The Exhausted Ne — and the unique opportunity it presents for growth

Prelude

In this article, I try to explain what happens when the dominant cognitive function of an individual (in this case, Ne) feels exhausted. I explain why it happens, and what it leads to. I also suggest ideas on how to use the opportunity and what can be done to energize it again.

Warning: This is a somewhat technical article and assumes some understanding of basic Analytical Psychology concepts and familiarity with the 8 cognitive functions. I do try to provide the context and provide definitions where possible, and touch upon basics a little, but those may not be enough for a rank newbie.

What is Extraverted iNtuition, or, Ne?

Extraverted iNtuition (Ne) in Analytical Psychology is the cognitive function responsible for open mindedness. It is the cognitive function that gathers ideas from multiple perspectives, even those that compete with one another, so that divergent ideas may be brought together on a single forum, discussed, analysed, studied and then kept/discarded as appropriate for that context.

This is the dominant function in ENFPs and ENTPs — the enthusiastic champions and fearless inventors of the world. It is their superpower function that holds the powerhouse of energy to go out into the universe and gather ideas to make new ideas/things out of. New ideas get championed by the ENFP and new things get made by the ENTP. (*)

The ENFP/ENTP Cognitive Stack and its Positional Functions

Recall the following basics about the cognitive stack of the ENxP types:

The ENFP’s cognitive stack is: Ne > Fi > Te > Si

The ENTP’s cognitive stack is: Ne > Ti > Fe > Si

Therefore, the positional functions are:

First / Dominant / Hero: Ne

Second / Auxiliary / Good Parent: Fi or Ti

Third / Tertiary / Eternal Child: Te or Fe

Fourth / Inferior / Anima : Si

The dominant function is evident right from birth, whereas the second gets developed in childhood and youth. The tertiary gets developed around youth and mid-life. The inferior may or may not develop at all, but usually does under stressful conditions or in old age.

The Exhaustion of the Dominant Ne

As powerful as it is, the Ne can sometimes get exhausted. It can come up with multiple ways to look at a problem, and a variety of ways to explain it to others for a long time. However, the act of extraverting possibilities runs out of steam after extensive use of the function.

What Causes the Dominant to Feel Spent

The reason for dom-exhaustion is a nuanced one. Dom-exhaustion can happen when the feedback received after extensive use of the function is not pleasing to the Eternal Child third function. This is Te in the case of ENFP and Fe in the case of ENTP. Then, there is some amount of disappointment that the use of Ne did not get the job done, and didn’t feel good. For the ENTP, this would be if they didn’t get a sense of emotional acceptance (buy-in from the others) of their idea (Fe_child). For the ENFP, it would be if they didn’t get a sense of building something concrete from all the effort expended (Te_child).

The Prominence of the Third Function

Ultimately, the hidden motive of all personality types is hidden in their third function, the Eternal Child. Therefore, if the third function gets no gratification after extensive use of the dominant/auxiliary functions (the first and second, that is), it feels cheated. Thus, the ultimate purpose of communicating for an ENFP is to create something useful from whatever they had been brainstorming and subjecting to ethical analysis all this while. All the patterns and possibilities they had conjured up and found worth pursuing in the interest of humanity, would only be useful if it manifested in the form of something society could eventually use, or they could eventually operationalize. Likewise, the ultimate purpose of communicating/creating for the ENTP would be to make things that would bring a larger sense of harmony and greater long-term world peace!

Look at what Elon Musk — the world’s most famous ENTP — is doing. His grand ideas and razor focus on solving technical problems are eventually meant to add up to something greater than himself — something that the collective humanity will benefit from in terms of a happier, more harmonious society! This is the ask of the Fe tertiary (Fe_child). If that didn’t happen, all the effort and intellectual shenanigans of the mad inventor go to naught, for he is not interested in profiting beyond a point. Similarly, if Walt Disney — the most iconic ENFP — did not operationalize his idealism in the form of the Disney empire, he wouldn’t have felt anywhere near as successful as he did.

The Development of the Third Function

In many ways, this recognition of the Ulterior Motive of the Eternal Child, coincides with the maturation of the said function in mid-life. The tertiary finds its purpose and puts in the effort to grow, by mid-life. That is also when it takes on a greater role in the psyche demanding that its purpose be met. Dario Nardi calls this out in a talk as the ENFP realizing in mid-life, “Ooh! money!”, and indeed, the realization that getting one’s life in order and financial security in place is an ENFP’s resolution of mid-life crisis! Likewise, for an ENTP, that would be to recognize that their own personal pursuits of fame and grandeur amount to nothing if it didn’t result in greater common good, for society at large. Many an ENTP turns philanthropist, starts to teach, or even runs an NGO in his later life for this reason.

The first and second parts of one’s life (childhood and youth) were meant to build up the powerful dominant and auxiliary in building personal competence and the ability to help others. Come mid-life, though, the Eternal Child — now all grown up — demands that its goal be met. It holds accountable the first and second to do something greater than the sum of their parts! That, indeed, is what the third represents — the culmination of the work of the first and second in the form of a more meaningful outcome than just the mercenary.

The Importance of Developing the Third Function

The urge to satisfy the Third Function’s wish is a healthy thing to happen too, because the third function forces one to go beyond one’s comfortable personal identity and grow in ways that hadn’t happened so far. The second function (“Good Parent”) had been at the helm of affairs all this while, and therefore, by mid-life the growth of the second function begins to plateau out and stagnate. Developing the third function, then, is a fresh problem for the psyche to work on, and for the brain to work on developing previously unattended to areas. Several biases perpetrated by the formidable second function get called out, and resolved when the third function becomes important to us. The third function opposes the second function, and so, developing it gives the psyche a chance to balance out dogmas and rigid positions taken by the Good Parent second function. If done well, more parts of our brain start to work together, creating more holistic outcomes and ensuring the development of a better integrated individual overall.

The Third Function in the ENxP Types and its Purpose

In the ENFP, the second function is Fi (subjective ethics-based decision-making) and the third is Te (objective factually-based decision-making). Likewise, for the ENTP, the second function is Ti (subjective, personally experienced facts-based decision making), whereas the third is Fe (objective, community harmony-based decision making).

If during youth the ENFP was always prioritizing herself and creating frameworks to make herself feel better, now the ENFP is being asked to create frameworks that make others function better. Likewise, if during youth the ENTP was always making decisions that served his own selfish purpose well, now he is being asked to prioritize others’ feelings in the decision-making process.

The Third Function’s Role in the Exhaustion of the Dominant (Ne)

Keep in mind that the third function is weak, and it can’t really influence outcomes very much at all. It has a smaller voice at the table and gets discouraged easily. Therefore, when, in spite of the powerful application of the dominant function does not result in a positive outcome for the third, the person feels spent and tired. In the ENFP: The Ne feels exhausted, unwilling to take the effort to find more possibilities, concluding that nothing useful can be built from this, then why bother at all? In the ENTP: The Ne feels exhausted, unwilling to consider novel perspectives on the problem, concluding that no one is going to feel better anyway, then why bother? The person feels palpably tired and dejected. There is a definite loss of motivation to pursue the problem anymore.

The Opportunity Latent in the Exhaustion of the Dominant

The exhaustion of the dominant Ne is a great opportunity for the person to grow cognitively, and to integrate a weaker function. This is the time at which the third function should continue to believe in itself, and persist on the path to getting its will done. It is an opportunity to balance out the biases perpetrated by the second function and provide a counter-point to the second function’s preferences.

How to Use the Opportunity of Dom-exhaustion

When the Ne is exhausted, there may be other things that can be done:

• Pursue the Opposing (here, the Ni): If the Ne was getting exhausted because of lack of convergence, the Ni will quickly find a way to focus, line up priorities and set the vision right. If the ENFP is unable to engage this function by herself, she may seek the help of an INxJ friend. InxJs naturally do these activities with their Ni-dom.
• Continuing to build the power of the third: By digging their heels in and continuing to build systematic frameworks of thoughts, or by continuing to engage the community and build harmonious people-systems, the ENFP and ENTP can respectively validate their own approach. Sometimes, all it takes is to stay put and keep showing up to continue to work on the problem systematically. It will resolve itself.
• Engage and build the 4th function (Inferior): An exhausted Ne can be soothed by a rejuvenated Si. This is because the Ne is exhausted and doesn’t want to look into the future or discover more possibilities, being already overwhelmed by what it has gathered. The Si here is welcome then to meticulously plod through the available data and make sense of the motley pile of information strewn about in the ENxP brain.

Recharging the Dominant

The Dominant function, thankfully, is the superhero of the psyche. It has great powers to rejuvenate itself. A short break (as described above) where other functions take over, gives the dominant enough time to stay back and recharge. Besides, the third and the fourth are weak functions and get exhausted soon enough on their own. In doing so, they hand the baton right back to the Dom, permitting it to take over again and restore the psyche back to normality.

In concrete terms, this would be an ENFP/ENTP who took a break from delving into new possibilities and instead, working on a few projects in a deeper way, and setting up mechanisms and structures that address the “call of the third”. Once that is done, and some projects are finished and delivered either as functional systems or as functional human practices, the ENFP/ENTP can go back to dreaming up new projects, possibilities and patterns.

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