ENFP MBTI Personality Type (A Complete Guide)
By
PsychReel
This article will take a look at the ENFP personality type which belongs to the MBTI inventory of personalities. The article will also comment on what the MBTI is and how the ENFP behaves when they become unhealthy.
ENFP Personality
This personality type has 4 dominant functions namely extroversion, intuition, feeling and perceiving. When it comes to extroversion, these individuals are outgoing and love to interact with others!
ENFPs realize the power and beauty of imagination and dreams and this allows them to be creative and more interesting not to themselves only but to each other. How they think can become a good source of conversation for them compared to a person who senses and reacts or processes information. They would be more based on facts and not understand the fun in being so creative.
Although it is usually emotions that blur what is truly going on in relationships, they can also help solve problems that may be difficult to rationalize or understand. Yes it is not always possible to make sense of a situation and hence love and mercy are the only weapons two people have to keep themselves bound to each other. This is important for ENFPs to understand so that they don’t take advantage of their traits.
However, if not balanced well with wisdom, any extreme can create distance between the two persons.
This is the personality type that is extroverted, intuitive, feeling and perceiving hence they are also known as the Campaigner; these individuals are full of energy and quite vibrant. They like to pursue the bigger things in life and are generally hopeful and want goodness for others as well.
These individuals are very sociable and like to attend events not just for the sake of partying but to meet new people, learn about them and form new emotional bonds; this is mostly due to the feeling function they possess hence they receive much satisfaction from any experience that stimulates it!
Furthermore, these personality types are quite insightful hence they do not just view the world through what is observant but also try to see beyond the face value of things. They are also of the opinion that everything is connected; however, they view these connections more through the lens of their emotions rather than logical thoughts and systems.
The campaigner is an interesting personality that can surprise others. It is easy for them to both focus on what their idealistic mind pushes them to work towards while also grabbing opportunities to socialize. However, sometimes these individuals get frustrated in their attempts to understand what people actually want.
The Cognitive Functions – Healthy ENFPs
This section will describe the overall behaviour of ENFPs that are healthy by discussing their cognitive functions.
Extroverted Intuition – Dominant Function
This is one of the dominant functions of the ENFP personality through which they are able to understand the relationships that exist in their world. Using their insight, they are able to see what relationships or emotions exist between people, situations and experiences. This personality is also good at abstract thinking and they are able to relate it with their external world which allows them to better understand others and navigate their way through situations.
Introverted Feeling – Auxiliary Function
This comes into play when they make decisions. The ENFP personality type depends more on their emotions when they are determining what to do in life with regards to others, their career choices or life events. They want to be true to their own selves and look inside to see what gives them comfort and peace in the long term.
Extroverted Thinking – Tertiary
This is an interesting function that the ENFP has where they may think aloud – if not literally. They prefer to think about information that they receive especially from their external surroundings and process it in a logical and systematic way.
This function allows them to process things more smoothly and identify relations in their surrounding environment. It helps them achieve what they want to do such as solve problems that are relevant to people and the society.
Introverted Sensing – Inferior
This function usually becomes active when the ENFP is in a stressful situation or one that is usually not encountered by them. In this situation, the personality type resorts to sensing in order to understand what is going on in their external environment.
It is possible they are stressed to the extent that they cannot extract insights from the situation they are in. Hence, they focus on what little information they can retrieve from there and pair it with instances from the past to make sense.
What is the Myer Briggs Type Indicator?
Are you familiar with an INTJ or an ETSP? Do you have any idea what they mean or who they could possibly describe? These are not some secret codes but terms that are used to describe the personality types of people who have taken the Myer Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The Myer Briggs Type Indicator is a self-report questionnaire based on Carl Jung’s theory that individuals experience the world using four psychological functions namely sensation, intuition, feeling and thinking with either one of these being the dominant factor. The personality test determines which of these functions best describes a person hence detailing their personality, strengths and attitudes; it assigns one of the 16 personality types (just like INTJ or ETSP) to the individual taking the test.
Unhealthy ENFPs – How Are They Like?
This section will highlight specific traits that unhealthy ENFPs exhibit.
Guarded
Usually ENFPs are very friendly and quite talkative – they like to socialize with others and learn more about people and what they do. They are quick to accept an invitation and meet new people. However, an unhealthy ENFP will be very guarded – they will hesitate to meet new people and keep to themselves.
They prefer to stay away from people and are not so friendly, warm or approachable
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Pessimistic
Most ENFPs like to think positively and freely – they rarely end up thinking in the wrong light and will spread this positivity to others.
However, an unhealthy ENFP is unable to think or feel this way. They will think negatively in most situations and expect the worst. They will not look for the good things in life but focus on the negative.
If you’re facing this, it may be a good idea to seek the help of a therapist or other mental health professional. You can find a therapist at BetterHelp who can help you learn how to cope and address it.
Less Risk Taking
The ENFP personality type is indeed very explorative – they are adventurous and like to roam around and meet new people. They take risks.
The unhealthy version of the ENFP, on the other hand, is the total opposite – they avoid risky behaviors and prefer taking the safe route.
Indecisive
ENFPs are usually very decisive about what they want – let alone the fact that they pursue what they desire wildly.
When it comes to the unhealthy ENFP, they are more tuned in to being indecisive even if they know deep down what they want. Their behaviour will seem confused and they will not be able to explicitly state what they want or pursue it!
Go It Alone
ENFPs can make great leaders when they are in their healthy form! However, an unhealthy ENFP will go it alone! This means they do not want to lead people to achieve even bigger goals. They will rather pursue a small one and do it alone. They don’t want to be part of teams.
Not Creative
Due to their perceiving function, the ENFP is quite creative but when it becomes unhealthy it loses all that creativity and becomes dull. They cannot come up with new ideas nor can they think of solutions to problems. They are not innovative at all nor do they really strive to be so.
Anxious
When the ENFP becomes unhealthy, they are not the happy go lucky personality type but the anxious one who is too worried about the future. This makes them feel restricted and less free – they prefer staying mundane.
Too Controlling
Instead of being the fun loving and free spirited MBTI personality type, this unhealthy ENFP becomes too controlling because they are now fearful and too scared of what can go wrong – a result of their excessive worrying and negative thinking.
Conclusion
This article took a look at the ENFP personality type and how they behave when they are in their healthy and unhealthy states. Furthermore, the article introduced the ENFP personality type in detail and also explained what the MBTI personality system is.
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