Integration of energy types in practice
Case stories
What does it look like in practice when a person begins to integrate their personality type and essence type? This article will illustrate this through a series of case stories.
By Kenneth Sorensen
You may prefer to read the short introductory article on energy psychology first. Receive my seven free meditations on your seven core talents
Integration of personality type and essence type
In energy psychology, we call the combination of your personality and essence your core identity . In other words, you have two different faces that you need to work together. One face faces the world, we call it your personality. It gives you feet to walk on and grounds you in the concrete physical world. Your other face faces inward, towards the world of values. It connects you to the larger inner coherence and meaning where you experience yourself connected to life, with a unique role to play.
Roberto Assagioli describes it this way: “ A ‘person’ may possess, deep down, qualities that belong to one type, while his or her outer personality displays traits of another type.” [1]
The Janus face from Roman mythology brilliantly describes this duality in our nature. According to one of the mythological descriptions, Janus was created by the sky god Uranus as a love gift to the goddess of the underworld, Hecate. She was also connected to life on Earth and represented fertility. But Janus longed for the heavenly and fled the underworld. However, he fell out of favor with the gods and was punished so that he always had to be a link between the outer and inner worlds. He could never be only one place or the other. Always somewhere in between.
It is these two forces that must unite within us. We all have a longing for a better world (the essence) and a face turned towards the imperfect physical world (the personality).
Unlike Janus, we should not flee from the world, but rather bring the goodness, truth, and beauty we find within to the outside. If we only face ‘heaven’, we become impractical idealists without a connection to the ground. If we only face the world, we lose ourselves in all the external forms and forget our inner home.
The essence type gives us access to the qualities with which we connect with meaning and create a better world. One could also say that the essence type becomes active when we open our heart, when we understand that life is not only about ourselves and the family as the center of the world. We have previously described that the opening to the essence often happens through an existential crisis where our inner values are challenged. However, there are many people who do not experience this opening, as they are satisfied with life in the outer world. They are the earthbound people of this world, and here the essence type sleeps until it may one day be awakened.
In general, however, there is a deep longing for ‘more’, and the flourishing self-development literature is a visible sign of this trend. That is why millions of people around the world are ready to integrate their essence and personality type. We can describe the relationship between the two as being and doing. The essence type creates contact with our innermost identity, which gives self-esteem and the ability to rest in ourselves. It connects us with an abundance of creative talents and qualities that are joyful to unfold. In contact with the essence there is no lack, only fullness and meaning, which means that we can create from an inner abundance.
Personality is more driven by deficiency needs. It represents the inner need that drives us to perform and make us capable. It makes us robust, proactive and realistic. It helps us make our mark in the world and gives us self-confidence.
The philosophy of energy psychology is that we must learn to harmonize both of these influences in our lives. We must harness the capabilities of the personality to the deep values of the essence type. The personality must be like a vital team of four horses guided by the coachman (the essence). We could also call this development self-realization. That is, the realization of all that we have the potential to become.
In Figure 1 we see an illustration that describes the optimal interaction between the essence type and the personality type. The vertical being axis illustrates the heavenly gaze towards new values and possibilities. The horizontal doing axis represents all the actions we take in the world. The abilities we have to translate our qualities and talents into results.
Figure 1. The Being-Doing Axis
When the personality’s conscious I – the orange circle – understands to draw on the qualities from both the essence type’s being qualities and the personality type’s doing qualities, then a great focused strength arises. The three dotted arrows from the two axes represent the forces from the body, emotions and thoughts that strengthen the personality’s conscious I.
This strength gives power to realize one’s dreams, one’s visions and one’s innermost Self. The Sun – the yellow circle – represents the vision and the need to gather all our forces to achieve the vision in a balanced way where being and doing are in balance. When this happens, a creativity arises between the conscious self (orange circle) and our vision (the Sun). It is in this field of tension that inspiration arises and the energy to act on it for the benefit of others.
In practice, the arrow between being and doing will rarely be exactly in the middle as in the illustration. In the Western-oriented world, the focus is largely on doing and achieving. This will pull the center down towards the axis of doing and tend to create stress and materialism.
Integration of all five psychological levels
However, it is not only personality and soul-essence that must be integrated. An important aspect of energy psychology is the integration of the five psychological levels of our being. The body, emotions, thoughts, personality and soul (essence). Most people experience a split or inner conflict between what they want and the reactions they get from their body, emotions or thoughts. They want to lose weight, but out of habit they do what they usually do. They want to create a new career path (personality) but they react with fear and uncertainty (emotion) and the decision is not carried out.
Figure 2. The five psychological levels
In other words, there is no flow and surplus when we seek to create new patterns of action, and that is what integration work is all about from an energy psychology perspective. When we know the energy type on the five psychological levels, that is, the essence type, the personality type, the thinking type, the feeling type and the body type (see figure), we gain insight that makes it much easier to get the different sides of us to cooperate. We know what motivates each energy type.
We can translate this understanding into something more tangible and tangible by describing a number of examples of what the vertical integration between personality and soul might look like in real life. All of the examples have been blurred so that the people behind them are not recognizable, but the content of their crisis is accurately portrayed.
Maria – a creative personality type awakens to a sensitive essence type
Maria was a 38-year-old woman who was going through a major existential crisis in her life, where all the values she had lived for up until then no longer made sense. Her entire life had been driven by a great need for attention and affirmation, and all her character traits were clearly marked by the creative energy type. She had been born into the upper class with all its privileges and had a fantastic exterior that opened many doors, but which also created deep bonds with the surface life of the jet set.
Her focus throughout her life had been on finding the beauty and harmony that she was so clearly not in touch with within herself. Her childhood was strongly marked by a lack of care and a lack of living interest in her as a person, which created an inner void that was sought to be filled through external affirmation of her appearance and festive mood.
Her life had had many ups and downs, broken relationships, educational processes and depressive periods, replaced by fantastic experiences with art and culture. It was also in the entertainment industry that she tried to make a career, but without much success, because the emptiness inside constantly made her unstable. In retrospect, her life had been a constant hunt for the next peak experience of beauty, comfort and success, replaced by emptiness when the satisfaction of needs gradually decreased. She had a very winning personality, full of humor, openness and energy, which made it easy for her to relate and become popular at a distance. But if you got closer, most people discovered that she was mainly only interested in herself.
She was having a hard time with herself and her superficiality. There was a deeper note of longing to contribute something significant that was growing stronger in her. The pain inside had grown stronger in recent years, and she experienced how she repeatedly withdrew from parties and the external social environment, where she had otherwise drawn her strength. Her marriage to a very wealthy man also broke up because she simply did not know what to talk to him about. She was tired of being his status symbol and sexual toy. The divorce threw her into the crisis of her life. It was as if all roads were closing, and she had to look herself and her life values in the eye for the first time. There had to be a deeper meaning, the inner voice told her.
She began an intensive psychotherapeutic process that uncovered the deeper layers of her pain of emptiness, but which also put her in touch with her longing to understand the deeper connections in life. Who am I? And why are we here? became the central questions to be answered. It was as if her inner hole could only be filled by a greater wisdom that gave her meaning and direction in life. She read one spiritual self-development book after another at an almost manic pace, because it was as if the books reflected her inner soul, as if she knew it all in advance. She was introduced to meditation and found a method here to fill the hole from within. She knew that it would take time and that the pain was no longer in the way, but was part of the path to greater self-insight. But most importantly, she now knew what she wanted to contribute. She wanted to work with people who, like her, were caught in a crisis of meaning, and help them find their calling in life.
During the two years she was in the psychotherapeutic process, her life changed radically. She made new friends, interests and began a university study in psychology. It was clear to the therapist that it was her sensitive essence type that began to take over and give her life new values. There is still a lot of work to do to integrate her creative personality, but now it is happening from a higher motivation to become a valuable tool for wisdom. Understanding energy types was a great help to Maria, because it helped her accept and understand her need for beauty and harmony, but also her chaotic and unstructured life. The sensitive essence type also gave deep meaning, because not only did it explain her need to understand the whole of life, it also gave her the opportunity to make a difference. The need for beauty and harmony was now predominantly a longing for the beauty that exists when you live in harmony with yourself and help others do the same.
The above case shows that the personality does not have to be fully integrated before the soul’s deeper being and values begin to emerge. This is also fully in line with Maslow’s and Ken Wilber’s studies, which show that people in the real world are far more complex than theories often allow. Maria continues her personality integration, but now motivated by values of making a difference in the world. In practice, this means that through her psychological work she tries to become a purposeful and effective creative personality who can express the wisdom of her soul. The stage where the soul energy type takes over more and more is called the soul-integrated personality.
Peter – an analytical personality type awakens to a dedicated essence type
Peter was a classic analytical energy type who had been interested in engineering, especially in the construction of bridges, throughout his adult life. He was recognized in his field as a very competent person who had a handle on all the details, especially in connection with the historical development of the field. His appearance was subdued, dry and with very measured movements, almost as if his body language was controlled with mathematical precision.
However, it had happened that a year and a half ago he had met the love of his life and had lost her again, which had knocked him out. His normally orderly life was now in chaos, and he could no longer concentrate on his main interest. It was as if he had been drained of life. Susanne, as she was called, was a completely different type than he had ever met before. She was a clairvoyant and healer, something he had firmly dismissed as nonsense before falling in love, but which he now had to admit was incredibly exciting. Susanne could say so many things about him that were completely inexplicable, and it ignited a passionate curiosity in him – his research gene had been awakened.
When he showed up for therapy he seemed very unbalanced. The meeting with Susanne, whom he clearly idyllicized and attributed all sorts of fantastic abilities, had opened him up to an ideal world where everything was in perfect order. He now sensed angels around him and believed that it was possible to talk to enlightened masters, gigantic cosmic beings who were in the spiritual dimension.
A profound aspiration and devotion to the spiritual world was the result of the meeting with Susanne, mixed with a deep sadness at not being able to be with the woman he experienced as his soul mate. It was clear to the therapist, as the therapy progressed, that it was his dedicated essence type that was beginning to emerge and not simply a regression back into the primitive layers of emotional life where magical thinking operates. It was of course a very unbalanced period for him, but it was an opening to something valuable that would change his life forever.
The transpersonal energies were clearly present in Peter’s burning heart, motivated by love for the spiritual world and the pain of his grief. It was also clear, as the therapy progressed, that this opening was not only about himself, for he felt an increasing need to study and understand these phenomena that were to him inexplicable. He passionately desired to enter psychic research and study all its mysterious phenomena with a view to writing a book and giving lectures on it.
An important element of the therapy was to examine the projection he had on Susanne, because something indicated that a part of his inner spiritual archetype was transferred onto this woman, giving her an otherworldly glow. In the clear light of hindsight, he could see that not everything this woman had said was the exact truth. She had also been quite brutal in her way of ending the relationship, so perhaps she was not the saint he had initially perceived her to be. His own inner experiences of extrasensory contact were also subjected to testing and validation. Not all the “messages” he thought he was receiving were expressions of the deepest wisdom – in fact, much was quite ordinary.
These more analytical and realistic investigations began to ground him a little more. They did not in any way extinguish his burning fire, because there were indeed things he had been told that could not be explained in any rational way. And he now felt an inner calling to really understand this and to help build a bridge to the spiritual dimension, which he now wanted to serve more than anything else. The therapeutic work could not bring Susanne back into his life, but he could now transfer a great deal of the overflowing love that the relationship had aroused to the transcendent worlds.
When the therapy ended after a year, he had continued his work as an engineer, but that was now a secondary thing. All his free time was spent on spiritual interests in the association of which he had become a member. The meeting with Susanne had decisively changed his life.
The above case also exhibits some classic features of the awakening to the essence type. First, the new energy is overwhelming for the personality and is expressed in a very unbalanced way. Next, the crisis is triggered by another person, who will act as a trigger for a long-term awakening to the soul’s calling. This person carries the soul energy in his or her radiance, so to speak, which enables the awakening personality to be thrown out of its familiar framework and world of imagination. A third important feature is that the qualities of the personality help to root the new energies. In Peter’s case, it is his analytical abilities that are a great support in validating his interpretations of his experiences.
The last and very important point is that the awakening comes like a thief in the night, disguised as an ordinary love affair, which requires a transpersonal psychotherapist’s ability to distinguish between an ordinary love affair and one with a broader spiritual meaning. In this case, Susanne was the perfect soul meeting that was supposed to open Peter’s dormant spirituality in an impersonal way. He probably never gets the personal love he dreamed of from her, but he got something that was even better. The possibility of a completely new and meaningful life.
Hanne – a sensitive personality awakens to a practical essence type
Hanne was clearly a sensitive energy type – her appearance was calm, gentle and centered, and her many years as a social worker in social psychiatry testified that working with people was central to her life. She thrived on creating a safe environment for her family and the people she worked with, but something had changed. It was as if she had lost the desire to be ‘the great mother’. She had given so much, and there was still a lot to give, but it was still as if it couldn’t really satisfy her. She felt there was too much care and too little change. There wasn’t enough development happening at her workplace, or for that matter in her private life. In short, she was in a crisis.
When she started the therapeutic process, it quickly became clear that she did not feel that she was using all her potential and resources. It was as if her work and her role as a mother of two soon-to-be-adult children had locked her into a role that she could not get out of. She longed for freedom, to be free from having to take care of all the immediate emotional needs that always ended up on her table. She was, in her own words, a ‘problem magnet’, but often all she did was put out fires. She did not feel that she was getting to the core of the problems.
As she worked meditatively with the needs of the heart, she felt a deep longing to withdraw completely from care work and instead work more remotely. She had gathered so much experience in the social psychiatric field that she would like to implement on a more general level. Perhaps through association work, legislative work or as the head of an experimental institution. It became clear that she was done being a ‘mother’, both professionally and privately, where she also felt a need to free herself. She no longer wanted to be an uncritical service organ for the many personal needs of her husband and children. The insight created a major crisis, because it aroused a fear of being abandoned and unemployed, but on the other hand, it had to break or bear, because she knew that she would get sick if she did not change her life.
The idea of being the conductor of her own life made deep sense, and there was also a clear transpersonal energy present in the room every time she worked with her purpose and will. It was a whole new field of strong will that she experienced, a will to assert herself and take control of her life. The practical essence type became clearer as time went on. Ideas poured in for how she could translate her experiences into visions in the social psychiatric field, which were far more holistic than what traditional psychiatry could offer. Contact with the soul opened up to what the future could be like if one gave one’s life to realizing it. She no longer wanted to simply maintain and bring relief to the existing system, but to contribute to creating a whole new system. A clear feature of soul inspiration is precisely a dynamic interest in the new – that one becomes a creative force for the future.
Her private life also had to be ‘reformed’ – she simply didn’t have time to enjoy her family as much as she usually did. It made more sense to spend the time developing the relationship from being a ‘cozy incubator’ to being a sanctuary where individuals could exchange opinions about life.
Hanne was surprised by the strength she came into contact with, and knew that the ability she had always had to organize family life and at work now needed to be developed even more. She no longer had the energy to be out in the field face to face with users, but would much rather work more generally, because there was so much symptom treatment in the old job function.
It’s one thing to have an idea and know it’s right. It’s another to realize it. Hanne knew that there were many stages from idea to manifestation – and not least the challenge of dealing with the fear of damaging her relationships. She was afraid of becoming unpopular if those around her saw that she had failed – the worst thing a sensitive energy type can do.
On the other hand, she now knew what her true ‘self’ was. She had awakened to her soul’s calling, not in a classic ‘spiritual’ way, where she felt one with a greater divine being. It was much more a quiet inner will for good , which would not in any way compromise what she now knew to be true. The longing for freedom was also a guiding principle – she herself wanted to be free to work more generally and in this way create the framework so that the mentally ill could free themselves from many of the prisons that the system and their own mental illness imposed on them.
Whether it was the practical essence type or the dynamic essence type that came through at the soul level is difficult to determine. Hanne herself believed it was the former, but there is also much that could indicate the latter, not least the force with which she began her changes.
When Hanne stopped therapy, she had very purposefully set about reforming her life, and she did not have time to ‘ruminate’ on the therapy anymore, but would rather manage it herself, as is also typical of both the dynamic and practical energy types.
The transpersonal level is revealed by the underlying motivation, which was to create more freedom for creative activities that were largely about making a difference. A calling that would also greatly affect the lower levels of the needs pyramid – here especially the relationship with the family.
His – a sensitive emotional life is integrated
Hans was a successful marketing manager. However, he had never managed to reach the top of his field because, as he said, “ I am far too soft to make the uncomfortable decisions .” This softness and vulnerability was something that tormented him greatly.
There was no doubt that he had the direct and direct charisma of a leader, but you could also sense an underlying sensitivity, especially in his eyes. The dynamic energy type was evident in his personality – here was a person who wanted to get ahead in life, and it could only go too slowly. But it was his emotions that constantly hindered his impact – according to his own self-understanding.
When he showed up for coaching, he had already analyzed his situation in its main features. He was very clear and precise, factual and sober in his descriptions, and it was clear that his mentality was characterized by the analytical energy type. He was also extremely critical, almost merciless in his judgment of the inner ‘weakness’, which he called his sensitivity.
This weakness was indeed standing in the way of his ambitious goal of creating success for himself and his business. There was clearly a strong division between his sensitive emotional life and his critical thinking life. As the coaching progressed, it became clear that it was the relationship with the sensitive energy type on the emotional level that was his biggest obstacle. But not in the way he had first analyzed.
If he were to listen to his head, these feelings would simply have to be eliminated, but as the coaching uncovered the value base that supported these prejudices, Hans realized that they were largely colored by his father’s attitudes towards feelings. In his father’s universe, there was no room for feelings, which had left its deep mark on his self-understanding. He had learned to despise his vulnerability and felt that there was something unmanly about him.
This discovery created a dawning understanding of accepting his sensitivity as an integral part of himself. Something he had to learn to live with and make the most of. He realized that sensitivity did not necessarily make him a bad leader, but that it actually strengthened his ability to collaborate, empathize and network. He also saw that it was not only his goal-oriented drive and good analytical skills that made him skilled at anticipating market trends. It was just as much his intuitive sense of public sentiment that contributed to creating a good plan, supported by cold facts.
It was clear that the merciless criticism he subjected his feelings to contributed to making him far more fearful and sensitive than he needed to be. As he ‘landed’ in his sensitive energy type, he became a little less hypersensitive, because there was not so much to defend or hide. When Hans stopped, something had fallen into place in him. He still had a long way to go before he was completely satisfied with himself, but the conditions for achieving the goal were much better than before.
The above case shows the value of the vertical integration between personality, thoughts and emotions, and how understanding the qualities of energy types can contribute to creating a more rounded personality in harmony with oneself.
Horizontal integrations between energy types
So far, we have seen examples of vertical integration between the different layers of the pyramid (Figure 2) and we will now describe a few examples of what energy psychology calls horizontal integration.
This type of integration is about all energy types, regardless of their level, having to integrate qualities from the other energy types in order to become unified in their expression. A dynamic thinking type tends to become monotonous in their thinking, therefore a person with this type of mindset must consciously strive to develop the qualities of the creative thinking type in particular. Qualities such as spontaneity and dialogical thinking, where one turns one’s thoughts with others, as the dynamic thinking type often likes to think in private.
Horizontal integrations are often something that happens in interaction with others, when you experience how other people function completely differently in some area. This realization necessitates that you have to expand your way of functioning in order to make a collaboration work.
Jørgen – a dynamic thinking type meets an analytical thinking type
Jørgen had very enthusiastically set about collecting everything that one of his spiritual role models had said about various selected topics within the spiritual science field that he was interested in. The idea was to publish the collection as a compilation by a publisher that he had just made contact with, and that showed interest in the matter if the work was done carefully.
Once Jørgen had something in mind, it wasn’t long from thought to action. He loved to get an overview and see the big picture of a matter. Now he could kill two birds with one stone: get an overview of what his favorite author had said, while at the same time being able to get it out to a wider public, where it could have an impact. Jørgen’s dynamic mindset was obvious to everyone. He spoke with great authority when he spoke, because he was always absolutely certain that he was right when he said something.
Jørgen quickly organized a reading group that could collect relevant quotes so that he could be responsible for selecting and organizing the texts. A classic quality of the dynamic thinking type is to get others to do the hard work while you take care of the essentials yourself. The texts were collected at a lightning pace – the dynamic mind loves speed – and they were organized and compiled into one document so that they could be delivered to the publisher. Jørgen expected that the finished result – the printing of the book – would be just a formality that had to be completed so that he could enjoy the fruits of his efforts. But he did his math without a host.
The publisher was a very meticulous man who was passionate about creating a perfect result, where font sizes, layout, grammar and precise logical systematics all merged into a higher unity. A classic analytical type of thinking. This was definitely not Jørgen’s strength; in fact, quite the opposite. He hated all the nitty-gritty, all the small details and indifference. For him, it was about getting the right meaning out, the purpose of a matter. Then others had to take care of the little things. He was also furious when he got the manuscript back with many neat notes that the systematics and fonts were not consistent. His immediate attitude was to publish it himself, but he quickly realized that the work would probably have a greater impact by being published by the publisher where all of the author’s main books were published. So after this brief power analysis – something the dynamic mind is good at – he realized the necessity of doing the detailed work himself. He didn’t have time to wait for someone else to do it – time is precious to the dynamic mind – so he had to take on the task himself.
It was a really tedious task. Here he had to sit and tinker with details and notice areas of textual work that he had never bothered to familiarize himself with. As the work progressed, he discovered the importance of detail, how the meaning came out more clearly when there was a careful systematic presentation of each topic, how the overall impression of the text became stronger as all the details were coordinated with the same type of font, margins, and so on.
For the first time, he realized the need to be careful with the form itself; the way the message was presented. It wasn’t really the aesthetics that motivated him, it was rather that it made the message stronger. That’s exactly what motivates a dynamic mind, to get out strong messages that can shake up attitudes. The next time Jørgen writes a text, much more emphasis is placed on the processing of the text, thanks to a diligent publisher.
Stine – a dedicated feeler meets a creative feeler
Stine had a classic and elegant exterior, where everything matched in style and subdued colors. She was known as a very competent organizer and facilitator and had worked for several years in the shipping industry. Therefore, there was no doubt that she was a practical energy type in personality. But behind her efficient, slightly cool personality, there was a very dedicated emotional life, which was absorbed in her work and family life with life and soul. She loved her husband and her children and would do anything to organize the framework around their lives, so that everything was peace and idyll. She had a clear picture of the perfect family life, where there was time for togetherness and community.
But not everything was peace and idyll! Her husband, Torben, was a rather erratic person who made a living as an actor on various stages – a life where stability and predictability were not exactly everyday. He thrived on changeability and had the creative personality type’s need for entertainment, drama and spontaneous ideas. It was never boring to have Torben around, because something unexpected was always happening, if not on the outside, then in his changeable mind, where he fluctuated between depressive and elated phases.
Torben was a big challenge for Stine, because his lifestyle challenged her idea of the perfect life with orderly frameworks, and yet she loved him for all the life and changeability he brought into the family – when he was there.
Stine hated when they had their arguments about finances and the division of household chores. They were frequent, because in her opinion Torben was just a big child when it came to taking responsibility for practical matters. The hardest thing, however, was when Torben made a huge scene and dramatically left home without finishing the subject. It completely tore Stine’s emotional life apart – it was as if the world collapsed when that happened, because she perceived his departure as if they were now going to separate. Torben, on the other hand, was okay with the drama. He felt that a good argument kind of cleared the air and brought the conflicts to the surface. They also broke up the monotonous family idyll, which he depended on on the one hand because it gave him stability, but which also stifled his ideals of being an unconventional bohemian freeloader. Normality was for him a graveyard, populated by the living dead.
When Stine showed up for therapy, she was upset, because they had just had another argument. The therapy focused on understanding what kind of contradiction lived within her. On the one hand, she examined her ideal image of the perfect family life, its values and needs. On the other hand, her strong attraction to Torben’s unpredictable spontaneity. Both sides lived within her, but she often chose to let Torben play out his own creativity, even though it lived within her. But there was simply no room for two adult children in the family.
By challenging her ideal world of peace and idyll, of her tendency to narrow her affections to just a few, she began to realize how important it was, for her too, to create space for play, joy and spontaneous whims. It also became clear that she had largely taken over her parents’ norms for the perfect family life. She wanted so much to be ‘right’ in her parents’ eyes.
When the energy types were introduced, it was clear that she could learn a lot from Torben’s creative approach, but also that she had a lot to contribute to his life – especially in terms of order, efficiency and devotion. She understood that she would always be very dedicated and organized, but that life did not have to be so serious, that if she opened herself up to the playful element through her husband, she could also have a larger network outside the home, something she actually missed. It is a classic imbalance for the dedicated energy type to become very focused and thus isolated in a few areas, which also makes it difficult to deal with emotional conflicts, because there is so much at stake when all the security is located in a few places. Through the creative influence, she was able to learn that emotional conflicts can actually bring new life if you direct the ‘drama’ into positive channels. It is just not very pleasant to have the idyll disturbed.
It was obvious that Torben had a lot to learn, but she could first and foremost change herself, and by openly accepting the best of what Torben’s creative influence could offer, she could develop emotionally. At the same time, she could more easily accommodate Torben’s differentness when she could feel that it had its valuable elements.
Mapping your energy types on five levels
We will now move on to describe the practical work of mapping the energy types at the different levels. Let it be said right away that it is a great challenge to map the exact energy types for the body, emotions, mind, integrated personality and soul/essence. Even seasoned psychologists and counselors who have worked with this for many years only make hypotheses that it is up to the client to verify through their own observations throughout life.
However, I would strongly recommend that you start by taking the test and identity profile that you can buy at Jivayou.com, which we have spent many years developing. It comes with a qualified estimate of your personality type and essence type based on 168 statements that you must answer. You can also just take the personality test to see if it makes sense for you. It would be optimal if you combine the test with having the result verified by a trained JivaYou coach. The coach will compare your identity profile with your education and work history, your strong interests and hobbies. In this way, your test result is measured against your actual life history.
You can indirectly get a qualified clue about your energy types in the body, emotions and mind by taking JivaYou’s talent profile. It will test your talents on the five psychological levels and top talents here will give you an idea of what your energy types might be in these areas. (jivayou.com/talent/)
It is of course not possible in this article to review all the possible combinations that can be found at the different levels: Seven variations at five levels, as a starting point. In the book Energy Psychology – Understanding Your Seven Energy Types – Your Psychological DNA , I review all the energy types at the five levels. I would of course highly recommend it to readers who want to delve deeper into this psychology.
Let me now give you a few pointers that you can follow when you want to understand which types of energy control which levels. As an introduction, it is important to point out that energy psychology maintains that man is first and foremost an inner consciousness that acts through thoughts, feelings and the body. In other words, we are not these psychological functions, but the inner consciousness that can learn to observe them and choose which thoughts, feelings and actions we want to express. The consciousness that acts can be identified with the personality, the soul or an even higher entity – the spirit. Our definition and interpretation of who we are develops continuously throughout life and depends on the current level of consciousness in which we are anchored. Compare the five psychological levels and the relevant types of energy at each level. Let’s look at the individual areas.
Body type – and thus the brain and nervous system
It is obvious to everyone that bodies are different, and there are a lot of studies that try to map the different types of bodies, especially with regard to diet, etc. From an energy psychology perspective, the body’s task is to be a vital tool for action for the inner consciousness. Not all bodies are equally capable of action. Some are slow or fast and active, while others are flexible or strong, etc. It is the energy type that determines which tendencies prevail. The book Energy Psychology , as mentioned, describes all seven body types and the types below.
The type of feeling
The emotional area functions first and foremost as a sensitive organ for consciousness and tells us something about the quality of what we feel and register as a mood. It is of course a tool for various emotional moods of diverse kinds and allows consciousness to sense what it prefers, based on previous experiences. But its purpose is also to make it possible to unite and connect with other people, which we call love. At that level, we are also very different. Some have a calm and restful basic tone in their mood, while others are more active and fluctuate between many different poles. Others again hardly notice the fluctuations of their emotions, which does not have to be due to repression. The different energy types each give their own distinctive character to emotional life.
The type of thinking
The mind is the interpreter of consciousness and creates a holistic understanding of all the other psychological functions, based on the knowledge that has been collected, and on the ability to reflect, analyze and combine new information with each other. It has the ability to create thought forms, that is, to think, which is a process where one either creates new thoughts or telepathically receives them from the collective thought field. It also functions as an organ of concentration, the ability to focus consciousness in a limited area, with the aim of acquiring knowledge. We therefore do not think alike, which the energy types have a decisive influence on. Some types of thinking go directly to the core of a matter (dynamic), others weave an overview and generalize (mental), and others again jump from point to point via associative thinking (creative). There are seven different ways of thinking.
The integrated personality type
The integrated energy type of personality arises as a result of the consciousness in the person becoming so mature that the independent and individualized will arises. This causes the three underlying types to gain an inner control that brings them together into a coordinated unit. A person who is integrated no longer floats here and there and is not so much controlled by external factors, but has found his own direction in life. The combination of the three energy types creates a completely new field, a new radiance, which is the personality type.
When this is the case, we speak of a person having entered into character, having become an authority. It is an overarching influence that characterizes the broad interests and direction of life, and that which most clearly distinguishes the person from others. You will often see the personality type most clearly reflected through the choice of career path.
This personality type can be one of seven energy types, but as I said, it is not certain that this field even exists if the person in question has not achieved this level of development. This certainly applies when it comes to determining the type of children, they have not yet matured in character and therefore the qualities you see in children are the three underlying energy types.
The soul’s own influence – the essence type
The soul is the higher consciousness and will that we are in our essence. The soul in us is in harmony and deeply connected with the whole of life. It is the quiet inner voice in us that seeks to manifest its love and wisdom through the personality. Regardless of which energy type characterizes its influence and radiance, its fundamental tone is love-wisdom. The soul is first and foremost the consciousness in man, but the higher universal consciousness. When man awakens to the altruistic values, the good, the true and the beautiful, its direct influence begins to make itself felt in the personality field. As previously described, this often happens through an existential crisis that causes the man to reorient himself towards making a difference in life, and not only living for his own security, comfort and ambition. The soul’s energy type, which also colors the radiance , can be any of the seven. Experience shows that the soul’s energy type can easily begin to make its influence felt, even though the person is not yet an integrated personality.
The influence of the Spirit
In this article I have chosen not to describe the influence of the spiritual life itself in man, because it is so far-reaching in its cosmological and consciousness-related significance, and because this area for most people lies far beyond the recognizable. But according to esoteric psychology, even the spirit has a fundamental tone when it manifests itself. According to esoteric psychology, this will be one of the first three, primary energy types. The dynamic, sensitive or mental energy type.
This was the end of the review of the diverse integrations between the five psychological levels. I look forward to seeing you at one or more of the webinars we hold under the auspices of JivaYou, in connection with you taking one of our tests.
Want to know more about energy psychology?
You can go to my Youtube channel , where you will find videos that deal with the types and where I describe my own essence and personality type.
You can buy my book about Energy Psychology in the webshop.
Visit my page on Facebook about Energy Psychology
Really enjoy
[1] Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis Typology, p. 52, Kentaur Forlag, 2006
