THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSES[216]

Being a Survey of the Modern Theory and Method of Analytical Psychology

I.—The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis

In common with other sciences, psychology had to go through its scholastic-philosophic stage, and to some extent this has lasted on into the present time. This philosophic psychology has incurred our condemnation in that it decides ex cathedra what is the nature of the soul, and whence and how it derives its attributes. The spirit of modern scientific investigation has summarily disposed of all these phantasies and in their place has established an exact empiric method. We owe to this our present-day experimental psychology or "psychophysiology," as the French call it. This new direction originated with Fechner, that Janus-minded spirit, who in his remarkable Psychophysik (1860) embarked on the mighty enterprise of introducing the physical standpoint into the conception of psychical phenomena. The whole idea of this work—and not least its astonishing mistakes—proved most fruitful in results. For Wundt, Fechner's young contemporary, carried on his work, and it is Wundt's great erudition, enormous power of work and genius for elaborating methods of experimental research, which have given to modern psychology its prevailing direction.

Until quite recently experimental psychology remained essentially academic. The first notable attempt to utilise some few at any rate of its innumerable experimental methods in the service of practical psychology came from the psychiatrists of the former Heidelberg school (KrÆpelin, Aschaffenburg, etc.); it is quite intelligible that the psychotherapists should be the first to feel the urgent need for more exact knowledge of psychic processes.

Next came pedagogy, making its own demands upon psychology. Out of this has recently grown up an "experimental pedagogy," and in this field Neumann in Germany and Binet in France have rendered signal services. The physician, the so-called "nerve-specialist," has the most urgent need of psychological knowledge if he would really help his patients, for neurotic disturbances, such as hysteria, and all things classed as "nervousness," are of psychic origin, and necessarily demand psychic treatment. Cold water, light, air, electricity, magnetism, etc., are only effective temporarily, and quite often are of no use at all. They are frequently introduced into treatment in a not very commendable fashion, simply because reliance is placed upon their suggestive effect. But it is in his soul that the patient is really sick; in those most complicated and lofty functions which we scarcely dare to include in the province of medicine. The doctor must needs, in such a case, be a psychologist, must needs understand the human soul. He cannot evade the urgent demand upon him. So he naturally turns for help to psychology, since his psychiatry text-books have nothing to offer him. But modern experimental psychology is very far from being able to afford him any connected insight into the most vital psychic processes, that is not its aim. As far as possible it tries to isolate those simple elementary phenomena which border on the physiological, and then study them in an isolated state. It quite ignores the infinite variation and movement of the mental life of the individual, and accordingly, its knowledge and its facts are so many isolated details, uninspired by any comprehensive idea capable of bringing them into co-ordination. Hence it comes about that the inquirer after the secrets of the human soul, learns rather less than nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, take off his scholar's gown, say farewell to his study, and then, strong in manly courage, set out to wander through the world; alike through the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, through dreary outlying taverns, through brothels and gambling-halls, into elegant drawing-rooms, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revival gatherings of strange religious sects, experiencing in his own person love and hate and every kind of suffering. He would return laden with richer knowledge than his yard-long text-books could ever have given him, and thus equipped, he can indeed be a physician to his patients, for he understands the soul of man. He may be pardoned if his respect for the "corner-stones" of experimental psychology is no longer very considerable. There is a great gulf fixed between what science calls "psychology," on the one hand, and what the practice of everyday life expects from psychology on the other.

This need became the starting-point of a new psychology whose inception we owe first and foremost to the genius of Sigmund Freud, of Vienna, to his researches into functional nervous disease. The new type of psychology might be described as "analytical psychology." Professor Bleuler has coined the name "Deep Psychology,"[217] to indicate that the Freudian psychology takes as its province the deeper regions, the "hinterland" of the soul, the "unconscious." Freud names his method of investigation "psychoanalysis."

Before we approach the matter more closely, we must first consider the relationship of the new psychology to the earlier science. Here we encounter a singular little farce which once again proves the truth of Anatole France's apothegm: "Les savants ne sont pas curieux."

The first important piece of work[218] in this new field awakened only the faintest echo, in spite of the fact that it offered a new and fundamental conception of the neuroses. Certain writers expressed their approbation, and then, on the next page, proceeded to explain their cases of hysteria in the good old way. It was much as if a man should subscribe fully to the idea of the earth's being spherical, and yet continue to represent it as flat. Freud's next publications[219] were practically unnoticed, although they contributed findings of immeasurable importance to the domain of psychiatry. When in 1900 he produced the first real psychological elucidation of the dream[220] (previously there had reigned over this territory a suitable nocturnal darkness), he was ridiculed; and when in the middle of the last decade he began to illumine the psychology of sexuality itself,[221] and at the same time the "ZÜrich school" decided to range itself on his side, a storm of abuse, sometimes of the coarsest kind, burst upon him, nor has it yet ceased to rage. At the last South-West German Congress of alienists in Baden-Baden, the adherents of the new psychology had the pleasure of hearing Hoche, University Professor of Psychiatry at Freiburg in Breisgau, describe the movement in a long and much-applauded address, as an outbreak of mental aberration among doctors. The old proverb: "Medicus medicum non decimat" was here quite put to shame. How carefully the question had been studied was shewn by the naÏve remark of one of the most distinguished neurologists of Paris, which I myself heard at the International Congress in 1907: "It is true I have not read Freud's works (he did not happen to know any German!), but as for his theories, they are nothing but a mauvaise plaisanterie." Freud, dignified, masterly, once said to me, I first became clearly conscious of the value of my discoveries when they were met everywhere with resistance and anger; since that time I have judged the value of my work according to the degree of opposition provoked. It is against my sexual theory that the greatest indignation is felt, so it would seem therein lies my best work. Perhaps after all the real benefactors of mankind are its false teachers, for opposition to the false doctrine pushes men willy nilly into truth. Your truth-teller is a pernicious fellow, he drives men into error."

The reader must now calmly accept the idea that in this psychology he is dealing with something quite unique, if not indeed with some altogether irrational, sectarian, or occult wisdom; for what else could possibly provoke all the scientific authorities to turn away on the very threshold and utterly refuse to cross it?

Accordingly, we must look more closely into this psychology. As long ago as Charcot's time it was recognised that neurotic symptoms are "psychogenic," that is, that they have their origin in the psyche. It was also known, thanks mainly to the work of the Nancy School, that every hysterical symptom can be exactly reproduced by means of suggestion. But how a hysterical system arises, and its relationship to psychic causes, were altogether unknown. In the beginning of the eighties Dr. Breuer, an old Viennese doctor, made a discovery[222] which was really the true starting-point of the new psychology. He had a very intelligent young patient (a woman) suffering from hysteria, who exhibited the following symptoms among others: A spastic paralysis of the right arm, occasional disturbances of consciousness or twilight-states, and loss of the power of speech in so far as she no longer retained any knowledge of her mother-tongue, and could only express herself in English (so-called systematic aphasia). They sought at that time, and still seek, in such a case to establish some theory of anatomical disturbance, although there was just as little disturbance in the arm-centre in the brain as in that of any normal man who boxes another's ears. The symptomatology of hysteria is full of anatomical impossibilities; such as the case of the lady who had lost her hearing completely through some hysterical malady. None the less she often used to sing, and once when she was singing her doctor sat down at the piano unnoticed by her and softly accompanied her. Passing from one strophe to another he suddenly altered the key, and she, quite unconscious of what she was doing, sang on in the altered key. Thus she heard—yet did not hear. The various forms of systematic blindness present similar phenomena. We have the case of a man suffering from complete hysterical blindness. In the course of the treatment he recovers his sight, but at first, and for some long time, only partially: he could see everything with one exception—people's heads. He saw all the people around him without heads. Thus he saw—yet did not see. From a large number of like experiences it has long been concluded that it is only the patient's consciousness which does not see, does not hear, but the sense-function has nothing at all the matter with it. This state of affairs is directly contradictory to the essence of an organic disturbance, which always materially involves the function.

After this digression let us return to Breuer's case. Since there was no organic cause for the disturbance, the case was clearly to be regarded as hysterical, that is, psychogenic. Dr. Breuer had noticed that if during her twilight-states (whether spontaneous or artificially induced) he let the patient freely express the reminiscences and phantasies that thronged in upon her, her condition was afterwards much improved for some hours. He made systematic use of this observation in her further treatment. The patient herself invented the appropriate name for it of "talking cure" or, in jest, "chimney sweeping."

Her illness began whilst she was nursing her dying father. It is easy to understand that her phantasies busied themselves mainly with this disturbing time. In the twilight-states memories of this period reappeared with photographic fidelity, distinct in every detail: no waking recollection is ever so plastically and exactly reproduced. The term hypermnesia is applied to this heightening of the power of memory, which occurs without difficulty in certain states of contracted consciousness. Remarkable things now came to light. Out of the many things told, one ran somewhat as follows.[223]

On a certain night she was in a state of great anxiety about her father's high temperature. She sat by his bed, waiting for the surgeon who was coming from Vienna to perform an operation. Her mother had gone out of the room for a little while, and Anna (the patient) sat by the bed, with her right arm hanging over the back of her chair. She fell into a kind of waking-dream in which she saw a black snake come out from the wall and approach the sick man, prepared to bite. (It is very probable that some real snakes had been seen in the fields behind the house, and that she had been frightened by them; this would furnish the material for her hallucination.) She wanted to drive the creature away, but felt paralysed; her right arm, hanging over the chair, had "gone to sleep," was anÆsthetic and paretic, and as she looked her fingers turned into little snakes with death's heads (the nails). Probably she tried to drive the snake away with her paralysed right hand, and thereby the anÆsthesia and paralysis became associated with the snake-hallucination. Even after the snake had disappeared, her terror remained great. She tried to pray, but found she had no words in any language, until at length she managed to remember some English nursery rhymes, and then she could go on thinking and praying in that language.

This was the actual scene in which the paralysis and speech-disturbance arose; the describing it served to remove the speech-trouble, and in this same fashion the case was finally completely cured.

I must restrict myself to this one instance. In Breuer and Freud's book there is a wealth of similar examples. It is easy to understand that scenes such as these make a very strong impression, and accordingly there is an inclination to attribute a causal significance to them in the genesis of the symptoms. The then current conception of hysteria, arising from the English "nervous shock" theory, which Charcot strongly supported, came in conveniently to elucidate Breuer's discovery, hence arose the trauma-theory maintaining that the hysterical symptom and in so far as the symptoms comprise the disease, hysteria itself, arises from some psychic injury (or trauma), the effect of which is retained in the unconscious indefinitely. Freud, working as Breuer's colleague, amply confirmed this discovery. It was fully demonstrated that not one out of the many hundred hysterical symptoms came down ready made from heaven; they had already been conditioned by past psychic experiences. To some extent, therefore, this new conception opened up a field of very important empirical work. But Freud's tireless spirit of inquiry could not long rest content at this superficial layer, since already there obtruded deeper and more difficult problems. It is obvious enough that moments of great fear and anxiety, such as Breuer's patient went through, would leave behind a lasting effect, but how is it that these happenings are themselves already deeply stamped with the mark of morbidity? Must we suppose that the trying sick-nursing in itself produce such a result? If so, such effects should occur much more frequently, for there are, unfortunately, many trying cases of sick-nursing, and the nurse's nervous constitution is by no means always of the soundest. To this problem medicine gives its admirable answer; the "x" in the calculation is predisposition; there is a tendency to these things. But for Freud the problem was, what exactly constitutes this predisposition? This question led logically to an investigation of all that had preceded the psychic trauma. It is a matter of common observation that distressing scenes have markedly different effects upon the different participants, and that things which to some are quite indifferent or even pleasant, such as frogs, mice, snakes, cats, excite the greatest aversion in others. There are the cases of women who can calmly be present at a very bad operation, but who tremble all over with horror and nausea at the touch of a cat. By way of illustration let me give the case of a young lady suffering from severe hysteria following a sudden fright.[224] She had been at a social gathering, and was on her way home at midnight accompanied by several acquaintances, when a carriage came up behind them at full speed. All the others moved out of the way, but she, beside herself with fright, ran down the middle of the road just in front of the horses. The coachman cracked his whip and cursed and swore in vain. She ran down the whole length of the street till a bridge was reached. There her strength failed her, and to escape the horses' feet in her despair she would have jumped into the water had not passers-by prevented her. This same lady happened to be in Petrograd during that sanguinary Revolution of the 22nd of January, and saw a street cleared by the volleys of soldiers. All around her people were dropping down dead or wounded, but she retained her calmness and self-possession, and caught sight of a door which gave her escape into another street. These terrible moments agitated her neither at the time nor later on. She was quite well afterwards, indeed felt better than usual.

Essentially similar reactions can quite often be observed. Hence it follows that the intensity of the trauma is of small pathogenic importance; the peculiar circumstances determine its pathogenic effect. Here, then, we have the key which enables us to unlock at least one of the anterooms to an understanding of predisposition. We must now ask what were the unusual circumstances in this carriage scene? The terror and apprehension began as soon as the lady heard the trampling horses. For a moment she thought this portended some terrible fate, her death, or something equally frightful; the next, she lost all sense of what she was doing.

This powerful impression was evidently connected in some way with the horses. The predisposition of the patient to react in such an exaggerated fashion to a not very remarkable incident, might result from the fact that horses had some special significance for her. It might be suspected that she had experienced some dangerous accident with them; this actually turned out to be the case. When a child of about seven years old she was out for a drive with the coachman; the horses shied and galloped at full speed towards a steep river-bank. The coachman jumped down, and shouted to her to do the same, but in her extreme terror she could scarcely bring herself to obey. She did, however, just manage to jump out in the nick of time, whilst the horses and carriage were dashed to pieces below. No proof is needed that such an experience must leave a lasting impression behind it. But it does not offer any explanation for such an exaggerated reaction to an inadequate stimulus. So far we only know that this later symptom had its prologue in childhood, but its pathological aspect remains obscure. To penetrate into the heart of such a mystery it was necessary to accumulate further material. And the greater our experience the clearer does it become that in all cases with such traumatic experiences analysed up to the present, there co-exists a special kind of disturbance which can only be described as a derangement in the sphere of love. Not all of us give due credit to the anomalous nature of love, reaching high as heaven, sinking low as hell, uniting in itself all extremes of good and evil, of lofty and low.[225]

As soon as Freud recognised this, a decisive change came about in his view. In his earlier researches, whilst more or less dominated by Charcot's trauma-theory, he had sought for the origin of the neurosis in actual traumatic experiences; but now the centre of gravity shifted to a very different point. This is best demonstrated by reference to our case; we can understand that horses might easily play a significant part in the patient's life, but it is not clear why there should be this later reaction, so exaggerated, so uncalled for. It is not her fear of horses which forms the morbid factor in this curious story; to get at the real truth we must remember our empirical conclusion, that, side by side with traumatic experiences, there is also invariably present some disturbance in the sphere of love. We must now go on to inquire whether perhaps there is anything unsatisfactory in this respect in the case under review.

Our patient has a young man friend, to whom she is thinking of becoming engaged, she loves him and expects to be happy with him. At first nothing more is discoverable; but the investigator must not let himself be deterred by a negative result in the beginning of this preliminary questioning. When the direct way does not lead to the desired end, an indirect way may be taken. We accordingly turn our attention back to that strange moment when she ran away in front of the horses. We inquire who were her companions and what kind of social gathering was it, and find it was a farewell-party to her best friend, on her departure to a foreign health-resort on account of a nervous breakdown. We are told this friend is happily married and is the mother of one child. We may well doubt the assertion that she is happy. If she really were so, it is hardly to be supposed she would be "nervous" and in need of a cure. When I attacked the situation from a different vantage-ground, I learnt that our patient—after this episode—had been taken by her friends to the nearest safe place—her host's house. In her exhausted state he took charge of her. When the patient came to this part of her story, she suddenly broke off, was embarrassed, fidgeted and tried to turn the subject. Evidently some disagreeable reminiscences had suddenly cropped up. After obstinate resistances had been overcome, she admitted something very strange had happened that night. Her host had made her a passionate declaration of love, thus occasioning a situation that, in the absence of his wife, might well be considered both painful and difficult. Ostensibly this declaration came upon her like a "bolt from the blue." But a small dose of criticism applied to such an assertion soon apprises us that these things never do drop suddenly from the sky; they always have their previous history. It was a task of the following weeks to dig out piecemeal a long love-story. I will attempt to sketch in the picture as it appeared finally.

As a child the patient was a thorough tomboy, loved boys' boisterous games, laughed at her own sex, and would have nothing to do with feminine ways or occupations. After puberty, just when the sex-issue should have meant much to her, she began to shun all society; she seemingly hated and despised everything which could remind her even remotely of the biological destiny of mankind, and lived in a world of phantasy which had nothing in common with rude reality. Thus, till her twenty-fourth year, she escaped all the little adventures, hopes and expectations which ordinarily move a girl at this age. But finally she got to know the two men who were destined to destroy the thorny hedge which had grown up around her. Mr. A. was her best friend's husband; Mr. B. was their bachelor-friend. She liked both; but pretty soon found B. the more sympathetic, and an intimacy grew up between them which made an engagement seem likely. Through her friendship with him and with Mrs. A., she often met Mr. A. His presence excited her inexplicably, made her nervous. Just at this time she went to a big party. All her friends were there. She became lost in thought, and in a reverie was playing with her ring, when suddenly it slipped out of her hand and rolled under the table. Both men tried to find it and Mr. B. managed to get it. With a meaning smile he put the ring back on her finger, and said, "You know what that means!" Overcome by some strange, irresistible feeling, she tore the ring from her finger and flung it out of the open window. Naturally a painful moment for all ensued, and she soon went away, much depressed. A little while after, so-called chance brought her for her summer holidays to the health-resort where A. and his wife were staying. It was then that Mrs. A. began to suffer from nerve-trouble, and frequently felt too unwell to leave the house. So our patient could often go out for walks alone with A. One day they were out in a small boat. She was boisterously merry and fell overboard. Mr. A. saved her with difficulty as she could not swim, and he managed to lift her into the boat in a half-unconscious state. Then he kissed her. This romantic event wove fast the bonds between them. In self-defence she did her best to get herself engaged to B. and to persuade herself that she loved him. Of course this queer comedy could not escape the sharp eye of feminine jealousy. Mrs. A., her friend, guessed the secret, and was so much upset by it that her nervous condition grew bad enough to necessitate her trying a cure at a foreign health-resort. At the farewell gathering the demon came to our patient and whispered: "To-night he will be alone, something must happen to you so that you can go to his house." And so indeed it came about; her strange behaviour made her friends take her to his house, and thus she achieved her desire.

After this explanation the reader will probably be inclined to assume that only diabolical subtlety could think out and set in motion such a chain of circumstances. There is no doubt about the subtlety, but the moral evaluation is less certain. I desire to lay special emphasis upon the fact that the patient was in no sense conscious of the motives of this dramatic performance. The incident apparently just came about of itself without any conscious motive whatsoever. But the whole previous history makes it perfectly clear that everything was most ingeniously directed towards the other aim; whilst the conscious self was apparently working to bring about the engagement to Mr. B., the unconscious compulsion to take the other road was still stronger.

So once more we must return to our original question, whence comes the pathological, the peculiar and exaggerated reaction to the trauma? Relying on a conclusion obtained from other analogous experiences, we ventured the conjecture that in the present case we had to do with a disturbance in the love-life, in addition to the trauma. This supposition was thoroughly borne out; the trauma, which was apparently the cause of the illness, was merely the occasion for some factor, till then unconscious, to manifest itself. This was the significant erotic conflict. With this finding the trauma loses its pathogenic significance and is replaced by a much deeper and more comprehensive conception, which regards the erotic conflict as the pathogenic agent. This conception may be described as the sexual theory of the neurosis.

I am often asked why it is just the erotic conflict rather than any other which is the cause of the neurosis. There is but one answer to this. No one asserts that this ought necessarily to be the case, but as a simple matter of fact it is always found to be so, notwithstanding all the cousins and aunts, godparents, and teachers, who rage against it. Despite all the indignant assertions to the contrary, the problem and conflicts of love are of fundamental importance for humanity,[226] and with increasingly careful study, it comes out ever more clearly that the love-life is of immensely greater importance than the individual suspects.

As a consequence of the recognition that the true root of the neurosis is not the trauma, but the hidden erotic conflict, the trauma loses its pathogenic significance.

II.—The Sexual Theory.

Thus, it will be seen, the theory had to be shifted on to an entirely different basis, for the investigation now had to face the erotic conflict itself. Our example shows that this contains extremely abnormal elements and cannot, prim facie, be compared with an ordinary love conflict. It is surprising, indeed hardly credible, that only the postulated affection should be conscious, whilst the real passion remained unknown to the patient. But in this case it is beyond dispute that the real erotic relation remained unillumined, whilst the field of consciousness was dominated by the assumption. If we try to formulate this fact, something like the following proposition results: in a neurosis, two erotic tendencies exist which stand in extreme opposition to one another, and one at least is unconscious. Against this formula the objection can be raised that it has obviously been derived from this one particular case, and is therefore lacking in general validity. The criticism will be the more readily urged because no one unpossessed of special reasons is willing to admit that the erotic conflict is of universal prevalence. On the contrary, it is assumed that this conflict belongs more properly to the sphere of novels, since it is generally depicted as something in the nature of such wild adventures as are described by Karin Michaelis in her "Aberrations of Marriage," or by Forel in "The Sexual Question." But indeed this is not the case; for we know the wildest and most moving dramas are not played on the stage, but every day in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world, save through the symbol of a nervous breakdown, nothing of the conflicts that rage within them. But what is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in most cases patients have no suspicion whatever of the internecine war raging in their unconscious. But remembering that there are many people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less surprised at the realisation that there are also people who are utterly unaware of their actual conflicts.

If the reader is now inclined to admit the possible existence of pathogenic, and perhaps even of unconscious conflicts, he will certainly protest that they are not erotic conflicts. If this kind reader should happen himself to be somewhat nervous, the mere suggestion will arouse his indignation, for we are all inclined, as a result of our education in school and at home, to cross ourselves three times where we meet such words as "erotic" and "sexual"—and so we are conveniently able to think that nothing of that nature exists, or at least very seldom, and at a great distance from ourselves. But it is just this attitude which in the first instance brings about neurotic conflicts.

We recognise that the course of civilisation consists in the progressive mastering of the animal element in man; it is a process of domestication which cannot be carried through without rebellion on the part of the animal nature still thirsting for its liberty. Humanity forces itself to endure the restrictions of the civilising process; but from time to time there comes a frenzied bursting of all bonds. Antiquity had experience of it in that wave of Dionysian orgies, surging hither from the East, which became an essentially characteristic element of antique culture. Its spirit was partly instrumental in causing the numerous sects and philosophic schools of the last century before Christ, to develop the Stoic ideal into asceticism; and in producing from the polytheistic chaos of those times, the ascetic twin-religions of Mithras and of Christ. A second clearly marked wave of the Dionysian impulse towards freedom swept over the Western world during the Renaissance. It is difficult to judge of one's own time, but we gain some insight if we note how the Arts are developing, what is the prevailing type of public taste, what men read and write, what societies they found, what "questions" are the order of the day, and against what the Philistines are fighting. We find in the long list of our present social problems that the sexual question occupies by no means the last place. It agitates men and women who would shake the foundations of sexual morality, and throw off the burden of moral shame which past centuries have heaped upon Eros. The existence of these aspirations and endeavours cannot be simply denied, or declared indefensible; they exist and are therefore presumably not without justification. It is both more interesting and more useful to study carefully the basic causes of these movements than to chime in with the lamentations of the professional mourners over morals, who prophesy with unction the moral downfall of humanity. The moralist least of all trusts God, for he thinks that the beautiful tree of humanity can only thrive by dint of being pruned, bound, and trained on a trellis, whereas Father-Sun and Mother-Earth have combined to make it grow joyfully in accordance with its own laws, which are full of the deepest meaning.

Serious people are aware that a very real sexual problem does exist at the present time. The rapid development of the towns, coupled with methods of work brought about by the extraordinary division of labour, the increasing industrialisation of the country and the growing security of life, combine to deprive humanity of many opportunities of expending emotional energy. Think of the life of the peasant, whose work so rich and full of change, affords him unconscious satisfaction by means of its symbolic content; a like satisfaction the factory-hand and the clerk can never know. Think of a life with nature; of those wonderful moments when, as lord and fructifier, man drives the plough through the earth, and with kingly gesture scatters the seed of the future harvest; see his justifiable awe before the destructive power of the elements, his joy in the fruitfulness of his wife, who gives him daughters and sons, who mean to him increased working power and enhanced prosperity. Alas! from all this we town-dwellers, we modern machines, are far, far removed.

Must we not admit that we are already deprived of the most natural and most beautiful of all satisfactions, since we can no longer contemplate the arrival of our own seed, the "blessing" of children, with unmixed pleasure? Marriages where no artifices are resorted to are rare. Is this not an all-important departure from the joys which Mother Nature gave her first-born sons? Can such a state of affairs bring satisfaction? Note how men slink to their work, watch their faces at an early morning hour in the tram-cars. One of them makes his little wheels, and another writes trivial things which do not interest him. What wonder is it if such men belong to as many clubs as there are days in the week, and that among women little societies flourish, where they pour out on some particular hero or cause those unsatisfied desires which the man dulls at his restaurant or club, imbibing beer and playing at being important? To these sources of dissatisfaction is added a more serious factor. Nature has provided defenceless, weaponless man with a great amount of energy to enable him not merely to bear passively the grave dangers of existence, but also to conquer them. Mother Nature has equipped her son for tremendous hardships and has placed a costly premium on the overcoming of them, as Schopenhauer quite understood when he said that "happiness is really but the termination of unhappiness." Civilized people are, as a rule, shielded from the immediately pressing dangers, and they are therefore daily tempted to excess, for in man the animal always becomes rampant when he is not constrained by fierce necessity. Are we then indeed unrestrained? In what orgiastic festivals do we dispose of the surplus of vital power? Our moral views do not permit us that outlet.

But reckon up in how many directions we are met by unsatisfied longings; the denial of procreation and begetting, for which purpose nature has endowed us with great energy; the unending monotony of our highly developed modern methods of "division of labour," which excludes any interest in the work itself; and above all our effortless security against war, lawlessness, robbery, epidemics, infant and woman mortality—all this gives a sum of surplus energy which must needs find an outlet. But how? A relatively few create quasi-natural dangers for themselves in reckless sport; many more, seeking to find some equivalent for their more primitive energy, take to alcoholic excess; others expend themselves in the rush of money-making, or in the morbid performance of duties, in perpetual over-work. By such means they try to escape a dangerous storing-up of energy which might force mad outlets for itself. It is for such reasons that we have to-day a sexual question. It is in this direction that men's energy would like to expend itself as it has done from time immemorial in periods of security and abundance. Under such circumstances it is not only rabbits that multiply; men and women, too, become the sport of these accesses of nature: the sport, because their moral views have confined them in a narrow cage, the excessive narrowness of which was not felt so long as harsh external necessity pressed upon them with even greater constraint. But now the man of the cities finds the space too circumscribed. He is surrounded by alluring temptation, and like an invisible procureur there slinks through society the knowledge of preventive methods which evade all consequences. Why then moral restraint? Out of religious consideration for an angry God? Apart from the prevalence of widespread unbelief, even the believing man might quietly ask himself whether, if he himself were God, he would punish the youthful erotic uncontrol of John and Mary with twice twenty-four years of imprisonment and seething in boiling oil. Such ideas are no longer compatible with our decorous conception of God. The God of our time is necessarily much too tolerant to make a great fuss over it; (knavishness and hypocrisy are a thousand times worse). In this way the somewhat ascetic and hypocritical sexual morality of our time has had the ground cut from under its feet. Or is it the case that we are now protected from dissoluteness by superior wisdom, recognition of the nothingness of human happenings? Unfortunately we are very far from that; rather does the hypnotic power of tradition keep us in bonds, and through cowardice and thoughtlessness and habit the herd goes tramping on in this same path. But man possesses in the unconscious a fine scent for the spirit of his time; he has an inkling of his own possibilities and he feels in his innermost heart the instability of the foundations of present-day morality, no longer supported by living religious conviction. It is thus the greater number of the erotic conflicts of our time originate. Instinct thirsting for liberty thrusts itself up against the yielding barriers of morality: men are tempted, they desire and do not desire. And because they will not and cannot think out to its logical conclusion what it is they really desire, their erotic conflict is largely unconscious; whence comes neurosis. Neurosis then is most intimately bound up with the problem of our times and represents an unsuccessful attempt of the individual to solve the general problem in his own person. Neurosis is a tearing in two of the inner self. For most men the reason of this cleavage is the fact that their conscious self desires to hold to its moral ideal, whilst the unconscious strives after the amoral ideal, steadfastly rejected by the conscious self. People of this kind would like to appear more decent than they really are. But the conflict is often of an opposite kind. There are those who do not outwardly live a decent life at all and do not place the slightest constraint upon their sexuality, but in reality this is a sinful pose assumed for goodness knows what reasons, for down below they have a decorous soul which has somehow gone astray in their unconscious, just as has the real immoral nature in the case of apparently moral people. Extremes of conduct always arouse suspicions of the opposite tendencies in the unconscious.

It was necessary to make this general statement in order to elucidate the idea of the "erotic conflict" in analytical psychology, for it is the key to the conception of neurosis. We can now proceed to consider the psychoanalytic technique. Obviously the main problem is, how to arrive by the shortest and best path at a knowledge of the patient's "unconscious." The method first used was hypnotism, the patient being questioned, on the production of spontaneous phantasies observed while in a state of hypnotic concentration. This method is still occasionally used, but in comparison with the present technique is primitive and frequently unsatisfactory. A second method, evolved by the Psychiatric Clinic, ZÜrich, was the so-called association method,[227] which is chiefly of theoretic, experimental value. Its result is an extensive, though superficial orientation, concerning the unconscious conflict ("complex").[228] The more penetrating method is that of dream-analysis whose discovery belongs to Sigmund Freud.[229]

Of the dream it can be said that "the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner." It is only in modern times that the dream (that fleeting and seemingly insignificant product of the soul), has met with such complete contempt. Formerly it was esteemed, as a harbinger of fate, a warning or a consolation, a messenger of the gods. Now we use it as a messenger of the unconscious; it must disclose to us the secrets which our unconscious self enviously hides from our consciousness, and it does so with astonishing completeness.

On analytical investigation it becomes plain that the dream, as we remember it, is only a faÇade which conceals the contents within the house. But if, observing certain technical rules, we get the dreamer to talk about the details of his dream, it soon appears that his free associations group themselves in certain directions and round certain topics. These appear to be of personal significance, and have a meaning which at first sight would not be suspected. Careful comparison shows that they are in close and subtle symbolic connection with the dream-faÇade.[230] This particular complex of ideas in which all the threads of the dream unite, is the conflict for which we are seeking; is its particular form at the moment, conditioned by the immediate circumstances. What is painful and incompatible is in this way so covered up or split that we can call it a wish-fulfilment; but we must immediately add that the wishes fulfilled in the dream do not seem at first sight to be our wishes, but rather the very opposite. For instance, a daughter loves her mother tenderly, but she dreams that her mother is dead; this causes her great grief. Such dreams, where apparently there is no trace of any wish-fulfilment are innumerable, and are a constant stumbling-block to our learned critics, for—incredible dictu—they still cannot grasp the simple distinction between the manifest and the latent content of the dream. We must guard against such an error; the conflict dealt with in the dream is an unconscious one, and equally so also is the manner its solution. Our dreamer has, as a matter of fact, the wish to get away from her mother—expressed in the language of the unconscious, she wants her mother to die. Now we know that a certain section of the unconscious contains all our lost memories, and also all those infantile impulses that cannot find any application in adult life—a series, that is, of ruthless childish desires. We may say that for the most part the unconscious bears an infantile stamp; like the child's simple wish: "Daddy, when Mummie is dead, will you marry me?" In a dream that infantile expression of a wish is the substitute for a recent wish to marry, which is painful to the dreamer for reasons still undiscovered. This thought, or rather the seriousness of its corresponding intention, is said to be "repressed into the unconscious" and must there necessarily express itself in an infantile way, for the material which is at the disposal of the unconscious consists chiefly of infantile memories. As the latest researches of the ZÜrich school have shown,[231] these are not only infantile memories but also "racial" memories, extending far beyond the limits of individual existence.

Important desires which have not been sufficiently gratified, or have been "repressed," during the day find their symbolic substitution in dreams. Because moral tendencies usually predominate in waking hours, these ungratified desires which strive to realise themselves symbolically in the dream are, as rule, erotic ones. It is, therefore, somewhat rash to tell dreams before one who understands, for the symbolism is often extremely transparent to him who knows the rules! The clearest in this respect are "anxiety-dreams" which are so common, and which invariably symbolise a strong erotic desire.

Often the dream apparently deals with quite irrelevant details, thereby making a ridiculous impression; or else it is so unintelligible that we are simply amazed at it, and accordingly have to overcome considerable resistance in ourselves before we can set to work seriously to unravel its symbolic weaving by patient work. But when at last we penetrate into its real meaning we find ourselves at a bound in the very heart of the dreamer's secrets, and find to our astonishment that an apparently senseless dream is quite full of sense, and deals with extraordinarily important and serious problems of the soul. Having acquired this knowledge we cannot refrain from giving rather more credit to the old superstitions concerning the meaning of dreams for which our rationalising tendencies, until lately, had no use.

As Freud says: "Dream-analysis is the via regia to the unconscious." Dream-analysis leads us into the deepest personal secrets, and it is therefore an invaluable instrument in the hand of the psychotherapist and educator. The objections of the opponents of this method are based, as might be expected, upon argument, which (setting aside undercurrents of personal feeling) show the bias of present-day Scholasticism. It so happens that it is just the analysis of dreams which mercilessly uncovers the deceptive morals and hypocritical affectations of man, and shows him the under side of his character; can we wonder if many feel that their toes have been rather painfully trodden upon? In connection with the dream-analysis I am always reminded of the striking statue of Carnal Pleasure in BÂle Cathedral, which shows in front the sweet smile of archaic sculpture, but behind is covered with toads and serpents. Dream-analysis reverses the figure and for once shows the other side. The ethical value of this reality-correction (Wirklichkeitscorrectur) cannot be disputed. It is a painful but extremely useful operation, which makes great demands on both physician and patient.

Psychoanalysis, in so far as we are considering it as a therapeutic technique, consists mainly of the analysis of many dreams; the dreams in the course of the treatment bringing up successively the contents of the unconscious in order that they may be subjected to the disinfecting power of daylight, and in this process many a valuable thing believed to have been lost is found again. It is not surprising that for those persons who have adopted a certain pose towards themselves, psychoanalysis is at times a real torture, since in accordance with the old mystic saying, "Give all thou hast, then only shalt thou receive," there is first the necessity to get rid of almost all the dearly cherished illusions, to permit the advent of something deeper, finer, and greater, for only through the mystery of self-sacrifice is it possible to be "born-again." It is indeed ancient wisdom which again sees the daylight in psychoanalytic treatment, and it is a curious thing that this kind of psychic re-education proves to be necessary at the height of our modern culture; this education which in more than one respect can be compared to the technique of Socrates, even though psychoanalysis penetrates to much greater depths.

We always find in a patient some conflict, which at a particular point, is connected with the great problems of society; so that when the analysis has arrived at this point the apparently individual conflict is revealed as a universal conflict of the environment and the epoch. Neurosis is thus, strictly speaking, nothing but an individual attempt, however unsuccessful, at a solution of the general problem; it must be so, for a general problem, a "question," is not an end in itself; it only exists in the hearts and heads of individual men and women. The "question" which troubles the patient is—whether you like it or not—the "sexual" question, or more precisely, the problem of present-day sexual morality. His increased demands upon life and the joy of life, upon glowing reality, can stand the necessary limitations which reality sets, but not the arbitrary, ill-supported prohibitions of present-day morals, which would curb too much the creative spirit rising up from the depths of the darkness of the beasts that perish. For the neurotic has in him the soul of a child that can but ill-endure arbitrary limitations of which it does not see the meaning; it tries to adopt the moral standard, but thereby only falls into deeper disunion and distress within itself. On the one hand it tries to suppress itself, and on the other to free itself—this is the struggle that is called Neurosis. If this conflict were altogether clear to consciousness it would of course never give rise to neurotic symptoms; these only arise when we cannot see the other side of our character, and the urgency of the problems of that other side. In these circumstances symptoms arise which partially express what is unrecognised in the soul. The symptom is, therefore, an indirect expression of unrecognised desires, which, were they conscious, would be in violent opposition to the sufferer's moral views. As we have already said, this dark side of the soul does not come within the purview of consciousness, and therefore the patient cannot deal with it, correct it, resign himself to it, or renounce it, for he cannot be said to possess the unconscious impulses. By being repressed from the hierarchy of the conscious soul, they have become autonomous complexes which can be brought again under control by analysis of the unconscious, though not without great resistance. There are a great many patients whose great boast it is that the erotic conflict does not exist for them; they are sure that the sexual question is nonsense, that they have, so to say, no sexuality. These people do not see that other things of unknown origin cumber their path, such as hysterical whims, underhand tricks, from which they make themselves, or those nearest them, suffer; nervous stomach-catarrh, pain here and there, irritability without reason, and a whole host of nervous symptoms. All which things show what is wrong with them, for relatively, only a few specially favoured by fate, avoid the great conflict.

Analytical psychology has already been reproached with setting at liberty the animal instincts of men, hitherto happily repressed, and causing thereby untold harm. This childish apprehension clearly proves how little trust is put in the efficacy of present-day moral principles. It is pretended that only morals can restrain men from dissoluteness; a much more efficient regulator, however, is necessity, which sets much more real and convincing bounds than any moral principles. It is true that analysis liberates animal instincts, but not, as some have said, just in order to let them loose, but rather to make them available for higher application, in so far as this is possible to the particular individual, and in so far as such "sublimated" application is required. Under all circumstances it is an advantage to be in full possession of one's own personality, for otherwise the repressed desires will get in the way in a most serious manner, and overthrow us just in that place where we are most vulnerable. It is surely better that a man learn to tolerate himself, and instead of making war on himself convert his inner difficulties into real experiences, rather than uselessly repeat them again and again in phantasy. Then at least he lives, and does not merely consume himself in fruitless struggles. But when men are educated to recognise the baser side of their own natures, it may be hoped they will learn to understand and love their fellow-men better too. A decrease of hypocrisy and an increase of tolerance towards oneself, can have only good results in tolerance towards one's neighbours, for men are only too easily disposed to extend to others the unfairness and violence which they do to their own natures.

Freud's theory of repression does, indeed, seem to postulate the existence only of people who, being too moral, are continually repressing the immorality of their natural instincts. According to this idea, the immoral man who allows his natural instincts an unbridled existence should be proof against neurosis. But daily experience proves this is obviously not the case; he may be just as neurotic as other men. If we analyse him, we find that it is simply his decency that has been repressed. Therefore, when an immoral man is neurotic, he represents what Nietzsche appropriately described as "the pale criminal," a man who does not stand upon the same level as his deed.[232]

The opinion may be held, that in such a case the repressed remnants of decency are merely infantile traditional legacies, that impose unnecessary fetters upon natural instincts, for which reason they should be eradicated. The principle "Écraser l'infÂme" would be the natural culmination of such an absolute let-instinct-live theory.[233] That would obviously be quite phantastic and nonsensical. It should, indeed, never be forgotten—and the Freudian School needs this reminder—that morality was not brought down upon tables of stone from Sinai and forced upon the people, but that morality is a function of the human soul, which is as old as humanity itself. Morality is not inculcated from without. Man has it primarily within himself—not the law indeed, but the essence of morals.

After all, does a more moral view-point exist than the let-instinct-live theory? Is there a more heroic morality than this? That is why Nietzsche, the heroic, is especially partial to it. It is natural and inborn cowardice that makes people say, "God preserve me from following my instincts," thinking that they thus prove their high moral standard. They do not understand that following one's bent is really much too costly for them, too strenuous, too dangerous, and finally it cuts somewhat against that sense of decency which most people associate rather with taste than with a categorical imperative. The unpardonable fault of the let-instinct-live theory is, that it is much too heroic, too idealogic for the multitude.

There is, therefore, probably no other way for the immoral man but to accept the moral corrective of his unconscious, just as he who is moral must come to terms as best he may, with his demons of the netherworld. It cannot be gainsaid that the Freudian School is so convinced of the fundamental, and even exclusive importance of sexuality in neurosis, that it has been courageous enough to face the consequences of its convictions by heroically attacking the sexual morality of the present day. Many different opinions prevail upon this subject. What is significant is, that the problem of sexual morality is being widely discussed at the present time. This is doubtless both useful and necessary, for hitherto we have not really had any sexual morality at all, but merely a low barbaric view, quite insufficiently differentiated. In the Middle Ages, usury was considered absolutely despicable, for at that time the morality of finance was not casuistically differentiated; there was nothing but a kind of lump-morality. So nowadays, there exists nothing but sexual morality in the lump. A girl who has an illegitimate child is condemned, without any inquiry as to whether she is a decent person or not. Any form of love that has no legal sanction is immoral, no matter whether it occurs between thoughtful people of value or irresponsible scamps. People are still barbarically hypnotised by the thing itself, to such an extent that they forget the individual.

Therefore the discussion of and attack upon sexual morality of the present day signifies at bottom, a moral deed, constraining people towards a differentiated and really ethical conception of the subject.

As already stated, Freud sees the great conflict between the ego and natural instinct chiefly under its sexual aspect. This aspect does exist, but a big query should be placed behind its actuality. The question is whether what appears in a sexual form must always essentially be sexuality? It is conceivable that one instinct may disguise itself under another. Freud himself has supplied several notable instances of such a disguise, proving therewith, convincingly, that many of the deeds and aims of human kind are, at bottom, nothing but somewhat figurative expressions substituted, on account of embarrassment, in place of important elementary things. The substitution is not seen through on account of reasons of mutual consideration. There is nothing to hinder certain elementary things being also pushed conveniently into the foreground, in place of more necessary but less pleasant ones, under the illusion that the elementary things only are really in question.

The theory of sexuality although one-sided is absolutely right up to a certain point. It would, therefore, be just as false to repudiate it as to accept it as universally valid.

III.—The other Viewpoint: the Will to Power.

We have so far considered the problem of the psychology of unconscious processes mainly from the point of view of Freud. We have thereby doubtless gained an inkling of a real truth, which perhaps our pride, our consciousness of civilisation, tries to deny, although something else in us affirms it. This situation is extremely irritating to some people, arousing resistances, and at the same time they are terror-stricken by it, a fact which they are most unwilling to acknowledge. There is something terrible in admitting this conflict, for it is an acknowledgment of being swayed by instinct. Has it ever been understood what it means to confess to the sway of instinct? Nietzsche desired to be so swayed and advocated it most seriously. He even sacrificed himself throughout his whole life, with rare passion, to the idea of the Superman, that is to the idea of the man who, obeying his instincts, transcends even his very self. And what was the course of his life? It turned out as Nietzsche himself prophesied in the passage in "Zarathustra" relating to the fatal fall of the rope-dancer, of the man who did not want to be "surpassed." Zarathustra says to the dying rope-dancer: "Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body." And later, the dwarf says to Zarathustra: "Oh, Zarathustra, thou stone of wisdom! Thou threwest thyself high, but every thrown-stone must fall! Condemned of thyself, and to thine own stoning: oh, Zarathustra, far indeed threwest thou the stone—but upon thyself will it recoil!"

When he cried his "ecce homo" over himself, it was again too late, and the crucifixion of the soul began even before the body was dead. He who thus taught yea-saying to the instincts of life, must have his own career looked at critically, in order to discover the effects of this teaching upon the teacher. But if we consider his life from this point of view, we must say that Nietzsche lived beyond instinct, in the lofty atmosphere of heroic "sublimity." This height could only be maintained by means of most careful diet, choice climate and above all by many opiates. Finally, the tension of this living shattered his brain. He spoke of yea-saying, but lived the nay. His horror of people, especially of the animal man, who lives by instinct, was too great. He could not swallow the toad of which he so often dreamt, and which he feared he must yet gulp down. The Zarathustrian lion roared all the "higher" men, who craved for life, back into the cavernous depths of the unconscious. That is why his life does not convince us of the truth of his teaching. The "higher man" should be able to sleep without chloral, and be competent to live in Naumburg or Basle despite "the fogs and shadows." He wants woman and offspring; he needs to feel he has some value and position in the herd, he longs for innumerable commonplaces, and not least for what is humdrum: it is this instinct that Nietzsche did not recognise; it is, in other words, the natural animal instinct for life.

But how did he live if it was not from natural impulse? Should Nietzsche really be accused of a practical denial of his natural instincts? He would hardly agree to that; indeed he might even prove, and that without difficulty, that he really was following his instincts in the highest sense. But we may well ask how is it possible that human instincts could have led him so far from humanity, into absolute isolation, into an aloofness from the herd which he supported with loathing and disgust? One would have thought that instinct would have united, would have coupled and begot, that it would tend towards pleasure and good cheer, towards gratification of all sensual desires. But we have quite overlooked the fact that this is only one of the possible directions of instinct. There exists not only the instinct for the preservation of the species (the sexual instinct), but also the instinct for the preservation of the self.

Nietzsche obviously speaks of this latter instinct, that is of the will to power. Whatever other kinds of instinct may exist are for him only a consequence of the will to power. Viewed from the standpoint of Freud's sexual-psychology this is a gross error, a misconception of biology, a bad choice made by a decadent neurotic human being. For it would be easy for any adherent of sexual psychology to prove that all that was too lofty, too heroic, in Nietzsche's conception of the world and of life, was nothing but a consequence of the repression and misconception of "instinct," that is of the instinct that this psychology considers fundamental.

This brings us to the question of perception, or rather it were better to say of the various lenses through which the world may be perceived. For it would hardly be permissible to pronounce a judgment on a life like Nietzsche's. It was lived with rare consistency, from the beginning to the fateful end, in accordance with his underlying natural fundamental instinct for power. It would hardly do to pronounce it to be merely figurative, otherwise we should make the same unjust condemnation that Nietzsche pronounced upon his polar opposite Richard Wagner, of whom he said, "Everything in him is false; what is genuine is hidden or disguised. He is an actor, in every bad and good meaning of the word." Why this judgment? Wagner is a precise representative of that other fundamental instinct, which Nietzsche overlooked, and upon which Freud's psychology is based. If we inquire whether the other main instinct—that of power—was unconsidered by Freud, we shall find that he has included it under the name of the "ego instinct." But these ego instincts drag out an obscure existence, according to his psychology, alongside the broad, all-too-broad, development of the sexual theme. In reality, however, human nature wages a cruel and hardly-to-be-ended warfare between the ego-principle and that of formless instinct. The ego is all barriers; instinct, on the other hand, is without any limits. Both principles are equally powerful. In a certain sense men may account themselves fortunate in being conscious of only one instinct: therefore he who is wise avoids getting to know the other. But if, after all, he does get to know the other instinct, he is indeed a lost man. For then he enters upon the Faustian conflict. Goethe has shown us in the first part of "Faust" what the acceptance of instinct involves, and in the second part, what the acceptance of the ego and of his gruesome unconscious world would signify. Everything that is insignificant, petty, and cowardly in us shrinks from it, and would avoid it—and there is one admirable means of doing so. Namely, by discovering that the other thing in us is "another fellow," a live man who actually thinks, feels, does and desires all the things that are despicable and odious. In this way the bogey is seized, and the battle against him is begun to our satisfaction. Hence arise, also, those chronic idiosyncrasies of which the history of morals has preserved a few examples for us. The instance of Nietzsche contra Wagner, already cited, is particularly transparent. But ordinary human life is crammed full of such cases. It is by these ingenuous devices that man saves himself from the Faustian catastrophe for which he evidently lacks both courage and strength. But a sincere man knows that even his bitterest opponent, or any number of them, does not by any means equal his one worst adversary, that is his other self who "bides within his breast." Nietzsche unconsciously had Wagner in himself, that is why he envied him his Parsifal. But even worse, he was a Saul and also had Paul within. That is why Nietzsche became a stigmatised outcast of the Spirit; he had like Saul to experience Christification when "the other self" inspired him with his "ecce homo." Which man in him "broke down before the cross," Wagner or Nietzsche?

It was ordained by destiny that one of Freud's earliest pupils, Adler,[234] should formulate a view of neurosis as founded exclusively upon the principle of power. It is interesting and even fascinating to observe how totally different the same things appear when viewed in another light. In order to emphasise the main contrast, I would like at once to draw attention to the fact that, according to Freud, everything is a strictly causal consequence of previously-occurring facts; Adler, on the contrary, sees everything as a finally conditioned arrangement. To take a simple example: A young woman begins to have attacks of terror. She wakes at night from some nightmare with a piercing cry; calming herself with difficulty, she clings to her husband, imploring him not to leave her, making him repeat again and again that he loves her, etc. Gradually a nervous asthma develops, attacks of which also come on during the day.

In such a case, the Freudian system begins at once to burrow in the inner causality of the illness: What did the initial anxiety-dreams contain. She recalls wild bulls, lions, tigers, bad men. What does the patient associate with them? She told a story of something that had happened to her when she was still single. It ran as follows: She was staying at a summer-resort in the mountains, a great deal of tennis was played, the usual acquaintances being made. There was a young Italian who played particularly well, and who also knew how to handle the guitar in the evenings. A harmless flirtation developed, leading once to a moon-light walk. On this occasion, the Italian temperament "unexpectedly" broke through, running away with the young man to the great terror of the unsuspecting girl. He "looked at her with such a look," that she could never forget it. This look follows her even in her dreams; the wild animals that persecuted her had it. As a matter of fact, does this look originally come from the Italian? Another reminiscence enlightens us. The patient had lost her father through an accident, when she was about fourteen years old. The father was a man of the world, and travelled a great deal. Not long before his death he took her to Paris, where, among other things, they visited the Follies BergÈres. Something happened there that at the time made a deep impression upon her. As they were leaving the theatre, a rouged female suddenly pressed close up to her father in an impertinent way. She looked at her father in fear as to what he would do—and then she saw that look, that animal glare in his eyes. An inexplicable something clung to her day and night. From this moment her attitude to her father was quite changed. At one instant she was irritable and full of venomous moods, at another she loved him extravagantly; then causeless fits of crying suddenly began, and, for a time, whenever her father was at home, she was tormented by terrible choking at table, with apparent attacks of suffocation, which were usually followed by voicelessness lasting from one to two days. When the news of her father's sudden death arrived, she was overcome by uncontrolled grief ending in hysterical laughter. But she soon calmed down, her condition improving quickly, and the neurotic symptoms disappearing almost completely. It seemed as if a veil of forgetfulness had descended over the past. Only the experience with the Italian roused something in her of which she was afraid. She had broken off completely with the young man. A few years later she married. The present neurosis only began after the birth of her second child, that is at the moment when she discovered that her husband took a certain tender interest in another woman.

This history raises a number of questions. For instance, what do we know about the mother? It should be said of her that she was very nervous, and had tried many kinds of sanatoria and systems of cure. She also had symptoms of fear and nervous asthma. The relations between her and her husband had been very strained as far back as the patient could remember. The mother did not understand the father; the daughter always felt that she understood him better. She was moreover her father's declared favourite, being inwardly correspondingly cool towards her mother.

These facts are indications for a survey of the meaning of the illness. Behind the present symptoms phantasies are operative, connected in the first place with the young Italian, but further clearly referring to the father, whose unhappy marriage furnished the little daughter with an early opportunity of acquiring a position that really should have been filled by her mother. Behind this conquest there lies, of course, a phantasy of being the woman who was really suited to her father. The first attack of neurosis broke out at the moment when this phantasy received a violent shock, presumably similar to that the mother had once experienced (a fact that was, however, unknown to the child). The symptoms are easily comprehensible as the expression of disappointed and rejected love. The choking is based upon a sensation of tightening in the throat that is a well-known accompanying phenomenon of violent effects which we cannot quite "swallow." The metaphors of language often refer to similar physiological occurrences. When the father died, it seemed that her consciousness sorrowed deeply but her unconscious laughed, after the manner of Till Eulenspiegel, who was sad when he went downhill but was jolly when climbing laboriously, happy in anticipation of what was coming. When the father was at home the girl was low-spirited and ill, but whenever he was away she felt much better. Herein she resembles numerous husbands and wives who as yet are mutually hiding from each other the secret that they are not under all circumstances indispensable to one another.

That the unconscious had some right to laugh was shown by the subsequent period of good health. She succeeded in letting all that had passed retire behind the trap-door. The experience with the Italian, however, threatened to bring the netherworld up again. But she quickly pulled the handle and shut the door. She remained quite well until the dragon of neurosis came creeping in, just when she imagined herself to be already safely out of her troubles, in the so-to-say perfected state of wife and mother. Sexual psychology finds the cause of the neurosis in the fact that the patient is not at bottom free from the father. This forces her to resuscitate her former experience at the moment when she discovered in the Italian the very same disturbing something that had formerly made such a deep impression upon her when perceived in her father. These recollections were naturally revived by the analogous experience with another man, and formed the starting-point of the neurosis. It might therefore be said that the content and cause of the neurosis lay in the conflict between the phantastic infantile-erotic relation to the father on the one hand, and her love for the husband on the other.

But if we now consider the course of the same illness from the standpoint of the other instinct, that is, of the will to power, a different complexion is put upon the matter. Her parents' unhappy marriage afforded an excellent opportunity for the exhibition of childish instinct for power. The instinct for power desires that, under all circumstances, the ego should be "on top," whether by straight or crooked means. At all costs the integrity of the personality must be preserved.

Every attempt, even what appears to be an attempt of the surroundings, to bring about the slightest subjection of the individual, is retorted to by the "masculine protest," as Adler expresses it. The mother's disappointment and her taking refuge in a neurosis brought about an opportunity for the development of power and the attainment of a dominating position. Love and excellence of conduct are, as everybody knows, extremely well-adapted weapons for the purposes of the instinct for power. Virtue is not seldom made the means of forcing recognition from others. Already as a child she knew how to obtain a privileged position with her father by means of specially pleasing and amiable behaviour, even occasionally to supplant her mother. This was not out of love for her father, although love was a good means of obtaining the coveted superiority. The hysterical laughter at the death of her father is a striking proof of this fact. One is inclined to consider such an explanation as a deplorable depreciation of love, if not actually a malicious insinuation. But let us pause a moment, reflect, and look at the world as it really is. Have we never seen those innumerable people who love, and believe in their love, only until its purpose is achieved, and who then turn away as if they had never loved? And, after all, does not Nature herself do the same? In fact, is a "purposeless" love possible? If so, it belongs to the highest human virtues, which confessedly are extremely rare. Perhaps there is a general disposition to reflect as little as possible about the nature and purpose of love; discoveries might be made which would show the value of one's own love to be less considerable than we had supposed. However, it were dangerous to life to subtract anything from the value of fundamental instincts, perhaps specially so to-day, when we seem to have only a minimum of values left.

So the patient had an attack of hysterical laughter at the death of her father; she had finally arrived at the top. It was hysterical laughter, therefore a psychogenic symptom, that is, something proceeding from unconscious motives and not from those of the conscious ego. That is a difference that should not be underrated, for it enables us to recognise whence and how human virtues arise. Their contraries led to hell, that is, in modern terms, to the unconscious, where the counterparts of our conscious virtue have long been gathering. That is why our very virtue makes us desire to know nothing of the unconscious; indeed, it is even the summit of virtuous wisdom to maintain that there is no unconscious at all. But unfortunately we are all in a like predicament with Brother Medardus in E. T. A. Hoffman's "The Elixir of the Devil": somewhere or other there exists a sinister, terrible brother, our own incarnate counterpart bound to us by flesh and blood, who comprehends everything, maliciously hoarding whatever we most desire should disappear beneath the table.

The first outbreak of neurosis occurred in our patient at the moment when she became aware of the fact that there was something in her father which she did not control. And then it dawned upon her of what use her mother's neurosis was. When one meets with an obstacle that cannot be overcome by sensible and charming means, there yet exists an arrangement hitherto unknown to her which her mother had been beforehand in discovering, and that is neurosis. That is the reason why she now imitates her mother. But, the astonished reader asks, what is supposed to be the use of neurosis? What does it effect? Whoever has had a pronounced case of neurosis in his immediate environment, knows all that can be "effected" by a neurosis. In fact, there is altogether no better means of tyrannising over a whole household than by a striking neurosis. Heart attacks, choking fits, convulsions of all kinds achieve enormous effects, that can hardly be surpassed. Picture the fountains of pity let loose, the sublime anxiety of the dear kind parents, the hurried running to and fro of the servants, the incessant sounding of the call to the telephone, the hasty arrival of the physicians, the delicacy of the diagnosis, the detailed examinations, the lengthy courses of treatment, the considerable expense; and there, in the midst of all the uproar, lies the innocent sufferer, to whom the household is even overflowingly grateful, when he has recovered from the "spasms."

The girl discovered this incomparable "arrangement" (to use Adler's term), applying it on occasion when the father was there with success. It became unnecessary when the father died, for now she was finally uppermost. The Italian was soon dismissed, because he laid too much stress upon her femininity by an inopportune reminder of his manliness. When the way opened to the possibility of a suitable marriage, she loved, adapting herself without any complaint to the deplorable rÔle of the queen bee. As long as she held the position of admired superiority, everything went splendidly. But when her husband evinced a small outside interest, she was obliged again to have recourse to the extremely efficacious "arrangement," that is, to the indirect application of power, because she had once again come upon that thing—this time in her husband—that had already previously withdrawn her father from her influence.

That is how the matter appears from the standpoint of the psychology of power. I fear that the reader will feel as did the Kadi, before whom the counsel of one party spoke first. When he had ended, the Kadi said: "Thou hast spoken well. I perceive that thou art right." Then spoke the counsel for the other party, and when he had ended, the Kadi scratched himself behind his ear and said: "Thou hast spoken well. I perceive that thou also art right." There is no doubt that the instinct for power plays a most extraordinary part. It is true that the complexes of neurotic symptoms are also exquisite "arrangements," that inexorably realise their aims with incredible obstinacy and unequalled cunning. The neurosis is final; that is, it is directed towards an aim. Adler merits considerable distinction for having demonstrated this.

Which of the two points of view is right? That is a question that might well cause much brain-racking. For the two explanations cannot be simply combined, being absolutely contradictory. In one case, it is love and its course that is the principal and decisive fact; and in the other case, it is the power of the ego. In the first case the ego is merely a kind of appendage to the passion for love; and in the second love is upon occasion merely a means to the end, that of gaining the upper hand. Whoever has the power of the ego most at heart rebels against the former conception, whilst he who cares most about love, will never be able to be reconciled to the latter.

IV.—The Two Types of Psychology.

It is at this point that our most recent researches may suitably be introduced. We have found, in the first place, that there are two types of human psychology.[235] In the one type the fundamental function is feeling, and in the other it is thought. The one feels his way into the object, the other thinks about it. The one adapts himself to his surroundings by feeling, thinking coming later; whilst the other adapts himself by means of thought, preceded by understanding. The one who feels his way transfers himself to some extent to the object; whilst the other withdraws himself from the object to some extent, or pauses before it and reflects about it. The first we called the extroverted type, because in the main he goes outside himself to the object, the latter is called the introverted type, because in a major degree he turns away from the object, withdrawing into himself and thinking about it.

These remarks only give the broadest outline of the two types. But even this quite inadequate sketch enables us to recognise that the two theories are the outcome of the contrast between the two types. The sexual theory is promulgated from the standpoint of feeling, the power theory from that of thought; for the extrovert always places the accent upon the feelings that are connected with the object, whereas the introvert always puts the accent upon the ego, and is as much detached by thought from the object as possible.

The irreconcilable contradictions of the two theories are now to be understood, because both theories are the product of a one-sided psychology. We find an instance of the contrast of types in Nietzsche and Wagner. The dissension between the two is due to the contrast in their ideas of psychological values. What is most prized by the one is "affectation" for the other, and is deemed false to the very core. Each depreciates the other.

If we apply the sexual theory to an extrovert it tallies with the facts of the case; but if we apply it to an introvert, we simply maltreat and do violence to his psychology. The same applies to the contrary case. The relative rightness of the two hostile theories is explained by the fact that each one draws its material from cases that prove the correctness of the theory. There is a remnant of persons whom neither theory fits—has not every rule its exceptions?

Criticism of both theories is indispensable. Recognition of facts showed the necessity of overcoming their contrast, and of evolving a theory that should do justice not only to one or the other type, but equally to both.

Even the layman will to some extent have been struck by the fact that in spite of their correctness both theories really have a very unpleasant character and one not altogether pertinent under all circumstances to the strict views of science. The sexual theory is unÆsthetic and unsatisfying intellectually. The power theory, on the other hand, is decidedly venomous. Both inevitably reduce high-flown ideals, heroic attitudes, pathos, and deep convictions, in a painful manner to a reality which is hackneyed and trite; that is, if these theories are applied to such things—but they should certainly not be so applied. Both theories are really only therapeutic instruments out of the tool-chest of the physician, whose sharp and merciless knife cuts out all that is pernicious and diseased. It was just such a misapplication of theory Nietzsche tried with his destructive criticism of ideals. He regarded ideals as rampant diseases of the soul of humanity; as indeed they really are. However, in the hands of a good physician who really knows the human soul, who, as Nietzsche says, "has a finger for the slightest shade," who applies the treatment only to what is really diseased in a soul—in such hands both theories prove wholesome caustics. The application must be adapted to the individual case. It is a dangerous therapy in the hands of those who do not understand how to deal out the treatment. These applications of criticism do good when there is something that should and must be destroyed, dissolved or brought low, but can easily damage what is being built up, or growing in response to life's requirements.

Both theories might, therefore, be allowed to pass without attack, in so far as they, like medicinal poisons, are entrusted to the safe hands of the physician. But fate has ordained that they should not remain solely in the care of those who are qualified to use them. First of all they naturally became known to the medical public. Every practising physician has an indefinitely high percentage of neurotics among his patients; he is therefore more or less obliged to look out for new and suitable systems of treatment. He ultimately lights upon the difficult method of psychoanalysis. He is at first not competent for this, for how should he have learnt about the secrets of the human soul? Certainly not through his academic studies. The smattering of psychiatry that he acquired for his examination barely suffices to enable him to recognise the symptoms of the commonest mental disturbances, and is far from giving him any sufficient insight into the human soul. He is, therefore, practically quite unprepared to apply the analytic method. An unusually far-reaching knowledge of the soul is indeed necessary in order to be able to apply this caustic treatment with advantage. One must be in a position to differentiate elements that are diseased and should be discarded, from those which are valuable and should be retained. This is plainly a matter of great difficulty. Any one who wishes to get a vivid impression of the way in which a psychologysing physician may unwarrantably violate a patient through an ignoble pseudo-scientific prejudice, should read what Moebius has written about Nietzsche. Or he may study various psychiatric writings about the "case of Christ," and will surely not hesitate to lament the lot of the patient whose fate it is to meet with such "understanding." Psychoanalysis—greatly to the regret of the medical man who, however, had not accepted it—then passed over into the hands of the teaching profession. This is right: for it is really, when rightly understood and handled, an educational method, and one of the social sciences. I would, however, never personally recommend that Freud's purely sexual analysis should be exclusively applied as an educational method. It might do much harm because of its one-sidedness. In order to make psychoanalysis available for educational purposes, all the metamorphoses that have been the work of the last few years were needed. The method had to be expanded from a general psychological point of view.

But the two theories of which I have spoken are not general theories. They are, as I have said, caustics to be applied, so to say, "locally," for they are both destructive and reductive. They explain to the patient that his symptoms come from here or there, and are "nothing but" this or that. It would be very unjust to wish to maintain that this reductive theory is wrong in a given case, but when exalted into a general explanation of the nature of the soul—whether sick or healthy—a reductive theory becomes impossible. For the human soul, whether it be sick or healthy, cannot be merely reductively explained. Sexuality it is true is always and everywhere present; the instinct for power certainly does penetrate the heights and the depths of the soul; but the soul itself is not solely either the one or the other, or even both together, it is also that which it has made and will make out of them both. A person is only half understood when one knows how everything in him came about. Only a dead man can be explained in terms of the past, a living one must be otherwise explained. Life is not made up of yesterdays only, nor is it understood nor explained by reducing to-day to yesterday. Life has also a to-morrow, and to-day is only understood if we are able to add the indications of to-morrow to our knowledge of what was yesterday. This holds good for all expressions of psychological life, even for symptoms of disease. Symptoms of neurosis are not merely consequences of causes that once have been, whether they were "infantile sexuality" or "infantile instinct for power." They are endeavours towards a new synthesis of life. It must immediately be added, however, they are endeavours that have miscarried. None the less they are attempts; they represent the germinal striving which has both meaning and value. They are embryos that failed to achieve life, owing to unpropitious conditions of an internal and external nature.

The reader will now probably propound the question: What possible value and meaning can a neurosis have? Is it not a most useless and repulsive pest of humanity? Can being nervous do anybody good? Possibly, in a way similar to that of flies and other vermin, which were created by God in order that man might exercise the useful virtue of patience. Stupid as this thought is from the standpoint of natural science, it might be quite shrewd from that of psychology; that is, if we substitute "nervous symptoms" in the place of "vermin." Even Nietzsche, who had an uncommon disdain for anything stupid and trite in thought, more than once acknowledged how much he owed to his illness. I have known more than one person who attributed all his usefulness, and the justification for his existence even, to a neurosis, that hindered all decisive stupidities of his life, compelling him to lead an existence which developed what was valuable in him; material that would have been crushed had not the neurosis with its iron grip forced the man to keep to the place where he really belonged. There are people the meaning of whose life—whose real significance—lies in the unconscious; in consciousness lies only all that is vain and delusive. With others the reverse is the case, and for them the neurosis has another significance. An extended reduction is appropriate to the one, but emphatically unsuitable to the other.

The reader will now, indeed, be inclined to agree to the possibility of certain cases of neurosis having such a significance but will nevertheless be ready to deny an expediency that is so far-reaching and full of meaning to ordinary cases of this illness. What value, for instance, might there be in the afore-mentioned case of asthma and hysterical attacks of fear? I confess that the value here is not so obvious, especially if the case be looked at from the standpoint of a reductive theory, that is, from that of a chronique scandaleuse of the psychological development of an individual.

We perceive that both the theories hitherto discussed have this one point in common, viz. they relentlessly disclose everything that is valueless in people. They are theories, or rather hypotheses, which explain wherein the cause of the sickness lies. They are accordingly concerned not with the values of a person, but with his lack of value that makes itself evident in a disturbing way. From this point of view, it is possible to be reconciled to both standpoints.

A "value" is a possibility by means of which energy may attain development. But in so far as a negative value is also a possibility through which energy may attain development—as may, for instance, be clearly seen in the very considerable manifestations of energy shown in neurosis—it also stands for a value, albeit it brings about manifestations of energy which are useless and harmful. In itself energy is neither useful nor harmful, neither full of value nor lacking in it; it is indifferent, everything depending upon the form into which it enters. The form gives the quality to the energy. On the other side, mere form without energy is also indifferent. Therefore in order to bring about a positive value, on the one hand energy is necessary, and upon the other a valuable form. In a neurosis psychic energy is undoubtedly present, but in an inferior and not realisable form. Both the analytic methods that have been discussed above are of service only as solvents of this inferior form. They prove themselves good here as caustics.

By these methods we gain energy that is certainly free, but which, being as yet unapplied, is indifferent. Hitherto the supposition prevailed, that this newly acquired energy was at the patient's conscious disposal, that he might apply it in any way he liked. In so far as it was thought that the energy was nothing but the sexual impulse, people spoke of a sublimated application of the same, under the presumption that the patient could, without further ado, transfer what was thought of as sexual energy into a "sublimation"; that is, into a non-sexual form of use. It might, for instance, be transferred to the cultivation of an art, or to some other good or useful activity. According to this concept, the patient had the possibility of deciding, either arbitrarily or from inclination, how his energy should be sublimated.

This conception may be accorded a justification for its existence, in so far as it is at all possible for a human being to assign a definite direction to his life, in which its course should run. But we know that there is no human forethought nor philosophy which can enable us to give our lives a prescribed direction, except for quite a short distance. Destiny lies before us, perplexing us, and teeming with possibilities, and yet only one of these many possibilities is our own particular right way. Who should presume to designate the one possibility beforehand, even though he have the most complete knowledge of his own character that a man can have? Much can certainly be attained by means of will-power. But having regard to the fate of certain personalities with particularly strong wills, it is entirely misleading for us to want at all costs to change our own fate by power of will. Our will is a function that is directed by our powers of reflection; it depends, therefore, upon how our powers of reflection are constituted. In order to deserve its name reflection must be rational, that is, according to reason. But has it ever been proved, or can it ever be proved, that life and destiny harmonise with our human reason, that is, that they are exclusively rational? On the contrary, we have ground for supposing that they are also irrational, that is to say, that in the last resort they too are based in regions beyond the human reason. The irrationality of the great process is shown by its so-called accidentalness, which perforce we ought to deny, since, obviously, we cannot think of a process not being causally and necessarily conditioned. But actually, accidentality exists everywhere, and does so indeed so obtrusively that we might as well pocket our causal philosophy! The rich store of life both is, and is not, determined by law; it is at the same time rational and irrational. Therefore, the reason and the will founded upon it are only valid for a short distance. The further we extend this rationally chosen direction, the surer we may be that we are thereby excluding the irrational possibilities of life, which have, however, just as good a right to be lived. Aye, we even injure ourselves, since we cut off the wealth of accidental eventualities by a too rigid and conscious direction. It was certainly very expedient for man to be able to give his life a direction; it would, therefore, be quite right to maintain that the attainment of reasonableness was the greatest achievement of mankind. But that is not to say that under all circumstances, this must or will always continue to be the case. The present fearful catastrophic world-war has tremendously upset the most optimistic upholder of rationalism and culture.

In 1913 Ostwald wrote[236] as follows: "The whole world agrees that the present state of armed peace is untenable, and is gradually becoming an impossible condition. It demands tremendous sacrifices from individual nations far surpassing the outlay for cultural purposes, without any positive values being gained thereby. Therefore, if mankind could discover ways and means of putting an end to these preparations for a war that will never come, this conscripting of a considerable part of the nation at the best and most capable age for training for war purposes, if it could overcome all the innumerable other injuries caused by the present customs, such an enormous saving of energy would be effected, that an undreamt-of development of the evolution of culture might be expected. For like a hand-to-hand fight, war is the oldest, and also the most unsuitable of all possible means of solving a conflict between wills, being indeed accompanied by the most deplorable waste of energy. The complete setting aside of potential as well as of actual warfare is, therefore, absolutely one of the most important tasks of culture in our time, a real necessity from the point of view of energy."

But the irrationality of destiny ordained otherwise than the rationality of the well-meaning thinker; since it not only determined to use the piled-up weapons and soldiers, but much more than that, it brought about a tremendous insane devastation and unparalleled slaughter. From this catastrophe humanity may possibly draw the conclusion, that only one side of fate can be mastered by rational intention.

What can be said of mankind in general applies also to individuals, for mankind as a whole consists of nothing but individuals. And whatever the psychology of mankind is, that is also the psychology of the individual. We are experiencing in the world-war a fearful balancing-up with the rational intentionality of organised culture. What is called "will" in the individual, is termed "imperialism" among nations, for the will is a demonstration of power over fate, that is, exclusion of what is accidental. The organisation of culture is a rational and "expedient" sublimation of free and indifferent energies, brought about by design and intention. The same is the case in the individual. And just as the hope of a universal international organisation of culture has experienced a cruel right-about through this war, so also must the individual, in the course of his life, often find that so-called "disposable" energies do not suffer themselves to be disposed of.

I was once consulted by a business man of about forty-five, whose case is a good illustration of the foregoing. He was a typical American self-made man, who had worked himself up from the bottom. He had been successful, and had founded a very extensive business. He had also gradually organised the business in such a way that he could now retire from its management. He had indeed resigned two years before I saw him. Until then he had only lived for his business, concentrating all his energy upon it, with that incredible intensity and one-sidedness that is so peculiar to the successful American man of business. He had bought himself a splendid country seat, where he thought he would "live," which he imagined to mean keeping horses, automobiles, playing golf and tennis, attending and giving parties, etc. But he had reckoned without his host. The energy that had become "disposable" did not enter into these tempting prospects, but betook itself capriciously to quite other ways. A couple of weeks after the commencement of his longed-for life of bliss, he began to brood over peculiar vague physical sensations. A few more weeks sufficed to plunge him into an unprecedented state of hypochondria. His nerves broke down completely. He, who was physically an uncommonly strong and exceptionally energetic man, became like a whining child. And that put an end to all his paradise. He fell from one apprehension to another, worrying himself almost to death. He then consulted a celebrated specialist, who immediately perceived quite rightly that there was nothing wrong with the man but lack of employment. The patient saw the sense of this, and betook himself to his former position. But to his great disappointment no interest for his business presented itself. Neither the application of patience nor determination availed to help. His energy would not by any means be forced back into the business. His condition naturally became worse than before. Energy that hitherto had been actively creative was now turned back into himself, with fearfully destructive force. His creative genius rose up, so to speak, in revolt against him, and instead of, as before, producing great organisations in the world, his demon now created equally clever systems of hypochondriac fallacies, by which the man was absolutely crushed. When I saw him, he was already a hopeless moral ruin. I tried to make clear to him that such a gigantic amount of energy might indeed be withdrawn from business, but the problem remained as to where it should go. The finest horses, the fastest automobiles, and the most amusing parties are in themselves no inducement for energy, although it is certainly quite rational to think that a man who has devoted his whole life to serious work, has a natural right to enjoy himself. This would necessarily be the case if things happened "humanly" in destiny; first would come work, then well-earned leisure. But things happen irrationally and inconveniently enough, energy requires a congenial channel, otherwise it is dammed up and becomes destructive. My arguments met with no response, as was indeed to be expected. Such an advanced case can only be taken care of till death; it cannot be cured.

This case clearly illustrates the fact that it does not lie in our power to transfer a "disposable" energy to whatever rationally chosen object we may like. Exactly the same may be said of those apparently available energies that are made available by the fact that the psychoanalytical caustic has destroyed their unsuitable forms. These energies can be arbitrarily applied, as has already been said, at the very most only for a short time. They resist following the rationally presented possibilities for any length of time. Psychic energy is indeed a fastidious thing, that insists upon having its own conditions fulfilled. There may be ever so much energy existing, but we cannot make it useful, so long as we do not succeed in finding a congenial channel for it.

The whole of my research work for the last years has been concentrated upon this question. The first stage of this work was to discover the extent to which the two theories discussed above were tenable. The second stage consisted in the recognition of the fact, that these two theories correspond to two opposite psychological types, which I have designated the introversion and the extroversion types. William James[237] was struck by the existence of these two types among thinkers. He differentiated them as the "tough-minded," and the "tender-minded." Similarly, Ostwald[238] discovered an analogous difference in the classical and romantic types among great scholars. I am not therefore alone in my ideas about the types, as is testified by mentioning only these two well-known names out of many others. Historical researches have proved to me that not a few of the great controversies in the history of thought were based upon the contrast between the types. The most significant case of this kind is the contrast between nominalism and realism, which, beginning with the difference between the Platonic and the Megarian schools, descended to scholastic philosophy, where Abelard won the immortal distinction of at least having ventured an attempt to unite the two contradictory standpoints in conceptualism. This conflict has continued down to the present day, where it finds expression in the antagonism of spiritualism and materialism.

Just as in the general history of thought, so too every individual has a share in this contrast of types. Close investigation proves that people of opposite types have an unconscious predilection for marrying each other, that they may mutually complement one another. Each type has one function that is specially well developed, the introvert using his thought as the function of adaptation, thinking beforehand about how he shall act; whilst the extrovert, on the contrary, feels his way into the object by acting. To some extent he acts beforehand. Hence by daily application the one has developed his thought, and the other his feeling. In extreme cases the one limits himself to thinking and observing, and the other to feeling and acting. It is true that the introvert feels also, very deeply indeed, almost too deeply; that is why an English investigator[239] has gone so far as to describe his as "the emotional type." True, the emotion is there, but it all remains inside, and the more passionate and deeper his feeling is, the quieter is his outward demeanour. As the proverb puts it, "Still waters run deep." Similarly, the extrovert thinks also, but that likewise mostly inside, whilst his feelings visibly go outside, that is why he is held to be full of feeling whilst the introvert is considered cold and dry. But as the feeling of the thinker goes inwards, it is not developed as a function adapted to external situations, but remains in a relatively undeveloped state. Similarly the thinking of one who feels remains also relatively undeveloped.

But if comparatively well-adapted individuals are under consideration, then the introvert will normally be found to have his feeling directed outwards, and the result may be extraordinarily deceptive. He shows feelings; he is amiable, sympathetic, even emotional. But a critical examination of the expressions of his feelings reveals that they are markedly conventional. They are not individualised. He shows to every one, without any essential difference, the same friendliness and the same sympathy; whilst the extrovert's expressions of feeling are throughout delicately graded and individualised. With the introvert the expression of feelings is really a gesture that is artificially adopted and conventional. Similarly, the extrovert may apparently think, and that even very clearly and scientifically. But upon closer investigation, his thoughts are found to be really foreign property, merely conventional forms which have been artificially acquired. They lack anything individual and original, and are just as lukewarm and colourless as the conventional feelings of the introvert. Under these conventional disguises, quite other things are slumbering in both, which occasionally when awakened by some overpowering effect, suddenly break out to the astonishment and horror of the environment.

Most civilised people incline more to one type than the other. Taken together they would supplement each other exceedingly well. That is why they are so apt to marry one another, and so long as they are fully occupied with adapting themselves to the necessities of life they suit one another splendidly. But if the man has earned a competence, or if a big legacy drop from the sky, terminating the external urgencies of life, then they have time to occupy themselves with each other. Until now they stood back to back, defending themselves against want. But now they turn to each other expecting to understand one another; and they make the discovery that they have never understood one another. They speak different languages. Thus the conflict between the two types of psychology begins. This conflict is venomous, violent and full of mutual depreciation, even if it be conducted very quietly in the utmost intimacy. This is so because the value of the one is the worthlessness of the other. The one, starting from the standpoint of his valuable thinking, takes for granted that the feelings of the other correspond to his own inferior feelings, this because he knows absolutely nothing of any other feelings. But the other, starting from the standpoint of his valuable feelings, assumes that his partner has the same inferior thought that he himself has. Evidently there is plenty of work here for Goethe's Homunculus, who had to find out "why husband and wife get on so badly." Now as many cases of neurosis have a basis in such differences, I, as a physician, found myself obliged to relieve the Homunculus of some of his ungrateful task. I am glad to be able to say that many a sufferer has been helped in grave difficulties by the enlightenment I could give.

The third stage of the path of increasing understanding consisted in formulating a theory of the psychology of types which would be of practical use for the development of man. Viewed from the newly-gained standpoint, there resulted, first of all, a totally new theory of psychogenic disturbances.

The foundation of the facts remains the same: the first hypothesis of every neurosis is the existence of an unconscious conflict. According to Freud's theory, this is an erotic conflict, or to speak more exactly, a battle of the moral consciousness against the unconscious infantile sexual world of phantasy and its transference to external objects. According to Adler's theory, it is a battle of the superiority of the ego against all oppressive influences, whether from inside or outside.

But the new idea asserts that the neurotic conflict always takes place between the adapted function and the co-function that is undifferentiated, and that lies to a great extent in the unconscious; therefore in the case of the introvert, between thought and unconscious feeling, but in that of the extrovert, between feeling and unconscious thought.[240] Another theory of the etiological moment results from this. If a man who naturally adapts himself by thinking is faced by a demand that cannot be met by thinking alone, but which requires differentiated feeling, the traumatic or pathogenic conflict breaks out. On the contrary, the critical moment comes to the man who adapts by feeling when he is faced by a problem requiring differentiated thought. The afore-mentioned case of the business man is a clear example of this. The man was an introvert, who all through his life had left every consideration of sentiment in the background, that is, in the unconscious. But when, for the first time in his life, he found himself in a situation in which nothing could be done except by means of differentiated feeling, he failed utterly. At the same time, a very instructive phenomenon occurred; his unconscious feelings manifested themselves as physical sensations of a vague nature. This fact harmonises with a generally accepted experience in our psychology, to wit, that undeveloped feelings partake of the character of vague physical sensations, since undifferentiated feelings are as yet identical with subjective physical sensations. Differentiated feelings are of a more "abstract" objective nature. This phenomenon may well be the unconscious basis of the earliest statement of psychological types that is known to me; namely, the three types of the Valentinian School. They held the undifferentiated type to be the so-called hylic (material) man. He was ranked below the differentiated types, that is, the psychic (soulful) man, who corresponds to the extroversion type; and the pneumatic (spiritual) man, who corresponds to the introversion type. For these gnostics the "pneumatikos" stood of course the highest. Christianity, with its "psychic" (spiritual) nature (principle of love), has indeed contested this privilege of the gnosis. But even this page may be turned in the course of time: since, if the signs of the age are not deceptive, we are now in the great final settlement of the Christian epoch. We know that, evolution not being uniformly continuous, when one form of creation has been outlived, the evolutionary tendency harks back to resume that form which, after having made a beginning, was left behind in an undeveloped state.

After this brief digression to generalities, let us return to our case. If a similar disturbance were to take place in an extrovert, he would have what are called hysterical symptoms, that is, symptoms that are also of an apparently physical nature, which, as our theory indicates, would this time represent the patient's unconscious undifferentiated thought. As a matter of fact, we find also a widespread region of phantasy as the basis of hysterical symptoms, of which many have been described in detail in the literature of the subject. They are phantasies of a pronounced sexual, that is physical complexion. But in reality they are undifferentiated thoughts, which in common with the undifferentiated feelings are to some extent physical, and therefore appear as what may be called physical symptoms.

By taking up again here the thread that was dropped before, we can now clearly see why it is precisely in the neurosis that those values which are most lacking to the individual lie hidden. We might also now return to the case of the young woman, and apply to it the newly-won insight. She is an extrovert with an hysterical neurosis. Let us suppose that this patient had been "analysed," that is, that the treatment having made it clear to her what kind of unconscious thoughts lay behind her symptoms, she had regained possession of the psychic energy which by becoming unconscious had constituted the strength of the symptoms. The following practical question now arises: what can be done with the so-called available energy? It would be rational, and in accordance with the psychological type of the invalid, to extrovert this energy again, that is to transfer it to an object, as for instance to philanthropic or some other useful activities. This way is possible only in exceptional cases—there are energetic natures who do not shrink from care and trouble in a useful cause, there are people who care immensely about just such occupations—otherwise it is not feasible. For it must not be forgotten, that in the case under consideration, the libido (that is the technical expression for the psychic energy) has found its object already unconsciously in the young Italian, or an appropriate real human substitute. Under these circumstances such a desirable sublimation, however natural, is out of the question. For the object of the energy usually affords a better channel than an ethical activity, however attractive. Unfortunately there are many people who always speak of a person, not as he is, but as he would be if their desires for him were realised. But the physician is necessarily concerned with the actual personality, which will obdurately remain the same, until its real character has been recognised on all sides. An analysis must necessarily be based upon the recognition of naked reality, not upon any arbitrarily selected phantasies about a person, however desirable.

The fact is that the so-called available energy unfortunately cannot be arbitrarily directed as desired. It follows its own channel, one which it had already found, even before we had quite released it from its bondage to the unadapted form. For we now make the discovery that the phantasies which were formerly occupied with the young Italian, have been transferred to the physician himself. The physician has therefore himself become the object of the unconscious libido. If this is not the case, or if the patient will on no account acknowledge the fact of transference, or again, if the physician either does not understand the phenomenon at all, or does so wrongly, then violent resistances make their appearance, which aim at completely breaking off relations with the doctor. At this point patients leave and look for another doctor or for people who "understand" them; or if they hopelessly relinquish this search they go to pieces.

But if the transference to the physician takes place and is accepted, a natural channel has thereby been found, which not only replaces the former, but also makes a discharge of the energic process possible, and provides a course that is relatively free from conflict. Therefore if the libido is allowed its natural course, it will of its own accord find its way into the transference. Where this is not the case, it is always a question either of arbitrary rebellion against the laws of Nature, or of some deficiency in the physician's work.

Into the transference every conceivable infantile phantasy is first of all projected; these must then be subjected to the caustic, that is, analytically dissolved. This was formerly called the dissolution of the transference. Thereby the energy is freed from this unsuitable form also, and once again we are confronted by the problem of disposable energy. We shall find that an object affording the most favourable channel has been chosen by Nature even before our search began.

V.—The Personal and the Impersonal Unconscious

The fourth stage of our newly won insight is now reached. The analytical dissolution of the infantile transference phantasies was continued until it became sufficiently clear, even to the patient, that he was making his physician into father, mother, uncle, guardian, teacher, friend or any other kind of surrogate for parental authority conceivable. But, as experience is constantly proving, further phantasies make their appearance, representing the physician as saviour or as some other divine being. Obviously this is in flagrant contradiction to the sane reasoning of consciousness. Moreover, it appears that these divine attributes considerably overstep the bounds of the Christian conception in which we grew up. They even assume the guise of heathen allurements, and, for instance, not infrequently assume the form of animals.

The transference is in itself nothing but a projection of unconscious contents on to the analyst. At first it is the so-called superficial contents that are projected. During this stage the physician is interesting as a possible lover (somewhat after the manner of the young Italian in our case). Later on, he is a representation of the father, and is the symbol either of kindness or of severity, according to what the patient formerly imputed to his real father. Occasionally the doctor even appears to the patient as a kind of mother, which, though sounding somewhat strange, really lies well within the bounds of possibility. All these projections of phantasy have an underlying basis of personal reminiscences.

But presently other forms of phantasy appear, bearing an extravagantly effusive and impossible character. The physician now appears to be endowed with uncanny qualities; he may be either a wizard or a demoniacal criminal, or his counterpart of virtue, a saviour. Later on he appears as an incomprehensible mixture of both sides. It should be clearly understood that the physician does not appear to the patient's consciousness in these forms, but that phantasies come up to the surface representing the doctor in this guise. If, as is not seldom the case, the patient cannot forthwith perceive that his view of the physician is a projection of his own unconscious, then he will probably behave rather foolishly. Difficulties often arise at this stage of analysis, making severe demands upon the good will and patience of both physician and patient. In a few exceptional cases, a patient cannot refrain from disseminating the stupidest tales about the physician. Such people cannot get it into their head that, as a matter of fact, their phantasies originate in themselves, and have nothing or very little to do with the physician's actual character. The pertinacity of this error arises from the circumstance that there is no foundation of personal memory for this particular kind of projection. It is occasionally possible to prove that similar phantasies, for which neither parent gave reasonable occasion, had at some time in childhood been attached to the father or mother.

In one of his shorter books, Freud has shown how Leonardo da Vinci was influenced in his later life by the fact that he had two mothers. The fact of the two mothers (or the double descent) had indeed a reality in Leonardo's case, but it plays a part with other artists as well. Benvenuto Cellini had this phantasy of a double descent. It is unquestionably a mythological theme; many heroes of legend have two mothers. The phantasy is not founded upon the actual fact of the hero's having two mothers, but is a widespread "primordial image" belonging to the secrets of the universal history of the human mind. It does not belong to the sphere of personal reminiscences.

In every individual, in addition to the personal memories, there are also, in Jacob Burckhardt's excellent phrase, the great "primordial images," the inherited potentialities of human imagination. They have always been potentially latent in the structure of the brain. The fact of this inheritance also explains the otherwise incredible phenomenon, that the matter and themes of certain legends are met with all the world over in identical forms. Further, it explains how it is that persons who are mentally deranged are able to produce precisely the same images and associations that are known to us from the study of old manuscripts. I gave some examples of this in my book on "The Psychology of the Unconscious." I do not hereby assert the transmission of representations, but only of the possibility of such representations, which is a very different thing.

It is therefore in this further stage of the transference that those phantasies are produced that have no basis in personal reminiscence. Here it is a matter of the manifestation of the deeper layers of the unconscious, where the primordial universally-human images are lying dormant.

This discovery leads to the fourth stage of the new conception: that is, to the recognition of a differentiation in the unconscious itself. We are now obliged to differentiate a personal unconscious and an impersonal or super-personal unconscious. We also term the latter the absolute or collective unconscious, because it is quite detached from what is personal, and because it is also absolutely universal, wherefore its contents may be found in every head, which of course is not the case with the personal contents.

The primordial images are quite the most ancient, universal, and deep thoughts of mankind. They are feeling just as much as thought, and might therefore be termed original thought-feelings.

We have therewith now found the object selected by the libido when it was freed from the personal-infantile form of transference. Namely, that it sinks down into the depths of the unconscious, reviving what has been dormant there from immemorial ages. It has discovered the buried treasure out of which mankind from time to time has drawn, raising thence its gods and demons, and all those finest and most tremendous thoughts without which man would cease to be man.

Let us take as an example one of the greatest thoughts to which the nineteenth century gave birth—the idea of the conservation of energy. Robert Mayer is the originator of this idea. He was a physician, not a physicist nor a natural philosopher, to either of whom the creation of such an idea would have been more germane. It is of great importance to realise that in the real sense of the word, Robert Mayer's idea was not created. Neither was it brought about through the fusion of the then-existent conceptions and scientific hypotheses. It grew in the originator, and was conditioned by him. Robert Mayer wrote (1841) to Griesinger as follows: "I by no means concocted the theory at the writing-desk." He goes on to report about certain physiological investigations that he made in 1840-41 as doctor on board ship, and continues: "If one wishes to be enlightened about physiological matters, some knowledge of physical processes is indispensable, unless one prefers to work from the metaphysical side, which is immensely distasteful to me. I therefore kept to physics, clinging to the subject with such ardour that, although it may well seem ridiculous to say so, I cared little about what part of the world we were in. I preferred to remain aboard where I could work uninterruptedly, and where many an hour gave me such a feeling of being inspired in a way I can never remember having experienced either before or since.

"A few flashes of thought that thrilled through me"—this was in the harbour of Surabaja—"were immediately diligently pursued, leading again in their turn to new subjects. Those times are passed, but subsequent quiet examination of what then emerged, has taught me that it was a truth which can not only be subjectively felt, but also proved objectively; whether this could be done by one who has so little knowledge of physics as I have, is a matter which obviously, I must leave undecided."

Heim, in his book on Energetics, expresses the opinion: "that Robert Mayer's new thought did not gradually detach itself by dint of revolving it in his mind, from the conceptions of power transmitted from the past, but belongs to those ideas that are intuitively conceived, which, originating in other spheres of a mental kind, surprise thought, as it were, compelling it to transform its inherited notions conformably with those ideas."

The question now arises, whence did this new idea that forced itself upon consciousness with such elemental power spring? And whence did it derive such strength that it was able to effect consciousness so forcibly that it could be completely withdrawn from all the manifold impressions of a first voyage in the tropics? These questions are not easy to answer. If we apply our theory to this case the explanation would run as follows: The idea of energy and of its conservation must be a primordial image that lay dormant in the absolute unconscious. This conclusion obviously compels us to prove that a similar primordial image did really exist in the history of the human mind, and continued to be effective through thousands of years. As a matter of fact, evidence of this can be produced without difficulty. Primitive religions, in the most dissimilar regions of the earth, are founded upon this image. These are the so-called dynamistic religions, whose sole and distinctive thought is the existence of some universal magical power upon which everything depends. The well-known English scholars, Taylor and Frazer, both wrongly interpreted this idea as animism. Primitive peoples do not mean souls or spirits by their conception of power, but in reality something that the American investigator Lovejoy[241] most aptly terms "primitive energetics."

In an investigation appertaining to this subject, I showed that this notion comprises the idea of soul, spirit, God, health, physical strength, fertility, magic power, influence, might, prestige, curative remedies, as well as certain states of mind which are characterised by the setting loose of affects. Among certain Polynesians "Melungu" (that is this primitive concept of energy) is spirit, soul, demoniacal being, magic, prestige. If anything astonishing happens, the people cry "Melungu." This notion of power is also the first rendering of the concept of God among primitive peoples. The image has undergone many variations in the course of history. In the Old Testament this magic power is seen in the burning bush, and shines in the face of Moses. It is manifest in the Gospels as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as cloven tongues of fire from heaven. In Heraclitus it appears as universal energy, as "eternally living fire"; for the Persians it is the fiery brightness, haÔma, divine mercy; for the Stoics it is heimarmene, the power of destiny. In mediÆval legend it is seen as the aura, or the halo of the saint. It blazes forth in great flames from the hut where the saint is lying in ecstasy. The saints reflect the sum of this power, the storehouse of light, in their faces. According to ancient concepts this power is the soul itself; the idea of its immortality contains that of its conservation. The Buddhistic and primitive conception of the metempsychosis (transmigration of souls) contains the idea of its unlimited capacity for transformation under constant conservation.

This thought has obviously therefore been imprinted on the human brain for untold ages. That is why it lies ready in the unconscious of every one. Only certain conditions are needed in order to let it appear again. These conditions were obviously fulfilled in the example of Robert Mayer. The greatest and best thoughts form themselves upon these primordial images, which are the ancient common property of humanity.

After this instance of the nascence of new ideas out of the treasury of primordial images, we will resume the further delineation of the process of transference. It was seen that the libido of the patient seizes upon its new object in those apparently preposterous and peculiar phantasies, namely the contents of the absolute unconscious. As I already observed, the unacknowledged projection of primordial images upon the physician constitutes a danger for further treatment which should not be undervalued. The images contain not only every beautiful and great thought and feeling of humanity, but also every deed of shame and devilry of which human beings have ever been capable. Now, if the patient cannot differentiate the physician's personality from these projections, there is an end to mutual understanding, and human relations become impossible. If however the patient avoids this Charybdis, he falls into the Scylla of introjecting these images, that is, he does not ascribe their qualities to the physician but to himself. This peril is just as great. If he projects, he vacillates between an extravagant and morbid deification, and a spiteful contempt of his physician. In the case of introjection, he falls into a ludicrous self-deification or moral self-laceration. The mistake that he makes in both cases consists in attributing the contents of the absolute unconscious to himself personally. Thus he makes himself into both God and devil. This is the psychological reason why human beings have always needed demons, and could not live without gods. There is the exception, of course, of a few specially clever specimens of the homo occidentalis of yesterday and the day before—supermen whose God is dead, wherefore they themselves become gods. There is also the example of Nietzsche, who confessedly required chloral in order to be able to exist. These supermen even become rationalistic petty gods, with thick skulls and cold hearts. The concept of God is simply a necessary psychological function of an irrational nature that has altogether no connection with the question of God's existence. This latter question is one of the most fatuous that can be put. It is indeed sufficiently evident that man cannot conceive a God, much less realise that he actually exists, so little is he able to imagine a process that is not causally conditioned. Theoretically, of course, no accidentality can exist, that is certain, once and for all. On the other hand, in practical life, we are continually stumbling upon accidental happenings. It is similar with the existence of God; it is once and for all an absurd problem. But the consensus gentium has spoken of gods for Æons past, and will be speaking of them in Æons to come. Beautiful and perfect as man may think his reason, he may nevertheless assure himself that it is only one of the possible mental functions, coinciding merely with the corresponding side of the phenomena of the universe. All around is the irrational, that which is not congruous with reason. And this irrationalism is likewise a psychological function, namely the absolute unconscious; whilst the function of consciousness is essentially rational. Consciousness must have rational relations, first of all in order to discover some order in the chaos of disordered individual phenomena in the universe; and secondly, in order to labour at whatever lies within the area of human possibility. We are laudably and usefully endeavouring to exterminate so far as is practicable the chaos of what is irrational, both in and around us. Apparently we are making considerable progress with this process. A mental patient once said to me, "Last night, doctor, I disinfected the whole heavens with sublimate, and yet did not discover any God." Something of the kind has happened to us. Heraclitus, the ancient, that really very wise man, discovered the most wonderful of all psychological laws, namely, the regulating function of antithesis. He termed this "enantiodromia" (clashing together), by which he meant that at some time everything meets with its opposite. (Here I beg to remind the reader of the case of the American business man, which shows the enantiodromia most distinctly.) The rational attitude of civilisation necessarily terminates in its antithesis, namely in the irrational devastation of civilisation. Man may not identify himself with reason, for he is not wholly a rational being, and never can or ever will become one. That is a fact of which every pedant of civilisation should take note. What is irrational cannot and may not be stamped out. The gods cannot and may not die. Woe betide those men who have disinfected heaven with rationalism; God-Almightiness has entered into them, because they would not admit God as an absolute function. They are identified with their unconscious, and are therefore its sport. (For where God is nearest, there the danger is greatest.) Is the present war supposed to be a war of economics? That is a neutral American "business-like" standpoint, that does not take the blood, tears, unprecedented deeds of infamy and great distress into account, and which completely ignores the fact that this war is really an epidemic of madness. The several parties project their unconscious upon each other, hence the mad confusion of ideas in every head. This is the enantiodromia that occurs in the individual life of man, as well as in that of peoples. The legend of the Tower of Babel turns out to be a tenable truth.

Only he escapes from the cruel law of enantiodromia who knows how to separate himself from the unconscious—not by repressing it, for then it seizes him from behind—but by presenting it visibly to himself as something that is totally different from him.

This gives the solution of the Scylla and Charybdis problem which I described above. The patient must learn to differentiate in his thoughts between what is the ego and what is the non-ego. The latter is the collective psyche or absolute unconscious. By this means he will acquire the material with which henceforward, for a long time, he will have to come to terms. Thereby the energy, that before was invested in unsuitable pathological forms, will have found its appropriate sphere. In order to differentiate the psychological ego from the psychological non-ego, man must necessarily stand upon firm feet in his ego-function; that is, he must fulfil his duty towards life completely, so that he may in every respect be a vitally living member of human society. Anything that he neglects in this respect descends into the unconscious and reinforces its position, so that he is in danger of being swallowed up by it, if his ego-function is not established. Severe penalties are attached to that. As indicated by old Synesius, the "spiritualised soul (pneumatike psychÉ) becomes god and demon, a state in which it suffers the divine penalties," that is, it suffers being torn asunder by the Zagreus, an experience which Nietzsche also underwent at the beginning of his insanity, where, in "Ecce Homo," the God whom he was despairingly resisting in front assailed him from behind. Enantiodromia is the being torn asunder into the pairs of opposites, which opposites are only proper to "the god," and therefore also to the deified man, who owes likeness to God to his having prevailed over his gods.

VI.—The Synthetic or Constructive Method

We now reach the fifth stage of progressive understanding. The coming to terms with the unconscious is a technical performance to which the name of transcendental function has been given because a new function is produced, which being based upon both real and imaginary, or rational and irrational data, makes a bridge between the rational and irrational functions of the psyche. The basis of the transcendental function is a new method of treating psychological materials such as dreams and phantasies. The theories previously discussed were based upon an exclusively causal-reductive procedure, which reduces the dream or phantasy to its component reminiscences, and the instinctive processes that underlie them. I have already stated the justification as well as the limitations of this proceeding. It reaches the end of its usefulness at the moment when the dream symbols no longer permit of a reduction to personal reminiscences or aspirations; that is when the images of the absolute unconscious begin to be produced. It would be quite inappropriate to reduce these collective ideas to what is personal, and not only inappropriate but even actually pernicious, a fact that has been impressed upon me by disagreeable experiences. The values of the images or symbols of the absolute unconscious are only disclosed if they are subjected to a synthetic (not analytical) treatment. Just as analysis (the causally reductive procedure) disintegrates the symbol into its components, so the synthetic procedure synthesises the symbol into a universal and comprehensible expression. The synthetic procedure is by no means easy; I will therefore give an example, by means of which I can explain the whole process.

A patient had the following dream. She was just at the critical juncture between the analysis of the personal unconscious and the commencement of the production of the absolute unconscious. "I am on the point of crossing a broad and rapid stream. There is no bridge, but I find a ford where I can cross. As I am just on the point of doing so, a big crab that lay hidden in the water seizes my foot and does not let it go." She awoke in fear. Associations with the dream were as follows:—

1. Stream.—It forms a boundary that is difficult to cross. I must surmount an obstacle; I suppose it refers to the fact that I am getting on very slowly; I suppose I ought to reach the other side.

2. Ford.—An opportunity for getting safely across, a possible way; otherwise the stream would be too difficult. The possibility of surmounting the obstacle lies in the analytical treatment.

3. Crab.—The crab lay quite hidden in the water; I did not see it at first. Cancer is a fearful incurable illness. (A series of recollections of Mrs. X., who died of cancer, followed.) I am afraid of this illness. A crab[242] is an animal that walks backwards; obviously it wants to pull me down into the stream. It clutched me in a gruesome way, and I was awfully afraid. What prevents my getting across? Oh yes, I had another great scene with my friend.

It must be explained that there is something special about this friendship. We have here an ardent attachment, bordering on the homosexual. It has been going on for years. The friend is in many respects like the patient, and is also nervous. They have pronounced artistic interests in common. But the patient is the stronger personality of the two. They are both nervous, and their mutual relation being too engrossing, cuts them off too much from other possibilities of life. In spite of an "ideal friendship" they have at times tremendous scenes, owing to their mutual irritability. Evidently the unconscious wishes to put some distance between them, but they refuse to pay attention to it. A "scene" usually begins by one of them finding that she does not yet understand the other well enough, and that they ought to talk more openly together; whereupon both make enthusiastic endeavours to talk things out. Misunderstandings supervene almost directly, provoking fresh scenes, each worse than the last. The quarrel was in its way and faute de mieux a pleasure to both of them, which they were unwilling to relinquish. My patient, especially, was unable for a very long time to renounce the sweet pain of not being understood by her best friend, although, as she said, every scene "tired her to death." She had long since realised that this friendship had become superfluous, and that it was only from mistaken ambition that she clung to the belief that she could yet make something ideal out of it. The patient had formerly had an extravagant, fantastic relation to her mother, and after her mother's death had transferred her feelings to her friend.

VII.—Analytical (Causal-reductive) Interpretation.[243]

This interpretation may be summed up in a sentence: "I understand that I ought to get to the other side of the stream (that is, give up the relation with the friend), but I would much rather that my friend did not let me out of her claws (embrace)." That is, expressed as an infantile wish: Mother would like to attract me to herself again by the well-known mode of enthusiastic embraces. The incompatibility of the wish lies in the strong under-current of homosexuality, the existence of which had been abundantly proved by obvious facts. The crab seizes her foot. The patient having big, "manly" feet, she plays a masculine part towards her friend, having also corresponding sexual fantasies. The foot is known to have phallic significance. (Detailed evidence of this is to be found in Aigremont's writings.) The complete interpretation would run as follows: The reason why she will not let her friend go is because her unconscious homosexual wishes are set upon her. As these wishes are morally and Æsthetically incompatible with the tendency of the conscious personality, they are repressed, and therefore unconscious. The fear is an expression of this repressed wish.

This interpretation is exceedingly depreciative of the patient's high-pitched conscious ideal of friendship. It is true at this point in analysis she would no longer have taken this interpretation amiss. Some time before certain facts had sufficiently convinced her of her homosexual tendency, so that she was able to acknowledge the existence of this inclination frankly, although it was of course painful for her to do so. Therefore if, at this stage of the treatment, I had informed her that this was the interpretation, I should not have encountered resistances from her. She had already overcome the painfulness of this unwelcome tendency by understanding it. But she would have said to me: "Why do we analyse this dream at all? It is only repeating what I have now known for a long while." It is true this interpretation does not reveal anything new to the patient, and it is therefore uninteresting and ineffective. This kind of interpretation would at the beginning of the treatment have been impossible in this case, because the patient's prudishness would under no circumstances have acknowledged it. The "venom" of understanding had to be instilled very carefully, and in the smallest of doses, until the patient gradually became more enlightened. But when the analytical or causal-reductive interpretation, instead of furnishing something new, persistently brings the same material in different variations, then the moment has come when another mode of interpretation is called for. The causal-reductive procedure has certain drawbacks. First, it does not take strictly into account the patient's associations—e.g. in this case the association of the illness ("cancer") with "crab" (Krebs = cancer). Second, the particular choice of symbol remains obscure. For instance, why does the friend-mother appear as a crab? A prettier and more plastic representation would have been a nymph. ("Half dragged she him, half sank he down,"[244] etc.) An octopus, a dragon, a serpent, or a fish could have performed the same services. Third, the causal-reductive procedure completely ignores that a dream is a subjective phenomenon, and that consequently even an exhaustive interpretation can never connect the crab with the mother or the friend, but only with the dreamer's idea of them. The whole dream is the dreamer; she is the stream, the crossing, and the crab. That is to say these details are expressions of psychological conditions and tendencies in the subject's unconscious.

I have therefore introduced the following terminology. I call interpretations in which the dream symbols are treated as representations of the real objects interpretation upon the objective plane. The opposite interpretation is that which connects every fragment of the dream (e.g. all the persons who do anything) with the dreamer himself. This is interpretation upon the subjective plane. Objective interpretation is analytical, because it dissects the dream contents into complexes of reminiscence, and finds their relation to real conditions. Subjective interpretation is synthetic, because it detaches the fundamental underlying complexes of reminiscence from their actual causes, regarding them as tendencies or parts of the subject, and reintegrating them with the subject. (In experiencing something I do not merely experience the object, but in the first place myself, although this is only the case if I render myself account of the experience.)

The synthetic or constructive procedure of interpretation[245] is therefore based upon the version on the subjective plane.

VIII.—The Synthetic (Constructive) Interpretation.

The patient is unconscious of the fact that it is in herself that the obstacle lies which should be overcome, the boundary that is difficult to cross which impedes further progress. But it is possible to cross the boundary. It is true that just here a peculiar and unexpected peril threatens, namely, something "animal" (non-human or super-human) which moves backwards and goes into the depths of the stream, wanting to draw down the dreamer as a whole personality. This danger is, moreover, like the deadly disease of cancer, which begins secretly somewhere, and is incurable (overpowering). The patient imagines that her friend hinders her, pulling her down. So long as this is her belief she must perforce influence her friend, "draw her up," teach, improve, educate her, and make futile and impractically idealistic efforts in order to avoid being dragged down herself. Of course, the friend makes similar endeavours, being in a like case with the patient. So both of them keep jumping upon each other like fighting cocks, each trying to fly over the other's head. The higher the point to which the one screws herself, the higher must the other also try to get. Why? Because each thinks the fault lies in the other, in the object. Interpretation of the dream on the subjective plane brings deliverance from this absurdity, for it shows the patient that she has something in herself that is hindering her from crossing the boundary; that is, from getting out of the one position or attitude into another. To interpret change of place as change of attitude is supported by the mode of expression in certain primitive languages, where, e.g., the phrase "I am on the point of going," is "I am at the place of going." In order to understand the language of dreams, we need plenty of parallels from the psychology of primitive peoples, as well as from historical symbolism. This is so because dreams originate in the unconscious, which contains the residual potentialities of function of all preceding epochs of the history of the evolution of man.

Obviously, in our interpretation everything now depends upon understanding what is meant by the crab. We know that it symbolizes something that comes to light in the friend (she connects the crab with the friend), and also something that came to light in the mother. Whether both mother and friend really have this quality in them is irrelevant as regards the patient. The situation will only be changed when the patient herself has changed. Nothing can be changed in the mother because she is dead. The friend cannot be urged to alter; if she wants to alter herself, that is her own affair. The fact that the quality in question is associated with the mother indicates that it is something infantile. What is there in common in the patient's relation both to her mother and her friend? What is common to both is a violently extravagant demand for love, the patient feeling herself overwhelmed by its passion. This claim is an overpowering infantile craving which is characteristically blind. What is in question here is a part of her libido that has not been educated, differentiated, nor humanized, retaining still the compulsive character of an instinct, because it has not yet been tamed by domestication. An animal is a perfectly appropriate symbol for this rÔle of libido. But why is the animal a crab in this particular instance? The patient associates cancer with it, of which disease Mrs. X. died at the age the patient has just reached. It may, therefore, well be that this is an allusion to an identification with Mrs. X. We must therefore make inquiries about this Mrs. X. The patient relates the following facts about her: Mrs. X. was widowed early; she was very cheerful and enjoyed life. She had a number of adventures with men, especially with one particular man, a gifted artist, who the patient herself knew personally and who always impressed her as very fascinating and weird.

An identification can only result from an unrecognized unconscious resemblance. Now what is the resemblance between our patient and Mrs. X.? I was able here to remind the patient of a series of former fantasies and dreams, which had shown plainly that she also had a frivolous vein in her, although anxiously repressing it, because she vaguely feared it might seduce her to an immoral life. We have now gained a further essential contribution for a right understanding of the "animal" rÔle, which evidently represents an untamed, instinctive greed, which in this case is directed to men. At the same time we understand a further reason why she cannot let go of her friend. She must cling to her in order not to fall a prey to this other tendency, which seems so much more dangerous. By these means she remains at an infantile homosexual stage, which serves her as a defence. (Experience proves this erection of defences to be one of the most effective motives for the retention of unadapted, infantile relations.) But in this missing libido in the animal rÔle lies her well-being, the germ of her future healthy personality, which does not shrink from the hazards of human life.

But the patient had drawn another conclusion from the fate of Mrs. X., having conceived her severe illness and early death as a punishment of fate for her gay life which the patient, although certainly not confessing to this feeling, always envied her. When Mrs. X. died, the patient pulled a long face, beneath which a "human, all too human," malicious satisfaction was hidden. As a punishment for this tendency the patient, taking Mrs. X.'s example as a warning, deterred herself from living and from further development, and burdened herself with the misery of this unsatisfying friendship. Of course this concatenation had not been consciously clear to her, otherwise she would never have acted as she had done. The truth of this conclusion can be proved by the material.

The history of this identification by no means ends here. The patient subsequently emphasized the fact that Mrs. X. had a not inconsiderable artistic capacity which developed only after her husband's death and which led to her friendship with the artist. This fact seems to be one of the essential incentives to the identification, if we call to mind that the patient had already told us what a striking impression she had received from the artist. A fascination of this kind is never exclusively exercised by one person only upon the other. It is a phenomenon of reciprocal relation between two persons in so far as the fascinated person must provide a suitable predisposition. But she must be unconscious of this predisposition, otherwise there will be no fascination. Fascination is a phenomenon of compulsion which lacks conscious ground; that is, it is not a process of the will, but a phenomenon coming to the surface from the unconscious, and forcing itself compulsorily upon consciousness. All compulsions arise from unconscious motives. It must therefore be assumed that the patient possesses a similar unconscious predisposition to that of the artist. She becomes identified with this artist, and is also identified with him as man. Here we are at once reminded of the analysis of the dream, where we met an allusion to the "masculine" foot. As a matter of fact, the patient plays a thoroughly masculine part towards her friend, being the active one who continually takes the lead, commanding her friend and occasionally even forcing her somewhat violently to some course that only the patient desires. Her friend is distinctly feminine both in her external appearance and otherwise, whilst the patient is also externally of a somewhat masculine type. Her voice is stronger and deeper than that of her friend. She now describes Mrs. X. as a very feminine woman, her gentleness and amiability being comparable to that of her friend, so she thinks. This gives us a new clue. The patient is obviously playing towards her friend the artist's part towards Mrs. X. Thus she unconsciously completes her identification with Mrs. X. and her lover. In this way she is giving expression to her frivolous vein which she had repressed so carefully. She is not living it consciously, however, but is herself played upon by her own unconscious tendency.

We now know a great deal about the crab: it represents the inner psychology of this untamed part of the libido. The unconscious identifications always keep drawing her on. They have this power because being unconscious they cannot be subjected to insight and correction. The crab is the symbol of the unconscious contents. These contents are always seducing the patient to retain her relation to the friend. (The "crab goes backwards.") But the relation to the friend is synonymous with illness, she became nervous through it (hence the association of illness).

Strictly speaking, this really belongs to the analysis on the objective plane. But we must not forget that we only arrive at understanding by applying the subjective interpretation, which thereby proves itself to be an important heuristic principle. For practical purposes we might rest quite satisfied with the result we have already reached. But we seek here to satisfy all the requirements of the theory. Not all the associations have yet been used; neither is the significance of the choice of symbols yet demonstrated sufficiently.

We will now recur to the patient's remark that the crab lay hidden under the water in the stream, and that she had not seen it at first. She had not at first perceived the unconscious relations that have just been elucidated; they lay hidden in the water. But the stream is the obstacle preventing her from going across. It is precisely the unconscious relations binding her to her friend that have been hindering her. The unconscious was the obstacle. In this case, therefore, the water signifies the unconscious, or, it were better to say, the being unconscious the being hidden, for the crab is also something unconscious, namely, the portion of the libido that was hidden in the unconscious.

IX.—The Dominants of the Super-Personal Unconscious.

The task now lies before us of raising the unconscious data and their relations that have been hitherto understood upon the objective plane, to the subjective plane. To this end we must once more separate them from their objects, conceiving them as images, related in a subjective way to function-complexes in the patient's own unconscious. Raised to the subjective plane, Mrs. X. is the person who showed the patient the way to do something that the patient herself feared while unconsciously desiring it. Mrs. X. therefore represents that which the patient would like to become, and yet does not quite want to. In a certain sense Mrs. X. is a picture of the patient's future character. The fascinating artist cannot be raised to the subjective plane, because the unconscious artistic gift lying dormant in the patient has already been covered over by Mrs. X. It would be quite right to say that the artist is the image of the masculine element in the patient, which not being consciously realised, is still lying in the unconscious. In a certain sense this is indeed true, the patient actually deluding herself as regards this matter. That is, she seems to herself to be particularly tender, sensitive and feminine, with nothing in the least masculine about her. She was indignantly amazed when I drew her attention to her masculine traits. But the reason why she is fascinated by something mysterious in the artist cannot be attributed to what is masculine in her. That seems to be completely unknown to her. And yet it must be hiding somewhere, for she has produced this feeling out of herself.

Whenever a part of libido similar to this cannot be found, experience teaches us that it has always been projected. But into whom? Is it still attached to the artist? He has long ago disappeared from her horizon, and can hardly have taken the projection with him, because it was firmly fixed in the patient's unconscious. A similar projection is always actually present, that is, there must somewhere be some one upon whom this amount of libido is actually projected, otherwise she would have felt it consciously.

Thus we once more reach the objective plane, for we cannot discover this missing projection in any other way. The patient does not know any man except myself who means anything at all to her, and as her doctor I mean a good deal to her. Therefore she has probably projected this part upon me. It is true I had never noticed anything of the kind. But the exquisitely deceptive rÔles are never presented to the analyst on the surface, coming to light always only outside the hour of treatment. I therefore carefully inquire: "Tell me what do I seem like to you when you are not with me? Am I just the same then?" Reply: "When I am with you, you are very pleasant and kind; but when I am alone, or have not seen you for rather a long time, then the picture I have in my mind of you changes in an extraordinary way. Sometimes you seem quite idealized, and then again different." She hesitates; I help by saying: "Yes, what am I like then?" Reply: "Sometimes quite dangerous, sinister like an evil magician or demon. I do not know how I get hold of such ideas. You are not really a bit like that."

So this part was attached to me as part of a transference; that is why it was lacking in her inventory. Therewith we recognize a further important thing. I was confused with (identified with) the artist, and in her unconscious fantasy she is Mrs. X. I was easily able to prove this fact by means of material that had previously been brought to light (sexual fantasies). But I myself then am the obstacle, the crab, that is hindering her from getting across. The state of affairs would be critical if at this particular point we were to limit ourselves to the objective plane of interpretation. What would be the use of my explaining: "But I am not this artist at all, I am not in the least weird as he is, nor am I like an evil magician." That would leave the patient quite unconvinced because she would know as well I do that the projection would continue to exist all the same, and that it is really I who am hindering her further progress. It is at this point that many a treatment has come to a standstill. For there is no other way for the patient here of escaping from the embrace of the unconscious, but for the physician to raise himself to the subjective plane, where he is to be regarded as an image. But an image of what? This is where the greatest difficulty lies. The doctor will say: "An image of something in the patient's unconscious." But the patient may object: "What, am I to suppose myself to be a man, a mysteriously fascinating one to boot, a wicked wizard and a demon? No, I cannot accept that; it is nonsense. I'd sooner believe that you are all that." She is really, so to speak, quite right. It is too preposterous to want to transfer such things to herself. She cannot permit herself to be made into a demon, any more than can the physician. Her eyes flash, a wicked expression appears upon her face, a glimmer of an unknown hate never seen before, something snake-like seeming to creep into her. I am suddenly faced by the possibility of a fatal misunderstanding with her. What is it? Is it disappointed love? Is she offended? Does she feel depreciated? There seems to lurk something of the beast of prey, something really demoniac in her glance. Is she then after all a demon? Or am I myself the beast of prey, the demon, and is this a terrified victim sitting before me, who is trying to defend herself with the brute force of despair against my wicked spells? But either idea must be nonsense, phantastical delusion. What have I come in contact with? What new string is vibrating? But it is only for a passing moment. The expression upon the patient's face becoming quiet again, she says, as if relieved: "It is extraordinary. I feel as if you had touched the point which I could never get over in relation to my friend. It is a horrible feeling, something non-human, wicked, and cruel. I cannot describe how queer this feeling is. At such moments it makes me hate and despise my friend, although I struggle against it with all my might and main."

An explanatory light is thrown upon what has happened by this observation. I have now taken the friend's place. The friendship has been overcome, the ice of repression is broken. The patient has without knowing it entered upon a new phase of her existence. I know that now upon me will fall everything painful and bad in the relation to the friend. So also will whatever was good in it, although in violent conflict with the mysterious unknown quantity X, about which the patient could never get clear. A new phase, therefore, of the transference supervenes, which, however, does not as yet make clearly apparent what the X that is projected upon me consists of.

It is quite certain, that the most troublesome misunderstandings threaten if the patient should stick at this stage of the transference. In that case she will necessarily treat me as she treated her friend; that is the X will continually be somewhere in the air giving rise to misunderstandings. The end would probably be that she would see the evil demon in me, because she is quite unable to accept the fact that she is herself the demon. All insoluble conflicts are brought about in this way. And an insoluble conflict signifies a standstill in life.

Another possibility is, that the patient should disregard the obscure point by applying her old preventative against this new difficulty. That is, she would repress it again, instead of keeping it conscious, which is the necessary and obvious demand of the whole method. Nothing is gained by such repression; on the contrary, the X threatens more from the unconscious where it is considerably more unpleasant.

Whenever such an unacceptable image emerges, one must decide whether at bottom it is destined to represent a human quality or not. "Magician" and "demon" may represent qualities that are described in this particular fashion, in order that they may speedily be recognized as not human but mythological qualities. Magician and demon being mythological figures aptly express the unknown "non-human" feelings which had surprised the patient. These attributes are not applicable to a human personality; being as a rule judgments of character intuitively and not critically approved, which are projected upon our fellow-beings, inevitably doing serious injury to human relations.

Such attributes always indicate that contents of the super-personal or absolute unconscious are being projected. Neither demons nor wicked magicians are reminiscences of personal experiences, although every one has, of course, at some time or other heard or read of them. Although one has heard of a rattle-snake, it would hardly be appropriate to describe a lizard or a blind-worm as a rattle-snake, simply because one was startled by their rustling. Similarly, one would hardly term a fellow-being a demon, unless some kind of demoniacal influence were closely associated with him. If, however, the demoniacal influence were really part of his personal character, it would show itself everywhere, and then this human being would be a demon, a kind of werwolf. But such an ascription is mythology; in other words, it is from the collective and not from the individual psyche. Inasmuch as through our unconscious we have a share in the historical collective psyche, we naturally dwell unconsciously in a world of werwolves, demons, magicians, etc., these being things which have always affected man most profoundly. We have just as much a part in gods and devils, saviours and criminals. But it would be absurd to want to ascribe to one's personal self the possibilities that are potentially existing in the human unconscious. It is, therefore, essential to make as clear a distinction as possible between the personal and the impersonal assets of our psyche. This is by no means intended to nullify the occasional great effects due to the existence of the contents of the absolute unconscious; but these contents of the collective psyche should be differentiated from those belonging to the individual psyche. For simple-minded people, of course, these things were never separated, the projection of gods, demons, etc., not having been understood as a psychological function were simply accounted concretistical realities. Their projectional character was never perceived. It was only with the advent of the epoch of scepticism that it was realized that the gods did not really exist except as projections. With that the matter was set at rest. But the psychological function corresponding to it was by no means set at rest, for it lapsed into the unconscious and began to poison men with a surplus of libido that had hitherto been invested in the cult of idols or gods. Obviously, the depreciation and repression of such a powerful function as that of religion has serious consequences for the psychology of the individual. The reflux of this libido strengthens the unconscious prodigiously, so that it begins to exercise a powerful compulsory influence upon consciousness and its archaic collective contents. One period of scepticism came to a close with the horrors of the French Revolution. At the present time we are again experiencing an ebullition of the unconscious destructive powers of the collective psyche. The result is an unparalleled general slaughter. That is just what the unconscious was tending towards. This tendency had previously been inordinately strengthened by the rationalism of modern life, which by depreciating everything irrational, caused the function of irrationalism to sink into the unconscious. But the function once in the unconscious will from thence work unceasing havoc, like an incurable disease whose centre cannot be eradicated. For then the individual and the nation alike are compelled to live irrationally, and even to apply their highest idealism and their best wit to make this madness of irrationalism as complete as possible. We see examples of this on a small scale in our patient. She turned from a possibility of life that seemed to her irrational (Mrs. X.) in order to live it in a pathological form, to her own loss, and with an unsuitable object.

There is, indeed, no possible alternative but to acknowledge irrationalism as a psychological function that is necessary and always existent. Its results are not to be taken as concrete realities (that would involve repression), but as psychological realities. They are realities because they are effective things, that is, they are actualities.

The collective unconscious is the sediment of all the experience of the universe of all time, and is also an image of the universe that has been in process of formation for untold ages. In the course of time certain features have become prominent in this image, the so-called dominants. These dominants are the ruling powers, the gods; that is, the representations resulting from dominating laws and principles, from average regularities in the issue of the images that the brain has received as a consequence of secular processes.

In so far as the images formed in the brain are relatively faithful portrayals of psychic happenings they will correspond to their dominants; that is, their general characteristic features, made prominent by the accumulation of similar experiences, will correspond to certain physical fundamental facts that are also universal. Hence it is possible to transfer unconscious images to physical events direct as intuitive ideas; e.g. ether the primeval breath or soul-substance appears in man's conceptions the whole world over; so, too, energy, the magic force, which is equally widespread.

On account of their connection with physical things the dominants usually make their appearance as projections, appearing, indeed—if the projections are unconscious—in the persons of the immediate environment, as a rule in the form of abnormal under- or over-valuations, which excite misunderstandings, conflict, infatuations, and various kinds of folly. People say: "He makes a god of So-and-so," or "So-and-so is X.'s bÊte noire." They also give rise to the formation of modern myths, that is, fantastic rumours, suspicions and prejudices.

The dominants of the collective unconscious are therefore extremely important things of significant effect, to which great attention should be paid. They must not be repressed, but must be given most careful consideration. They usually appear as projections, and since projections are only attached where there is some external stimulus, it is very difficult to appraise them aright, on account of the relation of the unconscious images with the object. If some one projects the dominant of "devil" into a fellow-being, this occurs because this other person has something in him that makes the attachment of the devil dominant possible. But that is by no means to say that this person is therefore, so to speak, a devil; on the contrary, he may be a particularly good fellow, but being antipathetic to the one who projects, a "devilish effect" is brought about between the two. This does not mean that the one who projects is a devil, although he must recognize that he too, just as much, has something devilish in him, and has been gulled by it, inasmuch as he projected it; but that does not make him a devil; indeed, he may be just as decent a man as the other. In such a case the appearance of the devil dominant means: the two persons are incompatible (for the moment and for the near future), wherefore the unconscious splits them asunder and holds them apart from each other.

One of the dominants that is almost always met in the analysis of projections of collective unconscious contents is the "magical demon;" it is of preponderating sinister effect. "The Golem," by Meyrink, is a good example of this; also the Thibetan wizard in Meyrink's "FledermÄusen," who lets the world-war loose by magic. Obviously Meyrink formed this image independently and freely out of his unconscious, by giving word and picture to a feeling similar to the one that my patient had projected upon me. The dominant of magic also appears in "Zarathustra," whilst in "Faust" it is, so to say, the hero himself.

The picture of this demon is the lowest and most elementary concept of God. It is the dominant of the primitive tribal magic-man, or a singularly gifted personality endowed with magic power. This figure very frequently makes an appearance in my patient's unconscious as a dark-skinned being of Mongolian type.

An important step forward has been taken by the recognition of the dominants of the absolute unconscious. The magical or demoniac effect of the fellow-being is made to disappear by the feeling being realised as a definite projection of the absolute unconscious. On the other hand, a completely new and unsuspected task now lies before us: namely, the question in what way the ego should come to terms with this psychological non-ego. Should one rest satisfied with having verified the effective existence of unconscious dominants, leaving the matter to take care of itself?

To leave it at this point would be the means of creating a permanent state of dissociation in the subject, a conflict between the individual psyche and the collective psyche. Upon the one side we should have the differentiated modern ego, whilst upon the other a kind of uncivilized negro representative of a thoroughly primitive state. That would mean that we should have what really does exist, a crust of civilization over a dark-skinned brute; the cleavage would be distinct and demonstrable before our very eyes. But such a dissociation requires immediate synthesis and cultivation of what is undeveloped. There must be a union of these two aspects.

Before entering upon this new question let us first return to the dream from which we started. The discussion has given us a broader understanding of the dream, and especially of an essential part of it, namely, the fear. This fear is a demoniac fear of the dominants of the collective unconscious. We saw that the patient identifies herself with Mrs. X., expressing thereby that she also has some relation to the mysterious artist. It was apparent also that she identified the physician (myself) with the artist; and further that when taken upon the subjective plane, the image of the wizard dominants of the collective unconscious represented me.

All this is covered in the dream by the symbol of the crab which walks backwards. The crab stands for the living content of the unconscious that can by no means be exhausted or rendered inoperative by analysis on the objective plane. But what we were able to do was to detach the mythological or collective psychological contents from the objects of consciousness, and to consolidate them as psychological realities outside the individual psyche.

So long as the absolute unconscious and the individual psyche are coupled together without differentiation, no progress can be made, or, as the dream expresses it, no boundary be crossed. If the dreamer does nevertheless prepare to cross the boundary, the unconscious that was hitherto unnoticed becomes animated, seizing her and dragging her down. The dream and its material characterize the absolute unconscious, on the one side as a lower animal living hidden in the depths of the water; and on the other side, as a dangerous disease that can only be cured by a timely operation. To what extent this characterization is appropriate has already been seen. As was pointed out, the animal symbol specially refers to what is extra human, that is super-personal; for the contents of the absolute unconscious are not merely the residue of archaic human functions, but also the residue of functions of the animal ancestry of mankind, whose duration of life was indeed vastly greater than the relatively brief epoch of specifically human existence. If such residues are active, they are apt, as nothing else is, not merely to arrest the progress of development, but also to divert the libido into regressive channels, until the quantity which the absolute unconscious has activated has been absorbed. The energy becomes profitable again after it has been consciously contrasted with the absolute unconscious, a process which enables it to be converted into a valuable source from which to draw. This transference of energy was established by religions in a concretistic manner through cultural communication with the gods (the dominants of the absolute unconscious). But these modes and customs are too much at variance with our intellect and our moral sense for us to be able to declare this solution of the problem as still binding, or even possible. If, on the other hand, we apprehend the images of the unconscious as collective unconscious dominants, therefore as collective-psychological phenomena or functions, this hypothesis is in no way opposed to our intellect and conscience. This solution is rationally acceptable. We have thus gained the possibility of coming to terms with the activated residues of our ancestral history. This mode of settlement makes it possible to traverse the boundary line hitherto limiting us, and is therefore appropriately termed the transcendental function, which is synonymous with progressive development to a new attitude. In the dream this development is indicated by the other side of the stream.

The similarity to hero-myths is striking. The typical combat of the hero with the monster (the unconscious content) frequently takes place on the banks of some water; sometimes at a ford. This circumstance is prominent in legends of Red Indians, as, for example, in Longfellow's "Hiawatha." In the decisive battle the hero is swallowed by a monster (cf. story of Jonah), as Frobenius[246] has shown by means of extensive material. But inside the monster the hero begins to come to terms with the beast in his own way: whilst the creature swims with him towards the sunrise, he cuts off a valuable piece of the viscera, e.g. the heart, by which the monster lived, that is, the valuable energy by which the unconscious was activated. Through this deed he kills the monster, who then drifts to land, where the hero, born anew through the transcendental function (the "night-journey under the sea" of Frobenius), steps forth, often in company with all those beings whom the monster had previously swallowed. This enables the normal state to be restored, as the unconscious having been robbed of its energy no longer occupies a preponderating position. In this way the myth—which is the dream of a people—graphically describes the problem with which our patient is concerned.[247]

The problem of how to come to terms with the absolute unconscious is a question apart. I must content myself here with a general survey of the new theory of the unconscious up to the transcendental function, leaving the presentation of the transcendental function itself to a later work.

X.—The Development of the Types of Introversion and Extroversion in the Analytical Process.

The description of the analysis of the unconscious would be incomplete if a word were not said about the question whether this method is equally applicable to the two types. As a matter of fact, both the development and the conception of the unconscious are different for each type. Although making every effort to find out a formulation that shall be as universally valid as possible, we must emphatically impress upon our minds the fact that the two modes of conception of the types are essentially different; a universal formulation that is just, only becomes possible when both standpoints are given equal consideration. I do not conceal from myself the fact that this subject is of less interest to the layman than to the specialist. Nevertheless, certain aspects of the question are of such a general character that the layman should not find the perusal of this last section entirely without interest.

Let us first consider the concept of the unconscious. I have here introduced the unconscious under the conception of a psychological function, namely, the function of the sum of all those psychic contents which do not reach the threshold of consciousness. I have divided the unconscious materials into personal—that is to reminiscences attributable to personal experiences, combinations and tendencies—and into impersonal collective contents, that is, those whose contents cannot be attributed to personal experiences.

The contents of the psyche are fundamentally images indicating function on the one hand, and upon the other objects and the world generally. The conscious contains the recent object-images; the personal unconscious, the object-images of the individual past, so far as they have either been forgotten or repressed; whilst the absolute or collective unconscious contains the inherited world-images generally, under the form of primordial images or mythical themes. All psychic images have two sides: the one, being directed towards the object, is as faithful a likeness of the object as possible, framed without any intention or obligation to be anything else. The other side is directed towards the soul, that is towards the psychic function and the laws peculiar to it.

Let us take as an example, a primordial image out of a hero-myth. There is in the West a demon ancestress with a large mouth. The hero creeps into it, and at the same moment a certain little bird sings; the ancient dame shuts her mouth with a bang, and the hero disappears.

The side of the image directed towards the physical object means, the sun goes down in the evening into the mouth of the ocean. At this hour a certain little bird sings (which is an objective fact), and the sun disappears into the depths of the sea.

The side of the image directed towards the soul, that is the idea, signifies: The energy contained in consciousness disappears (like the sun in the evening) into the monster of the unconscious.

If we consider the collective-unconscious from the side of the soul or idea, it is something entirely distinct, and it must be differentiated, abstracted from the object, if its contents are to attain the perfection of an idea. If, on the other hand, we consider the collective-unconscious from the side of the physical object, that is as an image of the object, it is weaker and less clear than the object itself, and can only be brought to perfection if it is objectified, that is projected on to the object itself.

As previously explained, there are two types of human psychology that can be clearly distinguished, viz. introversion and extroversion. The introvert is characterised by the thought standpoint; the extrovert by the feeling standpoint. As I showed, they are quite different in their relation to the object: the introvert abstracting from the object and thinking about it, whilst the extrovert goes to the object and feels himself into it. The accent of value lies upon the ego for the introvert, but upon the object for the extrovert. The former's chief concern is the preservation of the ego; that of the latter the preservation of the object. The two types will adopt a different attitude towards the unconscious, namely, the introvert will and must seize the idea-side of the unconscious image; the extrovert, on the other hand, seizing the side of the physical reflection. The introvert will purify as far as possible the idea-side from the "alloy" of the concretistic admixture of the physical image, in order to arrive at the abstract idea; whilst, on the other hand, the extrovert will purify the physical image as far as possible from the "phantastic" admixture of the enveloping ideas. The former, by raising himself to a world of idea, will endeavour to overcome the disturbing influence of the unconscious; whilst the latter will approach the object as near as possible and project the unconscious image into the physical object, thus freeing himself from the grip of the unconscious.

What for the extrovert is a phantastic and disturbing admixture in the unconscious picture, is for the introvert precisely that which has the most value, for it is the germ of the pure idea, and vice versÂ; what for the introvert are merely concretistical "imperfections," survivals of a physical origin, are for the extrovert a most valuable hint, the bridge by which the unconscious can be united with the object.

This description makes it manifest that the two types go contrary ways in the course of the development of their unconscious, arriving therefore at opposite extremes: the one at the idea, the other at the object of his feeling. The psychological characteristics of the types are eventually pushed to extremes, where according to the enantiodromic law the moment has arrived when in each case the "other" function enters into its fully acknowledged right, that is, feeling in the case of the introvert, and thought in that of the extrovert. The introvert attains the lacking function of autonomous feeling by means of a differentiation and enhancement of his thought; whilst the extrovert, on the other hand, attains his thinking by the way of an increasingly differentiated love. These functions that hitherto were secondary are found at first in the unconscious, gradually reaching consciousness in the course of development. At first they are unconscious functions in a state that is more or less incompatible with consciousness and have the typical qualities of unconscious contents. These qualities are such as are not tolerated in consciousness. The lunatic Schreber[248] says most aptly that the language of God (the unconscious) is a somewhat archaic but vigorous German, of which he gives a few striking examples. As the contrary function that emerges from the unconscious into consciousness differs to such an extent from what appears to be acceptable to consciousness, the necessity arises of a technique for coming to terms with the contrary function. It is impossible to accept the contrary function as it stands, as it always drags extraneous qualities and accompanying circumstances with it from the absolute unconscious. Through the above-described development the extrovert has acquired an adaptation to the object that is absolutely real and free from all phantasies; he will therefore be able to turn his attention towards the "alloy" which for the introvert was the valuable germ of idea. From this he will then develop similar ideas to those which the introvert has already developed. Vice versÂ, the introvert will now be able to turn his attention to those materials which before he was obliged to reject, as being side-tracks on the road to physical reality; that is, he will carry out the same clearing and winnowing in his feeling-relations, that the extrovert has already completed.

The development of the contrary function that was hitherto unconscious, leads to individuation beyond the type, and thereby to a new relation to the world and mind. The process which begins with the complementation of the types is the transcendental function, which leads to the new adaptation by means of the clearing and winnowing of unconscious feelings and thoughts that have been brought up by the contrary function that had been neglected.

Following the old maxim: "naturam si sequemur ducem nunquam aberrabimus," we have obeyed the natural impulse of the thinker to carry the principle of thought through to its utmost perfection attainable, as also that of the feeler, of carrying the principle of feeling through to the end. By these means the salutary extreme was produced, to wit, the hunger, the desire for the compensatory function. For, by means of thought, the one is landed in a lifeless ice-cold world of crystalline ideas; whereas, by means of feeling, the other reaches a limitless ocean of never ending flood of sentiment. The former will, therefore, yearn for living warmth of feeling, and the latter for the restrictive precision and solidity of thought.

An enrichment of the individual is attained by this compensatory process, giving him greater decision and the possibility of a harmony that is complete in itself. The assimilation of the contrary function discloses new inner springs, which guarantee to the individual considerably greater independence from external conditions. This acquisition is an indisputable advantage that none would like to surrender in face of the fact so unavoidably connected with it, that a new adaptation and orientation of this kind places the individual in a certain contrast to the great bulk of people who yet have the old attitude. This contrast is no drawback; it is rather a welcome and effective spur to life and work, for thereby is created the channel required by our psychic energy for its development.

XI.—General Remarks on the Therapy.

I have still to draw the reader's attention to an important fact. Throughout the course of this paper, I have seemed to associate the idea of disturbance or even of peril with the unconscious. But it would give a false impression if we were only to emphasize the dangerous side of the unconscious. The unconscious is a source of danger when the individual is not at one with it. If we succeed in establishing the function or attitude that I call transcendental, the disharmony ceases, and we are permitted to enjoy the favourable side of the unconscious. In such case the unconscious vouchsafes us that furtherance and assistance which bountiful Nature is always ready to give to man in overflowing abundance. The unconscious possesses possibilities of wisdom that are completely closed to consciousness, for the unconscious has at its disposal not only all the psychic contents that are under the threshold because they had been forgotten or overlooked, but also the wisdom of the experience of untold ages, deposited in the course of time and lying potential in the human brain. The unconscious is continually active, creating combinations of its materials; these serve to indicate the future path of the individual. It creates prospective combinations just as our consciousness does, only they are considerably superior to the conscious combinations both in refinement and extent. The unconscious may therefore be an unparalleled guide for human beings.

The reader must on no account suppose that the complicated psychological changes described must all be passed through in every individual case. In practice the treatment is adjusted according to the therapeutic result attained. The particular result arrived at may be reached at any stage of the treatment, quite apart from the seriousness or duration of the malady. The treatment of a serious case may last a long time, without the higher phases of the evolution ever being reached, or needing to be reached. There are comparatively few people who, after attaining the desired therapeutical result, pursue the further stages of evolution for the sake of their own development. It is, therefore, not the seriousness of the case which obliges one to pass through the whole development. In any case, only those people attain a higher degree of differentiation who are by nature destined and called to it, that is, who have both a capacity and tendency towards the higher differentiation. This is a matter in which people are extremely different, just as among species of animals there are some that are stationary and conservative, and others that are evolutionary. Nature is aristocratic, but not in the sense of having reserved the possibility of differentiation exclusively for those species that stand high. Similarly, the possibility of the psychological development of human beings is not reserved for specially gifted individuals. In other words: neither special intelligence nor any other talent is necessary in order to achieve a far-reaching psychological development, inasmuch as in this development moral qualities step in to supplement where intellect does not suffice. But it must not be supposed under any circumstances that the treatment consists in grafting general formulas and complicated doctrines on to people; this is not so. Each one can acquire that which he needs, after his own fashion and in his own language. What I have here presented is only the intellectual formulation of the subject, founded upon preliminary scientific study of an empirical as well as a theoretical nature; but this formulation does not become a subject of discussion in the ordinary practical analytical work. The brief notes of cases that I have inserted give an approximate idea of the practical side of analysis.

The reader should realize that our new understanding of psychology has a side that is entirely practical, and another that is entirely theoretical. It is not merely a practical method of treatment or education, but it is also a scientific theory, that is closely related to other co-ordinated sciences.

Conclusion.

In conclusion, I must beg the reader to pardon me for having ventured to say so many new and abstruse things in such a brief compass. I lay myself open to adverse criticism, because I conceive it to be the duty of every one who isolates himself by taking his own path, to tell others what he has found or discovered, whether it be a refreshing spring for the thirsty, or a sandy desert of sterile error. The one helps, the other warns. Not the opinion of any individual contemporary will decide the truth and error of what has been discovered, but rather future generations and destiny. There are things that are not yet true to-day, perhaps we are not yet permitted to recognize them as true, although they may be true to-morrow. Therefore every pioneer must take his own path, alone but hopeful, with the open eyes of one who is conscious of its solitude and of the perils of its dim precipices. Our age is seeking a new spring of life. I found one and drank of it and the water tasted good. That is all that I can or want to say. My intention and my duty to society is fulfilled when I have described, as well as I can, the way that led me to the spring; the reproaches of those who do not follow this way have never troubled me, nor ever will. New ideas always encounter resistance from the old. That always was and always will be the case; it appertains to the self-regulation of mental progress.