Jung

by Phil Goss

  As Schopenhauer put it, ‘we can often give no account of the origins of our deepest thoughts’ (1883, p. 328). In this regard, the tone of Schopenhauer’s more pessimistic perspective on what drives the human psyche comes through more in the writings of Freud than Jung. Schopenhauer proposed that there is a deeper layer of mind we are not conscious of (using the metaphor of the surface of the earth to illustrate this, suggesting we are not conscious of what lies beneath it). This way of looking at things strongly influenced Jung in establishing his theories, based on a principle that what leads us to operate consciously has a deep, unconscious, origin, although Jung’s model of the unconscious was more nuanced by creativity and spirituality.

  THE INFLUENCE OF KANT

  Another key philosophical influence was Immanuel Kant (1724–1824). One of his most important ideas was to identify two types of knowledge: the phenomenal, which is what we experience and then understand through cognitive processes; and the noumenal, which describes what we cannot grasp in this way, ‘the thing in itself’. Jung’s notion of the archetypes as ephemeral essences, which nevertheless provide the template in the unconscious for human behaviours and experiences, reflects this idea of there being ‘essences’ which we cannot know through ordinary experience, but which profoundly influence it.

  In turn, this general formula is a modern reflector of an ancient way of looking at reality, initiated by Plato. For Jung, Kant’s emphasis on a priori knowledge supported his view that we do not enter the world, nor engage with it, as a tabula rasa (or ‘empty slate’). Rather, there are things we innately ‘know’ prior to experiencing them, such as the law of causality, which we seem to instinctively know as part of our evolved survival mechanisms (e.g. ‘If I don’t eat, I will be hungry’), as well as our need to understand what causes, or underlies, what we experience. The direct influence of this idea of Kant’s can be seen in Jung’s words here:

  ‘The need to satisfy the law of causality accompanies us everywhere like a faithful shepherd…, does it not step into our path… (and)… challenge us to halt on the path and, overcome by doubt, to say ‘What was I yesterday, what am I today, what will I be tomorrow?… What is the purpose of the starry sky with its countless worlds which whirl and swirl on their paths for millions of years?’

  Jung, 1898, para. 187

  THE INFLUENCE OF NIETZSCHE

  The works and ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) had a powerful effect on Jung. Nietzsche emphasized the centrality of the individual who wrestles with themselves, in a constant state of inner conflict and open to the vagaries of life and fate, without the formerly assumed presence of God. His term for the individual who takes on the task of overcoming the challenges of all aspects of their nature, and goes against the rationalist and materialist tendencies of the age, is Ubermensch (which can be translated into English as either ‘Overman’ or ‘Superman’). There is a clear imprint of Jung’s notion of individuation here and Jung took inspiration from Nietzsche in its formulation.

  Jung thought Nietzsche must have been in the grip of an archetype – Dionysus, the Greek god of wine (representative of instincts, pleasure and the human impulse to satisfy its urges). Nietzsche juxtaposed Dionysus with Apollo – often associated with clear thinking and civilized values – in his writing, seeing these influences pulling against one another as part of the flux of human experience. For him, nothing was fixed. Instead: ‘According to Nietzsche, we must not seek knowledge of life that is a priori, rather, we must seek experience of life and our own interpretation of the world’ (Huskinson, 2004, p. 23).

  This stance resonated with Jung as he approached the challenges presented by the psyches of his patients, not to mention the mysteries of his own. In a sense, this emphasis from Nietzsche on the primacy of individual experience over shared social, scientific and linguistic conventions, complemented the other key influences described. Plato’s forms, Schopenhauer’s unconscious will, and Kant’s separation of the noumenal and phenomenal helped Jung, along with the power of Nietzsche’s ideas, to establish the philosophical and theoretical foundations of his approach.

  Although there were other thinkers who helped shape Jung’s view of the human psyche, plus wider cultural, intellectual and spiritual ideas, the impact of the philosophers described in this chapter on his approach should not be underestimated.

  Spotlight: Is Jung the original ‘New Age’ thinker?

  Jung and his ideas have often been associated with so-called ‘New Age’ thinking. This term is catch-all for a whole range of alternative spiritual, psychological and social/political ideas that have been around since the 1960s. Some of Jung’s ideas on dreams, the imagination, archetypes and spirituality crop up in the writings and activities associated with ‘the New Age’, e.g. his view that we are entering ‘the age of Aquarius’ (see Chapter 17 where this question is scrutinized in more detail).

  Key terms

  Complex: A coming together or ‘constellation’ of powerful influences in the unconscious of the individual, which forms an autonomous psychic entity. This is made up of formative personal influences, current events which bring these back into play, and personality features; all given a powerful archetypal charge. A classic example would be a mother or father complex. A complex has enormous power in the psyche, and its dissolution is a key task of analysis.

  Neurosis: Freud used this term to describe the underlying problem that lay behind a patient’s presenting symptom (e.g. recurring headaches, high anxiety). This had a psychosexual root and needed to be identified and recognized by the patient, before the symptom would disappear (‘the talking cure’). For Jung, neurosis had a broader aetiology (‘cause’). Avoidance of legitimate suffering – needed to face and overcome underlying psychological or spiritual problems – perpetuates the neurosis.

  Noumenal: An unknowable essence we experience but cannot grasp cognitively.

  Phenomenal: What we experience and then understand through cognitive processes (Kant’s ideas, which influenced Jung).

  Platonism: Based on Plato’s emphasis on reality being an imperfect version of a perfected set of ‘forms’; influenced Jung’s ideas on archetypes.

  Superman (or Ubermensch): Nietzsche’s term for the stance needed by someone who is trying to confront and overcome their own nature/weaknesses. Influenced Jung’s ideas on individuation.

  Dig deeper

  Bishop, P., Carl Jung (London: Reaktion, 2014)

  Brome, V., Jung: Man and Myth (London: Macmillan, 1978)

  Casement, A., Carl Gustav Jung (London: Sage, 2001)

  Ellenberger, H., The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry (London: Basic Books, 1970)

  Ferber, M., Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

  Flanagan, D. P. and Harris, P. L., Contemporary Intellectual Assessment: Theories, Tests, and Issues (New York: Guilford Press, 2012)

  Freud, S. (1895) and Breuer, J., Studies in Hysteria (London: Penguin, 2004)

  Freud, S., A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Part Three: General Theory of the Neuroses (London: Penguin, 1920)

  Howard, A., Philosophy for Counselling and Psychotherapy: From Pythagorus to Postmodernism (London: Macmillan, 2000)

  Huskinson, L., Nietzsche and Jung: The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites (Hove: Brunner-Routledge, 2004)

  Jung, C. G. (1898), ‘Thoughts on the nature and value of speculative inquiry’ in Jung, C. G., The Zofinga Lectures (Princeton, NJ: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983)

  Jung, C. G., Psychology and Religion: West and East, CW11, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969)

  Jung, C. G., The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, CW9i (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959)

  Jung, C.G., The Tavistock Lectures, Lecture 2, CW18 (London: Routledge, 1976)

  Schopenhauer, A., The World as Will and Idea (London: Routledge, 1883)

  Shamdasani, S., Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology
: The Dream of a Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

  Fact-check (answers at the back)

  1 Why was Jung influenced by reading Krafft-Ebing’s Text-Book of Insanity, Based on Clinical Observations?

  a The book provided a guide to different psychiatric diagnoses

  b The author described exciting stories of his work as a psychiatrist

  c The author acknowledged how subjective psychiatric diagnosis could be

  d The book linked psychiatry to Kantian philosophy

  2 What important principle about schizophrenia did Bleuler identify?

  a Delusions of grandeur can be diminished through hypnosis

  b A person suffering from schizophrenia cannot word associate

  c If the delusional state is exaggerated by suggesting relevant words, the person with schizophrenia will gain insight and can get better

  d If the identification with the delusional state can be loosened, the person with schizophrenia will gain insight and can get better

  3 What can word association form the basis for identifying?

  a Complexes

  b Ego states

  c Archetypes

  d Shadow

  4 What makes association to a word more significant?

  a Speaking it very slowly

  b Making it immediately

  c Taking an unusually long time to produce

  d Speaking it in a low voice

  5 Whose work did Jung’s mother point him towards?

  a Nietzsche’s

  b Goethe’s

  c Kant’s

  d Socrates’

  6 How does Schopenhauer’s unconscious ‘will’ most clearly operate?

  a Through falling asleep

  b Through the drive to procreate

  c Through the drive to develop self-awareness

  d Through automatic writing

  7 What template did Jung derive from Plato?

  a Individuation

  b Shadow projection

  c Ego and self

  d Archetypes

  8 What does Kant’s phenomenal and noumenal distinction refer most closely to?

  a The familiar and the unfamiliar

  b What we can understand and what we cannot

  c The personal and the collective unconscious

  d The old and the new

  9 What did Kant’s critique of the tabula rasa idea influence Jung to assert?

  a We need to clear our minds to do ‘active imagination’

  b We are born as a ‘clean slate’ wholly shaped by the environment

  c We are not born as a ‘clean slate’ but bring our personality into life with us

  d We need to make sure the table is clean when writing clinical notes

  10 How did Nietzsche’s Ubermensch inform Jung’s ‘individuation’?

  a He suggested we should all try to be like ‘Superman’

  b He argued that our task is to fully embrace life as well as who we are

  c He proposed that we need to get over the fact that we cannot control anything

  d He argued that we should follow all our drives and desires all the time

  4

  Freud and Jung: a meeting of minds?

  Jung first met Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in February 1907, after a period of correspondence between them, stimulated initially by Freud’s appreciation of Jung’s short book Diagnostic Association Studies (1906). Freud was pleased that Jung – on the basis of his word-association work – had seemingly come to similar conclusions as him about the roots of neuroses and the nature of repression.

  This chapter describes the key features of their work together and considers Jung’s debt to Freud’s ideas, as well as the ways in which Jung took analytical psychology off in directions which were very different from Freud’s model. The discussion will also trace the build-up to the rupture between them.

  Common insights and ideas

  Jung had, after an initially cool response to Freud’s seminal The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), increasingly come to see the importance of the insights Freud came up with in this book. In particular, Freud’s notions about how unconscious influences operate in the human psyche had been informing Jung’s work at the Burgholzi for at least three years before they met.

  Freud was also pleased that Jung, in his 1906 paper: Freud’s Theory of Hysteria: A Reply to Aschaffenburg, had explicitly supported Freud’s ideas in the face of attacks in the academic world, despite the professional risks involved. Tellingly, however, the developing correspondence which followed Freud’s initial letter commending Jung on his book included an acknowledgement from Freud of Jung’s differing view, that the roots of hysteria were not exclusively sexual. Freud expressed the hope that Jung’s views would move more fully alongside his, and said there was a risk that people would use this difference between them to undermine the psychoanalytic project in the future (Donn, 1988).

  Spotlight: Freud and Jung’s first meeting

  When they met in Vienna for the first time, Freud and Jung talked non-stop for 13 hours. There was clearly much to talk about… but this outpouring of thoughts and views may also reflect how isolated and misunderstood both men felt about their attempts to understand the workings of the unconscious. Each now seemed to have found a kindred spirit, and the two pioneers made the most of the time, though Freud had to politely but firmly intervene after his younger colleague talked almost exclusively for the first three hours. Freud ‘interrupted him with the suggestion that they conduct their discussion more systematically… and proceeded to group the contents of the harangue under several precise headings…’ (Jones, 1955, p. 36). As Jones also reports, this systematic ordering of the areas Jung had been describing relentlessly to Freud greatly impressed Jung, as did all else about Freud.

  There is a clear sense in the accounts of their initial meeting and friendship of Jung idealizing Freud, who was 21 years older than him. One might speculate that this was Jung’s father complex at work: here was a man a generation older than him, who had a razor-sharp brain and was at the cutting edge of contemporary thinking about the nature of human consciousness and the search for curative methods.

  Inevitably, it would have been difficult for Jung not to compare this impressive figure with his own father, and with his exasperation with his father’s identification with traditional religion, as the source of the ‘truth’ about the human condition. Kerr (1994) has even suggested that this first meeting with Freud fulfilled Jung’s search for a replacement ‘religion’; the connection between Freud’s Jewishness and the powerful new ideas to be found in psychoanalysis provided this.

  Likewise, Freud was struck by how intelligent and insightful the younger man was, and would come to the view that it was Jung who was best placed to take up the mantle of chief advocate of psychoanalytic ideas and practices when he (Freud) would eventually step aside. Jung acceded to Freud’s offer, in 1910, to become president of the International Psychoanalytic Association and edit the first psychoanalytic journal. However, while an undoubtedly strong bond existed between the two men, the seeds for their eventually acrimonious split were perhaps sown in the shadow dynamics (to use a relevant Jungian term) of their initial coming together, and the differing expectations each of them had.

  The honeymoon period of the first few years of their friendship and professional collaboration meant that the cracks did not show significantly (other than in the distinction around the exclusivity of psychosexual causation, noted above). However, what they each wanted from the other did not match sufficiently for them to remain comfortable, in the longer term, with the other’s personality and views. Storr (1994) expresses it in terms of what we could describe as ‘father–son’ and ‘son–father’ transferences. Jung wanted a version of father he had never had, and Freud the idealized son he was unconsciously looking for:

  ‘the kind of son Freud wanted was one who would be willing to defer unconditionally to his authority, and to perpetuate, wi
thout modification, the doctrines and principles of his rule… Jung needed a father figure through whose influence he could overcome his adolescent misgivings and discover his own masculine authority.’

  Storr, 1994, pp. 21–2

  This shadow behind the initially convivial and enthusiastic partnership of Freud and Jung gradually worked its divisive power over the situation, as each of them became more disappointed and frustrated with the other. The differences in opinion over key tenets of psychoanalytic theory, unconsciously charged with the unspoken and unfulfilled needs the one had of the other, became too great to sustain within a workable professional relationship and personal friendship. So what were those key differences?

  Sticking points between Freud and Jung

  The differences between the ideas and theories of Freud and Jung can be divided into four main categories: the influences of libido, of the collective versus the personal, of science versus religion, and the nature and purpose of dreams.

  THE NATURE OF LIBIDO: DETERMINISTIC VS PROSPECTIVE

  As already indicated, the place of sexuality in influencing the human psyche, and the behaviours and relational patterns arising from this, had been a source of differing views between the two men, as early as 1906. Jung consistently found it hard to stomach Freud’s notion that libido – the energy which flows around the human organism and which generates sexualized (and aggressive) drives and behaviours, was as thoroughly dominated by the sexual imperative. For Freud, this famously converted into his developmental schema whereby, for him, all human infants pass through ‘psychosexual stages’ (Freud, 1962) – oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital. All adult neuroses could be traced back to where something faulty had crept in during one or more of these. Freud often believed he was encountering individuals ‘stuck’ unconsciously at one of these stages in his consulting room.