Are You Healthy or Unhealthy? 6 States of Personality Type Development

If you’ve been studying personality theory for any length of time, maybe terms like “gripping” and “looping” came to mind when you read my title: “6 States of Personality Type Development.” If that’s the case, you’re not wrong. Those are included in this article. However, there are states beyond just those two. For instance, here, at Practical Typing, we reference other states a personality type can be in, such as “healthy”, “unhealthy” and “imbalanced”. The main reason that I decided to write this article is to actually define what we mean when we use these words. However, before I get there, let’s start with a few basics.

An Overview of Personality Type Development

1. People Don’t Always Develop The Same Way

There’s a multitude of reasons why two people of the same personality type aren’t exactly the same, such as social and cultural influences. However, another reason is the fact that people can be at different points in their personality type development. In other words, not only are some people healthy while others are unhealthy, two people can be considered “healthy” while being at different points in their personality type development. That’s actually very important to understand.

2. Personality Type Development Is Not Linear

This essentially means that there’s no exact way in which everyone will develop. There isn’t one single path that everyone follows on their way to becoming the ultimate, healthy personality type. Arguably, certain paths are more ideal than others, but experiences will vary from person to person.

3. Personality Type Development Is Not Guaranteed.

Some people may not bother to put in the work to develop their personality type at all. Some people will be the exact same person from their teenage years up through their golden years. It can happen. (And I would argue that it’s not healthy).

6 States of Personality Type Development

From what I’ve observed, there are six different states someone can be in from a personality type standpoint: healthy, unhealthy, imbalanced, balanced, looping, and gripping. Some of these states encompass one another, or can happen at the same time. I’ll explain further as I cover each section.

What It Means to Be Healthy

Generally speaking, someone is healthy when they are demonstrating the positive attributes of their primary cognitive functions the majority of the time. Sometimes people make the mistake of assuming that certain personality types will always show up in very specific positive, or ideal, ways, but that is not the case. A personality type will only manifest positively, or consistently align with those ideal states, when healthy.

So, what does a healthy state look like exactly? Well, no one is going to be perfect or without struggles, but a healthy person will be someone who is actively utilizing their innate cognitive strengths to succeed at life (in the way they want to succeed). Of course, success can mean different things to different people. For instance, you don’t have to have some grand master plan for your future, or some impressive vision. You also don’t need to have high career aspirations, or make tons of money. But, you do need to have a reasonable degree of confidence and self-esteem, else you’ll be too hesitant or fearful to act of your own volition. You can’t really utilize the strengths of your cognitive functions if you’re too afraid to use them in a way that is impactful or has an external effect on your life.

However, with that being said, the definition of healthy can, to some degree, be relative to what you’d expect from the individual. For instance, you wouldn’t expect a teenager to act like an adult. They don’t have the life experience, the maturity, etc. However, a teenager can be mature relative to their age. Similarly, it’s perfectly acceptable for a child to be completely dependent on their parents. However, an adult in the same position, being completely dependent on their parents, is viewed in a negative light. The expectations are different.

What It Means to Be Unhealthy

This is obvious, but the opposite of healthy is unhealthy. In other words, if healthy defines someone who is demonstrating the positive attributes of their cognitive functions, unhealthy defines someone who is primarily demonstrating the negative aspects of their functions. I’ve often seen people assume that negative use of a function means that the function can’t be high in someone’s stack. However, that’s not always true. An ENTP (Ne-Ti-Fe-Si) in a generally unhealthy state might display mostly negative Ne attributes. Remember, having a function high in one’s stack doesn’t exclude negative use of that function. It simply broadens the range of capability. An unhealthy person will fail to use it to its full potential, even though they’re theoretically capable of doing so.

Read More: Function Levels: High Vs. Low Use

What It Means to Be Imbalanced

Imbalanced means that the person in question is leaning excessively on their top two cognitive functions, failing to balance these two functions with their 3rd (tertiary) and 4th (inferior) functions. People start out in imbalanced states, because they haven’t had enough time to develop all of their cognitive functions. Thus, I would posit that a young person being imbalanced can still be considered healthy, rather than unhealthy. However, eventually, there will come a time when every person needs to start developing in order to successfully enter new life stages. In other words, there’ll come a time when their imbalanced behavior ceases to be acceptable. Once that threshold is reach, if the imbalanced person fails to start developing, they should no longer be considered healthy.

What It Means to Be Looping (or in a Loop)

A loop is an unhealthy state in which an individual is skipping over their second (or auxiliary) function and fixating on their third (or tertiary) function. In other words, they’re looping between their first and third functions instead of relying on the top two. Some people consider this to be a normal state, as normal as someone using just their top two. They view it as simply a difference in preference. However, skipping over the auxiliary to rely on one’s tertiary throws the personality type even farther out of balance. For instance, a healthy ISTP (Ti-Se-Ni-Fe) should start out relying on Ti and Se. Dominant introversion is being balanced by auxiliary extraversion, and dominant thinking is supported by sensory perception. Initially, the ISTP lacks just feeling and the intuition to balance them out. However, the ISTP that is thrust into a loop is thrown out of balance even further by losing access to that auxiliary extraversion, instead doubling down on introversion. That’s not ideal. We all need both introversion and extraversion.

With that being said, it’s fairly common to see teenagers start out in a loop. I’ve seen people suggest that it’s more natural for someone to prefer their tertiary since it shares the same attitude (introversion or extraversion) as their dominant. I tend to think that it’s easy to fall into a loop, and of course, we know that loop states are triggered by stress. Therefore, if a young person is under a lot of stress (which many are), and that auxiliary function isn’t fostered like it should be, they will start out in this unhealthy state.

Read More: The Myers-Briggs Personality Types In a Loop, Part 1: The Extraverts

What It Means to Be Gripping (or in a Grip)

A grip is an unhealthy state in which an individual has exhausted their dominant due to extreme stress, causing them to fixate on their inferior function. Essentially, they’ve done all they can do with their dominant function, so as a last act of desperation, they fall back on their inferior. Of course, the inferior is often underdeveloped, so this state is extremely unhealthy. When in the grip, someone usually acts completely opposite to how they act when they’re healthy. It’ll be obvious that something is wrong. I’ll include a link to our article that delves into grips further, but before I do, let me add this.

We’ve often observed that grip states are kind of like reverse loops. You can’t really shut off all your cognitive functions and rely on just one. Multiple are always in play, a judgment function and perception function. So, when someone’s in a grip state, we can often observe a loop between the inferior and auxiliary functions, with the inferior function between the main driver. For instance, the ISTP (Ti-Se-Ni-Fe) in a grip will be looping between Fe and Se, effectively doubling down on extraversion in a type that’s usually introverted.

Read More: How Grip Stress Manifests In Each Personality Type

What It Means to Be Balanced

The ideal state is one that involves all four functions in balance. A thinker needs a feeling function to account for their thinking blind spots, just like every feeler needs a thinking function to account for their feeling blind spots. Every cognitive function has an opposite function that ideally needs to be developed in order to create balance. The more balanced a person becomes, the less they’ll look like their personality type’s stereotype. Stereotype behavior is usually the result of imbalance, leaning on those default, top two functions. As you get older, your personality type will ideally be harder and harder to identify. Your goal is to break the mold, so to speak. You shouldn’t find your personality type just so you can confine yourself to its box. You want to be able to call on each of the lower functions as you need them, when the situation calls for them.

In Summary…

So, are you healthy or unhealthy? Are you developing as you should be, or are you stuck in an unhealthy state? Or perhaps, have you confined yourself to a box? Personality theory, if used in this way, is detrimental. Always strive to improve and grow so that you can become the best version of your personality type that you can be.