We spoke earlier of two categories of patients: those who prove impervious to catharsis and those who develop a fixation after catharsis. We have just dealt with those whose fixation takes the form of transference. But, besides these, there are people who, as already mentioned, develop no attachment to the doctor but rather to their own unconscious, in which they become entangled as in a web. Here the parental imago is not transferred to any human object but remains a fantasy, although as such it exerts the same pull and results in the same tie as does the transference. The first category, the people who cannot yield themselves unreservedly to catharsis, can be understood in the light of Freudian research. Even before they came along for treatment they stood in an identity-relationship to their parents, deriving from it that authority, independence, and critical power which enabled them successfully to withstand the catharsis. They are mostly cultivated, differentiated personalities who, unlike the others, did not fall helpless victims to the unconscious activity of the parental imago, but rather usurped this activity by unconsciously identifying themselves with their parents:
FREUD PRACTICED WHAT HE
CALLED THE `INTERPRETATIVE METHOD'
Faced with the phenomenon of transference, mere confession is of no avail; it was for this reason that Freud was driven to substantial modifications of Breuer's original cathartic method. What he now practised he called the “interpretative method”
CW16 ¶ 143THE DOCTOR MUST INTERPRET
THE TRANSFERENCE
This further step is quite logical, for the transference relationship is in especial need of elucidation. How very much this is the case the layman can hardly appreciate; but the doctor who finds himself suddenly entangled in a web of incomprehensible and fantastic notions sees it all too clearly. He must interpret the transferenceexplain to the patient what he is projecting upon the doctor. Since the patient himself does not know what it is, the doctor is obliged to submit what scraps of fantasy he can obtain from the patient to analytical interpretation. The first and most important products of this kind are dreams. Freud therefore proceeded to examine dreams exclusively for their stock of wishes that had been repressed because incompatible with reality, and in the process discovered the incestuous contents of which I have spoken. Naturally the investigation revealed not merely incestuous material in the stricter sense of the word, but every conceivable kind of filth of which human nature is capableand it is notorious that a lifetime would be required to make even a rough inventory of it
CW16 ¶ 144`REDUCTIVE' EXPLANATIONS LEAD
BACKWARDS AND DOWNWARDS
Freud's interpretative method rests on “reductive” explanations which unfailingly lead backwards and downwards, and it is essentially destructive if overdone or handled one-sidedly. Nevertheless psychology has profited greatly from Freud's pioneer work; it has learned that human nature has its black sideand not man alone, but his works, his institutions, and his convictions as well.The uproar over Freud's interpretations is entirely due to our own barbarous or childish naïveté, which does not yet understand that high rests on low, and that les extrêmes se touchent really is one of the ultimate verities. Our mistake lies in supposing that the radiant things are done away with by being explained from the shadow-side. This is a regrettable error into which Freud himself has fallen. Shadow pertains to light as evil to good, and vice versa. Therefore I cannot lament the shock which this exposure administered to our occidental illusions and pettiness; on the contrary I welcome it as an historic and necessary rectification of almost incalculable importance. For it forces us to accept a philosophical relativism such as Einstein embodies for mathematical physics, and which is fundamentally a truth of the Far East whose ultimate effects we cannot at present foresee
CW16 ¶ 146NOTHING IS LESS EFFECTIVE
THAN AN INTELLECTUAL IDEA
Nothing, it is true, is less effective than an intellectual idea. But when an idea is a psychic fact that crops up in two such totally different fields as psychology and physics, apparently without historical connection, then we must give it our closest attention. For ideas of this kind represent forces which are logically and morally unassailable; they are always stronger than man and his brain. He fancies that he makes these ideas, but in reality they make himand make him their unwitting mouthpiece
CW16 ¶ 147SELF-KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT THE SPUR
OF EXTERNAL NECESSITY IS INEFFECTIVE
The problem which now faces the patient is his education as a social being, and with this we come to the third stage. For many morally sensitive natures, mere insight into themselves has sufficient motive force to drive them forward, but it is not enough for people with little moral imagination. For themto say nothing of those who may have been struck by the analyst's interpretation but still doubt it in their heart of heartsself-knowledge without the spur of external necessity is ineffective even when they are deeply convinced of its truth. Then again it is just the intellectually differentiated people who grasp the truth of the reductive explanation but cannot tolerate mere deflation of their hopes and ideals. In these cases, too, the power of insight will be of no avail. The explanatory method always presupposes sensitive natures capable of drawing independent moral conclusions from insight. It is true that elucidation goes further than uninterpreted confession alone, for at least it exercises the mind and may awaken dormant forces which can intervene in a helpful way. But the fact remains that in many cases the most thorough elucidation leaves the patient an intelligent but still incapable child
CW16 ¶ 150FREUD IS INVESTIGATOR AND INTERPRETER,
ADLER IS PRIMARILY THE EDUCATOR
Whereas Freud is the investigator and interpreter, Adler is primarily the educator. He thus takes up the negative legacy which Freud bequeathed him, and, refusing to leave the patient a mere child, helpless despite his valuable understanding, tries by every device of education to make him a normal and adapted person. He does this evidently in the conviction that social adaptation and normalization are desirable goals, that they are absolutely necessary, the consummation of human life. From this fundamental attitude comes the widespread social activity of the Adlerian school, but also its depreciation of the unconscious, which, it seems, occasionally amounts to its complete denial. This is probably a swing of the pendulumthe inevitable reaction to the emphasis Freud lays on the unconscious, and as such quite in keeping with the natural aversion which we noted in patients struggling for adaptation and health
CW16 ¶ 152EACH STAGE HAS SOMETHING
CURIOUSLY FINAL ABOUT IT
Each stage in the development of our psychology has something curiously final about it. Catharsis, with its heart-felt outpourings, makes one feel: “Now we are there, everything has come out, everything is known, the last terror lived through and the last tear shed; now everything will be all right.” Elucidation says with equal conviction: “Now we know where the neurosis came from, the earliest memories have been unearthed, the last roots dug up, and the transference was nothing but the wish-fulfilling fantasy of a childhood paradise or a relapse into the family romance; the road to a normally disillusioned life is now open.” Finally comes education, pointing out that no amount of confession and no amount of explaining can make the crooked plant grow straight, but that it must be trained upon the trellis of the norm by the gardener's art. Only then will normal adaptation be reached
CW16 ¶ 153BOTH FREUD AND ADLER ARE ENSNARED
IN THE FINALITY OF HIS OWN STAGE
This curious sense of finality which attends each of the stages accounts for the fact that there are people using cathartic methods today who have apparently never heard of dream interpretation, Freudians who do not understand a word of Adler, and Adlerians who do not wish to know anything about the unconscious. Each is ensnared in the peculiar finality of his own stage, and thence arises that chaos of opinions and views which makes orientation in these troubled waters so exceedingly difficult
CW16 ¶ 154Whence comes the feeling of finality that evokes so much authoritarian bigotry on all sides?
I can only explain it to myself by saying that each stage does in fact rest on a final truth, and that consequently there are always cases which demonstrate this particular truth in the most startling way. In our delusion-ridden world a truth is so precious that nobody wants to let it slip merely for the sake of a few so-called exceptions which refuse to toe the line. And whoever doubts this truth is invariably looked on as a faithless reprobate, so that a note of fanaticism and intolerance everywhere creeps into the discussion
The same is true of the fourth stage, transformation. It too should not claim to be the finally attained and only valid truth. It certainly fills a gap left by the earlier stages, but in so doing it merely fulfils a further need beyond the scope of the others
CW16 ¶ 160WHAT IS MEANT BY THE
PECULIAR TERM `TRANSFORMATION'
In order to make clear what this fourth stage has in view and what is meant by the somewhat peculiar term “transformation,” we must first consider what psychic need was not given a place in the earlier stages. In other words, can anything lead further or be higher than the claim to be a normal and adapted social being? To be a normal human being is probably the most useful and fitting thing of which we can think; but the very notion of a “normal human being,” like the concept of adaptation, implies a restriction to the average which seems a desirable improvement only to the man who already has some difficulty in coming to terms with the everyday worlda man, let us say, whose neurosis unfits him for normal life
CW16 ¶ 161`NORMAL' OR `ABNORMAL' LIVES
To be “normal” is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful, for all those who are still below the general level of adaptation. But for people of more than average ability, people who never found it difficult to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world's workfor them the moral compulsion to be nothing but normal signifies the bed of Procrustesdeadly and insupportable boredom, a hell of sterility and hopelessness. Consequently there are just as many people who become neurotic because they are merely normal, as there are people who are neurotic because they cannot become normal. That it should enter anyone's head to educate them to normality is a nightmare for the former, because their deepest need is really to be able to lead “abnormal” lives
DOCTOR INFLUENCES PATIENT,
PATIENT INFLUENCES DOCTOR
Hence the personalities of doctor and patient are often infinitely more important for the outcome of the treatment than what the doctor says and thinks (although what he says and thinks may be a disturbing or a healing factor not to be underestimated). For two personalities to meet is like mixing two different chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed. In any effective psychological treatment the doctor is bound to influence the patient; but this influence can only take place if the patient has a reciprocal influence on the doctor.The patient influences him unconsciously none the less, and brings about changes in the doctor's unconscious which are well known to many psychotherapists: psychic disturbances or even injuries peculiar to the profession, a striking illustration of the patient's almost “chemical” action. One of the best known symptoms of this kind is the counter-transference evoked by the transference. But the effects are often much more subtle, and their nature can best be conveyed by the old idea of the demon of sickness. According to this, a sufferer can transmit his disease to a healthy person whose powers then subdue the demonbut not without impairing the well-being of the subduer
CW16 ¶ 163MUTUAL TRANSFORMATION
BETWEEN DOCTOR AND PATIENT
Between doctor and patient, therefore, there are imponderable factors which bring about a mutual transformation. In the process, the stronger and more stable personality will decide the final issue. I have seen many cases where the patient assimilated the doctor in defiance of all theory and of the latter's professional intentionsgenerally, though not always, to the disadvantage of the doctor
CW16 ¶ 164JUNG'S DEMAND FOR THE
ANALYSIS OF THE ANALYST
The stage of transformation is grounded on these facts, but it took more than twenty-five years of wide practical experience for them to be clearly recognized. Freud himself has admitted their importance and has therefore seconded my demand for the analysis of the analyst
CW16 ¶ 165DOCTOR IS AS MUCH `IN THE
ANALYSIS' AS THE PATIENT
What does this demand mean? Nothing less than that the doctor is as much “in the analysis” as the patient. He is equally a part of the psychic process of treatment and therefore equally exposed to the transforming influences. Indeed, to the extent that the doctor shows himself impervious to this influence, he forfeits influence over the patient; and if he is influenced only unconsciously, there is a gap in his field of consciousness which makes it impossible for him to see the patient in true perspective. In either case the result of the treatment is compromised
CW16 ¶ 166DOCTOR STRIVES TO MEET
HIS OWN THERAPEUTIC DEMAND
The doctor must consistently strive to meet his own therapeutic demand if he wishes to ensure the right sort of influence over his patients. All these guiding principles of therapy make so many ethical demands, which can be summed up in the single truth: be the man through whom you wish to influence others. Mere talk has always been counted hollow, and there is no trick, however artful, by which this simple truth can be evaded in the long run. The fact of being convinced and not the thing we are convinced ofthat is what has always, and at all times, worked
CW16 ¶ 167DOCTOR MUST CHANGE HIMSELF IF
HE EXPECTS TO CHANGE HIS PATIENT
The step from education to self-education is a logical advance that completes the earlier stages. The demand made by the stage of transformation, namely that the doctor must change himself if he is to become capable of changing his patient, is, as may well be imagined, a rather unpopular one, and for three reasons. First, because it seems unpractical; second, because of the unpleasant prejudice against being preoccupied with oneself; and third, because it is sometimes exceedingly painful to live up to everything one expects of one's patient. The last item in particular contributes much to the unpopularity of this demand, for if the doctor conscientiously doctors himself he will soon discover things in his own nature which are utterly opposed to normalization, or which continue to haunt him in the most disturbing way despite assiduous explanation and thorough abreaction. What is he to do about these things? He always knows what the patient should do about themit is his professional duty to do so
CW16 ¶ 170But what, in all sincerity, will he do when they recoil upon himself or perhaps upon those who stand nearest to him? He may, in his self-investigations, discover some inferiority which brings him uncomfortably close to his patients and may even blight his authority. How will he deal with this painful discovery? This somewhat “neurotic” question will touch him on the raw, no matter how normal he thinks he is. He will also discover that the ultimate questions which worry him as much as his patients cannot be solved by any treatment, that to expect solutions from others is childish and keeps you childish, and that if no solution can be found the question must be repressed again
PSYCHOTHERAPY AS THE CHILD OF
PRACTICAL IMPROVISATION
So much is psychotherapy the child of practical improvisation that for a long time it had trouble in thinking out its own intellectual foundations. Empirical psychology relied very much at first on physical and then on physiological ideas, and ventured only with some hesitation on the complex phenomena which constitute its proper field. Similarly, psychotherapy was at first simply an auxiliary method; only gradually did it free itself from the world of ideas represented by medical therapeutics and come to understand that its concern lay not merely with physiological but primarily with psychological principles. In other words, it found itself obliged to raise psychological issues which soon burst the framework of the experimental psychology of that day with its elementary statements
CW16 ¶ 175The demands of therapy brought highly complex factors within the purview of this still young science, and its exponents very often lacked the equipment needed to deal with the problems that arose. It is therefore not surprising that a bewildering assortment of ideas, theories, and points of view predominated in all the initial discussions of this new psychology which had been, so to speak, forced into existence by therapeutic experience. An outsider could hardly be blamed if he received an impression of babel. This confusion was inevitable, for sooner or later it was bound to become clear that one cannot treat the psyche without touching on man and life as a whole, including the ultimate and deepest issues, any more than one can treat the sick body without regard to the totality of its functionsor rather, as a few representatives of modern medicine maintain, the totality of the sick man himself
PHYSIOLOGICAL POLE VS
PSYCHOLOGICAL POLE
The more “psychological” a condition is, the greater its complexity and the more it relates to the whole of life. It is true that elementary psychic phenomena are closely allied to physiological processes, and there is not the slightest doubt that the physiological factor forms at least one pole of the psychic cosmos. The instinctive and affective processes, together with all the neurotic symptomatology that arises when these are disturbed, clearly rest on a physiological basis. But, on the other hand, the disturbing factor proves equally clearly that it has the power to turn physiological order into disorder. If the disturbance lies in a repression, then the disturbing factorthat is, the repressive forcebelongs to a “higher” psychic order. It is not something elementary and physiologically conditioned, but, as experience shows, a highly complex determinant, as for example certain rational, ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other traditional ideas which cannot be scientifically proved to have any physiological basis. These extremely complex dominants form the other pole of the psyche. Experience likewise shows that this pole possesses an energy many times greater than that of the physiologically conditioned psyche
CW16 ¶ 176PROBLEM OF OPPOSITES AS PROFOUNDLY
CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PSYCHE
With its earliest advances into the field of psychology proper, the new psychotherapy came up against the problem of oppositesa problem that is profoundly characteristic of the psyche. Indeed, the structure of the psyche is so contradictory or contrapuntal that one can scarcely make any psychological assertion or general statement without having immediately to state its opposite
CW16 ¶ 177THE CASE OF A REPRESSED INSTINCT
The problem of opposites offers an eminently suitable and ideal battleground for the most contradictory theories, and above all for partially or wholly unrealized prejudices regarding one's philosophy of life. With this development psychotherapy stirred up a hornets' nest of the first magnitude. Let us take as an example the supposedly simple case of a repressed instinct. If the repression is lifted, the instinct is set free. Once freed, it wants to live and function in its own way. But this creates a difficultsometimes intolerably difficultsituation. The instinct ought therefore to be modified, or “sublimated,” as they say. How this is to be done without creating a new repression nobody can quite explain. The little word “ought” always proves the helplessness of the therapist; it is an admission that he has come to the end of his resources. The final appeal to reason would be very fine if man were by nature a rational animal, but he is not; on the contrary, he is quite as much irrational. Hence reason is often not sufficient to modify the instinct and make it conform to the rational order
CW16 ¶ 178THERAPIST WITH A NEUROSIS
IS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS
In other words, the art of psychotherapy requires that the therapist be in possession of avowable, credible, and defensible convictions which have proved their viability either by having resolved any neurotic dissociations of his own or by preventing them from arising. A therapist with a neurosis is a contradiction in terms. One cannot help any patient to advance further than one has advanced oneself. On the other hand, the possession of complexes does not in itself signify neurosis, for complexes are the normal foci of psychic happenings, and the fact that they are painful is no proof of pathological disturbance. Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness. A complex becomes pathological only when we think we have not got it
CW16 ¶ 179HIGHEST DOMINANT ALWAYS HAS A
RELIGIOUS OR PHILOSOPHICAL CHARACTER
The highest dominant always has a religious or a philosophical character. It is by nature extremely primitive, and consequently we find it in full development among primitive peoples. Any difficulty, danger, or critical phase of life immediately calls forth this dominant. It is the most natural reaction to all highly charged emotional situations. But often it remains as obscure as the semiconscious emotional situation which evoked it. Hence it is quite natural that the emotional disturbances of the patient should activate the corresponding religious or philosophical factors in the therapist. Often he is most reluctant to make himself conscious of these primitive contents, and he quite understandably prefers to turn for help to a religion or philosophy which has reached his consciousness from outside. This course does not strike me as being illegitimate in so far as it gives the patient a chance to take his place within the structure of some protective institution existing in the outside world. Such a solution is entirely natural, since there have always and everywhere been totem clans, cults, and creeds whose purpose it is to give an ordered form to the chaotic world of the instincts
CW16 ¶ 183WHEN THE PATIENT'S NATURE RESISTS
A COLLECTIVE SOLUTION
The situation becomes difficult, however, when the patient's nature resists a collective solution. The question then arises whether the therapist is prepared to risk having his convictions dashed and shattered against the truth of the patient. If he wants to go on treating the patient he must abandon all preconceived notions and, for better or worse, go with him in search of the religious and philosophical ideas that best correspond to the patient's emotional states. These ideas present themselves in archetypal form, freshly sprung from the maternal soil whence all religious and philosophical systems originally came. But if the therapist is not prepared to have his convictions called in question for the sake of the patient, then there is some reason for doubting the stability of his basic attitude. Perhaps he cannot give way on grounds of self-defense, which threatens him with rigidity. The margin of psychological elasticity varies both individually and collectively, and often it is so narrow that a certain degree of rigidity really does represent the maximum achievement. Ultra posse nemo obligatur, [No one is bound to do more than he can]
CW16 ¶ 184INSTINCT BRINGS IN ARCHETYPAL
CONTENTS OF A SPIRITUAL NATURE
Instinct is not an isolated thing, nor can it be isolated in practice. It always brings in its train archetypal contents of a spiritual nature, which are at once its foundation and its limitation. In other words, an instinct is always and inevitably coupled with something like a philosophy of life, however archaic, unclear, and hazy this may be. Instinct stimulates thought, and if a man does not think of his own free will, then you get compulsive thinking, for the two poles of the psyche, the physiological and the mental, are indissolubly connected. For this reason instinct cannot be freed without freeing the mind, just as mind divorced from instinct is condemned to futility. Not that the tie between mind and instinct is necessarily a harmonious one
CW16 ¶ 185CONFLICT BETWEEN MIND AND
INSTINCT MEANS SUFFERING
On the contrary it is full of conflict and means suffering. Therefore the principal aim of psychotherapy is not to transport the patient to an impossible state of happiness, but to help him acquire steadfastness and philosophic patience in face of suffering. Life demands for its completion and fulfilment a balance between joy and sorrow. But because suffering is positively disagreeable, people naturally prefer not to ponder how much fear and sorrow fall to the lot of man. So they speak soothingly about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting that happiness is itself poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled. Behind a neurosis there is so often concealed all the natural and necessary suffering the patient has been unwilling to bear. We can see this most clearly from hysterical pains, which are relieved in the course of treatment by the corresponding psychic suffering which the patient sought to avoid
DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE
MEANING AND VALUE OF SUFFERING
The Christian doctrine of original sin on the one hand, and of the meaning and value of suffering on the other, is therefore of profound therapeutic significance and is undoubtedly far better suited to Western man than Islamic fatalism. Similarly the belief in immortality gives life that untroubled flow into the future so necessary if stoppages and regressions are to be avoided. Although we like to use the word “doctrine” for thesepsychologically speakingextremely important ideas, it would be a great mistake to think that they are just arbitrary intellectual theories. Psychologically regarded, they are emotional experiences whose nature cannot be discussed. If I may permit myself a banal comparison, when I feel well and content nobody can prove to me that I am not. Logical arguments simply bounce off the facts felt and experienced. Original sin, the meaning of suffering, and immortality are emotional facts of this kind. But to experience them is a charisma which no human art can compel. Only unreserved surrender can hope to reach such a goal
CW16 ¶ 186TWO KINDS OF ILLUMINATION
Medieval physicians seem to have realized this, for they practised a philosophy whose roots can be traced back to pre-Christian times and whose nature exactly corresponds to our experiences with patients today. These physicians recognized, besides the light of divine revelation, a lumen naturae as a second, independent source of illumination, to which the doctor could turn if the truth as handed down by the Church should for any reason prove ineffective either for himself or for the patient
CW16 ¶ 189