The Artist – Intropersonal Intelligence (IF)


The Artist, The Individualist, The Copy

Cognitive function

Introverted feeling, associated with our inner emotional state and our personal experiences. When a flow function, it makes the inner experience feel inherently meaningful and important.


Sensitivity, because they feel on the inside and feel personally involved in something. Emotions hit them personally. 


Intropersonal Intelligence, because they have such an intimate awareness of themselves and about peoples inner state and feelings. 


Autobiographic memory, because their personal experiences become strong memories and are remembered vividly.

Core values

Empathy and respect for the individual and their personal feelings.


Tend to be impractical and tend to fear the system and criticism.


Losing what they know is special about themselves, not realising their purpose

Flow types

Introverted feeling is mainly found in INFPs, INFJs, ISFJs and ISFPs

Introverted Feeling, Empathy, The Artist, Biographic Memory,

The Artist Archetype

The Artist archetype is perhaps best known for their personal vision or perspective: seeing the world in a subjective and personal manner, seeing the world from their own eyes, in a not necessarily rational way. And an artist is focused on their own world. Their own personal sphere and what they feel in relation to this world. They feel deeply yet can seem cold on the outside. They possess empathy and the ability to take on others viewpoints as their own, but are often sensitive. 

The artist feels that they have a personal subjective mission. This means, something that is unique about them, that only they can do. Something they want to give to the world. They can look beyond objective circumstance or the facts and focus on what they want and believe. These beliefs can later be proven and confirmed by society, even if in the beginning, they seemed irrational or odd. 

Getting to know the Artist

Artists are sensitive: They want to protect their own inner world and are afraid of other people invading their personal sphere and their emotional life. Their inclination to hold emotions to themselves. You will find that their ability to feel things close to self make them sometimes easy to offend or rattle. Because their views are subjective, they may not want other people to grade or measure them. When other people try, they may feel prone to feeling misunderstood. Because they often struggle with practical realities, like work, studies, and grades. Yes, most objective systems, they can also feel rejected by the world. 

“I am myself, but that does not seem to be good enough for the world.” The artist might say, feeling invalidated for wanting or thinking a certain way. “Everyone seems to want me to be strong, tough, and successful, but I just want to do my own thing.” – that is the artists dilemma.

When an artist becomes skilled in managing and navigating this inner world and processing their own emotions, they gain high intropersonal intelligence. Often, this type is also known for high self-awareness and a strong autobiographic memory. But perhaps most importantly, artists are known for empathy and the ability to understand and see the personal perspective. They see this perspective without becoming emotionally involved in the other persons situation. 


Artists feel on the inside but may not reveal much outwards. There is little response in a conversation with an artist, they do not share emotion freely, but still value it highly. Emotions are regarded as something that are ultimate personal. Everyone has their own inner world and their own unique values. Introverted feelers can be sensitive to this fact and usually become more careful with how they express themselves. 

It may be hard to believe that the most self-involved types are also the most empathic. But introverted feelers value the subjective in both themselves and other people. Empathy is a core value to the artist because it feeds into their intropersonal intelligence, giving them awareness of peoples insides and how they think and how they feel. Empathy is also about how we engage in conversations with other people. The non-judgemental stance of introverted feeling types. Because they don’t tend to insert themselves or their own emotions into the situation, they will often be appreciated as great listeners. 

Taking time to gain perspective

This gift of perspective and empathy means a lot to introverted feelers. They need perspective, and feel their best when they can understand as much about a person and about their feelings and their inner life. Lack of understanding of self is a confusing and anxiety-inducing experience for an introverted feeler. They need to introspect and to see themselves in high definition and from a richer and more nuanced perspective. Processing your own emotional state and your experiences is essential. If you don’t, you also lose the ability to relate to and understand other people. A lack of understanding of self drives a lack of understanding of other people, because everyone you meet is essentially a new version of yourself.

They avoid overstepping emotional boundaries and interfering with the process of others, and they pay attention to how they say or do something. They process things within which means they often gain high empathy: what they hear and see and experience is related to themselves and their own inner state. The artist will also understand this subjectively: they read what they would have felt in the other persons shoes and what would have made them feel better. They can also know how to say something, with careful tact and awareness of the persons situation and perspective. What can I do to make them feel better? What can I do to speak to and relate better to them?


Introverted Feeling

Stepping into the perspective of the other, but still coming from themselves and their personal identity, introverted feeling types have a strong inner sense of who they are and also what they can do. What am I good at? Artists can believe that they have a personal destiny or mission. You could call it their “speciality”. 

What they know intimately is special and unique about them that nobody else can do. If somebody else can do it, it is no longer interesting, and if other people are better at it, it is not for them. Artists do not want to be a part of the collective but want to be their own individuals. With that said, introversion is not just about the self. It is also about what the self wants to do for the world, and introverted feeling types tend to have strong personal intentions and feelings about what they want to do and how they want to impact the world. 

It is basically not just that introverted feelers see the world in a unique way but also that they want to be perceived in a unique way. There is some kind of personal truth to things and their actions and their behaviour is shaped by this. They like to do things for their own reasons and not because it is paid well or because it seems rational. No, feeling types experience feelings as emotional intentions, things that move them and push them forward, where thoughts only douse the flames and cause their fire to run out. An intention is essentially like a burn or a tinge or a tickle that tells you, this is good, this is important, this is bad, and it functions as a compass and guides you forward. 

Intropersonal Intelligence

With intropersonal intelligence we know ourselves and we know our personal mission. We have autobiographic memory and narrate our own story. We feel that we understand and accept our feelings and that our feelings are important to us. While introverted feeling may sound initially self-centred, it does also extend to other people. 

Introverted feeling types hold other peoples personal situation in great respect, and when they learn about what other people feel or are going through, they can be sensitive and careful and adjust to this. Biographic memory ties into this, because we remember and absorb a lot about people, they feel understood and accepted. 

We know how to act to express these feelings to other people and how to maintain our boundaries without feeling misunderstood or rejected. We know how to act on our feelings and to realise what we intend and what we want. Of course, getting there can take time. Many introverted feeling types grow up with an awareness that the inner and the subjective factor matters but not everyone will listen to it. 

Many shut it down because it is inconvenient or collides with the system. Some discard it, along with their sensitivity, as something they wish they were not. What most get hung up on is how to explain it to other people. How do you tell other people what you want, how do you describe something subjective. What can you do to make sure it will make sense to other people? Because of this, many hold their own feelings back. 

Biographic memory

With biographic memory, we can remember personal experiences and things that have happened to us in our life. We can recognise and reflect on these situations and what they meant to us. 

An introverted feeler remembers more from these situations because they carry personal importance to them: times they spent with their child or someone they love. When they were on stage playing for a crowd… Anytime when there was a high ability to personally relate to an event, and when something reminded them of their personal significance.

Biographic memory can help you not just know yourself but to know and remember many things that hold relevance to you. A secret trick is: make it personal. The more personal it is, and the more personal it feels to you, the more you will take away from it. If you go deep into an art form because it speaks to you, the subject will stick to you like glue, because it is a part of you. Remind yourself of who you are and why you do what you are doing. If you are doing it for other people or for bad reasons, it may not stick. 

Biographic memory also means being able to remember nice tidbits and personal facts about other people. Often, not necessarily things they have told you, but more related to their character, how they think, and how they feel. This can help you factor into decisions, how people will act, and what to say or not to say. 


There are four main variations of artists. Performing artists, who want to prove themselves and realise who they are through accomplishment and hard work. Musing artists that like to explore themselves and learn as much as possible, and who value the task of growing more than acquiring something from their personal growth, or using it for any particular purpose. 

Also the creating artists, that like to express or develop something using what they have learnt from within themselves, and finally, the Giving artists, that want to use what they know about themselves and about the individual to help and to aid others who need it. The main difference is just what dimension we express our feelings and how we express it. The deeper values are always the same.


If introverted feelers are mainly known for their intropersonal intelligence and their talents as artists, it may be hard to recognise them in their most average state. As individualists, they hold the individual to be of strong importance. Me, but of course, also your me. Your health and your experience matters and I want you to be yourself with me. It is perhaps no coincidence then that the introverted feeling type at their worst can struggle with a rejection of the self and a desire to fall into the collective and to shut down themselves.

Denying themselves and other people the right to personal feelings and personal values, they can become The Copy. A fraud, someone fake, who has just decided to copy and echo after other people. Flow for an introverted feeling type comes from the embracing of self but still this may be a hard thing to do. There may come tidal waves when doubt takes over and where you start falling into this pattern, and that is okay. 

The system carries weight and is important to you too, just as it is to everyone else. You will never want to be like anyone else, but sometimes you will want to blend into the crowd, perhaps out of a fear of judgement. As an individualist, you may struggle with self-absorbtion, but for the most, that is just healthy. People don’t respect themselves enough. Self-respect is a very important starting point. Empathy comes later: As you start accepting yourself, it also becomes more easy to accept other people.