine will (as do, respectively, the SPs and SJs), but to more esoteric, mystical causes. The dogma of the traditional religions concerning the source of evil -- Original Sin in Christianity, the Angel of Death in Judaism, or Karma in Hinduism and Buddhism -- satisfy many Idealists. But they will also search for causes in occult religions and cabalistic writings, and in various arcane, metaphysical systems, theosophy, astrology, Swedenborgianism, anthroposophy, transcendentalism, spiritualism, and the like. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung remembers that even as a teenager he was fascinated by this question of causation -- “What were the reasons for suffering, imperfection, and evil?” he asked -- and dissatisfied both by Christian teaching and Western rationalism, he sought for answers in the occult world of myth, Eastern religion, and parapsychology:

If such [parapsychological] phenomena occur at all, the rationalistic picture of the universe is invalid, because incomplete. Then the possibility of an other-valued reality behind the phenomenal world becomes an inescapable problem, and we must face the fact that our world, with its time, space, and causality, relates to another order of things lying behind or beneath it, in which neither ‘here and there’ nor ‘earlier and later’ are of importance.

The Place is the Pathway

If Artisans like to be in the middle of the action, Guardians at the gateways of exit and entrance, and Rationals at the crossroads mapping coordinates, then Idealists are most comfortable on the pathways that lead them on the search for the meaning of existence, that take them on the journey to some higher stage of personal development. The notion of the spiritual odyssey, the crusade, the pilgrimage, or the quest, is deeply satisfying to Idealists, and is perhaps their favorite metaphor for their experience of life. In Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote sings of his glorious quest “to follow that star” of ideal honor and virtue, “no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.” And in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values, a young philosopher imagines his spirit of inquiry roaming through the “high country of the mind” in pursuit of an elusive wisdom:

Many trails through these high ranges have been made and forgotten since the beginning of time .... Even within a single civilization old trails are constantly closed and new ones open up.... Phaedrus wandered through this high country, aimlessly at first, following every path, every trail where someone had been before, seeing occasionally with small hindsights that he was apparently making some progress, but seeing nothing ahead of him that told him which way to go.

The Time is Tomorrow

The Idealist is future-oriented and focused on what might be, rather than what is. To the NF, whatever is is never quite sufficient -- indeed, it is unendurable to think that the here-and-now, the SP place and time, is all there is in life. Listen as early women’s suffrage advocate Susan B. Anthony imagines the future of American women, and really of all humanity:

The woman of the future will far surpass her of the present, even as the man of the future will surpass him of today. The ages are progressive, and I look for a far higher manhood and womanhood than we have now.... I look for the day ... when women all over this country will have equal property rights, equal business rights, and equal political rights; when the only criterion of excellence or position shall be the ability, honor, and character of the individual.

The Idealists’ interest in the future also has a mystical aspect to it. The NFs’ fantasies, as well as their favorite stories, are often excursions into the world of oracular powers, prophetic sensibilia, omens, fortune telling, Tarot cards, and the like, all of which help the NFs to create in their imaginations a magical world, a world of signs and portents, and a world pregnant with possibilities. Idealists believe that life is rich with potentials waiting to be realized, filled with meanings calling out to be understood. The Idealist is drawn to exploring these potentials and uncovering those meanings, to divining the true nature and significance of things.

The Self-Image of Idealists

All of us have a concept of ourselves made of things we believe, or want to believe, about ourselves. As in the case of the other kinds of personality, three aspects of our self-concept are of special importance in determining how well we regard ourselves -- self-esteem, self-respect, and self-confidence. I believe that these three bases of self-regard are mutually reinforcing. For example, when our self-esteem increases, this tends to bolster both our self-respect and our self-confidence. Likewise, as we gain self-respect, it becomes easier for us to gain in self-confidence and selfesteem. And this reciprocity can work the other way: a loss of self-confidence can undermine respect for and pride in ourselves.

Different types of personality, naturally, base their self-image on quite different things. Having a good opinion of ourselves makes for our happiness, and often our success, so it is well that we pause for a moment to compare the four types on this all-important aspect of personality.

The chart below shows that most Idealists see themselves, and wish to be seen by others, as empathic, benevolent, and authentic, with other attributes, such as artistic gracefulness and audacity, important to Artisans, contributing almost nothing to the Idealists’ positive sense of themselves:

Self-Image	Idealists	Guardians	Rationals	Artisans
Self-Esteem	Empathic	Dependable	Ingenious	Artistic
Self-Respect	Benevolent	Beneficent	Autonomous	Audacious
Self-Confidence	Authentic	Respectable	Resolute	Adaptable

I think there is a triangular relationship between empathy, benevolence, and authenticity, each undergirding or undermining, as the case may be, the others. But even if the three attributes are not interdependent, they still deserve close scrutiny, considering that they are the bases of the Idealist’s self-image. Let us then take a close look at empathy, benevolence, and authenticity.

Self-Esteem in Empathy

Idealist self-esteem is greatest when they see themselves and are seen by others as empathic in bonding with people in their circle. Idealists feel a kind of natural sympathy for mankind, but they base their self-esteem on the empathy they feel with those people closest to them. To the NFs, even introverted NFs, life is nothing without sensitive personal ties, without shared experiences and intimate attachments, without rapport so close that consciousness itself seems to be shared. NFs, after all, cannot not be personal, and the health of their relationships is beyond everything else the measure of their self-worth -- enhanced when their relationships are deeply connected and vital, and diminished when they are distanced or troubled. Idealist journalist and author Elie Wiesel remembers just how vital in his personal development were empathic friendships:

As a child I needed friendship more than tenderness to progress, reflect, dream, share, and breathe. The slightest dispute with a friend gave me a sleepless night as I lay wondering whether I would ever again know the excitement of a nighttime walk, of discussions about happiness, humanity’s future, and the meaning of life. Disappointment in this domain caused me greater pain than a failure in school.

Idealists can become absorbed in drawing close to a single person, or they can become deeply involved with a group (their family, friends, the class they’re teaching, a church congregation, and so on). But they are simply not interested, not for very long at least, in things other than empathic human relationships.

That religion of the 1960s, called the “encounter group movement,” was mainly motivated and populated by NFs seeking greater empathy in their relationships, trying to capture an elusive intimacy. Many of them joined T-groups, sensitivity groups, Gestalt groups, marathons (nude and otherwise), Transcendental Meditation groups, Primal Scream groups, and of course EST -- all in an effort to find a way to live more freely and lovingly. They explored verbal and nonverbal dimensions of communication, hoping to become more fully aware of their emotions, and to learn how to relate more closely and sensitively with others. In many of these groups they found, for a time at least, the sense of communion they sought, describing the experience as a kind of high of spiritual bonding -- or what Terry O’Bannion and April O’Connel referred to as a “Shared Journey”:

At the exact moment when I encounter someone I feel as if I am some place I have never been before. It’s hard to describe. Like you and this other person are out in space with each other and looking down on the earth.

Sadly, however, many Idealists report that after such an initial encounter is over the glorious empathy usually fades away in the routine of daily living.

Self-Respect in Benevolence

Idealists base their self-respect on their ability to maintain an attitude of benevolence or goodwill toward other people -- toward all of existence, for that matter. NFs are without question filled with good intentions and kind feelings; they have a fierce aversion to animosity of any sort, and they will suppress their own feelings of enmity and hostility as best they can. Perhaps this is because Idealists have a powerful and ever-present conscience which hurts them deeply whenever they harbor feelings of malice, cruelty, revenge, or other mean-spirited intentions.

In truth, any evidence of cruelty in the world stabs Idealists to the heart and they cry out against it. E.M. Forster’s character Mrs. Moore in A Passage to India simply cannot accept the smug superiority and callous prejudice of the British in India. Mrs. Moore fervently believes the British should base their colonial administration on the principle of everlasting kindliness -- “Good will and more good will and more good will” -- and she insists to her son that “The English are out here to be pleasant .... India is part of the earth. And God has put us on the earth to be pleasant to each other ... to love our neighbors and to show it.” To the Idealists, the Guardians’ good deeds and the Rationals’ sense of autonomy are admirable as well, and worthy of cultivation, while the Artisans’ audacity seems superficial. But without question benevolence is the greatest virtue, and malevolence the greatest evil.

Self-Confidence in Authenticity

Idealist self-confidence rests on their authenticity, their genuineness as a person, or put another way, the self-image they present to the world allows for no faqade, no mask, no pretense. To be authentic is to have integrity, inner unity, to ring true, and, driven by a Gandhi-like desire for Absolute Truth, Idealists insist on an ever higher standard of authenticity for themselves. On the other hand, if NFs somehow undercut their authenticity by being phony or false or insincere, they can be taken over by fear and self-doubt. In his brilliant book, The Divided Self, psychotherapist R.D. Laing describes the anxiety NFs can feel when they have lost their authenticity, or when they find themselves being what Laing calls “like everyone else, being someone other than oneself, playing a part.” In one client’s case, Laing writes,

As his feeling of what properly belonged to his ‘true’ self contracted more and more, this self began to feel more and more vulnerable and he came to be more and more frightened that other people could penetrate through his sham personality.

In extreme cases (and since Idealists believe the Self is something one finds), this loss of self-confidence can become a truly debilitating fear of the losing of Self entirely -- or as Laing puts it,

The ‘inner’ secret self hates the characteristics of the false self. It also fears it, because the assumption of an alien identity is always experienced as a threat to one’s own. The self fears being engulfed by the spread of the identification.

Few Idealists become this lost in inauthenticity, of course, but many live with some vague feelings of uncertainty about their genuineness, some secret doubt about their wholeness.

The problem for Idealists is that this ardent wish to be genuine at all times and everywhere actually separates them from the authenticity they demand of themselves, and forces them, to a certain extent, into the very role-playing they want to avoid. NFs report over and over that they are subject to an inner voice which urges them to “Be real, Be authentic” -- always in the NF is that voice reminding them about being whole, unified, and true. But with this other voice in their head, Idealists are inevitably caught in a dual role. Instead of the whole-hearted, authentic person they want to be, they are at once director and actor: they are on stage, and, at the same time, they are watching themselves being on stage, and prompting themselves with lines. The irony of this wanting to be authentically themselves is that it often leaves Idealists feeling divided and false, standing to one side and telling themselves to be themselves.

Authenticity is also difficult for Idealists because of their spontaneous and uninvited self-consciousness. From very early in life, NFs (more than SPs, SJs, or NTs) seem to feel others’ eyes upon them, and to grant those around them the right to pass judgment on them, which is to say that they are highly aware of themselves as objects of moral scrutiny. While Rationals typically reserve to themselves the right to judge their own actions, Idealists are very sensitive to how they are seen by others, and care a great deal about meeting others’ expectations. So here again NFs are caught in a dilemma: confident of their integrity, yet at the same time devoted to pleasing others, they must walk on a razor’s edge, with authenticity on one side, and moral approval on the other. Learning to reconcile these two often conflicting facets of their self-image is an important and sometimes arduous task for many NFs.

The Values of Idealists

Arthur Schopenhauer, in The World as Will and Idea (1814), said that our will dominates our intellect. William James, in The Principles of Psychology (1890), and Leon Festinger, in A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), followed suit, thus advising us that our values dominate our thoughts. Now this may or may not be true of Artisans, Guardians, and Rationals, but it is certainly true of Idealists. Let me put it this way: Idealists are more prone to wishful thinking or value judgment than the other types, and they make no bones about it. Indeed, they are glad to let their heart rule their head, telling all of us that this is the wise thing to do, for the heart, they believe, is the soul of humanity.

How different they are from the other temperaments. How different especially from their opposites, the Artisans. Where Artisans value excitement (from without) Idealists value enthusiasm (from within); where Artisans value their impulses, Idealists value their intuition; where Artisans value impact on others, Idealists value romance with others. And so it goes, Idealists valuing identity over stimulation, recognition over generosity, and the sage over the virtuoso.

Generally speaking, we can differ in our preferred being, in what we put our trust in, in what we yearn for, in what we seek, in what we prize, and in what we aspire to. It is perhaps in this, the domain of values, that the four types of personality display discernible patterns most clearly, far more clearly, certainly, than in domains such as the self-image or the forms of intelligence.

We are wise to pay attention to how the Idealists’ values differ from ours lest we be caught off guard in our natural assumption that they value what we do, and so question why they seem less calm or less authoritarian than we, or less reasonable or less impulsive than expected. To make these comparisons let us study the following chart:

Value	Idealists	Artisans	Guardians	Rationals
Being	Enthusiastic	Excited	Concerned	Calm
Trusting	Intuition	Impulse	Authority	Reason
Yearning	Romance	Impact	Belonging	Achievement
Seeking	Identity	Stimulation	Security	Knowledge
Prizing	Recognition	Generosity	Gratitude	Deference
Aspiring	Sage	Virtuoso	Executive	Wizard

Being Enthusiastic

Idealists are highly emotional people, in the sense that their emotions are both easily aroused and quickly discharged. Fortunately, NFs tend to be positive types, and so their emotional intensity is usually expressed as unbounded enthusiasm. Particularly when discussing ideas, or sharing personal insights, their display of enthusiasm can be both delightful and contagious, often making them inspiring figures in their groups. But this sort of exuberance also has a darker side. NFs, young or old, male or female, cannot shake off their intuitive understanding that existence is bittersweet, with defeat the other side of triumph -- that, in the midst of happiness, sadness but awaits its turn.

Moreover, when frustrated in their idealism, or when treated unjustly, NFs can become quickly irritated -- Galen, remember, called them “Cholerics” -- and they will respond furiously, the fire of their enthusiasm suddenly flaring out in anger. Edith Wharton was well-known for her moods of light and dark. Not only did her friend and fellow-novelist Henry James tease her about her “ravaging, burning and destroying energy,” but her biographer R.W.B. Lewis notes the contradictions in her character:

Externally, she was a creature of gaiety, given to bursts of enthusiasm, to harmless vanities and constant physical activity. She also experienced chills of embarrassment and self-doubt. But all the time her inner life was burgeoning; beautiful objects made her senses race, and great poetry set her aglow. Almost by the same token, she was overcome at times by the mysterious and dreadful sadness of life. She took nothing calmly.

Trusting Intuition

While Rationals trust their reasoning powers, Idealists trust their intuitive powers, their feelings or first impressions about people, not needing to wait for a rationale, or even wanting one, for what they believe. The Rational’s logic is acceptable for some conclusions -- so is the Guardian’s authority, by the way -- but to be really sure, Idealists wait for their intuition to show them the way.

Perhaps Idealists trust their intuition about people so unreservedly because of their extraordinary ability to identify with others, to put themselves in the other’s place. As the saying goes, NFs will “crawl into another’s skin,” or they will “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes,” which means they will unconsciously take into themselves another’s desires and emotions -- or what they believe these to be. Such identification can be so close that Idealists will even find themselves beginning to talk or laugh or gesture like the other person. This mimicry is unconscious and usually unwanted by Idealists, but their ability to introject does give them the belief (rightly or wrongly) that they have accurate insight into others, that they know what’s going on inside the other person’s head and heart. NFs have to be particularly careful in this regard, because as much as they introject the traits of others, they also tend to project their own attitudes onto those around them, investing others with their own idealistic view of life.

Yearning for Romance

The most important thing to remember about Idealists is this: one and all, they are incurable romantics. Each type has an abiding hunger, some restless longing that needs to be satisfied each and every day. Artisans hunger for social impact, Guardians for belonging, Rationals for achievement. Idealists are not without these other yearnings, but they have much less hold on them than their hunger for romance. Romance -- in the sense of idealized love -- is not something which NFs can take or leave; it is vital to their growth and happiness, a nourishment they cannot live without, just as its opposite, the uninspiring, commonplace relationship, is flat and stale and lifeless.

In all areas of life, Idealists are concerned not so much with practical realities as with meaningful possibilities, with romantic ideals. But particularly in their love relationships, NFs have a keen appetite for romance -- if any type can be said to be “in love with love,” it is the NF. And yet, while they fall in love easily, Idealists have little interest in shallow or insignificant relationships. On the contrary, they want their relationships to be deep and meaningful, full of beauty, poetry, and sensitivity.

If their love life lacks this romance, Idealists have been known to romanticize their relationships, infusing them with a glow of perfection that can rarely be sustained in the harsher light of reality. All too often the NF falls into this pattern of romantic projection, accompanied by a considerable investment of effort and emotion, ending in a painful disillusionment. Such disparity between what is and what might have been is the theme of countless novels and plays. Leo Tolstoy, an Idealist himself, describes in

Anna Karenina a moment he had experienced in his own marriage:

Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not in the way he had expected. At every step he was disappointed in his former dreams .... Levin was happy, but having embarked on married life, he saw at every step that it was not at all what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a man experiences when, after admiring the smooth, happy motion of a boat on a lake, he finds himself sitting in it himself.

This kind of sobering reality check confronts Idealists sooner or later in all of their romantic relationships, and how they deal with it -- whether they choose to develop what they have, or move on to other dreams -- determines to a great extent the course of their personal lives.

Seeking Identity

Idealists devote much of their time to pursuing their own identity, their personal meaning, what they signify -- their true Self. It is not, mind you that they are self-centered, self-serving, or selfish; they focus on the Self of others as surely as on their own. But whether their own or another’s, NFs are centered on the Self, concentrated on it, committed to it. And the Self upon which they focus is not the self that the other types think of when they use the word. To the SPs, SJs, and NTs, the word ‘self’ (when they bother to think about it) simply indicates their separateness from other people, or, at most, their individual actions or point of view. To the Idealists, however, Self has a capital “S” and is a special part of the person-a kind of personal essence or core of being, the vital seed of their nature, not unlike the Soul or Spirit of religious thought. NFs are passionate about finding this true Self, about becoming who they are, or self-actualized. Thus Gandhi wrote that “What I want to achieve -- what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years, -- is self-realization.” To be sure, NFs are so intent on self-realization that they may be called the “Identity Seeking Personality,” the type of person so often written about by humanistic psychologists. For instance, Carl Rogers, in his book, On Becoming a Person, describes the Idealist’s search for Self with remarkable insight:

Becoming a Person means that the individual moves toward being, knowingly and acceptingly, the process which he inwardly and actually is. He moves away from being what he is not, from being a facade. He is not trying to be more than he is, with the attendant feelings of insecurity or bombastic defensiveness. He is not trying to be less than he is, with the attendant feelings of guilt or self-depreciation. He is increasingly listening to the deepest recesses of his psychological and emotional being, and finds himself increasingly willing to be, with greater accuracy and depth, that self which he most truly is.

Idealists often dedicate their lives to this kind of self-realization-seeking to become realized, trying to get in touch with the person they were meant to be, and to have an identity which is truly theirs. “How can I become the person I really am?” they ask. And so, like Hermann Hesse’s character Siddhartha, they wander, sometimes intellectually, sometimes spiritually, sometimes physically, looking to actualize all their inborn possibilities, and so become completely themselves, even though the paths in search of identity are never clearly marked. As Siddhartha wonders,

But where was this Self, this innermost? It was not flesh and bone; it was not thought or consciousness. That was what the wise men taught. Where, then, was it? To press towards the Self -- was there another way that was worth seeking? Nobody showed the way, nobody knew it -- neither his father, nor the teachers and wise men, nor the holy songs .... They knew a tremendous number of things -- but was it worthwhile knowing all these things if they did not know the one important thing, the only important thing?

Idealists regard this search for identity as the most important enterprise in their lives, and with their gift for language they can be powerful advocates for it being a necessary pilgrimage for all people. Very often the other

types, the SJs, NTs, and SPs, are troubled by the thought that they ought to be pursuing this goal, even if the search for Self does not beckon them. The reluctance of over ninety percent of humanity to join the search for self-actualization is a great source of mystification to the Idealists.

But even more mystifying is the paradox coiled at the very center of this search, namely, that the search for Self is fundamentally incompatible with the achievement of finding the Self. For many NFs the search for Self

is a quest which becomes very much an end in itself, and which can come to dominate their lives. Thus, the Idealists’ truest Self comes to be the Self in search of itself, or, in other words, their purpose in life becomes to have a purpose in life. But how can one achieve a goal when that goal is to have a goal? Intent on becoming themselves, Idealists can never truly be themselves, since the very act of reaching for the Self immediately puts it out of reach. In their enthusiasm for self-discovery, then, Idealists can become trapped in paradox: they are themselves only if they are searching for themselves, and they would cease being themselves if they ever found themselves.

Late in his life Siddhartha tries to explain this contradiction between seeking and finding to his friend Govinda, a Buddhist monk who has spent his life searching for himself. It might be, Siddhartha tells him, that

‘you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.’

‘How is that?’ asked Govinda.

‘When someone is seeking,’ said Siddhartha, ‘it happens quite easily ... that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.’

The seeking impedes the finding; the search for identity is its own obstacle. Some Idealists no doubt reach Siddhartha’s perspective and find their true Self, which means that they finally give up struggling to become some perfected idea of themselves, and simply accept themselves as they are, somewhat short of ideal. But for many NFs, the search for identity only winds them more deeply in the complexities of inner division and self-contradiction: the more they seek their ideal Self, the more frustrated they are in their search.

Prizing Recognition

The way to the Idealists’ heart is to show them that we know their inner person, the Being behind the social role that must be played, behind the public mask that must be worn. In other words, to make them feel appreciated we must encounter them, “meet them at their view of the world,” as they put it. This is not an easy thing to do, and so it happens only rarely, and they, more than others, go through life feeling misunderstood, unknown, mistaken for the roles they are forced to play by social reality. You see, Idealists believe that each of us is a unique and special person. So it makes sense that they would feel prized by having their person known by another, if only on rare occasions. Idealists idealize themselves, and, as mentioned above, continue searching for their true self or real self. They are devoted to bringing the true self more and more into being, so that recognition by someone they care about is very important to them and very gratifying when it comes.

Aspiring to be a Sage

The Sage is the most revered role model for the Idealists -- that man or woman who strives to overcome worldly, temporal concerns, and who aspires to the philosophic view of life. Plato, perhaps the greatest of all Idealist philosophers, characterized the sage by saying that the “true lover of wisdom” is on a metaphysical journey,

is always striving after being -- that is his nature; he will not rest in...appearance only, but will go on -- the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, [he will] live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail.

To transcend the material world (and thus gain insight into the essence of things), to transcend the senses (and thus gain knowledge of the soul), to transcend the ego (and thus feel united with all creation), to transcend even time (and thus feel the force of past lives and prophecies): these are the lofty goals of the sage, and in their heart of hearts all Idealists honor this quest.

The Social Roles Idealists Play

It is impossible not to play a role in all of our social transactions, and in essence there are two kinds of social roles, those that are allotted to us by virtue of our position in our social milieu, and those that we reach out and take for ourselves. We perforce play offspring to our parents, siblings to our brothers and sisters, and relatives to our extended family members. On the other hand we choose to play mate to our spouse, parents to our children, superior to our subordinate, subordinate to our superior, friend to friend, an so on. Allotted or embraced, we have no choice but to enact our roles, since interacting with others can never be role-free.

Three of our social roles are of special interest in the context of the study of personality: mating, parenting, and leading. In these three roles the different temperaments differ in very important ways, important, that is, in the effects these ways of relating to others have on mates, offspring, and followers.

Let us consider a chart which compares how the different ways mating, parenting, and leading roles are played:

Social Roles	Idealists	Artisans	Guardians	Rationals
Mating	Soulmate	Playmate	Helpmate	Mindmate
Parenting	Harmonizer	Liberator	Socializer	Individuator
Leading	Catalyst	Negotiator	Stabilizer	Visionary

Note the striking difference between playing the Soulmate role in the case of the Idealists, and the Playmate, Helpmate, and Mindmate role in the case of the other three types of personality. These different mating

roles will require lengthy and complex study, and so a chapter (Chapter 7) on this topic is provided later in this book.

A separate chapter is also required for defining and describing the enormous differences in the parent-child relationship, and so Chapter 8 presents portraits of the four kinds of children, and then distinguishes the Idealist Harmonizer parent from the Artisan Liberator parent, the Guardian Socializer parent, and the Rational Individuator parent. Likewise, a chapter (Chapter 9) is provided to differentiate leadership styles, contrasting the Idealist’s Catalyst role with the Artisan’s Negotiator role, the Guardian’s Stabilizer role, and the Rational’s Visionary role. Even so, a few remarks on each of the Idealist’s social roles can at least give outlines of how they are played.

The Soulmate

What Idealists wish for in their spouse is a Soulmate, a spouse who knows their feelings without being told of them, and who spontaneously expresses words of endearment, words that acknowledge their mate’s unique identity. Idealists want the marital relationship to be, as they put it, “deep and meaningful.” Other types will settle for much less than this. Guardians, for instance, would be Helpmates though they may not ask their Idealist spouse to be the same. Artisans, on the other hand, prefer to be Playmates, and wonder what the Idealist means by a deep and meaningful relationship. And Rationals, wishing to share their consciousness with their mates, are more for being Mindmates than Soulmates. More about this soulful relationship in Chapter 7. Here, suffice it to say that Idealists are asking their spouses for something most of them do not understand and do not know how to give.

The Harmonizer Parent

Idealist parents are mainly concerned with their children’s self-image, so in order to know how their children see themselves, and how they would be seen by others, Idealist parents make every effort to increase the strength of their harmony with their children, wanting to keep themselves closely bonded or en rapport with them, even into adult life -- harmony the means, a positive self-image the end. Here it is well to recall the constituents of the self-image. First, there is self-esteem, then self-respect, then selfconfidence. Idealist parents encourage their children to grow in all three respects. The concerns of Guardian and Rational parents -- civility and individuality -- take a back seat in the case of Idealist parents. Not that they are indifferent to these concerns, only that they see them as subordinate and dependent upon the growth of a healthy, positive self-image. As for the venturesomeness encouraged by Artisan parents, Idealists have little time for it and little concern if it does not emerge, and so tend to leave it to circumstance.

The Catalyst Leader

The Idealists’ style of leadership is quite unlike that of other types, for they are the Catalysts, acting as facilitators, motivators, or energizers with their unique capability of bringing their subordinates together in cooperative actions and of maintaining high morale in them. Since Idealists cannot not be personal in their relationships, it follows that when they are in positions of leadership they are compelled to lead in a personal way. To Idealists, every subordinate is a person whom they must know and must keep track of. In a way, this disinclination and perhaps inability to be impersonal as they direct operations can complicate matters, particularly if there are many individuals to relate to in managing an enterprise. Catalytic leadership is hard to define and even harder to explain, something that must be left to Chapter 9. Here, note that with the good feelings of their subordinates as their major concern, Idealist leadership is starkly different from that of other temperaments.

Matrix of Idealist Traits

The matrix on the next page brings together and highlights the terms I have used in this chapter to define and describe the personality of Plato’s Idealists. To aid in comparing and contrasting all four temperaments, I have listed the traits beside those of the other personalities. Those who take time to study this matrix, and refer back to it occasionally, will have a better chance of comprehending the whole configuration of the Ethical Idealist Personality, as well as getting a feel for its uniqueness and radical difference from the other three temperaments, the Hedonic Artisans, the Proprietary Guardians, and the Dialectical Rationals.

Communication:	Concrete	Concrete	Abstract	Abstract
Implementation:	Utilitarian	Cooperative	Cooperative	Utilitarian
Character:	Artisan	Guardian	Idealist	Rational
Language	Harmonic	Associative	Inductive	Deductive
Referential	Indicative	Imperative	Interpretive	Categorical
Syntactical	Descriptive	Comparative	Metaphoric	Subjunctive
Rhetorical	Heterodox	Orthodox	Hyperbolic	Technical
Intellect	Tactical	Logistical	Diplomatic	Strategic
Directive Role	Operator	Administrator	Mentor	Coordinator
· Expressive Role	· Promoter [ESTP]	· Supervisor [ESTJ]	· Teacher [ENFJ]	· Fieldmarshal [ENTJ]
· Reserved Role	· Crafter [ISTP]	· Inspector [ISTJ]	· Counselor [INFJ]	· Mastermind [INTJ]
Informative Role	Entertainer	Conservator	Advocate	Engineer
· Expressive Role	· Performer [ESFP]	· Provider [ESFJ]	· Champion [ENFP]	· Inventor [ENTP]
· Reserved Role	· Composer [ISFP]	· Protector [ISFJ]	· Healer [INFP]	· Architect [INTP]
Interest
Education	Artcraft	Commerce	Humanities	Sciences
Preoccupation	Technique	Morality	Morale	Technology
Vocation	Equpiment	Materiel	Personnel	Systems
Orientation
Present	Practical	Dutiful	Altruistic	Pragmatic
Furture	Optimistic	Pessimistic	Credulous	Skeptical
Past	Cynical	Stoical	Mystical	Relativistic
Place	Here	Gateways	Pathways	Intersections
Time	Now	Yesterday	Tomorrow	Intervals
Self-Image
Self-Esteem	Artistic	Dependable	Empathic	Ingenious
Self-Respect	Audacious	Beneficent	Benevolent	Autonomous
Self-Confidence	Adaptable	Respectable	Authentic	Resolute
Value
Being	Excited	Concerned	Enthusiastic	Calm
Trusting	Impulse	Authority	Intuition	Reason
Yearning	Impact	Belonging	Romance	Achievement
Seeking	Stimulation	Security	Identity	Knowledge
Prizing	Generosity	Gratitude	Recognition	Deference
Aspiring	Virtuoso	Executive	Sage	Wizard
Social Role
Mating	Playmate	Helpmate	Soulmate	Mindmate
Parenting	Liberator	Socializer	Harmonizer	Individuator
Leading	Negotiator	Stabilizer	Catalyst	Visionary

Idealist Role Variants

These “Abstract Cooperators” as I like to call them -- Plato’s Idealists Aristotle’s Ethicals, Galen’s Cholerics, and Myers’s NFs -- have, like the other types, a tightly configured personality, so that each trait of character entails the other traits. Mother Nature will not permit Idealists, any more than other types, to pick and choose the traits that make up their character. If their environment enables them to develop a given trait it can only be one that is predetermined by their temperament.

While it is useful to think of each of the four temperaments as a single, unified configuration of attitudes and actions, individual members of each temperament clearly differ from one another. Thus, all the Idealists seem to have a great capacity for diplomatic empathy, but some (the scheduling NFs) are drawn to the directive role of Mentor of human development, while others (the probing NFs) prefer the informative role of Advocate of harmonious interaction. These two divisions can be further broken down to reflect an expressive or a reserved social attitude, with the Mentors tending to play the role variants of Teacher or Counselor, and the Advocates playing Champion or Healer.

The Teacher [ENFJ]

Learning has to be beckoned forth, led out of its hiding place, or, as suggested by the word ‘education,’ it has to be educed by an individual with educative skills. More than any of the other Idealists ENFJs are natural teachers, with the uncanny ability to influence those around them, and without seeming to do so. Even as children these Teachers may attract a neighborhood gang of children ready to listen to them and to follow them in play. And adult Teachers are wonderful leaders of group learning experiences, more capable than any other type of calling forth each learner’s potentials.

As a variant of Plato’s Idealists and Aristotle’s Ethicists, the ENFJs are little different from other NFs in most respects. Like all the Idealists they are abstract in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals. They want to learn about the humanities, are preoccupied with morale, and work well with personnel. In orientation they are altruistic, credulous, mystical, situated on pathways, and with their eye on tomorrow. They base their self-image on being seen as empathic, benevolent, and authentic. Often enthusiastic, they trust intuition, yearn for romance, seek identity, prize recognition, and aspire to the wisdom of the sage. Intellectually, they are prone to practice diplomacy far more than strategy, logistics, and especially tactics. Further, with their scheduling nature, they tend to choose the directive Mentor’s role over the probing Advocate’s informative role. And because of their expressiveness they prefer the part of Teacher over that of Counselor. To help visualize ENFJ intellectual development, consider the

following bar graph depicting the most probable profile of their diplomatic roles:

ENFJ Preferences
Mentor	Teacher
Mentor	Councelor
Advocate	Champion
Advocate	Healer

Teachers expect the very best of those around them, and their enthusiasm inspires action in others and the desire to live up to their expectations. ENFJs (around two percent of the population) have the delightful characteristic of taking for granted that people will meet their expectations, never doubting that people will obey their implicit commands. And, more often than not, people do, because this type has extraordinary charisma.

These outgoing Mentors arrange work and social engagements ahead of time and tend to be absolutely reliable in honoring these commitments. But they are also comfortable in complex situations which require the juggling of much data with little pre-planning. An experienced ENFJ group leader can dream up, effortlessly, and almost endlessly, activities for their groups to engage in, and stimulating roles for members to play. In some Teachers, inspired by the responsiveness of their students or followers, this can amount to a kind of genius which other types find hard to emulate. Such ability to preside without planning reminds us somewhat of an ESFJ Provider Guardian, but the latter acts more as a master of ceremonies than as a leader of groups. ENFJs are natural hosts and hostesses, making sure that each guest is well looked after, or that the right things are expressed on traditional social occasions. In much the same way, ENFJs value harmonious relations, can handle people with charm and concern, and are usually popular wherever they are. But they are not so much social as educational leaders, interested primarily in the growth and development of individuals.

Teachers consider people their highest priority, and they naturally communicate caring, concern, and a willingness to become involved with others. As a result, people often turn to them for nurture and support, which they usually manage to deliver, showing sincere interest in the problems of those around them, employees, colleagues, students, and so on. But they can also become over-involved in these problems, and find themselves unable to turn away from such demands even when they become unreasonable. At times, indeed, the personal needs of others can overwhelm ENFJs, and they may find themselves over-extended emotionally, feeling responsible for the feelings of others to an extent which can place a burden on their families. Or, if forced to let go of other relationships through sheer unavailability of time or energy, they experience a guilt all out of proportion to the realities of their commitments.

Teachers have a highly developed ability to empathize by introjection, that is, taking into themselves the characteristics, emotions, and beliefs of others -- even to the point of unconsciously mimicking others. But this unusual ability to relate to others with empathy can also pose a danger for them, because they can easily over-identify with others and pick up their burdens as if they were their own, actually putting at risk their own identity.

ENFJs are also vulnerable to idealizing their personal relationships, raising them to a plane which seldom can sustain the realities of human nature. Because of this tendency to project their own ideals into their relationships, they may unwittingly overpower their friends and loved ones, who doubt that they can live up to such an exalted conception of themselves, unaware that Teachers are their boosters, not their critics.

A wide range of occupations offer Teachers success, even though their longing for the ideal often carries over to their careers and can cause them some restlessness. Good with language, they contribute to an unusual level when dealing with people, particularly face-to-face. The media and the ministry are populated with talented ENFJs, and they make excellent therapists, educators, and primary care physicians. They should avoid occupations that do not make use of their interpersonal talents (accounting, law practice, the military); otherwise, almost any activity where sustained personal contact is involved suits their diplomatic skills.

Teachers take communication for granted and believe that they are instinctively understood and that their communications are naturally accepted. Just as they themselves are accepting of others, so do they assume that others are the same with them. When they find that their position or beliefs were not comprehended or accepted, they are surprised, puzzled, and sometimes hurt. Fortunately, this does not happen with high frequency, since ENFJs have a remarkable fluency with language, especially when communicating in speech, face to face. They are influential, therefore, in groups, having no hesitation about speaking out, no matter how large or small the group may be.

Outgoing, and perhaps the most expressive of all the types, ENFJs do not hesitate to communicate their feelings. Their negative feelings can be blurted out, like steam from a boiling teakettle with a rattling lid, and their positive feelings can be voiced with dramatic and even histrionic flourish. Teachers can, with practice, become spell-binding orators.

These ENFJs would do well to follow their hunches, for their intuition tends to be well developed. On the other hand, their use of logic in decisionmaking may not be so sound, and checking with a Rational might be at times advisable for them. In the framework of personal and interpersonal insight, however, they are unparalleled. Without a doubt, they know what is going on inside themselves, and they can read other people with remarkable accuracy. Seldom are they wrong about another’s intentions.

Teachers place a high value on mutual cooperation in their closest relationships, and thus make excellent companions and mates. They are tireless in their efforts to promote harmony with their loved one, giving generously of their time and energy to make sure their mate is happy. Indeed, ENFJs feel personally responsible when home life does not go smoothly. Unfortunately, this dedication often exists side by side with their dream of the perfect relationship -- a characteristic of all Idealists, but one which is particularly strong in the Teachers. Their longing for an ideal mate can even cause them some restlessness, at times bringing on a vague dissatisfaction with the mate they already have.

As parents, Teachers are deeply devoted to their children, yet tend not to be domineering. On the contrary, they are supremely affectionate and nurturing, so much so that they can be taken advantage of by a particularly demanding child.

The Counselor [INFJ]

Counseling is the side of mentoring that focuses on helping people to realize their human potential, and INFJs have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy guiding their companions toward greater personal fulfillment. INFJs are scarce, little more than one percent of the population, which is too bad, considering their usefulness in the social order. Although these Counselors tend to be private, sensitive people, and thus are not usually visible leaders, they work intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes with their families, friends, and colleagues. These seclusive and friendly people are complicated themselves, and so can understand and deal with complex ethical issues and with deeply troubled individuals.

As a variant of Plato’s Idealists and Aristotle’s Ethicists, the INFJs are little different from other NFs in most respects. Like all the Idealists they are abstract in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals. They want to learn about the humanities, are preoccupied with morale, and work well with personnel. In orientation they are altruistic, credulous, mystical, situated on pathways, and with their eye on tomorrow. They base their self-image on being seen as empathic, benevolent, and authentic. Often enthusiastic, they trust intuition, yearn for romance, seek identity, prize recognition, and aspire to the wisdom of the sage. Intellectually, they are prone to practice diplomacy far more than strategy, logistics, and especially tactics. Further, having a scheduling nature they tend to choose the directive Mentor’s role over the probing Advocate’s informative role. And because they are quiet and reserved they seem more comfortable acting as a private Counselor than as a classroom Teacher. To visualize INFJ intellectual development consider the following graph depicting the most probable profile of their diplomatic roles:

INFJ Preferences
Mentor	Councelor
Mentor	Teacher
Advocate	Healer
Advocate	Champion

Counselors can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. With their loved ones, certainly, they are not reluctant to express their feelings, their face lighting up with the positive emotions, but darkening like a thunderhead with the negative. Because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, Counselors can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people, quietly withdrawing from human contact. At the same time, friends who have known them for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that Counselors are inconsistent; they value their integrity a great deal, but they have mysterious, intricately woven personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

This type of Idealist has strong empathic abilities and can become aware of another’s emotions or intentions -- good or evil -- even before that person is conscious of them. Such mind-reading can take the form of feeling the hidden distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types to comprehend. Even INFJs can seldom tell how they came to penetrate others’ feelings so keenly. Furthermore, the Counselor is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena. What is known as “ESP” may well be exceptional intuitive ability -- in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such supernormal intuition is found frequently in INFJs, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance.

Because of their vivid imaginations Counselors are often seen as the most poetic, even mystical, of all the types. They use an unusual degree of imagery in their language, the kind of imagery found in complex and often aesthetic writing such as novels, plays, and poems. To be sure, they often select liberal arts as a college major, and they may be attracted to creative writing as a profession. In all their communications they are masters of the metaphor, and will naturally describe a thing in terms of something else. Their great talent for metaphorical language -- both written and verbal -- is usually directed toward communicating with people in a personalized way. INFJ writers comment that they write with a particular person in mind, whereas writing to a faceless audience leaves them uninspired.

In school INFJs are usually good students, high-achievers who exhibit an unostentatious creativity. They enjoy problem-solving, take their work seriously, and enjoy academic activity, but they can also exhibit qualities of perfectionism and put more into a task than perhaps is justified by the nature of the task.

Counselors thrive in occupations which involve interacting with people, nurturing their personal development, especially on a one-to-one basis. As with all NFs, teaching and the ministry hold attraction, although INFJs must develop an expressive attitude in both professions, which for them requires a great deal of energy. More suited to them is the general practice of medicine, or therapeutic counseling. Counselors make outstanding individual therapists who have a unique ability to get in touch with their patients’ inner lives, though they are also the most vulnerable of all the types to the eruption of their own repressed thoughts and feelings. As therapeutic counselors, INFJs may choose clinical psychology or psychiatric medicine, or may choose to teach or to write in these fields. Whatever their choice, they generally are successful in therapeutic counseling because their personal warmth, their enthusiasm, their insight, their devotion, their originality, and their interpretive skills can all be brought into play.

Although they have a capacity for working at jobs which require solitude and close attention, Counselors also do well when in contact with groups of people, providing, of course, that the personal interactions are not superficial. They are highly sensitive in their handling of others and tend to work effectively in an organizational structure. They enjoy helping people with their problems, and can understand and use human systems creatively and benevolently. They value staff harmony and want an organization to run smoothly and pleasantly, making every effort themselves to contribute to that end. As employees or employers, INFJs are concerned with people’s feelings and are able to act as a barometer of the feelings of individuals and groups within the organization. They listen well and are adept at consulting and cooperating with others. They enjoy pleasing others and they find conflict disagreeable and destructive. INFJs respond to praise and use approval as a means of motivating others, just as they themselves are motivated by approval. If they are subject to hostile working conditions or to constant criticism, they tend to lose confidence, become unhappy and immobilized, and can eventually become physically ill.

These soft-spoken Mentors also want harmony in their homes and find interpersonal conflict, overt or covert, extremely destructive to their happiness. Their friendship circle is likely to be small, deep, and long-standing. As mates, they are devoted to their spouses, but may not always be open to sexual approaches. They tend to be physically affectionate, but wish to choose when -- which is when they are in the mood -- and such a hot and cold style may be quite confusing to their mate. Often an INFJs expressions of affection will be subtle, taking a romantic, even poetic turn.

Counselors are devoted parents. A female INFJ can bond with her children in a kind of mental symbiosis, sometimes so strong an identification be unhealthy for both mother and child. More often, however, Counselors tend to be good friends with their children, exceptionally loving, while firm in discipline. They are typically concerned about the comfort, physical health, and emotional well-being of both mates and children.

The Champion [ENFP]

In the view of the Champions nothing occurs that is without significance, without profound meaning. And they don’t want to miss any of it. ENFPs must experience all the events that affect people’s lives, and then they are eager to relate the stories they’ve uncovered, hoping to disclose some truth about people and issues, and to motivate others with their powerful convictions. This strong drive to speak out on social events can make these Champions tireless in conversing with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. Their enthusiasm is boundless and is often contagious, making them the most vivacious of all the types, and also inspiring others to join their cause.

As a variant of Plato’s Idealists and Aristotle’s Ethicists, the ENFPs are little different from other NFs in most respects. Like all the Idealists they are abstract in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals. They want to learn about the humanities, are preoccupied with morale, and work well with personnel. In orientation they are altruistic, credulous, mystical, situated on pathways, and with their eye on tomorrow. They base their self-image on being seen as empathic, benevolent, and authentic. Often inspired, they trust their intuition, yearn for romance, seek identity, prize recognition, and aspire to be a sage. Intellectually, they are prone to practice diplomacy far more than strategy, logistics, and especially tactics. Further, having a probing or exploring nature they tend to prefer the Advocate’s informative role over the more schedule-minded Mentor’s directive role. And because of their irrepressible expressiveness they are more eager to be a Champion of causes than a Healer of troubled souls. To visualize ENFP intellectual development consider the following bar graph depicting the most probable profile of their diplomatic roles:

ENFP Preferences
Advocate	Champion
Advocate	Healer
Mentor	Teacher
Mentor	Councelor

Like the other NF role variants, ENFPs are rather rare, say two or three percent of the population, but even more than the others they consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life. Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty, and so can become bored rather quickly with both situations and people, and resist repeating experiences. Also, they can never quite shake the feeling that a part of themselves is split off, uninvolved in their experience. Thus, while they strive for emotional intensity, Champions often see themselves in some danger of losing touch with their real feelings.

These expressive Advocates are fiercely independent, repudiating any kind of subordination, either in themselves or in others in relation to them. Unfortunately, Champions constantly find themselves surrounded by others who look toward them for wisdom, inspiration, courage, and leadership, a dependency which, at times, weighs rather heavily on them. In the same vein, ENFPs strive toward a kind of spontaneous personal authenticity, and this intention always to be themselves is usually communicated nonverbally to others, who find it quite attractive. All too often, however, they fall short in their efforts to be authentic, and they tend to heap coals of fire on themselves for the slightest self-conscious role-playing.

In their probing way, Champions exercise a continuous scanning of the social environment, and no suspicious motive is likely to escape their attention. Far more than the other NFs, ENFPs are the keen and penetrating observers of the people around them, and are capable of intense concentration on another individual. Their attention is never passive or casual, never wandering, but always directed. In fact, seeing life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, Champions tend to be hypersensitive and hyperalert, always ready for emergencies, and because of this they may suffer from muscle tension.

At the same time, ENFPs have outstanding intuitive powers and often find themselves trying to read what is going on inside of others, interpreting events in terms of another’s hidden motives, and giving special meaning to words or actions. While this interpretation can be accurate, it can also be negative, sometimes inaccurately negative, and may introduce an unnecessarily toxic element into the relationship. For instance, Champions tend to attribute more power to authority figures than is there, and to give over to these figures an ability to see through them -- a power of insight which is usually not there. In this way they can make serious mistakes in judgment, mistakes which derive from their tendency to project their own attributes onto others, and to focus on data which confirm their own biases.

Despite the occasional misinterpretation, Champions are good with people and make extensive use of their interpersonal powers. They usually have a wide range of personal and telephone contacts, expending energy in maintaining both career and personal relationships. They are warm and have fun with people, and are unusually skilled in handling people. They are likeable and at ease with colleagues, and others enjoy their presence. Their public role tends to be well developed, as is their capacity for the spontaneous and the dramatic. They are characteristically positive in their outlook, and are surprised when people or events do not turn out as anticipated. Often their confidence in the innate goodness of life and human nature is a self-fulling prophecy.

Champions have a remarkable latitude in career choices and succeed in many fields. As workers, they are warmly enthusiastic, high-spirited, imaginative, and can do almost anything that interests them. They have a strong sense of the possible and can solve most problems, particularly those dealing with people. They enjoy the process of creating something, an idea

or a project, but are not as interested in the more monotonous follow-through. Once people or projects become routine, ENFPs are likely to lose interest -- what might be is always more fascinating than what is. Champions are outstanding in getting people together, and are good at initiating meetings and conferences, although not as talented at providing for the logistical or operational details of these events. They are good at inventing new ways of doing things, and their projects tend to become quickly personalized into a cause. They are imaginative themselves, but can have difficulty picking up on ideas and projects initiated by others. If they are to lend their energy and interest to a project, they must make it their own.

People-to-people work is essential for Champions. They make excellent teachers, ministers, and in general are attracted to the communicative arts, making talented journalists, orators, novelists, screen writers, and playwrights. In institutional settings they can be gadflies, challenging obsolete procedures and policies. Sometimes they get impatient with their superiors; and they will occasionally side with detractors of their organization, who find in them a sympathetic ear and a natural rescuer. In occupational choice, ENFPs quickly become restless if the choice involves painstaking detail and follow-through over a period of time. Variety in day-to-day operations and interactions best suits their talents, since they need quite a bit of freedom in which to exercise their creativity.

As mates, ENFPs tend to be appealing, gentle, sympathetic, but nonconformist. Since they often seek new outlets for their inspirations, their mates can expect surprises. They can swing from extravagance to frugality, and their home may contain expensive luxuries, while necessities may be missing. They are largely disinterested in such things as domestic maintenance, savings accounts, life insurance, and even ready cash.

In their parenting role, Champions are devoted although somewhat unpredictable in handling their children, shifting from a role of friend-in-need to stern authority figure. While they voice strong opinions about discipline, they may not be willing to enforce their dramatic pronouncements, fearing to lose rapport with their children, and thus leaving it to their mate to follow through. ENFPs can be creative parents, providing their children with all sorts of intriguing experiences. On the other hand they have little patience with whining or demanding children, and can be quite short with such behavior.

The Healer [INFP]

To the INFP healing means mending those divisions that plague one’s private life and one’s relationships. It means treating oneself and relating to others in a conciliatory manner, helping to restore lost unity, integrity, or what INFPs call “oneness.” These Healers present a tranquil and noticeably pleasant face to the world, but while to all appearances they might seem gentle and easy-going, on the inside they are anything but serene, having a capacity for caring not usually found in other types. Healers care deeply – passionately -- about a few special persons or a favorite cause, and their fervent aim is to bring peace to the world and wholeness to themselves and their loved ones.

As a variant of Plato’s Idealists and Aristotle’s Ethicists, the INFPs are little different from other NFs in most respects. Like all the Idealists they are abstract in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals. They want to learn about the humanities, are preoccupied with morale, and work well with personnel. In orientation they are altruistic, credulous, mystical, situated on pathways, and with their eye on tomorrow. They base their self-image on being seen as empathic, benevolent, and authentic. Often enthusiastic, they trust intuition, yearn for romance, seek identity, prize recognition, and aspire to the wisdom of the sage. Intellectually, they are prone to practice diplomacy far more than strategy, logistics, and especially tactics. Further, with their probing or exploring nature they lean more toward the Advocate’s informative role than the scheduling Mentor’s directive role. And because of their seclusiveness and reserve they seem to care more to be a Healer of conflicts than a people’s Champion. To visualize INFP intellectual development consider the following bar graph depicting the most probable profile of their diplomatic roles:

INFP Preferences
Advocate	Healer
Advocate	Champion
Mentor	Councelor
Mentor	Teacher

Healers have a profound sense of idealism derived from a strong personal morality, and they conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place. Indeed, to understand Healers, we must understand their idealism as almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. They are the Shaman, Medicine Man, or Witch Doctor of the tribe, the Prince or Princess in fairy tales, the True Knight or Defender of the Faith, like Don Quixote or Joan of Arc. Isolated by their seclusiveness and infrequency (around one percent of the general population), their idealism leaves them feeling even more isolated from the rest of humanity.

It may be that Healers seek unity within themselves, and between themselves and others, because of a feeling of alienation which comes from their often unhappy childhood. INFPs live a fantasy-filled childhood, which, sadly, is discouraged or even punished by many parents. With parents who require them to be sociable and industrious in concrete ways, and also with down-to-earth siblings who conform to these parental expectations, Healers come to see themselves as ugly ducklings. Other types may shrug off parental expectations that do not fit them, but not the INFPs. Wishing to please their parents and siblings, but not knowing quite how to do it, they try to hide their differences, believing they are bad to be so fanciful, so unlike their more solid brothers and sisters. They wonder, some of them for the rest of their lives, whether they are OK. They are quite OK, just different from the others -- swans reared in a family of ducks.

Even so, Healers find it difficult to believe in themselves and to trust themselves. Deeply committed to the positive and the good, yet taught to believe there is evil in them, they can come to develop a certain fascination with the problem of good and evil, sacred and profane. They are drawn toward purity, but can become engrossed with sin, continuously on the lookout for the wickedness that lurks within them. Then, when they believe they have yielded to an impure temptation, they may be given to acts of self-sacrifice in atonement. Others seldom detect this inner turmoil, however, for the struggle between good and evil is within the INFP, who does not feel compelled to make the issue public.

In evaluating things and making decisions, Healers prefer to follow their intuition rather than logic. They respond to the beautiful versus the ugly, the good versus the bad, and the moral versus the immoral. Impressions are gained in a fluid, global, diffused way. Metaphors come naturally to them but may be strained. They have a gift for interpreting symbols, as well as creating them, and thus often write in lyric, poetic fashion. They show a tendency to take deliberate liberties with logic, believing as they do (and unlike the Rationals) that logic is something optional. They may also, at times, assume an unwarranted familiarity with a certain subject matter, believing in their impressionistic way that they “know all about that,” though they’ve never really mastered the details. They have difficulty thinking in conditional “if-then” terms; they tend to see things as either black or white, and can be impatient with contingency.

At work, Healers are adaptable, welcome new ideas and new information, are well aware of people and their feelings, and relate well to most others, albeit with some reserve. They dislike telephone interruptions and work well alone. They are patient with complicated situations, but impatient with routine details. They can make errors of fact, but seldom of feeling. The INFPs’ career choices should tend toward the ministry, missionary work, social work, library research, tutoring, child counseling, college teaching in the humanities -- and away from business. They seem capable of applying themselves scholastically to gain the necessary training for professional work, and often do better in college than in high school. They have a natural interest in scholarly activities and demonstrate, as do the other NFs, a remarkable facility with language. Often they hear a calling to go forth into the world to help others, and they seem ready to make the personal sacrifices involved in responding to that call, even if it means asking their loved ones to do likewise.

In their mating role, Healers have a deep commitment to their vows. They are loyal to their mates and, while they might dream of greener pastures, if they stray into those pastures they soon locate the nettles. They like to live in harmony and they go to great lengths to avoid interpersonal conflict. They are sensitive to the feelings of their mates and enjoy pleasing them, although they may have difficulty in expressing interest and affection openly or directly. INFPs cling to their dreams, and often find it difficult to reconcile a romantic, idealized concept of conjugal life with the realities of everyday living with another person. Even at the best of times, they seem fearful of too much marital bliss, afraid that current happiness may have to be paid for with later sacrifices. The devil is sure to get his due if one experiences too freely of happiness, or, for that matter, of success, or beauty, or wealth, or knowledge. This almost preconscious conviction that pleasure must be paid for with pain can cause a sense of uneasiness in INFPs when they marry; they may feel they must be ever-vigilant against invasion, and can therefore have trouble relaxing in the happiness of mating.

These reserved and soft-spoken Advocates are fierce protectors of home and family -- their home is indeed their castle. As parents, they are devoted to the welfare of their children, treating them with great sympathy, and adaptability. In the routines of daily living, INFPs tend to be flexible, even compliant with their mate’s ideas of discipline, and thus are easy to live with. They will often give their children a voice in family decisions -- until their value system is violated. Then they dig in their heels and will not budge from their ideals. Life with a Healer parent will go harmoniously along for long periods, until an ideal is stepped on. Then they will resist and insist.

The Idealist Soulmate

You are the call and I am the answer. You are the wish, and I the fulfillment. You are the night, and I the day. What else? It is perfect enough. It is perfectly complete. You and I.

-- D.H. Lawrence

Idealists approach mating quite differently from the other three temperaments. In their own ways the other types tend to be realistic about mating, which is to say that Artisans, Guardians, and Rationals assume their mates to be fallible, and they will go along with a good deal of compromise in making their marriages work. Idealists, on the other hand, are singularly idealistic about choosing a mate, and most often take up the romantic task of seeking the perfect mate and the ideal relationship, what they call the “love of their life” or their “one true love,” joined with them in a match made in heaven and creating a love timeless and eternal. In other words, NFs are looking for more than life partners in their mates -- they want soul partners, persons with whom they can bond in some special spiritual sense, sharing their complex inner lives and communicating intimately about what most concerns them: their feelings and their causes, their romantic fantasies and their ethical dilemmas, their inner division and their search for wholeness. Idealists firmly believe in such deep and meaningful relationships -- they will settle for nothing less -- and in some cases they try to create them where they don’t exist.

Idealist Courtship

The Idealists’ desire that their relationships be deep and meaningful (that is, intense, enduring, and all-important in their lives) is very much in evidence in the way they go about dating. NFs do not usually choose to play the field to any great extent, but prefer to go out with one person at a time and to explore the potential for special closeness in each relationship. Never casual or occasional about dating, NFs typically look past surface relations to more deeply-felt connections, and they lose interest rather quickly with dates which center around social events and physical activities. Idealists can enjoy this skin-deep sort of date for a while, of course, but they usually try to find their own kind of enjoyment as the evening wears on. At parties, for example, NFs will often look for a quiet corner where they can talk with their date (or someone else) on a more personal, intimate level. And at amusement parks or sporting events, Idealists will eventually separate themselves mentally from the rides, the sights, and the action, and begin to observe the people around them, wondering about their personalities and fantasizing about their personal lives.

Indeed (and this surprises Artisans and Guardians), Idealists would usually rather talk with their dates than do things or go places, although chatting about concrete, literal, or factual things doesn’t particularly interest them either. Idealists want to talk about abstract matters -- ideas, insights, personal philosophies, spiritual beliefs, dreams, goals, family relationships, altruistic causes, and the like – inwardly -- felt topics that break through social surfaces and connect two people heart-to-heart. NFs love to talk about movies or novels that have touched them deeply, but they don’t want to describe the plot so much as discuss what the story suggests between the lines, the aesthetic or moral issues involved, and how the characters’ lives symbolize their own experience or the wider experience of mankind. And NFs will talk enthusiastically about art, music, and poetry, particularly about what a work of art signifies to them. The ability to communicate comfortably with their dates in this imaginative, meaningful way most often determines whether or not the Idealist can become serious in a given relationship.

Finding the rare person with whom they can share their inner world is difficult for Idealists, a painful process of trial and error, and often they vow not to date at all for periods of time rather than go through the search. For NFs, dating someone means more than physical fun or social experience; it is an opening of their heart and mind to the other person, in some cases a baring of their soul, and carries with it both a promise and an expectation of deep regard and mutual understanding. And because they are offering so much of themselves to the other, and expecting so much in return, NFs are highly sensitive to rejection, and can be deeply hurt when spurned by another, or when having to break off a relationship themselves. The trauma of breaking up can be so difficult for Idealists that at times they will avoid getting involved with others for fear of things not working out, or, at the other extreme, they will remain in a relationship longer than they should just to put off the soul-hurting scene of rejection.

However, once the special person comes their way (the man or woman of their dreams), Idealists can be carried away with their feelings, and give almost all their attention to pursuing the relationship. For the NF, not just a compatible marriage but an all-consuming, undying passion is in the offing, and so the courtship becomes the center of his or her world. Just as the possible rather than the actual lures NFs in other parts of their lives, so do the possibilities in relationships inspire them, and they see in each new relationship the potential for bringing them the perfect love that will fulfill them completely. Idealists have a flair for dramatizing their courtships, and they spare no effort or flight of imagination to win the heart of their loved one. Often a story book flavor permeates their courtship behavior, and NFs are not afraid of using imaginative language, even poetry and quotations, to give voice to their feelings. NFs can also be romantic when expressing love through gifts, though they are likely to present the gift in private, and to select with extraordinary care something with special or even symbolic meaning -- a beloved piece of music, a favorite book of fiction or poetry, a treasured picture. In a sense, Idealists go about turning their courtships into works of art, which is not surprising, since one of the arts at which they are most skilled is that of creating the romantic relationship.

Idealist courtships are marked not only by romantic gestures, but also by the idealization of the relationship. In the early stages of a romance, both NF males and females are likely to be blind to flaws in their beloved, and to believe in the illusion that life together will proceed happily ever after (although the details of this happily ever after are rarely explored in depth). Idealists hold dear a compelling though often vague inner-vision of what their ideal mate will be like, and they tend to project this vision of perfection into their all-too-human loved ones. Thus, at the slightest suggestion, NFs, will see soulfulness and poetic sensitivity in the people they’ve fallen in love with -- whether or not they are indeed soulful or poetic. At the same time, NFs believe that everyone has the potential for spiritual growth, and in many cases they intend to use their love to develop this latent mystical side of their mates. Needless to say, most human beings cannot live up to such romantic ideals, nor will they often sit still to have their spirituality nurtured in such a way. Many Artisans react with goodnatured sarcasm, many Guardians seem impatient with such foolishness, and the Rational view of this attribution of soulfulness is often skeptical at best. Idealists who attempt to make their loved ones live up to their ideals are sooner or later faced with disillusionment in their relationships.

Although many Idealists are reluctant to admit it, such romantic projection -- and such disillusionment -- are most often a problem in cases where there is a strong sexual attraction. Idealists can be deeply divided about their sexual feelings. On the one hand, they insist that sex must be an expression of love rather than lust. Even the word ‘sex’ seems a little crude to the Idealist; ‘love’ puts the relationship on a higher plain. But make no mistake, for all their other-worldliness, NFs are very intimate, warm, even passionate people who are highly responsive to physical beauty and sexual attraction-to Paracelsus, remember, they were Nymphs. Now, the problem for Idealists is that, with their rich fantasy lives, they tend to idealize physical beauty and to project their own poetic nature into the object of their sexual attraction. They also tend to romanticize sex as soulful communion. In other words, NFs tend to fall in love with a dream of beauty and passion, only to be rather painfully disillusioned by the flesh-and-blood imperfections which they eventually encounter in their loved ones. Many NFs are not fully prepared for the moment of truth when they come to see the imperfect reality of their lovers, and some relationships are unable to survive the truth. Fortunately, both male and female Idealists have a capacity for deep affection and caring over and above sexual expression, and out of this capacity can grow lasting, intimate relationships.

Curiously, it appears that female Idealists are able to sustain the romanticism invested in a relationship longer than male Idealists. Generally speaking, once the physical relationship is consummated, NFs of both genders feel deeply bonded with their partner and are certain the relationship will be blessed with eternal bliss. But for the male NF, anticipation can be more attractive than consummation, and the love which he believes will be perfect and undying can come to seem ordinary and inadequate in the harsh light of everyday reality. And so, after the physical side of the relationship has lost its mystery, some male NFs can become disinterested and hunger after another fantasy, feeling compelled (if only in their imaginations) to pursue the dream of a larger-than-life goddess who will satisfy all their desires and be wife, mother, and mistress to them. Idealists, as do the other temperaments, want a certain amount of variety and change in their lives, but the other temperaments will often seek this through adjustment of living routines, travel, new social or recreational activities, new fields of study, and so on. The male Idealist is most vulnerable to seeking variety through searching out a new person to love, and thus a danger he faces is that he will move from relationship to relationship, rather than make the necessary effort to develop the one he has.

The female Idealist does not as often demonstrate this loss of interest; on the contrary, she is likely to increase her dedication after the physical relationship is consummated. She becomes more and more devoted, continuing to romanticize the relationship and to believe in its perfection, to give small transactions profound significance, to dramatize ordinary interactions with her mate, to be willing (like so many NF fictional characters) to die for love. She seldom seems disappointed in the sexual act; orgasmic response on her part can be seen as secondary compared with the more selfless pleasure of giving herself body and soul to her mate, and she can satisfy herself by exploring the emotional intimacy of sexual intercourse. For the male Idealist, restlessness can set in as a result of familiarity, whereas an indispensable part of the female Idealist’s mating identity is the image of falling in love once and for a lifetime. The fact that this does not always work out does not seem to negate the possibility of the dream coming true.

However, in the 1960s and 1970s a striking phenomenon occurred, perhaps arising from the female Idealist’s ability to imagine a more perfect mating relationship. The group that spearheaded the sexual revolution was largely made up of female Idealists (particularly the ENFP Champions). Thus, it was the female Idealists who said “No!” most loudly to the double sexual (and other) standards in society, and who became most militant in demanding equal rights in the bedroom. Somehow female Idealists decided that selfless devotion to their mates was not enough, and that a better, more satisfactory relationship with men could be actualized. They seemed willing, in ever growing numbers, to take whatever risks were necessary to find that better relationship, either in or out of a legal contract. In fact, more and more the NF females seemed reluctant to tie themselves down to a traditional legal arrangement, putting off the urging of their housemates, asking that both wait until she was sure she was doing the right thing. More and more NF females seemed willing to bear their children outside a legal marriage and to raise them alone. This is not to say that other types were not also involved in this liberation movement, but it was the NFs, along with a small number of NT females, who provided the vanguard of the revolution. Instead of being ready and willing to die for love, these Idealist females seemed to be willing to live for the possibility of finding a more fulfilling way of relating to males.

But, then, most Idealists -- sexual revolutionaries or not-regard the social conventions of marriage as less important, and far less sacred, than their personal commitments. Like the Guardians, Idealists are concerned about having moral sanction for their actions, but with a difference. While Guardians tend to put their trust in institutional authority (including church authority), and thus care a great deal about licenses and wedding ceremonies, Idealists are apt to follow their innermost feelings and personal religious convictions, and thus will consider themselves married when they’re sure that deep bonding has taken place with their mates, and when private words of devotion have been exchanged. For many NFs the arrangements and formalities of wedding ceremonies can seem a needless burden, when the mating of souls and the personal vows are the important things. Reserved NFs, in particular, are often embarrassed to express their private feelings in public, and can become quite flustered at the altar, the meaningfulness of their vows so overwhelming them emotionally that they seem lost in a blur during the ceremony, and not able to find themselves again until alone with their mates afterwards. This is not to say that Idealists will try to avoid walking down the aisle, but only that they do not always need this sort of external moral authority to sanctify their relationships. If need be, NFs will go along quite happily with the wishes of mates (or parents) for traditional wedding ceremonies, and they will find enormous significance and holiness in the rituals. Some outgoing NFs will even look forward to their weddings, though this is likely because they’ve taken a hand in creating non-traditional ceremonies, writing their own vows, for instance, and selecting unconventional readings and music for the occasion.

These Idealists, warm, generous, vivacious, soulful, personally conscientious and interpersonally sensitive, are quite attractive to the other temperaments. Artisans feel some kinship with the Idealists’ romantic or poetic sense of life as a work of art, and can feel morally uplifted by the ethical dimension that NFs bring to their relationships. Guardians, on the other hand, feel secure with the Idealists’ powerful sense of life’s moral seriousness, and can feel livened up a bit by the enthusiasm and creativity with which NFs throw themselves into things. However, it is the Rationals who are most attracted to Idealists, for not only do they share the NFs’ abstract, introspective cast of mind, and thus have someone interesting to talk with, but they truly admire the NFs’ emotional sparkle, their personal warmth, and their insight into people -- traits that the phlegmatic NTs often note are poorly developed in themselves.

Idealist Married Life

Whatever the mix of personalities in their marriages, however, both male and female Idealists are likely to be a source of continuing love, support, and understanding to their spouses. In the affective areas Idealists are without equal, bringing to their marriages an extraordinary sensitivity to the moods and feelings of their mates, and an unsurpassed ability to communicate emotionally. Both NF females and males seem to have their antennae always alert to what others are feeling, especially when this involves hurt and conflict, and they characteristically respond to their mates with kindness, tenderness, and unconditional love. They are usually ready to lend sympathy to a mate when the outside world turns hostile, and are reluctant to use that moment to point out the errors of a mate’s ways, something which the other three temperaments are more inclined to do.

Indeed, Idealists often are experts in the arts of appreciation, especially in the area of personal qualities, and they are apt to be generous in expressing heartfelt approval of their loved ones. Possessing facility with language, NFs are able to communicate nuances of emotions that might not even be noticed by the other temperaments, and their private conversations are often liberally sprinkled with terms of endearment and with frequent, passionate expressions of love, both verbal and nonverbal -- giving hugs and saying “I love you” are often a natural part of their interaction with their mates and children. It is undoubtedly the Idealist who is the most loving, dedicated, affectionate, and appreciative mate, and is unstinting in the expression of these emotions.

Perhaps Idealists are this sensitive to their mates because of their exceptional ability to introject or to empathize -- to see the world through another’s eyes. Of all the temperaments the NFs are the most empathic, having the ability to take into themselves another’s mental state (both thoughts and feelings) so completely that the other feels totally understood and accepted. With their talent for identifying with the other person, for slipping into another’s skin, Idealists find that building close, loving relationships is the most natural thing in the world. They are the true masters of the art of intimacy.

And yet such emotional sensitivity (some would say hypersensitivity) can take its toll, and Idealists have been known to become upset when these affective ties begin to bind, as they do when the amount of emotional input from their mates becomes a psychological overload. NFs report that, at times, they find their emotional circuits so overloaded with their own concerns that they cannot deal positively with the emotional experiences of others who are especially close to them, particularly when those experiences are negative or unhappy.

In addition, emotional dependence in a mate can really bother an Idealist, even though their own sensitivity sometimes encourages dependency. If their mates begin to seem weak and clinging -- to need more and more attention, more and more expressions of the NFs’ unusual appreciation, more and more signals of deep affection -- Idealists can become resentful of pressures to deliver what they had seemed to promise their mates: the ideal love, complete understanding, and total acceptance. At this point NFs can turn irritable, insisting unexpectedly that their mates stop hanging on their approval and learn to stand on their own two feet. This shift in attitude is usually abrupt and the loved ones who heretofore believed that they were very special in the eyes of the Idealist now find themselves apparently rejected. The Idealist does not mean to be unkind; he or she is simply disconnecting from a relationship which can no longer be handled.

Such rejection can take subtler forms as well. Idealists pride themselves on being sensitive to others and caring about them, but their sensitivity tends to be reflexive and indiscriminate. It is almost impossible for NFs to be unaware of others’ emotional needs, and it is hard for them not to offer their empathy and special understanding to whoever happens to be near. In other words, NFs may be unable not to respond to the emotional demands of others, and when they leave one person, they no longer resonate to that person, but to the person now present. Thus, Idealists will find themselves responding to relative strangers with a degree of warmth and acceptance which may not, for the moment, be available to their own mates. Understandably, this can cause some difficulty for mates who want the NF’s empathy to be exercised more exclusively. Their mates may not realize that Idealists cannot help but respond to others’ needs, and may be hurt on coming to believe that they are not valued as uniquely as they first thought.

In much the same way, Idealists may have difficulty freeing themselves from the demands of their careers in order to preserve time for their families. Especially if their jobs involve working closely with others in personal development (teaching, counseling, pastoring, and the like), Idealists can become so wrapped up in the problems and progress of their students, clients, or parishioners that they may neglect their mates and their family priorities. Whoever is there and demanding time gets it, even though their loved ones may be waiting elsewhere. Idealists often have to learn how to detach themselves from their personal involvements away from home, to make sure they give their mates and families first importance in their lives.

Those Idealists (male or female) who cannot order their personal priorities are tempted to move from person to person, using their energies to pursue new significant relationships at the expense of deepening those they already have. Still, the large majority of NFs find their greatest satisfaction in developing one special relationship, and they structure much of their lives around their homes and families. NFs are imaginative and creative around the house, their homes usually filled with a great variety of music and art, along with cherished personal items, family photographs, spiritual icons-and everywhere books, not only books of philosophy and poetry, but books on religion and mysticism, personal growth, novels of all kinds, and often children’s books. Much like Artisans, Idealists have a flair for artistic hobbies, especially those that enhance the home, such as interior decorating, gourmet cooking, gardening (NFs love flowers), playing a musical instrument (piano, guitar, recorder), and often they become quite accomplished in the activity. Idealists will also develop other life-enhancing enthusiasms, nutrition, yoga, self-hypnosis, along with various other kinds of personal therapies, and will usually try to interest their spouses in their latest passion.

Idealists care a great deal about keeping the romance alive and well in their marriages, and they love to go on dates with their spouses no matter how many years they’ve been together, enjoying a romantic weekend getaway, a good restaurant, or an evening at the symphony or the theater. And Idealists strive to be authentic sexual partners, capable of sustaining a deep physical intimacy with their mates. Seeing themselves as a lover as well as a spouse is a major part of their personality, although, again, NFs can be caught up in the romanticized expectations of psychological and sexual perfection generated in their own imaginations. Lovemaking, in particular, can be disappointing in the early stages of NF relationships, for they are strangely innocent about sexuality, and more often than not they expect themselves to know intuitively the most loving and tender approach. Idealists quickly find their way, however, making up in enthusiasm what they might lack in technique, and they would not have it any other way. Being a smooth and suave lover, like an Artisan, would make an Idealist feel inauthentic, even deceitful.

Idealists are generally skilled socially, and people usually feel wanted and well-hosted in their homes. Expressive NFs are likely to be socially active, becoming involved (and hoping to involve their spouses) in a variety of cultural and personal development programs, such as great books courses, drama groups, and film societies, and they will also join discussion groups, taking up vital social issues and current trends in education, psychology, religion, literature, and so on. Reserved NFs keep more to themselves and their immediate loved ones, and tend to make cave-like private spaces in their homes, where they read voraciously and contemplate the mysteries of life, although they will actively support the arts and humanities in their communities, attending concerts, plays, poetry readings, and other cultural events. Expressive or reserved, however, NFs are spontaneously thoughtful with their family members, usually remembering birthdays, anniversaries, and such without being prompted, or at most needing only a hint. If, in turn, their own special days are forgotten, Idealists can be deeply hurt, as deeply as they are appreciative when theirs are noticed.

Idealist Pairings

Creating warm, loving relationships is indeed second nature to Idealists, and they weave their interpersonal spell in marriages with all the temperaments. Still, there can be trouble in paradise.

Idealist-Artisan: Idealists thoroughly enjoy their Artisan mates’ freedom and spontaneity in the real world, and they admire the ease with which SPs can live artfully in the moment, so different from their own often torn, conscience-stricken experience of life. Also the sensuality and sexual boldness of SP mates can intrigue NFs and fire their romantic imaginations. However, there is one potent seed of dissatisfaction in these NF-SP marriages, namely, the lack of interest that SPs have in talking of their inner lives. When an Idealist speaks of the “true self,” of “transcendental meditation,” or of “deep consciousness,” their Artisan mates do not really understand and cannot offer much enthusiasm or insight on such abstract topics. And, sadly, it is from this seed that Pygmalion Projects grow in these relationships, as the Idealist partners try with all their imaginative might to cultivate a heightened inner-awareness in their Artisan mates.

Idealist-Guardian: With Guardian mates Idealists find a comfortable, reassuring stability and dependability in the home, traits which can help give the somewhat scattered NFs a feeling of solid earth beneath their feet. SJs also have a firmly fixed moral center -- a sure sense of Right and Wrong -- that Idealists, so often of two minds about moral issues, deeply respect. And Idealists and Guardians are both social cooperators, which defuses a lot of conflict over following, or at least respecting, the rules and laws that govern everyday life. Yet here again Guardians have trouble sharing the rich inner lives of Idealists, and can disappoint their NF mates’ deep longing for soulful bonding and romantic sexuality. The Guardian might listen dutifully to the Idealist’s flights of imagination, and might try to be more fanciful and passionate in order to please the NF, but sooner or later the SJ feels unappreciated and begin to resist the force of the NF’s Pygmalion Project -- and the result can be head-on battles.

Idealist-Idealist: Idealists have much less trouble with mates of their own temperament, and Idealists often get along exceptionally well with other Idealists. Two NFs can find deep-felt satisfaction in sharing each other’s inner world and exploring each other’s personal development, although if the pair are too much alike in their ethical concerns, or pursue the same spiritual goals for too long a time, they can become rather narrowly devoted to the pilgrim’s journey and tire themselves out along the way. In addition, two empathic NFs can create a wonderfully intimate bond for a time, but eventually such mutual introjection can also invade each partner’s privacy -- constantly getting into each other’s skin can result in getting on each other’s nerves.

Idealist-Rational: The choice of a Rational mate seems to hold the best promise of success for Idealists. The basis of their compatibility is that NFs and NTs both live primarily in the world of abstract concepts -- the world of theories and possibilities, of insights and symbols. After dating more down-to-earth, literal-minded Artisans and Guardians, an Idealist’s first encounter with a Rational can be a revelation, putting the NF in touch with a new and intriguing type of person, someone eager and able (like the NF) to dream the world, to build castles in the air, and to see far distances with the mind’s eye. Also fascinating is the Rational’s calmness and autonomy, two characteristics which give the NT a strength of character -- a firm grasp of who they are -- that the easily ruffled, soul-searching NF greatly admires, and would like to emulate.

These Idealist-Rational relationships do not always remain harmonious, of course. Conflicts of NF emotional expressiveness against NT self-control, of NF intuition against NT logic, and of NF ethical or humanitarian concerns against NT technical pragmatics can prove challenging in even the best Idealist-Rational marriages. Indeed, NFs often come to regard their NT mates’ resistance to expressing emotion, their seemingly aloof rationality, and their preference for what works over what’s right as barriers to be broken down, or at least chipped at with Pygmalion’s chisel. But while sparks might fly -- or maybe because of the sparks -- Idealists take to Rationals as to no other temperament.

Now, in theory, such Idealist-Rational compatibility should reach its peak when particular couples complement each other in the expressive or reserved social attitude (E-I), and in making schedules or probing for options (J-P). The following four NF-NT pairings suggest how these added complementary factors might make for successful mating.

Teachers and Architects have every chance of being well suited. The educator or growth-catalyst inherent in the expressive and scheduling Teacher (ENFJ) wants to bring out the latent talents in his or her loved ones, and what better target than the reserved and probing Architect (INTP)? For beneath the Architect’s cool, collected, detached, and doubting exterior lies an engineer of buildings, machines, tools, operations, languages, mathematics, or whatever can be engineered. If, that is, this diamond-in-the rough can be inspired to fulfill his or her potential.

Counselors and Inventors are apt to fit extremely well together. The reserved and schedule-minded Counselors (INFJs), with their complex, mysterious, symbolic inner-worlds, tend to become trapped in introspection and tied in ethical knots, and they can be freed up considerably by the outgoing and probing Inventors (ENTPs). Counselors might also find great satisfaction in trying to help the non-conformist, sometimes even reckless Inventors find their soul and significance in the scheme of things.

Champions and Masterminds should match up well. Champions (the expressive and probing ENFPs) are much like Healers in their crusader phase, fiercely dedicated to meaning in life and looking into everything of Good and Evil in the world. Only Champions are more outgoing and high-spirited, and more outspoken about their discoveries, not unlike puppies, sniffing around to see what’s new and then barking to let everyone know what they’ve found. Now who would be likely to enjoy this curious, frisky -- yet soulful -- person? Strangely, perhaps, the well-ordered, strongwilled Masterminds. Often narrowly focused in their concern with planning and directing projects, Masterminds (the highly reserved and well-scheduled INTJs) can find a vital connection to the outside world in the person who knows what’s going on.

Healers and Fieldmarshals are likely to find great satisfaction marrying each other. Healers (the reserved and probing INFPs) have more problems in mating than any other type, no doubt due to their fervent view of life as either a crusade against Evil or a retreat into religious contemplation -- and the same Healer can tack back and forth, now a crusader, now a monastic. In either case, their spouse will be taxed by having to deal with such spiritual intensity, and the expressive and scheduling Fieldmarshal (ENTJ), busily marshalling his or her forces toward distant objectives, seems well equipped to handle this alternating-phase style of life, able, that is, to provide clear direction to a person who might otherwise get lost in meditation or in devotion to a cause.

No matter what kind of persons Idealists marry, however, it is not too much to say that they are the best of all the temperaments at creating successful and fulfilling marriages. Developing harmonious personal relations is the their joy and their area of expertise, and they bring all their finest qualities to the enterprise. Their sensitivity, their spirit of cooperation, their ability to communicate their feelings, their passion for their mates, their desire for deep bonding, their personal warmth and enthusiasm -- all these traits work their magic in the NFs’ relationships, and more than compensate for their tendency to start up Pygmalion Projects. Indeed, if we can assume that Pygmalion Projects are an inevitable part of any marriage, that at best such intimate coercion can be kept loving and sympathetic, then Idealists offer their mates the possibility of exceptional happiness.