The Expressive Capabilities of Psychic States

A machine translation of this article can be read here

"Analytism," mentioned in the beginning of this article, has to do with describing logical or idea systems on the basis of universal categories that are poles to each other — for instance, "earth, fire, water, air." Gulenko states that socionics as a conceptual structure is built upon a set of opposing universals (abstract, all-encompasing descriptors) — the eight socionic functions.

(Gulenko likes to talk about socionics as a perfect logical system)

This article, which later went into one of Gulenko's books, basically breaks the 8 socionic functions down using three different dichotomies and looks at the common traits of the functions in each of these groupings. Then, he juxtaposes the introverted and extraverted varieties of each function, first through the dichotomy of static/dynamic, then active/passive. This results in four groups of 2 functions apiece, which he then describes in depth.

The worth of this part of the paper, in my view, is that he relates the functions to certain psycho-physical states, which I don't think had been elaborated well before this.

Now, after all this categorizing, he describes how each function is expressed intellectually, socially (as a societal role), psychologically (in communication), and physically. If a person persists in demonstrating a certain function, he gains a certain social niche, which is the societal role described.

Next, Gulenko talks about how certain states "compensate" each other, which, he believes, explains why people often go from one extreme to another because of burn-out of their strongest function. Finally, he gives recommendations for developing the states associated with each function.