The eightfold way of teaching psychological type.

Abstract

For Jung, the discovery of type differences represented the beginning of his individuation journey, and his experiential discovery can model the path of learning about psychological type. A course on psychological type can enable individuals to discover empirically Jung's revelations about the psyche if it is structured like the individuation journey itself: beginning with differentiation of the preferred functions, proceeding to the inferior function at the midpoint of the journey, and concluding with an exploration of the unconscious functions. Such a pedagogical method mandates a non-prescriptive approach that empowers students to lead their own learning, an approach expressed by the Taoist concept of wu wei. Psychological Types references wu wei as a means of balancing consciousness and the unconscious. Sometimes Jung's typology is thought to deal only with consciousness, but in fact it represented Jung's own eightfold way into the unconscious. To illustrate the dynamic interaction of conscious and unconscious functions, John Beebe's eight-function eight-archetype model is an indispensable tool, because it illuminates the unconscious opposites inherent in each type and connects them with archetypal complexes. With the aid of Beebe's model, students can plot a typological trajectory of development for their journey to the Self.