The Psychology of Jung

Part 1

LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 978 Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius

The Psychology of Jung

James Oppenheim

HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY GIRARD, KANSAS

Copyright, 1925, Haldeman-Julius Company

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNG.

CONTENTS.

Chapter Page I. The Psychology of the Future 5 II. The Sexual Theory 8 III. Will-To-Power 18 IV. The Break Between Freud and Jung 22 V. The Introvert vs. the Extravert 33 VI. Types 45 VII. The Conflict and Its Solution 53 VIII. Note 61

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNG.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE.

The origin of the new psychology, with its technic universally known as psycho-analysis, lies in the effort which man has always made to cure those ills “not of the body.” When we speak of the ills of the “soul,” we do not, however, mean that the mind is not a part of the body. We merely mean that there is a difference, for instance, between the illness that might arise from receiving bad news, and that which was caused, say, by being knocked down by a motor car. The first we call a mental ill, a spiritual malady, the second a physical.

The old shaman of the savage tribe did not only attempt to cure gangrene and malaria and sore throat; he also treated people who were “possessed by demons” or had “lost their souls”; he treated people who had lost hope, who were despairing, who wanted a charm to conquer the object of love or hate, who desired success, who heard voices, saw visions and were afraid to live.

From the beginning, therefore, man has attempted to bring a healing to the mind. Every religion has been such an attempt.

The trouble with this, however, from our modern standpoint, is that a religion demands faith, not only in the natural, but the supernatural; and not only, let it be added, in the supernatural, but a very definite and dogmatic supernatural, some set of stories and brand of divinities. There are Gods, Devils and ghosts to which we must submit. But modern science, which has steadfastly discredited mythology and sought to explain life and its phenomena by natural causes, or laws of nature, has seriously undermined the old religions, and we see them beginning to topple in all places of the earth.

However, the science of medicine, which sought to discover the causes of sickness, reached a limit beyond which it could not pass. If there is no medicine for a broken heart, there is also none for a man with a fixed idea or one with a sense of utter inferiority. The insane cannot be cured by drugs or by operations, except in those rare curable cases which have an indubitable physical origin. The thousands creeping and stumbling around the world, victims of neurosis, cannot be reached by serums or diets.

It was therefore necessary for medicine to go beyond itself, to invade the wide and dark realm of religion and preempt the creeds, by applying the technic of science to what had hitherto been understood darkly through intuition, guess-work and “revelation.”

It is not my intention to give a history of the origin and rise of psycho-analysis. That, in itself, is a book. It is merely necessary to say that the first genius in this field was Sigmund Freud, that Freud made the first great discoveries, that he traced the first chart of the unconscious mind, and that he originated the first technic of psycho-analysis.

If Freud, however, was the pioneer, it remained for two of his pupils to carry the work forward to the point where it has become one of the vital contributions to the race. The work of Adler, the first of these, came as a revolt against Freud and gave rise to a rival theory. The work of Jung, however, not only brought a synthesis of the work of Adler and Freud, but went beyond both. It is for this reason, then, that I call his work “the psychology of the future.”

In order to come to a clear understanding of Jung, it will be necessary first to summarize the theories of both Freud and Adler. We can then see how Jung, accepting both, has transcended both, and laid out the first tracings of a complete psychology.

II.

THE SEXUAL THEORY.

Freud sees life as a great and never-ending conflict between civilization, or organized society, and the individual. The individual is born with certain instincts, desires, wishes. Many of these are in conflict with the law and moral code of society. Hence, they are suppressed.

This suppression works, however, in a curious way. Not only are the unlawful and “sinful” impulses shut out of the mind; they are also forgotten. And because they are forgotten, we actually have the spectacle of pious men and women who can solemnly swear that they are quite free of murderous, lustful, lecherous, dangerous thoughts and wishes; that they are “good” people; that they have nothing in common with the criminal and the debased.

As a matter of fact, however, no instinct, no function in man can be abolished by cutting it off from consciousness. It is merely repressed, and forms what Dr. Jung later denoted as a complex; that is to say, a group of ideas, emotions, wishes that all go together and become a sort of mental family living off by itself, in exile.

It is, in reality, a part of consciousness of which we are unconscious: a part of the mind shut out by the barrier of our will and our forgetfulness. And since there are many things that we repress, a goodly area of the mind is so cut off. Hence, all that part of the mind which is repressed, and of whose existence we are not aware, Freud calls the unconscious mind.

But since the unconscious is living, not dead; since every impulse in man seeks constantly for expression; the unconscious is continually active, like a volcano. Only, instead of sending up its fire and lava and steam in their native state, it is sending them up in a camouflaged form. The bottled up energy seeking ever an outlet, loads itself into some part of the body, and becomes a symptom. It may appear as a paralysis of some muscle, as deafness or blindness, heart trouble or stomach trouble, etc. Naturally, these symptoms are not organic; it is not a real blindness, a real paralysis. Which explains why there can be miracles when believers touch saint’s bones or repeat the dogmas of the Christian Scientists. The reason is, that being mental in origin, these symptoms can also be cured in a mental way. But since faith healing does not probe to the secret source of the symptom, which is in the unconscious, such healing is usually followed by the outbreak of another symptom, in a different place, perhaps, and of a different nature.

However, the repressed complex does not only express itself in bodily symptoms. It may appear in the conscious mind. But since the conscious mind resists the invasion, it appears in a masked form. It may become apparent as a fixed idea, for instance, the idea that one must go to some street corner and preach the Gospel, an idea which, in spite of its absurdity and irrationality, the patient cannot dislodge, and which is therefore fixed. Or it may appear as a fear, a fear of dogs, or of the dark, of closed places, going outdoors, etc.

Part 2

Nor is this all. Where there is a marked repression of a large part of oneself, the repressed material may become what is called a secondary personality, and every so often preempt the conscious mind, so that at one time the personality may be timid, pious, good, and at another bold, wicked and evil. It is, in a way, the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Finally, the unconscious appears in consciousness in the form of dreams. It is really this great discovery which led to the development of the technic of psycho-analysis, and opened up the path which has led to all the other discoveries.

A dream takes place when we are asleep; that is to say, when the conscious mind is completely relaxed, when all the bars are let down. What more natural than that the repressed portion of the mind may now flare up, just as the stars become visible when the sun is withdrawn from the sky? But dreams usually have something absurd about them. We walk in seven league boots, we cut off a hand and sew it on again, animals talk; we are in the land of make-believe and of the fairies and the bad spirits.

Why does the unconscious speak such a fantastic language? Why doesn’t it express itself in simple English? According to Freud, this is because the conscious mind has refused to face the evil which it has repressed, and the unconscious therefore ever seeks a masked or camouflaged expression, whether in the form of a physical symptom, a fixed idea, a phobia, or a dream.

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