House M.D.: Is Dr. Gregory House an INTJ or an ENTP?

A few years back, on then Twitter, now X, I saw a character named Dr. House getting some attention within the typology community. At the time, I didn’t pay it much mind, because I’d never watched the show. However, recently, I discovered it on my streaming service, and decided to give the show a shot. After all, controversial characters are fun to analyze. Of course, first I looked up Dr. Gregory House briefly to learn what people were arguing between, which I learned to be INTJ and ENTP. After that, I started the first episode, and the rest is history.

So, Is Dr. Gregory House an INTJ or an ENTP?

I’m actually going to go with neither, but don’t worry; I intend to give a detailed explanation. Typically, character analyses here, at Practical Typing, involve a cognitive function breakdown. As per usual, I am going to break down Dr. House’s cognitive function stack, but first I’m going to address why both INTJ and ENTP don’t quite make sense. Believe it or not, I saw so many people choose one of these two personality types over the other simply because they couldn’t make sense of one, ergo the other had to be right. (It’s funny how someone can be both right and wrong at the same time.) So, for clarity’s sake, I’m going to briefly explain the case against both of these personality types before progressing forward to my actual stance.

Why Isn’t Dr. House an INTJ?

In short, House is extremely dismissive of anything that Te typically values. For instance, he has little interest in proving his theories, so long as they make sense in his head. Whenever he can get away with it, he just treats the patient according to his most recent theory, rather than waiting to concretely verify that his theory is correct. In this regard, he is far too impulsive, far too often, to be an INTJ. In addition, he has no regard for structure, and does many things in ways that make little objective sense. For instance, he hires his original team of three for highly unusual reasons, rather than for their actual accomplishments.

Why Isn’t Dr. House an ENTP?

There are two main reasons that I see people use when arguing against House being an ENTP. (1) He outsources brainstorming to his team, rather than actively participating, and (2) he fixates on singular ideas, like a Ni user might. For the most part, I agree with these points. So, without further ado, let’s move on to my theory.

My Theory: Dr. Gregory House Is An INTP

Let’s get right to the cognitive function breakdown. Please keep an open mind.

Ti:

“If something doesn’t make sense, one of your assumptions has to be wrong. Because if something doesn’t make sense, it can’t be real.”

“She was right to say no. I had no objective reason to think that I was right. Just needed the puzzle.”

“You’re confident, arrogant, but you are never certain unless there’s a reason to be certain.” – House’s ex-wife

“There’s always a reason.”

“How can we tell him there’s no hope if we don’t know why there’s no hope?”

“Everything is conditional. You just can’t always anticipate the conditions.”

House prioritizes his subjective logic above concrete reality. Many would attribute this to intuition, and House certainly displays evidence of intuition, but prioritizing subjective logic over concrete proof also points to dominant Ti. Continually, throughout the show, House prioritizes ideas that make sense to him, rather than what he can prove with evidence. If the theory fits in his head, that’s all that matters. (For instance, the episode with the tapeworm.) Of course, while he lets his subordinates run tests to confirm his theory, House also pushes them to treat for it at the same time. If the test isn’t fast enough, House tries to bypass it altogether, and force them to treat the patient according to his theory. However, when House finds a theory that fits perfectly but gets proven wrong, it sends him into a bit of a tailspin. Season 1 Episode 3 is a good example of this, when House is determined that Gout medicine is to blame, and he initially appears to be proven wrong.

House focuses on reasoning rather than result, which indicates Ti rather than Te. Everything has to make logical sense, which is how he’s able to recognize (after he’s been shot) that he’s trapped in a hallucination. However, his need for things to make sense goes beyond recognizing that people (and the world itself) aren’t being logically consistent. According to House, an answer isn’t valid if there’s no legitimate reasoning for it. For example, in one episode, he doesn’t want to inform a patient that she’s dying until they know why. Similarily, House finds it important to understand people’s motives. For instance, when working with Amber and Thirteen, he gets fixated on understanding why one of them dislikes drug addicts while another one likes them. For him, it’s all about the why. There has to be a reason.

House is all about the puzzle, and in fact, needs one constantly in his life, which leads to his need for interesting cases. House doesn’t care as much for solving cases as he does figuring them out. (In other words, he’s more interested in the journey rather than the result.) To House, solving the case is irrelevant if it wasn’t interesting.

Lastly, a specific reason that House appears to be a Ti dominant rather than a Ne dominant (because as you’ll see below, there is a wealth of Ne support) is that he fixates so heavily on one idea at a time. His Ne serves his most current theory (Ti). He personally doesn’t run multiple ideas at once, although he’ll allow his team to do so. Instead, he fixates on one, being so completely determined that his one idea is the solution.

Ne:

“You need someone to bounce ideas off of. You need a team.” – Cuddy

“I do the metaphors.”

“Everything in balance. Buddhists call it Karma. Christians call it the Golden Rule. Jews call it…I don’t know. Rabbi Hillel said something poignant.”

“This conversation is over because I have officially run out of clever things to call the guy.”

House displays several signs of being an Ne user. Of course, he loves metaphors, which can apply to intuition in general. However, moving beyond that, House needs a group to bounce ideas off of. Initially in the series, it does seem like he’s not actively brainstorming with his team. However, after he loses his entire team of three, House demonstrates his need for a team to brainstorm with. He can’t just quietly come up with his own ideas, in his head. Rather, he grabs the closest person that he can find, who happens to be a janitor, and brainstorms with him. He needs to verbalize his ideas, write them, or externalize them in some way, hence pulling in the janitor.

House expects his brain to produce thoughts in the moment that he’s speaking them, which indicates Ne. He doesn’t stop or pause to think, but instead expects the creative jabs and and witty remarks to just flow out of his mouth when the moment arrives. I have at least two very pronounced examples that I can share with you. (1) When talking to Cuddy about “everything in balance”, he starts producing examples of this philosophy from different religions and cultures. He mentions Buddhists, and Christians, and then starts to talk about the Jews, until he realizes mid-sentence that he doesn’t actually have a word to fill in for their version of Karma. (2). House visits a client to tell them the good news and the bad news. However, he starts alternating between good news and bad news, coming up with multiples of each. Eventually, he shifts back to “here’s the bad news”, expecting himself to utter another piece of bad news, but then looks confused as he realizes that he’s run out.

House‘s humor is often random in nature or plays on words. For instance, he likes finding a bunch of different ways to say the exact same thing, like when he comes up with several clever, insulting names in reference to the 600lb patient. In another example, Chase asks him why Foreman is quitting, and he says, “He wants to breed llamas.”

Lastly, House, as a general rule, cannot be succint, which points away from his being an INTJ. He rarely uses just a few, concise words to say anything, but rather has detailed explanations. Even when time is of the essence, because he might miss his flight and security is threatening to arrest him, House can’t just get to the point and give his team the diagnosis. Rather than be straightforward, he feels compelled to explain the entire reasoning and the patient’s history leading up to the final diagnosis. This is more typical of someone on the Ne/Si axis.

Si:

“House, you play a guitar you got in ninth grade. You’re living in the same apartment for 15 years. You drive a 10-year-old car. You are not good with change.” – Wilson

House struggles a lot with change, which is more consistent with an INTP than an ENTP. (An INTP has tertiary Si, while an ENTP has inferior Si. Inferior Si user’s typically don’t struggle that much with change.) Wilson points out that House isn’t good with change rather succinctly, in the quote at the top of this section. In short, House has had the same guitar since 9th grade, the same apartment for 15 years, and the same car for 10 years. Of course, Wilson’s take on the matter is not the only proof that House clings to the past.

For instance, House gets attached to his three team members: Cameron, Foreman, and Chase (whether he’ll admit it or not). He struggles a lot when any one of them leave or threaten to leave, whch of course he refuses to express directly. When Cameron leaves near the beginning of the show, Houses actively tries to avoid interviewing anyone else, and then proceeds to find ridiculous reason to turn down any applicants. Later in the show, when the entire team leaves, he avoids hiring any replacements, and Cuddy essentially has to find a way to make him.

House responds similarily when Cuddy replaces his blood-stained carpet, after the incident where he gets shot. During this episode, House essentially proceeds to throw a fit, by boycotting his office, and demanding that Cuddy return the old carpet. In different example, House holds a longterm grudge against a fellow medical school student (Weber). He stalks Weber for twenty years, and executes a convoluted plan to get his revenge, after all those years.

Fe:

“Why would you feel sorry for someone who gets to opt out of the inane courteous formalities which are utterly meaningless, insincere, and therefore degrading? This kid doesn’t have to pretend to be interested in your back pain or your excretions or your grandma’s itchy place. Can you imagine how liberating it would be to live a life free of all the mind-numbing social niceties? I don’t pity this kid. I envy him.”

“And one day, our friendship will break, and that’ll just prove your theory that relationships are conditional, and you don’t need human connection, or deserve it, or whatever goes on in that rat maze of your brain.” – Wilson to House

“It’s not about the kids dying every 8 seconds. It’s about the media stroking, the adulation, the pats on the head.” – House

House’s inferior Fe shows up in his complete and utter disdain for catering himself to the social environment. House makes no effort to adapt to the environment, even though it might make his life a little easier or make his daily life more efficient. House even expresses envy over the fact that an autistic kid doesn’t have to worry about social graces. He explains that it would be liberating. In addition, House expresses contempt for a certain character in the show, who proclaims that he’s doing something for noble reasons, but simultaneously relishes in the adulation and attention that it brings him. This demonstrates his antagonistic relationship with Fe, which indicats that it’s his inferior function.

House generally devalues relationships. He has convinced himself that he doesn’t need human connection, and thus makes no effort to connect with others. House even takes it a step farther, and tries to prove that any relationship has a breaking point. When discussing this with Wilson, he states that: “Everything is conditional. You just can’t always anticipate the conditions.”