Carl Jung’s Personality Test — Here’s What I Discovered About Myself After Taking It Today

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” (Carl Jung)

In 1910, Carl Jung introduced the concept of introversion and extroversion to the world.

11 years later in 1921, he expanded on this theory by publishing a book called Psychological Types where he categorised people into 8 personality types.

They were/are:

• Extraverted Thinking.
• Introverted Thinking.
• Extraverted Feeling.
• Introverted Feeling.
• Extraverted Sensation.
• Introverted Sensation.
• Extraverted Intuition.
• Introverted Intuition.

Two years after that, in 1923, Katherine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, read Carl Jung’s book and their lives radically changed forever.

They were so inspired by his words that they spent the next few decades learning, experimenting, and researching until they themselves published a book called The Briggs Myers Type Indicator Handbook in 1944.

This book expanded on Carl Jung’s theory and added 8 more personality types to the mix which brought the total number to 16.

It was then renamed Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI a few years after and it’s stayed that way ever since.

What personality type Carl Jung classified himself as

Carl Jung classified himself as being an introverted thinker with intuition as his next strongest function.

So, it was no surprise that he became a psychologist in the end, as this type is known for producing some of the best therapists in the world.

This inward-looking approach to life is also how he came to share nuggets of wisdom like this:

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

And:

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

This, among many others, forms the basis for Jungian psychology.

Here are my results from taking the test

After answering 64 questions, I found that I am an INFP — or introvert, intuitive, feeling, and perceiving.

This came as no surprise to me as I have always been the quiet, retrospective, optimistic kind.

I then wanted to learn more about how they described INFP’s and was pleasantly surprised to find how accurate it was.

Here is what they said:

INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It’s as though they live at the edge of a looking-glass world where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities.

INFPs have the ability to see good in almost anyone or anything. Even for the most unlovable the INFP is wont to have pity.

Their extreme depth of feeling is often hidden, even from themselves, until circumstances evoke an impassioned response.

Of course, not all of life is rosy, and INFPs are not exempt from the same disappointments and frustrations common to humanity. As INTPs tend to have a sense of failed competence, INFPs struggle with the issue of their own ethical perfection, e.g., performance of duty for the greater cause. An INFP friend describes the inner conflict as not good versus bad, but on a grand scale, Good vs. Evil. Luke Skywalker in Star Wars depicts this conflict in his struggle between the two sides of “The Force.” Although the dark side must be reckoned with, the INFP believes that good ultimately triumphs.

For better or worse, this is pretty spot on for me and my life.

Good career paths for INFP’s

Two of the best career paths for this personality type are (unsurprisingly) psychologists and therapists.

Carl Jung is a classic example. Others include Aldous Huxley, William Shakespeare, and Princess Diana.

Other career paths for INFP’s include artists, writers (I was pleased to hear), chefs, painters, photographers, musicians, interior designers, masseuses, graphic designers, and more.

Closing thoughts

Like reading my daily horoscope, I take these tests with a pinch of salt.

However, I value Carl Jung’s work enormously and can see a lot of myself in his personality types. So, I also find it helpful to have a framework to explore my psyche as it gives me insights into parts of myself I might not have otherwise discovered.

These tests have also been carried out on thousands of people, so they’re based on solid and diverse ground. That’s another reason why I trust them.

We all know if we lean more towards being an introvert or an extrovert, and that’s thanks to Carl Jung’s brilliant observation of the human mind.

With the help of Katherine and Isabel Briggs’s contributions, we now have more terminology to better understand ourselves too.

If you’re curious about your own personality type, you can take the test here.

If you do, let me know your results as I’d love to hear what you are :)

Or, alternatively, you can continue reading more from Carl Jung below: