INTJs 18+: Does INTJ get even deepier and creepier? Here's why you should read DOI: 10.1007/BF01064475 If you're an INTJ (feat. KGB)

post title: INTJs 18+: Does INTJ get even deepier and creepier? Here's why you should read DOI: 10.1007/BF01064475 If you're an INTJ (feat. KGB)

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Guys, first off I want to apologize for not posting more DAE content here at r/intj. But I thought this topic was pretty interesting, so please indulge me.

And second, I apologize for offending any 17-year-olds, with such a judgy post title. But this stuff can be a little bit concerning, and they tell me your brain is still developing, and so maybe it's better to be a bit cautious.

What the Hell This is About

If you ever wondered "Is there a pathology of the unhealthy INTJ," this is probably one of the closest, most detailed takes on that, that I have ever found.

And, it predates MBTI!

Up front, I should emphasize that this is shared as T H E O R I S T entertainment, in a big way. As NT personality types, it's important to let our intuitive-thinker side play with new ideas the way our sensing-feeler side would play with, let's say, a brand new volleyball.

And sometimes that intuitive side gets serious, because the implications are serious - but I believe we can still have fun with that, and find the thrill in it.

Who wrote WHAT now??

So pierre janet was this french psychologist writing about "psychasthenia" back in the day, but because he wrote in French and nobody translated it (that I can find), R.K. Pitman did a synopsis titled Janet's Obsessions and Psychasthenia: a synopsis - and THAT is pretty good reading.

(Pitman is known for his early work on PTSD, and was a psychiatrist in the US Navy during the Vietnam War. He noted in his 1987 paper, "Despite the passage of nearly a century, these observations, and Janet's suggestions regarding treatment, are as timely now as when they were made.")

Basically, psychasthenia is this intense state of lowered "psychological tension" where you lose your grip on present reality.

(sound familiar, Se-interested folks?)

Your abstract, discursive intelligence stays totally fine, but your ability to actually act and adapt to the real world goes out the window.

Here is the breakdown of my reading notes.

The Brain Rot (Symptoms & Traits)

• Morally Troubling Ideas: You start listing your most unhinged, morally questionable thoughts.
• Conversationally Burdening: You dump your internal monologues on people who don't care or shouldn't have to deal with it. Like doing a "My take is this..." and then 5 minutes later "and another thing..."—just bouncing complex ideas off of people who completely lack the context. This gets way worse with anxiety or when you over-caffeinate.
• Summoning a Mental Director: You literally create internal characters and archetypes in your head to give yourself direction, routine, or just for emotional stimulation.
• The "Honesty" Trap: janet notes that psychasthenics have this undue love of honesty and justice, because "these virtues being most useful to the weak, i.e., to those who have need of protection and who fear a fight." ouch
• if you're Stephen Miller, stop reading here and take a break, then come back to it
• Can't Stand Diversity: When attention is weak, diversity causes a meltdown. The patient wants uniformity through authoritarianism or total obedience. If he's reading a book, he wants everyone else in the house to be reading too.
• Physical toll: Sufferers are characteristically thin, pale, drawn, with dry skin and bad breath. Interestingly, janet noted that these physical traits clear up when the mental state improves.
• The EDC Connection? "Psychasthenics often carry favorite objects which provide a sense of security."

The Epilepsy Analogy & Psychological Tension

Janet calls an acute drop in psychological tension a "psycholeptic crisis," comparing it directly to epilepsy.

To be is to act. Not to be able to concentrate one's thoughts and desires in a present action is no longer to be a person.

Basically, in janet's view, psychasthenia might just be an attenuated, chronic form of epilepsy affecting the cerebral cortex. While hysteria is a geometric narrowing of consciousness, psychasthenia is a dynamic lowering of the reality function.

When your psychological tension drops, you experience derealization and depersonalization. If you're career-focused, it manifests as crippling indecision; if you love the theater, it manifests as derealization.

Enter the KGB

Here is where it gets more interesting, maybe even creepy.

If you look into the historical history of espionage, the KGB actually had a paper on recruitment based on psychological types, and they explicitly named psychasthenics as one of the 4 primary types targeted for recruitment.

paper title: "Psychological profiles of targets for recruitment operations: general characteristics and identification methods in operational practice"

or

Психологические профили объектов вербовочных операций: общая характеристика и методы распознавания в оперативной практике

say it with me

"Psikhologicheskiye profili ob"yektov verbovochnykh operatsiy: obshchaya kharakteristika i metody raspoznavaniya v operativnoy praktike"

why do this - well, when someone suffers from global lowering of the reality function, they experience a massive drop in volition. They are desperate for external structure and someone to just tell them what to do to relieve the burden of reality.

Real Life Triggers & Traps

• Accidental Marriage: Psychasthenics literally wander into marriage just because they don't want to offend anyone by saying "no." They don't actually decide if they want it until the paperwork is already done.
• Big Changes: Occupational changes, retirement, moving, exams, lawsuits, and quarrels will cause the illness to bloom.
• The Morning Slump: Most sufferers are way more symptomatic in the morning than in the evening.
• The Kid Warning: In children who fit in this circle, janet is of the opinion that we should actually mistrust their wisdom, overprudence, and deep reflection. It looks like high intelligence, but it might be early psychasthenia.

Janet even argued we'd eventually require medical certificates before marriage to avoid passing this down. (Which makes me wonder... was Pierre Janet an Ni-dom INTJ himself? That hyper-focus on future time intuition - conceptualizing the ways of the future - in his writing starts to feel like a tell).

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How to Fix It (Elevating the Mental Level)

In janet's view, this stuff usually gets better before age 40 due to delayed maturation. But to actively raise that psychological tension and cure the "incompleteness," janet suggests a mix of bizarre and practical things:

WARNING WARNING WARNING

This is VERY sensing-heavy. To me, that is a fairly one-dimensional fix and almost guarantees a lot of unnecessary dopamine exposure. Working professionally in personality type, I cannot recommend ANY of these, even if I do see some of their pros.

anyway - his fixes:

• Lifestyle simplification (moral treatment): Since the brain's higher adaptive functions are fried, reduce the demands on it. If an engagement is causing psychasthenic doubts, break it off. Career promotions can cause relapses. Some psychasthenics actually thrive in the military because the regimented lifestyle removes the burden of choice.
• The shocks: Upward spikes in mental energy can be triggered by alcohol, ether, morphine, a change of scenery, or physical exercise. Happy emotions work (one patient improved after buying a horse or hearing military music; another, Jean, had a 2-week remission after hitting it off with ladies at a dinner party).
• The paradoxical shock: Negative emotions work too. Janet literally frightened a patient named Claire and made her cry, and her obsessions vanished for a week. Another guy felt better after being in a literal shipwreck.
• Preventative Habits for the Predisposed: A simple, mainly vegetarian diet, country life, early bedtime, and learning crafts/skilled movements.
• Parenting advice: Kids prone to this need to confront dangerous situations alone, according to janet. Nothing makes a child timid like parents hovering, because they don't make their own effort. he even wrote that such children should be encouraged to get into fights with peers - worrying about their future is worth a few punches. Emphasize the physical over the intellectual, reality over introspection, and smash daydreaming with quick, practical activity.

(guys - just to mention - i really doubt some of this is smart, let alone effective these days! please don't interpret this as advice. more like historical interest)

ultimately, the idea was that psychasthenia preserves your abstract intelligence but kills your reality functions (attention, volition).

Treatment is basically a slow, hard educational grind to force yourself back into the present moment. Once volition is restored -- according to janet -- the lower-level obsessions and tics just disappear because they no longer have a reason to exist.

Wrap-up

Why read it?

If you read this far, and you know, you know.

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And just in case I can help soothe your worries with my never-skipped-Fe-day levels of concern:

1. "i don't have any such problems so this would NEVER apply to me, how dare you" - i got u fam no worries
2. "people take MBTI too deep" - again it's just exploring concepts fam, it's OK & nothing formally pronounced on anyone or any type model
3. "i am scared that the KGB will target me and it'll JUST WORK" me too tbh

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Questions for you

• Were you ever recruited by the KGB? j/k
• Does the expression of negative emotion ever build capacity for more constructive DO-ing in your life?
• Were you ever accused of being "too wise" as a kiddo?
• Does it ever help you to listen to march music, or military music?

no ai / no promo