Modern Man in Search of a Soul

An archetype is a symbol that recurs in human cultural myths and within the dreams and fantasies of individuals. The Great Mother, the Wise Old Man, and the Tree of Life are a few; there’s also a vast collection of sexual symbols, including “the bull, the ass, the pomegranate, the yoni, the he-goat, the lightning, the horse’s hoof, the dance” (22). To Jung these symbols represent creative power rather than sexuality. Other symbols represent other basic human drives and universal themes. Jung coined the term and placed archetypes within the collective unconscious, whence they spring forth, as needed, in the minds of nearly everyone at one time or another. These universal symbols serve as flags that flutter when the issues they represent turn up in people’s minds.

Jung believes all humans share “an unconscious psychic activity present in all human beings” (73) that surfaces in the barbaric symbols of ancient art. This activity arises from the collective unconscious, “a certain psychic disposition shaped by the forces of heredity” (168). Many of its symbols recur over and over, and they can serve as a resource for patients as they strive to understand the meaning of their own dreams. Thus, “through these pictures, we bring to expression that part of the psyche which reaches back into the primitive past and reconcile it with present-day consciousness, thus mitigating its disturbing effects upon the latter” (73).

A complex is a set of thoughts and feelings suppressed and forced down into the unconscious. A complex manifests as a neurosis. In therapy, the complex may be revealed so it can be understood and dealt with constructively.

In psychoanalysis, dreams are the outpourings of deep needs and urges that have been suppressed during the day. The items of a dream serve as symbols of those problems and as muted suggestions for what’s desired, along with what may happen if those desires are persistently denied.

Jung divides personalities into two main types, extraverted and introverted. Extraverted people receive an input from the world and “come forward with an immediate reaction, apparently confident that their behaviour is obviously right” (87). This affects how aggressive they are in dealing with each of the four functions of the mind, i.e., thinking, feeling, sensations, and intuitions. The opposite attitude to extraversion is introversion.

Jung’s division of personalities into two types includes introversion. Introverts are people “who at the moment of reaction to a given situation at first draw back a little as if with an unvoiced ‘No,’ and only after that are able to react” (87). Introverts are likely to be more cautious and shyer than extraverts. Either attitude affects a person’s relationship to the four functions of the mind, i.e., thinking, feeling, sensations, and intuitions.

A neurosis is a mental disorder that interferes with normal behavior. It’s not a psychosis, or a delusional loss of touch with reality; rather, it is, in casual speech, a “hang-up,” such as chronic anxiety, compulsions, obsessions, excessive neediness, overeating, and other garden-variety emotionally tinged behaviors that affect most humans in some form or another. Freud regarded a neurosis as “a substitute for a direct means of gratification” (171). Jung believed neuroses stem largely from modern people’s conflict between their loss of faith in religious tradition and their unanswered yearnings for spirituality and purpose. The term neurosis has largely been abandoned in favor of more specific terms for types of mental health issues.

The pleasure principle is a pillar of Freudian thought. It says that people are driven primarily by the desire for pleasure and the need to avoid pain. The pleasure principle contrasts with the reality principle, by which people learn to postpone pleasure in the present for greater benefits in the future.

The psyche, to Jung, is the totality of the mind, both conscious and unconscious, which, in turn, is the manifestation of the spirit that animates the body. Jung states that many modern psychologists regard the psyche as a mere reflection of the material functions of the body, such as the nervous system and brain, or, in the case of disease, neurological or glandular problems; such therapists therefore practice a “psychology without the psyche” (184), in that they ignore the vast realm of unconscious behavior that Jung believes instigates consciousness. A “psychic” cure, on the other hand, addresses conflicts suffered by patients, not within their glands but due to conflicts that affect their mental processes.

Transference happens in therapy when patients begin to see the therapist as a parent and resume their childhood role as the parent’s dependent. The patient thus transfers childhood family problems onto the therapist, who must take care not to let her own unresolved issues become entangled with those of the patient. Freudians believe transference enables patients to resume their childish incestuous fantasies about their parents; Jung simply believes it’s a return of dependency on parental authority.