Where the theory begins

Carl Gustav Jung

1875 — 1961

Swiss psychiatrist · Founder of analytical psychology

Before the four letters, a way of looking at difference.

Why do people experience the same world so differently? Jung’s work on psychological types is part of OpenJung’s intellectual background. Looking back at that history also helps clarify where his theory ends and later questionnaires begin.

Explore the ideas

A life in context

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology. He worked at the Burghölzli hospital in Zürich and collaborated with Sigmund Freud before their break in 1913.

His work reached well beyond personality types to include dreams, symbols, religion, and the relationship between conscious and unconscious experience. In his framework, “individuation” concerns becoming more fully oneself; it is not a test score or a four-letter destination.

[1]
  1. Born in Switzerland

  2. Break with Freud

  3. Psychological Types published in German

  4. Dies in Küsnacht, Switzerland

Two attitudes, four functions

In Psychological Types, Jung distinguished a person’s general attitude from the psychological functions through which experience is perceived or judged. These are terms within his theory, not measurements of brain activity. [2]

Two directions of orientation

Extraversion
An orientation that gives greater weight to the external object and objective circumstances.
Introversion
An orientation that gives greater weight to the subjective factor: how experience is taken in and interpreted within the person.

Four psychological functions

Sensation
Perception through the senses: attending to what is concretely present.
Intuition
Perception of possibilities and connections not immediately given to the senses.
Thinking
Judging by linking ideas conceptually and following logical conclusions.
Feeling
Judging by weighing value: accepting or rejecting something according to its worth, rather than simply having an emotion.

Jung described each function in both attitudes, yielding eight principal type descriptions rather than the later 16 four-letter combinations. In Chapter X, “The Principal and Auxiliary Functions,” he also noted that the pure types he described do not occur frequently in practice. [2]

From Jung to OpenJung

These four names share a family of terms, but they are separate projects—a history of influence and adaptation rather than a chain of endorsements.

  1. Jung · A theory

    The 1921 book uses attitudes and functions as a framework for interpreting psychological differences. It is not an online test. [2]

  2. Myers & Briggs · MBTI

    Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers developed the MBTI from Jung’s work. Their framework uses four preference pairs, including J–P, and 16 four-letter combinations. That is a later extension, not Jung’s original questionnaire. [3] [4]

  3. Open Psychometrics · OEJTS

    The Open Extended Jungian Type Scales were developed as an alternative questionnaire, with items selected to distinguish self-identified types. That development history does not validate every later adaptation. [4]

  4. OpenJung · An independent adaptation

    Our full test adapts the 32-item OEJTS 1.2. OpenJung is not the official MBTI assessment and is not affiliated with or endorsed by a Jung institute or the Myers & Briggs Foundation.

How our questionnaire works

Read with perspective

Historical influence is not measurement evidence

Tracing where an idea came from does not prove that a questionnaire measures it reliably. OpenJung does not directly measure Jung’s unconscious processes or cognitive functions.

Read a historical author critically

The original text includes gender generalizations and clinical interpretations that we do not adopt as conclusions about today’s readers. Introducing Jung does not mean endorsing every part of his work. [2]

Keep the person larger than the label

Use type language as a starting point for reflection, not a verdict on ability, relationships or mental health. A result should not decide a career, a partner or a diagnosis.

See the questionnaire’s evidence and license

Evidence and validation status

Traceable source: the full test adapts the 32-item OEJTS 1.2 by Open Psychometrics. The questionnaire PDF documents that version’s items, scoring rules and license. The development page provides item-selection background, not validation of this adaptation.

Not yet published: internal consistency, test–retest reliability and factor validation for this OpenJung version, its 8-question quick test, or its translations. We do not present unsupported reliability coefficients for this implementation.

Some wording and item directions have been adapted. The quick test uses only 2 questions per dimension; scaling it to 8–40 for display does not give it the precision of the full test. Percentages describe a position on a scale, not accuracy or diagnostic probability.

Use results for reflection and communication. Near-midpoint results do not establish a fixed type. Do not use them for hiring, clinical or other high-stakes decisions.

OEJTS questionnaire items and adaptations are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, not public domain. The MIT license covers original OpenJung code, not the questionnaire.

Current assessment version: openjung-oejts-1

Sources & further reading

These sources support the specific historical and theoretical points noted below. They are not validation studies of OpenJung.

  1. [1] The Society of Analytical Psychology · About Carl Jung

    Biography, the 1913 break with Freud, and the wider scope of analytical psychology and individuation.

  2. [2] C. G. Jung · Psychological Types (1921), Chapter X

    Primary text in H. Godwyn Baynes’s 1923 English translation, hosted by York University. See the introduction, the extraverted and introverted function sections, and “The Principal and Auxiliary Functions.”

  3. [3] Myers & Briggs Foundation · The Preferences: E–I, S–N, T–F, J–P

    Definitions used in the later Myers–Briggs framework, especially the fourth pair, Judging–Perceiving. Used for terminology, not as evidence of this site’s validity.

  4. [4] Open Psychometrics · Development of the Open Extended Jungian Type Scales

    The introduction describes the MBTI extension and J–P; the development sections explain item selection. The linked OEJTS 1.2 PDF records the questionnaire and license.

Keep exploring, with the context in view.