We now reach the fifth stage of progressive understanding. The coming
to terms with the unconscious is a technical performance to which
the name of _transcendental function_ has been given because a new
function is produced, which being based upon both real and imaginary,
or rational and irrational data, makes a bridge between the rational
and irrational functions of the psyche. The basis of the transcendental
function is a _new method of treating psychological materials_ such as
dreams and phantasies. The theories previously discussed were based upon
an exclusively causal-reductive procedure, which reduces the dream or
phantasy to its component reminiscences, and the instinctive processes
that underlie them. I have already stated the justification as well as
the limitations of this proceeding. It reaches the end of its usefulness
at the moment when the dream symbols no longer permit of a reduction
to personal reminiscences or aspirations; that is when the images
of the absolute unconscious begin to be produced. It would be quite
inappropriate to reduce these collective ideas to what is personal,
and not only inappropriate but even actually pernicious, a fact that
has been impressed upon me by disagreeable experiences. The values of
the images or symbols of the absolute unconscious are only disclosed if
they are subjected to a synthetic (not analytical) treatment. Just as
analysis (the causally reductive procedure) disintegrates the symbol
into its components, so the synthetic procedure synthesises the symbol
into a universal and comprehensible expression. The synthetic procedure
is by no means easy; I will therefore give an example, by means of which
I can explain the whole process.
A patient had the following dream. She was just at the critical juncture
between the analysis of the personal unconscious and the commencement
of the production of the absolute unconscious. "_I am on the point of
crossing a broad and rapid stream. There is no bridge, but I find a ford
where I can cross. As I am just on the point of doing so, a big crab
that lay hidden in the water seizes my foot and does not let it go._"
She awoke in fear. Associations with the dream were as follows:--
1. _Stream._--It forms a boundary that is difficult to cross. I must
surmount an obstacle; I suppose it refers to the fact that I am getting
on very slowly; I suppose I ought to reach the other side.
2. _Ford._--An opportunity for getting safely across, a possible
way; otherwise the stream would be too difficult. The possibility of
surmounting the obstacle lies in the analytical treatment.
3. _Crab._--The crab lay quite hidden in the water; I did not see it at
first. Cancer is a fearful incurable illness. (A series of recollections
of Mrs. X., who died of cancer, followed.) I am afraid of this illness.
A crab[242] is an animal that walks backwards; obviously it wants to
pull me down into the stream. It clutched me in a gruesome way, and
I was awfully afraid. What prevents my getting across? Oh yes, I had
another great scene with my friend.
It must be explained that there is something special about this
friendship. We have here an ardent attachment, bordering on the
homosexual. It has been going on for years. The friend is in many
respects like the patient, and is also nervous. They have pronounced
artistic interests in common. But the patient is the stronger
personality of the two. They are both nervous, and their mutual relation
being too engrossing, cuts them off too much from other possibilities of
life. In spite of an "ideal friendship" they have at times tremendous
scenes, owing to their mutual irritability. Evidently the unconscious
wishes to put some distance between them, but they refuse to pay
attention to it. A "scene" usually begins by one of them finding that
she does not yet understand the other well enough, and that they
ought to talk more openly together; whereupon both make enthusiastic
endeavours to talk things out. Misunderstandings supervene almost
directly, provoking fresh scenes, each worse than the last. The quarrel
was in its way and _faute de mieux_ a pleasure to both of them, which
they were unwilling to relinquish. My patient, especially, was unable
for a very long time to renounce the sweet pain of not being understood
by her best friend, although, as she said, every scene "tired her to
death." She had long since realised that this friendship had become
superfluous, and that it was only from mistaken ambition that she clung
to the belief that she could yet make something ideal out of it. The
patient had formerly had an extravagant, fantastic relation to her
mother, and after her mother's death had transferred her feelings to her
friend.
VII.--ANALYTICAL (CAUSAL-REDUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION.[243]
This interpretation may be summed up in a sentence: "I understand
that I ought to get to the other side of the stream (that is, give up
the relation with the friend), but I would much rather that my friend
did not let me out of her claws (embrace)." That is, expressed as an
_infantile wish_: Mother would like to attract me to herself again
by the well-known mode of enthusiastic embraces. The incompatibility
of the wish lies in the strong under-current of _homosexuality_, the
existence of which had been abundantly proved by obvious facts. The
crab seizes her foot. The patient having big, "manly" feet, she plays
a masculine part towards her friend, having also corresponding sexual
fantasies. The foot is known to have phallic significance. (Detailed
evidence of this is to be found in _Aigremont's_ writings.) The complete
interpretation would run as follows: The reason why she will not let
her friend go is because her unconscious homosexual wishes are set upon
her. As these wishes are morally and æsthetically incompatible with the
tendency of the conscious personality, they are repressed, and therefore
unconscious. The fear is an expression of this repressed wish.
This interpretation is exceedingly depreciative of the patient's
high-pitched conscious ideal of friendship. It is true at this point
in analysis she would no longer have taken this interpretation amiss.
Some time before certain facts had sufficiently convinced her of her
homosexual tendency, so that she was able to acknowledge the existence
of this inclination frankly, although it was of course painful for her
to do so. Therefore if, at this stage of the treatment, I had informed
her that this was the interpretation, I should not have encountered
resistances from her. She had already overcome the painfulness of this
unwelcome tendency by understanding it. But she would have said to me:
"Why do we analyse this dream at all? It is only repeating what I have
now known for a long while." It is true this interpretation does not
reveal anything new to the patient, and it is therefore uninteresting
and ineffective. This kind of interpretation would at the beginning of
the treatment have been impossible in this case, because the patient's
prudishness would under no circumstances have acknowledged it. The
"venom" of understanding had to be instilled very carefully, and in the
smallest of doses, until the patient gradually became more enlightened.
But when the analytical or causal-reductive interpretation, instead
of furnishing something new, persistently brings the same material in
different variations, then the moment has come when another mode of
interpretation is called for. The causal-reductive procedure has certain
drawbacks. First, it does not take strictly into account the patient's
associations--_e.g._ in this case the association of the illness
("cancer") with "crab" (Krebs = cancer). Second, the particular choice
of symbol remains obscure. For instance, why does the friend-mother
appear as a crab? A prettier and more plastic representation would have
been a nymph. ("Half dragged she him, half sank he down,"[244] etc.)
An octopus, a dragon, a serpent, or a fish could have performed the
same services. Third, the causal-reductive procedure completely ignores
that a dream is a subjective phenomenon, and that consequently even an
exhaustive interpretation can never connect the crab with the mother or
the friend, but only with the dreamer's idea of them. The whole dream
is the dreamer; she is the stream, the crossing, and the crab. That is
to say these details are expressions of psychological conditions and
tendencies in the subject's unconscious.
I have therefore introduced the following terminology. I call
interpretations in which the dream symbols are treated as
representations of the real objects _interpretation upon the objective
plane_. The opposite interpretation is that which connects every
fragment of the dream (_e.g._ all the persons who do anything) with the
dreamer himself. This is _interpretation upon the subjective plane_.
Objective interpretation is _analytical_, because it dissects the dream
contents into complexes of reminiscence, and finds their relation to
real conditions. Subjective interpretation is _synthetic_, because it
detaches the fundamental underlying complexes of reminiscence from their
actual causes, regarding them as tendencies or parts of the subject, and
reintegrating them with the subject. (In experiencing something I do not
merely experience the object, but in the first place myself, although
this is only the case if I render myself account of the experience.)
The synthetic or constructive procedure of interpretation[245] is
therefore based upon the version on the subjective plane.
VIII.--THE SYNTHETIC (CONSTRUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION.
The patient is unconscious of the fact that it is in herself that the
obstacle lies which should be overcome, the boundary that is difficult
to cross which impedes further progress. But it is possible to cross
the boundary. It is true that just here a peculiar and unexpected peril
threatens, namely, something "animal" (non-human or super-human) which
moves backwards and goes into the depths of the stream, wanting to draw
down the dreamer as a whole personality. This danger is, moreover,
like the deadly disease of cancer, which begins secretly somewhere,
and is incurable (overpowering). The patient imagines that her friend
hinders her, pulling her down. So long as this is her belief she must
perforce influence her friend, "draw her up," teach, improve, educate
her, and make futile and impractically idealistic efforts in order to
avoid being dragged down herself. Of course, the friend makes similar
endeavours, being in a like case with the patient. So both of them keep
jumping upon each other like fighting cocks, each trying to fly over
the other's head. The higher the point to which the one screws herself,
the higher must the other also try to get. Why? Because each thinks the
fault lies in the other, in the object. Interpretation of the dream on
the subjective plane brings deliverance from this absurdity, for it
shows the patient that she has something in herself that is hindering
her from crossing the boundary; that is, from getting out of the one
position or attitude into another. To interpret change of place as
change of attitude is supported by the mode of expression in certain
primitive languages, where, _e.g._, the phrase "I am on the point of
going," is "I am at the place of going." In order to understand the
language of dreams, we need plenty of parallels from the psychology of
primitive peoples, as well as from historical symbolism. This is so
because dreams originate in the unconscious, which contains the residual
potentialities of function of all preceding epochs of the history of the
evolution of man.
Obviously, in our interpretation everything now depends upon
understanding what is meant by the crab. We know that it symbolizes
something that comes to light in the friend (she connects the crab
with the friend), and also something that came to light in the mother.
Whether both mother and friend really have this quality in them is
irrelevant as regards the patient. The situation will only be changed
when the patient herself has changed. Nothing can be changed in the
mother because she is dead. The friend cannot be urged to alter; if
she wants to alter herself, that is her own affair. The fact that
the quality in question is associated with the mother indicates that
it is something infantile. What is there in common in the patient's
relation both to her mother and her friend? What is common to both is
a violently extravagant demand for love, the patient feeling herself
overwhelmed by its passion. This claim is an overpowering infantile
craving which is characteristically blind. What is in question here is
a part of her libido that has not been educated, differentiated, nor
humanized, retaining still the compulsive character of an instinct,
because it has not yet been tamed by domestication. An _animal_ is a
perfectly appropriate symbol for this rôle of libido. But why is the
animal a crab in this particular instance? The patient associates cancer
with it, of which disease Mrs. X. died at the age the patient has just
reached. It may, therefore, well be that this is an allusion to an
identification with Mrs. X. We must therefore make inquiries about this
Mrs. X. The patient relates the following facts about her: Mrs. X. was
widowed early; she was very cheerful and enjoyed life. She had a number
of adventures with men, especially with one particular man, a gifted
artist, who the patient herself knew personally and who always impressed
her as very fascinating and weird.
An identification can only result from an unrecognized unconscious
resemblance. Now what is the resemblance between our patient and
Mrs. X.? I was able here to remind the patient of a series of former
fantasies and dreams, which had shown plainly that she also had a
frivolous vein in her, although anxiously repressing it, because she
vaguely feared it might seduce her to an immoral life. We have now
gained a further essential contribution for a right understanding of the
"animal" rôle, which evidently represents an untamed, instinctive greed,
which in this case is directed to men. At the same time we understand
a further reason why she cannot let go of her friend. She must cling
to her in order not to fall a prey to this other tendency, which seems
so much more dangerous. By these means she remains at an infantile
homosexual stage, which serves her as a defence. (Experience proves this
erection of defences to be one of the most effective motives for the
retention of unadapted, infantile relations.) But in this missing libido
in the animal rôle lies her well-being, the germ of her future healthy
personality, which does not shrink from the hazards of human life.
But the patient had drawn another conclusion from the fate of Mrs. X.,
having conceived her severe illness and early death as a punishment
of fate for her gay life which the patient, although certainly not
confessing to this feeling, always envied her. When Mrs. X. died, the
patient pulled a long face, beneath which a "human, all too human,"
malicious satisfaction was hidden. As a punishment for this tendency
the patient, taking Mrs. X.'s example as a warning, deterred herself
from living and from further development, and burdened herself with the
misery of this unsatisfying friendship. Of course this concatenation
had not been consciously clear to her, otherwise she would never have
acted as she had done. The truth of this conclusion can be proved by the
material.
The history of this identification by no means ends here. The patient
subsequently emphasized the fact that Mrs. X. had a not inconsiderable
artistic capacity which developed only after her husband's death and
which led to her friendship with the artist. This fact seems to be
one of the essential incentives to the identification, if we call to
mind that the patient had already told us what a striking impression
she had received from the artist. A fascination of this kind is
never exclusively exercised by one person only upon the other. It is
a phenomenon of reciprocal relation between two persons in so far as
the fascinated person must provide a suitable predisposition. But
she must be unconscious of this predisposition, otherwise there will
be no fascination. Fascination is a phenomenon of compulsion which
lacks conscious ground; that is, it is not a process of the will, but
a phenomenon coming to the surface from the unconscious, and forcing
itself compulsorily upon consciousness. All compulsions arise from
unconscious motives. It must therefore be assumed that the patient
possesses a similar unconscious predisposition to that of the artist.
She becomes identified with this artist, and is also identified with him
_as man_. Here we are at once reminded of the analysis of the dream,
where we met an allusion to the "masculine" foot. As a matter of fact,
the patient plays a thoroughly masculine part towards her friend, being
the active one who continually takes the lead, commanding her friend and
occasionally even forcing her somewhat violently to some course that
only the patient desires. Her friend is distinctly feminine both in her
external appearance and otherwise, whilst the patient is also externally
of a somewhat masculine type. Her voice is stronger and deeper than
that of her friend. She now describes Mrs. X. as a very feminine woman,
her gentleness and amiability being comparable to that of her friend,
so she thinks. This gives us a new clue. The patient is obviously
playing towards her friend the artist's part towards Mrs. X. Thus she
unconsciously completes her identification with Mrs. X. and her lover.
In this way she is giving expression to her frivolous vein which she had
repressed so carefully. She is not living it consciously, however, but
is herself played upon by her own unconscious tendency.
We now know a great deal about the crab: it represents the inner
psychology of this untamed part of the libido. The unconscious
identifications always keep drawing her on. They have this power because
being unconscious they cannot be subjected to insight and correction.
The crab is the symbol of the unconscious contents. These contents are
always seducing the patient to retain her relation to the friend. (The
"crab goes backwards.") But the relation to the friend is synonymous
with illness, she became nervous through it (hence the association of
illness).
Strictly speaking, this really belongs to the analysis on the objective
plane. But we must not forget that we only arrive at understanding by
applying the _subjective_ interpretation, which thereby proves itself
to be an important heuristic principle. For practical purposes we might
rest quite satisfied with the result we have already reached. But we
seek here to satisfy all the requirements of the theory. Not all the
associations have yet been used; neither is the significance of the
choice of symbols yet demonstrated sufficiently.
We will now recur to the patient's remark that the crab lay hidden
under the water in the stream, and that she had not seen it at first.
She had not at first perceived the unconscious relations that have
just been elucidated; they lay hidden in the water. But the stream is
the obstacle preventing her from going across. It is precisely the
unconscious relations binding her to her friend that have been hindering
her. The unconscious was the obstacle. In this case, therefore, the
water signifies the unconscious, or, it were better to say, the
_being unconscious_ the being hidden, for the crab is also something
unconscious, namely, the portion of the libido that was hidden in the
unconscious.
IX.--THE DOMINANTS OF THE SUPER-PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS.
The task now lies before us of raising the unconscious data and their
relations that have been hitherto understood upon the objective plane,
to the _subjective_ plane. To this end we must once more separate them
from their objects, conceiving them as images, related in a subjective
way to function-complexes in the patient's own unconscious. Raised to
the subjective plane, Mrs. X. is the person who showed the patient the
way to do something that the patient herself feared while unconsciously
desiring it. Mrs. X. therefore represents that which the patient would
like to become, and yet does not quite want to. In a certain sense Mrs.
X. is a picture of the patient's future character. The fascinating
artist cannot be raised to the subjective plane, because the unconscious
artistic gift lying dormant in the patient has already been covered over
by Mrs. X. It would be quite right to say that the artist is the image
of the masculine element in the patient, which not being consciously
realised, is still lying in the unconscious. In a certain sense this
is indeed true, the patient actually deluding herself as regards this
matter. That is, she seems to herself to be particularly tender,
sensitive and feminine, with nothing in the least masculine about her.
She was indignantly amazed when I drew her attention to her masculine
traits. But the reason why she is fascinated by something mysterious in
the artist cannot be attributed to what is masculine in her. That seems
to be completely unknown to her. And yet it must be hiding somewhere,
for she has produced this feeling out of herself.
Whenever a part of libido similar to this cannot be found, experience
teaches us that it has always been _projected_. But into whom? Is it
still attached to the artist? He has long ago disappeared from her
horizon, and can hardly have taken the projection with him, because it
was firmly fixed in the patient's unconscious. A similar projection is
always actually present, that is, there must somewhere be some one upon
whom this amount of libido is actually projected, otherwise she would
have felt it consciously.
Thus we once more reach the objective plane, for we cannot discover
this missing projection in any other way. The patient does not know any
man except myself who means anything at all to her, and as her doctor I
mean a good deal to her. Therefore she has probably projected this part
upon me. It is true I had never noticed anything of the kind. But the
exquisitely deceptive rôles are never presented to the analyst on the
surface, coming to light always only outside the hour of treatment. I
therefore carefully inquire: "Tell me what do I seem like to you when
you are not with me? Am I just the same then?" Reply: "When I am with
you, you are very pleasant and kind; but when I am alone, or have not
seen you for rather a long time, then the picture I have in my mind of
you changes in an extraordinary way. Sometimes you seem quite idealized,
and then again different." She hesitates; I help by saying: "Yes, what
am I like then?" Reply: "Sometimes quite dangerous, sinister like an
evil magician or demon. I do not know how I get hold of such ideas. You
are not really a bit like that."
So this part was attached to me as part of a transference; that is
why it was lacking in her inventory. Therewith we recognize a further
important thing. I was confused with (identified with) the artist, and
in her unconscious fantasy she is Mrs. X. I was easily able to prove
this fact by means of material that had previously been brought to
light (sexual fantasies). But I myself then am the obstacle, the crab,
that is hindering her from getting across. The state of affairs would
be critical if at this particular point we were to limit ourselves to
the objective plane of interpretation. What would be the use of my
explaining: "But I am not this artist at all, I am not in the least
weird as he is, nor am I like an evil magician." That would leave the
patient quite unconvinced because she would know as well I do that the
projection would continue to exist all the same, and that it is really
I who am hindering her further progress. It is at this point that many
a treatment has come to a standstill. For there is no other way for
the patient here of escaping from the embrace of the unconscious, but
for the physician to raise himself to the subjective plane, where he
is to be regarded as an image. But an image of what? This is where the
greatest difficulty lies. The doctor will say: "An image of something
in the patient's unconscious." But the patient may object: "What, am
I to suppose myself to be a man, a mysteriously fascinating one to
boot, a wicked wizard and a demon? No, I cannot accept that; it is
nonsense. I'd sooner believe that you are all that." She is really, so
to speak, quite right. It is too preposterous to want to transfer such
things to herself. She cannot permit herself to be made into a demon,
any more than can the physician. Her eyes flash, a wicked expression
appears upon her face, a glimmer of an unknown hate never seen before,
something snake-like seeming to creep into her. I am suddenly faced
by the possibility of a fatal misunderstanding with her. What is it?
Is it disappointed love? Is she offended? Does she feel depreciated?
There seems to lurk something of the beast of prey, something really
demoniac in her glance. Is she then after all a demon? Or am I myself
the beast of prey, the demon, and is this a terrified victim sitting
before me, who is trying to defend herself with the brute force of
despair against my wicked spells? But either idea must be nonsense,
phantastical delusion. What have I come in contact with? What new string
is vibrating? But it is only for a passing moment. The expression upon
the patient's face becoming quiet again, she says, as if relieved: "It
is extraordinary. I feel as if you had touched the point which I could
never get over in relation to my friend. It is a horrible feeling,
something non-human, wicked, and cruel. I cannot describe how queer this
feeling is. At such moments it makes me hate and despise my friend,
although I struggle against it with all my might and main."
An explanatory light is thrown upon what has happened by this
observation. I have now taken the friend's place. The friendship has
been overcome, the ice of repression is broken. The patient has without
knowing it entered upon a new phase of her existence. I know that now
upon me will fall everything painful and bad in the relation to the
friend. So also will whatever was good in it, although in violent
conflict with the mysterious unknown quantity X, about which the patient
could never get clear. A new phase, therefore, of the transference
supervenes, which, however, does not as yet make clearly apparent what
the X that is projected upon me consists of.
It is quite certain, that the most troublesome misunderstandings
threaten if the patient should stick at this stage of the transference.
In that case she will necessarily treat me as she treated her friend;
that is the X will continually be somewhere in the air giving rise to
misunderstandings. The end would probably be that she would see the evil
demon in me, because she is quite unable to accept the fact that she
is herself the demon. All insoluble conflicts are brought about in this
way. And an insoluble conflict signifies a standstill in life.
Another possibility is, that the patient should disregard the obscure
point by applying her old preventative against this new difficulty. That
is, she would repress it again, instead of keeping it conscious, which
is the necessary and obvious demand of the whole method. Nothing is
gained by such repression; on the contrary, the X threatens more from
the unconscious where it is considerably more unpleasant.
Whenever such an unacceptable image emerges, one must decide whether
at bottom it is destined to represent a human quality or not.
"Magician" and "demon" may represent qualities that are described in
this particular fashion, in order that they may speedily be recognized
as _not human but mythological qualities_. Magician and demon being
mythological figures aptly express the unknown "non-human" feelings
which had surprised the patient. These attributes are not applicable
to a human personality; being as a rule judgments of character
_intuitively_ and not critically approved, which are projected upon our
fellow-beings, inevitably doing serious injury to human relations.
_Such attributes always indicate that contents of the super-personal or
absolute unconscious are being projected._ Neither demons nor wicked
magicians are reminiscences of personal experiences, although every one
has, of course, at some time or other heard or read of them. Although
one has heard of a rattle-snake, it would hardly be appropriate to
describe a lizard or a blind-worm as a rattle-snake, simply because
one was startled by their rustling. Similarly, one would hardly term
a fellow-being a demon, unless some kind of demoniacal influence were
closely associated with him. If, however, the demoniacal influence were
really part of his personal character, it would show itself everywhere,
and then this human being would be a demon, a kind of werwolf. But such
an ascription is mythology; in other words, it is from the collective
and not from the individual psyche. Inasmuch as through our unconscious
we have a share in the historical collective psyche, we naturally
dwell unconsciously in a world of werwolves, demons, magicians, etc.,
these being things which have always affected man most profoundly. We
have just as much a part in gods and devils, saviours and criminals.
But it would be absurd to want to ascribe to one's personal self the
possibilities that are potentially existing in the human unconscious.
It is, therefore, essential to make as clear a distinction as possible
between the personal and the impersonal assets of our psyche. This is
by no means intended to nullify the occasional great effects due to
the existence of the contents of the absolute unconscious; but these
contents of the collective psyche should be differentiated from those
belonging to the individual psyche. For simple-minded people, of course,
these things were never separated, the projection of gods, demons, etc.,
not having been understood as a psychological function were simply
accounted concretistical realities. Their projectional character was
never perceived. It was only with the advent of the epoch of scepticism
that it was realized that the gods did not really exist except as
projections. With that the matter was set at rest. But the psychological
function corresponding to it was by no means set at rest, for it lapsed
into the unconscious and began to poison men with a surplus of libido
that had hitherto been invested in the cult of idols or gods. Obviously,
the depreciation and repression of such a powerful function as that of
religion has serious consequences for the psychology of the individual.
The reflux of this libido strengthens the unconscious prodigiously,
so that it begins to exercise a powerful compulsory influence upon
consciousness and its archaic collective contents. One period of
scepticism came to a close with the horrors of the French Revolution.
At the present time we are again experiencing an ebullition of the
unconscious destructive powers of the collective psyche. The result is
an unparalleled general slaughter. That is just what the unconscious
was tending towards. This tendency had previously been inordinately
strengthened by the rationalism of modern life, which by depreciating
everything irrational, caused the function of irrationalism to sink into
the unconscious. But the function once in the unconscious will from
thence work unceasing havoc, like an incurable disease whose centre
cannot be eradicated. For then the individual and the nation alike are
compelled to live irrationally, and even to apply their highest idealism
and their best wit to make this madness of irrationalism as complete as
possible. We see examples of this on a small scale in our patient. She
turned from a possibility of life that seemed to her irrational (Mrs.
X.) in order to live it in a pathological form, to her own loss, and
with an unsuitable object.
There is, indeed, no possible alternative but to acknowledge
irrationalism as a psychological function that is necessary and always
existent. Its results are not to be taken as concrete realities (that
would involve repression), but as _psychological realities_. They
are realities because they are _effective_ things, that is, they are
_actualities_.
The collective unconscious is the sediment of all the experience of the
universe of all time, and is also an image of the universe that has
been in process of formation for untold ages. In the course of time
certain features have become prominent in this image, the so-called
_dominants_. These dominants are the ruling powers, the gods; that is,
the representations resulting from dominating laws and principles, from
average regularities in the issue of the images that the brain has
received as a consequence of secular processes.
In so far as the images formed in the brain are relatively faithful
portrayals of psychic happenings they will correspond to their
dominants; that is, their general characteristic features, made
prominent by the accumulation of similar experiences, will correspond
to certain physical fundamental facts that are also universal. Hence it
is possible to transfer unconscious images to physical events direct as
intuitive ideas; _e.g. ether_ the primeval breath or soul-substance
appears in man's conceptions the whole world over; so, too, _energy_,
the magic force, which is equally widespread.
On account of their connection with physical things the dominants
usually make their appearance as projections, appearing,
indeed--if the projections are unconscious--in the persons of the
immediate environment, as a rule in the form of abnormal under- or
over-valuations, which excite misunderstandings, conflict, infatuations,
and various kinds of folly. People say: "He makes a god of So-and-so,"
or "So-and-so is X.'s _bête noire_." They also give rise to the
formation of modern myths, that is, fantastic rumours, suspicions and
prejudices.
The dominants of the collective unconscious are therefore extremely
important things of significant effect, to which great attention should
be paid. They must not be repressed, but must be given most careful
consideration. They usually appear as projections, and since projections
are only attached where there is some external stimulus, it is very
difficult to appraise them aright, on account of the relation of the
unconscious images with the object. If some one projects the dominant
of "devil" into a fellow-being, this occurs because this other person
has something in him that makes the attachment of the devil dominant
possible. But that is by no means to say that this person is therefore,
so to speak, a devil; on the contrary, he may be a particularly good
fellow, but being antipathetic to the one who projects, a "devilish
effect" is brought about between the two. This does not mean that the
one who projects is a devil, although he must recognize that he too,
just as much, has something devilish in him, and has been gulled by
it, inasmuch as he projected it; but that does not make him a devil;
indeed, he may be just as decent a man as the other. In such a case the
appearance of the devil dominant means: the two persons are incompatible
(for the moment and for the near future), wherefore the unconscious
splits them asunder and holds them apart from each other.
One of the dominants that is almost always met in the analysis of
projections of collective unconscious contents is the "magical demon;"
it is of preponderating sinister effect. "The Golem," by _Meyrink_,
is a good example of this; also the Thibetan wizard in Meyrink's
"Fledermäusen," who lets the world-war loose by magic. Obviously Meyrink
formed this image independently and freely out of his unconscious,
by giving word and picture to a feeling similar to the one that my
patient had projected upon me. The dominant of magic also appears in
"Zarathustra," whilst in "Faust" it is, so to say, the hero himself.
The picture of this demon is the lowest and most elementary concept
of God. It is the dominant of the primitive tribal magic-man, or a
singularly gifted personality endowed with magic power. This figure
very frequently makes an appearance in my patient's unconscious as a
_dark-skinned being of Mongolian type_.
An important step forward has been taken by the recognition of the
dominants of the absolute unconscious. The magical or demoniac effect
of the fellow-being is made to disappear by the feeling being realised
as a definite projection of the absolute unconscious. On the other
hand, a completely new and unsuspected task now lies before us: namely,
the question in what way the ego should come to terms with this
psychological non-ego. Should one rest satisfied with having verified
the effective existence of unconscious dominants, leaving the matter to
take care of itself?
To leave it at this point would be the means of creating a permanent
state of dissociation in the subject, a conflict between the individual
psyche and the collective psyche. Upon the one side we should have the
differentiated modern ego, whilst upon the other a kind of uncivilized
negro representative of a thoroughly primitive state. That would mean
that we should have what really does exist, a crust of civilization over
a dark-skinned brute; the cleavage would be distinct and demonstrable
before our very eyes. But such a dissociation requires immediate
synthesis and cultivation of what is undeveloped. There must be a union
of these two aspects.
Before entering upon this new question let us first return to the
dream from which we started. The discussion has given us a broader
understanding of the dream, and especially of an essential part of it,
namely, the fear. This fear is a demoniac fear of the dominants of the
collective unconscious. We saw that the patient identifies herself
with Mrs. X., expressing thereby that she also has some relation to
the mysterious artist. It was apparent also that she identified the
physician (myself) with the artist; and further that when taken upon the
subjective plane, the image of the wizard dominants of the collective
unconscious represented me.
All this is covered in the dream by the symbol of the crab which walks
backwards. The crab stands for the living content of the unconscious
that can by no means be exhausted or rendered inoperative by analysis
on the objective plane. But what we were able to do was to _detach the
mythological or collective psychological contents from the objects
of consciousness, and to consolidate them as psychological realities
outside the individual psyche_.
So long as the absolute unconscious and the individual psyche are
coupled together without differentiation, no progress can be made,
or, as the dream expresses it, no boundary be crossed. If the dreamer
does nevertheless prepare to cross the boundary, the unconscious that
was hitherto unnoticed becomes animated, seizing her and dragging her
down. The dream and its material characterize the absolute unconscious,
on the one side as a lower animal living hidden in the depths of the
water; and on the other side, as a dangerous disease that can only be
cured by a timely operation. To what extent this characterization is
appropriate has already been seen. As was pointed out, the animal symbol
specially refers to what is _extra_ human, that is super-personal; for
the contents of the absolute unconscious are not merely the residue of
archaic human functions, but also the residue of functions of the animal
ancestry of mankind, whose duration of life was indeed vastly greater
than the relatively brief epoch of specifically human existence. If such
residues are active, they are apt, as nothing else is, not merely to
arrest the progress of development, but also to divert the libido into
regressive channels, until the quantity which the absolute unconscious
has activated has been absorbed. The energy becomes profitable again
after it has been consciously contrasted with the absolute unconscious,
a process which enables it to be converted into a valuable source from
which to draw. This transference of energy was established by religions
in a concretistic manner through cultural communication with the gods
(the dominants of the absolute unconscious). But these modes and customs
are too much at variance with our intellect and our moral sense for us
to be able to declare this solution of the problem as still binding,
or even possible. If, on the other hand, we apprehend the images of
the unconscious as collective unconscious dominants, therefore as
collective-psychological phenomena or functions, this hypothesis is
in no way opposed to our intellect and conscience. This solution is
rationally acceptable. We have thus gained the possibility of coming to
terms with the activated residues of our ancestral history. This mode
of settlement makes it possible to traverse the boundary line hitherto
limiting us, and is therefore appropriately termed the _transcendental
function_, which is synonymous with progressive development to a new
attitude. In the dream this development is indicated by the other side
of the stream.
The similarity to hero-myths is striking. The typical combat of the hero
with the monster (the unconscious content) frequently takes place on the
banks of some water; sometimes at a ford. This circumstance is prominent
in legends of Red Indians, as, for example, in Longfellow's "Hiawatha."
In the decisive battle the hero is swallowed by a monster (_cf._ story
of Jonah), as Frobenius[246] has shown by means of extensive material.
But inside the monster the hero begins to come to terms with the beast
in his own way: whilst the creature swims with him towards the sunrise,
he cuts off a valuable piece of the viscera, _e.g._ the heart, by which
the monster lived, that is, the valuable energy by which the unconscious
was activated. Through this deed he kills the monster, who then drifts
to land, where the hero, born anew through the transcendental function
(the "night-journey under the sea" of Frobenius), steps forth, often in
company with all those beings whom the monster had previously swallowed.
This enables the normal state to be restored, as the unconscious having
been robbed of its energy no longer occupies a preponderating position.
In this way the myth--which is the dream of a people--graphically
describes the problem with which our patient is concerned.[247]
The problem of how to come to terms with the absolute unconscious is a
question apart. I must content myself here with a general survey of the
new theory of the unconscious up to the transcendental function, leaving
the presentation of the transcendental function itself to a later work.
X.--THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TYPES OF INTROVERSION AND EXTROVERSION IN THE
ANALYTICAL PROCESS.
The description of the analysis of the unconscious would be incomplete
if a word were not said about the question whether this method is
equally applicable to the two types. As a matter of fact, both the
development and the conception of the unconscious are different for
each type. Although making every effort to find out a formulation that
shall be as universally valid as possible, we must emphatically impress
upon our minds the fact that the two modes of conception of the types
are essentially different; a universal formulation that is just, only
becomes possible when both standpoints are given equal consideration.
I do not conceal from myself the fact that this subject is of less
interest to the layman than to the specialist. Nevertheless, certain
aspects of the question are of such a general character that the layman
should not find the perusal of this last section entirely without
interest.
Let us first consider the concept of the unconscious. I have here
introduced the unconscious under the conception of a psychological
function, namely, the function of the sum of all those psychic contents
which do not reach the threshold of consciousness. I have divided
the unconscious materials into _personal_--that is to reminiscences
attributable to personal experiences, combinations and tendencies--and
into _impersonal_ collective contents, that is, those whose contents
cannot be attributed to personal experiences.
The contents of the psyche are fundamentally images indicating function
on the one hand, and upon the other objects and the world generally. The
conscious contains the recent object-images; the personal unconscious,
the object-images of the individual past, so far as they have either
been forgotten or repressed; whilst the absolute or collective
unconscious contains the inherited world-images generally, under the
form of primordial images or mythical themes. All psychic images have
two sides: the one, being directed towards the object, is as faithful
a likeness of the object as possible, framed without any intention or
obligation to be anything else. The other side is directed towards the
soul, that is towards the psychic function and the laws peculiar to it.
Let us take as an example, a primordial image out of a hero-myth. There
is in the West a demon ancestress with a large mouth. The hero creeps
into it, and at the same moment a certain little bird sings; the ancient
dame shuts her mouth with a bang, and the hero disappears.
The side of the image directed towards the physical object means, the
sun goes down in the evening into the mouth of the ocean. At this hour
a certain little bird sings (which is an objective fact), and the sun
disappears into the depths of the sea.
The side of the image directed towards the soul, that is the _idea_,
signifies: The energy contained in consciousness disappears (like the
sun in the evening) into the monster of the unconscious.
If we consider the collective-unconscious from the side of the
soul or idea, it is something entirely distinct, and it must be
differentiated, _abstracted_ from the object, if its contents are to
attain the perfection of an idea. If, on the other hand, we consider the
collective-unconscious from the side of the physical object, that is
as an image of the object, it is weaker and less clear than the object
itself, and can only be brought to perfection if it is objectified, that
is projected on to the object itself.
As previously explained, there are two types of human psychology that
can be clearly distinguished, viz. introversion and extroversion. The
introvert is characterised by the thought standpoint; the extrovert
by the feeling standpoint. As I showed, they are quite different in
their relation to the object: the introvert abstracting from the
object and thinking about it, whilst the extrovert goes to the object
and feels himself into it. The accent of value lies upon the ego for
the introvert, but upon the object for the extrovert. The former's
chief concern is the preservation of the ego; that of the latter the
preservation of the object. The two types will adopt a different
attitude towards the unconscious, namely, the introvert will and must
seize the idea-side of the unconscious image; the extrovert, on the
other hand, seizing the side of the physical reflection. The introvert
will purify as far as possible the idea-side from the "alloy" of the
concretistic admixture of the physical image, in order to arrive at the
abstract idea; whilst, on the other hand, the extrovert will purify the
physical image as far as possible from the "phantastic" admixture of the
enveloping ideas. The former, by raising himself to a world of idea,
will endeavour to overcome the disturbing influence of the unconscious;
whilst the latter will approach the object as near as possible and
project the unconscious image into the physical object, thus freeing
himself from the grip of the unconscious.
What for the extrovert is a phantastic and disturbing admixture in the
unconscious picture, is for the introvert precisely that which has the
most value, for it is the germ of the pure idea, and _vice versâ_; what
for the introvert are merely concretistical "imperfections," survivals
of a physical origin, are for the extrovert a most valuable hint, the
bridge by which the unconscious can be united with the object.
This description makes it manifest that the two types go contrary
ways in the course of the development of their unconscious, arriving
therefore at opposite extremes: the one at the idea, the other at the
object of his feeling. The psychological characteristics of the types
are eventually pushed to extremes, where according to the enantiodromic
law the moment has arrived when in each case the "other" function
enters into its fully acknowledged right, that is, feeling in the case
of the introvert, and thought in that of the extrovert. The introvert
attains the lacking function of autonomous feeling by means of a
differentiation and enhancement of his thought; whilst the extrovert,
on the other hand, attains his thinking by the way of an increasingly
differentiated love. These functions that hitherto were secondary are
found at first in the unconscious, gradually reaching consciousness in
the course of development. At first they are unconscious functions in a
state that is more or less incompatible with consciousness and have the
typical qualities of unconscious contents. These qualities are such as
are not tolerated in consciousness. The lunatic Schreber[248] says most
aptly that the language of God (the unconscious) is a somewhat archaic
but vigorous German, of which he gives a few striking examples. As the
contrary function that emerges from the unconscious into consciousness
differs to such an extent from what appears to be acceptable to
consciousness, the necessity arises of a technique for coming to terms
with the contrary function. It is impossible to accept the contrary
function as it stands, as it always drags extraneous qualities and
accompanying circumstances with it from the absolute unconscious.
Through the above-described development the extrovert has acquired an
adaptation to the object that is absolutely real and free from all
phantasies; he will therefore be able to turn his attention towards the
"alloy" which for the introvert was the valuable germ of idea. From this
he will then develop similar ideas to those which the introvert has
already developed. _Vice versâ_, the introvert will now be able to turn
his attention to those materials which before he was obliged to reject,
as being side-tracks on the road to physical reality; that is, he will
carry out the same clearing and winnowing in his feeling-relations, that
the extrovert has already completed.
The development of the contrary function that was hitherto unconscious,
leads to individuation beyond the type, and thereby to a new relation
to the world and mind. The process which begins with the complementation
of the types is the transcendental function, which leads to the new
adaptation by means of the clearing and winnowing of unconscious
feelings and thoughts that have been brought up by the contrary function
that had been neglected.
Following the old maxim: "naturam si sequemur ducem nunquam
aberrabimus," we have obeyed the natural impulse of the thinker to carry
the principle of thought through to its utmost perfection attainable, as
also that of the feeler, of carrying the principle of feeling through
to the end. By these means the salutary extreme was produced, to wit,
the hunger, the desire for the compensatory function. For, by means of
thought, the one is landed in a lifeless ice-cold world of crystalline
ideas; whereas, by means of feeling, the other reaches a limitless
ocean of never ending flood of sentiment. The former will, therefore,
yearn for living warmth of feeling, and the latter for the restrictive
precision and solidity of thought.
An enrichment of the individual is attained by this compensatory
process, giving him greater decision and the possibility of a harmony
that is complete in itself. The assimilation of the contrary function
discloses new inner springs, which guarantee to the individual
considerably greater independence from external conditions. This
acquisition is an indisputable advantage that none would like to
surrender in face of the fact so unavoidably connected with it, that a
new adaptation and orientation of this kind places the individual in
a certain contrast to the great bulk of people who yet have the old
attitude. This contrast is no drawback; it is rather a welcome and
effective spur to life and work, for thereby is created the channel
required by our psychic energy for its development.
XI.--GENERAL REMARKS ON THE THERAPY.
I have still to draw the reader's attention to an important fact.
Throughout the course of this paper, I have seemed to associate the
idea of disturbance or even of peril with the unconscious. But it would
give a false impression if we were only to emphasize the dangerous side
of the unconscious. _The unconscious is a source of danger when the
individual is not at one with it._ If we succeed in establishing the
function or attitude that I call transcendental, the disharmony ceases,
and we are permitted to enjoy the favourable side of the unconscious. In
such case the unconscious vouchsafes us that furtherance and assistance
which bountiful Nature is always ready to give to man in overflowing
abundance. The unconscious possesses possibilities of wisdom that are
completely closed to consciousness, for the unconscious has at its
disposal not only all the psychic contents that are under the threshold
because they had been forgotten or overlooked, but also the wisdom of
the experience of untold ages, deposited in the course of time and lying
potential in the human brain. The unconscious is continually active,
creating combinations of its materials; these serve to indicate the
future path of the individual. It creates prospective combinations just
as our consciousness does, only they are considerably superior to the
conscious combinations both in refinement and extent. The unconscious
may therefore be an unparalleled guide for human beings.
The reader must on no account suppose that the complicated psychological
changes described must all be passed through in every individual case.
In practice the treatment is adjusted according to the therapeutic
result attained. The particular result arrived at may be reached
at any stage of the treatment, quite apart from the seriousness or
duration of the malady. The treatment of a serious case may last a long
time, without the higher phases of the evolution ever being reached,
or needing to be reached. There are comparatively few people who,
after attaining the desired therapeutical result, pursue the further
stages of evolution for the sake of their own development. It is,
therefore, not the seriousness of the case which obliges one to pass
through the whole development. In any case, only those people attain
a higher degree of differentiation who are by nature destined and
called to it, that is, who have both a capacity and tendency towards
the higher differentiation. This is a matter in which people are
extremely different, just as among species of animals there are some
that are stationary and conservative, and others that are evolutionary.
Nature is aristocratic, but not in the sense of having reserved the
possibility of differentiation exclusively for those species that stand
high. Similarly, the possibility of the psychological development of
human beings is not reserved for specially _gifted_ individuals. In
other words: neither special intelligence nor any other talent is
necessary in order to achieve a far-reaching psychological development,
inasmuch as in this development moral qualities step in to supplement
where intellect does not suffice. But it must not be supposed under
any circumstances that the treatment consists in grafting general
formulas and complicated doctrines on to people; this is not so. Each
one can acquire that which he needs, after his own fashion and in his
own language. What I have here presented is only the intellectual
formulation of the subject, founded upon preliminary scientific study of
an empirical as well as a theoretical nature; but this formulation does
not become a subject of discussion in the ordinary practical analytical
work. The brief notes of cases that I have inserted give an approximate
idea of the practical side of analysis.
The reader should realize that our new understanding of psychology
has a side that is entirely practical, and another that is entirely
theoretical. It is not merely a practical method of treatment or
education, but it is also a scientific theory, that is closely related
to other co-ordinated sciences.
CONCLUSION.
In conclusion, I must beg the reader to pardon me for having ventured
to say so many new and abstruse things in such a brief compass. I lay
myself open to adverse criticism, because I conceive it to be the duty
of every one who isolates himself by taking his own path, to tell others
what he has found or discovered, whether it be a refreshing spring for
the thirsty, or a sandy desert of sterile error. The one helps, the
other warns. Not the opinion of any individual contemporary will decide
the truth and error of what has been discovered, but rather future
generations and destiny. There are things that are not yet true to-day,
perhaps we are not yet permitted to recognize them as true, although
they may be true to-morrow. Therefore every pioneer must take his own
path, alone but hopeful, with the open eyes of one who is conscious
of its solitude and of the perils of its dim precipices. Our age is
seeking a new spring of life. I found one and drank of it and the water
tasted good. That is all that I can or want to say. My intention and my
duty to society is fulfilled when I have described, as well as I can,
the way that led me to the spring; the reproaches of those who do not
follow this way have never troubled me, nor ever will. New ideas always
encounter resistance from the old. That always was and always will be
the case; it appertains to the self-regulation of mental progress.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 216: New Edition, 1917. Translated by Miss Dora Hecht.]
[Footnote 217: Bleuler, "Die Psychoanalyse Freuds." _Jahrbuch für
psychoanalytische Forschungen_, vol. II., 1910.]
[Footnote 218: Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other
Psychoneuroses." "Nervous and Mental Disease," Monograph series, No. 4.]
[Footnote 219: Freud, "Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre."
Deuticke: Wien.]
[Footnote 220: Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams," George Allen.]
[Footnote 221: Freud, "Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory."
Monograph Series.]
[Footnote 222: Cp. Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria."]
[Footnote 223: Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other
Psychoneuroses."]
[Footnote 224: For further particulars of this case see Jung, "The
Theory of Psychoanalysis."]
[Footnote 225: We may still apply to love the saying: "The heaven above,
the heaven below, The sky above, the sky below, All things above,
all things below, Succeed and prosper" (Old Mystic). Mephistopheles
expresses the idea when he describes himself as "Part of that power
which still produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill."]
[Footnote 226: "Love" is used in that larger sense of the word, which
indeed belongs to it by right; it does not mean "mere sexuality."]
[Footnote 227: Compare Jung, "Diagnostiche Associationsstudien."
Leipzig: J. A. Barth. 2 volumes.]
[Footnote 228: The theory of "Complexes" is set out in "Psychology of
Dementia præcox," Jung.]
[Footnote 229: Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams." James Allen.]
[Footnote 230: The rules of dream-analysis, the laws of the structure
of the dream and its symbolism, form almost a science; this is one of
the most important chapters of the psychology of the unconscious whose
comprehension requires very arduous study.]
[Footnote 231: Compare Jung, "The Psychology of the Unconscious."]
[Footnote 232: Thus spake Zarathustra, p. 40.]
[Footnote 233: The German "Auslebetheorie."]
[Footnote 234: "Ueber den nervösen Charakter."]
[Footnote 235: For a preliminary communication upon the subject see page
287.]
[Footnote 236: "The Philosophy of Values."]
[Footnote 237: "Pragmatism."]
[Footnote 238: "Grosse Männer" ("Great Men").]
[Footnote 239: _Furneaux Jordan_: "Character as seen in Body and
Parentage." London, 1896.]
[Footnote 240: I purposely describe only the two types here. Obviously,
the possibility of the existence of other types is not thereby excluded.
Other possibilities are known to us. I refrain from mentioning them,
with a view to limiting the material.]
[Footnote 241: The _Monist_, vol. xvi. p. 363.]
[Footnote 242: The German name for crab (Krebs) is the same as that for
cancer.]
[Footnote 243: A parallel conception of the two kinds of interpretation
is found in a commendable book by _Silberer_: "Probleme der Mystik und
ihrer Symbolik" ("Problems of Mysticism and their Symbolism").]
[Footnote 244: "Halb zog sie ihn, halb sank er hin," etc.]
[Footnote 245: I have also termed this procedure the "hermeneutic
method." See page 468-9.]
[Footnote 246: "Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes" ("The Age of the
Sun-god").]
[Footnote 247: I have treated the parallels of hero-myths in great
detail in "The Psychology of the Unconscious."]
[Footnote 248: "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" ("Memoirs of a
Neurasthenic Patient").]
CHAPTER XV
THE CONCEPTION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS[249]
I.--THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS
Since the breach with the Viennese school upon the question of the
fundamental explanatory principle of analysis--that is, the question
if it be sexuality or energy--our concepts have undergone considerable
development. After the prejudice concerning the explanatory basis had
been removed by the acceptance of a purely abstract view of it, the
nature of which was not anticipated, interest was directed to the
concept of the unconscious.
According to Freud's theory the contents of the unconscious are limited
to infantile wish-tendencies, which are repressed on account of the
incompatibility of their character. Repression is a process which
begins in early childhood under the moral influence of environment;
it continues throughout life. These repressions are done away with by
means of analysis, and the repressed wishes are made conscious. That
should theoretically empty the unconscious, and, so to say, do away with
it; but in reality the production of infantile sexual wish-fantasies
continues into old age.
According to this theory, the unconscious contains only those parts of
the personality which might just as well be conscious, and have really
only been repressed by the processes of civilisation. According to Freud
the essential content of the unconscious would therefore be _personal_.
But although, from such a view-point the infantile tendencies of the
unconscious are the more prominent, it would be a mistake to estimate
or define the unconscious from this alone, for it has another side.
Not only must the repressed materials be included in the periphery of
the unconscious, but also all the psychic material that does not reach
the threshold of consciousness. It is impossible to explain all these
materials by the principle of repression, for in that case by the
removal of the repression a phenomenal memory would be acquired, one
that never forgets anything. As a matter of fact repression exists, but
it is a special phenomenon. If a so-called bad memory were only the
consequence of repression, then those persons who have an excellent
memory should have no repression, that is, be incapable of being
neurotic. But experience teaches us that this is not the case. There
are, undoubtedly, cases with abnormally bad memories, where it is clear
that the main cause must be attributed to repression. But such cases are
comparatively rare.
We therefore emphatically say that the unconscious contains all that
part of the psyche that is found under the threshold, including
subliminal sense-perceptions, in addition to the repressed material.
We also know--not only on account of accumulated experience, but also
for theoretical reasons--that the unconscious must contain all the
material that has _not yet_ reached the level of consciousness. These
are the germs of future conscious contents. We have also every reason to
suppose that the unconscious is far from being quiescent, in the sense
that it is inactive, but that it is probably constantly busied with the
formation and re-formation of so-called unconscious phantasies. Only in
pathological cases should this activity be thought of as comparatively
autonomous, for normally it is co-ordinated with consciousness.
It may be assumed that all these contents are of a personal nature in
so far as they are acquisitions of the individual life. As this life
is limited, the number of acquisitions of the unconscious must also be
limited, wherefore an exhaustion of the contents of the unconscious
through analysis might be held to be possible. In other words, by the
analysis of the unconscious the inventory of unconscious contents might
be completed, possibly in the sense that the unconscious cannot produce
anything besides what is already known and accepted in the conscious.
Also, as has already been said, we should have to accept the fact that
the unconscious activity had thereby been paralysed, and that by the
removal of the repression we could stop the conscious contents from
descending into the unconscious. Experience teaches us that is only
possible to a very limited extent. We urge our patients to retain their
hold upon repressed contents that have been brought to consciousness,
and to insert them in their scheme of life. But, as we may daily
convince ourselves, this procedure seems to make no impression upon
the unconscious, inasmuch as it goes on producing apparently the same
phantasies, namely, the so-called infantile-sexual ones, which according
to the earlier theory were based upon personal repressions. If in such
cases analysis be systematically continued, an inventory of incompatible
wish-phantasies is gradually revealed, whose combinations amaze us.
In addition to all the sexual perversions every conceivable kind of
crime is discovered, as well as every conceivable heroic action and
great thought, whose existence in the analysed person no one would have
suspected.
In order to give an example of this, I would like to refer to Maeder's
Schizophrenic patient who called the world his picture-book. He was a
locksmith's apprentice who fell ill very early in life; he had never
been blessed with intellectual gifts. As regards his idea that the world
was his picture-book and that he was turning its pages over when he
looked about in the world, it is just Schopenhauer's world, conceived as
will and representation, expressed in primitive picture-language. This
idea has just as universal a character as Schopenhauer's. The difference
consists in the fact that the patient's notion has stood still at an
embryonic stage in a process of growth, whereas with Schopenhauer
the same idea has been changed from a mere image into an abstraction
expressed in terms that are universally valid.
It would be false to assume that the patient's idea had a personal
character and value. That would be to attribute to him the dignity of a
philosopher. But he alone is a philosopher who raises an image that has
naturally sprung up into an abstract idea, thereby translating it into
terms of universal validity. Schopenhauer's philosophical conception
is his personal value, whereas the notion of the patient has merely
an impersonal value of natural growth, in which personal proprietary
rights can only be acquired by making an abstraction of the images, and
translating them into terms that are universally valid. But it would be
wrong if an exaggerated sense of the value of this achievement led us
to ascribe to the philosopher the merit of having made or conceived the
original image itself. The primordial image has also sprung up naturally
in the philosopher, and is nothing but a part of the universal human
heritage in which, theoretically at least, every one has a share. The
golden apples come from the same tree whether they are gathered by a
locksmith's apprentice or a Schopenhauer.
The recognition of such primordial images obliges me to differentiate
between the contents of the unconscious; a differentiation of another
kind than that between the pre-conscious and unconscious, or between
the subconscious and unconscious. The justification for those
distinctions cannot be discussed here; they have a value of their own
and probably merit to be carried further as affording a point of view.
The differentiation which I propose follows obviously from what has
previously been said, namely, that in the so-called unconscious we must
differentiate a layer which may be termed the _personal unconscious_.
The materials contained in this layer are of a personal kind, inasmuch
as on the one hand they may be characterised as acquisitions of the
individual existence, and on the other as psychological factors which
might just as well be conscious. It is, for instance, comprehensible
that incompatible psychological elements succumb to repression on
the one hand and are therefore unconscious, but on the other hand
there exists the possibility of bringing the repressed contents
into consciousness and keeping them there, once they are known and
recognised. We recognise these materials as personal contents, because
we can prove their effects, their partial appearance, or their origin
to lie in our personal past. They are integral constituents of the
personality, and belong to a complete inventory of the same. They are
constituents whose omission in consciousness implies an inferiority
in one respect or another, not indeed an inferiority bearing the
psychological character of an organic deformity or a natural defect,
but rather the character of a neglect which arouses a moral reaction.
The feeling of moral inferiority always indicates that in the portion
omitted is something that according to the feelings should not be
missing; or in other words, could be conscious if we took sufficient
trouble about it. The sense of moral inferiority is not the result
of a collision with the universal, in a certain sense arbitrary,
moral law, but rather the result of a conflict with the personal ego,
which by reason of the psychic economy demands an adjustment of the
deficiency. Wherever a feeling of inferiority appears, it reveals not
only the presence of a demand for the assimilation of an unconscious
constituent, but also the possibility of such an assimilation. It is,
after all, a person's moral qualities that make him assimilate his
unconscious self and retain it in consciousness, whether he be forced to
it by a recognition of its necessity, or by a painful neurosis. He who
continues to tread this path of the realisation of his unconscious self,
necessarily transposes the content of the personal unconscious into
consciousness, whereby the periphery of the personality is considerably
enlarged.
II--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE ASSIMILATION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS.
This process of assimilating the unconscious leads to remarkable
results. Some people build up from it an unmistakable, even unpleasantly
increased self-consciousness or self-confidence; they "know everything,"
and are completely aware of everything so far as their unconscious is
concerned. They think themselves accurately informed about everything
that comes up from the unconscious. Others are increasingly oppressed
by the contents of the unconscious, they lose their self-reliance or
their self-consciousness more and more, and come near to a state of
depressed resignation in regard to all the extraordinary things the
unconscious produces. The former undertake in the exuberance of their
self-confidence, a responsibility for their unconscious that goes much
too far, beyond every reasonable possibility; the latter ultimately
decline to accept any responsibility in the depressing recognition of
the powerlessness of the ego confronted by relentless Destiny, working
through the unconscious.
If we give the two types close analytical consideration, we shall
discover that behind the optimistic self-confidence of the former
there is hidden a just as deep, or rather a far deeper, helplessness;
a helplessness to which the conscious optimism acts as an unsuccessful
effort at compensation. Behind the pessimistic resignation of the
latter there is hidden a defiant desire for power, far exceeding in
self-confidence the conscious optimism of the former type.
This condition of the personality may well be expressed by the idea
of "God-Almightiness" (Gottähnlichkeit),[250] to which _Adler_ has
particularly drawn our attention.
When the devil wrote the serpent's words in the student's album, _Eritis
sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum_, he added:
"Follow the ancient text and the snake thou wast ordered to trample!
With all thy likeness to God, thou'lt yet be a sorry example."
The idea of "likeness to God," or "God-Almightiness," is not a
scientific one, although it characterises the psychological state of
affairs most exactly. Still we must examine whence this attitude comes,
and ask why it merits the name of "God-Almightiness." As the expression
denotes, the patient's abnormal condition is constituted by the fact
that he ascribes to himself qualities or values which obviously do not
belong to him, for "God-Almightiness" means being like the spirit which
is set above the human spirit.
If for psychological purposes we abstract from the hypostasis of
the God-idea, we find that this expression does not only include
every dynamic fact discussed in my book on "The Psychology of the
Unconscious,"[251] but also a certain mental function having a
collective character, which is of another order from that of the
individual character of the mind. In the same way as the individual is
not only an isolated and separate, but also a social being, so also the
human mind is not only something isolated and absolutely individual,
but also a collective function. And just as certain social functions or
impulses are, so to speak, opposed to the ego-centric interests of the
individual, so also the human mind has certain functions or tendencies
which, on account of their collective nature, are to some extent opposed
to the personal mental functions. This is due to the fact that every
human being is born with a highly differentiated brain, which gives him
the possibility of attaining a rich mental function that he has neither
acquired ontogenetically nor developed. In proportion as human brains
are similarly differentiated, the corresponding mental functions are
collective and universal. This circumstance explains the fact that the
unconscious of far-separated peoples and races possesses a remarkable
number of points of agreement. One example among many others which
has been demonstrated is the extraordinary unanimity shown by the
autochthonous forms and themes of myths.
The universal similarity of brains results in a universal possibility of
a similar mental function. This function is the collective psyche, which
is divided into _collective mind_ and _collective soul_.[252] In so far
as there exist differentiations corresponding to race, descent, or even
family, so, beyond the level of the "universal" collective psyche, we
find a collective psyche limited by race, descent, and family. To quote
_P. Janet_, the collective psyche contains the "parties inférieures"
of the mental function, that is, the part of the mental function
which, being fixed and automatic in its action, inherited and present
everywhere, is therefore super-personal or impersonal. The conscious
and the personal unconscious contain as personal differentiations the
"parties supérieures" of the mental function, therefore the part that
has been acquired and developed ontogenetically.
An individual therefore who joins the _a priori_ and unconsciously-given
collective psyche on to his ontogenetically acquired assets, enlarges
thereby the periphery of his personality in an unjustifiable way, with
the corresponding consequences. Inasmuch as the collective psyche
is the "partie inférieure" of the mental function, and therefore is
the fundamental structure underlying every personality, it weighs
heavily upon and depreciates the personality; a fact that is expressed
in the afore-mentioned stifling of self-confidence, and in the
unconscious increase of the ego-emphasis up to the point of a morbid
will to power. Inasmuch as the collective psyche ranks even above the
personality, because it is the mother foundation upon which all personal
differentiations are based, and because it is the common mental function
of the sum total of the individual, therefore its incorporation in the
personality may evoke inflation of self-confidence, an inflation which
is then compensated by an extraordinary sense of inferiority in the
unconscious.
_A dissolution of the pairs of opposites in the personality sets
in_ if, through the assimilation of the unconscious, the collective
psyche be included in the inventory of the personal mental functions.
Alongside the pairs of opposites already alluded to that are so
particularly evident in the neurotic, viz. megalomania and sense of
inferiority, there are also many other pairs, of which I will only
mention the specifically moral pair, that is, good and evil (_scientes
bonum et malum_). They accompany the increase or depreciation of
self-confidence. The specific virtues and vices of humanity are
contained in the collective psyche, just as everything else is. One
man ascribes all the collective virtue to himself as his own personal
merit; another accounts as personal guilt what is but collective
vice. Both are just as illusionary as the sense of greatness and of
inferiority, for imaginary virtues as well as imaginary vices are only
the pairs of moral opposites contained in the collective psyche, which
have become perceptible or have artificially been made conscious. How
far the collective psyche contains these pairs of opposites is shown
by primitive peoples, whose great virtue is praised by one observer;
whereas another observer of the same race reports only the worst
impressions. Both views are true of primitive man, whose personal
differentiation is only beginning; his mental function is essentially
collective. He is more or less identified with the collective psyche,
and therefore without any personal responsibility or inner conflict; his
virtues and vices are collective. Conflict only begins when a conscious
personal development of the mind has already started, whereby the reason
becomes aware of the irreconcilable nature of the pairs of opposites.
The struggle to repress is the consequence of this realisation. Man
wants to be good, therefore the bad must be repressed; this puts an end
to the paradise of the collective psyche.
The repression of the collective psyche, in so far as it was conscious,
was a necessity for the development of the personality, because
collective psychology and personal psychology are in a certain
sense irreconcilable. In the history of thought, whenever a fresh
psychological attitude acquires collective value the formation of
schisms begins. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the history
of religion. A collective point of view, although it may be necessary,
is always dangerous for the individual. It is dangerous because it
is apt to choke and smother personal differentiation. It has derived
this capacity from the collective psyche, which is itself a result of
psychological differentiation of the strong gregarious instincts of
humanity. Collective thought and feeling, and collective accomplishment,
are relatively easy in comparison with individual function and
performance; a fact that is only too prone to lead to a fining down
to the collective level, and is peculiarly disastrous to personal
development. The concomitant loss of personality is replaced--as
is always the case in psychology--by an unconscious all-compelling
binding to and identification with the collective psyche. It cannot
be denied, and should be warningly emphasized that in the analysis
of the unconscious, the collective psychology is merged into the
personal psychology, with the afore-mentioned unpleasant consequences.
These consequences are either bad for the individual's vital feeling
(Lebensgefühl), or they injure his fellow-beings if he have any power
over his environment. Being identified with the collective psyche he
will inevitably try to force the claims of his unconscious upon others,
for identification with the collective psyche is accompanied by a
feeling of universal validity ("God-Almightiness"), which disregards the
different psychology of his fellows.
The worst abuses of this kind may be removed by a clear understanding
and appreciation of the fact that there are totally different
psychological types, and that a psychology of one type cannot be forced
into the mould of another. It is indeed almost impossible for one
type to understand the other completely, and a perfect comprehension
of another's individuality is impossible. _Due regard for another's
individuality_ is not only advisable but is absolutely essential in
analysis, if the development of the other's personality is not to be
stifled. It should not be forgotten that the one type thinks that he is
leaving another person free when he grants him freedom of action, and
the other type when he grants him freedom of thought. In analysis both
must be conceded, in so far as reasons of self-preservation permit the
analyst to accord them. An excessive desire to understand or explain
things is just as useless and injurious as a lack of comprehension.
The collective natural propensities and primary forms of idea and
feeling which analysis of the unconscious has shown to be effective are
an acquisition for the conscious personality which cannot be admitted
unreservedly without prejudicial results.
In practical treatment[253] it is therefore of the utmost importance
to keep the aim of individual development constantly before us. If for
instance the collective psyche be conceived as a personal possession or
as a personal burden, an unbearable weight or strain is put upon the
personality. Hence we must make a clear distinction between the personal
and the collective psyche. In practice this distinction is not easy
because the personal grows out of the collective psyche, and is most
closely joined with it. It is therefore difficult to say which materials
are to be termed collective and which personal. There is no doubt, for
instance, that the archaic symbols so often found in phantasies and
dreams are collective factors. All primary propensities and forms of
thought and feeling are collective; so is everything about which men
are universally agreed, or which is universally understood, said or
done. Upon close consideration it is astonishing to note how much of
our so-called individual psychology is really collective; so much that
the individual element quite disappears. Individuation, however, is
an indispensable psychological requirement. The crushing predominance
of what is collective should make us realise what peculiar care and
attention must be given to the delicate plant "individuality," if it is
to develop.
Human beings have a capacity which is of the utmost use for purposes
of collectivism and most prejudicial to individuation, and that is
the capacity to _imitate_. Collective psychology cannot dispense with
imitation, without which the organization of the State and Society would
be impossible. Imitation includes the idea of suggestibility, suggestive
effect, and mental infection.
But we see daily how the mechanism of imitation is used, or rather
abused, for the purposes of personal differentiation; some prominent
personality, or peculiar trait or activity is simply imitated, which at
least brings about an external differentiation from the environment.
As a rule this delusive attempt to attain individual differentiation
by means of imitation comes to a standstill as mere affectation, the
individual remaining on the same plane as before, only a few degrees
more sterile than formerly, and under an unconscious compulsory bondage
to his environment.
In order to find out what is really individual in us, we should have to
give the matter deep thought, and we should certainly become aware how
exceedingly difficult such a discovery is.
III.--THE INDIVIDUAL AS AN EXCERPT OF THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE.
We now come to a problem the overlooking of which would cause the
greatest confusion.
As I said before, the immediate result of the analysis of the
unconscious is that additional personal portions of the unconscious are
incorporated into the conscious. I called those parts of the unconscious
which are repressed but capable of being made conscious, _the personal
unconscious_. I showed moreover that through the annexation of the
deeper layers of the unconscious, which I called the _impersonal
unconscious_, an extension of the personality is brought about which
leads to the state of God-Almightiness ("Gottähnlichkeit"). This state
is reached by a continuation of the analytical work, by means of which
we have already re-introduced what is repressed to consciousness. By
continuing analysis further we incorporate some distinctly impersonal
universal basic qualities of humanity with the personal consciousness,
which brings about the aforesaid enlargement, and this to some extent
may be described as an unpleasant consequence of analysis.
From this standpoint, the conscious personality seems to be a more or
less arbitrary excerpt of the collective psyche. It appears to consist
of a number of universal basic human qualities of which it is _à priori_
unconscious, and further of a series of impulses and forms which might
just as well have been conscious, but were more or less arbitrarily
repressed, in order to attain that excerpt of the collective psyche,
which we call personality. The term _persona_ is really an excellent
one, for persona was originally the mask which an actor wore, that
served to indicate the character in which he appeared. For if we really
venture to undertake to decide what psychic material must be accounted
personal and what impersonal, we shall soon reach a state of great
perplexity; for, in truth, we must make the same assertion regarding the
contents of the personality as we have already made with respect to the
impersonal unconscious, that is to say that it is _collective_, whereas
we can only concede _individuality to the bounds of the persona_, that
is to the particular choice of personal elements, and that only to a
very limited extent. It is only by virtue of the fact that the persona
is a more or less accidental or arbitrary excerpt of the collective
psyche that we can lapse into the error of deeming it to be _in toto_
individual, whereas as its name denotes, it is only a mask of the
collective psyche; _a mask which simulates individuality_, making others
and oneself believe that one is individual, whilst one is only acting a
part through which the collective psyche speaks.
If we analyse the persona we remove the mask and discover that what
appeared to be individual is at bottom collective. We thus trace
"the Little God of the World" back to his origin, that is, to a
personification of the collective psyche. Finally, to our astonishment,
we realise that the persona was only the mask of the collective psyche.
Whether we follow Freud and reduce the primary impulse to sexuality,
or Adler and reduce it to the elementary desire for power, or reduce
it to the general principle of the collective psyche which contains
the principles of both Freud and Adler, we arrive at the same result;
namely, the dissolution of the personal into the collective. Therefore
in every analysis that is continued sufficiently far, the moment arrives
when the aforesaid God-Almightiness must be realised. This condition
is often ushered in by peculiar symptoms; for instance, by dreams of
flying through space like a comet, of being either the earth, the sun,
or a star, or of being either extraordinarily big or small, of having
died, etc. Physical sensations also occur, such as sensations of being
too large for one's skin, or too fat; or hypnagogic feelings of endless
sinking or rising occur, of enlargement of the body or of dizziness.
This state is characterised psychologically by an extraordinary loss of
orientation about one's personality, about what one really is, or else
the individual has a positive but mistaken idea of that which he has
just become. Intolerance, dogmatism, self-conceit, self-depreciation,
contempt and belittling of "not analysed" fellow-beings, and also of
their opinions and activities, all very frequently occur. An increased
disposition to physical disorders may also occasionally be observed,
but this occurs only if pleasure be taken therein, thus prolonging this
stage unduly.
The wealth of the possibilities of the collective psyche is both
confusing and dazzling. The dissolution of the persona results in
the release of phantasy, which apparently is nothing else but the
functioning of the collective psyche. This release brings materials into
consciousness of whose existence we had no suspicion before. A rich mine
of mythological thought and feeling is revealed. It is very hard to hold
one's own against such an overwhelming impression. That is why this
phase must be reckoned one of the real dangers of analysis, a fact that
should not be concealed.
As may easily be understood, this condition is hardly bearable, and one
would like to put an end to it as soon as possible, for the analogy with
a mental derangement is too close. The essence of the most frequent form
of derangement--dementia præcox or schizophrenia--consists, as is well
known, in the fact that the unconscious to a large extent ejects and
replaces the conscious. The unconscious is given the value of reality,
being substituted for the reality function. The unconscious thoughts
become audible as voices, or visible as visions, or perceptible as
physical hallucinations, or they become fixed ideas of a kind that
supersede reality. In a similar, although not in the same way, by the
resolution of the persona of the collective psyche, the unconscious is
drawn into the conscious. The difference between this state of mind and
that of mental derangement consists in the fact that the unconscious is
brought up by the help of the conscious analysis; at least that is the
case in the beginning of analysis, when there are still strong cultural
resistances against the unconscious to be overcome. Later on, after the
removal of the barriers erected by time and custom, the unconscious
usually proceeds, so to say, in a peremptory manner, sometimes even
discharging itself in torrents into the consciousness. In this phase
the analogy with mental derangement is very close. But it would only
be a real mental disorder should the content of the unconscious _take
the place of the conscious reality_, that is, in other words, if the
contents of the unconscious were believed absolutely and without reserve.
IV.--THE ENDEAVOURS TO FREE THE INDIVIDUALITY FROM THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE.
1. _The Regressive Restoration of the Persona._
The unbearableness of thus being identified with the collective psyche
forces us to find a radical solution. There are two ways open. The first
possibility is the regressive one of trying to restore the persona to
its former condition, by endeavouring to restrain the unconscious by the
application of a reductive theory; for instance, by declaring it to be
nothing but long-repressed and overdue infantile sexuality, for which
it would really be best to substitute the normal sexual function. This
solution is based upon the unmistakable sexualistic symbolism of the
language of the unconscious, and upon the concretistic interpretation
of the same. Or an attempt may be made to apply the power theory,
by conceiving the God-Almightiness as a "virile protest," and as an
infantile striving for power and self-preservation: a theory for which
support is found in the unmistakable pretensions to power that the
unconscious material contains. A further possibility would be to declare
the unconscious to be the archaic collective psychology of primitive
man, an explanation that would not only cover the sexualistic symbolism
and the "God-Almighty" aiming for power of the unconscious content, but
would also apparently do justice to the religious, philosophical, and
mythological aspects and tendencies of the unconscious content. In every
case the conclusion arrived at is the same, viz. that the unconscious is
nothing but this or that, which has already been adequately recognised
and acknowledged as infantile, useless, meaningless, impossible, and out
of date. There is nothing to be done but to shrug one's shoulders and
resign one's self to the inevitable.
To the patient there seems to be no alternative, if one wishes to
continue to live sensibly, but to restore in so far as is possible
that extract of the collective psyche termed persona, to lay the fact
of analysis silently aside, and do one's utmost to forget that one
possesses an unconscious. We shall find support in Faust's words:--
"The sphere of earth is known enough to me;
The view beyond is barred immutably:
A fool, who there his blinking eyes directeth,
And o'er his clouds of peers a place expecteth!
Firm let him stand, and look around him well!
This world means something to the capable.
Why needs he through Eternity to wend?
He here acquires what he can apprehend.
Thus let him wander down his earthly day;
When spirits haunt go quietly his way;
In marching onward, bliss and torment find,
Though every moment, with unsated mind!"
This would be a happy solution if one really could succeed in throwing
off the unconscious to such an extent as to withdraw the libido from
it, and so render it inoperative. But experience proves that energy
cannot be withdrawn from the unconscious; it continues operative, for
the unconscious contains and is indeed itself the source of libido,
from which issue the primary psychic elements, thought-feelings, or
feeling-thoughts--undifferentiated germs of idea and sentiment. It would
therefore be a delusion to believe that by means of some, so to say,
magical theory or method, the libido could be conclusively wrested from
the unconscious, or that it could be to a certain extent disconnected.
One may yield to this illusion for a time, but some day he will be
obliged to declare with Faust:--
"Now fills the air so many a haunting shape,
That no one knows how best he may escape.
What though one day with rational brightness beams,
The night entangles us in webs of dreams.
From our young fields of life we come, elate:
There croaks a bird; what croaks he? Evil fate!
By superstition constantly ensnared,
It grows to us and warns and is declared.
Intimidated thus we stand alone.--
The portal jars, yet entrance is there none.
Is any one here?
CARE: Yes! must be my reply.
FAUST: And, thou, who art thou, then?
CARE: Well--here am I.
FAUST: Avaunt!
CARE: _I am where I should be_:
Though no ear should choose to hear me,
Yet the shrinking heart must fear me;
Though transformed to mortal eyes,
Grimmest power I exercise."
The unconscious cannot be "analysed" to a finish, and thus brought to
a standstill. No one can wrest active force from it for any length of
time. Therefore to act according to the method just described is only
to deceive one's self, and is nothing but a new edition of an ordinary
repression.
2. _The Identification with the Collective Psyche._
The second way would be that of identification with the collective
psyche. That would mean the symptom of "God-Almightiness" developed
into a system; in other words, one would be the fortunate possessor of
the absolute truth, that had yet to be discovered; of the conclusive
knowledge, which would be the people's salvation. This attitude is
not necessarily megalomania ("Grössenwahn") in a direct form, but the
well-known milder form of having a prophetic mission. Weak minds which,
as is so often the case, have correspondingly an undue share of vanity
and misplaced naïveté at their disposal, run a considerable risk of
succumbing to this temptation. The obtaining access to the collective
psyche signifies a renewal of life for the individual, whether this
renewal of life be felt as something pleasant or unpleasant. It would
seem desirable to retain a hold upon this renewal: for one person,
because it increases his feeling for life ("Lebensgefühl"); for another,
because it promises a great accretion to his knowledge. Therefore both
of them, not wishing to deprive themselves of the rich values that lie
buried in the collective psyche, will endeavour by every means possible
to retain their newly gained union with the primal cause of life.
Identification appears to be the nearest way to it, for the merging of
the persona in the collective psyche is a veritable lure to unite one's
self with this "ocean of divinity," and, oblivious of the past, to
become absorbed in it. This piece of mysticism belongs to every finer
individual, just as the "yearning for the mother"--the looking back to
the source whence one originated--is innate in every one.
As I have demonstrated explicitly before,[254] there is a special value
and a special necessity hidden in the regressive longing--which, as is
well-known, Freud conceives as "infantile fixation" or as "incest-wish."
This necessity and longing is particularly emphasized in myths, where it
is always the strongest and best of people, in other words, the hero,
who follows the regressive longing and deliberately runs into danger of
letting himself be devoured by the monster of the maternal first cause.
But he is a hero only because, instead of letting himself be finally
devoured by the monster, he conquers it, and that not only once but
several times. It is only through the conquest of the collective psyche
that its true value can be attained, whether it be under the symbol
of capture of treasure, of an invincible weapon, of a magical means
of defence, or whatever else the myth devises as the most desirable
possession. Hence whoever identifies himself with the collective psyche,
also reaches the treasure which the dragon guards, but against his will
and to his own great injury, by thus allowing himself (mythologically
speaking) to be devoured by the monster and merged with it.
Identification with the collective psyche is therefore a failure;
this way ends just as disastrously as did the first, which led to the
severance of the persona from the collective psyche.
V.--LEADING PRINCIPLES FOR THE TREATMENT OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY.
In order to solve the problem how practical treatment can overcome the
assimilation of the collective psyche, we must first of all make quite
clear to ourselves what was the error of the two ways already described.
We saw that neither the one way nor the other led to any appropriate
result. The first way simply leads the patient back to the point of
departure, having lost the vital values contained in the collective
psyche. The second way leads him straight into the collective psyche,
having lost that detached human existence which alone renders possible a
bearable and satisfying life. There are on both sides values that should
not be lost to the individual.
The mistake is, therefore, neither in the collective psyche nor in the
individual psyche, _but in allowing the one to exclude the other_.
The monistic tendency assists this propensity, for it always suspects
and looks for _one_ principle everywhere. As a general psychological
tendency, monism is a peculiarity of differentiated feeling and thought,
corresponding to the keen desire to make the one or the other function
the supreme psychological principle. The introversion type only knows
the thought principle, and the extroversion type only that of feeling.
This psychological monism--or it would be better to say monotheism--has
the advantage of simplicity, and the disadvantage of one-sidedness. On
the one hand, it signifies the exclusion of the variety and true riches
of life; whilst on the other, it means the practicability of realizing
the ideals of the present day and of the near past. But it does not in
itself signify any actual possibility of human progress.
In the same way _rationalism_ tends towards exclusiveness. Its essence
is to exclude instantly whatever is opposed to its standpoint, whether
it be intellectually logical or emotionally so. In regard to reason
it is both monistic and autocratic. Special thanks are due to Bergson
for having broken a lance for the right of the irrational to exist.
Psychology will probably be obliged to acknowledge and to submit to a
plurality of principles, in spite of the fact that this does not suit
the scientific mind. Only so can psychology be saved from ship-wreck.
But with regard to individual psychology science must waive its claims.
For to speak of a scientific individual psychology is in itself a
_contradictio in adjecto_. It is necessarily always only the collective
part of an individual psychology that can be the subject of scientific
study, for the individual is--according to definition--something unique
and incomparable. A "scientific" individual psychology is a denial
of individual psychology. It may justly be suspected that individual
psychology is indeed a projection of the psychology of him who defines
it. Every individual psychology must have its own text-book, for the
universal text-book only contains collective psychology.
These remarks are intended to prepare for what has to be said about
the treatment of the aforesaid problem. The fundamental error of both
the afore-mentioned ways is simply that the subject is collectively
identified with the one or the other part of his psychology. His
psychology is individual as well as collective, but not in such a manner
as to merge the individual with what is collective, or the collective
with what is individual. The persona must be strictly separated from the
concept of the individual, in so far as the persona can be absolutely
merged with the collective. But what is individual is just that which
can never be absorbed in the collective, and is, too, never identical
with the collective. Therefore, an identification with the collective or
an arbitrary cutting-off from the collective is equivalent to illness;
it is pathological.
As has already been indicated, what is individual appears at first as
the particular selection of those elements of the collective psyche
that contribute to the composition of the persona. As I said before,
the components are not individual but collective. It is only their
combination, or the selection as a model of particular groups that
had already been combined, which is individual. That would be the
individual nucleus which is concealed by the personal mask. By the
particular differentiation of the persona, the resistance is shown of
the individuality to the collective psyche. By analysing the persona, we
transfer a greater value to the individuality, increasing thereby its
conflict with collectivity. This conflict obviously is a psychological
conflict in the individual. The dissolution of the compromise between
the two halves of a pair of opposites increases the effectiveness of
the contrast. This conflict does not exist within the sphere of purely
unconscious natural life, although the purely physiological life of the
individual also has to comply with collective demands.
The natural unconscious attitude is harmonious; the body, with its
capacities and needs, providing immediately indications and limitations,
that prevent intemperance and lack of proportion. A differentiated
psychological function, however, always inclines towards disproportion,
on account of the one-sidedness which is cultivated by the conscious
rationality of intention. What is called mental individuality, is,
also, an expression of the individual corporeity, being, so to speak,
identical with it. This sentence might obviously also be reversed,
a fact that does not materially alter the real psychological data
concerning the intimate relation of the individuality to the body. At
the same time, the body is also that which makes the subject resemble
all others to a great extent, although it is the individual body that is
differentiated from all others.
Similarly the mental or moral individuality differs from all others,
although in every respect it is so constituted as to place one person
on an equality with all others. Every living creature that is able
freely to develop itself individually without any coercion at all, will,
through the perfecting of its individuality, soonest realize the ideal
type of its species, and therefore, figuratively speaking, will have
collective validity.
The persona is always identical with a _typical_ attitude, in which
_one_ pyschological function dominates, _e.g._ feeling, or thought, or
intuition. This one-sidedness always causes the relative repression of
the other functions. In consequence of this circumstance, the persona
is hindering to the development of the individual. The dissolution of
the persona is, therefore, an indispensable condition of individuation.
It is, therefore, to some extent impossible to achieve individuation
by means of conscious intention; for conscious intention leads to a
conscious attitude, which excludes everything that "does not suit." But
the assimilation of the unconscious contents leads, on the contrary, to
a condition in which conscious intention is excluded, being replaced by
a process of development that appears to us irrational. This process
alone signifies individuation, its _product_ being individuality as
defined above, viz. as something individual that is at the same time
universal. So long as the persona exists individuality is repressed,
betraying itself at most by the particular selection of personal
requisites, of what might be called the actor's costumes. Only when the
unconscious is assimilated does the individuality become more prominent,
and with it also that uniting psychological phenomenon between the
ego and non-ego, expressed by the word _attitude_, is now no longer a
typical attitude but an individual one.
What is paradoxical in these formulations arises from the same cause
from which the conflict about the "universalia" formerly arose. The
phrase "animal nullumque animal genus est" makes the fundamental paradox
clearly comprehensible. What exists "really" is individual: that which
is universal is existing psychologically, but being caused by the
real-existing similarities of individual things. The individual is,
therefore, the individual thing that has, to a greater or less extent,
those attributes upon which the collective conception of "collectivity"
rests; and the more individual he is, the more he develops those
attributes that are the basis of a collective concept of human nature.
If a grotesque figure, suggested by the initial situation of our problem
be permitted, it is Buridan's ass between the two bundles of hay.
His questioning is obviously wrong: the question is not whether the
hay-bundle on the right or the left be the better one, or whether he
should begin to eat on the right or the left hand, _but what he himself
would like to do, what he is eager for_--that is the point. He is
thinking of the hay and not of himself, and therefore he does not know
what he really wants.
The question is: what at this moment is the natural direction of the
growth of this individual?