THE CONCEPTION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology by C. G. Jung, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XV

THE CONCEPTION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

I.—The Distinction between the Personal and the Impersonal Unconscious

Since the breach with the Viennese school upon the question of the fundamental explanatory principle of analysis—that is, the question if it be sexuality or energy—our concepts have undergone considerable development. After the prejudice concerning the explanatory basis had been removed by the acceptance of a purely abstract view of it, the nature of which was not anticipated, interest was directed to the concept of the unconscious.

According to Freud's theory the contents of the unconscious are limited to infantile wish-tendencies, which are repressed on account of the incompatibility of their character. Repression is a process which begins in early childhood under the moral influence of environment; it continues throughout life. These repressions are done away with by means of analysis, and the repressed wishes are made conscious. That should theoretically empty the unconscious, and, so to say, do away with it; but in reality the production of infantile sexual wish-fantasies continues into old age.

According to this theory, the unconscious contains only those parts of the personality which might just as well be conscious, and have really only been repressed by the processes of civilisation. According to Freud the essential content of the unconscious would therefore be personal. But although, from such a view-point the infantile tendencies of the unconscious are the more prominent, it would be a mistake to estimate or define the unconscious from this alone, for it has another side.

Not only must the repressed materials be included in the periphery of the unconscious, but also all the psychic material that does not reach the threshold of consciousness. It is impossible to explain all these materials by the principle of repression, for in that case by the removal of the repression a phenomenal memory would be acquired, one that never forgets anything. As a matter of fact repression exists, but it is a special phenomenon. If a so-called bad memory were only the consequence of repression, then those persons who have an excellent memory should have no repression, that is, be incapable of being neurotic. But experience teaches us that this is not the case. There are, undoubtedly, cases with abnormally bad memories, where it is clear that the main cause must be attributed to repression. But such cases are comparatively rare.

We therefore emphatically say that the unconscious contains all that part of the psyche that is found under the threshold, including subliminal sense-perceptions, in addition to the repressed material. We also know—not only on account of accumulated experience, but also for theoretical reasons—that the unconscious must contain all the material that has not yet reached the level of consciousness. These are the germs of future conscious contents. We have also every reason to suppose that the unconscious is far from being quiescent, in the sense that it is inactive, but that it is probably constantly busied with the formation and re-formation of so-called unconscious phantasies. Only in pathological cases should this activity be thought of as comparatively autonomous, for normally it is co-ordinated with consciousness.

It may be assumed that all these contents are of a personal nature in so far as they are acquisitions of the individual life. As this life is limited, the number of acquisitions of the unconscious must also be limited, wherefore an exhaustion of the contents of the unconscious through analysis might be held to be possible. In other words, by the analysis of the unconscious the inventory of unconscious contents might be completed, possibly in the sense that the unconscious cannot produce anything besides what is already known and accepted in the conscious. Also, as has already been said, we should have to accept the fact that the unconscious activity had thereby been paralysed, and that by the removal of the repression we could stop the conscious contents from descending into the unconscious. Experience teaches us that is only possible to a very limited extent. We urge our patients to retain their hold upon repressed contents that have been brought to consciousness, and to insert them in their scheme of life. But, as we may daily convince ourselves, this procedure seems to make no impression upon the unconscious, inasmuch as it goes on producing apparently the same phantasies, namely, the so-called infantile-sexual ones, which according to the earlier theory were based upon personal repressions. If in such cases analysis be systematically continued, an inventory of incompatible wish-phantasies is gradually revealed, whose combinations amaze us. In addition to all the sexual perversions every conceivable kind of crime is discovered, as well as every conceivable heroic action and great thought, whose existence in the analysed person no one would have suspected.

In order to give an example of this, I would like to refer to Maeder's Schizophrenic patient who called the world his picture-book. He was a locksmith's apprentice who fell ill very early in life; he had never been blessed with intellectual gifts. As regards his idea that the world was his picture-book and that he was turning its pages over when he looked about in the world, it is just Schopenhauer's world, conceived as will and representation, expressed in primitive picture-language. This idea has just as universal a character as Schopenhauer's. The difference consists in the fact that the patient's notion has stood still at an embryonic stage in a process of growth, whereas with Schopenhauer the same idea has been changed from a mere image into an abstraction expressed in terms that are universally valid.

It would be false to assume that the patient's idea had a personal character and value. That would be to attribute to him the dignity of a philosopher. But he alone is a philosopher who raises an image that has naturally sprung up into an abstract idea, thereby translating it into terms of universal validity. Schopenhauer's philosophical conception is his personal value, whereas the notion of the patient has merely an impersonal value of natural growth, in which personal proprietary rights can only be acquired by making an abstraction of the images, and translating them into terms that are universally valid. But it would be wrong if an exaggerated sense of the value of this achievement led us to ascribe to the philosopher the merit of having made or conceived the original image itself. The primordial image has also sprung up naturally in the philosopher, and is nothing but a part of the universal human heritage in which, theoretically at least, every one has a share. The golden apples come from the same tree whether they are gathered by a locksmith's apprentice or a Schopenhauer.

The recognition of such primordial images obliges me to differentiate between the contents of the unconscious; a differentiation of another kind than that between the pre-conscious and unconscious, or between the subconscious and unconscious. The justification for those distinctions cannot be discussed here; they have a value of their own and probably merit to be carried further as affording a point of view. The differentiation which I propose follows obviously from what has previously been said, namely, that in the so-called unconscious we must differentiate a layer which may be termed the personal unconscious. The materials contained in this layer are of a personal kind, inasmuch as on the one hand they may be characterised as acquisitions of the individual existence, and on the other as psychological factors which might just as well be conscious. It is, for instance, comprehensible that incompatible psychological elements succumb to repression on the one hand and are therefore unconscious, but on the other hand there exists the possibility of bringing the repressed contents into consciousness and keeping them there, once they are known and recognised. We recognise these materials as personal contents, because we can prove their effects, their partial appearance, or their origin to lie in our personal past. They are integral constituents of the personality, and belong to a complete inventory of the same. They are constituents whose omission in consciousness implies an inferiority in one respect or another, not indeed an inferiority bearing the psychological character of an organic deformity or a natural defect, but rather the character of a neglect which arouses a moral reaction. The feeling of moral inferiority always indicates that in the portion omitted is something that according to the feelings should not be missing; or in other words, could be conscious if we took sufficient trouble about it. The sense of moral inferiority is not the result of a collision with the universal, in a certain sense arbitrary, moral law, but rather the result of a conflict with the personal ego, which by reason of the psychic economy demands an adjustment of the deficiency. Wherever a feeling of inferiority appears, it reveals not only the presence of a demand for the assimilation of an unconscious constituent, but also the possibility of such an assimilation. It is, after all, a person's moral qualities that make him assimilate his unconscious self and retain it in consciousness, whether he be forced to it by a recognition of its necessity, or by a painful neurosis. He who continues to tread this path of the realisation of his unconscious self, necessarily transposes the content of the personal unconscious into consciousness, whereby the periphery of the personality is considerably enlarged.

II—The Consequences of the Assimilation of the Unconscious.

This process of assimilating the unconscious leads to remarkable results. Some people build up from it an unmistakable, even unpleasantly increased self-consciousness or self-confidence; they "know everything," and are completely aware of everything so far as their unconscious is concerned. They think themselves accurately informed about everything that comes up from the unconscious. Others are increasingly oppressed by the contents of the unconscious, they lose their self-reliance or their self-consciousness more and more, and come near to a state of depressed resignation in regard to all the extraordinary things the unconscious produces. The former undertake in the exuberance of their self-confidence, a responsibility for their unconscious that goes much too far, beyond every reasonable possibility; the latter ultimately decline to accept any responsibility in the depressing recognition of the powerlessness of the ego confronted by relentless Destiny, working through the unconscious.

If we give the two types close analytical consideration, we shall discover that behind the optimistic self-confidence of the former there is hidden a just as deep, or rather a far deeper, helplessness; a helplessness to which the conscious optimism acts as an unsuccessful effort at compensation. Behind the pessimistic resignation of the latter there is hidden a defiant desire for power, far exceeding in self-confidence the conscious optimism of the former type.

This condition of the personality may well be expressed by the idea of "God-Almightiness" (Gottähnlichkeit), to which Adler has particularly drawn our attention.

When the devil wrote the serpent's words in the student's album, Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum, he added:

"Follow the ancient text and the snake thou wast ordered to trample! With all thy likeness to God, thou'lt yet be a sorry example." The idea of "likeness to God," or "God-Almightiness," is not a scientific one, although it characterises the psychological state of affairs most exactly. Still we must examine whence this attitude comes, and ask why it merits the name of "God-Almightiness." As the expression denotes, the patient's abnormal condition is constituted by the fact that he ascribes to himself qualities or values which obviously do not belong to him, for "God-Almightiness" means being like the spirit which is set above the human spirit.

If for psychological purposes we abstract from the hypostasis of the God-idea, we find that this expression does not only include every dynamic fact discussed in my book on "The Psychology of the Unconscious," but also a certain mental function having a collective character, which is of another order from that of the individual character of the mind. In the same way as the individual is not only an isolated and separate, but also a social being, so also the human mind is not only something isolated and absolutely individual, but also a collective function. And just as certain social functions or impulses are, so to speak, opposed to the ego-centric interests of the individual, so also the human mind has certain functions or tendencies which, on account of their collective nature, are to some extent opposed to the personal mental functions. This is due to the fact that every human being is born with a highly differentiated brain, which gives him the possibility of attaining a rich mental function that he has neither acquired ontogenetically nor developed. In proportion as human brains are similarly differentiated, the corresponding mental functions are collective and universal. This circumstance explains the fact that the unconscious of far-separated peoples and races possesses a remarkable number of points of agreement. One example among many others which has been demonstrated is the extraordinary unanimity shown by the autochthonous forms and themes of myths.

The universal similarity of brains results in a universal possibility of a similar mental function. This function is the collective psyche, which is divided into collective mind and collective soul. In so far as there exist differentiations corresponding to race, descent, or even family, so, beyond the level of the "universal" collective psyche, we find a collective psyche limited by race, descent, and family. To quote P. Janet, the collective psyche contains the "parties inférieures" of the mental function, that is, the part of the mental function which, being fixed and automatic in its action, inherited and present everywhere, is therefore super-personal or impersonal. The conscious and the personal unconscious contain as personal differentiations the "parties supérieures" of the mental function, therefore the part that has been acquired and developed ontogenetically.

An individual therefore who joins the a priori and unconsciously-given collective psyche on to his ontogenetically acquired assets, enlarges thereby the periphery of his personality in an unjustifiable way, with the corresponding consequences. Inasmuch as the collective psyche is the "partie inférieure" of the mental function, and therefore is the fundamental structure underlying every personality, it weighs heavily upon and depreciates the personality; a fact that is expressed in the afore-mentioned stifling of self-confidence, and in the unconscious increase of the ego-emphasis up to the point of a morbid will to power. Inasmuch as the collective psyche ranks even above the personality, because it is the mother foundation upon which all personal differentiations are based, and because it is the common mental function of the sum total of the individual, therefore its incorporation in the personality may evoke inflation of self-confidence, an inflation which is then compensated by an extraordinary sense of inferiority in the unconscious.

A dissolution of the pairs of opposites in the personality sets in if, through the assimilation of the unconscious, the collective psyche be included in the inventory of the personal mental functions. Alongside the pairs of opposites already alluded to that are so particularly evident in the neurotic, viz. megalomania and sense of inferiority, there are also many other pairs, of which I will only mention the specifically moral pair, that is, good and evil (scientes bonum et malum). They accompany the increase or depreciation of self-confidence. The specific virtues and vices of humanity are contained in the collective psyche, just as everything else is. One man ascribes all the collective virtue to himself as his own personal merit; another accounts as personal guilt what is but collective vice. Both are just as illusionary as the sense of greatness and of inferiority, for imaginary virtues as well as imaginary vices are only the pairs of moral opposites contained in the collective psyche, which have become perceptible or have artificially been made conscious. How far the collective psyche contains these pairs of opposites is shown by primitive peoples, whose great virtue is praised by one observer; whereas another observer of the same race reports only the worst impressions. Both views are true of primitive man, whose personal differentiation is only beginning; his mental function is essentially collective. He is more or less identified with the collective psyche, and therefore without any personal responsibility or inner conflict; his virtues and vices are collective. Conflict only begins when a conscious personal development of the mind has already started, whereby the reason becomes aware of the irreconcilable nature of the pairs of opposites. The struggle to repress is the consequence of this realisation. Man wants to be good, therefore the bad must be repressed; this puts an end to the paradise of the collective psyche.

The repression of the collective psyche, in so far as it was conscious, was a necessity for the development of the personality, because collective psychology and personal psychology are in a certain sense irreconcilable. In the history of thought, whenever a fresh psychological attitude acquires collective value the formation of schisms begins. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the history of religion. A collective point of view, although it may be necessary, is always dangerous for the individual. It is dangerous because it is apt to choke and smother personal differentiation. It has derived this capacity from the collective psyche, which is itself a result of psychological differentiation of the strong gregarious instincts of humanity. Collective thought and feeling, and collective accomplishment, are relatively easy in comparison with individual function and performance; a fact that is only too prone to lead to a fining down to the collective level, and is peculiarly disastrous to personal development. The concomitant loss of personality is replaced—as is always the case in psychology—by an unconscious all-compelling binding to and identification with the collective psyche. It cannot be denied, and should be warningly emphasized that in the analysis of the unconscious, the collective psychology is merged into the personal psychology, with the afore-mentioned unpleasant consequences. These consequences are either bad for the individual's vital feeling (Lebensgefühl), or they injure his fellow-beings if he have any power over his environment. Being identified with the collective psyche he will inevitably try to force the claims of his unconscious upon others, for identification with the collective psyche is accompanied by a feeling of universal validity ("God-Almightiness"), which disregards the different psychology of his fellows.

The worst abuses of this kind may be removed by a clear understanding and appreciation of the fact that there are totally different psychological types, and that a psychology of one type cannot be forced into the mould of another. It is indeed almost impossible for one type to understand the other completely, and a perfect comprehension of another's individuality is impossible. Due regard for another's individuality is not only advisable but is absolutely essential in analysis, if the development of the other's personality is not to be stifled. It should not be forgotten that the one type thinks that he is leaving another person free when he grants him freedom of action, and the other type when he grants him freedom of thought. In analysis both must be conceded, in so far as reasons of self-preservation permit the analyst to accord them. An excessive desire to understand or explain things is just as useless and injurious as a lack of comprehension.

The collective natural propensities and primary forms of idea and feeling which analysis of the unconscious has shown to be effective are an acquisition for the conscious personality which cannot be admitted unreservedly without prejudicial results.

In practical treatment it is therefore of the utmost importance to keep the aim of individual development constantly before us. If for instance the collective psyche be conceived as a personal possession or as a personal burden, an unbearable weight or strain is put upon the personality. Hence we must make a clear distinction between the personal and the collective psyche. In practice this distinction is not easy because the personal grows out of the collective psyche, and is most closely joined with it. It is therefore difficult to say which materials are to be termed collective and which personal. There is no doubt, for instance, that the archaic symbols so often found in phantasies and dreams are collective factors. All primary propensities and forms of thought and feeling are collective; so is everything about which men are universally agreed, or which is universally understood, said or done. Upon close consideration it is astonishing to note how much of our so-called individual psychology is really collective; so much that the individual element quite disappears. Individuation, however, is an indispensable psychological requirement. The crushing predominance of what is collective should make us realise what peculiar care and attention must be given to the delicate plant "individuality," if it is to develop.

Human beings have a capacity which is of the utmost use for purposes of collectivism and most prejudicial to individuation, and that is the capacity to imitate. Collective psychology cannot dispense with imitation, without which the organization of the State and Society would be impossible. Imitation includes the idea of suggestibility, suggestive effect, and mental infection.

But we see daily how the mechanism of imitation is used, or rather abused, for the purposes of personal differentiation; some prominent personality, or peculiar trait or activity is simply imitated, which at least brings about an external differentiation from the environment. As a rule this delusive attempt to attain individual differentiation by means of imitation comes to a standstill as mere affectation, the individual remaining on the same plane as before, only a few degrees more sterile than formerly, and under an unconscious compulsory bondage to his environment.

In order to find out what is really individual in us, we should have to give the matter deep thought, and we should certainly become aware how exceedingly difficult such a discovery is.

III.—The Individual as an Excerpt of the Collective Psyche.

We now come to a problem the overlooking of which would cause the greatest confusion.

As I said before, the immediate result of the analysis of the unconscious is that additional personal portions of the unconscious are incorporated into the conscious. I called those parts of the unconscious which are repressed but capable of being made conscious, the personal unconscious. I showed moreover that through the annexation of the deeper layers of the unconscious, which I called the impersonal unconscious, an extension of the personality is brought about which leads to the state of God-Almightiness ("Gottähnlichkeit"). This state is reached by a continuation of the analytical work, by means of which we have already re-introduced what is repressed to consciousness. By continuing analysis further we incorporate some distinctly impersonal universal basic qualities of humanity with the personal consciousness, which brings about the aforesaid enlargement, and this to some extent may be described as an unpleasant consequence of analysis.

From this standpoint, the conscious personality seems to be a more or less arbitrary excerpt of the collective psyche. It appears to consist of a number of universal basic human qualities of which it is à priori unconscious, and further of a series of impulses and forms which might just as well have been conscious, but were more or less arbitrarily repressed, in order to attain that excerpt of the collective psyche, which we call personality. The term persona is really an excellent one, for persona was originally the mask which an actor wore, that served to indicate the character in which he appeared. For if we really venture to undertake to decide what psychic material must be accounted personal and what impersonal, we shall soon reach a state of great perplexity; for, in truth, we must make the same assertion regarding the contents of the personality as we have already made with respect to the impersonal unconscious, that is to say that it is collective, whereas we can only concede individuality to the bounds of the persona, that is to the particular choice of personal elements, and that only to a very limited extent. It is only by virtue of the fact that the persona is a more or less accidental or arbitrary excerpt of the collective psyche that we can lapse into the error of deeming it to be in toto individual, whereas as its name denotes, it is only a mask of the collective psyche; a mask which simulates individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whilst one is only acting a part through which the collective psyche speaks.

If we analyse the persona we remove the mask and discover that what appeared to be individual is at bottom collective. We thus trace "the Little God of the World" back to his origin, that is, to a personification of the collective psyche. Finally, to our astonishment, we realise that the persona was only the mask of the collective psyche. Whether we follow Freud and reduce the primary impulse to sexuality, or Adler and reduce it to the elementary desire for power, or reduce it to the general principle of the collective psyche which contains the principles of both Freud and Adler, we arrive at the same result; namely, the dissolution of the personal into the collective. Therefore in every analysis that is continued sufficiently far, the moment arrives when the aforesaid God-Almightiness must be realised. This condition is often ushered in by peculiar symptoms; for instance, by dreams of flying through space like a comet, of being either the earth, the sun, or a star, or of being either extraordinarily big or small, of having died, etc. Physical sensations also occur, such as sensations of being too large for one's skin, or too fat; or hypnagogic feelings of endless sinking or rising occur, of enlargement of the body or of dizziness. This state is characterised psychologically by an extraordinary loss of orientation about one's personality, about what one really is, or else the individual has a positive but mistaken idea of that which he has just become. Intolerance, dogmatism, self-conceit, self-depreciation, contempt and belittling of "not analysed" fellow-beings, and also of their opinions and activities, all very frequently occur. An increased disposition to physical disorders may also occasionally be observed, but this occurs only if pleasure be taken therein, thus prolonging this stage unduly.

The wealth of the possibilities of the collective psyche is both confusing and dazzling. The dissolution of the persona results in the release of phantasy, which apparently is nothing else but the functioning of the collective psyche. This release brings materials into consciousness of whose existence we had no suspicion before. A rich mine of mythological thought and feeling is revealed. It is very hard to hold one's own against such an overwhelming impression. That is why this phase must be reckoned one of the real dangers of analysis, a fact that should not be concealed.

As may easily be understood, this condition is hardly bearable, and one would like to put an end to it as soon as possible, for the analogy with a mental derangement is too close. The essence of the most frequent form of derangement—dementia præcox or schizophrenia—consists, as is well known, in the fact that the unconscious to a large extent ejects and replaces the conscious. The unconscious is given the value of reality, being substituted for the reality function. The unconscious thoughts become audible as voices, or visible as visions, or perceptible as physical hallucinations, or they become fixed ideas of a kind that supersede reality. In a similar, although not in the same way, by the resolution of the persona of the collective psyche, the unconscious is drawn into the conscious. The difference between this state of mind and that of mental derangement consists in the fact that the unconscious is brought up by the help of the conscious analysis; at least that is the case in the beginning of analysis, when there are still strong cultural resistances against the unconscious to be overcome. Later on, after the removal of the barriers erected by time and custom, the unconscious usually proceeds, so to say, in a peremptory manner, sometimes even discharging itself in torrents into the consciousness. In this phase the analogy with mental derangement is very close. But it would only be a real mental disorder should the content of the unconscious take the place of the conscious reality, that is, in other words, if the contents of the unconscious were believed absolutely and without reserve.

IV.—The Endeavours to free the Individuality from the Collective Psyche.

1. The Regressive Restoration of the Persona.

The unbearableness of thus being identified with the collective psyche forces us to find a radical solution. There are two ways open. The first possibility is the regressive one of trying to restore the persona to its former condition, by endeavouring to restrain the unconscious by the application of a reductive theory; for instance, by declaring it to be nothing but long-repressed and overdue infantile sexuality, for which it would really be best to substitute the normal sexual function. This solution is based upon the unmistakable sexualistic symbolism of the language of the unconscious, and upon the concretistic interpretation of the same. Or an attempt may be made to apply the power theory, by conceiving the God-Almightiness as a "virile protest," and as an infantile striving for power and self-preservation: a theory for which support is found in the unmistakable pretensions to power that the unconscious material contains. A further possibility would be to declare the unconscious to be the archaic collective psychology of primitive man, an explanation that would not only cover the sexualistic symbolism and the "God-Almighty" aiming for power of the unconscious content, but would also apparently do justice to the religious, philosophical, and mythological aspects and tendencies of the unconscious content. In every case the conclusion arrived at is the same, viz. that the unconscious is nothing but this or that, which has already been adequately recognised and acknowledged as infantile, useless, meaningless, impossible, and out of date. There is nothing to be done but to shrug one's shoulders and resign one's self to the inevitable.

To the patient there seems to be no alternative, if one wishes to continue to live sensibly, but to restore in so far as is possible that extract of the collective psyche termed persona, to lay the fact of analysis silently aside, and do one's utmost to forget that one possesses an unconscious. We shall find support in Faust's words:—

"The sphere of earth is known enough to me; The view beyond is barred immutably: A fool, who there his blinking eyes directeth, And o'er his clouds of peers a place expecteth! Firm let him stand, and look around him well! This world means something to the capable. Why needs he through Eternity to wend? He here acquires what he can apprehend.

Thus let him wander down his earthly day; When spirits haunt go quietly his way; In marching onward, bliss and torment find, Though every moment, with unsated mind!" This would be a happy solution if one really could succeed in throwing off the unconscious to such an extent as to withdraw the libido from it, and so render it inoperative. But experience proves that energy cannot be withdrawn from the unconscious; it continues operative, for the unconscious contains and is indeed itself the source of libido, from which issue the primary psychic elements, thought-feelings, or feeling-thoughts—undifferentiated germs of idea and sentiment. It would therefore be a delusion to believe that by means of some, so to say, magical theory or method, the libido could be conclusively wrested from the unconscious, or that it could be to a certain extent disconnected. One may yield to this illusion for a time, but some day he will be obliged to declare with Faust:—

"Now fills the air so many a haunting shape, That no one knows how best he may escape. What though one day with rational brightness beams, The night entangles us in webs of dreams. From our young fields of life we come, elate: There croaks a bird; what croaks he? Evil fate! By superstition constantly ensnared, It grows to us and warns and is declared. Intimidated thus we stand alone.— The portal jars, yet entrance is there none. Is any one here? Care: Yes! must be my reply. Faust: And, thou, who art thou, then? Care: Well—here am I. Faust: Avaunt! Care: I am where I should be: Though no ear should choose to hear me, Yet the shrinking heart must fear me; Though transformed to mortal eyes, Grimmest power I exercise." The unconscious cannot be "analysed" to a finish, and thus brought to a standstill. No one can wrest active force from it for any length of time. Therefore to act according to the method just described is only to deceive one's self, and is nothing but a new edition of an ordinary repression.

2. The Identification with the Collective Psyche.

The second way would be that of identification with the collective psyche. That would mean the symptom of "God-Almightiness" developed into a system; in other words, one would be the fortunate possessor of the absolute truth, that had yet to be discovered; of the conclusive knowledge, which would be the people's salvation. This attitude is not necessarily megalomania ("Grössenwahn") in a direct form, but the well-known milder form of having a prophetic mission. Weak minds which, as is so often the case, have correspondingly an undue share of vanity and misplaced naïveté at their disposal, run a considerable risk of succumbing to this temptation. The obtaining access to the collective psyche signifies a renewal of life for the individual, whether this renewal of life be felt as something pleasant or unpleasant. It would seem desirable to retain a hold upon this renewal: for one person, because it increases his feeling for life ("Lebensgefühl"); for another, because it promises a great accretion to his knowledge. Therefore both of them, not wishing to deprive themselves of the rich values that lie buried in the collective psyche, will endeavour by every means possible to retain their newly gained union with the primal cause of life. Identification appears to be the nearest way to it, for the merging of the persona in the collective psyche is a veritable lure to unite one's self with this "ocean of divinity," and, oblivious of the past, to become absorbed in it. This piece of mysticism belongs to every finer individual, just as the "yearning for the mother"—the looking back to the source whence one originated—is innate in every one.

As I have demonstrated explicitly before, there is a special value and a special necessity hidden in the regressive longing—which, as is well-known, Freud conceives as "infantile fixation" or as "incest-wish." This necessity and longing is particularly emphasized in myths, where it is always the strongest and best of people, in other words, the hero, who follows the regressive longing and deliberately runs into danger of letting himself be devoured by the monster of the maternal first cause. But he is a hero only because, instead of letting himself be finally devoured by the monster, he conquers it, and that not only once but several times. It is only through the conquest of the collective psyche that its true value can be attained, whether it be under the symbol of capture of treasure, of an invincible weapon, of a magical means of defence, or whatever else the myth devises as the most desirable possession. Hence whoever identifies himself with the collective psyche, also reaches the treasure which the dragon guards, but against his will and to his own great injury, by thus allowing himself (mythologically speaking) to be devoured by the monster and merged with it.

Identification with the collective psyche is therefore a failure; this way ends just as disastrously as did the first, which led to the severance of the persona from the collective psyche.

V.—Leading Principles for the Treatment of Collective Identity.

In order to solve the problem how practical treatment can overcome the assimilation of the collective psyche, we must first of all make quite clear to ourselves what was the error of the two ways already described. We saw that neither the one way nor the other led to any appropriate result. The first way simply leads the patient back to the point of departure, having lost the vital values contained in the collective psyche. The second way leads him straight into the collective psyche, having lost that detached human existence which alone renders possible a bearable and satisfying life. There are on both sides values that should not be lost to the individual.

The mistake is, therefore, neither in the collective psyche nor in the individual psyche, but in allowing the one to exclude the other. The monistic tendency assists this propensity, for it always suspects and looks for one principle everywhere. As a general psychological tendency, monism is a peculiarity of differentiated feeling and thought, corresponding to the keen desire to make the one or the other function the supreme psychological principle. The introversion type only knows the thought principle, and the extroversion type only that of feeling. This psychological monism—or it would be better to say monotheism—has the advantage of simplicity, and the disadvantage of one-sidedness. On the one hand, it signifies the exclusion of the variety and true riches of life; whilst on the other, it means the practicability of realizing the ideals of the present day and of the near past. But it does not in itself signify any actual possibility of human progress.

In the same way rationalism tends towards exclusiveness. Its essence is to exclude instantly whatever is opposed to its standpoint, whether it be intellectually logical or emotionally so. In regard to reason it is both monistic and autocratic. Special thanks are due to Bergson for having broken a lance for the right of the irrational to exist. Psychology will probably be obliged to acknowledge and to submit to a plurality of principles, in spite of the fact that this does not suit the scientific mind. Only so can psychology be saved from ship-wreck.

But with regard to individual psychology science must waive its claims. For to speak of a scientific individual psychology is in itself a contradictio in adjecto. It is necessarily always only the collective part of an individual psychology that can be the subject of scientific study, for the individual is—according to definition—something unique and incomparable. A "scientific" individual psychology is a denial of individual psychology. It may justly be suspected that individual psychology is indeed a projection of the psychology of him who defines it. Every individual psychology must have its own text-book, for the universal text-book only contains collective psychology.

These remarks are intended to prepare for what has to be said about the treatment of the aforesaid problem. The fundamental error of both the afore-mentioned ways is simply that the subject is collectively identified with the one or the other part of his psychology. His psychology is individual as well as collective, but not in such a manner as to merge the individual with what is collective, or the collective with what is individual. The persona must be strictly separated from the concept of the individual, in so far as the persona can be absolutely merged with the collective. But what is individual is just that which can never be absorbed in the collective, and is, too, never identical with the collective. Therefore, an identification with the collective or an arbitrary cutting-off from the collective is equivalent to illness; it is pathological.

As has already been indicated, what is individual appears at first as the particular selection of those elements of the collective psyche that contribute to the composition of the persona. As I said before, the components are not individual but collective. It is only their combination, or the selection as a model of particular groups that had already been combined, which is individual. That would be the individual nucleus which is concealed by the personal mask. By the particular differentiation of the persona, the resistance is shown of the individuality to the collective psyche. By analysing the persona, we transfer a greater value to the individuality, increasing thereby its conflict with collectivity. This conflict obviously is a psychological conflict in the individual. The dissolution of the compromise between the two halves of a pair of opposites increases the effectiveness of the contrast. This conflict does not exist within the sphere of purely unconscious natural life, although the purely physiological life of the individual also has to comply with collective demands.

The natural unconscious attitude is harmonious; the body, with its capacities and needs, providing immediately indications and limitations, that prevent intemperance and lack of proportion. A differentiated psychological function, however, always inclines towards disproportion, on account of the one-sidedness which is cultivated by the conscious rationality of intention. What is called mental individuality, is, also, an expression of the individual corporeity, being, so to speak, identical with it. This sentence might obviously also be reversed, a fact that does not materially alter the real psychological data concerning the intimate relation of the individuality to the body. At the same time, the body is also that which makes the subject resemble all others to a great extent, although it is the individual body that is differentiated from all others.

Similarly the mental or moral individuality differs from all others, although in every respect it is so constituted as to place one person on an equality with all others. Every living creature that is able freely to develop itself individually without any coercion at all, will, through the perfecting of its individuality, soonest realize the ideal type of its species, and therefore, figuratively speaking, will have collective validity.

The persona is always identical with a typical attitude, in which one pyschological function dominates, e.g. feeling, or thought, or intuition. This one-sidedness always causes the relative repression of the other functions. In consequence of this circumstance, the persona is hindering to the development of the individual. The dissolution of the persona is, therefore, an indispensable condition of individuation. It is, therefore, to some extent impossible to achieve individuation by means of conscious intention; for conscious intention leads to a conscious attitude, which excludes everything that "does not suit." But the assimilation of the unconscious contents leads, on the contrary, to a condition in which conscious intention is excluded, being replaced by a process of development that appears to us irrational. This process alone signifies individuation, its product being individuality as defined above, viz. as something individual that is at the same time universal. So long as the persona exists individuality is repressed, betraying itself at most by the particular selection of personal requisites, of what might be called the actor's costumes. Only when the unconscious is assimilated does the individuality become more prominent, and with it also that uniting psychological phenomenon between the ego and non-ego, expressed by the word attitude, is now no longer a typical attitude but an individual one.

What is paradoxical in these formulations arises from the same cause from which the conflict about the "universalia" formerly arose. The phrase "animal nullumque animal genus est" makes the fundamental paradox clearly comprehensible. What exists "really" is individual: that which is universal is existing psychologically, but being caused by the real-existing similarities of individual things. The individual is, therefore, the individual thing that has, to a greater or less extent, those attributes upon which the collective conception of "collectivity" rests; and the more individual he is, the more he develops those attributes that are the basis of a collective concept of human nature.

If a grotesque figure, suggested by the initial situation of our problem be permitted, it is Buridan's ass between the two bundles of hay. His questioning is obviously wrong: the question is not whether the hay-bundle on the right or the left be the better one, or whether he should begin to eat on the right or the left hand, but what he himself would like to do, what he is eager for—that is the point. He is thinking of the hay and not of himself, and therefore he does not know what he really wants.

The question is: what at this moment is the natural direction of the growth of this individual?

This question cannot be settled by any philosophy, religion or good advice, but solely by an unprejudiced review of the psychological germs of life which have resulted from the natural co-operation of the conscious and unconscious on the one hand, and of the individual and the collective on the other. One person looks for them in the conscious, and another in the unconscious. But the conscious is only one side, and the unconscious is only the other. For it should never be forgotten that dreams are compensatory or complementary to consciousness. Were this not the case, we should be obliged to regard dreams as a source of knowledge superior to the conscious. This view would undoubtedly carry us back to the mentality of the augur, and we should have to accept all the consequences of such a superstitious attitude, unless, indeed, we look upon dreams as valueless, as does the vulgar mind.

We find the unifying function that we are seeking, in the phantasies in which everything that has any effectual determination is present. But phantasies have a bad reputation among psychologists. The psychoanalytical theories hitherto obtaining have treated them accordingly. For both Freud and Adler the phantasy is nothing but a so-called "symbolic" disguise of what both investigators suppose to be the primary propensities and aims. But in opposition to these views it should be emphasised—not for theoretical but for essentially practical reasons—that the phantasy may indeed be thus causally explained and depreciated, but that it nevertheless is the creative soil for everything that has ever brought development to humanity. The phantasy as a psychological function has a peculiar non-reducible value of its own, whose roots are in both the conscious and the unconscious contents, and in what is collective as well as in what is individual.

But whence comes the bad reputation of the phantasy? It owes that reputation chiefly to the circumstance that it ought not to be taken literally. It is worthless if understood concretistically. If we understand semiotically, as Freud does, it is interesting from the scientific standpoint. But if it be understood hermeneutically, as an actual symbol, it provides us with the cue that we need in order to develop our life in harmony with ourselves.

For the significance of a symbol is not that it is a disguised indication of something that is generally known, but that it is an endeavour to elucidate by analogy what is as yet completely unknown and only in process of formation. The phantasy represents to us that which is just developing under the form of a more or less apposite analogy. By analytical reduction to something universally known, we destroy the actual value of the symbol; but it is appropriate to its value and meaning to give it an hermeneutical interpretation.

The essence of hermeneutics—an art that was formerly much practised—consists in adding more analogies to that already given by the symbol: in the first place, subjective analogies given by the patient as they occur to him; and in the second place, objective analogies provided by the analyst out of his general knowledge. The initial symbol is much enlarged and enriched by this procedure, the result being a highly complex and many-sided picture, which may now be reduced to tertia comparationis. Thence result certain psychological lines of development of an individual as well as collective nature. No science upon earth could prove the accuracy of these lines; on the contrary, rationalism could very easily prove that they are wrong. But these lines vindicate their validity by their value for life. The chief thing in practical treatment is that people should get a hold of their own life, not that the principle of their life should be provable or "right."

Of course, true to the spirit of scientific superstition suggestion will be mooted. But it should long ago have been realised that a suggestion is only accepted by one it suits. Beyond that there is no suggestion, otherwise the treatment of neurosis would be extremely simple, for we should only need to suggest health. This pseudo-scientific talk about suggestion is based upon the unconscious superstition that suggestion actually possesses some real magic power. No one succumbs to suggestion unless from the very bottom of his heart he be willing to co-operate.

By means of the hermeneutical treatment of the phantasies we arrive at the synthesis of the individual with the collective psyche, put theoretically, that is, but practically, one indispensable condition is yet lacking. For it belongs to the regressive disposition of the neurotic—a disposition in which he has been confirmed in the course of his illness—to take neither himself nor the world seriously, but always to rely on this or that method or circumstance to effect a cure, quite apart from his own serious co-operation. "But you can't wash the dog without getting his skin wet." No cure can be effected without unlimited willingness and absolute seriousness on the part of the patient. There are no magical cures for neurosis. Just as soon as we begin to elaborate the symbolic outlines of the path, the patient must begin to walk thereon. If he delude himself and shirk it, no cure can result. He must really work and live according to what he has seen and recognised as the direction for the time being of his individual life-line, and must continue thereon until a distinct reaction of his unconscious shows him that he is beginning in good faith to go a wrong way.

He who does not possess this moral function of faithfulness to himself will never get rid of his neurosis; but he who has this faithfulness can find the way out.

Neither physician nor patient must yield to the delusion that "being analysed" is in itself sufficient to remove a neurosis. That would be deception and self-delusion. Ultimately it is infallibly the moral factor that decides between health and illness.

By the construction of the individual's life-line the ever-varying trends and tendencies of his libido are made conscious. These life-lines are not identical with the "directing fictions" discovered by Adler, which are none other than arbitrary attempts to cut the persona off from the collective psyche, and to give it independence. It might rather be said that the "directing fiction" is an unsuccessful attempt to construct a life-line. The unsuitability of the "directing fiction" is also proved by the fact that the lines are tenaciously retained for much too long a time. The hermeneutically constructed life-line is short, for life follows no straight lines that indicate the future long beforehand, for, as Nietzsche says, "All truth is crooked." Life-lines are therefore neither principles nor ideals of universal validity, but points of view and adaptations of ephemeral validity. An abatement of vital intensity, a perceptible loss of libido, or an excessive passion or ecstasy—all show that one such line is left, and that a new line begins, or rather should begin. Sometimes it is enough to leave the revealing of the new line to the unconscious; but this course should indeed not be recommended to the neurotic under all circumstances, though there are cases where what is needed is to learn to trust to so-called chance. However, it is not advisable to let one's self drift for any length of time; a watchful eye should at least be kept upon the reactions of the unconscious, that is to say, upon the dreams: these indicate like a barometer the one-sidedness of our attitude. Therefore, I consider it necessary, in contrast to some other analysts, for the patient after analysis to remain in contact with the unconscious, if he would avoid a relapse. That is why I am convinced that the real end of analysis is reached when the patient has acquired adequate knowledge of the method to remain in contact with the unconscious, and sufficient psychological knowledge to be able to understand approximately his ever-changing life-line; otherwise he is not in a position to follow the direction of the libido currents in the unconscious, and thereby to gain conscious support in the development of his individuality. Every serious case of neurosis needs this weapon in order to maintain the cure.

In this sense analysis is not a method that is a medical monopoly, but rather an art or technique or science of psychological life, which he who has been cured must continue to foster, for the sake of his own welfare and that of his environment. If he understands this aright he will not pose as a psychoanalytical prophet nor as a public reformer, but truly understanding the common weal, he will first himself reap the benefit of the self-knowledge acquired in his treatment, and then he will let the example of his life work what good it can, rather than indulge in aggressive talk and missionary propaganda.

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