Anima/animus as psychic functions. The dual nature of the psyche

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- Duality of the psyche, compensation
- Anima/animus as functions

In his work, Psychological Types, Carl Jung described eight distinct personality types. He proposed the concept of four main psychic functions: Sensation, Feeling, Thinking and Intuition. (More on this here >>>) Each of these functions has two variants: extraverted and introverted, and together there are eight psychic functions, 4 introverted and 4 extraverted:
• Sensation Extraverted - Se, • Sensation Introverted – Si
• Feeling Extraverted - Fe, • Feeling Introverted – Fi
• Thinking Extraverted - Te, • Thinking Introverted - Ti
• Intuition Extraverted – Ne, • Intuition Introverted – Ni

All eight functions are present in the psyche of each person, however, one of the functions always surpasses the others in strength and speed of reaction. It is called the main or superior one. If the main function is Sensation Extraverted (Se), then the type is called Sensing Extraverted, if the main function is Feeling Introverted (Fi), then the type is called Feeling Introverted, etc.

Duality of the psyche. Jung discovered that the human psyche has a dual nature, the main function of a type is always balanced by an opposite psychic function. Jung called this complementarity of opposite functions COMPENSATION.

“Compensation means a balancing or supplementing… Whereas Adler restricts his concept of compensation to a mere balancing of the feeling of inferiority, I conceive it as a general functional adjustment, an inherent self-regulation of the psychic apparatus. In this sense, I regard the activity of the unconscious as a compensation to the onesidedness of the general attitude produced by the function of consciousness (main function) … Compensation by the unconscious is, as a rule, not so much a contrast as a levelling up or supplementing of the conscious orientation.” – from ‘Psychological Types’ (1)