ABSTRACT
C. G. Jung observed that our shadow is that which others see in us but which we ourselves cannot see. Projection is a common response to the shadow. In projecting, we displace qualities we dislike in ourselves onto others, and then we punish them for being like us. To help us see our projections, Jung identified eight mental functions representing eight polarities delineating the psyche. If we can identify which of the mental functions we prefer, we can identify our projections. Myers and Briggs codified Jung’s system into a set of sixteen types, which helped map consciousness, but the unconscious remained relatively unmapped until John Beebe introduced his model delineating the unconscious functions for each type. His model made it clear that overdoing one function can cause a reversal, enantiodromia, whereby an opposite function supplants it. The two twentieth-century American presidents who faced impeachment, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, are used to exemplify this principle with the intuition and sensing functions. Jung’s encounter with Asian philosophies helped him explain this dynamic as the unconscious mirroring the conscious mind. By representing the psyche as a system of polarities, Jung created his own eightfold way for Western minds.
