Welcome! This site offers a variety of resources about Jungian Analytical Psychology. The Antioch University Seattle (AUS) Jungian Discussion Group monthly schedule is posted below (see schedule in right column). For questions or comments, please contact Ann Blake via AUS e-mail or stop by Ann's AUS campus office. You can also bring questions and comments to the AUS Jungian Discussion Group (see schedule in right column below).
See also:

Jungian Terms, Concepts, and Glossaries

http://www.terrapsych.com/jungdefs.html


http://www.psychceu.com/Jung/sharplexicon.html 


http://www.cgjungcenterphiladelphia.org/References/DictionaryofAnalyticalPsychologyv2007_12_31.pdf


http://www.nyaap.org/jung-lexicon/f/ 


http://www.bemyastrologer.com/definitionsofjungianterms.html


http://www.carl-jung.net/glossary.html


Brief Overview of Jungian Theoretical Formulation
Jungian Theoretical Formulation
Course handout for Mental Health Counseling Case Consultation III
School of Applied Psychology, Counseling, and Family Therapy
Antioch University Seattle
Ann B. Blake, Ph.D.
November 14, 2010

The following theoretical formulation, based on Jungian Analytical Psychology (Douglas as cited in Corsini & Wedding, 2000), “offers an expanded view of humanity’s personal and collective realities. . . .offers a map of the human psyche that encompasses conscious and unconscious elements, including both a transpersonal (archetypal) and personal layer in the unconscious” (p. 99).

Collective unconscious: “vast, hidden psychic resource shared by all human beings” (p. 107).

Archetype: “organizing principle, a system of readiness, and a dynamic nucleus of energy. . . .an inherited predisposition to form their personality and to view reality according to universal inner patterns” (p. 100).

Personal unconscious: forgotten/denied elements + archetypal images and complexes.
Complex: “sensitive, energy-filled cluster of emotions” (p. 100).
Self: “archetypal energy that orders and integrated the personality, an encompassing wholeness out of which personality evolves” (p. 107).
Personal shadow: “balances the ego in the personal unconscious. . . .contains everything that could or should be part of the ego but that the ego denies and refuses to develop. . . .can contain both positive and negative aspects” (p. 107).

Ego: “the most important fragment of the Self. . . .becomes the ‘I’—an entity comprising everything a persons believes himself or herself to be, including thoughts, feelings, wants, and bodily sensations. . . .center of consciousness, mediates between the unconscious realm and the outer world. . .creating a strong and resilient ego that can filter stimuli from each of these domains without identifying or being overcome by either side” (p. 107).

Consciousness: “understanding of who we are comes from two sources: the first derives from encounters with social reality. . .the second from what we deduce from our observations of others” (p. 107).
Persona: the role we chose to play, the “public ‘face’ of an individual in
society. . . .shields the ego and reveals appropriate aspects of it, smoothing the individual’s interactions with society. . . .allows for the privacy of thought, feelings, ideas, and perceptions, as well as for modulation in the way they are revealed (p. 108).

Task of the first part of life: “strengthening the ego, taking one’s place in the world of relationships with others, and fulfilling one’s duty to society” (p. 108).

Task of the second half of life: “reclaim undeveloped parts of oneself, fulfilling these aspects of personality more completely”: individuation (p. 108).

Individuation: “not perfection” but rather “completion and wholeness, including acceptance of the more negative parts on one’s personality and adoption of an ethical, though individual, response to them” (p. 108). “The mid-life crisis, looked at in this way, becomes a challenging opportunity for further development” (p. 108).

Typology: functional types based on people’s tendency to perceive reality primarily through one of four mental functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. . . .experienced in an extraverted or an introverted way (p. 108).

Opposites: “Jung (1976) wrote, ‘Opposites are the ineradicable and indispensable preconditions for all psychic life’ (p. 1609” (p. 109). “These opposites engage in active struggle; personality development takes place through the tension this conflict produces in the psyche” (p. 109). The goal is to increase consciousness by resolving the conflict between the opposites.

Enantiodromia: “everything sooner or later turns into its opposite. . . .governed the cycles of human history as well as personal development. . . .escape such cycles only through consciousness”—underlies his theory of compensation (p. 110).

Compensation: opposites lay in dynamic balance, so everything in the personality balanced or supplemented its opposite in s self-regulatory way” (p. 110).

Transcendent Function: “reconciling symbols, or images that form bridges between opposites. . . .synthesize two opposing attitudes of condition in the psyche by means of third forces different from both but uniting the two” (p. 110).

Mandala: “symbol of wholeness and the center of the personality” (p. 110).

Preoedipal Development: “importance of early mother-child interactions. . . .affects personality development at its most basic and profound level. . . .archetypal image of the Good and Bad Mother at the center of an infant’s experience” (p. 111).

Development of Consciousness: “first total merger with the mother. . .then partially splitting off from her through perceiving her as sometimes all good and sometimes all bad. . . .emerging into self-awareness in a patriarchal state where the father and male values are paramount. . . .when the ego is firmly in place, however, a person can integrate the mother world and the father world, uniting both energies to become a more complete personality” (p. 111).

Psychopathology: “derives in large part from problems and conflicts that arise in early mother-child relationships but is made worse by other stresses. . . .disharmony. . .calls out for a response. . . .symptoms derive from the frustrated urge toward wholeness and often contain within themselves the clue to their own healing” (p. 111).

Defense Mechanisms: “attempts of the psyche to survive the onslaught of complexes. . . .any rigidly held defense caused an imbalance and would become increasingly pathological if its calls for attention were ignored” (p. 112).

Psychotherapy: “personality not only has the capacity to heal itself but also becomes enlarged through experience” (p. 112). Four tenets: “(a) the psyche is a self-regulating system, (b) the unconscious has a creative and compensatory component, (c) the doctor-patient relationship plays a major role in facilitating self-awareness and healing, and (d) personality growth takes place at many stages over the life span” (p. 112).

Psychotherapy: “confession, elucidation, education, and transformation” (p. 114).

References
Douglas, C. (2000). Analytical psychotherapy. In R. J. Corsini & D. Wedding (Eds.), Current psychotherapies (6th ed.) (pp. 99-132). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson.

Glossary of Jungian Terms (verbatim)
Anima (Latin, “soul”). The unconscious, feminine side of a man’s personality. She is personified in dreams by images of women ranging from prostitute and seductress to spiritual guide (Wisdom [Sophia]). She is the eros principle, hence a man’s anima development is reflected in how he relates to women. Identification with the anima can appear as moodiness, effeminancy, and oversensitivity. Jung calls the anima the archetype of life itself.
Animus (Latin, “spirit”). The unconscious, masculine side of a woman’s personality. He personifies the logos principle. Identification with the animus can cause a woman to become rigid, opinionated, and argumentative. More positively, he is the inner man who acts as a bridge between the woman’s ego and her own creative resources in the unconscious.
Archetypes. Representable in themselves, but their effects appear in consciousness as the archetypal images and ideas. These are universal patterns or motifs which come from the collective unconscious and are the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends, and fairytales. They emerge in individuals through dreams and visions.
Association. A spontaneous flow of interconnected thoughts and images around a specific idea, determined by unconscious connections.
Complex. An emotionally charged group of ideas or images. At the “center” of a complex is an archetype of archetypal image.
Constellate. Whenever there is a strong emotional reaction to a person or a situation, a complex has been constellated (activated).
Ego. The central complex in the field of consciousness. A strong ego can relate objectively to activated contents of the unconscious, i.e., other complexes), rather than identifying with them, which appears as a state of possession.
Feeling. One of the four psychic functions. It is a rational function which evaluates the worth of relationships and situations. Feeling must be distinguished from emotion, which is due to an activated complex.
Individuation. The conscious realization of one’s unique psychological reality, including both strengths and limitations. It leads to the experience of the Self as the regulating center of the psyche.
Inflation. A state in which one has an unrealistically high or low (negative inflation) sense of identity. It indicates a regression of consciousness into unconsciousness, which typically happens when the ego takes too many unconscious contents upon itself and loses the faculty of discrimination.
Intuition. One of the four psychic functions. It is the irrational function which tells us the possibilities inherent in the present. In contrast to sensation (the function which perceives immediate reality through the physical senses) intuition perceives via the unconscious, e.g., flashes of insight of unknown origin.
Participation mystique. A term derived from the anthropologist Levy-Bruhl, denoting a primitive, psychological connection with objects, or between persons, resulting in a strong unconscious bond.
Persons (Latin: “actor’s mask”). One’s social role, derived from the expectations of society and early training. A strong ego related to the outside world through a flexible persona; identification with a specific persona (doctor, scholar, artist, etc.) inhibits psychological development.
Projection. The process whereby an unconscious quality or characteristic of one’s own is perceived and reacted to in an outer object or person. Projection of the anima or animus onto a real women [sic] or man is experienced as falling in love. Frustrated expectations indicate the need to withdraw projections, in order to relate to the reality of other people.
Puer aeternus (Latin, “eternal youth”). Indicates a certain type of man who remains too long in adolescent psychology, generally associated with a strong unconscious attachment to the mother (actual or symbolic). Positive traits are spontaneity and openness to change. His female counterpart is the puella, an “eternal girl” with a corresponding attachment to the father-world.
Self. The archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the personality. It is experienced as a transpersonal power which transcends the ego, e.g., God.
Senex (Latin, “old man”). Associated with attitudes that come with advancing age. Negatively, this can mean cynicism, rigidity and extreme conservatism; positive traits are responsibility, orderliness and self-discipline. A well-balanced personality functions appropriately within the puer-senex polarity. [Also true for the puella-Wise Old Woman polarity.]
Shadow. An unconscious part of the personality characterized by traits and attitudes, whether negative or positive, which the conscious ego tends to reject or ignore. It is personified in dreams by persons of the same sex as the dreamer. Consciously assimilating one’s shadow usually results in an increase of energy.
Symbol. The best possible expression for something essentially unknown. Symbolic thinking is non-linear, right-brain oriented; it is complementary to logical, linear, left-brain thinking.
Transcendent function. The reconciling “third” which emerges from the unconscious (in the form of a symbol or a new attitude) after the conflicting opposites have been consciously differentiated, and the tension between them held.
Transference and countertransference. Particular cases of projection commonly used to describe the unconscious, emotional bonds that arise between two persons in an analytic or therapeutic relationship.
Uroboros. The mythical snake or dragon that eats its own tail. It is a symbol both for individuation as a self-contained, circular process, and for narcissistic self-absorption. (Hall, 1983, pp. 120-121)

References
Hall, J. A. (1983). Jungian dream interpretation: A handbook of theory and practice. Toronto, OT: Inner City Books.


The following is a verbatim quotation of the Glossary from Young-Eisendrath & Dawson, 1997, pp. 314-321.

Active imagination - A method Jung developed to induce an active dialogue with the unconscious while in a waking state. In a relaxed, trance-like state, one holds in mind an image (e.g. from a dream) and inquires of the image its origins, meaning, etc. as if it were another person.
Alchemy - From the late 1920s until his death, Jung was fascinated by the writings of major alchemical theorists such as Paracelsus. He held that their writings reflect the projected expression of unconscious (or only half-conscious) psychological processes and that the terms and phases of alchemy correspond with imagery and states encountered in psychotherapy: common to both are notions of joint work, transformation, and a goal. Jung often used alchemy as a metaphor to describe tension between opposites and the resolution of opposites by way of the transcendent function (see Projection and Transcendent function).
Amplification - The process by which an analyst or analysand expands the meaning of an unconscious image or dream-figure by connecting it with an existing mythology, religion, literary motif, or other metaphorical system. Jung saw this as the opposite of “reductive analysis” (i.e. the breaking down of an image into its possible causes).
Anima - (Latin = “soul”). The image of a woman or feminine figure in a man’s dreams or fantasies. Related to his “eros” principle (see Eros), it reflects the nature of his relationships, especially with women. Described by Jung as “the archetype of life”. Problematic relationship is often caused by unconscious identification with the anima or projection of the anima into a partner resulting in a feeling of disappointment with the real person (see Possession). By extension, also used to describe the unconscious, feminine side of a man’s personality. Anima figures are not depictions of actual women but are fantasies colored by emotional needs and experiences. Characteristic anima figures: goddesses, famous women, mother-figures, young girls, prostitutes, witches, and female creatures (e.g. a siren-figure).
Animus - (Latin = “spirit”). The image of a man or masculine figure in a woman’s dreams or fantasies. Related to her “logos” principle (see Logos), it reflects the nature of her connection to ideas and spirit. Described by Jung as “the archetype of meaning”. A woman’s difficulties are often caused by unconscious identification with the animus (see Possession). By extension, also used to describe the unconscious, masculine side of a woman’s personality. Animus figures are not depictions of actual men, but are fantasies colored by emotional needs and experiences. Characteristic animus figures: father-figures, famous men, religions figures, idealized figures, boys, and morally dubious figures (such as criminals).
Archetype/Archetypal images - The “archetype” is a hypothetical construct posited by Jung to explain the manifestation of “archetypal images,” i.e. all images that appear in dreams and fantasies that bear a striking similarity to universal motifs found in religions, myths, legends, etc. (see Unconscious). Archetypes are universal because human emotions are universal. Whilst the most characteristic archetypal figures might be the persona, the anima, animus, shadow, and self, other images encountered in dreams and waking fantasy may be imbued with archetypal meaning if they carry a powerful emotional meaning (e.g. numerical groupings, a mountain, a clock, a dominant father, a treacherous friend). In his last version of “archetype,” Jung described it as an innate tendency to form emotionally powerful images that express the relational primacy of human life.
Association - An idea or image spontaneously suggested by a trigger word or image. Associations are related through common emotional themes that comprise psychological complexes, driven by archetypes (see Complex).
Collective unconscious - See Unconscious.
Compensation - Consciousness and unconsciousness are in a relationship of compensation, in which only part of the meaning or motive is in awareness. Our inflations and deflations have their opposites in the unconscious. Jung held that unconscious images and products show us what is compensating our conscious one-sidedness. Normally, people instinctively adjust to such compensatory material: e.g. a man who is aware that he often acts like a bully might dream of his house being invaded by a bully. This dream “compensates” his misguided ideas about himself, thus providing the man with the opportunity to come to terms with his unconscious tendencies. Problems arise when the ego resists such adjustment: this often results in identification (see Identification).
Complex - An emotionally charged cluster of notions or images that acts as if it were an autonomous “splinter” personality. At its core is an emotionally infused archetype (e.g. the Terrible Mother). Jung, who took the term from his teacher Pierre Janet, regarded the complex as the via regia to the unconscious” (see Word association test).
Coniunctio - (Latin = “conjunction”) A meeting with the “other,” especially of opposites encountered in a dream sequence: usually envisaged as symbolizing a positive development. By extension, also used to describe the therapeutic work between analyst and analysand.
Constellate - The activation of a psychological complex, usually owning to an emotionally charged reaction (whether conscious or unconscious), whether to a person or to a situation.
Depth psychology - All forms of psychoanalysis in which therapy largely or partly consists in the interpretation of unconscious meaning in action, defenses, transference, and other situations in which such meanings are examined (see Psychoanalysis).
Ego - Jung used the word “ego” to describe two significantly different phenomena: (1) to define that complex to which the sense of “I” is attached, at whose core is the archetype of the Self; and (2) as the center of consciousness. Jung inferred a dialectical relationship between the ego and other complexes of the unconscious. This relationship, while depicted in dreams, is unconscious. The relationship of the ego to other complexes is handled differently by the different post-Jungians.
Eros - A principle of connectedness or relationship between people, among people and others. As the principle of love and life, Eros was understood as the exact opposite of Thanatos, i.e. death and destruction. Jung contrasted Eros with Logos, the principle of rational discrimination.
Feeling - One of four psychic functions (see Typology). It is a rational function which invests relationships and situations with value. It is not to be confused with “emotion,” which Jung described as an instinctual energic system. “Feeling types” are characterized by strong personal attachments and preferences.
Identification - A defense mechanism in which a person is completely overtaken by an emotional state, such as a complex, refusing to recognize the actual emotions, images, and content of that state (see Possession).
Individuation - The process leading to a more conscious awareness of one’s specific individuality, including a recognition of both one’s strengths and one’s limitations. Jung describes this process as emerging in middle and later adulthood, first with the recognition of one’s neuroses and shortcomings. It continues as an awakening to one’s own divided nature (conscious and unconscious) and the ultimate acceptance of that nature.
Inferior function - The unconscious function: the one which “compensates” a person’s dominant function. Inferior does not mean “weak”: the inferior function very often manifests itself with irresistible force: e.g. “intuitive types” are often at a loss how to deal with ordinary sensory experience, which can throw their life into disarray (see Compensation and Typology).
Inflation - Inflation is an unconscious identification, that may be passing or chronic, with an archetypal image (positive or negative) or an ideal or principle that leads to grandiose and/or manic actions (see Possession).
Intuition - One of the four psychic functions (see Typology) and one of the two non-rational functions. It is the capacity to apprehend possibilities and tendencies without knowing details and facts. An “intuitive type” will tend to rush ahead with leaps of imagination, but may not be able to execute the final steps necessary to carry out a plan.
Logos - A principle of rational discrimination. Jung borrowed this principle from classical scholarship and thought it was complemented by Eros (see Eros).
Mandala - (Sanskrit = “circle”) Jung used this word loosely to describe all images of circles, especially symbolic circles such as rose windows or dream images. He believed that the symbolic circle depicted the image of psychic totality, the goal of individuation.
Numinous - Either a noun or an adjective, used to describe a “dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will [which] seizes and controls the human subject” (CW 6, para. 6).
Participation mystique - A term borrowed from the anthropologist Levy-Bruhl, who used it to describe an unconscious psychological identification with objects or other people, resulting in a strong unconscious bond with the “other”.
Persona - (Latin = actor’s “mask”) The archetype of the mask, the persona was considered by Jung to be a necessary, non-pathological development of the individual, especially in the capacity to assume a social role, such as teacher, parent, student, etc. It could become pathological if, as an adult, one rigidly identified oneself with it.
Personal unconscious - See Unconscious.
Possession - Describes the condition in which a person is dominated by a powerful psychological complex: e.g. a man who is consumed by a fascination with an anima-figure (cf. Keats, a Belle Dame Sans Merci), or a woman, by a fascination with an animus-figure (e.g. a celebrity or a priest).
Privation boni - St. Augustine’s idea of evil as the privation of good. Jung objected that this view asserted that evil had no existence, to which theologians have objected that Jung misunderstood Augustine.
Projection - The situation in which one unconsciously invests another person (or object) with notions or characteristics of one’s own: e.g. a man, fascinated by a woman because she corresponds to his anima, falls in love with her. Feelings, images, and thoughts can be projected onto others. One also projects negative feelings: e.g. a woman has a grudge against a friend, so she imagines that her friend is angry with her.
Psyche - In the English translation of Jung’s works, psyche is an all-embracing term used to describe “the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious”.
Psychoanalysis - (1) Theories of unconscious instincts and meanings, originated by Sigmund Freud and his followers, and expanded to include many accounts of unconscious motivations and images, as experienced in relationships, dreams, works of art and other aspects of culture. (2) All theories that seek to understand unconscious processes (see “Depth Psycholgoy”).
Psychological Types - See Types/Typology
Puer aeternus - (Latin = “eternal youth”) An archetypal image of a youth reluctant to mature (e.g. Peter Pan). By extension, the term is used to describe a man who identifies with this image: such a man is very often characterized by a strong unconscious attachment to the mother (actual or symbolic) and an unwillingness to forgo adolescence.
The female counterpart is the puella, an archetypal image of eternal girlhood (often expressed in the “child-woman” dynamic such as anorexia nervosa or the perpetual “little girl”). A woman who identifies with being a puella may have a strong attachment to an idealized father, have had a premature sexual relationship (as in incest), or be in retreat from an intrusive mother.
Self - (1) An archetypal image of “wholeness,” experienced as a transpersonal power which invests life with meaning: e.g. Christ, Buddha, mandala-figures. (2) The hypothetical center and totality of the psyche, experienced as that which governs the individual and toward which the individual is unconsciously striving. The principle of coherence, structure, organization that governs balance and integration of psychic contents.
Sensation - Sensation is one of the two non-rational psychic functions. Sensation is the capacity of knowing reality or truth through the senses. A “sensation type” is strongly motivated by the sensory world and comfortable in the physical world (see Typology)
Shadow - Jung used this term in two very different ways: (1) to describe the entirely of the unconscious, i.e. everything of which the person is not fully conscious, and (2) to mean an unconscious aspect of the personality characterized by traits and attitudes which the conscious ego does not recognize in him- or herself: the shadow is often personified in dreams, usually by person of the same sex as the dreamer. Because one tends to reject or be ignorant about the least admirable aspects of one’s personality, most shadow-figures have negative connotations, but in people with very low self-esteem the shadow can have positive attributes. Consciously assimilating one’s shadow usually results in an increase of energy.
Symbol - A symbol can be defined as the best possible expression for something inferred by not directly known or which cannot be adequately defined in words. A symbol should not be confused with a sign. A cross on a church steeple is a “sign,” indicating to the passer-by that the building beneath it is used by Christians for worship. For a Christian, the cross on the altar inside the church is a symbol expressing the ineffable mystery of Christ’s sacrifice, whilst for a Buddhist, it would be a sign: i.e. it is only the individual’s perception of interpretation that a symbol exists. One cannot reduce the symbol to any pat definition of its significance.
Tao - An image of the center, a symbol of God, and the way to God (CW 6, 361-366).
Teleology - (from Greek = “end” or “objective”) A philosophical system that focuses on the motive or power of a goal or end-point as the process of development – toward an end. Jung conceived of the human personality in both causal and teleological ways, but emphasized the goal of “individuation” as the objective of a human lifetime.
Thinking - One of the two rational functions, thinking indicates a preference for logical coherence and facts as the basis of “knowing”. A “thinking type” discriminates and evaluates (see Typology).
Transcendent function - The tension between opposites in a conflict that, when held in a dialectical relationship of allowing influences from both sides, can resolve into a uniting “third” or new synthesis. Jung saw this function as the center of growth.
Transference and countertransference - Describes a kind of projection that usually arises in a therapeutic encounter, resulting from wishes and desires about oneself and the other.
Transference names both the psychological complexes enacted by the patient with the therapist (corresponding to the therapist as though she or he were Mother or Father or sister), and the general feeling of need, idealization, or distrust that the patient irrationally feels for the therapist.
Countertranference refers to similar dynamics felt by the therapist toward the patient. The therapist can draw on the countertransference feelings to indicate certain typical patterns of relationship in the patient that have always existed with important figures and many constitute the patient’s major problems in life.
Types/Typology - Jung distinguished two basic attitudes (Extraversion and Introversion) and four functions: Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuition. He described Thinking and Feeling as “rational” (because they involve an act of judgment), and Sensation and Intuition as “non-rational” (because they respond to stimuli without judgment). Thus there are eight basic types: e.g. Extraverted Thinking, Introverted Thinking, etc. Jung’s typology has been developed into systems of assessment (e.g. the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) that have been very successful in assisting people in handling differences in organizations and relationships.
Unconscious - That which is unknown, broadly speaking. Jung’s theory of a “collective unconscious,” innate and already organized in humans, was a contrast with Freud’s “repressed unconscious” which was the residue of early relationships. In Jung’s early theory of the unconscious, he hypothesized that the collective unconscious was organized by “archetypes,” or primary imagos – almost inborn images. In his later theory, he believed that archetypes were innate releasing mechanisms (or predispositions) to form coherent images in aroused emotional states. Around these universal images (e.g. Great Mother and Terrible Mother) develop psychological complexes” (see Complex) that are the primary building blocks of the human personality. Originally Jung believed these complexes formed the structure of a “personal unconscious,” but later saw the archetype as the core of the complex, uniting the collective and the personal unconscious in the concept of a highly motivating psychological complex. Everyone’s personality is composed of multiple complexes: Ego, Mother, Father, Brother, Anima or Animus, and so on. The integration of these complexes into conscious awareness is one aspect of individuation.
Uroboros - The image of a tail-eating dragon or serpent: according to Jung, one of the two fundamental images of alchemy (the other being the circle). The uroboros expresses the primitive self-enclosure of an undifferentiated personality, trapped within itself. It is also the fist stage of development.
Word association test - Early in his career, Jung developed a word association test in which patients were asked to give their immediate “associations” to a list of carefully selected stimulus words. Previous researchers had been interested only in the content of actual responses. Jung was the first to be interested in physiological responses (e.g. sweating) and delays as information about unconscious processes. He held that even slight delays in responding to a particular word reveal an emotionally charged issue pertinent to the patient’s current situation: e.g. if “family” were to produce the association “escape,” one might infer that the patient had problems with his/her family. The cluster of associations center around a “complex” (see Complex).
References
Young-Eisendrath, P., & Dawson, T. (1997). The Cambridge companion to Jung. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.









JUNG LEXICON
A Primer of Terms & Concepts
DARYL SHARP









Copyright ©1991 Daryl Sharp
All rights reserved.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Preface C. G. Jung died in 1961, without ever having presented a systematic summary of his psychology. For the past thirty years his ideas have been explained, explored and amplified by thousands of others, with varying results.
Jung Lexicon takes the reader to the source. It was designed for those seeking an understanding of relevant terms and concepts as they were used by Jung himself. There are choice extracts from Jung's Collected Works, but no references to other writers.
Jung Lexicon is not a critique or a defence of Jung's thoughts, but a guide to its richness and an illustration of the broad scope and interrelationship of his interests.
Informed by a close reading of Jung's major writings, Jung Lexicon contains a comprehensive overview of the basic principles of Jungian psychology. The implications and practical application of Jung's ideas are well covered by other volumes in this series.








Notes on Usage
A word that appears in bold type under a main heading directs the reader to another entry. Activate the FIND function on your browser to search for particular terms, themes, topics, etc. For example, with the FIND dialogue box open, type in "dream" or "midlife" or "relationship" and see what comes up. Or you can scroll through the Lexicon from top to bottom and find unexpected gems.
The designation CW in the citations refers to the twenty volumes of Jung's Collected Works. The title of the individual volumes are given in the Bibliography.

Abaissement du niveau mental. A lowering of the level of consciousness, a mental and emotional condition experienced as "loss of soul." (See also depression.)
It is a slackening of the tensity of consciousness, which might be compared to a low barometric reading, presaging bad weather. The tonus has given way, and this is felt subjectively as listlessness, moroseness, and depression. One no longer has any wish or courage to face the tasks of the day. One feels like lead, because no part of one's body seems willing to move, and this is due to the fact that one no longer has any disposable energy. . . . The listlessness and paralysis of will can go so far that the whole personality falls apart, so to speak, and consciousness loses its unity . . . . 
Abaissement du niveau mental can be the result of physical and mental fatigue, bodily illness, violent emotions, and shock, of which the last has a particularly deleterious effect on one's self-assurance. The abaissement always has a restrictive influence on the personality as a whole. It reduces one's self-confidence and the spirit of enterprise, and, as a result of increasing egocentricity, narrows the mental horizon ["Concerning Rebirth," CW 9i, pars. 213f.]
Abreaction. A method of becoming conscious of repressed emotional reactions through the retelling and reliving of a traumatic experience. (See also cathartic method.) After some initial interest in "trauma theory," Jung abandoned abreaction (together with suggestion) as an effective tool in the therapy of neurosis.
I soon discovered that, though traumata of clearly aetiological significance were occasionally present, the majority of them appeared very improbable. Many traumata were so unimportant, even so normal, that they could be regarded at most as a pretext for the neurosis. But what especially aroused my criticism was the fact that not a few traumata were simply inventions of fantasy and had never happened at all. . . . I could no longer imagine that repeated experiences of a fantastically exaggerated or entirely fictitious trauma had a different therapeutic value from a suggestion procedure.[ "Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis," CW 4, par. 582.] The belief, the self-confidence, perhaps also the devotion with which the analyst does his work, are far more important to the patient (imponderabilia though they may be), than the rehearsing of old traumata.[Ibid., par. 584.]
Abstraction. A form of mental activity by which a conscious content is freed from its association with irrelevant elements, similar to the process of differentiation. (Compare empathy.)
Abstraction is an activity pertaining to the psychological functions in general. There is an abstract thinking, just as there is abstract feeling, sensation, and intuition. Abstract thinking singles out the rational, logical qualities of a given content from its intellectually irrelevant components. Abstract feeling does the same with a content characterized by its feeling-values . . . . Abstract sensation would be aesthetic as opposed to sensuous sensation, and abstract intuition would be symbolic as opposed to fantastic intuition.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 678.]
Jung related abstraction to introversion (analogous to empathy and extraversion).
I visualize the process of abstraction as a withdrawal of libido from the object, as a backflow of value from the object into a subjective, abstract content. For me, therefore, abstraction amounts to an energic devaluation of the object. In other words, abstraction is an introverting movement of libido.[Ibid., par. 679.]
To the extent that its purpose is to break the object's hold on the subject, abstraction is an attempt to rise above the primitive state of participation mystique. Active imagination. A method of assimilating unconscious contents (dreams, fantasies, etc.) through some form of self-expression. (See also transcendent function.)
The object of active imagination is to give a voice to sides of the personality (particularly the anima/animus and the shadow) that are normally not heard, thereby establishing a line of communication between consciousness and the unconscious. Even when the end products-drawing, painting, writing, sculpture, dance, music, etc.-are not interpreted, something goes on between creator and creation that contributes to a transformation of consciousness.
The first stage of active imagination is like dreaming with open eyes. It can take place spontaneously or be artificially induced.
In the latter case you choose a dream, or some other fantasy-image, and concentrate on it by simply catching hold of it and looking at it. You can also use a bad mood as a starting-point, and then try to find out what sort of fantasy-image it will produce, or what image expresses this mood. You then fix this image in the mind by concentrating your attention. Usually it will alter, as the mere fact of contemplating it animates it. The alterations must be carefully noted down all the time, for they reflect the psychic processes in the unconscious background, which appear in the form of images consisting of conscious memory material. In this way conscious and unconscious are united, just as a waterfall connects above and below.[The Conjunction," CW 14, par. 706.]
The second stage, beyond simply observing the images, involves a conscious participation in them, the honest evaluation of what they mean about oneself, and a morally and intellectually binding commitment to act on the insights. This is a transition from a merely perceptive or aesthetic attitude to one of judgment.
Although, to a certain extent, he looks on from outside, impartially, he is also an acting and suffering figure in the drama of the psyche. This recognition is absolutely necessary and marks an important advance. So long as he simply looks at the pictures he is like the foolish Parsifal, who forgot to ask the vital question because he was not aware of his own participation in the action.[An allusion to the medieval Grail legend. The question Parsifal failed to ask was, "Whom does the Grail serve?" ]. . . But if you recognize your own involvement you yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions, just as if you were one of the fantasy figures, or rather, as if the drama being enacted before your eyes were real.["The Conjunction," CW 14, par. 753.] The judging attitude implies a voluntary involvement in those fantasy-processes which compensate the individual and-in particular-the collective situation of consciousness. The avowed purpose of this involvement is to integrate the statements of the unconscious, to assimilate their compensatory content, and thereby produce a whole meaning which alone makes life worth living and, for not a few people, possible at all. [ Ibid., par. 756.]
Adaptation. The process of coming to terms with the external world, on the one hand, and with one's own unique psychological characteristics on the other. (See also neurosis.)
Before [individuation] can be taken as a goal, the educational aim of adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective norms must first be attained. If a plant is to unfold its specific nature to the full, it must first be able to grow in the soil in which it is planted.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 761.] The constant flow of life again and again demands fresh adaptation. Adaptation is never achieved once and for all.["The Transcendent Function," CW 8, par. 143.]
Man is not a machine in the sense that he can consistently maintain the same output of work. He can meet the demands of outer necessity in an ideal way only if he is also adapted to his own inner world, that is, if he is in harmony with himself. Conversely, he can only adapt to his inner world and achieve harmony with himself when he is adapted to the environmental conditions.["On Psychic Energy," ibid., par. 75.]
The transition from child to adult initially entails an increasing adaptation to the outer world. When the libido meets an obstacle to progression, there is an accumulation of energy that normally gives rise to increased efforts to overcome the obstacle. But if the obstacle proves insurmountable, the stored-up energy regresses to an earlier mode of adaptation. This in turn activates infantile fantasies and wishes, and necessitates the need to adapt to the inner world.
The best examples of such regressions are found in hysterical cases where a disappointment in love or marriage has precipitated a neurosis. There we find those well-known digestive disorders, loss of appetite, dyspeptic symptoms of all sorts, etc. . . . [typically accompanied by] a regressive revival of reminiscences from the distant past. We then find a reactivation of the parental imagos, of the Oedipus complex. Here the events of early infancy-never before important-suddenly become so. They have been regressively reactivated. Remove the obstacle from the path of life and this whole system of infantile fantasies at once breaks down and becomes as inactive and ineffective as before.["Psychoanalysis and Neurosis," CW4, par. 569.]
In his model of typology, Jung described two substantially different modes of adaptation, introversion and extraversion. He also link-ed failures in adaptation to the outbreak of neurosis.
The psychological trouble in neurosis, and the neurosis itself, can be formulated as an act of adaptation that has failed.[ Ibid., par. 574 (italics in original).]
Affect. Emotional reactions marked by physical symptoms and disturbances in thinking. (See also complex and feeling.)  Affect is invariably a sign that a complex has been activated.
Affects occur usually where adaptation is weakest, and at the same time they reveal the reason for its weakness, namely a certain degree of inferiority and the existence of a lower level of personality. On this lower level with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions one . . . [is] singularly incapable of moral judgment.[The Shadow," Aion, CW 9ii, par. 15.]
Ambivalence. A state of mind where every attitude or anticipated course of action is counterbalanced by its opposite. (See also conflict and opposites.) Ambivalence is associated in general with the influence of unconscious complexes, and in particular with the psychological functions when they have not been differentiated.
Amplification. A method of association based on the comparative study of mythology, religion and fairy tales, used in the interpretation of images in dreams and drawings.
Analysis, Jungian. A form of therapy specializing in neurosis, aimed at bringing unconscious contents to consciousness; also called analytic therapy, based on the school of thought developed by C.G. Jung called analytical (or complex) psychology.
[Analysis] is only a means for removing the stones from the path of development, and not a method . . . of putting things into the patient that were not there before. It is better to renounce any attempt to give direction, and simply try to throw into relief everything that the analysis brings to light, so that the patient can see it clearly and be able to draw suitable conclusions. Anything he has not acquired himself he will not believe in the long run, and what he takes over from authority merely keeps him infantile. He should rather be put in a position to take his own life in hand. The art of analysis lies in following the patient on all his erring ways and so gathering his strayed sheep together.[Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis," CW 4, par. 643.] There is a widespread prejudice that analysis is something like a "cure," to which one submits for a time and is then discharged healed. That is a layman's error left over from the early days of psychoanalysis. Analytical treatment could be described as a readjustment of psychological attitude achieved with the help of the doctor. . . . [But] there is no change that is unconditionally valid over a long period of time.[The Transcendent Function," CW 8, par. 142.]
Jung initially made a distinction between analysis of the unconscious [ Jung deliberately used this expression instead of "psychoanalysis": "I wish to leave that term entirely to the Freudians. What they understand by psychoanalysis is no mere technique, but a method which is dogmatically bound up with and based upon Freud's sexual theory. When Freud publicly declared that psychoanalysis and his sexual theory were indissolubly wedded, I was obliged to strike out on a different path." ("Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 180)] and anamnestic analysis. The latter is concerned primarily with contents of consciousness already available or easily brought to mind, and with supporting or strengthening the ego. The unconscious is a factor only indirectly.
It consists in a careful anamnesis or reconstruction of the historical development of the neurosis. The material elicited in this way is a more or less coherent sequence of facts told to the doctor by the patient, so far as he can remember them. He naturally omits many details which either seem unimportant to him or which he has forgotten. The experienced analyst who knows the usual course of neurotic development will put questions which help the patient to fill in some of the gaps. Very often this procedure by itself is of great therapeutic value, as it enables the patient to understand the chief factors of his neurosis and may eventually bring him to a decisive change of attitude.["Analytical Psychology and Education," ibid., par. 177.] In addition to the favourable effect produced by the realization of previously unconscious connections, it is usual for the doctor to give some good advice, or encouragement, or even a reproof.[ Ibid., par. 178.]
Analysis of the unconscious begins when conscious material has been exhausted and there is still no satisfactory resolution of the neurosis; it requires an ego strong enough to deal directly with unconscious material, particularly dreams. Jung believed that analysis in this sense was particularly suited to psychological problems in the second half of life, but even then he expressed caution.
Consistent support of the conscious attitude has in itself a high therapeutic value and not infrequently serves to bring about satisfactory results. It would be a dangerous prejudice to imagine that analysis of the unconscious is the one and only panacea which should therefore be employed in every case. It is rather like a surgical operation and we should only resort to the knife when other methods have failed. So long as it does not obtrude itself the unconscious is best left alone.[The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 381.]
In his analytic work, Jung shunned diagnosis and prognosis. He used no systematic technique or method. His aim was to approach each case with a minimum of prior assumptions, although he acknowledged that the personality and psychological disposition of the analyst made complete objectivity impossible.
The ideal would naturally be to have no assumptions at all. But this is impossible even if one exercises the most rigorous self-criticism, for one is oneself the biggest of all one's assumptions, and the one with the gravest consequences. Try as we may to have no assumptions and to use no ready-made methods, the assumption that I myself am will determine my method: as I am, so will I proceed. ["Appendix," ibid., par.543.]
Jung also insisted that those training to be analysts must have a thorough personal analysis.
We have learned to place in the foreground the personality of the doctor himself as a curative or harmful factor; . . . what is now demanded is his own transformation-the self-education of the educator. . . . The doctor can no longer evade his own difficulty by treating the difficulties of others: the man who suffers from a running abscess is not fit to perform a surgical operation.["Problems of Modern Psychotherapy," ibid., par. 172.]
Anima. The inner feminine side of a man. (See also animus, Eros, Logos and soul-image.) 
The anima is both a personal complex and an archetypal image of woman in the male psyche. It is an unconscious factor incarnated anew in every male child, and is responsible for the mechanism of projection. Initially identified with the personal mother, the anima is later experienced not only in other women but as a pervasive influence in a man's life.
The anima is the archetype of life itself.["Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious," CW 9i, par. 66.] There is [in man] an imago not only of the mother but of the daughter, the sister, the beloved, the heavenly goddess, and the chthonic Baubo. Every mother and every beloved is forced to become the carrier and embodiment of this omnipresent and ageless image, which corresponds to the deepest reality in a man. It belongs to him, this perilous image of Woman; she stands for the loyalty which in the interests of life he must sometimes forego; she is the much needed compensation for the risks, struggles, sacrifices that all end in disappointment; she is the solace for all the bitterness of life. And, at the same time, she is the great illusionist, the seductress, who draws him into life with her Maya-and not only into life's reasonable and useful aspects, but into its frightful paradoxes and ambivalences where good and evil, success and ruin, hope and despair, counterbalance one another. Because she is his greatest danger she demands from a man his greatest, and if he has it in him she will receive it.[The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 24]
The anima is personified in dreams by images of women ranging from seductress to spiritual guide. It is associated with the eros principle, hence a man's anima development is reflected in how he relates to women. Within his own psyche, the anima functions as his soul, influencing his ideas, attitudes and emotions.
The anima is not the soul in the dogmatic sense, not an anima rationalis, which is a philosophical conception, but a natural archetype that satisfactorily sums up all the statements of the unconscious, of the primitive mind, of the history of language and religion. . . . It is always the a priori element in [a man's] moods, reactions, impulses, and whatever else is spontaneous in psychic life.["Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious," CW 9i, par. 57.] The anima . . . . intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and mythologizes all emotional relations with his work and with other people of both sexes. The resultant fantasies and entanglements are all her doing. When the anima is strongly constellated, she softens the man's character and makes him touchy, irritable, moody, jealous, vain, and unadjusted.["Concerning the Archetypes and the Anima Concept,"[ ibid., par. 144.]
As an inner personality, the anima is complementary to the persona and stands in a compensatory relationship to it.
The persona, the ideal picture of a man as he should be, is inwardly compensated by feminine weakness, and as the individual outwardly plays the strong man, so he becomes inwardly a woman, i.e., the anima, for it is the anima that reacts to the persona. But because the inner world is dark and invisible . . . and because a man is all the less capable of conceiving his weaknesses the more he is identified with the persona, the persona's counterpart, the anima, remains completely in the dark and is at once projected, so that our hero comes under the heel of his wife's slipper.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 309.]
Hence the character of the anima can generally be deduced from that of the persona; all those qualities absent from the outer attitude will be found in the inner.
The tyrant tormented by bad dreams, gloomy forebodings, and inner fears is a typical figure. Outwardly ruthless, harsh, and unapproachable, he jumps inwardly at every shadow, is at the mercy of every mood, as though he were the feeblest and most impressionable of men. Thus his anima contains all those fallible human qualities his persona lacks. If the persona is intellectual, the anima will certainly be sentimental.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 804.]
Similarly, where a man identifies with the persona, he is in effect possessed by the anima, with attendant symptoms.
Identity with the persona automatically leads to an unconscious identity with the anima because, when the ego is not differentiated from the persona, it can have no conscious relation to the unconscious processes. Consequently it is these processes, it is identical with them. Anyone who is himself his outward role will infallibly succumb to the inner processes; he will either frustrate his outward role by absolute inner necessity or else reduce it to absurdity, by a process of enantiodromia. He can no longer keep to his individual way, and his life runs into one deadlock after another. Moreover, the anima is inevitably projected upon a real object, with which he gets into a relation of almost total dependence.[Ibid., par. 807.]
Jung distinguished four broad stages of the anima, analogous to levels of the Eros cult described in the late classical period. He personified them as Eve, Helen, Mary and Sophia.["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 361. ] In the first stage, Eve, the anima is indistinguishable from the personal mother. The man cannot function well without a close tie to a woman. In the second stage, personified in the historical figure of Helen of Troy, the anima is a collective and ideal sexual image ("All is dross that is not Helen"-Marlowe). The third stage, Mary, manifests in religious feelings and a capacity for lasting relationships. In the fourth stage, as Sophia (called Wisdom in the Bible), a man's anima functions as a guide to the inner life, mediating to consciousness the contents of the unconscious. She cooperates in the search for meaning and is the creative muse in an artist's life.
Ideally, a man's anima proceeds naturally through these stages as he grows older. In fact, as an archetypal life force, the anima manifests in whatever shape or form is necessary to compensate the dominant conscious attitude.
So long as the anima is unconscious, everything she stands for is projected. Most commonly, because of the initially close tie between the anima and the protective mother-imago, this projection falls on the partner, with predictable results.
[A man's] ideal of marriage is so arranged that his wife has to take over the magical role of the mother. Under the cloak of the ideally exclusive marriage he is really seeking his mother's protection, and thus he plays into the hands of his wife's possessive instincts. His fear of the dark incalculable power of the unconscious gives his wife an illegitimate authority over him, and forges such a dangerously close union that the marriage is permanently on the brink of explosion from internal tension.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 316.]
No matter where a man is in terms of psychological development, he is always prone to see aspects of his anima, his soul, in an actual woman. The same is true of the animus. Their personal aspects may be integrated and their significance understood, but their essential nature cannot be exhausted.
Though the effects of anima and animus can be made conscious, they themselves are factors transcending consciousness and beyond the reach of perception and volition. Hence they remain autonomous despite the integration of their contents, and for this reason they should be borne constantly in mind.[The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 40.]
The psychological priority in the first half of life is for a man to free himself from the anima fascination of the mother. In later life, the lack of a conscious relationship with the anima is attended by symptoms characteristic of "loss of soul."
Younger people . . . can bear even the total loss of the anima without injury. The important thing at this stage is for a man to be a man. . . . After the middle of life, however, permanent loss of the anima means a diminution of vitality, of flexibility, and of human kindness. The result, as a rule, is premature rigidity, crustiness, stereotypy, fanatical one-sidedness, obstinacy, pedantry, or else resignation, weariness, sloppiness, irresponsibility, and finally a childish ramollissement [petulance] with a tendency to alcohol.["Concerning the Archetypes and the Anima Concept," CW 9i, par. 146f.]
One way for a man to become familiar with the nature of his anima is through the method of active imagination. This is done by personifying her as an autonomous personality, asking her questions and attending to the response.
I mean this as an actual technique. . . . The art of it consists only in allowing our invisible partner to make herself heard, in putting the mechanism of expression momentarily at her disposal, without being overcome by the distaste one naturally feels at playing such an apparently ludicrous game with oneself, or by doubts as to the genuineness of the voice of one's interlocutor.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, pars. 323f.]
Jung suggested that if the encounter with the shadow is the "apprentice-piece" in a man's development, then coming to terms with the anima is the "master-piece."["Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious," CW 9i, par. 61.] The goal is her transformation from a troublesome adversary into a function of relationship between consciousness and the unconscious. Jung called this "the conquest of the anima as an autonomous complex."
With the attainment of this goal it becomes possible to disengage the ego from all its entanglements with collectivity and the collective unconscious. Through this process the anima forfeits the daemonic power of an autonomous complex; she can no longer exercise the power of possession, since she is depotentiated. She is no longer the guardian of treasures unknown; no longer Kundry, daemonic Messenger of the Grail, half divine and half animal; no longer is the soul to be called "Mistress," but a psychological function of an intuitive nature, akin to what the primitives mean when they say, "He has gone into the forest to talk with the spirits" or "My snake spoke with me" or, in the mythological language of infancy, "A little bird told me."[The Mana-Personality," CW 7, par. 374.]
Animus. The inner masculine side of a woman. (See also anima, Eros, Logos and soul-image.)
Like the anima in a man, the animus is both a personal complex and an archetypal image.
Woman is compensated by a masculine element and therefore her unconscious has, so to speak, a masculine imprint. This results in a considerable psychological difference between men and women, and accordingly I have called the projection-making factor in women the animus, which means mind or spirit. The animus corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima corresponds to the maternal Eros.[The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, pars. 28f.] The animus is the deposit, as it were, of all woman's ancestral experiences of man-and not only that, he is also a creative and procreative being, not in the sense of masculine creativity, but in the sense that he brings forth something we might call . . . the spermatic word.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 336.]
Whereas the anima in a man functions as his soul, a woman's animus is more like an unconscious mind.[At times Jung also referred to the animus as a woman's soul. See soul and soul-image.] It manifests negatively in fixed ideas, collective opinions and unconscious, a priori assumptions that lay claim to absolute truth. In a woman who is identified with the animus (called animus-possession), Eros generally takes second place to Logos.
A woman possessed by the animus is always in danger of losing her femininity.[Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 337.] No matter how friendly and obliging a woman's Eros may be, no logic on earth can shake her if she is ridden by the animus. . . . [A man] is unaware that this highly dramatic situation would instantly come to a banal and unexciting end if he were to quit the field and let a second woman carry on the battle (his wife, for instance, if she herself is not the fiery war horse). This sound idea seldom or never occurs to him, because no man can converse with an animus for five minutes without becoming the victim of his own anima.[The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 29.]
The animus becomes a helpful psychological factor when a woman can tell the difference between the ideas generated by this autonomous complex and what she herself really thinks.
Like the anima, the animus too has a positive aspect. Through the figure of the father he expresses not only conventional opinion but-equally-what we call "spirit," philosophical or religious ideas in particular, or rather the attitude resulting from them. Thus the animus is a psychopomp, a mediator between the conscious and the unconscious and a personification of the latter.[Ibid., par. 33.]
Jung described four stages of animus development in a woman. He first appears in dreams and fantasy as the embodiment of physical power, an athlete, muscle man or thug. In the second stage, the animus provides her with initiative and the capacity for planned action. He is behind a woman's desire for independence and a career of her own. In the next stage, the animus is the "word," often personified in dreams as a professor or clergyman. In the fourth stage, the animus is the incarnation of spiritual meaning. On this highest level, like the anima as Sophia, the animus mediates between a woman's conscious mind and the unconscious. In mythology this aspect of the animus appears as Hermes, messenger of the gods; in dreams he is a helpful guide. Any of these aspects of the animus can be projected onto a man. As with the projected anima, this can lead to unrealistic expectations and acrimony in relationships.
Like the anima, the animus is a jealous lover. He is adept at putting, in place of the real man, an opinion about him, the exceedingly disputable grounds for which are never submitted to criticism. Animus opinions are invariably collective, and they override individuals and individual judgments in exactly the same way as the anima thrusts her emotional anticipations and projections between man and wife.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 334.]
The existence of the contrasexual complexes means that in any relationship between a man and a woman there are at least four personalities involved. The possible lines of communication are shown by the arrows in the diagram.[Adapted from "The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 422.]







Contrasexual
While a man's task in assimilating the effects of the anima involves discovering his true feelings, a woman becomes familiar with the nature of the animus by constantly questioning her ideas and opinions.
The technique of coming to terms with the animus is the same in principle as in the case of the anima; only here the woman must learn to criticize and hold her opinions at a distance; not in order to repress them, but, by investigating their origins, to penetrate more deeply into the background, where she will then discover the primordial images, just as the man does in his dealings with the anima.[Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 336.]
Anthropos. Original or primordial man, an archetypal image of wholeness in alchemy, religion and Gnostic philosophy.
There is in the unconscious an already existing wholeness, the "homo totus" of the Western and the Chên-yên (true man) of Chinese alchemy, the round primordial being who represents the greater man within, the Anthropos, who is akin to God.[The Personification of the Opposites," CW 14, par. 152.]
Apotropaic. Descriptive of "magical thinking," based on the desire to depotentiate the influence of an object or person. Apotropaic actions are characteristic of introversion as a mode of psychological orientation.
I have seen an introverted child who made his first attempts to walk only after he had learned the names of all the objects in the room he might touch.[Psychological Types," CW 6, par. 897.]
Apperception. A psychic process by which a new conscious content is articulated with similar, already existing contents in such a way that it is understood. (Compare assimilation.)
Sense-perceptions tell us that something is. But they do not tell us what it is. This is told us not by the process of perception but by the process of apperception, and this has a highly complex structure. Not that sense-perception is anything simple; only, its complex nature is not so much psychic as physiological. The complexity of apperception, on the other hand, is psychic. [The Structure of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 288.]
Jung distinguishes active from passive apperception. In active apperception, the ego grabs hold of something new and comes to grips with it. In passive apperception, the new content forces itself upon consciousness, either from outside (through the senses) or from within (the unconscious). Apperception may also be either directed or undirected.
In the former case we speak of "attention," in the latter case of "fantasy" or "dreaming." The directed processes are rational, the undirected irrational. [Ibid., par. 294.]
Archaic. Primal or original. (See also participation mystique.)
Every civilized human being, however high his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche.[Archaic Man," CW 10, par. 105]
In anthropology, the term archaic is generally descriptive of primitive psychology. Jung used it when referring to thoughts, fantasies and feelings that are not consciously differentiated.
Archaism attaches primarily to the fantasies of the unconscious, i.e., to the products of unconscious fantasy activity which reach consciousness. An image has an archaic quality when it possesses unmistakable mythological parallels. Archaic, too, are the associations-by-analogy of unconscious fantasy, and so is their symbolism. The relation of identity with an object, or participation mystique, is likewise archaic. Concretism of thought and feeling is archaic; also compulsion and inability to control oneself (ecstatic or trance state, possession, etc.). Fusion of the psychological functions, of thinking with feeling, feeling with sensation, feeling with intuition, and so on, is archaic, as is also the fusion of part of a function with its counterpart.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 684.]
Archetype. Primordial, structural elements of the human psyche. (See also archetypal image and instinct.)
Archetypes are systems of readiness for action, and at the same time images and emotions. They are inherited with the brain structure-indeed they are its psychic aspect. They represent, on the one hand, a very strong instinctive conservatism, while on the other hand they are the most effective means conceivable of instinctive adaptation. They are thus, essentially, the chthonic portion of the psyche . . . that portion through which the psyche is attached to nature.["Mind and Earth," CW 10, par. 53.] It is not . . . a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities of ideas. Nor are they individual acquisitions but, in the main, common to all, as can be seen from [their] universal occurrence.["Concerning the Archetypes and the Anima Concept," CW 9i, par. 136.]
Archetypes are irrepresentable in themselves but their effects are discernible in archetypal images and motifs.
Archetypes . . . present themselves as ideas and images, like everything else that becomes a content of consciousness.[On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 435.] Archetypes are, by definition, factors and motifs that arrange the psychic elements into certain images, characterized as archetypal, but in such a way that they can be recognized only from the effects they produce.["A Psychological Approach to the Trinity," CW 11, par. 222, note 2.]
Jung also described archetypes as "instinctual images," the forms which the instincts assume. He illustrated this using the simile of the spectrum.
The dynamism of instinct is lodged as it were in the infra-red part of the spectrum, whereas the instinctual image lies in the ultra-violet part. . . . The realization and assimilation of instinct never take place at the red end, i.e., by absorption into the instinctual sphere, but only through integration of the image which signifies and at the same time evokes the instinct, although in a form quite different from the one we meet on the biological level.["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 414.]









Archetypes

 
 
Psychologically . . . the archetype as an image of instinct is a spiritual goal toward which the whole nature of man strives; it is the sea to which all rivers wend their way, the prize which the hero wrests from the fight with the dragon.[Ibid., par. 415.]
Archetypes manifest both on a personal level, through complexes, and collectively, as characteristics of whole cultures. Jung believed it was the task of each age to understand anew their content and their effects.
We can never legitimately cut loose from our archetypal foundations unless we are prepared to pay the price of a neurosis, any more than we can rid ourselves of our body and its organs without committing suicide. If we cannot deny the archetypes or otherwise neutralize them, we are confronted, at every new stage in the differentiation of consciousness to which civilization attains, with the task of finding a new interpretation appropriate to this stage, in order to connect the life of the past that still exists in us with the life of the present, which threatens to slip away from it.["The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 267.]
Archetypal image. The form or representation of an archetype in consciousness. (See also collective unconscious.)
[The archetype is] a dynamism which makes itself felt in the numinosity and fascinating power of the archetypal image.["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 414.]
Archetypal images, as universal patterns or motifs which come from the collective unconscious, are the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends and fairy tales.
An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors. If such a content should speak of the sun and identify with it the lion, the king, the hoard of gold guarded by the dragon, or the power that makes for the life and health of man, it is neither the one thing nor the other, but the unknown third thing that finds more or less adequate expression in all these similes, yet-to the perpetual vexation of the intellect-remains unknown and not to be fitted into a formula.["The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 267]
On a personal level, archetypal motifs are patterns of thought or behavior that are common to humanity at all times and in all places.
For years I have been observing and investigating the products of the unconscious in the widest sense of the word, namely dreams, fantasies, visions, and delusions of the insane. I have not been able to avoid recognizing certain regularities, that is, types. There are types of situations and types of figures that repeat themselves frequently and have a corresponding meaning. I therefore employ the term "motif" to designate these repetitions. Thus there are not only typical dreams but typical motifs in dreams. . . . [These] can be arranged under a series of archetypes, the chief of them being . . . the shadow, the wise old man, the child (including the child hero), the mother ("Primordial Mother" and "Earth Mother") as a supraordinate personality ("daemonic" because supraordinate), and her counterpart the maiden, and lastly the anima in man and the animus in woman.["The Psychological Aspects of the Kore," ibid., par. 309.]
Assimilation. The process of integrating outer objects (persons, things, ideas, values) and unconscious contents into consciousness.
Assimilation is the approximation of a new content of consciousness to already constellated subjective material . . . . Fundament-ally, [it] is a process of apperception, but is distinguished from apperception by this element of approximation to the subjective material. . . . I use the term assimilation . . . as the approximation of object to subject in general, and with it I contrast dissimilation, as the approximation of subject to object, and a consequent alienation of the subject from himself in favour of the object, whether it be an external object or a "psychological" object, for instance an idea.["Definitions," CW 6, pars. 685f.]
Association. A spontaneous flow of interconnected thoughts and images around a specific idea, often determined by unconscious connections. (See also Word Association Experiment.)
Personal associations to images in dreams, together with amplification, are an important initial step in their interpretation.
 
  Attitude. The readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way, based on an underlying psychological orientation. (See also adaptation, type and typology.)
From a great number of existing or possible attitudes I have singled out four; those, namely, that are primarily oriented by the four basic psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition. When any of these attitudes is habitual, thus setting a definite stamp on the character of an individual, I speak of a psychological type. These function-types, which one can call the thinking, feeling, sen-sation, and intuitive types, may be divided into two classes . . . the rational and the irrational. . . . A further division into two classes is permitted by the predominant trend of the movement of libido, namely introversion and extraversion.[Ibid., par. 835.] The whole psychology of an individual even in its most fundamental features is oriented in accordance with his habitual attitude. . . . [which is] a resultant of all the factors that exert a decisive influence on the psyche, such as innate disposition, environmental influences, experience of life, insights and convictions gained through differentiation, collective views, etc. . . .At bottom, attitude is an individual phenomenon that eludes scientific investigation. In actual experience, however, certain typical attitudes can be distinguished . . . . When a function habitually predominates, a typical attitude is produced. . . . There is thus a typical thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuitive attitude.[Ibid., pars. 690f.]
Adaptation to one's environment requires an appropriate attitude. But due to changing circumstances, no one attitude is permanently suitable. When a particular attitude is no longer appropriate, whether to internal or external reality, the stage is set for psychological difficulties (e.g., an outbreak of neurosis).
For example, a feeling-attitude that seeks to fulfil the demands of reality by means of empathy may easily encounter a situation that can only be solved through thinking. In this case the feeling-attitude breaks down and the progression of libido also ceases. The vital feeling that was present before disappears, and in its place the psychic value of certain conscious contents increases in an unpleasant way; subjective contents and reactions press to the fore and the situation becomes full of affect and ripe for explosions.["On Psychic Energy," CW 8, par. 61.] The tension leads to conflict, the conflict leads to attempts at mutual repression, and if one of the opposing forces is successfully repressed a dissociation ensues, a splitting of the personality, or disunion with oneself.[Ibid.]
Autonomous. Independent of the conscious will, associated in general with the nature of the unconscious and in particular with activated complexes. Auxiliary function. A helpful second or third function, according to Jung's model of typology, that has a co-determining influence on consciousness.
Absolute sovereignty always belongs, empirically, to one function alone, and can belong only to one function, because the equally independent intervention of another function would necessarily produce a different orientation which, partially at least, would contradict the first. But since it is a vital condition for the conscious process of adaptation always to have clear and unambiguous aims, the presence of a second function of equal power is naturally ruled out. This other function, therefore, can have only a secondary importance. . . . Its secondary importance is due to the fact that it is not, like the primary function . . . an absolutely reliable and decisive factor, but comes into play more as an auxiliary or complementary function.["General Description of the Types," CW 6, par. 667.]
The auxiliary function is always one whose nature differs from, but is not antagonistic to, the superior or primary function: either of the irrational functions (intuition and sensation) can be auxiliary to one of the rational functions (thinking and feeling), and vice versa. Thus thinking and intuition can readily pair, as can thinking and sensation, since the nature of intuition and sensation is not fundamentally opposed to the thinking function. Similarly, sensation can be bolstered by an auxiliary function of thinking or feeling, feeling is aided by sensation or intuition, and intuition goes well with feeling or thinking.
The resulting combinations [see figure below] present the familiar picture of, for instance, practical thinking allied with sensation, speculative thinking forging ahead with intuition, artistic intuition selecting and presenting its images with the help of feeling-values, philosophical intuition systematizing its vision into comprehensive thought by means of a powerful intellect, and so on.[Ibid., par. 669.]










Type Combinations
Type Combinations
Axiom of Maria. A precept in alchemy: "One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth." Jung used the axiom of Maria as a metaphor for the whole process of individuation. One is the original state of unconscious wholeness; two signifies the conflict between opposites; three points to a potential resolution; the third is the transcendent function; and the one as the fourth is a transformed state of consciousness, relatively whole and at peace.
Cathartic method. A confessional approach to treating neurosis, involving the abreaction of emotions associated with a trauma.
Through confession I throw myself into the arms of humanity again, freed at last from the burden of moral exile. The goal of the cathartic method is full confession-not merely the intellectual recognition of the facts with the head, but their confirmation by the heart and the actual release of suppressed emotion.["Problems of Modern Psychotherapy," CW 16, par. 134.]
Jung acknowledged the therapeutic value of catharsis, but early in his career he recognized its limitations in the process of analysis.
The new psychology would have remained at the stage of confession had catharsis proved itself a panacea. First and foremost, however, it is not always possible to bring the patients close enough to the unconscious for them to perceive the shadows. . . . They have quite enough to confess already, they say; they do not have to turn to the unconscious for that.[Ibid., par. 137.]
Causal. An approach to the interpretation of psychic phenomena based on cause and effect. (See also final and reductive.) Child. Psychologically, an image of both the irrecoverable past and an anticipation of future development. (See also incest.)
The "child" is . . . . both beginning and end, an initial and a terminal creature. . . . the pre-conscious and the post-conscious essence of man. His pre-conscious essence is the unconscious state of earliest childhood; his post-conscious essence is an anticipation by analogy of life after death. In this idea the all-embracing nature of psychic wholeness is expressed.["The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 299.]
Feelings of alienation or abandonment can constellate the child archetype. The effects are two-fold: the "poor-me" syndrome characteristic of the regressive longing for dependence, and, paradoxically, a desperate desire to be free of the past-the positive side of the divine child archetype.
Abandonment, exposure, danger, etc., are all elaborations of the "child's" insignificant beginnings and of its mysterious and miraculous birth. This statement describes a certain psychic experience of a creative nature, whose object is the emergence of a new and as yet unknown content. In the psychology of the individual there is always, at such moments, an agonizing situation of conflict from which there seems to be no way out-at least for the conscious mind, since as far as this is concerned, tertium non datur.[Ibid., par. 285.] "Child" means something evolving towards independence. This it cannot do without detaching itself from its origins: abandonment is therefore a necessary condition [of consciousness], not just a concomitant symptom.[Ibid., par. 287.]
Circumambulation. A term used to describe the interpretation of an image by reflecting on it from different points of view. Circumambulation differs from free association in that it is circular, not linear. Where free association leads away from the original image, circumambulation stays close to it. Collective. Psychic contents that belong not to one individual but to a society, a people or the human race in general. (See also collective unconscious, individuation and persona.)
The conscious personality is a more or less arbitrary segment of the collective psyche. It consists in a sum of psychic factors that are felt to be personal ["The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche," CW 7, par. 244.] Identification with the collective and voluntary segregation from it are alike synonymous with disease.[The Structure of the Unconscious," ibid., par. 485]
A collective quality adheres not only to particular psychic elements or contents but to whole psychological functions.
Thus the thinking function as a whole can have a collective quality, when it possesses general validity and accords with the laws of logic. Similarly, the feeling function as a whole can be collective, when it is identical with the general feeling and accords with general expectations, the general moral consciousness, etc. In the same way, sensation and intuition are collective when they are at the same time characteristic of a large group.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 692.]
Collective unconscious. A structural layer of the human psyche containing inherited elements, distinct from the personal unconscious. (See also archetype and archetypal image.)
The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind's evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual.[The Structure of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 342.]
Jung derived his theory of the collective unconscious from the ubiquity of psychological phenomena that could not be explained on the basis of personal experience. Unconscious fantasy activity, for instance, falls into two categories.
First, fantasies (including dreams) of a personal character, which go back unquestionably to personal experiences, things forgotten or repressed, and can thus be completely explained by individual anamnesis. Second, fantasies (including dreams) of an impersonal character, which cannot be reduced to experiences in the individual's past, and thus cannot be explained as something individually acquired. These fantasy-images undoubtedly have their closest analogues in mythological types. . . . These cases are so numerous that we are obliged to assume the existence of a collective psychic substratum. I have called this the collective unconscious.[The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 262.] The collective unconscious-so far as we can say anything about it at all-appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious. . . . We can therefore study the collective unconscious in two ways, either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual.["The Structure of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 325.]
The more one becomes aware of the contents of the personal unconscious, the more is revealed of the rich layer of images and motifs that comprise the collective unconscious. This has the effect of enlarging the personality.
In this way there arises a consciousness which is no longer imprisoned in the petty, oversensitive, personal world of the ego, but participates freely in the wider world of objective interests. This widened consciousness is no longer that touchy, egotistical bundle of personal wishes, fears, hopes, and ambitions which always has to be compensated or corrected by unconscious counter-tendencies; instead, it is a function of relationship to the world of objects, bringing the individual into absolute, binding, and indissoluble communion with the world at large.[The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 275.]
Compensation. A natural process aimed at establishing or maintaining balance within the psyche. (See also active imagination, dreams, neurosis and self-regulation of the psyche.)
The activity of consciousness is selective. Selection demands direction. But direction requires the exclusion of everything irrelevant. This is bound to make the conscious orientation one-sided. The contents that are excluded and inhibited by the chosen direction sink into the unconscious, where they form a counterweight to the conscious orientation. The strengthening of this counterposition keeps pace with the increase of conscious one-sidedness until finally . . . . the repressed unconscious contents break through in the form of dreams and spontaneous images. . . . As a rule, the unconscious compensation does not run counter to consciousness, but is rather a balancing or supplementing of the conscious orientation. In dreams, for instance, the unconscious supplies all those contents that are constellated by the conscious situation but are inhibited by conscious selection, although a knowledge of them would be indispensable for complete adaptation["Definitions," CW 6, par. 694.]
In neurosis, where consciousness is one-sided to an extreme, the aim of analytic therapy is the realization and assimilation of unconscious contents so that compensation may be reestablished. This can often be accomplished by paying close attention to dreams, emotions and behavior patterns, and through active imagination. Complex. An emotionally charged group of ideas or images. (See also Word Association Experiment.)
[A complex] is the image of a certain psychic situation which is strongly accentuated emotionally and is, moreover, incompatible with the habitual attitude of consciousness.["A Review of the Complex Theory," CW 8, par. 201.] The via regia to the unconscious . . . is not the dream, as [Freud] thought, but the complex, which is the architect of dreams and of symptoms. Nor is this via so very "royal," either, since the way pointed out by the complex is more like a rough and uncommonly devious footpath.[ Ibid., par. 210.]
Formally, complexes are "feeling-toned ideas" that over the years accumulate around certain archetypes, for instance "mother" and "father." When complexes are constellated, they are invariably accompanied by affect. They are always relatively autonomous.
Complexes interfere with the intentions of the will and disturb the conscious performance; they produce disturbances of memory and blockages in the flow of associations; they appear and disappear according to their own laws; they can temporarily obsess consciousness, or influence speech and action in an unconscious way. In a word, complexes behave like independent beings.[Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," ibid., par. 253.] Complexes are in fact "splinter psyches." The aetiology of their origin is frequently a so-called trauma, an emotional shock or some such thing, that splits off a bit of the psyche. Certainly one of the commonest causes is a moral conflict, which ultimately derives from the apparent impossibility of affirming the whole of one's nature.["A Review of the Complex Theory," ibid., par. 204.]
Everyone knows nowadays that people "have complexes." What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.[Ibid., par. 200.]
Jung stressed that complexes in themselves are not negative; only their effects often are. In the same way that atoms and molecules are the invisible components of physical objects, complexes are the building blocks of the psyche and the source of all human emotions.
Complexes are focal or nodal points of psychic life which we would not wish to do without; indeed, they should not be missing, for otherwise psychic activity would come to a fatal standstill.["A Psychological Theory of Types," CW 6, par. 925.] Complexes obviously represent a kind of inferiority in the broadest sense . . . [but] to have complexes does not necessarily indicate inferiority. It only means that something discordant, unassimilated, and antagonistic exists, perhaps as an obstacle, but also as an incentive to greater effort, and so, perhaps, to new possibilities of achievement.[Ibid., par. 925.]
Some degree of one-sidedness is unavoidable, and, in the same measure, complexes are unavoidable too.["Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," CW 8, par. 255.]
The negative effect of a complex is commonly experienced as a distortion in one or other of the psychological functions (feeling, thinking, intuition and sensation). In place of sound judgment and an appropriate feeling response, for instance, one reacts according to what the complex dictates. As long as one is unconscious of the complexes, one is liable to be driven by them.
The possession of complexes does not in itself signify neurosis . . . and the fact that they are painful is no proof of pathological disturbance. Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness. A complex becomes pathological only when we think we have not got it.[Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life," CW 16, par. 179.]
Identification with a complex, particularly the anima/animus and the shadow, is a frequent source of neurosis. The aim of analysis in such cases is not to get rid of the complexes-as if that were possible-but to minimize their negative effects by understanding the part they play in behavior patterns and emotional reactions.
A complex can be really overcome only if it is lived out to the full. In other words, if we are to develop further we have to draw to us and drink down to the very dregs what, because of our complexes, we have held at a distance.["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 184.]
Concretism. A way of thinking or feeling that is archaic and undifferentiated, based entirely on perception through sensation. (Compare abstraction.) Concretism as a way of mental functioning is closely related to the more general concept of participation mystique. Concrete thinking and feeling are attuned to and bound by physiological stimuli and material facts. Such an orientation is valuable in the recognition of outer reality, but deficient in how it is interpreted.
Concretism results in a projection of . . . inner factors into the objective data and produces an almost superstitious veneration of mere facts.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 699.] [Concrete thinking] has no detached independence but clings to material phenomena. It rises at most to the level of analogy. Primitive feeling is equally bound to material phenomena. Both of them depend on sensation and are only slight differentiated from it. Concret-ism, therefore, is an archaism. The magical influence of the fetish is not experienced as a subjective state of feeling, but sensed as a magical effect. That is concretistic feeling. The primitive does not experience the idea of the divinity as a subjective content; for him the sacred tree is the abode of the god, or even the god himself. That is concretistic thinking. In civilized man, concretistic thinking consists in the inability to conceive of anything except immediately obvious facts transmitted by the senses, or in the inability to discriminate between subjective feeling and the sensed object.[Ibid., par. 697.]
Conflict. A state of indecision, accompanied by inner tension. (See also opposites and transcendent function.)
The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life. A life without inner contradiction is either only half a life or else a life in the Beyond, which is destined only for angels. But God loves human beings more than the angels.[C.G. Jung Letters, vol. 1, p. 375.] The self is made manifest in the opposites and in the conflict between them; it is a coincidentia oppositorum [coincidence of opposites]. Hence the way to the self begins with conflict.["Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy," CW 12, par. 259.]
Conflict is a hallmark of neurosis, but conflict is not invariably neurotic. Some degree of conflict is even desirable since without some tension between opposites the developmental process is inhibited. Conflict only becomes neurotic when it interferes with the normal functioning of consciousness.
The stirring up of conflict is a Luciferian virtue in the true sense of the word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like every other fire it has two aspects, that of combustion and that of creating light.["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 179.]
When a conflict is unconscious, tension manifests as physical symptoms, particularly in the stomach, the back and the neck. Conscious conflict is experienced as moral or ethical tension. Serious conflicts, especially those involving love or duty, generally involve a disparity between the functions of thinking and feeling. If one or the other is not a conscious participant in the conflict, it needs to be introduced.
The objection [may be] advanced that many conflicts are intrinsically insoluble. People sometimes take this view because they think only of external solutions-which at bottom are not solutions at all. . . . A real solution comes only from within, and then only because the patient has been brought to a different attitude.["Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis," CW 4, par. 606.]
Jung's major contribution to the psychology of conflict was his belief that it had a purpose in terms of the self-regulation of the psyche. If the tension between the opposites can be held in consciousness, then something will happen internally to resolve the conflict. The solution, essentially irrational and unforeseeable, generally appears as a new attitude toward oneself and the outer situation, together with a sense of peace; energy previously locked up in indecision is released and the progression of libido becomes possible. Jung called this the tertium non datur or transcendent function, because what happens transcends the opposites. Holding the tension between opposites requires patience and a strong ego, otherwise a decision will be made out of desperation. Then the opposite will be constellated even more strongly and the conflict will continue with renewed force.
Jung's basic hypothesis in working with neurotic conflict was that separate personalities in oneself-complexes-were involved. As long as these are not made conscious they are acted out externally, through projection. Conflicts with other people are thus essentially externalizations of an unconscious conflict within oneself.
Coniunctio. Literally, "conjunction," used in alchemy to refer to chemical combinations; psychologically, it points to the union of opposites and the birth of new possibilities.
The coniunctio is an a priori image that occupies a prominent place in the history of man's mental development. If we trace this idea back we find it has two sources in alchemy, one Christian, the other pagan. The Christian source is unmistakably the doctrine of Christ and the Church, sponsus and sponsa, where Christ takes the role of Sol and the Church that of Luna. The pagan source is on the one hand the hieros-gamos, on the other the marital union of the mystic with God.[The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 355.]
Other alchemical terms used by Jung with a near-equivalent psychological meaning include unio mystica (mystic or sacred marriage), coincidentia oppositorum (coincidence of opposites), complexio oppositorum (the opposites embodied in a single image) unus mundus (one world) and Philosophers' Stone. Consciousness. The function or activity which maintains the relation of psychic contents to the ego; distinguished conceptually from the psyche, which encompasses both consciousness and the unconscious. (See also opposites.)
There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites.["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 178.] There are two distinct ways in which consciousness arises. The one is a moment of high emotional tension, comparable to the scene in Parsifal where the hero, at the very moment of greatest temptation, suddenly realizes the meaning of Amfortas' wound. The other is a state of contemplation, in which ideas pass before the mind like dream-images. Suddenly there is a flash of association between two apparently disconnected and widely separated ideas, and this has the effect of releasing a latent tension. Such a moment often works like a revelation. In every case it seems to be the discharge of energy-tension, whether external or internal, which produces consciousness.["Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 207.]
In Jung's view of the psyche, individual consciousness is a superstructure based on, and arising out of, the unconscious.
Consciousness does not create itself-it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious. . . . It is not only influenced by the unconscious but continually emerges out of it in the form of numberless spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought.["The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," CW 11, par. 935.]
Constellate. To activate, usually used with reference to a complex and an accompanying pattern of emotional reactions.
This term simply expresses the fact that the outward situation releases a psychic process in which certain contents gather together and prepare for action. When we say that a person is "constellated" we mean that he has taken up a position from which he can be expected to react in a quite definite way. . . . The constellated contents are definite complexes possessing their own specific energy.["A Review of the Complex Theory," CW 8, par. 198.]
Constructive. An approach to the interpretation of psychic activity based on its goal or purpose rather than its cause or source. (See also final; compare reductive.)
I use constructive and synthetic to designate a method that is the antithesis of reductive. The constructive method is concerned with the elaboration of the products of the unconscious (dreams, fantasies, etc.). It takes the unconscious product as a symbolic expression which anticipates a coming phase of psychological development["Definitions," CW 6, par. 701.] The constructive or synthetic method of treatment presupposes insights which are at least potentially present in the patient and can therefore be made conscious.["The Transcendent Function," CW 8, par. 145.]
The constructive method involves both the amplification of symbols and their interpretation on the subjective level. Its use in dream interpretation aims at understanding how the conscious orientation may be modified in light of the dream's symbolic message. This is in line with Jung's belief that the psyche is a self-regulating system.  In the treatment of neurosis, Jung saw the constructive method as complementary, not in opposition, to the reductive approach of classical psychoanalysis.
We apply a largely reductive point of view in all cases where it is a question of illusions, fictions, and exaggerated attitudes. On the other hand, a constructive point of view must be considered for all cases where the conscious attitude is more or less normal, but capable of greater development and refinement, or where unconscious tendencies, also capable of development, are being misunderstood and kept under by the conscious mind.["Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 195.]
Countertransference. A particular case of projection, used to describe the unconscious emotional response of the analyst to the analysand in a therapeutic relationship. (See also transference.)
A transference is answered by a counter-transference from the analyst when it projects a content of which he is unconscious but which nevertheless exists in him. The counter-transference is then just as useful and meaningful, or as much of a hindrance, as the transference of the patient, according to whether or not it seeks to establish that better rapport which is essential for the realization of certain unconscious contents. Like the transference, the counter-transference is compulsive, a forcible tie, because it creates a "mystical" or unconscious identity with the object[General Aspects of Dream Psychology," CW 8, par. 519.]
A workable analytic relationship is predicated on the assumption that the analyst is not as neurotic as the analysand. Although a lengthy personal analysis is the major requirement in the training of analysts, this is no guarantee against projection.
Even if the analyst has no neurosis, but only a rather more extensive area of unconsciousness than usual, this is sufficient to produce a sphere of mutual unconsciousness, i.e., a counter-transference. This phenomenon is one of the chief occupational hazards of psychotherapy. It causes psychic infections in both analyst and patient and brings the therapeutic process to a standstill. This state of unconscious identity is also the reason why an analyst can help his patient just so far as he himself has gone and not a step further.[Appendix," CW 16, par. 545.]
Crucifixion. An archetypal motif associated with conflict and the problem of the opposites.
Nobody who finds himself on the road to wholeness can escape that characteristic suspension which is the meaning of crucifixion. For he will infallibly run into things that thwart and "cross" him: first, the thing he has no wish to be (the shadow); second, the thing he is not (the "other," the individual reality of the "You"); and third, his psychic non-ego (the collective unconscious).[The Psychology of the Transference," ibid., par. 470.]
Depotentiate. The process of removing energy from an unconscious content by assimilating its meaning. Depression. A psychological state characterized by lack of energy. (See also abaissement du niveau mental, final, libido, night sea journey and regression.) Energy not available to consciousness does not simply vanish. It regresses and stirs up unconscious contents (fantasies, memories, wishes, etc.) that for the sake of psychological health need to be brought to light and examined.
Depression should therefore be regarded as an unconscious compensation whose content must be made conscious if it is to be fully effective. This can only be done by consciously regressing along with the depressive tendency and integrating the memories so activated into the conscious mind-which was what the depression was aiming at in the first place.["The Sacrifice," CW 5, par. 625.]
Depression is not necessarily pathological. It often foreshadows a renewal of the personality or a burst of creative activity.
There are moments in human life when a new page is turned. New interests and tendencies appear which have hitherto received no attention, or there is a sudden change of personality (a so-called mutation of character). During the incubation period of such a change we can often observe a loss of conscious energy: the new development has drawn off the energy it needs from consciousness. This lowering of energy can be seen most clearly before the onset of certain psychoses and also in the empty stillness which precedes creative work.["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 373.]
Differentiation. The separation of parts from a whole, necessary for conscious access to the psychological functions.
So long as a function is still so fused with one or more other functions-thinking with feeling, feeling with sensation, etc.-that it is unable to operate on its own, it is in an archaic condition, i.e., not differentiated, not separated from the whole as a special part and existing by itself. Undifferentiated thinking is incapable of thinking apart from other functions; it is continually mixed up with sensations, feelings, intuitions, just as undifferentiated feeling is mixed up with sensations and fantasies.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 705.]
An undifferentiated function is characterized by ambivalence (every position entails its own negative), which leads to characteristic inhibitions in its use.
Differentiation consists in the separation of the function from other functions, and in the separation of its individual parts from each other. Without differentiation direction is impossible, since the direction of a function towards a goal depends on the elimination of anything irrelevant. Fusion with the irrelevant precludes direction; only a differentiated function is capable of being directed.[ Ibid., par. 705.]
Dissociation. The splitting of a personality into its component parts or complexes, characteristic of neurosis.
A dissociation is not healed by being split off, but by more complete disintegration. All the powers that strive for unity, all healthy desire for selfhood, will resist the disintegration, and in this way he will become conscious of the possibility of an inner integration, which before he had always sought outside himself. He will then find his reward in an undivided self.["Marriage as a Psychological Relationship," CW 17, pars. 334f.]
In the analysis of neurotic breakdowns, the aim is to make the conscious ego aware of autonomous complexes. This can be done both through reductive analysis and by objectifying them in the process of active imagination.
Every form of communication with the split-off part of the psyche is therapeutically effective. This effect is also brought about by the real or merely supposed discovery of the causes. Even when the discovery is no more than an assumption or a fantasy, it has a healing effect at least by suggestion if the analyst himself believes in it and makes a serious attempt to understand.[The Philosophical Tree," CW 13, par. 465.]
Dreams. Independent, spontaneous manifestations of the unconscious; fragments of involuntary psychic activity just conscious enough to be reproducible in the waking state.
Dreams are neither deliberate nor arbitrary fabrications; they are natural phenomena which are nothing other than what they pretend to be. They do not deceive, they do not lie, they do not distort or disguise. . . . They are invariably seeking to express something that the ego does not know and does not understand.["Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 189.]
In symbolic form, dreams picture the current situation in the psyche from the point of view of the unconscious.
Since the meaning of most dreams is not in accord with the tendencies of the conscious mind but shows peculiar deviations, we must assume that the unconscious, the matrix of dreams, has an independent function. This is what I call the autonomy of the unconscious. The dream not only fails to obey our will but very often stands in flagrant opposition to our conscious intentions["On the Nature of Dreams," CW 8, par. 545.]
Jung acknowledged that in some cases dreams have a wish-fulfilling and sleep-preserving function (Freud) or reveal an infantile striving for power (Adler), but he focused on their symbolic content and their compensatory role in the self-regulation of the psyche: they reveal aspects of oneself that are not normally conscious, they disclose unconscious motivations operating in relationships and present new points of view in conflict situations.
In this regard there are three possibilities. If the conscious attitude to the life situation is in large degree one-sided, then the dream takes the opposite side. If the conscious has a position fairly near the "middle," the dream is satisfied with variations. If the conscious attitude is "correct" (adequate), then the dream coincides with and emphasizes this tendency, though without forfeiting its peculiar autonomy.[ Ibid., par. 546.]
In Jung's view, a dream is an interior drama.
The whole dream-work is essentially subjective, and a dream is a theatre in which the dreamer is himself the scene, the player, the prompter, the producer, the author, the public, and the critic.["General Aspects of Dream Psychology," ibid., par. 509.]
This conception gives rise to the interpretation of dreams on the subjective level, where the images in them are seen as symbolic representations of elements in the dreamer's own personality. Interpretation on the objective level refers the images to people and situations in the outside world. Many dreams have a classic dramatic structure. There is an exposition (place, time and characters), which shows the initial situation of the dreamer. In the second phase there is a development in the plot (action takes place). The third phase brings the culmination or climax (a decisive event occurs). The final phase is the lysis, the result or solution (if any) of the action in the dream.
Ego. The central complex in the field of consciousness. (See also self.)
The ego, the subject of consciousness, comes into existence as a complex quantity which is constituted partly by the inherited disposition (character constituents) and partly by unconsciously acquired impressions and their attendant phenomena ["Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 169.]
Jung pointed out that knowledge of the ego-personality is often confused with self-understanding.
Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents. People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not by the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them. In this respect the psyche behaves like the body, of whose physiological and anatomical structure the average person knows very little too. ["The Undiscovered Self," CW 10, par. 491.]
In the process of individuation, one of the initial tasks is to differentiate the ego from the complexes in the personal unconscious, particularly the persona, the shadow and anima/animus. A strong ego can relate objectively to these and other contents of the unconscious without identifying with them.  Because the ego experiences itself as the center of the psyche, it is especially difficult to resist identification with the self, to which it owes its existence and to which, in the hierarchy of the psyche, it is subordinate.
The ego stands to the self as the moved to the mover, or as object to subject, because the determining factors which radiate out from the self surround the ego on all sides and are therefore supraordinate to it. The self, like the unconscious, is an a priori existent out of which the ego evolves.["Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," CW 11, par. 391.]
Identification with the self can manifest in two ways: the assimilation of the ego by the self, in which case the ego falls under the control of the unconscious; or the assimilation of the self to the ego, where the ego becomes overaccentuated. In both cases the result is inflation, with disturbances in adaptation.
In the first case, reality has to be protected against an archaic . . . dream-state; in the second, room must be made for the dream at the expense of the world of consciousness. In the first case, mobilization of all the virtues is indicated; in the second, the presumption of the ego can only be damped down by moral defeat.[The Self," CW 9ii, par. 47.]
Emotion. An involuntary reaction due to an active complex. (See also affect.)
On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes (omnes superfluitates comburit). But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion. ["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 179.]
Empathy. An introjection of the object, based on the unconscious projection of subjective contents. (Compare identification.)
Empathy presupposes a subjective attitude of confidence, or trustfulness towards the object. It is a readiness to meet the object halfway, a subjective assimilation that brings about a good understanding between subject and object, or at least simulates it. ["The Type Problem in Aesthetics," CW 6, par. 489.]
In contrast to abstraction, associated with introversion, empathy corresponds to the attitude of extraversion.
The man with the empathetic attitude finds himself . . . in a world that needs his subjective feeling to give it life and soul. He animates it with himself. [ Ibid., par. 492.]
Enantiodromia. Literally, "running counter to," referring to the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time.
This characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life; in time an equally powerful counterposition is built up, which first inhibits the conscious performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control. [Definitions," ibid., par. 709.]
Enantiodromia is typically experienced in conjunction with symptoms associated with acute neurosis, and often foreshadows a rebirth of the personality.
The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil.[The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," CW 9i, par. 397.]
Energic. See final.
 
  Eros. In Greek mythology, the personification of love, a cosmogonic force of nature; psychologically, the function of relationship. (See also anima, animus, Logos and mother complex.)
Woman's consciousness is characterized more by the connective quality of Eros than by the discrimination and cognition associated with Logos. In men, Eros . . . is usually less developed than Logos. In women, on the other hand, Eros is an expression of their true nature, while their Logos is often only a regrettable accident. [The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 29.] Eros is a questionable fellow and will always remain so . . . . He belongs on one side to man's primordial animal nature which will endure as long as man has an animal body. On the other side he is related to the highest forms of the spirit. But he thrives only when spirit and instinct are in right harmony.[The Eros Theory," CW 7, par. 32.]
Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other: the man who adopts the standpoint of Eros finds his compensatory opposite in the will to power, and that of the man who puts the accent on power is Eros.[The Problem of the Attitude-Type," ibid., par. 78.]
An unconscious Eros always expresses itself as will to power. ["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 167.]
Extraversion. A mode of psychological orientation where the movement of energy is toward the outer world. (Compare introversion.)
Extraversion is characterized by interest in the external object, responsiveness, and a ready acceptance of external happenings, a desire to influence and be influenced by events, a need to join in and get "with it," the capacity to endure bustle and noise of every kind, and actually find them enjoyable, constant attention to the surrounding world, the cultivation of friends and acquaintances, none too carefully selected, and finally by the great importance attached to the figure one cuts.["Psychological Typology," CW 6, par. 972.]
Jung believed that introversion and extraversion were present in everyone, but that one attitude-type is invariably dominant. When external factors are the prime motivating force for judgments, perceptions, affects and actions, we have an extraverted attitude or type.
The extravert's philosophy of life and his ethics are as a rule of a highly collective nature with a strong streak of altruism, and his conscience is in large measure dependent on public opinion.[ Ibid.]
Jung believed that type differentiation begins very early in life, so that it might be described as innate.
The earliest sign of extraversion in a child is his quick adaptation to the environment, and the extraordinary attention he gives to objects and especially to the effect he has on them. Fear of objects is minimal; he lives and moves among them with confidence. . . and can therefore play with them freely and learn through them. He likes to carry his enterprises to the extreme and exposes himself to risks. Everything unknown is alluring.[Psychological Types," ibid., par. 896.]
In general, the extravert trusts what is received from the outside world and is not inclined to examine personal motivations.
He has no secrets he has not long since shared with others. Should something unmentionable nevertheless befall him, he prefers to forget it. Anything that might tarnish the parade of optimism and positivism is avoided. Whatever he thinks, intends, and does is displayed with conviction and warmth.["Psychological Typology," ibid., par. 973.]
Although everyone is affected by objective data, the extravert's thoughts, decisions and behavior are determined by them. Personal views and the inner life take second place to outer conditions.
He lives in and through others; all self-communings give him the creeps. Dangers lurk there which are better drowned out by noise. If he should ever have a "complex," he finds refuge in the social whirl and allows himself to be assured several times a day that everything is in order. [ Ibid., par. 974.]
The psychic life of the extreme extraverted type is enacted wholly in reaction to the environment, which determines the personal standpoint. If the mores change, he adjusts his views and behavior patterns to match. This is both a strength and a limitation.
Adjustment is not adaptation; adaptation . . . requires observance of laws more universal than the immediate conditions of time and place. The very adjustment of the normal extraverted type is his limitation. He owes his normality . . . to his ability to fit into existing conditions with comparative ease. His requirements are limited to the objectively possible, for instance to the career that holds out good prospects at this particular moment; he does what is needed of him, or what is expected of him, and refrains from all innovations that are not entirely self-evident or that in any way exceed the expectations of those around him["General Description of the Types," CW 6, par. 564.]
Extraversion is an asset in social situations and in relating to the external environment. But a too-extraverted attitude may result in sacrificing oneself in order to fulfil what one sees as objective demands-the needs of others, for instance, or the requirements of an expanding business.
This is the extravert's danger: He gets sucked into objects and completely loses himself in them. The resultant functional disorders, nervous or physical, have a compensatory value, as they force him into an involuntary self-restraint. Should the symptoms be functional, their peculiar character may express his psychological situation in symbolic form; for instance, a singer whose fame has risen to dangerous heights that tempt him to expend too much energy suddenly finds he cannot sing high notes . . . . Or a man of modest beginnings who rapidly reaches a social position of great influence with wide prospects is suddenly afflicted with all the symptoms of mountain sickness.[ Ibid., par. 565.]
The form of neurosis most likely to afflict the extravert is hysteria, which typically manifests as a pronounced identification with persons in the immediate environment. The extravert's tendency to sacrifice inner reality to outer circumstances is not a problem as long as the extraversion is not too extreme. But to the extent that it becomes necessary to compensate the inclination to one-sidedness, there will arise a markedly self-centered tendency in the unconscious. All those needs or desires that are stifled or repressed by the conscious attitude come in the back door, in the form of infantile thoughts and emotions that center on oneself.
The more complete the conscious attitude of extraversion is, the more infantile and archaic the unconscious attitude will be. The egoism which characterizes the extravert's unconscious attitude goes far beyond mere childish selfishness; it verges on the ruthless and brutal. [ Ibid., par. 572.]
The danger then is that the extravert, so habitually and apparently selflessly attuned to the outside world and the needs of others, may suddenly become quite indifferent. Fantasy. A complex of ideas or imaginative activity expressing the flow of psychic energy. (See also active imagination.)
A fantasy needs to be understood both causally and purposively. Causally interpreted, it seems like a symptom of a physiological state, the outcome of antecedent events. Purposively interpreted, it seems like a symbol, seeking to characterize a definite goal with the help of the material at hand, or trace out a line of future psychological development. ["Definitions," CW 6, par. 720.]
Jung distinguished between active and passive fantasies. The for-mer, characteristic of the creative mentality, are evoked by an intuitive attitude directed toward the perception of unconscious contents; passive fantasies are spontaneous and autonomous manifestations of unconscious complexes.
Passive fantasy, therefore, is always in need of conscious criticism, lest it merely reinforce the standpoint of the unconscious opposite. Whereas active fantasy, as the product of a conscious attitude not opposed to the unconscious, and of unconscious processes not opposed but merely compensatory to consciousness, does not require criticism so much as understanding.[Ibid., par. 714.]
Jung developed the method of active imagination as a way of assimilating the meaning of fantasies. The important thing is not to interpret but to experience them.
Continual conscious realization of unconscious fantasies, together with active participation in the fantastic events, has . . . the effect firstly of extending the conscious horizon by the inclusion of numerous unconscious contents; secondly of gradually diminishing the dominant influence of the unconscious; and thirdly of bringing about a change of personality. [The Technique of Differentiation," CW 7, par. 358.]
Father complex. A group of feeling-toned ideas associated with the experience and image of father. (See also Logos.)
In men, a positive father-complex very often produces a certain credulity with regard to authority and a distinct willingness to bow down before all spiritual dogmas and values; while in women, it induces the liveliest spiritual aspirations and interests. In dreams, it is always the father-figure from whom the decisive convictions, prohibitions, and wise counsels emanate. [The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," CW 9i, par. 396.]
Jung's comments on the father complex were rarely more than asides in writing about something else. In general, the father complex in a man manifests in the persona (through identification) and as aspects of his shadow; in a woman, it manifests in the nature of the animus, colored by the projection of her father's anima.
The father exerts his influence on the mind or spirit of his daughter-on her "Logos." This he does by increasing her intellectuality, often to a pathological degree which in my later writings I have described as "animus possession."[The Origin of the Hero," CW 5, par. 272.] The father is the first carrier of the animus-image. He endows this virtual image with substance and form, for on account of his Logos he is the source of "spirit" for the daughter. Unfortunately this source is often sullied just where we would expect clean water. For the spirit that benefits a woman is not mere intellect, it is far more: it is an attitude, the spirit by which a man lives. Even a so-called "ideal" spirit is not always the best if it does not understand how to deal adequately with nature, that is, with animal man. . . . Hence every father is given the opportunity to corrupt, in one way or another, his daughter's nature, and the educator, husband, or psychiatrist then has to face the music. For "what has been spoiled by the father"[ A reference to Hexagram 18 in the I Ching (Richard Wilhelm edition, p. 80): "Work ok on What Has Been Spoiled."] can only be made good by a father.[The Personification of the Opposites," CW 14, par. 232.]
Feeling. The psychological function that evaluates or judges what something or someone is worth. (Compare thinking.)
A feeling is as indisputable a reality as the existence of an idea. [The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 531.]
The feeling function is the basis for "fight or flight" decisions. As a subjective process, it may be quite independent of external stimuli. In Jung's view it is a rational function, like thinking, in that it is decisively influenced not by perception (as are the functions of sensation and intuition) but by reflection. A person whose overall attitude is oriented by the feeling function is called a feeling type.  In everyday usage, feeling is often confused with emotion. The latter, more appropriately called affect, is the result of an activated complex. Feeling not contaminated by affect can be quite cold.
Feeling is distinguished from affect by the fact that it produces no perceptible physical innervations, i.e., neither more nor less than an ordinary thinking process. [Definitions," CW 6, par. 725.]
Feminine. See anima, Eros and Logos. Final. A point of view based on the potential result or purpose of psychic activity, complementary to a causal approach. (See also constructive, neurosis, reductive, and self-regulation of the psyche.)
Psychological data necessitate a twofold point of view, namely that of causality and that of finality. I use the word finality intentionally, in order to avoid confusion with the concept of teleology. [Teleology implies the anticipation of a particular end or goal; finality assumes purpose but an essentially unknown goal.] By finality I mean merely the immanent psychological striving for a goal. Instead of "striving for a goal" one could also say "sense of purpose." All psychological phenomena have some such sense of purpose inherent in them, even merely reactive phenomena like emotional reactions.[ "General Aspects of Dream Psychology," CW 8, par. 456.]
Jung also called the final point of view energic, contrasting it with mechanistic or reductive.
The mechanistic view is purely causal; it conceives an event as the effect of a cause, in the sense that unchanging substances change their relations to one another according to fixed laws. The energic point of view on the other hand is in essence final; the event is traced back from effect to cause on the assumption that some kind of energy underlies the changes in phenomena, that it maintains itself as a constant throughout these changes and finally leads to entropy, a condition of general equilibrium. The flow of energy has a definite direction (goal) in that it follows the gradient of potential in a way that cannot be reversed.[On Psychic Energy," ibid., pars. 2f.]
Jung believed that laws governing the physical conservation of energy applied equally to the psyche. Psychologically, this means that where there is an overabundance of energy in one place, some other psychic function has been deprived; conversely, when libido "disap-pears," as it seems to do in a depression, it must appear in another form, for instance as a symptom.
Every time we come across a person who has a "bee in his bonnet," or a morbid conviction, or some extreme attitude, we know that there is too much libido, and that the excess must have been taken from somewhere else where, consequently, there is too little. . . . Thus the symptoms of a neurosis must be regarded as exaggerated functions over-invested with libido. . . .The question has to be reversed in the case of those syndromes characterized mainly by lack of libido, for instance apathetic states. Here we have to ask, where did the libido go? . . . The libido is there, but it is not visible and is inaccessible to the patient himself. . . . It is the task of psychoanalysis to search out that hidden place where the libido dwells.[The Theory of Psychoanalysis," CW 4, pars. 254f]
The energic or final point of view, coupled with the concept of compensation, led Jung to believe that an outbreak of neurosis is essentially an attempt by the psyche to cure itself. Fourth function. See inferior function.
Function. A form of psychic activity, or manifestation of libido, that remains the same in principle under varying conditions. (See also auxiliary function, differentiation, inferior function, primary function and typology.)
Jung's model of typology distinguishes four psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition.
Sensation establishes what is actually present, thinking enables us to recognize its meaning, feeling tells us its value, and intuition points to possibilities as to whence it came and whither it is going in a given situation.["A Psychological Theory of Types," CW 6, par. 958.]
Though all the functions exist in every psyche, one function is invariably more consciously developed than the others, giving rise to a one-sidedness that often leads to neurosis.
The more [a man] identifies with one function, the more he invests it with libido, and the more he withdraws libido from the other functions. They can tolerate being deprived of libido for even quite long periods, but in the end they will react. Being drained of libido, they gradually sink below the threshold of consciousness, lose their associative connection with it, and finally lapse into the unconscious. This is a regressive development, a reversion to the infantile and finally to the archaic level. . . . [which] brings about a dissociation of the personality.[The Type Problem in Aesthetics," ibid., pars. 502f.]
Hero. An archetypal motif based on overcoming obstacles and achieving certain goals.
The hero's main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness: it is the long-hoped-for and expected triumph of consciousness over the unconscious.[The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 284.] The hero myth is an unconscious drama seen only in projection, like the happenings in Plato's parable of the cave.[The Dual Mother," CW 5, par. 612.]
The hero symbolizes a man's unconscious self, and this manifests itself empirically as the sum total of all archetypes and therefore includes the archetype of the father and of the wise old man. To that extent the hero is his own father and his own begetter [Ibid., par. 516.]
Mythologically, the hero's goal is to find the treasure, the princess, the ring, the golden egg, elixir of life, etc. Psychologically these are metaphors for one's true feelings and unique potential. In the process of individuation, the heroic task is to assimilate unconscious contents as opposed to being overwhelmed by them. The potential result is the release of energy that has been tied up with unconscious complexes.
In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one who is devoured by it. And yet both have to deal with the same dragon. Also, he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if he once saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing. Equally, only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the "treasure hard to attain." He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. . . . He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means.["The Conjunction," CW 14, par. 756.]
The hero's journey is a round as illustrated in the diagram. [Adapted from Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Bollingen Series XVII (Princeton University press, 1949), p. 245.]







Call to Adventure
In myth and legend, the hero typically travels by ship, fights a sea monster, is swallowed, struggles against being bitten or crushed to death, and having arrived inside the belly of the whale, like Jonah, seeks the vital organ and cuts it off, thereby winning release. Eventually he must return to his beginnings and bear witness.
In terms of a man's individuation, the whale-dragon is the mother or the mother-bound anima. The vital organ that must be severed is the umbilical cord.
The hero is the ideal masculine type: leaving the mother, the source of life, behind him, he is driven by an unconscious desire to find her again, to return to her womb. Every obstacle that rises in his path and hampers his ascent wears the shadowy features of the Terrible Mother, who saps his strength with the poison of secret doubt and retrospective longing.["The Dual Mother," CW 5, par. 611.]
In a woman's psychology, the hero's journey is lived out through the worldly exploits of the animus, or else in a male partner, through projection. Homosexuality. Usually characterized psychologically by identification with the anima. (See also mother complex.) Jung acknowledged the potential neurotic effects of homosexuality, but he did not see it as an illness in itself.
In view of the recognized frequency of this phenomenon, its interpretation as a pathological perversion is very dubious. The psychological findings show that it is rather a matter of incomplete detachment from the hermaphroditic archetype, coupled with a distinct resistance to identify with the role of a one-sided sexual being. Such a disposition should not be adjudged negative in all circumstances, in so far as it preserves the archetype of the Original Man, which a one-sided sexual being has, up to a point, lost.["Concerning the Archetypes and the Anima Concept," CW 9i, par. 146.]
Hostile brothers. An archetypal motif associated with the opposites constellated in a conflict situation. Examples of the hostile brothers motif in mythology are the struggle between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in The Gilgamesh Epic, and the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. Psychologically, it is generally interpreted in terms of the tug of war between ego and shadow. Hysteria. A state of mind marked by an exaggerated rapport with persons in the immediate environment and an adjustment to surrounding conditions that amounts to imitation.
Hysteria is, in my view, by far the most frequent neurosis of the extraverted type. . . . A constant tendency to make himself interesting and produce an impression is a basic feature of the hysteric. The corollary of this is his proverbial suggestibility, his proneness to another person's influence. Another unmistakable sign of the extraverted hysteric is his effusiveness, which occasionally carries him into the realm of fantasy, so that he is accused of the "hysterical lie."["General Description of the Types," CW 6, par. 566.]
Hysterical neurosis is usually accompanied by compensatory reactions from the unconscious.
[These] counteract the exaggerated extraversion by means of physical symptoms that force the libido to introvert. The reaction of the unconscious produces another class of symptoms having a more introverted character, one of the most typical being a morbid intensification of fantasy activity.[ Ibid., par. 566.]
Identification. A psychological process in which the personality is partially or totally dissimilated. (See also participation mystique and projection.) Identity, denoting an unconscious conformity between subject and object, oneself and others, is the basis for identification, projection and introjection.
Identity is responsible for the naïve assumption that the psychology of one man is like that of another, that the same motives occur everywhere, that what is agreeable to me must obviously be pleasurable for others, that what I find immoral must also be immoral for them, and so on. It is also responsible for the almost universal desire to correct in others what most needs correcting in oneself.["Definitions," ibid., par. 742.]
Identification facilitates early adaptation to the outside world, but in later life becomes a hindrance to individual development.
For example, identification with the father means, in practice, adopting all the father's ways of behaving, as though the son were the same as the father and not a separate individuality. Identification differs from imitation in that it is an unconscious imitation, whereas imitation is a conscious copying. . . . Identification can be beneficial so long as the individual cannot go his own way. But when a better possibility presents itself, identification shows its morbid character by becoming just as great a hindrance as it was an unconscious help and support before. It now has a dissociative effect, splitting the individual into two mutually estranged personalities.[ Ibid., par. 738.]
Identification with a complex (experienced as possession) is a frequent source of neurosis, but it is also possible to identify with a particular idea or belief.
The ego keeps its integrity only if it does not identify with one of the opposites, and if it understands how to hold the balance between them. This is possible only if it remains conscious of both at once. However, the necessary insight is made exceedingly difficult not by one's social and political leaders alone, but also by one's religious mentors. They all want decision in favour of one thing, and therefore the utter identification of the individual with a necessarily one-sided "truth." Even if it were a question of some great truth, identification with it would still be a catastrophe, as it arrests all further spiritual development.[On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 425.]
One-sidedness is usually due to identifying with a particular conscious attitude. This can result in losing touch with the compensating powers of the unconscious.
In a case like this the unconscious usually responds with violent emotions, irritability, lack of control, arrogance, feelings of inferiority, moods, depressions, outbursts of rage, etc., coupled with lack of self-criticism and the misjudgments, mistakes, and delusions which this entails.["The Philosophical Tree," CW 13, par. 454.]
Image, primordial. See archetype and archetypal image. Imago. A term used to differentiate the objective reality of a person or a thing from the subjective perception of its importance.
The image we form of a human object is, to a very large extent, subjectively conditioned. In practical psychology, therefore, we would do well to make a rigorous distinction between the image or imago of a man and his real existence. Because of its extremely subjective origin, the imago is frequently more an image of a subjective functional complex than of the object itself. In the analytical treatment of unconscious products it is essential that the imago should not be assumed to be identical with the object; it is better to regard it as an image of the subjective relation to the object. ["Definitions," CW 6, par. 812.]
Imagos are the consequence of personal experience combined with archetypal images in the collective unconscious. Like everything else unconscious, they are experienced in projection.
The more limited a man's field of consciousness is, the more numerous the psychic contents (imagos) which meet him as quasi-external apparitions, either in the form of spirits, or as magical potencies projected upon living people (magicians, witches, etc.)["The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 295.]
Incest. Psychologically, the regressive longing for the security of childhood and early youth.
Jung interpreted incest images in dreams and fantasies not concretely but symbolically, as indicating the need for a new adaptation more in accord with the instincts. (This differed so radically from the psychoanalytic view that it led to his break with Freud.)
So long as the child is in that state of unconscious identity with the mother, he is still one with the animal psyche and is just as unconscious as it. The development of consciousness inevitably leads not only to separation from the mother, but to separation from the parents and the whole family circle and thus to a relative degree of detachment from the unconscious and the world of instinct. Yet the longing for this lost world continues and, when difficult adaptations are demanded, is forever tempting one to make evasions and retreats, to regress to the infantile past, which then starts throwing up the incestuous symbolism. [Symbols of the Mother and of Rebirth," CW 5, par. 351.] Whenever [the] drive for wholeness appears, it begins by disguising itself under the symbolism of incest, for, unless he seeks it in himself, a man's nearest feminine counterpart is to be found in his mother, sister, or daughter. ["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 471.]
Individual. Unique and unlike anyone else, distinguished from what is collective. (See also individuality.)
A distinction must be made between individuality and the individual. The individual is determined on the one hand by the principle of uniqueness and distinctiveness, and on the other by the society to which he belongs. He is an indispensable link in the social structure. [The Structure of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 519.] The individual is precisely that which can never be merged with the collective and is never identical with it.[ Ibid., par. 485.]
The larger a community is, and the more the sum total of collective factors peculiar to every large community rests on conservative prejudices detrimental to individuality, the more will the individual be morally and spiritually crushed, and, as a result, the one source of moral and spiritual progress for society is choked up.[The Assimilation of the Unconscious," ibid., par. 240.]
The individual standpoint is not antagonistic to collective norms, only differently oriented.
The individual way can never be directly opposed to the collective norm, because the opposite of the collective norm could only be another, but contrary, norm. But the individual way can, by definition, never be a norm. [Definitions," CW 6, par. 761.]
Jung believed that the survival of the individual within a group depended not only on psychological self-understanding, but also on the personal experience of a higher truth.
The individual will never find the real justification for his existence and his own spiritual and moral autonomy anywhere except in an extramundane principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external factors. . . . For this he needs the evidence of inner, transcendent experience which alone can protect him from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass.[The Undiscovered Self," CW 10, par. 511.] Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself. [Ibid., par. 540 (italics in original).]
Individualism. A belief in the supremacy of individual interests over those of the collective, not to be confused with individuality or individuation.
Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective considerations and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to a better social performance than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed.
. . . . Since the universal factors always appear only in individual form, a full consideration of them will also produce an individual effect, and one which cannot be surpassed by anything else, least of all by individualism.["The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, pars. 267f.]
Individuality. The qualities or characteristics that distinguish one person from another. (See also personality.)
By individuality I mean the peculiarity and singularity of the individual in every psychological respect. Everything that is not collective is individual, everything in fact that pertains only to one individual and not to a larger group of individuals.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 756.] The psychological individual, or his individuality, has an a priori unconscious existence, but exists consciously only so far as a consciousness of his peculiar nature is present . . . . A conscious process of differentiation, or individuation, is needed to bring the individuality to consciousness, i.e., to raise it out of the state of identity with the object.[ Ibid., par. 755.]
In the undifferentiated psyche, individuality is subjectively identified with the persona but is actually possessed by an inner, unrecognized aspect of oneself. In such cases, one's individuality is commonly experienced in another person, through projection. If and when this situation becomes intolerable to the psyche, appropriate images appear in an attempt at compensation.
This . . . frequently gives rise in dreams to the symbol of psychic pregnancy, a symbol that goes back to the primordial image of the hero's birth. The child that is to be born signifies the individuality, which, though present, is not yet conscious.[Ibid., par. 806.]
Individuation. A process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality.
In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology.[ Ibid., par. 757.] The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other.["The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 269. ]
Individuation is a process informed by the archetypal ideal of wholeness, which in turn depends on a vital relationship between ego and unconscious. The aim is not to overcome one's personal psychology, to become perfect, but to become familiar with it. Thus individuation involves an increasing awareness of one's unique psychological reality, including personal strengths and limitations, and at the same time a deeper appreciation of humanity in general.
As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 758.] Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to itself.["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 432.]
Individuation has two principle aspects: in the first place it is an internal and subjective process of integration, and in the second it is an equally indispensable process of objective relationship. Neither can exist without the other, although sometimes the one and sometimes the other predominates.[The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 448.]
Individuation and a life lived by collective values are nevertheless two divergent destinies. In Jung's view they are related to one another by guilt. Whoever embarks on the personal path becomes to some extent estranged from collective values, but does not thereby lose those aspects of the psyche which are inherently collective. To atone for this "desertion," the individual is obliged to create something of worth for the benefit of society.
Individuation cuts one off from personal conformity and hence from collectivity. That is the guilt which the individuant leaves behind him for the world, that is the guilt he must endeavor to redeem. He must offer a ransom in place of himself, that is, he must bring forth values which are an equivalent substitute for his absence in the collective personal sphere. Without this production of values, final individuation is immoral and-more than that-suicidal. . . .
The individuant has no a priori claim to any kind of esteem. He has to be content with whatever esteem flows to him from outside by virtue of the values he creates. Not only has society a right, it also has a duty to condemn the individuant if he fails to create equivalent values.["Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity," CW 18, pars. 1095f.]
Individuation differs from individualism in that the former deviates from collective norms but retains respect for them, while the latter eschews them entirely.
A real conflict with the collective norm arises only when an individual way is raised to a norm, which is the actual aim of extreme individualism. Naturally this aim is pathological and inimical to life. It has, accordingly, nothing to do with individuation, which, though it may strike out on an individual bypath, precisely on that account needs the norm for its orientation to society and for the vitally necessary relationship of the individual to society. Individuation, therefore, leads to a natural esteem for the collective norm. [Definitions," CW 6, par. 761.]
The process of individuation, consciously pursued, leads to the realization of the self as a psychic reality greater than the ego. Thus individuation is essentially different from the process of simply becoming conscious.
The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self. [The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 278.] Again and again I note that the individuation process is confused with the coming of the ego into consciousness and that the ego is in consequence identified with the self, which naturally produces a hopeless conceptual muddle. Individuation is then nothing but ego-centredness and autoeroticism. But the self comprises infinitely more than a mere ego, as the symbolism has shown from of old. It is as much one's self, and all other selves, as the ego.[On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 432.]
In Jung's view, no one is ever completely individuated. While the goal is wholeness and a healthy working relationship with the self, the true value of individuation lies in what happens along the way.
The goal is important only as an idea; the essential thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime.["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 400.]
Inferior function. The least differentiated of the four psychological functions. (Compare primary function.)
The inferior function is practically identical with the dark side of the human personality.["Concerning Rebirth," CW 9i, par. 222.]
In Jung's model of typology, the inferior or fourth function is opposite to the superior or primary function. Whether it operates in an introverted or extraverted way, it behaves like an autonomous complex; its activation is marked by affect and it resists integration.
The inferior function secretly and mischievously influences the superior function most of all, just as the latter represses the former most strongly.["The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," ibid., par. 431.] Positive as well as negative occurrences can constellate the inferior counter-function. When this happens, sensitiveness appears. Sensi-tiveness is a sure sign of of the presence of inferiority. This provides the psychological basis for discord and misunderstanding, not only as between two people, but also in ourselves. The essence of the inferior function is autonomy: it is independent, it attacks, it fascinates and so spins us about that we are no longer masters of ourselves and can no longer rightly distinguish between ourselves and others["The Problem of the Attitude-Type," CW 7, par. 85.]
The inferior function is always of the same nature, rational or irrational, as the primary function: when thinking is most developed, the other rational function, feeling, is inferior; if sensation is dominant, then intuition, the other irrational function, is the fourth function, and so on. This accords with general experience: the thinker is tripped up by feeling values; the practical sensation type gets into a rut, blind to the possibilities seen by intuition; the feeling type is deaf to logical thinking; and the intuitive, at home in the inner world, runs afoul of concrete reality. One may be aware of the perceptions or judgments associated with the inferior function, but these are generally over-ridden by the superior function. Thinking types, for example, do not give their feelings much weight. Sensation types have intuitions, but they are not motivated by them. Similarly, feeling types brush away disturbing thoughts and intuitives ignore what is right in front of them.
Although the inferior function may be conscious as a phenomenon its true significance nevertheless remains unrecognized. It behaves like many repressed or insufficiently appreciated contents, which are partly conscious and partly unconscious . . . . Thus in normal cases the inferior function remains conscious, at least in its effects; but in a neurosis it sinks wholly or in part into the unconscious. ["Definitions," CW 6, par. 764.]
To the extent that a person functions too one-sidedly, the inferior function becomes correspondingly primitive and troublesome. The overly dominant primary function takes energy away from the inferior function, which falls into the unconscious. There it is prone to be activated in an unnatural way, giving rise to infantile desires and other symptoms of imbalance. This is the situation in neurosis.
In order to extricate the inferior function from the unconscious by analysis, the unconscious fantasy formations that have now been activated must be brought to the surface. The conscious realization of these fantasies brings the inferior function to consciousness and makes further development possible.[Ibid., par. 764.]
When it becomes desirable or necessary to develop the inferior function, this can only happen gradually.
I have frequently observed how an analyst, confronted with a terrific thinking type, for instance, will do his utmost to develop the feeling function directly out of the unconscious. Such an attempt is foredoomed to failure, because it involves too great a violation of the conscious standpoint. Should the violation nevertheless be successful, a really compulsive dependence of the patient on the analyst ensues, a transference that can only be brutally terminated, because, having been left without a standpoint, the patient has made his standpoint the analyst. . . . [Therefore] in order to cushion the impact of the unconscious, an irrational type needs a stronger development of the rational auxiliary function present in consciousness [and vice versa].["General Description of the Types," ibid., par. 670.]
Attempts to assimilate the inferior function are usually accompanied by a deterioration in the primary function. The thinking type can't write an essay, the sensation type gets lost and forgets appointments, the intuitive loses touch with possibilities, and the feeling type can't decide what something's worth.
And yet it is necessary for the development of character that we should allow the other side, the inferior function, to find expression. We cannot in the long run allow one part of our personality to be cared for symbiotically by another; for the moment when we might have need of the other function may come at any time and find us unprepared. ["The Problem of the Attitude-Type," CW 7, par. 86.]
Inflation. A state of mind characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, often compensated by feelings of inferiority. (See also mana-personality and negative inflation.)
Inflation, whether positive or negative, is a symptom of psychological possession, indicating the need to assimilate unconscious complexes or disidentify from the self.
An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead. Paradoxically enough, inflation is a regression of consciousness into unconsciousness. This always happens when consciousness takes too many unconscious contents upon itself and loses the faculty of discrimination, the sine qua non of all consciousness.["Epilogue," CW 12, par. 563.] [Inflation] should not be interpreted as . . . conscious self-aggrandizement. Such is far from being the rule. In general we are not directly conscious of this condition at all, but can at best infer its existence indirectly from the symptoms. These include the reactions of our immediate environment. Inflation magnifies the blind spot in the eye.[The Self," CW 9ii, par. 44.]
Instinct. An involuntary drive toward certain activities. (See also archetype and archetypal image.)
All psychic processes whose energies are not under conscious control are instinctive.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 765.] Instincts in their original strength can render social adaptation almost impossible.["The Transcendent Function," CW 8, par. 161.]
Instinct is not an isolated thing, nor can it be isolated in practice. It always brings in its train archetypal contents of a spiritual nature, which are at once its foundation and its limitation. In other words, an instinct is always and inevitably coupled with something like a philosophy of life, however archaic, unclear, and hazy this may be. Instinct stimulates thought, and if a man does not think of his own free will, then you get compulsive thinking, for the two poles of the psyche, the physiological and the mental, are indissolubly connected. ["Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life," CW 16, par. 185.]
Psychic processes which ordinarily are consciously controlled can become instinctive when imbued with unconscious energy. This is liable to occur when the level of consciousness is low, due to fatigue, intoxication, depression, etc. Conversely, instincts can be modified according to the extent that they are civilized and under con-scious control, a process Jung called psychization.
An instinct which has undergone too much psychization can take its revenge in the form of an autonomous complex. This is one of the chief causes of neurosis.["Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," CW 8, par. 255.] Too much of the animal distorts the civilized man, too much civilization makes sick animals.[The Eros Theory," CW 7, par. 32.]
Jung identified five prominent groups of instinctive factors: creativity, reflection, activity, sexuality and hunger. Hunger is a primary instinct of self-preservation, perhaps the most fundamental of all drives. Sexuality is a close second, particularly prone to psychization, which makes it possible to divert its purely biological energy into other channels. The urge to activity manifests in travel, love of change, restlessness and play. Under reflection, Jung included the religious urge and the search for meaning. Creativity was for Jung in a class by itself. His descriptions of it refer specifically to the impulse to create art.
Though we cannot classify it with a high degree of accuracy, the creative instinct is something that deserves special mention. I do not know if "instinct" is the correct word. We use the term "creative instinct" because this factor behaves at least dynamically, like an instinct. Like instinct it is compulsive, but it is not common, and it is not a fixed and invariably inherited organization. Therefore I prefer to designate the creative impulse as a psychic factor similar in nature to instinct, having indeed a very close connection with the instincts, but without being identical with any one of them. Its connections with sexuality are a much discussed problem and, furthermore, it has much in common with the drive to activity and the reflective instinct. But it can also suppress them, or make them serve it to the point of the self-destruction of the individual. Creation is as much destruction as construction.["Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," CW 8, par. 245.]
Jung also believed that true creativity could only be enhanced by the analytic process.
Creative power is mightier than its possessor. If it is not so, then it is a feeble thing, and given favourable conditions will nourish an endearing talent, but no more. If, on the other hand, it is a neurosis, it often takes only a word or a look for the illusion to go up in smoke. . . . Disease has never yet fostered creative work; on the contrary, it is the most formidable obstacle to creation. No breaking down of repressions can ever destroy true creativeness, just as no analysis can ever exhaust the unconscious.[Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 206.]
Instinct and archetype are a pair of opposites, inextricably linked and therefore often difficult to tell apart.
Psychic processes seem to be balances of energy flowing between spirit and instinct, though the question of whether a process is to be described as spiritual or as instinctual remains shrouded in darkness. Such evaluation or interpretation depends entirely upon the standpoint or state of the conscious mind.[On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 407.]
When consciousness become overspiritualized, straying too far from its instinctual foundation, self-regulating processes within the psyche become active in an attempt to correct the balance. This is often signaled in dreams by animal symbols, particularly snakes.
The snake is the representative of the world of instinct, especially of those vital processes which are psychologically the least accessible of all. Snake dreams always indicate a discrepancy between the attitude of the conscious mind and instinct, the snake being a personification of the threatening aspect of that conflict.[The Sacrifice," CW 5, par. 615.]
Introjection. A process of assimilation of object to subject, the opposite of projection.
Introjection is a process of extraversion, since assimilation to the object requires empathy and an investment of the object with libido. A passive and an active introjection may be distinguished: transference phenomena in the treatment of the neuroses belong to the former category, and, in general, all cases where the object exercises a compelling influence on the subject, while empathy as a process of adaptation belongs to the latter category.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 768.]
Introspection. A process of reflection that focuses on personal reactions, behavior patterns and attitudes. (See also meditation.) The difference between introspection and introversion is that the latter refers to the direction in which energy naturally moves, while the former refers to self-examination. Neither introverts nor those with a well-developed thinking function have a monopoly on introspection.
Introversion. A mode of psychological orientation where the movement of energy is toward the inner world. (Compare extraversion.)
Everyone whose attitude is introverted thinks, feels, and acts in a way that clearly demonstrates that the subject is the prime motivating factor and that the object is of secondary importance. [ Ibid., par. 769.] Always he has to prove that everything he does rests on his own decisions and convictions, and never because he is influenced by anyone, or desires to please or conciliate some person or opinion.["Psychological Types," CW 6, par. 893.]
An introverted consciousness can be well aware of external conditions, but is not motivated by them. The extreme introvert responds primarily to internal impressions.
In a large gathering he feels lonely and lost. The more crowded it is, the greater becomes his resistance. He is not in the least "with it," and has no love of enthusiastic get-togethers. He is not a good mixer. What he does, he does in his own way, barricading himself against influences from outside. . . . Under normal conditions he is pessimistic and worried, because the world and human beings are not in the least good but crush him. . . .His own world is a safe harbour, a carefully tended and walled-in garden, closed to the public and hidden from prying eyes. His own company is the best.["Psychological Typology," ibid., pars. 976f.]
Signs of introversion in a child are a reflective, thoughtful manner and resistance to outside influences.
The child wants his own way, and under no circumstances will he submit to an alien rule he cannot understand. When he asks questions, it is not from curiosity or a desire to create a sensation, but because he wants names, meanings, explanations to give him subjective protection against the object.["Psychological Types," ibid., par. 897.]
The introverted attitude tends to devalue things and other persons, to deny their importance. Hence, by way of compensation, extreme introversion leads to an unconscious reinforcement of the object's influence. This makes itself felt as a tie, with concomitant emotional reactions, to outer circumstances or another person.
The individual's freedom of mind is fettered by the ignominy of his financial dependence, his freedom of action trembles in the face of public opinion, his moral superiority collapses in a morass of inferior relationships, and his desire to dominate ends in a pitiful craving to be loved. It is now the unconscious that takes care of the relation to the object, and it does so in a way that is calculated to bring the illusion of power and the fantasy of superiority to utter ruin.["General Description of the Types," ibid., par. 626.]
A person in this situation can be worn out from fruitless attempts to impose his or her will.
These efforts are constantly being frustrated by the overwhelming impressions received from the object. It continually imposes itself on him against his will, it arouses in him the most disagreeable and intractable affects and persecutes him at every step. A tremendous inner struggle is needed all the time in order to "keep going." The typical form his neurosis takes is psychasthenia, a malady characterized on the one hand by extreme sensitivity and on the other by great proneness to exhaustion and chronic fatigue.[ Ibid.]
In less extreme cases, introverts are simply more conservative than not, preferring the familiar surroundings of home and intimate times with a few close friends; they husband their energy and would rather stay put than go from place to place. Their best work is done on their own resources, on their own initiative and in their own way.
His retreat into himself is not a final renunciation of the world, but a search for quietude, where alone it is possible for him to make his contribution to the life of the community.[Psychological Typology," ibid., par. 979.]
Intuition. The psychic function that perceives possibilities inherent in the present. (Compare sensation.)
Intuition gives outlook and insight; it revels in the garden of magical possibilities as if they were real.[The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 492.]
In Jung's model of typology, intuition, like sensation, is an irrational function because its apprehension of the world is based on the perception of given facts. Unlike sensation, however, it perceives via the unconscious and is not dependent on concrete reality.
In intuition a content presents itself whole and complete, without our being able to explain or discover how this content came into existence. Intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension, no matter of what contents. . . . Intuitive knowledge possesses an intrinsic certainty and conviction.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 770.]
Intuition may receive information from within (for instance, as a flash of insight of unknown origin), or be stimulated by what is going on in someone else.
The first is a perception of unconscious psychic data originating in the subject, the second is a perception of data dependent on subliminal perceptions of the object and on the feelings and thoughts they evoke.[Ibid., par. 771.]
Irrational. Not grounded in reason. (Compare rational.) Jung pointed out that elementary existential facts fall into this category-for instance, that the earth has a moon, that chlorine is an element or that water freezes at a certain temperature and reaches its greatest density at four degrees centigrade-as does chance. They are irrational not because they are illogical, but because they are beyond reason.
In Jung's model of typology, the psychological functions of intuition and sensation are described as irrational.
Both intuition and sensation are functions that find fulfilment in the absolute perception of the flux of events. Hence, by their very nature, they will react to every possible occurrence and be attuned to the absolutely contingent, and must therefore lack all rational direction. For this reason I call them irrational functions, as opposed to thinking and feeling, which find fulfilment only when they are in complete harmony with the laws of reason.[Ibid., pars. 776f.] Merely because [irrational types] subordinate judgment to perception, it would be quite wrong to regard them as "unreasonable." It wouldbe truer to say that they are in the highest degree empirical. They base themselves entirely on experience. ["General Description of the Types," ibid., par. 616.]
Kore. In Greek mythology, a term for the personification of feminine innocence (e.g., Persephone); psychologically, in man or wom-an, it refers to an archetypal image of potential renewal. The phenomenology of the Kore is essentially bipolar (as is that of any archetype), associated with the mother-maiden dyad. When observed in the products of a woman's unconscious, it is an image of the supraordinate personality or self. In a man, the Kore is an aspect of the anima and partakes in all the symbolism attached to his inner personality.
As a matter of practical observation, the Kore often appears in woman as an unknown young girl . . . . The maiden's helplessness exposes her to all sorts of dangers, for instance of being devoured by reptiles or ritually slaughtered like a beast of sacrifice. Often there are bloody, cruel, and even obscene orgies to which the innocent child falls victim. Sometimes it is a true nekyia, a descent into Hades and a quest for the "treasure hard to attain," occasionally connected with orgiastic sexual rites or offerings of menstrual blood to the moon. Oddly enough, the various tortures and obscenities are carried out by an "Earth Mother." . . . The maiden who crops up in case histories differs not inconsiderably from the vaguely flower-like Kore in that the modern figure is more sharply delineated and not nearly so "unconscious."[The Psychological Aspects of the Kore," CW 9i, par. 311.] Demeter and Kore, mother and daughter, extend the feminine consciousness both upwards and downwards. They add an "older and younger," "stronger and weaker" dimension to it and widen out the narrowly limited conscious mind bound in space and time, giving it intimations of a greater and more comprehensive personality which has a share in the eternal course of things. . . . We could therefore say that every mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother, and that every woman extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter. . . . The conscious experience of these ties produces the feeling that her life is spread out over generations-the first step towards the immediate experience and conviction of being outside time, which brings with it a feeling of immortality.[ Ibid., par. 316.]
Libido. Psychic energy in general. (See also final.)
Libido can never be apprehended except in a definite form; that is to say, it is identical with fantasy-images. And we can only release it from the grip of the unconscious by bringing up the corresponding fantasy-images.[The Technique of Differentiation," CW 7, par. 345.]
Jung specifically distanced his concept of libido from that of Freud, for whom it had a predominantly sexual meaning.
All psychological phenomena can be considered as manifestations of energy, in the same way that all physical phenomena have been understood as energic manifestations ever since Robert Mayer discovered the law of the conservation of energy. Subjectively and psychologically, this energy is conceived as desire. I call it libido, using the word in its original sense, which is by no means only sexual.[Psychoanalysis and Neurosis," CW 4, par. 567.] [Libido] denotes a desire or impulse which is unchecked by any kind of authority, moral or otherwise. Libido is appetite in its natural state. From the genetic point of view it is bodily needs like hunger, thirst, sleep, and sex, and emotional states or affects, which constitute the essence of libido.["The Concept of Libido," CW 5, par. 194.]
In line with his belief that the psyche is a self-regulating system, Jung associated libido with intentionality. It "knows" where it ought to go for the overall health of the psyche.
The libido has, as it were, a natural penchant: it is like water, which must have a gradient if it is to flow.[Symbols of the Mother and of Rebirth," ibid., par. 337.]
Where there is a lack of libido (depression), it has backed up (re-gressed) in order to stir up unconscious contents, the aim being to compensate the attitudes of consciousness. What little energy is left resists being applied in a consciously chosen direction.
It does not lie in our power to transfer "disposable" energy at will to a rationally chosen object. The same is true in general of the apparently disposable energy which is disengaged when we have destroyed its unserviceable forms through the corrosive of reductive analysis. [It] can at best be applied voluntarily for only a short time. But in most cases it refuses to seize hold, for any length of time, of the possibilities rationally presented to it. Psychic energy is a very fastidious thing which insists on fulfilment of its own conditions. However much energy may be present, we cannot make it serviceable until we have succeeded in finding the right gradient.[The Problem of the Attitude-Type," CW 7, par. 76]
The analytic task in such a situation is to discover the natural gradient of the person's energy.
What is it, at this moment and in this individual, that represents the natural urge of life? That is the question.[The Structure of the Unconscious," ibid., par. 488.]
] Logos. The principle of logic and structure, traditionally associated with spirit, the father world and the God-image. (See also animus and Eros.)
There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. This is the paternal principle, the Logos, which eternally struggles to extricate itself from the primal warmth and primal darkness of the maternal womb; in a word, from unconsciousness.["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 178.]
In Jung's earlier writings, he intuitively equated masculine consciousness with the concept of Logos and feminine consciousness with that of Eros. Either one could be dominant in a particular man or woman, due to the contrasexual complexes.
By Logos I meant discrimination, judgment, insight, and by Eros I meant the capacity to relate. I regarded both concepts as intuitive ideas which cannot be defined accurately or exhaustively. From the scientific point of view this is regrettable, but from a practical one it has its value, since the two concepts mark out a field of experience which it is equally difficult to define. As we can hardly ever make a psychological proposition without immediately having to reverse it, instances to the contrary leap to the eye at once: men who care nothing for discrimination, judgment, and insight, and women who display an almost excessively masculine proficiency in this respect. . . . Wherever this exists, we find a forcible intrusion of the unconscious, a corresponding exclusion of the consciousness specific to either sex, predominance of the shadow and of contrasexuality.[The Personification of the Opposites," CW 14, pars. 224f.]
In his later writing on alchemy, Jung described Logos and Eros as psychologically equivalent to solar and lunar consciousness, arche-typal ideas analogous to the Eastern concepts of yang and yin-different qualities of energy. This did not change his view that Eros was more "specific" to feminine consciousness and Logos to masculine. Hence he attributed Eros in a man to the influence of the anima, and Logos in a woman to that of the animus.
In a man it is the lunar anima, in a woman the solar animus, that influences consciousness in the highest degree. Even if a man is often unaware of his own anima-possession, he has, understandably enough, all the more vivid an impression of the animus-possession of his wife, and vice versa. [Ibid., par. 225.]
Loss of soul. A concept borrowed from anthropology, referring psychologically to a state of general malaise.
The peculiar condition covered by this term is accounted for in the mind of the primitive by the supposition that a soul has gone off, just like a dog that runs away from his master overnight. It is then the task of the medicine man to fetch the fugitive back. . . . Some-thing similar can happen to civilized man, only he does not describe it as "loss of soul" but as an "abaissement du niveau mental."[Concerning Rebirth," CW 9i, par. 213.]
Mana-personality. A personified archetypal image of a supernatural force.
The mana-personality is a dominant of the collective unconscious, the well-known archetype of the mighty man in the form of hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, the ruler of men and spirits, the friend of God.[The Mana-Personality," CW 7, par. 377.] Historically, the mana-personality evolves into the hero and the godlike being, whose earthly form is the priest. How very much the doctor is still mana is the whole plaint of the analyst![Ibid., par. 389.]
Mana is a Melanesian word referring to a bewitching or numinous quality in gods and sacred objects. A mana-personality embodies this magical power. In individual psychology, Jung used it to describe the inflationary effect of assimilating autonomous unconscious contents, particularly those associated with anima and animus.
The ego has appropriated something that does not belong to it. But how has it appropriated the mana? If it was really the ego that conquered the anima, then the mana does indeed belong to it, and it would be correct to conclude that one has become important. But why does not this importance, the mana, work upon others? . . . It does not work because one has not in fact become important, but has merely become adulterated with an archetype, another unconscious figure. Hence we must conclude that the ego never conquered the anima at all and therefore has not acquired the mana. All that has happened is a new adulteration. [ Ibid., par. 380.]
Mandala. See quaternity and temenos. Masculine. See animus and Logos.
Mechanistic. See causal, objective level and reductive.
Meditation. A technique of focused introspection.
Jung distinguished between meditation practiced in the East or in traditional Western religious exercises, and its use as a tool for self-understanding, particularly in the realization of projections.
If the ancient art of meditation is practised at all today, it is practised only in religious or philosophical circles, where a theme is subjectively chosen by the meditant or prescribed by an instructor, as in the Ignatian Exercitia or in certain theosophical exercises that developed under Indian influence. These methods are of value only for increasing concentration and consolidating consciousness, but have no significance as regards affecting a synthesis of the personality. On the contrary, their purpose is to shield consciousness from the unconscious and to suppress it.[The Conjunction," CW 14, par. 708.] When meditation is concerned with the objective products of the unconscious that reach consciousness spontaneously, it unites the conscious with contents that proceed not from a conscious causal chain but from an essentially unconscious process. . . . Part of the unconscious contents is projected, but the projection as such is not recognized. Meditation or critical introspection and objective investigation of the object are needed in order to establish the existence of projections. If the individual is to take stock of himself it is essential that his projections should be recognized, because they falsify the nature of the object and besides this contain items which belong to his own personality and should be integrated with it.[ Ibid., par. 710.]
Mother complex. A group of feeling-toned ideas associated with the experience and image of mother. The mother complex is a potentially active component of everyone's psyche, informed first of all by experience of the personal mother, then by significant contact with other women and by collective assumptions. The constellation of a mother complex has differing effects according to whether it appears in a son or a daughter.
Typical effects on the son are homosexuality and Don Juanism, and sometimes also impotence [though here the father complex also plays a part]. In homosexuality, the son's entire heterosexuality is tied to the mother in an unconscious form; in Don Juanism, he unconsciously seeks his mother in every woman he meets.[Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 162.]
A man's mother complex is influenced by the contrasexual complex, the anima. To the extent that a man establishes a good relationship with his inner woman (instead of being possessed by her), even a negative mother complex may have positive effects.
[He] may have a finely differentiated Eros instead of, or in addition to, homosexuality. . . . This gives him a great capacity for friendship, which often creates ties of astonishing tenderness between men and may even rescue friendship between the sexes from the limbo of the impossible. . . .In the same way, what in its negative aspect is Don Juanism can appear positively as bold and resolute manliness; ambitious striving after the highest goals; opposition to all stupidity, narrow-mindedness, injustice, and laziness; willingness to make sacrifices for what is regarded as right, sometimes bordering on heroism; perseverance, inflexibility and toughness of will; a curiosity that does not shrink even from the riddles of the universe; and finally, a revolutionary spirit which strives to put a new face upon the world.[Ibid., pars 164f.]
In the daughter, the effect of the mother complex ranges from stimulation of the feminine instinct to its inhibition. In the first case, the preponderance of instinct makes the woman unconscious of her own personality.
The exaggeration of the feminine side means an intensification of all female instincts, above all the maternal instinct. The negative aspect is seen in the woman whose only goal is childbirth. To her the husband is . . . first and foremost the instrument of procreation, and she regards him merely as an object to be looked after, along with children, poor relations, cats, dogs, and household furniture. [Ibid., par. 167.]
In the second case, the feminine instinct is inhibited or wiped out altogether.
As a substitute, an overdeveloped Eros results, and this almost invariably leads to an unconscious incestuous relationship with the father. The intensified Eros places an abnormal emphasis on the personality of others. Jealousy of the mother and the desire to outdo her become the leitmotifs of subsequent undertakings.[Ibid., par. 168.]
Alternatively, the inhibition of the feminine instinct may lead a woman to identify with her mother. She is then unconscious of both her own maternal instinct and her Eros, which are then projected onto the mother.
As a sort of superwoman (admired involuntarily by the daughter), the mother lives out for her beforehand all that the girl might have lived for herself. She is content to cling to her mother in selfless devotion, while at the same time unconsciously striving, almost against her will, to tyrannize over her, naturally under the mask of complete loyalty and devotion. The daughter leads a shadow-existence, often visibly sucked dry by her mother, and she prolongs her mother's life by a sort of continuous blood transfusion.[ Ibid., par. 169.]
Because of their apparent "emptiness," these women are good hooks for men's projections. As devoted and self-sacrificing wives, they often project their own unconscious gifts onto their husbands.
And then we have the spectacle of a totally insignificant man who seemed to have no chance whatsoever suddenly soaring as if on a magic carpet to the highest summits of achievement. [ Ibid., par. 182.]
In Jung's view, these three extreme types are linked together by many intermediate stages, the most important being where there is an overwhelming resistance to the mother and all she stands for.
It is the supreme example of the negative mother-complex. The motto of this type is: Anything, so long as it is not like Mother! . . . All instinctive processes meet with unexpected difficulties; either sexuality does not function properly, or the children are unwanted, or maternal duties seem unbearable, or the demands of marital life are responded to with impatience and irritation.[Ibid., par. 170.]
Such a woman often excels in Logos activities, where her mother has no place. If she can overcome her merely reactive attitude toward reality, she may later in life come to a deeper appreciation of her femininity. Thanks to her lucidity, objectivity, and masculinity, a woman of this type is frequently found in important positions in which her tardily discovered maternal quality, guided by a cool intelligence, exerts a most beneficial influence. This rare combination of womanliness and masculine understanding proves valuable in the realm of intimate relationships as well as in practical matters. [Ibid., par. 186.]
At the core of any mother complex is the mother archetype, which means that behind emotional associations with the personal mother, both in men and in women, there is a collective image of nourishment and security on the one hand (the positive mother), and devouring possessiveness on the other (the negative mother).
Motif. See archetypal image.
Myth. An involuntary collective statement based on an unconscious psychic experience.
The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche . . . . Many of these unconscious processes may be indirectly occasioned by consciousness, but never by conscious choice. Others appear to arise spontaneously, that is to say, from no discernible or demonstrable conscious cause.["The Psychology of the Child Archetype," ibid., par. 261.]
Negative inflation. An unrealistically low opinion of oneself, due to identification with the negative side of the shadow. (See also inflation.)
Whenever a sense of moral inferiority appears, it indicates not only a need to assimilate an unconscious component, but also the possibility of such assimilation.[The Personal and the Collective Unconscious," CW 7, par. 218.]
Neurosis. A psychological crisis due to a state of disunity with oneself, or, more formally, a mild dissociation of the personality due to the activation of complexes. (See also adaptation, conflict and self-regulation of the psyche.)
Any incompatibility of character can cause dissociation, and too great a split between the thinking and the feeling function, for instance, is already a slight neurosis. When you are not quite at one with yourself . . . you are approaching a neurotic condition.[The Tavistock Lectures," CW 18, par. 383.] Every neurosis is characterized by dissociation and conflict, contains complexes, and shows traces of regression and abaissement.[Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 204.]
Jung's view was that an outbreak of neurosis is purposeful, an opportunity to become conscious of who we are as opposed to who we think we are. By working through the symptoms that invariably accompany neurosis-anxiety, fear, depression, guilt and particularly conflict-we become aware of our limitations and discover our true strengths.
In many cases we have to say, "Thank heaven he could make up his mind to be neurotic." Neurosis is really an attempt at self-cure. . . . It is an attempt of the self-regulating psychic system to restore the balance, in no way different from the function of dreams-only rather more forceful and drastic.[The Tavistock Lectures," CW 18, par. 389.] I myself have known more than one person who owed his entire usefulness and reason for existence to a neurosis, which prevented all the worst follies in his life and forced him to a mode of living that developed his valuable potentialities. These might have been stifled had not the neurosis, with iron grip, held him to the place where he belonged. ["The Problem of the Attitude-Type," CW 7, par. 68.]
In any breakdown in conscious functioning, energy regresses and unconscious contents are activated in an attempt to compensate the one-sidedness of consciousness.
Neuroses, like all illnesses, are symptoms of maladjustment. Be-cause of some obstacle-a constitutional weakness or defect, wrong education, bad experiences, an unsuitable attitude, etc.-one shrinks from the difficulties which life brings and thus finds oneself back in the world of the infant. The unconscious compensates this regression by producing symbols which, when understood objectively, that is, by means of comparative research, reactivate general ideas that underlie all such natural systems of thought. In this way a change of attitude is brought about which bridges the dissociation between man as he is and man as he ought to be. ["The Philosophical Tree," CW 13, par. 473.]
Jung called his attitude toward neurosis energic or final since it was based on the potential progression of energy rather than causal or mechanistic reasons for its regression. The two views are not incompatible but rather complementary: the mechanistic approach looks to the past for the cause of psychic discomfort in the present; Jung focused on the present with an eye to future possibilities.
I no longer seek the cause of a neurosis in the past, but in the present. I ask, what is the necessary task which the patient will not accomplish?["Psychoanalysis and Neurosis," CW4, par. 570.] In psychic disturbances it is by no means sufficient in all cases merely to bring the supposed or real causes to consciousness. The treatment involves the integration of contents that have become dissociated from consciousness.[The Philosophical Tree," CW 13, par. 464.]
Jung did not dispute Freudian theory that Oedipal fixations can manifest as neurosis in later life. He acknowledged that certain periods in life, and particularly infancy, often have a permanent and determining influence on the personality. But he found this to be an insufficient explanation for those cases in which there was no trace of neurosis until the time of the breakdown.
Freud's sexual theory of neurosis is grounded on a true and factual principle. But it makes the mistake of being one-sided and exclusive; also it commits the imprudence of trying to lay hold of unconfinable Eros with the crude terminology of sex. In this respect Freud is a typical representative of the materialistic epoch, whose hope it was to solve the world riddle in a test-tube.["The Eros Theory," CW 7, par. 33.] If the fixation were indeed real [i.e., the primary cause] we should expect to find its influence constant; in other words, a neurosis lasting throughout life. This is obviously not the case. The psychological determination of a neurosis is only partly due to an early infantile predisposition; it must be due to some cause in the present as well. And if we carefully examine the kind of infantile fantasies and occurrences to which the neurotic is attached, we shall be obliged to agree that there is nothing in them that is specifically neurotic. Normal individuals have pretty much the same inner and outer experiences, and may be attached to them to an astonishing degree without developing a neurosis.[Psychoanalysis and Neurosis," CW4, par. 564.]
What then determines why one person becomes neurotic while another, in similar circumstances, does not? Jung's answer is that the individual psyche knows both its limits and its potential. If the former are being exceeded, or the latter not realized, a breakdown occurs. The psyche itself acts to correct the situation.
There are vast masses of the population who, despite their notorious unconsciousness, never get anywhere near a neurosis. The few who are smitten by such a fate are really persons of the "higher" type who, for one reason or another, have remained too long on a primitive level. Their nature does not in the long run tolerate persistence in what is for them an unnatural torpor. As a result of their narrow conscious outlook and their cramped existence they save energy; bit by bit it accumulates in the unconscious and finally explodes in the form of a more or less acute neurosis.[The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 291.]
Jung's view of neurosis differs radically from the classical reductive approach, but it does not substantially change what happens in analysis. Activated fantasies still have to be brought to light, because the energy needed for life is attached to them. The object, however, is not to reveal a supposed root cause of the neurosis but to establish a connection between consciousness and the unconscious that will result in the renewed progression of energy. Night sea journey. An archetypal motif in mythology, psychologically associated with depression and the loss of energy characteristic of neurosis. 
The night sea journey is a kind of descensus ad inferos--a descent into Hades and a journey to the land of ghosts somewhere beyond this world, beyond consciousness, hence an immersion in the unconscious.["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 455.]
Mythologically, the night sea journey motif usually involves being swallowed by a dragon or sea monster. It is also represented by imprisonment or crucifixion, dismemberment or abduction, experiences traditionally weathered by sun-gods and heroes: Gilgamesh, Osiris, Christ, Dante, Odysseus, Aeneas. In the language of the mystics it is the dark night of the soul. Jung interpreted such legends symbolically, as illustrations of the regressive movement of energy in an outbreak of neurosis and its potential progression.
The hero is the symbolical exponent of the movement of libido. Entry into the dragon is the regressive direction, and the journey to the East (the "night sea journey") with its attendant events symbolizes the effort to adapt to the conditions of the psychic inner world. The complete swallowing up and disappearance of the hero in the belly of the dragon represents the complete withdrawal of interest from the outer world. The overcoming of the monster from within is the achievement of adaptation to the conditions of the inner world, and the emergence ("slipping out") of the hero from the monster's belly with the help of a bird, which happens at the moment of sunrise, symbolizes the recommencement of progression.["On Psychic Energy," CW 8, par. 68.]
All the night sea journey myths derive from the perceived behavior of the sun, which, in Jung's lyrical image, "sails over the sea like an immortal god who every evening is immersed in the maternal waters and is born anew in the morning.["Symbols of the Mother and of Rebirth," CW 5, par. 306.] The sun going down, analogous to the loss of energy in a depression, is the necessary prelude to rebirth. Cleansed in the healing waters (the unconscious), the sun (ego-consciousness) lives again. Nigredo. An alchemical term, corresponding psychologically to the mental disorientation that typically arises in the process of assimilating unconscious contents, particularly aspects of the shadow.
Self-knowledge is an adventure that carries us unexpectedly far and deep. Even a moderately comprehensive knowledge of the shadow can cause a good deal of confusion and mental darkness, since it gives rise to personality problems which one had never remotely imagined before. For this reason alone we can understand why the alchemists called their nigredo melancholia, "a black blacker than black," night, an affliction of the soul, confusion, etc., or, more pointedly, the "black raven." For us the raven seems only a funny allegory, but for the medieval adept it was . . . a well-known allegory of the devil.[The Conjunction," CW 14, par. 741.]
Numinous. Descriptive of persons, things or situations having a deep emotional resonance, psychologically associated with experiences of the self.
Numinous, like numinosity, comes from Latin numinosum, referring to a dynamic agency or effect independent of the conscious will.
Religious teaching as well as the consensus gentium always and everywhere explain this experience as being due to a cause external to the individual. The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness.[Psychology and Religion," CW 11, par. 6.]
Objectivation. A process of differentiating the ego from both other persons and contents of the unconscious. (See also active imagination.)
Its goal is to detach consciousness from the object so that the individual no longer places the guarantee of his happiness, or of his life even, in factors outside himself, whether they be persons, ideas, or circumstances, but comes to realize that everything depends on whether he holds the treasure or not. If the possession of that gold is realized, then the centre of gravity is in the individual and no longer in an object on which he depends.[The Tavistock Lectures," CW 18, par. 377.]
Jung pointed out that the "treasure" has traditionally been projected onto sacred figures, but that many modern individuals no longer find satisfaction in such historical symbols. They therefore need to find an individual method to "give shape" to the personal complexes and archetypal images.
For they have to take on form, they have to live their characteristic life, otherwise the individual is severed from the basic function of the psyche [compensation], and then he is neurotic, he is disorientated and in conflict with himself. But if he is able to objectify the impersonal images and relate to them, he is in touch with that vital psychological function which from the dawn of consciousness has been taken care of by religion.[Ibid., par. 378.]
Objective level. An approach to understanding the meaning of images in dreams and fantasies by reference to persons or situations in the outside world. (See also reductive; compare constructive and subjective level.)
Freud's interpretation of dreams is almost entirely on the objective level, since the dream wishes refer to real objects, or to sexual processes which fall within the physiological, extra-psychological sphere. [Definitions," CW 6, par. 779.]
Although Jung pioneered the teaching of dream interpretation on the subjective level, where symbolic meaning is paramount, he also recognized the value of the objective approach.
Enlightening as interpretation on the subjective level may be . . . it may be entirely worthless when a vitally important relationship is the content and cause of the conflict [behind the dream]. Here the dream-figure must be related to the real object. The criterion can always be discovered from the conscious material. [General Aspects of Dream Psychology," CW 8, par. 515.]
Objective psyche. See collective unconscious. Opposites. Psychologically, the ego and the unconscious. (See also compensation, conflict, progression and transcendent function.)
There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites.["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 178.] There is no form of human tragedy that does not in some measure proceed from [the] conflict between the ego and the unconscious.["Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung," CW 8, par. 706."]
Whatever attitude exists in the conscious mind, and whichever psychological function is dominant, the opposite is in the unconscious. This situation seldom precipitates a crisis in the first half of life. But for older people who reach an impasse, characterized by a one-sided conscious attitude and the blockage of energy, it is necessary to bring to light psychic contents that have been repressed.
The repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a tension of opposites, without which no forward movement is possible. The conscious mind is on top, the shadow underneath, and just as high always longs for low and hot for cold, so all consciousness, perhaps without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite, lacking which it is doomed to stagnation, congestion, and ossification. Life is born only of the spark of opposites.[The Problem of the Attitude-Type," CW 7, par. 78.]
This in turn activates the process of compensation, which leads to an irrational "third," the transcendent function.
Out of [the] collision of opposites the unconscious psyche always creates a third thing of an irrational nature, which the conscious mind neither expects nor understands. It presents itself in a form that is neither a straight "yes" nor a straight "no."[The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 285.The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 285.]
Jung explained the potential renewal of the personality in terms of the principle of entropy in physics, according to which transformations of energy in a relatively closed system take place, and are only possible, as a result of differences in intensity.
Psychologically, we can see this process at work in the development of a lasting and relatively unchanging attitude. After violent oscillations at the beginning the opposites equalize one another, and gradually a new attitude develops, the final stability of which is the greater in proportion to the magnitude of the initial differences. The greater the tension between the pairs of opposites, the greater will be the energy that comes from them . . . [and] the less chance is there of subsequent disturbances which might arise from friction with material not previously constellated.["On Psychic Energy," CW 8, par. 49."]
Some degree of tension between consciousness and the unconsciousness is both unavoidable and necessary. The aim of analysis is therefore not to eliminate the tension but rather to understand the role it plays in the self-regulation of the psyche. Moreover, the assimilation of unconscious contents results in the ego becoming responsible for what was previously unconscious. There is thus no question of anyone ever being completely at peace.
The united personality will never quite lose the painful sense of innate discord. Complete redemption from the sufferings of this world is and must remain an illusion. Christ's earthly life likewise ended, not in complacent bliss, but on the cross.["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 400.]
Jung further believed that anyone who attempts to deal with the problem of the opposites on a personal level is making a significant contribution toward world peace.
The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.[Christ, A Symbol of the Self," CW 9ii, par. 126.]
Orientation. A term used to indicate the general principle governing a personal attitude or viewpoint. One's psychological orientation determines how one sees and interprets reality. In Jung's model of typology, a thinking attitude is oriented by the principle of logic; a sensation attitude is oriented by the direct perception of concrete facts; intuition orients itself to future possibilities; and feeling is governed by subjective worth. Each of these attitudes may operate in an introverted or extraverted way.
Parental complex. A group of emotionally charged images and ideas associated with the parents. (See also incest.)
Jung believed that the numinosity surrounding the personal parents, apparent in their more or less magical influence, was to a large extent due to an archetypal image of the primordial parents resident in every psyche.
The importance that modern psychology attaches to the "parental complex" is a direct continuation of primitive man's experience of the dangerous power of the ancestral spirits. Even the error of judgment which leads him unthinkingly to assume that the spirits are realities of the external world is carried on in our assumption (which is only partially correct) that the real parents are responsible for the parental complex. In the old trauma theory of Freudian psychoanalysis, and in other quarters as well, this assumption even passed for a scientific explanation. (It was in order to avoid this confusion that I advocated the term "parental imago.")[The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 293.]
The imago of the parents is composed of both the image created in the individual psyche from the experience of the personal parents and collective elements already present.
The image is unconsciously projected, and when the parents die, the projected image goes on working as though it were a spirit existing on its own. The primitive then speaks of parental spirits who return by night (revenants), while the modern man calls it a father or mother complex. [ Ibid., par. 294.] So long as a positive or negative resemblance to the parents is the deciding factor in a love choice, the release from the parental imago, and hence from childhood, is not complete.[Mind and Earth," CW 10, par. 74].
Participation mystique. A term derived from anthropology and the study of primitive psychology, denoting a mystical connection, or identity, between subject and object. (See also archaic, identification and projection.)
[Participation mystique] consists in the fact that the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object but is bound to it by a direct relationship which amounts to partial identity. . . . Among civilized peoples it usually occurs between persons, seldom between a person and a thing. In the first case it is a transference relationship . . . . In the second case there is a similar influence on the part of the thing, or else an identification with a thing or the idea of a thing.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 781.] [Identity] is a characteristic of the primitive mentality and the real foundation of participation mystique, which is nothing but a relic of the original non-differentiation of subject and object, and hence of the primordial unconscious state. It is also a characteristic of the mental state of early infancy, and, finally, of the unconscious of the civilized adult.[Ibid., par. 741.]
Persona. The "I," usually ideal aspects of ourselves, that we present to the outside world.
The persona is . . . a functional complex that comes into existence for reasons of adaptation or personal convenience. [Ibid., par. 801.] The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.["Concerning Rebirth," CW 9i, par. 221.]
Originally the word persona meant a mask worn by actors to indicate the role they played. On this level, it is both a protective covering and an asset in mixing with other people. Civilized society depends on interactions between people through the persona.
There are indeed people who lack a developed persona . . . blundering from one social solecism to the next, perfectly harmless and innocent, soulful bores or appealing children, or, if they are women, spectral Cassandras dreaded for their tactlessness, eternally misunderstood, never knowing what they are about, always taking forgiveness for granted, blind to the world, hopeless dreamers. From them we can see how a neglected persona works.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 318.]
Before the persona has been differentiated from the ego, the persona is experienced as individuality. In fact, as a social identity on the one hand and an ideal image on the other, there is little individual about it.
It is, as its name implies, only a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks.
When we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask of the collective psyche. Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that. In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he. ["The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche," ibid., pars. 245f.]
A psychological understanding of the persona as a function of relationship to the outside world makes it possible to assume and drop one at will. But by rewarding a particular persona, the outside world invites identification with it. Money, respect and power come to those who can perform single-mindedly and well in a social role. From being a useful convenience, therefore, the persona may become a trap and a source of neurosis.
A man cannot get rid of himself in favour of an artificial personality without punishment. Even the attempt to do so brings on, in all ordinary cases, unconscious reactions in the form of bad moods, affects, phobias, obsessive ideas, backsliding vices, etc. The social "strong man" is in his private life often a mere child where his own states of feeling are concerned.["Anima and Animus," ibid., par. 307. ] The demands of propriety and good manners are an added inducement to assume a becoming mask. What goes on behind the mask is then called "private life." This painfully familiar division of consciousness into two figures, often preposterously different, is an incisive psychological operation that is bound to have repercussions on the unconscious.[Ibid., par. 305.]
Among the consequences of identifying with a persona are: we lose sight of who we are without a protective covering; our reactions are predetermined by collective expectations (we do and think and feel what our persona "should" do, think and feel); those close to us complain of our emotional distance; and we cannot imagine life without it. To the extent that ego-consciousness is identified with the persona, the neglected inner life (personified in the shadow and anima or animus) is activated in compensation. The consequences, experienced in symptoms characteristic of neurosis, can stimulate the process of individuation.
There is, after all, something individual in the peculiar choice and delineation of the persona, and . . . despite the exclusive identity of the ego-consciousness with the persona the unconscious self, one's real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly. Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the persona-that compromise role in which we parade before the community-yet the unconscious self can never be repressed to the point of extinction. Its influence is chiefly manifest in the special nature of the contrasting and compensating contents of the unconscious. The purely personal attitude of the conscious mind evokes reactions on the part of the unconscious, and these, together with personal repressions, contain the seeds of individual development.[The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche," ibid., par. 247.]
Personal unconscious. The personal layer of the unconscious, distinct from the collective unconscious.
The personal unconscious contains lost memories, painful ideas that are repressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose), subliminal perceptions, by which are meant sense-perceptions that were not strong enough to reach consciousness, and finally, contents that are not yet ripe for consciousness.[The Personal and the Collective Unconscious," ibid., par. 103.]
Personality. Aspects of the soul as it functions in the world. (See also individuality.) For the development of personality, differentiation from collective values, particularly those embodied in and adhered to by the persona, is essential.
A change from one milieu to another brings about a striking alteration of personality, and on each occasion a clearly defined character emerges that is noticeably different from the previous one. . . . The social character is oriented on the one hand by the expectations and demands of society, and on the other by the social aims and aspirations of the individual. The domestic character is, as a rule, moulded by emotional demands and an easy-going acquiescence for the sake of comfort and convenience; when it frequently happens that men who in public life are extremely energetic, spirited, obstinate, wilful and ruthless appear good-natured, mild, compliant, even weak, when at home and in the bosom of the family. Which is the true character, the real personality? . . .
. . . . In my view the answer to the above question should be that such a man has no real character at all: he is not individual but collective, the plaything of circumstance and general expectations. Were he individual, he would have the same character despite the variation of attitude. He would not be identical with the attitude of the moment, and he neither would nor could prevent his individuality from expressing itself just as clearly in one state as in another.["Definitions," CW 6, pars. 798f.]
Personification. The tendency of psychic contents or complexes to take on a distinct personality, separate from the ego.
Every autonomous or even relatively autonomous complex has the peculiarity of appearing as a personality, i.e., of being personified. This can be observed most readily in the so-called spiritualistic manifestations of automatic writing and the like. The sentences produced are always personal statements and are propounded in the first person singular, as though behind every utterance there stood an actual personality. A naïve intelligence at once thinks of spirits.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 312.]
The ego may also deliberately personify unconscious contents or the affects that arise from them, using the method of active imagination, in order to facilitate communication between consciousness and the unconscious. Philosophers' stone. In alchemy, a metaphor for the successful transmutation of base metal into gold; psychologically, an archetypal image of wholeness. (See also coniunctio.)
Jung quoted from the Rosarium philosophorum:
Make a round circle of man and woman, extract therefrom a quadrangle and from it a triangle. Make the circle round, and you will have the Philosophers' Stone.["Psychology and Religion," CW 11, par. 92.]
Possession. A term used to describe the identification of consciousness with an unconscious content or complex. The most common forms of possession are by the shadow and the contrasexual complexes, anima/animus.
A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps. Whenever possible, he prefers to make an unfavorable impression on others. . . .
Possession caused by the anima or animus presents a different picture. . . . In the state of possession both figures lose their charm and their values; they retain them only when they are turned away from the world, in the introverted state, when they serve as bridges to the unconscious. Turned towards the world, the anima is fickle, capricious, moody, uncontrolled and emotional, sometimes gifted with daemonic intuitions, ruthless, malicious, untruthful, bitchy, double-faced, and mystical. The animus is obstinate, harping on principles, laying down the law, dogmatic, world-reforming, theoretic, word-mongering, argumentative, and domineering. Both alike have bad taste: the anima surrounds herself with inferior people, and the animus lets himself be taken in by second-rate thinking.["Concerning Rebirth," CW 9i, pars. 222f.]
Power complex. A group of emotionally toned ideas associated with an attitude that seeks to subordinate all influences and experience to the supremacy of the personal ego. Prima materia. An alchemical term meaning "original matter," used psychologically to denote both the instinctual foundation of life and the raw material one works with in analysis-dreams, emotions, conflicts, etc.
Primary function. The psychological function that is most differentiated. (Compare inferior function.) In Jung's model of typology, the primary or superior function is the one we automatically use because it comes most naturally.
Experience shows that it is practically impossible, owing to adverse circumstances in general, for anyone to develop all his psychological functions simultaneously. The demands of society compel a man to apply himself first and foremost to the differentiation of the function with which he is best equipped by nature, or which will secure him the greatest social success. Very frequently, indeed as a general rule, a man identifies more or less completely with the most favoured and hence the most developed function. It is this that gives rise to the various psychological types.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 763.]
In deciding which of the four functions-thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition-is primary, one must closely observe which function is more or less completely under conscious control, and which functions have a haphazard or random character. The superior function (which can manifest in either an introverted or an extraverted way) is always more highly developed than the others, which possess infantile and primitive traits.
The superior function is always an expression of the conscious personality, of its aims, will, and general performance, whereas the less differentiated functions fall into the category of things that simply "happen" to one.[General Description of the Types," ibid., par. 575.]
Primitive. Descriptive of the original, or undifferentiated, human psyche. (See also archaic.)
I use the term "primitive" in the sense of "primordial," and . . . do not imply any kind of value judgment. Also, when I speak of a "vestige" of a primitive state, I no not necessarily mean that this state will sooner or later come to an end. On the contrary, I see no reason why it should not endure as long as humanity lasts.["A Review of the Complex Theory," CW 8, par. 218.]
Primordial image. See archetypal image. Progression. The daily advance of the process of psychological adaptation, the opposite of regression. (See also neurosis.)
Progression is a forwards movement of life in the same sense that time moves forwards. This movement can occur in two different forms: either extraverted, when the progression is predominantly influenced by objects and environmental conditions, or introverted, when it has to adapt itself to the conditions of the ego (or, more accurately, of the "subjective factor"). Similarly, regression can proceed along two lines: either as a retreat from the outside world (introversion), or as a flight into extravagant experience of the outside world (extraversion). Failure in the first case drives a man into a state of dull brooding, and in the second case into leading the life of a wastrel. ["On Psychic Energy," ibid., par. 77.]
In the normal course of life, there is a relatively easy progression of libido; energy may be directed more or less at will. This is not the same as psychological development or individuation. Progression refers simply to the continuous flow or current of life. It is commonly interrupted by a conflict or the inability to adapt to changing circumstances.
During the progression of libido the pairs of opposites are united in the co-ordinated flow of psychic processes. . . . But in the stoppage of libido that occurs when progression has become impossible, positive and negative can no longer unite in co-ordinated action, because both have attained an equal value which keeps the scales balanced. [Ibid., par. 61.]
The struggle between the opposites would continue unabated if the process of regression, the backward movement of libido, did not set in, its purpose being to compensate the conscious attitude.
Through their collision the opposites are gradually deprived of value and depotentiated. . . . In proportion to the decrease in value of the conscious opposites there is an increase in value of all those psychic processes which are not concerned with outward adaptation and therefore are seldom or never employed consciously.["On Psychic Energy," ibid., par. 62.]
As the energic value of these previously unconscious psychic processes increases, they manifest indirectly as disturbances of conscious behavior and symptoms characteristic of neurosis. Prominent aspects of the psyche one then needs to become aware of are the persona, the contrasexual complex (anima/animus) and the shadow. Projection. An automatic process whereby contents of one's own unconscious are perceived to be in others. (See also archaic, identification and participation mystique.)
Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naïvely suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. . . . All the contents of our unconscious are constantly being projected into our surroundings, and it is only by recognizing certain properties of the objects as projections or imagos that we are able to distinguish them from the real properties of the objects. . . . Cum grano salis, we always see our own unavowed mistakes in our opponent. Excellent examples of this are to be found in all personal quarrels. Unless we are possessed of an unusual degree of self-awareness we shall never see through our projections but must always succumb to them, because the mind in its natural state presupposes the existence of such projections. It is the natural and given thing for unconscious contents to be projected.["General Aspects of Dream Psychology," ibid., par. 507.]" Projection means the expulsion of a subjective content into an object; it is the opposite of introjection. Accordingly, it is a process of dissimilation, by which a subjective content becomes alienated from the subject and is, so to speak, embodied in the object. The subject gets rid of painful, incompatible contents by projecting them.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 783.]
Projection is not a conscious process. One meets with projections, one does not make them.
The general psychological reason for projection is always an activated unconscious that seeks expression.["The Tavistock Lectures," CW 18, par. 352.]
It is possible to project certain characteristics onto another person who does not possess them at all, but the one being projected upon may unconsciously encourage it.
It frequently happens that the object offers a hook to the projection, and even lures it out. This is generally the case when the object himself (or herself) is not conscious of the quality in question: in that way it works directly upon the unconscious of the projicient. For all projections provoke counter-projections when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject.[General Aspects of Dream Psychology," CW 8, par. 519.]
Through projection one can create a series of imaginary relationships that often have little or nothing to do with the outside world.
The effect of projection is to isolate the subject from his environment, since instead of a real relation to it there is now only an illusory one. Projections change the world into the replica of one's own unknown face. In the last analysis, therefore, they lead to an autoerotic or autistic condition in which one dreams a world whose reality remains forever unattainable.[The Shadow," CW 9ii, par. 17.]
Projection also has positive effects. In everyday life it facilitates interpersonal relations. In addition, when we assume that some quality or characteristic is present in another, and then, through experience, find that this is not so, we can learn something about ourselves. This involves withdrawing or dissolving projections.
So long as the libido can use these projections as agreeable and convenient bridges to the world, they will alleviate life in a positive way. But as soon as the libido wants to strike out on another path, and for this purpose begins running back along the previous bridges of projection, they will work as the greatest hindrances it is possible to imagine, for they effectively prevent any real detachment from the former object.["General Aspects of Dream Psychology," CW 8, par. 507.]
The need to withdraw projections is generally signaled by frustrated expectations in relationships, accompanied by strong affect. But Jung believed that until there is an obvious discordance between what we imagine to be true and the reality we are presented with, there is no need to speak of projections, let alone withdraw them.
Projection . . . is properly so called only when the need to dissolve the identity with the object has already arisen. This need arises when the identity becomes a disturbing factor, i.e., when the absence of the projected content is a hindrance to adaptation and its withdrawal into the subject has become desirable. From this moment the previous partial identity acquires the character of projection. The term projection therefore signifies a state of identity that has become noticeable.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 783.]
Jung distinguished between passive projection and active projection. Passive projection is completely automatic and unintentional, like falling in love. The less we know about another person, the easier it is to passively project unconscious aspects of ourselves onto them.
Active projection is better known as empathy-we feel ourselves into the other's shoes. Empathy that extends to the point where we lose our own standpoint becomes identification. The projection of the personal shadow generally falls on persons of the same sex. On a collective level, it gives rise to war, scapegoating and confrontations between political parties. Projection that takes place in the context of a therapeutic relationship is called transference or countertransference, depending on whether the analysand or the analyst is the one projecting.
In terms of the contrasexual complexes, anima and animus, projection is both a common cause of animosity and a singular source of vitality.
When animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction. The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love.[The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 30.]
Provisional life. A term used to describe an attitude toward life that is more or less imaginary, not rooted in the here and now, commonly associated with puer psychology. Psyche. The totality of all psychological processes, both conscious and unconscious.
The psyche is far from being a homogenous unit--on the contrary, it is a boiling cauldron of contradictory impulses, inhibitions, and affects, and for many people the conflict between them is so insupportable that they even wish for the deliverance preached by theologians.["Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 190.]
The way in which the psyche manifests is a complicated interplay of many factors, including an individual's age, sex, hereditary disposition, psychological type and attitude, and degree of conscious control over the instincts.
Psychic processes . . . behave like a scale along which consciousness "slides." At one moment it finds itself in the vicinity of instinct, and falls under its influence; at another, it slides along to the other end where spirit predominates and even assimilates the instinctual processes most opposed to it. ["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 408.]
The tremendous complexity of psychic phenomena led Jung to the belief that attempts to formulate a comprehensive theory of the psyche were doomed to failure.
The premises are always far too simple. The psyche is the starting-point of all human experience, and all the knowledge we have gained eventually leads back to it. The psyche is the beginning and end of all cognition. It is not only the object of its science, but the subject also. This gives psychology a unique place among all the other sciences: on the one hand there is a constant doubt as to the possibility of its being a science at all, while on the other hand psychology acquires the right to state a theoretical problem the solution of which will be one of the most difficult tasks for a future philosophy.[Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," ibid., par. 261.]
Psychic energy. See libido. Psychization. The process of reflection whereby an instinct or unconscious content is made conscious.
Psychogenic. Descriptive of mental disturbances having a psychological rather than physiological origin.
Nobody doubts that the neuroses are psychogenic. "Psychogenesis" means that the essential cause of a neurosis, or the condition under which it arises, is of a psychic nature. It may, for instance, be a psychic shock, a gruelling conflict, a wrong kind of psychic adaptation, a fatal illusion, and so on.["Mental disease and the Psyche," CW 3, par. 496.]
Psychoid. A concept applicable to virtually any archetype, expressing the essentially unknown but experienceable connection between psyche and matter.
Psyche is essentially conflict between blind instinct and will (freedom of choice). Where instinct predominates, psychoid processes set in which pertain to the sphere of the unconscious as elements incapable of consciousness. The psychoid process is not the unconscious as such, for this has a far greater extension.["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 380.] It seems to me probable that the real nature of the archetype is not capable of being made conscious, that it is transcendent, on which account I call it psychoid. [ Ibid., par. 417.]
Psychological types. See type and typology. Psychopomp. A psychic factor that mediates unconscious contents to consciousness, often personified in the image of a wise old man or woman, and sometimes as a helpful animal.
Psychosis. An extreme dissociation of the personality. Like neurosis, a psychotic condition is due to the activity of unconscious complexes and the phenomenon of splitting. In neurosis, the complexes are only relatively autonomous. In psychosis, they are completely disconnected from consciousness.
To have complexes is in itself normal; but if the complexes are incompatible, that part of the personality which is too contrary to the conscious part becomes split off. If the split reaches the organic structure, the dissociation is a psychosis, a schizophrenic condition, as the term denotes. Each complex then lives an existence of its own, with no personality left to tie them together.["The Tavistock Lectures," CW 18, par. 382.] [In schizophrenia] the split-off figures assume banal, grotesque, or highly exaggerated names and characters, and are often objectionable in many other ways. They do not, moreover, co-operate with the patient's consciousness. They are not tactful and they have no respect for sentimental values. On the contrary, they break in and make a disturbance at any time, they torment the ego in a hundred ways; all are objectionable and shocking, either in their noisy and impertinent behaviour or in their grotesque cruelty and obscenity. There is an apparent chaos of incoherent visions, voices, and characters, all of an overwhelmingly strange and incomprehensible nature.[On the Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia," CW 3, par. 508.]
Jung believed that many psychoses, and particularly schizophrenia, were psychogenic, resulting from an abaissement du niveau mental and an ego too weak to resist the onslaught of unconscious contents. He reserved judgment on whether biological factors were a contributing cause. Puer aeternus. Latin for "eternal child," used in mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young; psychologically it refers to an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level, usually coupled with too great a dependence on the mother.[The term puella is used when referring to a woman, though one might also speak of a puer animus-or a puella anima.]
The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible to escape. His lot is seldom what he really wants and one day he will do something about it-but not just yet. Plans for the future slip away in fantasies of what will be, what could be, while no decisive action is taken to change. He covets independence and freedom, chafes at boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable.
[The world] makes demands on the masculinity of a man, on his ardour, above all on his courage and resolution when it comes to throwing his whole being into the scales. For this he would need a faithless Eros, one capable of forgetting his mother and undergoing the pain of relinquishing the first love of his life.[The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 22.]
Common symptoms of puer psychology are dreams of imprisonment and similar imagery: chains, bars, cages, entrapment, bondage. Life itself, existential reality, is experienced as a prison. The bars are unconscious ties to the unfettered world of early life. The puer's shadow is the senex (Latin for "old man"), associated with the god Apollo-disciplined, controlled, responsible, rational, ordered. Conversely, the shadow of the senex is the puer, related to Dionysus-unbounded instinct, disorder, intoxication, whimsy.
Whoever lives out one pattern to the exclusion of the other risks constellating the opposite. Hence individuation quite as often involves the need for a well-controlled person to get closer to the spontaneous, instinctual life as it does the puer's need to grow up.
The "eternal child" in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality.[The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 300.]
Quaternity. An image with a four-fold structure, usually square or circular and symmetrical; psychologically, it points to the idea of wholeness. (See also temenos.)
The quaternity is one of the most widespread archetypes and has also proved to be one of the most useful schemata for representing the arrangement of the functions by which the conscious mind takes its bearings.[See below, typology.] It is like the crossed threads in the telescope of our understanding. The cross formed by the points of the quaternity is no less universal and has in addition the highest possible moral and religious significance for Western man. Similarly the circle, as the symbol of completeness and perfect being, is a widespread expression for heaven, sun, and God; it also expresses the primordial image of man and the soul.["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 405.] From the circle and quaternity motif is derived the symbol of the geometrically formed crystal and the wonder-working stone. From here analogy formation leads on to the city, castle, church, house, and vessel. Another variant is the wheel (rota). The former motif emphasizes the ego's containment in the greater dimension of the self; the latter emphasizes the rotation which also appears as a ritual circumambulation. Psychologically, it denotes concentration on and preoccupation with a centre.[The Structure and Dynamics of the Self," CW 9ii, par. 352.]
Jung believed that the spontaneous production of quaternary images (including mandalas), whether consciously or in dreams and fantasies, can indicate the ego's capacity to assimilate unconscious material. But they may also be essentially apotropaic, an attempt by the psyche to prevent itself from disintegrating.
These images are naturally only anticipations of a wholeness which is, in principle, always just beyond our reach. Also, they do not invariably indicate a subliminal readiness on the part of the patient to realize that wholeness consciously, at a later stage; often they mean no more than a temporary compensation of chaotic confusion.[The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 536.]
Rapport. A feeling of agreement between oneself and others.
It frequently happens that despite an absolute difference of standpoint a rapport nevertheless comes about, and in the following way: one party, by unspoken projection, assumes that the other is, in all essentials, of the same opinion as himself, while the other divines or senses an objective community of interest, of which, however, the former has no conscious inkling and whose existence he would at once dispute, just as it would never occur to the other that his relationship should be based on a common point of view. A rapport of this kind is by far the most frequent; it rests on mutual projection, which later becomes the source of many misunderstandings. ["General Description of the Types," CW 6, par. 618.]
Rational. Descriptive of thoughts, feelings and actions that accord with reason, an attitude based on objective values established by practical experience. (Compare irrational.)
The rational attitude which permits us to declare objective values as valid at all is not the work of the individual subject, but the product of human history.
Most objective values-and reason itself-are firmly established complexes of ideas handed down through the ages. Countless generations have laboured at their organization with the same necessity with which the living organism reacts to the average, constantly recurring environmental conditions, confronting them with corresponding functional complexes, as the eye, for instance, perfectly corresponds to the nature of light. . . . Thus the laws of reason are the laws that designate and govern the average, "correct," adapted attitude. Everything is "rational" that accords with these laws, everything that contravenes them is "irrational."[Definitions," ibid., par. 785f.]
Jung described the psychological functions of thinking and feeling as rational because they are decisively influenced by reflection. Rebirth. A process experienced as a renewal or transformation of the personality. (See also individuation.)
Rebirth is not a process that we can in any way observe. We can neither measure nor weigh nor photograph it. It is entirely beyond sense perception. . . . One speaks of rebirth; one professes rebirth; one is filled with rebirth. . . . We have to be content with its psychic reality.[Concerning Rebirth," CW 9i, par. 206.]
Jung distinguished between five different forms of rebirth: metempsychosis (transmigration of souls), reincarnation (in a human body), resurrection, psychological rebirth (individuation) and indirect change that comes about through participation in the process of transformation. Psychological rebirth was Jung's particular focus. Induced by ritual or stimulated by immediate personal experience, it results in an enlargement of the personality. He acknowledged that one might feel transformed during certain group experiences, but he cautioned against confusing this with genuine rebirth.
If any considerable group of persons are united and identified with one another by a particular frame of mind, the resultant transformation experience bears only a very remote resemblance to the experience of individual transformation. A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal . . . .
. . . The group experience goes no deeper than the level of one's own mind in that state. It does work a change in you, but the change does not last.[Ibid., pars. 225f.]
Reductive. Literally, "leading back," descriptive of interpretations of dreams and neurosis in terms of events in outer life, particularly those in childhood. (Compare constructive and final.)
The reductive method is oriented backwards, in contrast to the constructive method . . . . The interpretive methods of both Freud and Adler are reductive, since in both cases there is a reduction to the elementary processes of wishing or striving, which in the last resort are of an infantile or physiological nature. . . . Reduction has a disintegrative effect on the real significance of the unconscious product, since this is either traced back to its historical antecedents [e.g., childhood] and thereby annihilated, or integrated once again with the same elementary process from which it arose.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 788.]
In dream interpretation, the reductive (also called mechanistic) method seeks to explain images of persons and situations in terms of concrete reality. The constructive or final approach focuses on the dream's symbolic content. Although Jung himself concentrated on the constructive approach, he regarded reductive analysis as an important first step in the treatment of psychological problems, particularly in the first half of life.
The neuroses of the young generally come from a collision between the forces of reality and an inadequate, infantile attitude, which from the causal point of view is characterized by an abnormal dependence on the real or imaginary parents, and from the teleological point of view by unrealizable fictions, plans, and aspirations. Here the reductive methods of Freud and Adler are entirely in place.[The Problem of the Attitude-Type," CW 7, par. 88.]
Reflection. Mental activity that concentrates on a particular content of consciousness, an instinct encompassing religion and the search for meaning.
Ordinarily we do not think of "reflection" as ever having been instinctive, but associate it with a conscious state of mind. Reflexio means "bending back" and, used psychologically, would denote the fact that the reflex which carries the stimulus over into its instinctive discharge is interfered with by psychization. . . . Thus in place of the compulsive act there appears a certain degree of freedom, and in place of predictability a relative unpredictability as to the effect of the impulse.["Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," CW 8, par. 241.]
In Jung's view, the richness of the human psyche and its essential character are determined by the reflective instinct.
Reflection is the cultural instinct par excellence, and its strength is shown in the power of culture to maintain itself in the face of untamed nature.[ Ibid., par. 243. ]
Regression. The backward movement of libido to an earlier mode of adaptation, often accompanied by infantile fantasies and wishes. (See also depression; compare progression.)
Regression . . . as an adaptation to the conditions of the inner world, springs from the vital need to satisfy the demands of individuation.["On Psychic Energy," ibid., par. 75.] What robs Nature of its glamour, and life of its joy, is the habit of looking back for something that used to be outside, instead of looking inside, into the depths of the depressive state. This looking back leads to regression and is the first step along that path. Regression is also an involuntary introversion in so far as the past is an object of memory and therefore a psychic content, an endopsychic factor. It is a relapse into the past caused by a depression in the present.[The Sacrifice," CW 5, par. 625.]
Jung believed that the blockage of the forward movement of energy is due to the inability of the dominant conscious attitude to adapt to changing circumstances. However, the unconscious contents thereby activated contain the seeds of a new progression. For instance, the opposite or inferior function is waiting in the wings, potentially capable of modifying the inadequate conscious attitude.
If thinking fails as the adapted function, because it is dealing with a situation to which one can adapt only by feeling, then the unconscious material activated by regression will contain the missing feeling function, although still in embryonic form, archaic and undeveloped. Similarly, in the opposite type, regression would activate a thinking function that would effectively compensate the inadequate feeling. ["On Psychic Energy," CW 8, par. 65.]
The regression of energy confronts us with the problem of our own psychology. From the final point of view, therefore, regression is as necessary in the developmental process as is progression.
Regarded causally, regression is determined, say, by a "mother fixation." But from the final standpoint the libido regresses to the imago of the mother in order to find there the memory associations by means of which further development can take place, for instance from a sexual system into an intellectual or spiritual system.
The first explanation exhausts itself in stressing the importance of the cause and completely overlooks the final significance of the regressive process. From this angle the whole edifice of civilization becomes a mere substitute for the impossibility of incest. But the second explanation allows us to foresee what will follow from the regression, and at the same time it helps us to understand the significance of the memory-images that have been reactivated.[ Ibid., pars. 43f. ]
Jung believed that behind the mundane symptoms of regression lay its symbolic meaning: the need for psychological renewal, reflected in mythology as the journey of the hero.
It is precisely the strongest and best among men, the heroes, who give way to their regressive longing and purposely expose themselves to the danger of being devoured by the monster of the maternal abyss. But if a man is a hero, he is a hero because, in the final reckoning, he did not let the monster devour him, but subdued it, not once but many times. Victory over the collective psyche alone yields the true value-the capture of the hoard, the invincible weapon, the magic talisman, or whatever it be that the myth deems most desirable.[The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 261.]
Regressive restoration of the persona. A term used to describe what can happen when there has been a major collapse in the conscious attitude.
Take as an example a businessman who takes too great a risk and consequently goes bankrupt. If he does not allow himself to be discouraged by this depressing experience, but, undismayed, keeps his former daring, perhaps with a little salutary caution added, his wound will be healed without permanent injury. But if, on the other hand, he goes to pieces, abjures all further risks, and laboriously tries to patch up his social reputation within the confines of a much more limited personality, doing inferior work with the mentality of a scared child, in a post far below him, then, technically speaking, he will have restored his persona in a regressive way. . . . Formerly perhaps he wanted more than he could accomplish; now he does not even dare to attempt what he has it in him to do.[ Ibid., par. 254.] The regressive restoration of the persona is a possible course only for the man who owes the critical failure of his life to his own inflatedness. With diminished personality, he turns back to the measure he can fill. But in every other case resignation and self-belittlement are an evasion, which in the long run can be kept up only at the cost of neurotic sickliness.[Ibid., par. 259.]
Religious attitude. Psychologically, an attitude informed by the careful observation of, and respect for, invisible forces and personal experience.
We might say . . . that the term "religion" designates the attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum.["Psychology and Religion," CW 11, par. 9.] Religion . . . is an instinctive attitude peculiar to man, and its manifestations can be followed all through human history. ["The Undiscovered Self," CW 10, par. 512.]
The religious attitude is quite different from faith associated with a specific creed. The latter, as a codified and dogmatized form of an original religious experience, simply gives expression to a particular collective belief. True religion involves a subjective relationship to certain metaphysical, extramundane factors.
A creed is a confession of faith intended chiefly for the world at large and is thus an intramundane affair, while the meaning and purpose of religion lie in the relationship of the individual to God (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) or to the path of salvation and liberation (Buddhism). [Ibid., par. 507.]
Jung believed that a neurosis in the second half of life is seldom cured without the development of a religious attitude, prompted by a spontaneous revelation of the spirit.
This spirit is an autonomous psychic happening, a hush that follows the storm, a reconciling light in the darkness of man's mind, secretly bringing order into the chaos of his soul. ["A Psychological Approach to the Trinity," CW 11, par. 260.]
Repression. The unconscious suppression of psychic contents that are incompatible with the attitude of consciousness.
Repression is a process that begins in early childhood under the moral influence of the environment and continues through life.["The Personal and the Collective Unconscious," CW 7, par. 202.] Repression causes what is called a systematic amnesia, where only specific memories or groups of ideas are withdrawn from recollection. In such cases a certain attitude or tendency can be detected on the part of the conscious mind, a deliberate intention to avoid even the bare possibility of recollection, for the very good reason that it would be painful or disagreeable [Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 199a.]
Repression is not only a factor in the etiology of many neuroses, it also determines contents of the personal shadow, since the ego generally represses material that would disturb peace of mind
In the course of development following puberty, consciousness is confronted with affective tendencies, impulses, and fantasies which for a variety of reasons it is not willing or not able to assimilate. It then reacts with repression in various forms, in the effort to get rid of the troublesome intruders. The general rule is that the more negative the conscious attitude is, and the more it resists, devalues, and is afraid, the more repulsive, aggressive, and frightening is the face which the dissociated content assumes.["The Philosophical Tree," CW 13, par. 464.]
Many repressed contents come to the surface naturally during the analytic process. Where there are strong resistances to uncovering repressed material, Jung believed these should always be respected lest the ego be overwhelmed.
The general rule should be that the weakness of the conscious attitude is proportional to the strength of the resistance. When, therefore, there are strong resistances, the conscious rapport with the patient must be carefully watched, and-in certain cases-his conscious attitude must be supported to such a degree that, in view of later developments, one would be bound to charge oneself with the grossest inconsistency. That is inevitable, because one can never be too sure that the weak state of the patient's conscious mind will prove equal to the subsequent assault of the unconscious. In fact, one must go on supporting his conscious (or, as Freud thinks, "repres-sive") attitude until the patient can let the "repressed" contents rise up spontaneously.[The Psychology of the Unconscious," CW 16, par. 381.]
Sacred marriage. See coniunctio. Sacrifice. Psychologically, associated with the need to give up the world of childhood, often signaled by the regression of energy.
One must give up the retrospective longing which only wants to resuscitate the torpid bliss and effortlessness of childhood.[The Sacrifice," CW 5, par. 643.] For him who looks backwards the whole world, even the starry sky, becomes the mother who bends over him and enfolds him on all sides, and from the renunciation of this image, and of the longing for it, arises the picture of the world as we know it today.[ Ibid., par. 646.]
Schizophrenia. See psychosis. Self. The archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche; a transpersonal power that transcends the ego.
As an empirical concept, the self designates the whole range of psychic phenomena in man. It expresses the unity of the personality as a whole. But in so far as the total personality, on account of its unconscious component, can be only in part conscious, the concept of the self is, in part, only potentially empirical and is to that extent a postulate. In other words, it encompasses both the experienceable and the inexperienceable (or the not yet experienced). . . . It is a transcendental concept, for it presupposes the existence of unconscious factors on empirical grounds and thus characterizes an entity that can be described only in part.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 789.] The self is not only the centre, but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of this totality, just as the ego is the centre of consciousness. ["Introduction," CW 12, par. 44.]
Like any archetype, the essential nature of the self is unknowable, but its manifestations are the content of myth and legend.
The self appears in dreams, myths, and fairytales in the figure of the "supraordinate personality," such as a king, hero, prophet, saviour, etc., or in the form of a totality symbol, such as the circle, square, quadratura circuli, cross, etc. When it represents a complexio oppositorum, a union of opposites, it can also appear as a united duality, in the form, for instance, of tao as the interplay of yang and yin, or of the hostile brothers, or of the hero and his adversary (arch-enemy, dragon), Faust and Mephistopheles, etc. Empirically, therefore, the self appears as a play of light and shadow, although conceived as a totality and unity in which the opposites are united.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 790.]
The realization of the self as an autonomous psychic factor is often stimulated by the irruption of unconscious contents over which the ego has no control. This can result in neurosis and a subsequent renewal of the personality, or in an inflated identification with the greater power.
The ego cannot help discovering that the afflux of unconscious contents has vitalized the personality, enriched it and created a figure that somehow dwarfs the ego in scope and intensity. . . . Naturally, in these circumstances there is the greatest temptation simply to follow the power-instinct and to identify the ego with the self outright, in order to keep up the illusion of the ego's mastery. . . . [But] the self has a functional meaning only when it can act compensatorily to ego-consciousness. If the ego is dissolved in identification with the self, it gives rise to a sort of nebulous superman with a puffed-up ego.[On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 430.]
Experiences of the self possess a numinosity characteristic of religious revelations. Hence Jung believed there was no essential difference between the self as an experiential, psychological reality and the traditional concept of a supreme deity.
It might equally be called the "God within us."[The Mana-Personality," CW 7, par. 399.
Self-regulation of the psyche. A concept based on the compensatory relationship between consciousness and the unconscious. (See also adaptation, compensation, neurosis, opposites and transcendent function.)
The psyche does not merely react, it gives its own specific answer to the influences at work upon it.[Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis," CW 4, par. 665.]
The process of self-regulation is going on all the time within the psyche. It only becomes noticeable when ego-consciousness has particular difficulty in adapting to external or internal reality. That is often the start of a process, proceeeding along the lines outlined in the chart, that may lead to individuation.








The Self-regulation of the Psyche
1. Difficulty of adaptation. Little progression of libido.
2. Regression of energy (depression, lack of disposable energy).
3. Activation of unconscious contents (fantasies, complexes,
archetypal images, inferior function, opposite attitude,
shadow, anima/animus, etc.). Compensation.
4. Symptoms of neurosis (confusion, fear, anxiety, guilt, moods, extreme affect, etc.).
5. Unconscious or half-conscious conflict between ego and contents activated in the unconscious.
Inner tension. Defensive reactions.
6. Activation of the transcendent function, involving the self and archetypal patterns of wholeness.
7. Formation of symbols (numinosity, synchronicity).
8. Transfer of energy between unconscious contents and consciousness. Enlargement of the ego,
progression of energy.
9. Assimilation of unconscious contents. Individuation.









Consciousness and the unconscious seldom agree as to their contents and their tendencies. The self-regulating activities of the psyche, manifest in dreams, fantasies and synchronistic experiences, attempt to correct any significant imbalance. According to Jung, this is necessary for several reasons:
(1) Consciousness possesses a threshold intensity which its contents must have attained, so that all elements that are too weak remain in the unconscious.
(2) Consciousness, because of its directed functions, exercises an inhibition (which Freud calls censorship) on all incompatible material, with the result that it sinks into the unconscious.
(3) Consciousness constitutes the momentary process of adaptation, whereas the unconscious contains not only all the forgotten material of the individual's own past, but all the inherited behaviour traces constituting the structure of the mind [i.e., archetypes].
(4) The unconscious contains all the fantasy combinations which have not yet attained the threshold intensity, but which in the course of time and under suitable conditions will enter the light of consciousness.["The Transcendent Function," CW 8, par. 132.]
Sensation. The psychological function that perceives immediate reality through the physical senses. (Compare intuition.)
An attitude that seeks to do justice to the unconscious as well as to one's fellow human beings cannot possibly rest on knowledge alone, in so far as this consists merely of thinking and intuition. It would lack the function that perceives values, i.e., feeling, as well as the fonction du réel, i.e., sensation, the sensible perception of reality. ["the Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par.486.]
In Jung's model of typology, sensation, like intuition, is an irrational function. It perceives concrete facts, with no judgment of what they mean or what they are worth.
Sensation must be strictly differentiated from feeling, since the latter is an entirely different process, although it may associate itself with sensation as "feeling-tone." Sensation is related not only to external stimuli but to inner ones, i.e., to changes in the internal organic processes.[Definitions," CW 6, par. 792.]
Jung also distinguished between sensuous or concrete sensation and abstract sensation.
Concrete sensation never appears in "pure" form, but is always mix-ed up with ideas, feelings, thoughts. . . . The concrete sensation of a flower . . . conveys a perception not only of the flower as such, but also of the stem, leaves, habitat, and so on. It is also instantly mingled with feeling of pleasure or dislike which the sight of the flower evokes, or with simultaneous olfactory perceptions, or with thoughts about its botanical classification, etc. But abstract sensation immediately picks out the most salient sensuous attribute of the flower, its brilliant redness, for instance, and makes this the sole or at least the principle content of consciousness, entirely detached from all other admixtures. Abstract sensation is found chiefly among artists. Like every abstraction, it is a product of functional differentiation.[Ibid., par. 794.]
Shadow. Hidden or unconscious aspects of oneself, both good and bad, which the ego has either repressed or never recognized. (See also repression.)
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. ["The Shadow," CW 9ii, par. 14.]
Before unconscious contents have been differentiated, the shadow is in effect the whole of the unconscious. It is commonly personified in dreams by persons of the same sex as the dreamer. The shadow is composed for the most part of repressed desires and uncivilized impulses, morally inferior motives, childish fantasies and resentments, etc.--all those things about oneself one is not proud of. These unacknowledged personal characteristics are often experienced in others through the mechanism of projection.
Although, with insight and good will, the shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality, experience shows that there are certain features which offer the most obstinate resistance to moral control and prove almost impossible to influence. These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary. While some traits peculiar to the shadow can be recognized without too much difficulty as one's personal qualities, in this case both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie, beyond all possibility of doubt, in the other person.[Ibid., par. 16.]
The realization of the shadow is inhibited by the persona. To the degree that we identify with a bright persona, the shadow is correspondingly dark. Thus shadow and persona stand in a compensatory relationship, and the conflict between them is invariably present in an outbreak of neurosis. The characteristic depression at such times indicates the need to realize that one is not all one pretends or wishes to be. There is no generally effective technique for assimilating the shadow. It is more like diplomacy or statesmanship and it is always an individual matter. First one has to accept and take seriously the existence of the shadow. Second, one has to become aware of its qualities and intentions. This happens through conscientious attention to moods, fantasies and impulses. Third, a long process of negotiation is unavoidable.
It is a therapeutic necessity, indeed, the first requisite of any thorough psychological method, for consciousness to confront its shadow. In the end this must lead to some kind of union, even though the union consists at first in an open conflict, and often remains so for a long time. It is a struggle that cannot be abolished by rational means. When it is wilfully repressed it continues in the unconscious and merely expresses itself indirectly and all the more dangerously, so no advantage is gained. The struggle goes on until the opponents run out of breath. What the outcome will be can never be seen in advance. The only certain thing is that both parties will be changed.["Rex and Regina," CW 14, par. 514.] This process of coming to terms with the Other in us is well worth while, because in this way we get to know aspects of our nature which we would not allow anybody else to show us and which we ourselves would never have admitted.[The Conjunction," ibid., par. 706.]
Responsibility for the shadow rests with the ego. That is why the shadow is a moral problem. It is one thing to realize what it looks like-what we are capable of. It is quite something else to determine what we can live out, or with.
Confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective or even impossible. Everything becomes doubtful.[Ibid., par. 708.]
The shadow is not, however, only the dark underside of the personality. It also consists of instincts, abilities and positive moral qualities that have long been buried or never been conscious.
The shadow is merely somewhat inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward; not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities which would in a way vitalize and embellish human existence, but-convention forbids![Psychology and Religion," CW 11, par. 134.] If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of all evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is, his shadow, does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc.[Conclusion," CW 9ii, par. 423.]
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