THE FAMILY AND THE LIFE TASK OF THE INDIVIDUAL
FREUD AND JUNG
[Sidenote: Non-sexual aspects of Individual development in relation to the
family]
In this short sketch of what--from the results of psycho-analytic and
other investigations--we may regard as the normal development of the
individual mind in regard to the family relationships, we have hitherto
been concerned more particularly with the sexual emotions and tendencies,
using the word sexual in the wide sense current among writers of the
psycho-analytic school. This has been the case, partly because in our
account we have been largely governed by historical considerations with
regard to the actual chronology of recent psychological progress in this
field (and it was chiefly the sexual aspects of the family relationships
that were first brought to light in the course of this progress); partly
also because it is with regard to these sexual aspects that the increase
of our knowledge through the application of new psychological methods has
been in many ways the most extensive, the most startling and the most
difficult to assimilate. The results considered in the last two chapters
are of such a nature as to have been for the most part unrealised and
unsuspected either by the professional psychologist or by the ordinary
student of human nature: they are, indeed, of such a kind as could only
be obtained by means of a special technique capable of overcoming the
formidable resistances which, as we have seen, are interposed between the
conscious and the unconscious levels of the mind.
The positive results of recent research on the psychological influences of
the family as regards matters less directly connected with sexuality are
of a less unexpected kind, and seem to lie to some extent in the direct
path of psychological progress even apart from the introduction of the
methods of psycho-analysis. Nevertheless, it is the use of these methods
that has given some precision to our knowledge in these respects also, and
rendered more certain and definite what before was but vaguely suspected.
At this point, therefore, it becomes necessary to review the principal
results of psycho-analytic research with regard to these non-sexual
aspects of mental development in relation to the family environment.
[Sidenote: Controversies on this subject]
The treatment of these non-sexual aspects is of special difficulty for
two reasons. In the first place, these aspects are, in their actual
occurrence, intimately bound up with the processes of sexual development
with which we have been dealing; and are often difficult to disentangle
from them. In the second place, this very question of the distinction
of the sexual from the non-sexual aspects of the observed facts of
development has recently been, and still is, a subject of keen dispute
among certain members of the psycho-analytic and post-psycho-analytic
schools. The authors who have dealt more especially with the non-sexual
aspects have written largely under the influence of this dispute and from
a somewhat different point of view from that of the writers who have
laid the principal emphasis upon the sexual side. Hence a comparison of
the chief contributions on the two aspects is not always easy. In spite
of these difficulties, however, certain conclusions stand out with some
degree of clearness from the mists of controversy, and these are of
considerable importance for our present purpose.
[Sidenote: The work of Jung]
In the course of his pioneer work, Freud himself had in more than one
connection drawn attention to the importance of the family relationships
in regard to the general development of character and vital activity of
the individual. It is however more especially to C. G. Jung of Zürich that
we are indebted for a more explicit, vigorous and extended treatment of
the problems of the family from this point of view[21]. The more recent
work of Jung is marred by an exaggerated insistence on a single aspect,
and by a tendency to mysticism which is apt to confuse and obscure the
scientific consideration of the problem. But in spite of these defects
it undoubtedly contains many contributions of value and, especially when
taken as complementary to, rather than opposed to, the work of Freud,
Rank and others of the orthodox psycho-analytic school, it would seem to
constitute in some ways an important step forward in our knowledge of the
matters with which we are here concerned.
Jung's present position is, in many respects, a reaction against Freud's
views as to the extreme importance of the sexual tendencies in mental
life. With Freud the term Libido had been used to signify the sum total
of these tendencies taken in a sense much wider than that which seems to
have been contemplated by any previous writer; so wide indeed that many
inferred that there could be but a small field left over for the operation
of the other instincts and tendencies. With Jung the reaction against this
attitude takes place not by a restriction of the term Libido to its former
narrower sense, but by a still further extension of its meaning so as to
include all the conative tendencies which manifest themselves in mental
life. By so doing Jung is enabled to take up a relatively non-committal
attitude as regards the sexuality or non-sexuality of many of the factors
which Freud had regarded as definitely sexual in character, while at the
same time he succeeds in minimising the importance of certain unmistakably
sexual manifestations by ignoring their specific character and regarding
them rather exclusively from the point of view of the development and
value of the individual as an independent vital unit.
[Sidenote: The family and the development of the individual]
As regards the application of this general attitude to our own immediate
problem, Jung appears to look upon the family influences as principally of
importance in so far as they afford the necessary conditions and mental
environment for the growth of the general life force of the individual
personality. The child at birth is entirely dependent on his parents for
the satisfaction of his vital needs. His development and education would
appear to consist ultimately in the process of learning to satisfy these
ever increasing needs himself. Hence if the child remains dependent on
his parents for an abnormal length of time or to an abnormal extent, we
may infer that an arrest of development has taken place. Such arrests
are however liable to occur in a great many cases, since the process
of learning to satisfy our own needs by our own efforts is an arduous
business which (in virtue, we may suppose, of some aspect of the law of
inertia) many of us would fain escape if we could. Undue dependence on
the family would therefore appear to indicate a shirking of the "life
task," _i. e._ an unwillingness to make the effort which adult life itself
demands, manifesting itself in an exaggerated tendency to remain at the
stage of relatively slothful ease and maintenance through the efforts of
others which is enjoyed in infancy and early childhood.
[Sidenote: Attachment to the parents regarded as symbolic of deficient
individual development]
In the neuroses the patient suffers, according to Jung, from an
unconscious tendency to return to this happy state of affairs rather than
to face the hard struggle which adult life may entail. This tendency
expresses itself in a symbolic way, according to the mechanisms which
are characteristic of the neuroses; and what better or more appropriate
symbol is possible than some form of exaggerated attachment to, and
dependence on, the parents--through whom alone that happy time, to which
return is now desired, was possible? Thus it would appear from this point
of view that the incestuous fancies and wishes, to which Freud had drawn
attention, are not to be taken literally as the expression of ultimate
desires, but are only symbols of the wish to escape the hard task which
life imposes and to return once more to the irresponsible condition of
childhood.
[Sidenote: Difficulties presented by this view]
There are probably no experienced psycho-analysts who are prepared to
follow Jung to this last extreme position, in which he appears to deny
all ultimate significance to the sexual aspects of the family complexes.
Jung's view would seem indeed to involve a number of serious difficulties,
amongst which the following are perhaps the most important.
[Sidenote: It does not accord with the general importance of sex]
(1) It does not (as does the view expounded in the earlier chapters)
cast any light upon the origin and development of, nor is it altogether
consistent with, the very important part which the sexual tendencies
play in the conscious and unconscious mind, quite apart from incestuous
desires and fancies. If the principal problem of the neurotic lies in the
difficulty of bracing himself to face the tasks which life imposes, it is
hard to see why sexual feelings, thoughts, phantasies and symbols should
appear in his mind so frequently and so persistently as they are now
generally admitted to do in a very large number of cases.
[Sidenote: It does not explain the strong repression of incest]
(2) Jung's view does not explain why the thought of incestuous relations
should be subject to so much repression as it actually is. If there is in
reality no deep-rooted tendency to such relations, there is no need for
the formation of any powerful mechanism for preventing the fulfilment of
the tendency; whereas if we suppose that the arousal of object love in an
incestuous form is a normal stage of libido development--a stage however
which is superseded in the course of further normal development--the
existence of a strong counter-mechanism, manifesting itself in
consciousness as repulsion and disgust, and in social life in the form
of sexual taboos and "avoidances" connected with the various prohibited
relationships, is precisely what our knowledge of the general conditions
of the development of conative tendencies in the human mind would lead us
to expect.
[Sidenote: Nor the choice of incest as a symbol]
(3) Even if we are prepared to grant that this repression may have arisen
from some other cause, it still remains difficult to account for the fact
that the desire to return to infantile conditions should persistently
avail itself of such an objectionable symbolic form. We should expect
that the path of least resistance would lead to some means of symbolic
expression calculated to arouse less opposition on the part of conflicting
tendencies than that to which the idea of incestuous relationship is
exposed. This leads to a fourth and still more serious objection on
general grounds.
[Sidenote: It is not in harmony with the general laws of symbolism]
(4) Jung's view seems incompatible with all we know as to the general
relations of Repression and Displacement to conscious and unconscious
factors respectively. The general rule, which is exemplified in
innumerable dreams, myths, neurotic symptoms and cases of "everday
psychopathology" would appear to be that the symbol expresses some
tendency or desire in the unconscious which is more opposed to conscious
tendencies and desires than is the symbol itself[22]. But in the present
case, if Jung's view were correct, this rule would no longer hold. The
desire for incestuous relations with one's parents is obviously exposed to
much more serious inhibitions at the conscious level than is the desire
to escape from the labours and responsibilities of adult life. The latter
desire, although it may of course become the object of moral disapproval
is generally of a nature to be freely admitted to consciousness. The idea
of our own laziness or want of courage in meeting the difficulties of
life can be faced by most of us (including the class of neurotics who,
according to Jung's hypothesis, must, it would seem, have fallen ill owing
to the repression of the desires connected with these ideas) without
arousing any overwhelming sense of moral turpitude; whereas the idea of
incest, even in the case of others, meets with the greatest abhorrence,
and in relation to ourselves usually encounters sufficient opposition
to be kept out of waking consciousness altogether. It would therefore
seem that, on Jung's view, it is the conscious which is symbolised at
a relatively unconscious level--a complete reversal of the usual order
which, on the ground of the psycho-analytic knowledge already gained, must
be regarded as highly improbable, at any rate in so far as it is to be
looked upon as a full explanation of the phenomena under discussion.
[Sidenote: Such a view cannot afford a complete explanation though it may
contain certain valuable elements of truth]
It would thus appear that we have good reasons for rejecting the view
that the apparently sexual manifestations of love by the child towards
its parents are only symbols of the desire to return to the state of
tutelage and protection enjoyed in early years. It does not follow,
however, that the whole of Jung's conclusions as regards the relation of
the parent complexes to the development of individuality in the child are
to be rejected. On the contrary, it is almost certain that they contain
valuable truths which had to some extent been overlooked, or at any rate
had received less attention than they deserved, in some of the earlier
investigations. Even as regards the symbolisation of the developmental
tendencies in the incest fancies, Jung may be right in a number of
important points. It is only so far as he would maintain that such
symbolisation exhausts the whole significance of the incest tendencies
that he is almost certainly in error.
[Sidenote: Overdetermination and the multiple interpretation of symbols]
The possibility of a further analysis of the incest tendencies in a
non-sexual sense is implied by what Freud has himself taught as regards
the laws governing the formation of symbols, more especially by the
doctrine of Overdetermination[23], according to which a single dream
symbol or neurotic symptom may often be found to constitute a complete or
partial fulfilment of two or more distinct wishes or conative tendencies.
Moreover, at least two authors besides Jung have carried out analyses
in this sense. Silberer[24] has shown that a number of myths and fairy
tales may be interpreted in at least two ways:--first, as an expression
of the Œdipus complex as outlined in our previous chapters; secondly, as
the expression of certain moral or religious strivings, which he calls
the anagogic aspect; the symbolism in this latter case being of the
"functional" kind (_i. e._ expressive of mental processes and tendencies
rather than of the objects of feeling and cognition), to the existence
of which Silberer had already drawn attention in his earlier works[25].
Ferenczi[26] (following Schopenhauer) has seen in the Œdipus myth the
existence of certain functional symbolisms in virtue of which the
character of Œdipus and Jocasta (as drawn by Sophocles) stand for opposing
tendencies in the mind brought out by the tragic situation, _viz._ the
tendency, on the one hand, to bring all the facts of the case into the
clear light of consciousness, even at the risk of painful discoveries;
and on the other hand the contrary tendency to repress and prohibit all
further inquiry for fear of such discoveries.
[Sidenote: Overdetermination in the case of the Œdipus Complex]
In so far as these attempts have been successful (and in the case of
Silberer's work at any rate the evidence brought forward in favour of the
simultaneous existence of the two tendencies as symbolised in the same
legend would appear to be very considerable) they afford some ground for
accepting Jung's interpretation of the incest fancies as constituting,
in one of their aspects, an expression of certain ideas and tendencies
relating to the original conditions of dependence in which a child stands
towards its parents--tendencies which exist alongside, and to some extent
independently, of the sexual tendencies to which expression is more
directly and obviously given.
The symbolic expression in this case, however, would appear to differ
in some important respects from symbolic representation (in dreams and
elsewhere) of the Œdipus complex proper. In the latter the symbolic form
is largely, if not entirely, due to the action of Repression, which does
not permit the morally tabooed incestuous and hostile tendencies to find
expression in any but an indirect manner, whereas in the present case the
aspects symbolised are not in any sense repressed, so that the reason for
the adoption of the symbolic form must be sought in other conditions.
[Sidenote: as a product of repression]
Among these conditions the most important is probably to be found in the
still active repression of the Œdipus complex itself. In so far as the
ideas connected with this complex can be given another meaning, such
as that indicated by Jung, their offensiveness is not felt to be so
great as would be the case if their only significance were that which
most naturally attaches to them: the assumption of the new symbolic
meaning is indeed, in all probability, largely due to the effort of the
repressing tendencies to prevent their true significance from being
realised in consciousness[27]. The new meaning, therefore, as interpreted
by Jung, Silberer and others, obviously corresponds to a more recent and
superficial (though not therefore less real) mental level than does the
original significance in terms of the Œdipus complex.
[Sidenote: and as serving to reinforce the moral tendencies]
Another reason for the adoption of this secondary symbolism is probably
sometimes to be found in the fact that the ethical or religious
strivings expressed in the anagogic aspects undergo a very considerable
reinforcement through association with the primitive trends which manifest
themselves in the Œdipus complex. The latter lie very much nearer to the
ultimate sources of human feeling and emotion than do the former, which,
by themselves in their abstract purity, are apt to be only too ineffectual
as motives of desire and conduct. But when clothed in the symbolic form
of the Œdipus complex, they at once acquire some of the primitive energy
inherent in the latter and so become themselves more powerful at the same
time as they serve to purify and elevate what remains of the grosser
elements of the original love and hate that the child has felt towards its
parents. Symbolisation of lofty aims and motives in terms of primitive
emotions called up by the family relationships is thus, from this point
of view, an example of the process of sublimation, whereby the energy of
the simpler and cruder human tendencies becomes diverted to the service of
ends of higher cultural and social value[28].
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 21: Many of the most important contributions of Jung are
contained in "Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology," 2nd. ed. 1917,
translated by Constance Long, and "The Psychology of the Unconscious,"
translated by Beatrice Hinkle.]
[Footnote 22: For an important discussion of the general laws of
symbolism, see Ernest Jones's "Papers on Psycho-Analysis" 1918, 129. The
whole Chapter is worth careful study in connection with the questions
considered in the present chapter.]
[Footnote 23: "The Interpretation of Dreams," 286.]
[Footnote 24: "Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism," translated by S.
E. Jelliffe.]
[Footnote 25: As Silberer points out, students of mythology had already
shown the possibility of still a third interpretation, the "naturalistic"
one, according to which the representations of the incest motive in myth
and legend may be taken as a symbolic portrayal of certain important and
impressive natural occurrences--the sequence of day and night, summer and
winter etc.]
[Footnote 26: "Contributions to Psycho-Analysis," translated by Ernest
Jones, 214.]
[Footnote 27: It is interesting to note that in the naturalistic
interpretation of myths the same influences are pretty clearly at work, as
when Max Müller observes that one of the advantages of this naturalistic
interpretation is that it absolves us from the necessity of taking
literally many of the more objectionable features of the myths as they
actually stand.]
[Footnote 28: In order to distinguish more clearly between the two kinds
of symbolism with which we have been here concerned--that in which an
unconscious (repressed) thought or tendency is expressed by something
more permissible to consciousness, and that in which the thing expressed
is of as high or even higher cultural value than the thing through which
it finds expression, Ernest Jones has, in the chapter already referred
to ("Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 129 ff.) proposed to confine the term
symbolism to the former class, all examples of the latter class being
included under the term metaphor.]