INFJ personality and therapy

 I got to thinking about my INFJ personality in relation to therapy the other day. I decided to search the Internet to see what was being said about this.

I also took a more in-depth personality type test that was linked to on one of the sites I looked at. 72 questions all answered completely honestly and the result: INFJ. Yep. I have to be honest, when this turned out to be my result, I actually broke down in tears out of what I guess to be relief. This result is more defining than the simple 4 question test I'd taken a while back ago. Time and time again I keep coming back to INFJ  being my personality. I've known for awhile but this new test just further proves it.

I also want to say that it is just chance that I got interested in my personality type. Up until the test I took several months ago, I had no knowledge of the different personality types in regards to Myers-Briggs or anything like that.  When I discovered my possible type, of course I researched it. Not knowing anything about it, I read the description and realized how accurately it described me. I'm not trying to let it define me either; it does that enough on it's own. Plus it's not something I constantly think about although every so often I get into these moods where I do think more about it.

So anyways, going back to INFJ's in relation to therapy. It turns out there's a lot being said about INFJ's in regards to therapy. At least from what I've found.

In my searching, I stumbled across some message boards for INFJ's talking about it. Saying how either therapy helped them or didn't really help them.

I've already said that I'm extremely fortunate to have found such wonderful therapists who I feel really understand me. Especially my therapist this semester, I really feel as though she's someone who really understands me.

I've read about some other INFJ's on these forums and how they've tried therapy but felt as though their therapists didn't really understand them. They felt their therapists didn't do much for them because their therapists didn't understand the INFJ personality and tried to change them or make them do things they just weren't ready to do.

They've also talked about how some of their therapists have asked them if they even needed to keep coming to therapy because they seem to "know" the answers; have things "figured out". One person even mentioned how their therapist stopped seeing them after they started journaling. Others have essentially created their own personal imaginary therapist.

Others have talked about how they didn't really see the need to go to therapy. They don't see how therapy would help them.  Being that INFJ's are essentially therapists themselves, the people tended to seem like they were better able to help themeselves.

It's just interesting to me that even though we're all INFJ's and share some of the same traits, we are still uniquely different. There's still so much variety.

Reading about other INFJ's gives me more insight to me as an individual though and reading about how some people have struggled with therapists, makes me even more fortunate to have found therapists I feel really understand me.

I honestly feel that my therapist sees my INFJ personality and she works with it. It's almost hard not to see my INFJ personality sometimes I feel. The fact that I find it hard to express my feelings verbally but yet have no problem expressing them on paper  (which seems to be a fairly common thing I've gathered from reading these message boards. That it's a fairly common thing for INFJ's); the fact that I have a lot of "internal conflicts";  the fact that I feel like I'm a complicated individual; the fact that I struggled for the longest time to reveal all to my therapist, holding back for fear of judgement; the fact that I am a reserved person; the fact that I tend to be very emotional and sensitive.

Basically so much of what I say or don't say in therapy just seems to scream "INFJ" to me and I would think it screams it to my therapists too. While my therapists have never mentioned my personality type, I'm sure they have recognized it; did recognize it in the first 15 minutes of our first sessions and if not, I'm sure it become abundantly clear to them after a couple of sessions.

The thing is though, I feel as though both of my therapists have understood me and my personality type. They seem to understand it without me having to come out and say it.  I've never even mentioned it to them, yet I believe they've figured it out and how it relates to my problems.

I think the fact that they seem to understand my personality type is perhaps because they take classes on personality or they have the option to. I know because I looked at the course offerings for Psychology courses or at least those for an undergrad. ( I was curious!) Perhaps they have similar courses for grad students. Still though it seems as though somewhere in their coursework they have studied about personalities and different traits and such and have learned to be responsive to them all; how to work with all these different types.  I also know that they do offer a Myers-Briggs test  and similar types of personality testing at the Clinic so I'm sure that my therapists have to have knowledge of them.

Like I've already mentioned, reading about other INFJ's has given me more insight into me as an individual. I feel as though I can relate to a lot of the same things. I see people mentioning things and realize that I'm the same way. 

For instance one person was talking about her therapist and how her therapist understands that the person thinks a lot about herself and her psyche;why she does certain things, etc. Her therapist also understands that the person doesn't come up with A solution but instead comes up with multiple acceptable possibilities and then she gets stuck!

This sounds a lot like me. I have the same problems!

 The same person also mentioned how now that she's cutting back on how often she sees her therapist it makes her nervous and she comes across multiple things a day that she want to talk to her therapist about.

Again I can totally relate to this! Definitely about the multiple things a day thing! Right now I have about 4 or 5 things I already want to mention to my therapist on Wednesday but I'm concerned that there isn't enough time. I only have one more session this semester after this week and then I'll be without therapy for who knows how long.

I don't really know if INFJ's seek therapy more often than other personality types or if INFJ's are more likely to develop mental health issues or not.

 All I know is that I'm an INFJ and  I am in therapy for reasons. Then again now that I think about it, perhaps it's partly because of my INFJ personality that it took so long for me to seek therapy in the first place. I mean really seek therapy.

I've told you I've had struggles since I was a child. I mentioned how during my middle school years, I went to the counselor's office a few times. But it wasn't until my nervous breakdown in 2009 that I actively sought counseling. It was then that I realized my own coping skills were no longer helping me.And again when I moved here, it took me awhile before I really sought counseling. I thought I was handling things but it got to a point where I realized, I wasn't really handling things all that well.

I realize that not all INFJ's may seek therapy because not all need it.

But I do need it. It's been helpful for me and already I've seen progress and hope to continue seeing it.