Note: I'm breaking this review/reaction/whatever-you-want-to-call-it into two parts because I get irritable when the page goes on too long.
I've been hearing about Jung here and there--in various texts about psychology, character creation, and other subjects--for years, and I realized recently that I've barely read any actual Jung. I found this book on my shelves (no idea where it came from; I have a book-collecting itch), and it seemed like a good place to start. I mean, hey, it bills itself as "the basic introduction to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung, who, with Freud and Adler, was one of the chief founders of psychoanalysis." The back-of-the-book blurb is always accurate, right? Right?!
Chapters are as follows:
- Dream Analysis in Its Practical Application
- Problems of Modern Psychotherapy
- The Aims of Psychotherapy
- A Psychological Theory of Types
- The Stages of Life
- Freud and Jung--Contrasts
- Archaic Man
- Psychology and Literature
- The Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology
- The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man
- Psychotherapists or the Clergy
I'm going to note what I found interesting in each chapter. I'm inevitably going to miss a bunch of things, but I'll try to hit the main points to which I had margin-note-worthy reactions.
1. Dream Analysis in Its Practical Application
I like Jung's emphasis on the doctor not cleaving to a preconceived psychological theory. Instead, he argues, every case must focus on the particular patient and the meaning(s) his dreams have to him. After describing some common symbols found in dreams, he says that while "[i]n each of the images given above we can see a relatively fixed symbol...we cannot for all that be certain that when they occur in dreams they have no other meaning" (22). In other words, I believe he's saying that while there are overarching meanings to be found in symbols, it's important to focus in on what the symbols might mean to the individual patient. If he dreams of, say, a pomegranate or something phallus-shaped, the overarching meaning has to do with sexuality. But for that individual patient, perhaps those images have other, more personal meanings, and those matter, too. The psychologist shouldn't simply accept and push a preconceived notion of what the symbol represents.
Also, instead of considering some dreams incomprehensible, Jung places the emphasis on us as interpreters: It's not that a dream is incomprehensible, but that we aren't able to comprehend it. I don't know anything about Freud's theory of "dream-facades" beyond what Jung describes and so I cannot speak to the accuracy of his interpretation of Freud's position, but Jung's own take on the subject of "dream-facades" definitely appeals to me:
Like the doctor, [patients] wish at once to get behind the dream in the false belief that it is a mere facade concealing the true meaning. Perhaps we may call the dream a facade, but we must remember that the fronts of most houses by no means trick or deceive us, but, on the contrary, follow the plan of the building and often betray its inner arrangement....When Freud speaks of the 'dream-facade,' he is really speaking, not of the dream itself, but of its obscurity, and in so doing is projecting upon the dream his own lack of understanding. We say that the dream has a false front only because we fail to see into it. We would do better to say that we are dealing with something like a text that is unintelligible, not because it has a facade, but simply because we cannot read it. We do not have to get behind such a text in the first place, but must learn to read it. (13)
So it's not that we're skimming the surface and all the deep sea-monster stuff is way underneath, but that in fact we're just not reading the so-called surface very well. If we could, we'd find there's a lot there to read and that this idea about getting "below" it doesn't apply.Speaking of that deep sea-monster stuff, Jung also mentions in this chapter that he's not thrilled with how Freud talks about the unconscious:
It is well known that the Freudian school presents the unconscious in a thoroughly deprecatory light, just as also it looks on primitive man as little better than a wild beast. Its nursery-tales about the terrible old man of the tribe and its teachings about the 'infantile-perverse-criminal' unconscious have led people to make a dangerous monster out of the unconscious, that really very natural thing. (16)
One of the ways Jung argues against this Freudian fear of the unconscious is by the analogy he draws between the mind and the physical body. He says that just as the body maintains an equilibrium, so does the psyche.
Every process that goes too far immediately and inevitably calls forth a compensatory activity, Without such adjustments a normal metabolism would not exist, nor would the normal psyche. We can take the idea of compensation, so understood, as a law of psychic happening. Too little on one side results in too much on the other. The relation between conscious and unconscious is compensatory. (17)The unconscious, then, isn't "bad" or "negative," but is one side of a normal balance, just like the adjustments that happen in a normal physical metabolism. Seeing the unconscious as bad or monstrous might lead one to think we should try to eradicate or sublimate it, but in fact what's called for--according to Jung--is balance.
One of the things that comes up for me frequently while reading Jung is that he taps into my preconceived assumptions. "Oh, balance! Of course, balance is typically the answer so much of the time. Yes, balance makes sense!" It may or may not be true that balance is often a good goal...but it's really no reason to assume that balance is "the answer" in this particular situation. I have to keep dragging myself back from those cliffs.
2. Problems of Modern Psychotherapy
This chapter opens with Jung's explanation that Freud calls his ideas "psychoanalysis" and Adler calls his "individual psychology," while Jung calls his own approach "analytical psychology." And then we get to this:
This chapter is primarily centered around what Jung considers the four analytical treatment...types? Practices? These are confession, explanation, education, and transformation.
Confession comes first. Basically, there are good secrets and bad secrets, and the latter need to be shared so that we don't end up repressing things and creating complexes. "The goal of treatment by catharsis," Jung explains, "is full confession--no merely intellectual acknowledgement of the facts, but their confirmation by the heart and the actual release of the suppressed emotions" (36). According to Jung, some patients are cured by confession--but not all.
(Interesting side note: One variation on this is the act of "withholding," generally the withholding of emotions. According to Jung, "[t]he emotion withheld is also something we conceal--something which we can hide even from ourselves--an art in which men particularly excel, while women, with very few exceptions, are by nature averse to doing such violence to their emotions" (33-4). I don't know why this is supposedly the case--I'm not sure whether Jung knows why, either, as he says nothing further about it but immediately moves on.)
After confession comes explanation. The short version is that there are people who go through the confession stage and get fixated, whether they fixate on their therapist (transference) or on their own unconscious. When this fixation arises, it must be explained to the patient in order to clear up the fixation.
During the explanation stage, the patient becomes enlightened as to the problem with how he's become fixated on the doctor, his own unconscious, etc., until finally he "turns away from the unconscious as from a source of weakness and temptation-the field of moral and social defeat."
That's the idea, anyway, but apparently explanation works only with "sensitive persons who can draw independent moral conclusions from their understanding of themselves" (43).
This is where Jung turns to Adler (and the education stage). He says Adler recognizes the need for "social education" and attempts to make the patient "a normally adapted person" (44). In other words, Adler's approach "helps the patient who has learned to see into himself to find the way to normal life" (45). This seems to involve a lot of breaking of problematic habits and "prodding" toward new ones.
Oh, okay, tangent time! Here's an interesting bit from this section: Jung refers to Adler's "conviction that social adaptation and normalization are indispensable--that they are even the most desirable goals and the most suitable fulfilment for a human being" (44-5). I was a little taken aback by Jung's apparently negative opinion of this "conviction." My understanding has been that...well...all in all, that typically is a conviction that psychology as a discipline does assume to be true. It's one of the things that bothers me about psychology, though I understand its usefulness in helping individuals. (What I mean is, perhaps I might think that there shouldn't be a social bias against flashers; perhaps I think we should just accept flashing as a harmless activity rather than ostracizing flashers. However, when considering how to deal with a person who engages in flashing...well, it's going to make more sense to try to figure out how to get that one person acclimated to an existing social norm than to try to change all of society so that he doesn't have to fit that norm. So if you want to help a person live a less painful, more fruitful life...yeah, you're probably going to focus on how s/he can change to better fit society. This doesn't mean that society's norms are objectively right, but that society's norms are even harder to change than some aspects of a person's behavior and cognition, and the primary goal--at least in practical psychology--is to help the individual live a less painful, more fruitful life.)
Jung thinks that due to the aforementioned conviction, Adler appeals more to clergymen and teachers, whereas Freud appeals to physicians and intellectuals. Freud is "an investigator and interpreter" while Adler is "chiefly an educator" (44).
Okay, back to the list of stages! Last one: transformation. I actually find this stage pretty confusing. It's the stage wherein the patient "transforms himself and thus complete[s] the earlier stages of the treatment" (52) and the doctor, too, makes his own transformation through self-education (more on that in a bit). In terms of exactly how the patient "transforms himself," Jung says some vague things about how "we must ascertain what could seem more desirable or lead further than the claim to be a normally adapted, social being" (47). The issue may be that the transformation stage is different depending on the person...? If each person must figure out what's more desirable or leads further than simply being a normally adapted social being, that would probably make each person's transformation stage relatively unique and therefore impossible to pin down.
That's the best I can do with describing the transformation stage, so let's move on to that bit about how the doctor, too, makes a transformation. Jung points out that just as the doctor has a transformative effect on his patient, the patient has a transformative effect on the doctor. He even goes so far as to say that "[y]ou can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence" (49). While most readers, I think, would expect to hear a psychologist say that the doctor should be as objective, impartial, and impervious as possible, Jung is saying quite the opposite. I like it. I think it deals at least somewhat with something we often ignore, which is that the therapist is a human being. Yes, s/he's a professional providing a service, but really...how can you expect a person to engage deeply with another person and remain unaffected? Never mind whether it's ideal or terrible or somewhere in between: I don't think it's even attainable.
On a related note, Jung continues on to assert that the psychologist's own personality can be helpful or harmful to therapy, and that he therefore must engage in ongoing self-education. The doctor--not just the patient--must go through confession, explanation, education, and transformation. As a result of this realization, "[w]hat was formerly a method of medical treatment now becomes a method of self-education...The medical diploma is no longer the crucial thing, but human quality instead" (53). While I'm a fan of a commitment to schooling and the diploma, I admit this is kind of what I look for in a therapist, if I'm being honest: I want to speak to someone who seems personally invested in the kind of self-awareness I'm working on building. If s/he doesn't care about it for him- or her- self, why should I expect s/he'll care about--or even understand--what I'm trying to do?
Oh, it's also worth noting that this chapter contains one of those moments that show why some deride Jung as a mystic:
3. The Aims of Psychotherapy
If I haven't mentioned it yet, I should tell you now that I enjoy Jung's use of figurative language. This line appears at the end of this chapter's first paragraph: "If, therefore, we sought to paint a comprehensive picture of the situation, we should have to match upon our palette the subtle colour-gradations of the rainbow" (55). The whole book is a treasure-trove of such metaphors and imagery, and it really makes it a pleasure to read (and for that matter, it often makes what he's saying much clearer and easier to understand).
Jung once again points out that he thinks Freud's and Adler's ideas are useful and admirable but that they simply can't explain everything (have I mentioned that this is kind of a theme?)--and he adds that his own views suffer from the same failing. They're all interesting, worthwhile psychological approaches and contribute greatly to the discipline, but they aren't the be-all end-all and shouldn't be treated as such.
After establishing that whole everyone's wrong/everyone's right thing once again, the first thing Jung talks about in this chapter is differences in the psyche due to stage of life. Based on how he talks about it, it sounds as though others at the time of writing didn't recognize that "the elements of the psyche undergo in the course of life a very marked change--so much so, that we may distinguish between a psychology of the morning of life and a psychology of its afternoon" (58). For the modern reader, his enthusiasm feels strange; we're already used to this idea, or we are if we've had at least some contact with Psychology 101.
Much of this chapter centers on the idea that "it is always the human being who interprets, that is, gives meaning to a fact" (64). The meaning something--a dream, a symbol, whatever--has to the person is more important than the thing itself. It's all about the interpretation.
When it comes to interpreting dream images, by the way, Jung says he shares his guesses with his patients. And "[i]f, in doing this I should open the door to so-called 'suggestion,' I see no occasion for regret; it is well known that we are susceptible only to those suggestions with which we are already secretly in accord" (65). I'm pretty sure this "well known" fact is about as factual as the popular "wisdom" about how whatever you say when drunk is what you really mean.
All right, I think this is pretty brilliant: "It is of especial importance for me to know as much as possible about primitive psychology, mythology, archaeology and comparative religion, for the reason that these fields afford me priceless analogies with which I can enrich the associations of my patients" (65). Yes! People understand by way of analogies, basically, or at least that's what I've seen. The more (and more impactful) material you can tap into for analogy-making, the better you'll be able to enrich your patients' understanding--or anyone's, for that matter.
If I recall correctly, this is the chapter in which Jung first introduces the concept of the collective unconscious, which he defines as "an unconscious psychic activity present in all human beings which not only gives rise to symbolical pictures today, but was the source of all similar products of the past" (72). I don't believe in this. I believe the symbols that have meaning for us are transmitted through things like language and mythology and religion, not through some kind of natural internal organ or ability. We don't share them so widely across time and locales because they're somehow pre-programmed into the human brain; we share them widely because as humans we're got a certain similarity to one another--despite our differences--and we therefore find many of the same images and terrors and needs compelling. So they affect us intensely, and that gets transmitted into the various vehicles of our various cultures. And yeah, this is a simplistic theory--but I'm sure there's a anthropology or sociology expert out there with a brilliant, well-argued version.
Jung says at the end of this chapter that "everything that acts is actual" (73). Based on context, I think he's saying that everything--be it a solid worldly object or a psychic phenomenon like a dream--is just as "real" (or actual) as anythings else. He goes on to talk about naming, saying that no matter how we name something, it still is what it is, and what it is matters more than what we call it. "To understand that these happenings have actuality--that is what is important to us; and not the attempt to give them one name instead of another" (73). This seems to me a bit of an odd juxtaposition with his whole "it's all about the interpretation" argument earlier in the chapter, since naming is clearly part of how we interpret the world and the things in it.
The reader will doubtless agree that in discussing psychoanalysis we should not limit ourselves to its narrower definition, but deal in general with the results and failures of the various contemporary endeavours to solve the problem of the psyche--endeavours which we have agreed shall all be embraced in the concept of analytical psychology. (29)Mmm, doubtless. You sly thing, you.
This chapter is primarily centered around what Jung considers the four analytical treatment...types? Practices? These are confession, explanation, education, and transformation.
Confession comes first. Basically, there are good secrets and bad secrets, and the latter need to be shared so that we don't end up repressing things and creating complexes. "The goal of treatment by catharsis," Jung explains, "is full confession--no merely intellectual acknowledgement of the facts, but their confirmation by the heart and the actual release of the suppressed emotions" (36). According to Jung, some patients are cured by confession--but not all.
(Interesting side note: One variation on this is the act of "withholding," generally the withholding of emotions. According to Jung, "[t]he emotion withheld is also something we conceal--something which we can hide even from ourselves--an art in which men particularly excel, while women, with very few exceptions, are by nature averse to doing such violence to their emotions" (33-4). I don't know why this is supposedly the case--I'm not sure whether Jung knows why, either, as he says nothing further about it but immediately moves on.)
After confession comes explanation. The short version is that there are people who go through the confession stage and get fixated, whether they fixate on their therapist (transference) or on their own unconscious. When this fixation arises, it must be explained to the patient in order to clear up the fixation.
During the explanation stage, the patient becomes enlightened as to the problem with how he's become fixated on the doctor, his own unconscious, etc., until finally he "turns away from the unconscious as from a source of weakness and temptation-the field of moral and social defeat."
That's the idea, anyway, but apparently explanation works only with "sensitive persons who can draw independent moral conclusions from their understanding of themselves" (43).
This is where Jung turns to Adler (and the education stage). He says Adler recognizes the need for "social education" and attempts to make the patient "a normally adapted person" (44). In other words, Adler's approach "helps the patient who has learned to see into himself to find the way to normal life" (45). This seems to involve a lot of breaking of problematic habits and "prodding" toward new ones.
Oh, okay, tangent time! Here's an interesting bit from this section: Jung refers to Adler's "conviction that social adaptation and normalization are indispensable--that they are even the most desirable goals and the most suitable fulfilment for a human being" (44-5). I was a little taken aback by Jung's apparently negative opinion of this "conviction." My understanding has been that...well...all in all, that typically is a conviction that psychology as a discipline does assume to be true. It's one of the things that bothers me about psychology, though I understand its usefulness in helping individuals. (What I mean is, perhaps I might think that there shouldn't be a social bias against flashers; perhaps I think we should just accept flashing as a harmless activity rather than ostracizing flashers. However, when considering how to deal with a person who engages in flashing...well, it's going to make more sense to try to figure out how to get that one person acclimated to an existing social norm than to try to change all of society so that he doesn't have to fit that norm. So if you want to help a person live a less painful, more fruitful life...yeah, you're probably going to focus on how s/he can change to better fit society. This doesn't mean that society's norms are objectively right, but that society's norms are even harder to change than some aspects of a person's behavior and cognition, and the primary goal--at least in practical psychology--is to help the individual live a less painful, more fruitful life.)
Jung thinks that due to the aforementioned conviction, Adler appeals more to clergymen and teachers, whereas Freud appeals to physicians and intellectuals. Freud is "an investigator and interpreter" while Adler is "chiefly an educator" (44).
Okay, back to the list of stages! Last one: transformation. I actually find this stage pretty confusing. It's the stage wherein the patient "transforms himself and thus complete[s] the earlier stages of the treatment" (52) and the doctor, too, makes his own transformation through self-education (more on that in a bit). In terms of exactly how the patient "transforms himself," Jung says some vague things about how "we must ascertain what could seem more desirable or lead further than the claim to be a normally adapted, social being" (47). The issue may be that the transformation stage is different depending on the person...? If each person must figure out what's more desirable or leads further than simply being a normally adapted social being, that would probably make each person's transformation stage relatively unique and therefore impossible to pin down.
That's the best I can do with describing the transformation stage, so let's move on to that bit about how the doctor, too, makes a transformation. Jung points out that just as the doctor has a transformative effect on his patient, the patient has a transformative effect on the doctor. He even goes so far as to say that "[y]ou can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence" (49). While most readers, I think, would expect to hear a psychologist say that the doctor should be as objective, impartial, and impervious as possible, Jung is saying quite the opposite. I like it. I think it deals at least somewhat with something we often ignore, which is that the therapist is a human being. Yes, s/he's a professional providing a service, but really...how can you expect a person to engage deeply with another person and remain unaffected? Never mind whether it's ideal or terrible or somewhere in between: I don't think it's even attainable.
On a related note, Jung continues on to assert that the psychologist's own personality can be helpful or harmful to therapy, and that he therefore must engage in ongoing self-education. The doctor--not just the patient--must go through confession, explanation, education, and transformation. As a result of this realization, "[w]hat was formerly a method of medical treatment now becomes a method of self-education...The medical diploma is no longer the crucial thing, but human quality instead" (53). While I'm a fan of a commitment to schooling and the diploma, I admit this is kind of what I look for in a therapist, if I'm being honest: I want to speak to someone who seems personally invested in the kind of self-awareness I'm working on building. If s/he doesn't care about it for him- or her- self, why should I expect s/he'll care about--or even understand--what I'm trying to do?
Oh, it's also worth noting that this chapter contains one of those moments that show why some deride Jung as a mystic:
There appears to be a conscience in mankind which severely punishes the man who does not somehow and at some time, at whatever cost to his pride, cease to defend and assert himself, and instead confess himself fallible and human. Until he can do this, an impenetrable wall shuts him out from the living experience of feeling himself a man among men. Here we find a key to the great significance of true, unstereotyped confession--a significance known in all the initiation and mystery cults of the ancient world, as is shown by a saying from the Greek mysteries: "Give up what thou hast, and then thou wilt receive." (34-5)He definitely veers off in the "mystical" direction repeatedly throughout the book.
3. The Aims of Psychotherapy
If I haven't mentioned it yet, I should tell you now that I enjoy Jung's use of figurative language. This line appears at the end of this chapter's first paragraph: "If, therefore, we sought to paint a comprehensive picture of the situation, we should have to match upon our palette the subtle colour-gradations of the rainbow" (55). The whole book is a treasure-trove of such metaphors and imagery, and it really makes it a pleasure to read (and for that matter, it often makes what he's saying much clearer and easier to understand).
Jung once again points out that he thinks Freud's and Adler's ideas are useful and admirable but that they simply can't explain everything (have I mentioned that this is kind of a theme?)--and he adds that his own views suffer from the same failing. They're all interesting, worthwhile psychological approaches and contribute greatly to the discipline, but they aren't the be-all end-all and shouldn't be treated as such.
After establishing that whole everyone's wrong/everyone's right thing once again, the first thing Jung talks about in this chapter is differences in the psyche due to stage of life. Based on how he talks about it, it sounds as though others at the time of writing didn't recognize that "the elements of the psyche undergo in the course of life a very marked change--so much so, that we may distinguish between a psychology of the morning of life and a psychology of its afternoon" (58). For the modern reader, his enthusiasm feels strange; we're already used to this idea, or we are if we've had at least some contact with Psychology 101.
Much of this chapter centers on the idea that "it is always the human being who interprets, that is, gives meaning to a fact" (64). The meaning something--a dream, a symbol, whatever--has to the person is more important than the thing itself. It's all about the interpretation.
When it comes to interpreting dream images, by the way, Jung says he shares his guesses with his patients. And "[i]f, in doing this I should open the door to so-called 'suggestion,' I see no occasion for regret; it is well known that we are susceptible only to those suggestions with which we are already secretly in accord" (65). I'm pretty sure this "well known" fact is about as factual as the popular "wisdom" about how whatever you say when drunk is what you really mean.
All right, I think this is pretty brilliant: "It is of especial importance for me to know as much as possible about primitive psychology, mythology, archaeology and comparative religion, for the reason that these fields afford me priceless analogies with which I can enrich the associations of my patients" (65). Yes! People understand by way of analogies, basically, or at least that's what I've seen. The more (and more impactful) material you can tap into for analogy-making, the better you'll be able to enrich your patients' understanding--or anyone's, for that matter.
If I recall correctly, this is the chapter in which Jung first introduces the concept of the collective unconscious, which he defines as "an unconscious psychic activity present in all human beings which not only gives rise to symbolical pictures today, but was the source of all similar products of the past" (72). I don't believe in this. I believe the symbols that have meaning for us are transmitted through things like language and mythology and religion, not through some kind of natural internal organ or ability. We don't share them so widely across time and locales because they're somehow pre-programmed into the human brain; we share them widely because as humans we're got a certain similarity to one another--despite our differences--and we therefore find many of the same images and terrors and needs compelling. So they affect us intensely, and that gets transmitted into the various vehicles of our various cultures. And yeah, this is a simplistic theory--but I'm sure there's a anthropology or sociology expert out there with a brilliant, well-argued version.
Jung says at the end of this chapter that "everything that acts is actual" (73). Based on context, I think he's saying that everything--be it a solid worldly object or a psychic phenomenon like a dream--is just as "real" (or actual) as anythings else. He goes on to talk about naming, saying that no matter how we name something, it still is what it is, and what it is matters more than what we call it. "To understand that these happenings have actuality--that is what is important to us; and not the attempt to give them one name instead of another" (73). This seems to me a bit of an odd juxtaposition with his whole "it's all about the interpretation" argument earlier in the chapter, since naming is clearly part of how we interpret the world and the things in it.
4. A Psychological Theory of Types
The man loves his "types." He really does seem to believe strongly in this idea that people come in a number of types--so that anything that applies to Bob, for example (or Sigmund...ahem) also applies quite naturally to others of the same "type" as Sig-,,,errr, Bob.
This chapter is primarily devoted to Jung's own system of type-categories (which he doesn't claim is the only way to categorize psychological types, but it's the way he finds most compelling):
The total result of my work in this field up to the present is the presentation of two general types covering the attitudes which I call extraversion and introversion. Besides these, I have worked out a fourfold classification corresponding to the functions of thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Each of these functions varies according to the general attitude, and thus eight variants are produced. (93)Am I the only one thinking of all those online quizzes that promise to class you based in large part on introversion and extraversion? Apparently this way of categorizing people--and, we can therefore also say, the act of psychologically categorizing people at all--has stuck around at least to some extent.
There's also a fun bit about language in this chapter. Basically, Jung differentiates between the way the philosopher knows what you mean by a term, and the way the average person knows what you mean by that same term. Some of his examples are "thinking," "memory," and "feeling." He says that "[h]owever difficult it is to define such notions scientifically and thus make of them psychological concepts, they are easily intelligible in current speech" (89). Jung says he chooses to use the average-person common-sense understanding of terms in his approach to figuring out types. At this point, I have no opinion on his strategy; I just enjoy reading a differentiation of these types of "knowing," which I had previously recognized on some level but hadn't articulated.
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