Season 7, Episode 5 Transcript
Chase: 00:01 Hey guys, it’s CS Joseph with CSJoseph.life again, coming from Germany right now in the awesome Frankfurt airport. It’s freaking huge. Never been here before. So let’s see if I’m actually awake enough to do another video lecture right now. So we’ll see how it goes, right? Anyway, so we’ve been doing our lecture series on virtue and vice with all of the 16 archetypes according to Jungian analytical psychology. We just finished with the ENFJ earlier when I was at the San Jose International Airport, so let’s go into the starter types now. These are the informative initiating movement types, starter types that get things going. They start things… have a hard time finishing things, right? Yeah, that’s me. So the first of the starter types is the ESFJ. The traditionalist: past focused, duty based, protector, very caring, very dutiful. In some western circles they’d probably call this type the ideal female feminine type in the same way they’d say the ESTJ is probably the ideal masculine type, even though technically the ESTP is the preferred Alpha, but whatever, you know? People and their type biases, what are you going to do about it?
Chase: 01:38 Right? So the ESFJ, ESFJ virtue and vice. So this one’s a little bit more complicated. It’s a little bit more complicated because… you have to understand the difference between the terms themselves. So their virtue is caregiving, right? Their vice is caretaking. “So wait a minute, how is being a caretaker a vice, Mr. CS Joseph? How is that possible?” It is if you actually understand what caretaking means. So ESFJs are extremely caring, probably the most caring of all the types, the most self sacrificing of all the types we’ll have to say. Extremely self sacrificing. Well, it’s because of that level of self sacrifice that, you know, they [they] can end up being really huge doormats actually. In the same way, like the INTP is also generally treated as a doormat. It’s because they have an ESFJ subconscious, right? So… but what is caregiving versus caretaking and why does it matter?
Chase: 02:57 Well, it’s because of something called a covert contract. A covert contract is basically the concept of ‘if I scratch your back, you scratch mine.’ It’s an expectation. It’s an expectation that if I’m scratching your back that you will scratch mine. And I may not even tell you that expectation, right? I may not. By not telling you of that expectation, that’s causing potential problems, right? There’s a lot of potential problems with that. So… why? Well, it’s manipulative. It’s very manipulative. Covert contracts are extremely manipulative, and Dr. Robert Glover, PhD, actually talks about this in his book “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” And if you haven’t already picked up a copy of that book and started reading it, and I don’t care your gender, it’s [it’s] important that everyone reads it. Even women, especially women actually, because then they have some tools with which to hold their men accountable to, you know. The mature masculine, instead of being man children all the time, right?
Chase: 04:07 Which is like, I mean, that’s pathetic. Kind of sucks to be honest. So, in that regard, we find ourselves in a situation, basically. So care giving versus caretaking. So, [breathes] caregiving. They’re so giving, they give to others – oftentimes they offer help, they don’t expect anything in return. Here’s a great example of caregiving that I’ve witnessed. I one time went to a friend’s house for dinner and we had steak, {or no}, bacon wrapped steak for dinner. It was filet mignon, and it was exquisite. Let me tell you, it was dope, you know, and for all you vegans out there, I mean, I’m sorry. Sometimes you just have to indulge in a little bacon, if you know what I mean? So, and no offense to any people who have spiritual beliefs that are against pork, but no.
Chase: 05:22 To quote the great Emeril Lagasse, “Pork fat rules.” That being said I watched an ESFJ who was invited to this this friendly function, right? She doesn’t live there, you know, she doesn’t have a baby, and I watched her change someone else’s baby’s diaper. It wasn’t even her child. Like what? What? And [and] I was half expecting that person to get all upset about it and be like, “Don’t touch my baby,” right? But no. She literally just started changing the diaper of this little baby. I’m like, “Wow.” It goes further. I watched her go over to the dishes after we eat a meal, and she did all of the dishes herself. She didn’t even, [she didn’t even] live there. She wasn’t even asked. She just did it, right? Past focused, duty based, protectors. Supportive. The ESFJ is known as the supporter. Let me tell you, if you take away an ESFJ’s ability to support others, ability to care give and live in their virtue, they will hate you. But that awesome virtue of caregiving can turn sour.
Chase: 06:47 So fast forward to my grandmother who is an ESFJ. My [laughs] ENFJ father, just to troll her, will do the dishes before she does, right? Which completely throws her off and makes her so angry, because ESFJs have this problem where they draw their self worth through the good things that they do for other people, right? If you take that away from them they can get angry because they feel bad about themselves. They feel guilty. They feel, “Well. Wow! I’m so guilty right now because the dishes aren’t done,” right? That’s just… that’s crazy, right? No, it’s not crazy, not to ESFJs. So let’s go [let’s go] a step further. When the [when the] caregiving starts to sour, that’s when they start to caretake. So what is caretaking as vice? What does that look like? Caretaking is when an ESFJ is giving to get. Where they give, give, give, give to this person, but they’re doing it to earn something in return, and they’re not even telling you that they’re expecting to earn. And then when they don’t earn what they’re expecting, they’re going to get really mad and hold you accountable. To the point where they’ll stop caring about you entirely because they didn’t get what they were looking for as a result of giving to you, as a result of caregiving. But it’s not caregiving because they’re not giving care. They’re giving care in order to take. That’s why it’s called care taking, right? It’s caretaking, its different. So caretaking can be a serious problem.
Chase: 08:38 You gotta be really careful with ESFJs. [If] because they’ll offer help and without telling you, you have no idea of knowing if that help has strings attached or not. There’s a good chance, there’s a really good chance there’s strings attached. So you can’t tell, you can’t tell the difference if it’s caregiving or caretaking, right? Well, you kind of can, if you interrupt their caregiving, like, for example, what my dad would do, right? He just start doing the… the dishes to kind of throw my grandmother off, right? If you out care her, right? If you out care the ESFJ, where if you beat the ESFJ to the caring game and you get in the way of their caring, right, you can easily see what their intentions are, you know, if it’s caregiving or caretaking. Here’s another example of caretaking that ESFJs do, and ISFJs do this as well, but not as much as ESFJs. ESFJs like to enforce their social rules, what they believe is sociable. So what they’ll do, like, to a family member, right? Let’s say they had this daughter that was not always interested in showing up to family events, right? So what the ESFJ would do is buy a car for them, right? That sounds like it’s very caring, very nice. Except the ESFJ would make sure that the title of that car had their name on it, not the daughter’s name on it, and they’d say, “Hey, you can use this car,” right? Well… because their name is on the title they have a lot of power, right?
Chase: 10:27 I have literally seen an ESFJ call grand theft auto on their own offspring to control them and threaten them, taking away that car to coerce them into attending family events on time, right? Because how dare their teenage daughter not go to family events when the ESFJ expects them to? See, that’s caretaking. That is the ESFJ vice. Be careful. That can be a serious problem. Do not allow ESFJs to caretake. Make sure they’re caregiving, but if you start seeing them having strings attached to the care, run for the hills. You don’t know what’s coming next, so be mindful of this. If you’re in a relationship with an ESFJ do not allow them to control you or others through care… through their vice, caretaking. Because they’re giving care in order to take, and it really has nothing to do with actually caring. It’s a covert contract, and covert contracts are manipulative and controlling – and have nothing to do with care.
Chase: 11:48 And Dr. Robert Glover in his book, “No More Mr. Nice Guy” explains that men, man children in first world society, have this problem. They’re so focused on winning the approval of women instead of fellow men, and they end up getting into these covert contracts when they’re married to these women, and then they’re manipulating women. “If I do these nice things for you then you’ll have sex with me, right?” Come on. That’s dumb, but so many people do that. So many men have the perspective of “If I scratch your back, you scratch mine,” right? Scratch the itch, right? Itch the scratch. No, it’s wrong and it’s manipulative, and this is how ESFJs do it. They can manipulate people through caretaking more so than any other type. That’s why it’s their vice.
Chase: 12:45 So hold them to the standard of care giving: care that has no strings attached. That is important for you and your family, or anyone that the ESFJ comes into contact with. Always require, because remember they’re Si parent, right? Because they’re Si parent they have to be obligated. They have to, you have to tell them it’s their duty. You can’t tell them, “Hey, this is what you want to do.” No, no, no, no. You have to… you have to require it of them. You have to tell your ESFJ, this is my expectation of you. “This is the boundary, this is the standard. You will follow it or else,” basically, you know. It sounds kind of mean and kind of rude, kind of controlling, but sorry. ESFJs like it when people are dominating, so… can’t really do very much about that, can you? It’s always kind of difficult, you know. so what can cause them to like not really do caretaking as much? Well, give them recognition, make them comfortable, always state what you want and help them figure out what other people around them want or what the experience other people around them would like to have at least because that would give them information that would allow them to be more caring, right? They’ll, they’ll be more into being caring instead of caretaking. Now, another way that caretaking manifests is when the ESFJ is alone and around the same people all the time. Because they’ll really want to keep those people around them because ESFJs really struggle with feeling alone, and they start to caretake because those strings make sure that those people stay in their lives, right?
Chase: 14:45 That’s one way that they’re trying to control and puppeteer people to keep them close, because the ESFJ needs people around them, needs people to care for so they can draw their self worth from that offer of care, right? If there’s no people around to care for then they feel alone, they feel worthless, they get depressed. So caretaking, this vice, is one of the ways that they ensure that those people stay around, because it’s like they’re controlling them with those strings, right? Marionetting them along. If you really want to keep your ESFJ away from their vice and in their virtue expose them constantly to a wide array of acquaintances. This is one of the reasons why the ESFP and the ISFP [is] super good for relationships with the ESFJ, because both those types can be very social. Not so much ISFPs because they’re behind the scenes, sure, but they still can be pretty social as long as they have the energy to do it, but otherwise they’ll need to go get solitude because they’re introverts. ESFPs – they’re constantly exposing themselves to new people on a regular basis, or at least they should be, if they’re healthy and mature.
Chase: 15:57 And the ESFJ can ride that wave and meet a whole bunch of new people that they can give care to so that they’re not caretaking. So anyway, if you found this lecture to be helpful, useful, educational, insightful, please subscribe to the channel here on YouTube or on the podcast, and leave a like as well. If you have any questions about ESFJs or their virtue and vice please leave it in the comment section, and I will do my best to answer any questions you have. And also guys keep the video requests coming. I’m getting, I’m tracking all of them and making sure that we have each and every one on the schedule. So we’re getting close to 400 videos in the plan, but I got a long way to go, so we’ll definitely be doing that. So… got a lot more travel to go for this overseas trip of mine so I’ll probably be doing plenty of more videos. So I’ll see you guys tonight.
