INTP
The everyday you
As an INTP, you want an explanation that holds together, and you will keep taking it apart until it does. You see possibilities and connections everywhere and follow them for their own sake. You keep a quiet store of what has worked before. And your weakest habit, the one that embarrasses you fastest, is tending the feelings in a room.
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The four selves
making it make sense Ti · seeing what could be Ne · comparing with what's been Si · tending the room Fe
At your best you find the flaw nobody else noticed: precise, skeptical, able to focus in depth, and more interested in the idea than in being agreed with. The cost is closure, which you avoid, and the interpersonal and practical follow-through you leave for later. Analysis can become a room you forget to leave.
tending the room Fe · comparing with what's been Si · seeing what could be Ne · making it make sense Ti
You admire the person who notices what everyone needs and simply provides it: warm, conscientious, the organizer of a community, easy in a group. Tending the room is your weakest habit turned into her strength, so it draws you and it exposes you a little. You reach for it by saying the kind thing out loud, once, before you have checked it.
making it work Te · sensing where it's going Ni · noticing what's here Se · staying true Fi
Under stress the detached analyst turns raw. You become touchy about being ignored, tearful or sentimental in ways that appal you, and insistent on a logic that is going nowhere. That is your Unconscious, your four habits turned the other way. It is also why a forceful person who takes charge and steamrolls the discussion can be unbearable to you.
staying true Fi · noticing what's here Se · sensing where it's going Ni · making it work Te
When you are watched you play the quiet, kind one: sensitive, easy-going, attentive to what is in front of you, keeping your views to yourself to avoid a scene. It is a comfortable role for an evening. Kept up longer it costs you, because it runs on the habits you own least, and your actual thinking goes unspoken.
one type, four selves:
across = reversed · down = turned
WestYour family
An INTP’s four selves are INTP, ESFJ, ENTJ, and ISFP. Those four types share one set of selves, which makes them a family, and every one of the sixteen types belongs to one of four families. That is why your other three are the same as every other INTP’s, and why they can be compared with anyone’s. INTP is in the West family.
The types most often mistaken for yours
| Your type, or its neighbor | The question that separates them |
|---|---|
| INTP or INTJ | Ni-Te vs Ti-Ne. When information is incomplete, do you condense it to one direction and decide, or keep the options open? For a firm opinion on a hard problem you are more likely to get one from an INTJ; to an INTP there are too many variables to be sure of much. |
| INTP or ISTP | Both Ti-lead; auxiliary Ne vs Se. Does your analysis attach to abstract possibility and theory, or to tangible reality and physical systems? Same logical engine; different fuel. |
A detail worth knowing: for introverts, the last letter describes the second function, not the first. Your lead function works on the inside; what the world sees is the second. That is why the types below can look alike from the outside and feel completely different from within.
The workbook
Go deeper, on paper. A workbook for your type, with a chapter for each of your four selves and questions about your own week rather than your traits. It comes as a PDF to print at home, or to fill in on a tablet with a stylus.
The workbook for your type. Fifty-five pages, a chapter for each self, mostly questions to write about.
$14 · PDF Coming soon
Your four selves, as a signature
Your type, and the three that come with it, on one card. Save it, post it, or send it to someone who should take the quiz.
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