Somebody Come Take Their Freud Home

So… what is a test that nobody can fail? A personality test!

One such personality test is called Myers-Briggs test. This test has four categories and each category is a spectrum of two opposing labels. The categories include:

Introvert/Extravert I vs E

Sensing/Intuition S vs N

Thinking/Feeling T vs F

Judging/Perceiving J vs P

Now, to psychoanalyze our father of psychoanalysis, according to the description in Howard Gardner’s book Creating Minds, Freud would most likely be INTP.

Why?

Haha…No!

Introvert (I) vs Extravert (E)

Freud would be an introvert not only based on social skills in his early life but also because he was more introspective. He contemplated ideas in his own head. Even though he wanted fame and a breakthrough, he was an introvert. He was more observant. He analyzed things like dreams and emotions, and he even analyzed his own dreams. He notes in one of his letter, “the most important patient for me was my own person.”

In his early years, Freud wrote a manuscript which was commonly known as The Project; not only did he not publish this manuscript but he was also ashamed of it and hoped that anyone who possessed any copies of it would burn it.

In terms of social behavior, in early life Freud was more of an introvert and he was aware of his loneliness. However, if we look at his personality after he had made his breakthrough, according to Gardner, Freud had overcome “whatever shyness or arrogance” was holding him back and was able to present to a vast variety of audience with little preparation.

Nonetheless, describing introvert and extravert as those who think internally versus externally, freud was an internal thinker and therefore an introvert.

Sensitive (S) vs Intuitive (N)

Freud would be classified as an intuitive type. Gardner mentions Freud was interested in the research aspect from the beginning, and thus all his textbook knowledge was useless to him. Even so, Freud was not as interested in the lab work in neuroanatomy as he was in observing patients and formation of his ideas about repressed memories. These ideas of Freud about understanding neurosis and hysteria were not yet in existence and therefore not acknowledged by his colleagues. Still, he remained adamant and kept working on developing his theory of psychoanalysis. Freud remained intuitive, rather than being a sensitive type and sticking to the measurable and popular aspects of his contemporary psychology.

Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)

Freud most certainly had a thinking personality. Gardner mentioned how Freud loved solving puzzles. In fact, his theory of psychoanalysis is essentially based on reasoning out one’s feeling.

Furthermore, when he developed the theory of psychoanalysis, he noted that it costed him his friendship with one of his closest colleagues Breuer. He was hurt by this but he still did not abandon his theory for it. This makes him a thinking type rather than a feeling type.

Judging (J) vs Perceiving (P)

Freud was a perceiving type. For example, he did not have a set career in his mind when he started out. Instead, he tried out multiple different things. He jumped from field to field to try and figure out where he can make his breakthrough. For example, first he did some neuroanatomy lab research with Bruecke, then he did observations of mentally ill with Charcot, and then he did hypnosis therapy on patients with Breuer. He developed his theory from his experiences and even then he had some changes in his own thinking. Not only that, but as Gardner mentions he was open to changing his mind regardless of his pride to publicly admit this.

Therefore, Freud would be an INTP. Although, it is important to note that this analysis is still based on secondary resources. In other words, it may be hard to do a personality test on a subject we don't know personally.

Citation:
Thomas Gardner, Creating Minds
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