Jung and His Contributions: Part Two

“Americans are Jung and Easily Freudened” – James Joyce

“Americans Are Afreud and Want to be Jung Again” – Robert McAndrews

Carl Jung’s ideas have been considerably more influential than those of any other followers of Freud. Alfred Adler was the first follower to split with Freud and his influence has continued to some extent, both directly with Adlerian psychology and psychotherapy, but also indirectly through some of family therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. I will cover this later when I post about Adler. Other significant early followers include Sandor Ferenczi, Karl Abraham, Hans Sachs, Ernest Jones, Otto Rank, none of whom have left much of a lasting influence. Anna Freud, who would also be considered a follower of her father’s theories and practices, was likely the most influential after Jung. Jung’s early research with psychological types and his interests in parapsychology, mythology and alchemy stimulated his thinking beyond his commitment to Freud’s sexual libido theory.

Psychological Types

While Jung sought ways to organize his understandings of symbols he encountered in dreams of patients and his own dreams, and his research into myths and religions of the world, he also was aware of the ways any of his category constructions could be misunderstood and /or taken as easy and simple ways to characterize and identify people and their behavior patterns. He made specific cautionary comments in some of his late writings, particularly in the Introductory chapter in “Man and His Symbols” (1972 ) which includes essays by several other key followers of Jung, and he edited, and which was intended for a general audience.

Nevertheless, Jung’s terms ‘introvert’ and ‘extrovert’, as well as ‘anima’ and ‘animus’, and ‘archetypes’ have become widely incorporated into almost everyday language around the world, much as Freud’s terms ‘ego’, ‘id’, ‘superego’ have become our universal reference to self dynamics. Jung wrote his book, “Psychological Types” in 1921. His typology developed over some years through exchanges with his friend Hans Schmid and Sabina Spielrein, with whom he also had an intimate relationship. Bair (2004) says: “Jung saved his own typology for the last chapter, which comprised the final 150 pages or so of his text. To the ‘attitudes’ of introvert and extravert, he added four further differentiations called functions. To ‘feeling’ and ‘thinking’ he now adopted Schmid’s and Toni Wolff’s suggestions and gave equal status to ‘intuition’ and ‘sensation’. Feeling and thinking he grouped under the rubric ‘rational’ while sensation and feeling became ‘non rational’. Two attitudes and four functions thus permitted a grand total of eight possible psychological types. In the years following the 1921 publication,Jung was asked repeatedly why had proposed a system composed of two types, four functions, and eight possible types. ‘That there are exactly four is a matter of empirical fact’ was his consistent response.” (pgs. 287-288)

This response of Jung suggests that he has assumed some scientific credibility of the categories he has developed, yet my own critique of our tendency to classify people into types, which I will mention below, is actually echoed by Jung in this statement by Bair(2004 ): “Few persons, it seemed, read the book as Jung intended. By the time it had gone through multiple printings in many languages, he felt compelled to address the ‘regrettable misunderstanding’ that had turned the book into ‘nothing but a childish parlour game’. He complained that even within the medical profession his typology was used to slot patients into his system and give them corresponding ‘advice’. He insisted that his ‘typology is not in any sense to stick labels on people on first sight: it is not physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimitation of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical'”. (p.288) “Nothing but a childish parlour game”. This has, indeed, been part of the legacy of Jung’s typology terms. We casually refer to others as extroverts and introverts as if there was some credibility in these characterizations. My own concern about any kind of psychological typing, to include the diagnostic labels in the DSM, is that the process reinforces our inclination to fix others with particular characteristics and identify them only with these characteristics. Jung characterized himself as an introvert and he characterized Freud as an extravert, yet they were likely both in some combination – as are many people. Jung added thinking, feeling, intuition, sensation as “functions” possibly to give more flexibility and breadth to introversion and extraversion, but these function terms simply multiply the tendency to fix people in more categories. An example of the kind of influence Jung’s typology has had would be the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was constructed as an adaptation of his typology and has been employed in various organizations as a tool for enhancing psychological insights. My position is that all humans express all of these characteristics( thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation) and we express them to varying degrees and rates at various times under various contextual situations. A typology of any kind does not capture context, duration, or variations in circumstances. I suspect that Jung might agree with me on this.

Anima and Animus

I can be accused of using anima and animus rather loosely to refer to female and male energy or female and male principles or elements. According to Jung we each have both anima and animus elements. As he wrote in “Man and His Symbols” (1972): “In the Middle Ages, long before the physiologists demonstrated that by reason of our glandular structure there are both male and female elements in all of us, it was said that ‘every man carries a woman within himself’. It is this female element in every male that I have called the ‘anima’ (p.16). And likewise, Jung refers to the male element in every female as the ‘animus’. Marie Louise von Franz devotes chapter three in “Man and his Symbols”, about the individuation process, to analyzing the dynamics of anima and animus through the unconscious processes via dreams and mythology. She states: “The male personification of the unconscious in woman – the animus- exhibits both good and bad aspects, as does the anima in man” (p.198). von Franz borrows images and stories primarily from Western mythologies to identify what I consider rather stereotypical characteristics of female and male personalities and behaviors, according to standard cultural constructs. None of these characteristics are necessarily based in biology. The various symbols of anima and animus as interpreted in dreams by an analytic psychotherapist may assist in a depth therapy process, but otherwise the utility of these abstract types is limited.

Archetypes

Story: A number of years ago I was giving a talk to a Jung Society group in Colorado about the Hero Monomyth and male journeys. I discussed the hero’s journey as an archetype and went on to say that archetypes were abstract concepts. Quite a number of people in the audience were extremely upset with my characterization and argued that archetypes were actual “things”, as if Jung had “discovered” them and not “invented” them. It was not clear to me at the time why they believed this and I was not familiar enough with what Jung actually had written about archetypes. I have since come to realize that some followers of Jung’s writings have treated them as biblical and they have interpreted certain terms and concepts in a doctrinaire fashion. This is what Jung says in “Man and His Symbols”(1972):

“My views about the ‘archaic remnants’, which I call ‘archetypes’ or ‘primordial images’, have been constantly criticized by people who lack a sufficient knowledge of the psychology of dreams and mythology. The term ‘archetype’ is often misunderstood as meaning certain definite mythological images or motifs. But these are nothing more than conscious representations; it would be absurd to assume that such variable representations could be inherited. The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif – representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern. My critics have incorrectly assumed that I am dealing with ‘inherited representations’, and on that ground they have dismissed the idea of the archetype as mere superstition.” (pgs. 57-58) Further on he says: “Here I must clarify the relation between instincts and archetypes: what we properly call instincts are physiological urges, and are perceived by the senses. but at the same time, they also manifest themselves in fantasies and often reveal their presence only by symbolic images. These manifestations are what I call archetypes. they are without known origin; and they reproduce themselves in any time or in any part of the world – even where transmission by direct descent or ‘cross-fertilization’ through migration must be ruled out.” (p.58)

Jung has written other descriptions/ definitions of archetypes elsewhere, but since this quote is from the essay chapter he wrote in the last year of his life, I believe it best represents his thinking. I believe he is stating that archetypes are symbolic representations of universal human motifs or themes and can be manifested through dreams, mythologies, fairytales, and so on. Themes such as the child or wise old man or wise old woman or the hero’s journey are found universally, because all cultures have certain essential experiences. Fathers and mothers and the roles of fathers and mothers, as well as children and other human relationships are at base universal and the representations and metaphorical images can be found throughout history and across all cultures. These representations can be understood as archetypes. Perhaps some confusion arises when Jung states that archetypes are “at the same time both images and emotions” and he further explains in “Man and His Symbols” (1972), “But since so many people have chosen to treat archetypes as if they were part of a mechanical system that can be learned by rote, it is essential to insist that they are not mere names, or even philosophical concepts. They are pieces of life itself – images that are integrally connected to the living individual by the bridge of the emotions. That is why it is impossible to give an arbitrary (or universal) interpretation of any archetype. It must be explained in the manner indicated bu the whole-life situation of the particular individual to whom it relates.”(p.89). Jung seems to be saying that archetypes are not simply symbolic representations or images – that these images are directly connected to essential human experiences and that they are expressed individually, though within a “collective” context. I have thought of this as a synchronic event within a diachronic frame. In my own analyses of the hero’s journey (as an archetype), I identified a journey pattern which seems universal in form, yet individualized in expression or manifestation.

Jung wrote “Four Archetypes: Mother/Rebirth/Spirit/Trickster “(1973), (taken from his 1934 paper, “Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious”), in which he summarizes his thinking about archetypes and the collective unconscious. Since his notions about archetypes are directly connected to his ideas about the personal and collective unconscious, I will take this up in my next post.

5 thoughts on “Jung and His Contributions: Part Two”

  1. Bob, I appreciated the amount of detail you shared regarding Jung’s falling out with Freud. (It has been a long time since I read Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and I haven’t read “On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement.”)

    I fully agree with you regarding Jung’s psychological types: It’s a less than scientific, black and white sort of schema. And as you say, it is likely that Jung would now agree with that assessment – if he could stop rolling in his grave long enough to do so.

    Jung, in your quote from p. 58 of Man and His Symbols, states unequivocally that archetypes are the manifest expression, often in the form of symbolic images, of physiological instincts. Yet in the very next sentence he states that archetypes are “without known origin”; and he has previously asserted that “it would be absurd to assume that such variable representations could be inherited.” There is a distinct lack of clarity here, and perhaps there is even waffling. I think Jung might have avoided this tangle — albeit at further risk to his scientific reputation — if he had been willing to simply and straightfowardly make the case that archetypes, though they may indeed have originally derived from instincts, are inherent in individual minds by dint of the fact that all individuals are psychologically embedded in the collective unconscious. But such a construct demands the further question, in what form do these archetypal images persist in the unconscious? Or for that matter, what exactly is the collective unconscious, in physical terms?

    Anything that exists, including such ephemeral things as ideas, thoughts and feelings, is by definition physical. An idea exists only when it is held in one or more minds. If mental activity is merely what the brain does (so that an idea is a well-organized if fleeting electrochemical construct), we are hard-pressed to account for the universality of archetypes, for how would they be transmitted from mind to mind, globally? If, however, mind (consciousness) somehow precedes and exceeds the human being, then there is a clear path to understanding how universal archetypes occur in the psyche of every person, as part and parcel of the collective unconscious.

    But again, what might the physical substrate of the collective unconscious be? If all that exists is created by consciousness (whether we conceive of consciousness as unitary or [at least temporarily] individuated) rather than the other way around, then, in line with the Buddhists, the ancient Hebrews, and any number of latter-day thinkers (whose ranks are noticeably swelling), we may posit that when consciousness has a thought, it is expressed as some sort of energy (“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” [Psalm 147:18]), even if we cannot yet fully describe or measure it:. So Spirit did it; or, if it turns out that we are spiritual individuals, bits of Spirit, then the universe is our collective creation, which, over the eons, became concretized as certain thoughts were thunk, agreed upon, rethunk, and made persistent. And the collective unconscious is but one corner of that creation (and as real as real can be).

    Not that the thinker(s) are any thing. It all arises out of and returns to Emptiness, and that is the greatest mystery.

    That’s what I think.

    1. Well, Charley, I figured you would have something pithy to contribute. As I mentioned earlier, the notion of archetypes as something other than an abstract concept had not occurred to me until my presentation to the Jung Society group. In my own work on the journey archetypes I was careful not to suggest that the pattern I identified in the many types of journeys investigated was somehow predetermined. I was the one outlining what I decided was a particular pattern, and my research indicated that the pattern was universal. But that does not prove that the journey archetype was a preexisting given. I believe Jung and his many explicators are somewhat wobbly in their definitions of archetypes, and I’m fine with that.
      Regarding your statement, “anything that exists, including such ephemeral things as ideas,thoughts and feelings, is by definition physical”, I guess I am baffled. Are ideas, thoughts and feelings physical? Or are you meaning that they have a physical substrate?
      Regarding the rest of your musing about consciousness and the collective unconscious, my next post will be addressing this, and I can suggest Shoji Muramoto’s translation of Jung’s exchange with Shin’ichi Hisamatsu and Muramoto’s “Jung and Buddhism” in “Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy”, which I can send you.

      1. Bob, with regard to the question of the concrete existence of archetypes, I would just hazard to say that, while the journey archetype might not be a “preexisting given” in the sense of a fixed energy pattern into which journiers somehow plug, it is nevertheless real, in that it must, I think, comprise such elements as a genetically evolved proclivity to explore and a psychological sense that may develop in the course of a lifetime that one has set out on a meaningful path and wishes to pursue it to its end. But in what way (I’m sure you’ll be asking) is a “psychological sense,” itself constructed of thoughts and feelings, to be construed as real?

        So now it’s time to address the question you threw back at me: “Are ideas, thoughts and feelings physical? Or are you meaning that they have a physical substrate?” The short answer is: yes. They are are physical because they exist. They exist as patterns of electrical and chemical energy in brains. And, I would like to add, they exist more fundamentally as expressions of the capacity of spiritual beings, all of them aspects of unitary Spirit, to create and maintain the stuff of which the universe is composed. That is, I’m pretty sure that all that is is thought and feeling, which, on the level where humans operate, tends to be so fixed and persistent that it can be more or less accurately described by physical laws. But there is much more to life than that, it seems to me.

        Thank you for Awakening and Insight.

        1. Perhaps we have “a genetically evolved proclivity to explore” and this helps explain the perceived universality of the journey pattern. From Jung’s point of view we will all go through an individuation process naturally, unless there are various barriers, dysfunctions in our social/psychological environments. We might then be guided by a Jungian analyst to navigate the challenges with life changes in the individuation process. The mythological hero journeyer also typically has spirit or animal guides to deal with the challenging initiation phase of the journey.
          Regarding thoughts and feelings being “physical”, I will let you have their physicality, but what about hallucinations and delusions? I agree that there is much more to life than the thoughts and feelings.Thanks for your thoughts and feelings.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *