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Business Relations INFp and ISFp by Stratiyevskaya
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Partners in these relations soon come to appreciate one another’s ethical sensitivity and emotional warmth. IEI feels himself comfortable around SEI – the SEI will care for him, feed him, keep him warm. In his search of a welcoming corner, IEI gravitates towards sensing types because he is subconsciously oriented at his “program” sensing dual SLE. Of all sensing types, he finds is easy to get close with SEI in light of exceptional responsiveness and sociability of the representatives of this type.
From his side, SEI finds IEI an interesting and pleasant conversationalist, a charming romantic, a restless dreamer. All these qualities in some way echo the dreaminess and boundless imagination of SEI’s dual, ILE, which is why they seem so attractive to the SEI.
How these relations evolve further we can examine on the following example of woman SEI and her partner IEI:
“We got married during the time of war. He was demobilized earlier than everyone else due to his wound. We knew each other before and started seeing one another. One day he came to me and offered to marry him. He said that he needs to get married because he needs someone to look after him, said that any woman would go with him now, and if I refuse he’ll seek someone else. I gave it a thought… it was military time, very difficult to find single men .. and decided that I shouldn’t miss this chance. We have already known one another, he was my friend, a positive, romantic guy who wrote poetry. Thus we have gotten married. I had to leave my medical courses, even though I was in third year, so that I could care for him. Here, I found application of my medical knowledge. We lived together for fifteen years, and I cared for him all this time, prepared him food according to a special diet… he was like a patient, a child, and a husband to me. We didn’t have children, thus I devoted all my love and care to him. Then, after fifteen years of our marriage, the doctors have persuaded him to undergo a surgery. They guaranteed him a complete recovery! I looked after him post surgery, and indeed he has fully recovered from his ailments. He’s gotten so well that soon after he has found himself another woman who was much younger than me. I learned of this and we had a talk. Here is what he told me: “You love me with a love that was self-sacrificing. This kind of love is abasing, it demeans a person. Now I cannot love you because you have belittled yourself.” At first I wasn’t sure why he’s said this, and then I realized that he only needed me as a nurse, and all this talk about “self-sacrificing love” was merely an excuse he invented to get rid of me. I don’t know how I got over it, I was very upset … but after some time I told this story to a random man I met and he asked me to marry him, said that all his life he was searching for a woman who knew how to love so much. We have gotten married and lived in harmony ever since.”
It is clear that the element of business relations is applicable only to the first part of the above story. Let’s analyze the relational mechanism of this dyad.
Level of EGO: channel 2-2, aspect of ethics of emotions (Fe)
Esenin has appreciated the responsiveness, sensitivity, and emotional warmth of Dumas. Dumas has appreciated the romantic and sublime nature of Esenin.
Levels of EGO-SUPEREGO: chanels 3-1 and 3-1, aspects of intuition of time (Ni) and sensing of experiences (Si)
On his program aspect, Esenin calculated everything correctly – it was wartime, any woman would have married him, thus it was possible to choose a woman who could take care of him and look after him. In this manner, he protected his normative aspect of sensing of experiences. Dumas, on the other hand, was dependent on the situation that was modeled by Esenin on the aspect of intuition of time. She fell into “intuitive dependence” of his “business proposal”, which of course seemed pragmatic and calculated to her, but fully acceptable in wartime conditions in light of deficit of suitors. His proposal was also convincing because it fell on her most suggestible function, intuition of opportunities: she was afraid that she will miss this chance during difficult times. And here was a man with whom she already familiar with and a mutually beneficial proposal. Thus their relationship has taken off on mostly pragmatic grounds, while kindness, sensitivity, poetry, were only nominal aspects of their interaction.
Their mutually beneficial “business agreement” was maintained for as long as the partner was requested on her leading sensing function. Once the need for special diets and care has disappeared, her partner has “cut her short”. It was exactly the outcome which she feared from the beginning. Her “lucky opportunity” has turned into the biggest loss: her youth was gone, the time has passed, she missed all the chances. Here, our heroine received a blow not only on the level of SUPEREGO on the aspect of the intuition of time, but also on the level of SUPERID on an aspect of intuition of possibilities, on the very same aspect in which she feels herself most helpless. She painfully relived the dissolution of her family. The “echoes” of these blows resonated across other aspects of her psyche: her self-esteem, her confidence in herself and her EGO functions (did she care for him so poorly that he has left her?), and on demonstrative ethics of relations (was it worth it showing so much kindness and attention only to be subjected to such treatment?), and on the observing function of extraverted sensing (whether she wanted it or not, the circumstances around her developed along someone else’s design, and she could only follow them).
In this story, the IEI has intuitively “out-played” the SEI – he sat under her “wing” until he could do without her help. Once there was no longer a need for a caretaker, he has given her a “resignation”. The difference in quadra worldviews is also evident: he has permitted himself to “use” his partner for his personal advantage, and, moreover, he wasn’t willing to admit that he was in the wrong, to acknowledge his self-interest and inconstancy and that he acted in a blatantly unethical manner, humiliating her with reprimands and mentions of “sacrificial love”, as if her devotion was a burden to him (however, this is possible, since it is difficult to adhere to ethics within such overtly pragmatic relations). Yet, this story has ended relatively well for both of them – both found a better match. An interesting note: IEI has pushed SEI out of relationship as “unwanted person” when the purpose of the contract was fulfilled and their “business agreement” could be terminated.
Does the reverse happen? Of course! Here is an example of SEI displacing an IEI out of their business relations and only because he has fulfilled his use and was no longer needed:
A woman (SEI) felt compassion for the orphaned children who lived next door to her. Their father (IEI) was distraught at the loss of his wife and was struggling to take care of them. Two newborn twins, who were the cause of his wife’s death, he took to an orphanage, while the two older girls remained living with him. The neighbor SEI started to pay visits to the girls. She herself was a single mother with one child. One time she would help them sew a couple of buttons, another time prepare some food after school. The girls started talking with their father about this caring neighbor. One time, they have begged her to stay until their father came back home. That’s how she became acquainted with her future husband.
Their friendship didn’t last long. One evening one of the girls asked her to stay with them overnight: “Why leave and come back tomorrow? Simply stay with us!” The neighbor has stayed over for one night, and then brought her daughter over to their house. Concerning the motives of their marriage, she now recalls: “I didn’t marry him. I married his children because it was needed for them.” Their children came at the forefront of their “business” relationship, while the husband himself was a sort of an “addition” to them. Eventually he was forgotten in their family and removed to the background. The attention of his new wife was wholly absorbed by taking care of children and the household. On her initiative, the two younger twins were brought back from the orphanage, much to the delight of their older sisters. The father of the household, feeling himself forgotten and lost in this crowd, started thinking about the death of his wife and took up drinking with all its subsequent consequences. The condition of his yearning soul did not evoke much sympathy or understanding in other members of his family. One day a “family council” was held led by the new spouse and the decision was made by majority vote to send the “onerous” father somewhere far away with his melancholy and drinking. Thus, the IEI was “ejected” from his own family. His spouse SEI remained as head of his household and continued raising the children without him, with which task she coped very well. She didn’t consider arranging her personal life another time, since she was completely taken up by the care.
This example demonstrates the instability and fluidity of “business” relations (they found one another by coincidence), their concreteness and specificity (the presence of a well-defined purpose for which they connected their fates), and their pragmatism (this “alliance” was created for the sake of the children, “because they needed it”). For reasons of this very same pragmatism, one of the partners was displaced from the family (so that he wouldn’t mar children’s existence). The same example also illustrates the openness of a business relationship – partners do not concentrate on one another: she found solace in children, he found it in memories of his former wife. As a result of this marriage, everyone got what they wanted: she obtained more children (which is quite consistent with the values ​​and attitudes of her sociotype), and he – his personal freedom and independence.
What if SEI and IEI interact on purely official basis, as co-workers, would their engagement be beneficial and productive or would there be problems? Problems would arise over logical aspects, particularly the aspect of logic of actions. For example, if they had to work together, neither of them would be prompt and diligent in doing his share of work. Moreover, here again the IEI would try to intuitively “out-play” the SEI by postponing work until the last moment, counting that the SEI, as someone more conscientious and not as optimistic, would complete the work himself. Meanwhile, SEI would not be averse to attribute and write off mistakes and failing in his work to his partner. Conflicts will arise on these grounds. Each will nod and point to the other, each will reproach his partner and criticize his business acumen. Initial attempts at getting closer will not be very successful. However, later on, when these partners already know what to expect from one another, they can work out an optimal plan for their interaction and conduct a sufficiently productive collaboration with each other.
Business partnership of IEI and SEI can be quite successful in the humanitarian and artistic spheres, where each of the partners is not only engaged in his favorite work, but can also creatively realize himself. An example of such collaboration is the creative union of Eldar Ryazanov (SEI) and Emil Braginsky (IEI). Their bright, warmhearted, lyrical works embody of the best qualities of the members of this dyad. Their artistic collaboration has continued for 25 years and has been extremely successful and fruitful.