If you want a clear example of an ENFJ in action, Oprah Winfrey is it.

Firstly, the Feeling smacks you right in the face: she’s a dominant Feeling type, and her Feeling is Extraverted to boot. She’s got “community” and “cooperative spirit” (hallmarks of Fe) written all over her. But this is all beside the point.

Instead, what I want to note is the Introverted iNtuition (Ni)-as-Mother archetype that she seems to embody in many ways.

The Mother or Father archetype seems to be our Big Lesson in life — it’s what we use to mentor and support others. Ni, meanwhile, is all about making a mental shift and recontextualising. Put it all together and you end up with Oprah evangelising something like The Secret (i.e. the idea that the nature of thought determines the nature of reality).

Of course, The Secret appeals to many people and many types, but it’s particularly the sort of notion that would strike an ENFJ as something that needs to be preached far and wide, given that it taps right into their Father/Mother Ni. For an INTP like myself, on the other hand, it seems glib at best and dangerous at worst… but that’s just me.

I was considering David Lynch’s type based on his movies. He’s definitely some kind of NT, and his films don’t seem busy enough to be that of an ENTP (what I’m now calling the “kitchen sink effect”), so I was pretty much down to INTP or INTJ. (Really, The Straight Story is so slow that it’s almost inconceivable to consider it the work of an Extravert of any kind.)

Then it occurred to me: his means of completing Mulholland Dr. was the ultimate Ni perspective shift. Basically, he took a 90-minute TV pilot and reinterpreted it as a dream sequence within a larger film. (This is the “spin” of Ni I was referring to earlier.) It’s no wonder he was so well-suited to translating Frank Herbert’s INTJ epic, Dune, to the silver screen.

Whereas Ne catches ideas and associations from the unconscious as they float to the surface of the conscious mind, Ni goes deeper, plunging right into that dark well of dreams and symbols. Have a look at the video below to see what I’m talking about:

Note how Lynch contrasts Ni with Ne — this is very instructive for anyone wishing to grasp an Ni take on the differences between the two functions.

The Opposing Personality is an archetype invented/created/discovered by John Beebe in his research on the roles the psychological functions play. With my own recent observations, I see the Opposing Personality as being a bit like the Hero’s dark twin — the figure symbolising the result of the making the wrong choices in life.

In an ENTP, the Opposing Personality is played by Introverted iNtuition (Ni). Ni recontextualises and reinterprets the data of perception; for Ni, everything is just another interpretation. In short, Ni is the function of “spin”.

In Brazil, the character who epitomises both “spin” and the “dark twin” concept is Sam’s friend Jack. Jack is the man Sam would be if he were to embrace the system, and, not coincidentally, he has no qualms about spinning the fate of Buttle so as to reduce his own accountability:

Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?

This is the darker side of Ni, where anything can be rationalised by a perspective shift.

Next: the Senex/Witch as Extraverted Thinking (Te)…