Jung’s Feeling Function: How We Know What Matters

Two people stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon. One is overcome with awe at nature’s grandeur, while the other sees an enormous rift in the landscape. What accounts for the difference? This week, Jungian analyst and scholar JOHN R. WHITE joins Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart to explore Jung’s feeling function, our capacity to discern what matters.

One of Jung’s best-known legacies is his categorization of ego functions: typology. Whether we are extraverted or introverted (terms Jung introduced), our four basic ego functions sort themselves into intuition, sensation, thinking, and feeling. We have all four functions but prefer some over others. Jung’s system led directly to the creation of the widely used Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator.

The feeling and thinking functions are both ways of making judgments, but the feeling function is based on personal values: if you were a military commander, would you be like Napoleon, directing his troops from the hilltop -- or like Braveheart, leading his men on the field? When the feeling function is cultivated and differentiated, it illuminates much of how and why we do what we do. Do we tend to prefer a subjective stance based on personal values, or a more objective and strategic stance?

Developing our feeling function may be challenging in the context of a culture that prioritizes thinking and sensate functions over feeling and intuition. It is a task worth taking on, however. Evaluating our experiences up close as well as from the greater distance the thinking function affords can be a profound step toward growth and individuation. Discerning whether the basis of a decision should be subjective or objective builds consciousness and expands choice. Since subjectivity is closely aligned with feelings, we can reflect on what a bruising encounter has made us feel—and choose our response rather than reacting.

We discuss some of the strategies you might use to differentiate your feeling function, including embarking on analysis, writing in your journal, and Eugene Gendlin’s focusing technique, which asks us to tune into the body and carefully name what is felt.

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