Jung on archetypes and archetypal images

Although Jung named his school of thought “analytical psychology,” he might with equal justification have called it “archetypal psychology.” For no other term is more basic to Jungian analysis than “archetype”; and yet no other term has been the source of so much definitional confusion. Part of the reason is that Jung defined “archetype” in different ways at different times. Sometimes, he spoke of archetypes as if they were images. Sometimes, he distinguished more precisely between archetypes as unconscious forms devoid of any specific content and archetypal images as the conscious contents of those forms.

Both Freud and Jung acknowledged the existence of archetypes, which Freud called phylogenetic “schemata“ (1918/1955), or phylogenetic “prototypes” (1927/1961). Philosophically, Freud and Jung were neo-Kantian structuralists who believed that hereditary categories of the psyche imaginatively inform the individual human experience of external reality in typical or schematic ways. Freud (1918/1955) alludes to Kant when he says that the phylogenetic schemata are comparable to “the categories of philosophy” because they “are concerned with the business of 'placing' the impressions derived from actual experience.” He states that the Oedipus complex is “one of them” - evidently one among many - “the best known” of the schemata. He describes the circumstances under which a schema may exert a dominant influence over external reality:

Jung's writings are peppered by seemingly throwaway comments and assertions that have contributed to Jungian analysis earning the reputation of being a psychodynamic therapy that does not concern itself much with the transference. For example:

When taken out of context, such statements can easily undermine the strength of an arc of development in Jung's treatment of the transference which spans fifty years. Already in 1913, alluding to the transference, Jung wrote:

And towards the end of his life he is quite adamant when he states:

Where Jung and Freud were very much in disagreement was in their views on countertransference, which Freud regarded as an unwelcome interference in the analyst's receptivity to communications from the patient. This interference occurred when the patient activated unconscious conflicts in the analyst which had the effect of making the analyst want to counter the patient, in the sense of warding the patient off. Freud's approach was to insist on the analyst recognizing and overcoming countertransference, a conviction which led him to apologize to his analysand, Ferenczi, for his failure to suppress countertransference intrusions (Freud, 1910).

Freudian psychoanalysis, a related body of clinical technique, interpretive strategy, and developmental theory, was articulated piecemeal in dozens of publications by Sigmund Freud, spread over a period of forty-five years. The structure of Freud's monumental twenty-three-volume corpus has been the subject of thousands of critical studies, and Freud is still one of the most popular subjects for biographers. Despite this wealth of writing, however, the effectiveness of Freud's therapeutic methods and the adequacy of his theories remain subjects of animated debate.

Introduction

Analytical psychology as elaborated by Jung and his immediate followers did not focus on the depth psychological aspects of early infant and childhood development. Neither was there much attention paid to the usefulness of understanding the varieties of relationship that can occur in the consulting room between patient and analyst. Moreover, whilst Freud and his followers began to make the imaginative leap required to link both areas of investigation - the early stages of development and states of mind on the one hand, and the nature of transference and countertransference on the other - and to include them in psychoanalytic theory, analytical psychology was slow to follow suit despite Jung's early and continued insistence on the importance of the relationship between analyst and patient (for example, CW 16).

These areas of analytic research were not a prime attraction for Jung or the group that had formed around him, who were much more taken up by the rich and attractive field of creative and symbolic activity and collective and cultural pursuits. Nevertheless, in certain respects it could be said that the sources of such activity could be located within exactly these areas, and could be seen rightfully to belong to the examination of the relationship between primary process (that is, the earlier, more primitive mental processes with infantile foundations) and the later secondary mental processes.

In the following pages, three experienced and accomplished Jungian analysts comment on where they would focus, what they would do, and what they imagine to be the course of treatment for “Joan.” Joan is a pseudonym for a patient whose printed case material each analyst received and read closely before writing a response. Each received the same case report, summarized from the actual records of a forty-four-year-old female patient at the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders, a private hospital in the Philadelphia area. Renfrew generously made available this material, which had previously been used in the public domain at a national conference on eating disorders.

Each analyst was asked to see things primarily from the perspective of her or his “school,” each one being a prominent representative of that approach. Dr. Beebe writes from the classical approach, Dr. McNeely from the archetypal, and Dr. Gordon from the developmental. The analysts did not consult with each other on the case. As you read their responses, you may note how they highlight the model sketched out by Andrew Samuels in the Introduction in which he weighs the importance of the archetype, Self, and the development of personality as well as the clinical issues of the transferential field, symbolic experience of Self, and the phenomenology of imagery for each of the Jungian schools. What he has sketched as an interpretive model for the three schools of analytical psychology (see Introduction, pp. 8-11) works very well in understanding the interpretations of these authors. It must be remembered that none of the three analysts ever met the patient and, consequently, their essays should not be seen as comparing therapeutic practice. Rather, they are designed to illustrate different approaches to a real case. Apart from a few necessary instructions for thinking about the case, the following is all the information the authors received.

Why Jung on religion?

How are we to respond to the twentieth-century phenomenon, which Jung noted with such alarm: that the collective containers of religious symbolism are weak, if not altogether gone? For centuries the symbols, rituals, and dogmas of religions, East and West, gathered the psychic energy of individuals and nations alike into traditions that bore witness to life's meaning and acted as underground springs nourishing different civilizations. Jung saw our century as one no longer in daily touch with the meaning of being which lies at the center of life. We have plumbed the resources of consciousness as best we could in our efforts to fathom and to control the contradictions and paradoxes of spirit that have remained to us, but we have lost touch with our roots and the symbolic life that they support and nourish.

Where are we now? What has happened to all the energy that is no longer channeled into religious containers? According to Jung, it has poured back into the human psyche with disastrous effect. Deprived of its proper outlet in religious experience, it assumes negative forms. For the individual, this misplaced energy can lead to neurosis or psychosis; in society, it can lead to all kinds of horrors, genocide, holocaust, and gulags. It can give rise to ideologies whose potential good is soured by the bullying of adherents into frightened compliance. Afraid of being swamped, we erect barriers of rigid rules and compartments against the negative barrages of psychic energy, creating religious, political, and sexual fundamentalisms that trap us in unyielding certainties.

Why classical?

My training at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich began in 1948, in the second semester of its existence. Virtually all of the teachers and analysts were, or had been, in analysis with Jung himself, so his discoveries and reflections were coming to us with convincing authority. And beyond this, Jung's method, such as the attitude of respect, found a deep assent in my soul. I can label as “classical” a form of Jungian psychoanalysis which sees the analytic work as one of ongoing mutual discovery, making conscious the unconscious life and progressively releasing a person from meaninglessness and compulsion. The “classical” approach relies on a spirit of dialogue between conscious and unconscious, as well as between the two analytic partners. It therefore also regards the conscious ego as uniquely indispensable to the whole process, in contrast to the “archetypal” school, for which the ego is one of many autonomous archetypal entities. And in contrast to the “developmental” school, the “classical” school defines development not so much by years of age or even by psychological stages, as by an individual's attainment of that conscious Self which is hers or his alone to realize. This position will, I hope, become clearer in the course of this chapter, as will one or two of my own reservations concerning that classical theory and practice which I encountered, so to speak, in their pristine form.

Gender and difference

The universal division of the human community into two sexes, marked by signs and symbols of gender, has enduring and powerful effects on our psychological functioning as individuals, couples, and groups. Not only are we born into on-going stories about our own and the opposite sex, stories that constrain and engender possibilities for action and identity, but also we form strong internal images of femininity and masculinity. While we identify with one, we develop an unconscious complex around the Other (I capitalize the subjective Other to distinguish it from the interpersonal other).

Originary principles

Central to all the basic functions of the personality is the process of mental imaging. Without imaging, self-consciousness, speaking, writing, remembering, dreaming, art, culture - essentially what we call the human condition - would be impossible. Depth psychology developed out of the struggle to understand the process of imaging (e.g. dreams, associations, memories, and fantasies) and the role it plays in personality formation and the development of psychopathology. In attempting to account for the structuring of mental images and their effect on the personality, both Freud and Jung opted for some form of “universal.” Freud posited the existence of phylogenetic “schemata,” the Oedipus complex and its world of desire, whereas Jung opted for “archetypes.” While both subscribe to universals, the difference between the two theories resides in the particular originary principle each adopted.

For Jung, the psyche was a many-splendored thing: fluid, multi-dimensional, alive, and capable of creative development. Having been Assistant Director of a psychiatric hospital, Jung was no stranger to disease, psychosis, and inertia. But he possessed a love for the orderly chaos of the psyche and a trust in its integrity, which both informed his conception of it, and shaped his psychoanalytic vision.

This chapter explores Jung's major discoveries, the bedrock upon which his psychological vision rests, and the ideas which continue to inform contemporary thought and practice: his unique view of psychological process; the subjective, individual path to objective awareness; and the creative use of unconscious material. Although Jung is infamous for having drawn on esoteric sources such as Medieval alchemy, he was actually ahead of his time, prescient in terms of his post-modern view of the psyche.

Disturbed by the trend in which the scientific knowledge of matter was outstripping knowledge of the human psyche, Jung noted that just as chemistry and astronomy had split off from their origins in alchemy and astrology, modern science was distancing itself, but to a dangerous degree, from the study and understanding of the psychological universe. He foresaw the enormity of the discrepancy we face now: while in the process of cracking the genetic code and creating biological life, we remain virtually ignorant regarding the psyche. Jung was drawn to seemingly mystical systems like astrology and alchemy because they were oriented toward a synthetic understanding of matter and psyche.

Considered by many (e.g. Ellenberger, 1970; Rychlak, 1984; Clarke, 1992) the most original, broadly educated, and philosophical of the depth psychologists, Jung inhabited a specific era whose scientific thought and popular culture formed the bedrock out of which analytical psychology developed. It is only recently that analytical psychology has been examined within this historical perspective which reveals Jung's key position as a major figure in psychology and the history of ideas. Henri Ellenberger's (1970) reassessment of Jung stood alone for many years; among the growing number of recent scholars, J. J. Clarke (1992) and B. Ulanov (1992) track the pivotal place Jung's ideas occupied in the philosophical discourse of his time; W. L. Kelley (1991) considers Jung one of the four major contributors to contemporary knowledge of the unconscious; Moacanin (1986), Aziz (1990), Spiegelman (1985, 1987, 1991), and Clarke (1994) explore Jung's relation to Eastern psychology and religious thought; while Hoeller (1989), May (1991), Segal (1992), and Charet (1993) trace Jung's gnostic, alchemical, and European mystical roots.

Jung sometimes described the relationship between the ego and the unconscious as a power struggle (CW 9.i,paras. 522-523; CW 7, paras. 342 and 381). In this struggle, when an unconscious complex takes over the ego, there is “possession” (see Sandner and Beebe, 1984, p. 310; CW 7, p. 224). When the ego takes over from the unconscious certain attributes which belong to the Self, there is “inflation” (CW 7, pp. 228-229). Jung compared the progressive transformation of this power struggle in the individuation process to a sequence of political regimes. He described the initial unconscious unity of the psyche as the “tyranny of the unconscious.” The situation in which the ego is predominant he described as “a tyrannical oneparty system.” And when the ego and the unconscious “negotiate” on the basis of “equal rights,” the relation resembles a “parliamentary democracy” (CW 18, p. 621).

Over the past five years, I have spoken on Jungian and post-Jungian psychology and analysis at eighteen universities in seven countries. I have discovered that, in spite of the fact that its core texts are more or less absent from reading lists and curriculum descriptions, there is enormous interest in analytical psychology. When Jung is mentioned, it is primarily as an important schismatic in the history of psychoanalysis. Similarly, in the clinical context, even though most psychoanalysts often pass over his name in silence, many therapists - and not just Jungian analysts - have “discovered” Jung as a major contributor to our thinking about clinical work. These important cultural developments are going on alongside the far better known popular alliance of some aspects of Jungian psychology with “new age” thinking and activity. There are two questions arising from this complicated situation to which, in the course of the chapter, I shall attempt to provide at least a partial answer. First, “Do Jung's ideas merit a place in contemporary debate in the academy?” And second, “Do Jung's ideas merit greater discussion in general clinical training in psychotherapy?”

Ever since Henry James, early in this century, observed that a 'body of publishers, editors, illustrators, [and] producers of the pleasant twaddle of magazines' found 'their “dear”, our dear, everybody's dear, Jane so infinitely to their material purpose', two things have been abundantly clear: first, that Austen has been not a mere novelist about whom one might talk dispassionately, but a commercial phenomenon and a cultural figure, at once formidable and non-threatening; second, that many of Austen's most acute admirers have been unhappy with this extravagant popularity. An Austenian descendant himself, James aims his criticism not so much at Austen but at her faddish commodification by publishers and marketers. He had a point. Since 1832, Austen's six novels were available separately in the Standard Novels series published by Richard Bentley. But even though Bentley reprinted the novels at various times in the coming decades, joined by other printers once his copyrights expired, Austen's novels were hardly best sellers. Indeed, she remained an artist admired intensely by a few, such as George Lewes and Thomas Macaulay. 'Janeitism' - the self-consciously idolatrous enthusiasm for 'Jane' and every detail relative to her which James is alluding to - did not burgeon until the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

BIOGRAPHY

The dominant force in Jane Austen's life was her family, and her family has also been the dominant force in the study of her life. The major biographies of her for more than one hundred years after her death in 1817 were written by family members, and the biographies since then have relied largely on unpublished or obscurely published family manuscripts. Furthermore, the Austen family has been determined from the start to present its most famous member to the world as a figure of exemplary gentility and piety. Some five months after her death, Jane Austen was introduced to her readers as the author of her six novels, in the 'Biographical Notice' at the front of the volume containing her two posthumously published novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, but this seven-page account by her favourite brother, Henry Austen, is in tone an obituary. Her life is depicted as faultless - 'She never uttered either a hasty, a silly, or a severe expression' (NA, P 6) - and the emphasis is upon the pious manner of her death.