has been associated with circumstances getting worse.
Not all ‘stay at homes’ have this participation mystique. Some suffer from ‘eternal youth’ syndrome – they can’t seem to grow up and take on adult responsibilities. Usually this happens because they were so indulged as children that they just don’t want to move from this cosy position. Or it might be because the underlying message they received from their parents was that being an adult was a pretty miserable business and so it was better not to grow up at all.
Other people take precisely the opposite position. They can’t wait to find their own home, to make their own choices. Sometimes this comes about from a basically unhappy childhood and a huge need to separate from the family and to make your adult life as different as possible. Such people will want to move far away, or choose a radically different style of house or furnishings from that of their parents. However, just because you raced away from home after leaving school and chose minimal rather than copying your parents’ Victoriana, it doesn’t necessarily mean you had an unhappy childhood. Some people live perfectly happy childhoods but grow up to lead very different lifestyles from those of their parents. Sarah Dening believes these differences can be explained by Jung’s system of typology.
JUNG’S PERSONALITY TYPES
Jung believed that we could all be described by a system of four personality types and two modes of behaviour. We are all familiar with the two modes: extrovert and introvert. But the personality types – thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition – are less well-known.
You probably already know if you are an introvert or an extrovert. The extrovert will always reach out towards the world; the introvert will instinctively draw back. Most people will fall cleanly into one or other camp. Of course, we all have times when we dip into the opposite (the extrovert who needs the odd patch of peace and quiet; the introvert who will suddenly become the life and soul of the party) but they are exceptions rather than the rule. When it comes to the home, extroverts tend to be concerned with how other people will regard their living space, and will often decorate and furnish the place with a view to entertaining, to impressing other people. Introverts, on the other hand, are more concerned with what feels comfortable for themselves. On the whole, interior designers tend to be extroverts!
When it comes to the four personality types, or ‘functions’ as Jung called them, it becomes a more subtle process. Jung realized that some people approached life predominantly by thinking while others dealt with life through their feelings. At first he thought that extroverts were the ‘feeling’ types while introverts would be thinkers but with time he realized it was more complex than that. Thinking and feeling were dimensions of personality quite independent of whether someone was extroverted or introverted. He also realized that there were two more functions – sensation, the information we receive through our senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and scent; and intuition, the information we receive directly from the unconscious.
Each of us will tend to be a mixture of two or perhaps three reasonably well-developed functions with maybe one or two with which we do not identify. Let’s have a closer look at each of the four functions and how they manifest themselves in the home environment:
SENSATION
People who have a strong sensation function are concerned above all with things as they are. They are less concerned with the aesthetics of the home than with whether or not an object is functional. If you are a sensation type, your home will run like clockwork! Shelves will go up, taps will not drip, painting will be done when necessary, curtains will be made with the minimum of fuss. You are concerned with how things are now, this moment, not next week or next year. Jobs get done because they need doing. You will always know the right place to go to get what is needed and your home will be in perfect order.
Sarah Dening says:
Someone I know with a strong sensation function has all his tools hanging perfectly neatly on the wall of his garden shed; the screwdrivers in ascending order of size and different kinds of nails and screws all neatly filed in their own boxes.
If you’re a sensation type you might recognize this as you will generally be very good at DIY. You will tend to ‘make do and mend’ and only make changes when things around you start to wear out.
INTUITION
Intuitives are highly sensitive to atmosphere and the flow of energy. They are exactly the kind of people who would be drawn to feng shui, space cleansing – and to books like this! You can be the most original of all the types when it comes to creating an unusual and individual home. You may well create highly idiosyncratic surroundings, mixing styles, periods and influences. Sarah describes an intuitive who had her apartment decorated (they don’t do DIY by the way) in French Empire style, complete with totally impractical white carpets and curtains, in the middle of the city. Practicality is not a major concern and your environment may well seem very eccentric to more design-conscious people. You are always on the look-out for possibilities. And while a kitchen, to the practical sensation type, is simply somewhere to cook, to the intuitive it could be anything – a studio, a conservatory full of plants, a mini temple – with the fridge and cooker hiding beneath greenery or drapes. Intuitives will make quite radical changes to their spaces and are not unduly concerned if this means having to get rid of perfectly serviceable items.
THINKING
If you have a strong thinking function you probably barely notice your surroundings at all. You are much more concerned with ideas than with things, and as long as you have somewhere to put your books and papers, you will be happy. Your house may well look chaotic to an outsider, but you know where everything is and will become quite upset if somebody comes along and tries to tidy you up. You really barely notice clutter building up and will have the most problem in the decluttering and clearing chapters of all the types. This is the archetype of the absent-minded professor with mouldy coffee cups all around the home.
Strong thinking types are not really interested in fads and fashions and so you will rarely make radical changes in the home, except maybe to upgrade the computer. You can be methodical when you are sufficiently interested in something practical and are able to devote energy to it. However, it tends to be in response to something going wrong – maybe the bookshelves collapsing, for example. If someone comes along and shows you how much more comfortable you could be in your surroundings, you tend to be perfectly amazed.
FEELING
Feeling is the opposite to thinking in Jung’s system. The feeling type has very strong responses to everything in the home: style of house, furnishings, design, colour, tone. You are the type of person most likely to call in an interior designer or to take great pains in designing your own home. Most likely you will want your home to feel good to others as well, so you go in for comfort – but always fashionable comfort. On the whole, feeling types have good, if somewhat conventional, tastes. Because you trust your feelings, you tend to be confident that others will find your home as beautiful and harmonious as you do yourself. You may well be offended if someone fails to appreciate what you have so carefully created.
Sometimes, however, the feeling person’s home can be rather chilly: exquisitely appointed but somehow lacking a ‘lived in’ atmosphere. It could be the kind of place where you worry about dropping crumbs or marking the table.
Often a feeling person’s home can be filled with inherited family furniture which doesn’t really suit them. It seems surprising until you realize that the value attached to family history is stronger than the aesthetic considerations.
Many people in therapy or analysis spend ages trying to decide which is their primary
