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CARL

JUNG

Psychology and Religion in the

Search for Personal Wholeness

Johann Maree

Summer School, UCT, Jan. 2012

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INTRODUCTION:AFORMIDABLETASK

It is not easy to provide a clear exposition of Jungsanalytical psychology because he changed hismind as he went along.

In the foreword of Frieda Fordhams book on Jung,

he wrote: As I cannot claim to have reached anydefinite theory my work consists of a series ofdifferent approaches, or one might call it, acircumambulation of unknown factors. This makes itrather difficult to give a clear-cut and simple

account of my ideas. It is even harder to do it in 45 minutes as Freud

also needs to make a guest appearance.

So, without any further delay, here goes.

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BIOGRAPHICALSKETCH

Carl Jung was born in 1875 in Switzerland and

brought up in or near the historic city of Basel.

His father was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed

Church. He was continually racked by doubts about

his beliefs.

His mother was a highly intuitive woman, possibly

with psychic abilities and sensitivities.

Jungs childhood experiences and memories of

religion were quite negative: crowds of dark-clothed

men and weeping women; a hole in the ground into

which a box was put; told Jesus had taken

someone to himself.

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DOCTOR JUNGAND DOCTOR FREUD

Jung trained as a doctor and began working in the

famous Burghoelzli psychiatric hospital linked to

University of Zurich.

Jung was Freuds junior by 19 years and was one

of first psychiatrists to support Freuds controversial

theories, but he was also one of the first to break

away from Freud.

To understand why Jung broke away from Freud it

is necessary to review a few relevant concepts andtheories of Freud first.

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SIGMUND FREUD

Freud went to a medical school in Vienna andinitially did research for many years in

neuropsychology.

He then went to Paris to study with the great

psychiatrist, Charcot.

He returned to Vienna and set up a practice in

neuropsychiatry with the help of his mentor and

friend, Joseph Breuer.

They treated young women suffering fromhysterical symptoms.

Freud was struck by how many of them were

related to repressed traumatic sexual experiences

in childhood.

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THESEXUALINSTINCTAND LIBIDO

Freud claimed that there was a repression of the

sexual instinct and from this he developed the idea

that sexual instinct provided psychic energy for the

psyche which, in its sublimated form, gave rise to

human achievements.

He called this psychic energy the libido. This

energy was primarily derived from a sexual drive.

Freud linked the libido closely with the id, one of the

three components that make up the mind or psychein Freuds model.

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THE ID, EGOAND SUPEREGO

The id is the primitive, animalistic, instinctualelement, libidinous energy demanding immediate

satisfaction. I want it and I want it now!

The sole governing device here is the pleasure

principle.

The ego is a cluster of cognitive and perceptual

processes including memory, reality-testing,

problem-solving that are conscious and serve to

mediate between the demands of the id and

prohibitions of the superego. It serves like an

executive to maintain psychic balance.

The superego dictates ethical and moral conduct.

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THE UNCONSCIOUS

One of Freuds greatest contributions to psychology

was his scientific study of the unconscious.

According to Freud, the unconscious is a domain of

the psyche encompassing the repressed id

functions, the memories, images and wishes that

are too anxiety-provoking to be accepted into

consciousness.

Freud found that there are powerful ideas in the

unconscious, but they cannot become consciousdue to a force that represses them and resists

bringing them out into the open.

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JUNGSSEPARATIONFROM FREUD

Jung met Freud for the first time in Vienna in

February 1907. They talked virtually non-stop for 13

hours and Jung vividly describes in Memories,

Dreams, Reflections how the foundations were laid

for their eventual separation.

Jung subsequently proposes that sexuality is not

the sole source of psychic energy, but that libido is

a general psychic energy which may flow in

channels serving a range of instincts. For Jung the ego is the centre of consciousness

and, as such, does not encompass or understand

the whole person or self.

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THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

From treating psychotic patients at Burghoelzli and

wide reading Jung came to the conclusion that the

unconscious material that emerged could not have

come from the subjects personal learning or

experience. He postulated that it came from acollective unconscious derived through aeons of

repetition of human experience.

Jung wrote: there exists a second psychic system

of a collective, universal, and impersonal naturewhich is identical in all individuals. The collective

unconscious does not develop individually but is

inherited.

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ARCHETYPES

In addition, Jung said that the collective

unconscious is not just a dead deposit, a sort of

abandoned rubbish heap, but a living system of

reactions and aptitudes that determine the

individuals life in invisible ways.

It also consists of pre-existent forms that Jung

called archetypes. He first called themprimordial

images in that he considered them to be archaic or

primordial types of universal images that date backto humankinds remotest beginnings.

Everyday realities like mother, father, husband and

wife create the mightiest archetypes.

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THEANIMA

The three most important archetypes Jung calledthe anima, animus and shadow.

The anima is the unconscious image of thefeminine that every man has within himself.

Jung wrote: Every man carries with him the eternalimage of woman. This image is fundamentallyunconscious, an imprint of all the ancestralexperiences of the female, a deposit of all theimpressions ever made by woman.

To explain the existence of the anima Jung invokedthepersonaby which he means the formation ofthe mask behind which most people live.

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PERSONA

Jung maintained that a compensatory relationshipexists between persona and anima. He explained:

The persona is a complicated system of relationsbetween individual consciousness and society, a

kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make adefinite impression upon others, and, on the other,to conceal the true nature of the individual.

Society expects every individual to play the partassigned to him, so that a man who is a parson

must not only carry out his official functions, but atall times and in all circumstances play the role ofparson in a flawless manner.

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THECOMPENSATORYRELATIONSHIPBETWEEN

PERSONAANDANIMA

Jung explained: The persona, the ideal picture of a

man as he should be, is inwardly compensated by

feminine weakness, and as the individual outwardly

plays the strong man, so he becomes inwardly a

woman, i.e., the anima, for it is the anima thatreacts to the persona.

Jung considered the anima to be a personality

which is easily projected upon a woman.

This projection means that a man can transfer tohis wife the protective role that his mother played in

his early life. This places the marriage permanently

on the brink of explosion .

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ANIMUS

Similar to a man, every woman carries within herthe eternal image of a man.

In the same way that man has an unconsciousanima, woman has an unconscious animus whichconsists of masculine characteristics. The animus

is also an active force on the woman who isunconscious of its presence.

The way to remove the negativity of the animus andto live in harmony with him is for woman todifferentiate between her ego and the animusinstead of assuming them to be one as sheunconsciously does. Similarly, the man has todifferentiate between his ego and the anima. Thisis achieved by individuation dealt with later.

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SHADOW

The inferior being in ourselves is what Jung calls

the shadow. It consists of all that we are ashamed

of and that we do not want to know about

ourselves.

It constitutes part of our personal unconscious, but

we also have an archetypal shadow in the realm of

our collective unconscious. It represents an

encounter with evil and facing it can be a shattering

experience. The shadow of every person has to be firmly

grasped and acknowledged for a person to achieve

a state of wholeness.

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INDIVIDUATIONANDTHE SELF

The essence of achieving personal wholeness for

Jung lies in the individuation process.

The end result of the process in which wholeness is

achieved is to bring an undivided Self into

existence. Jung attached a special meaning to Self.

For him the Self is both the centre and the totality of

the psyche. It consists of both the conscious ego

and the unconscious and is only constituted once

there is awareness and acceptance of theunconscious and its shadowy contents by the ego.

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THEINDIVIDUATIONPROCESS

By individuation Jung means bringing antagonistic

functions of the personality into harmony with each

other.

Jung wrote: Individuation means becoming a

single, homogeneous being. It also implies

becoming ones own self. We could therefore

translate individuation as coming to selfhood or

self-realization.

Individuation entails a lifelong development ofpersonality from conception to death. Jung divided

a full lifespan into two stages, a first half of life and

a second half.

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THREESTAGESOFINDIVIDUATION

Erich Neumann has refined and expanded lifelongdevelopment into three stages:containment/nurturance, i.e. the maternal stage;adapting/adjusting, i.e. the paternal stage;

centring/integrating, i.e. a wholeness stage. Neumann expands the concept of individuation to

include the process of becoming the personalitythat one innately ispotentiallyfrom the beginning oflife.

The containment/nurturance stage lasts a long timein modern societies, much longer than childhoodbecause it is preparing the person fully foradulthood.

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CONTAINMENT/NURTURANCE (C/N) STAGE

For the individuation process to develop to the full itis necessary for the person to go through primaryand secondary school as well as some form ofpost-school training or education in order to acquire

a profession. This period of dependence on parentsmay last as long as thirty years!

The C/N stage is symbolically defined as maternal:Nurturance is delivered in the form of warm supportand encouragement. The harsh realities of life are

screened out. Nurturance is provided not only by mothers, but

also by fathers, teachers, or institutions such asschools and churches.

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TRANSITIONFROM 1STTO 2NDSTAGE

During the first stage a relative amount of

autonomy, independence and self-control is

introduced along the way so that by the end of this

stage people are able to do for themselves what

others have done for them earlier.

In the second stage, the adapting/adjusting stage,

the father occupies the symbolic centre in order to

instil the rigour of functioning and performance

demanded for adaptation to the world.

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2NDSTAGE:ADAPTION/ADJUSTING

The second stage is governed by the law of

consequences for actions taken (the reality

principle).

The person is exposed to a world in which

standards of performance are paramount and

consequences for behaviour are forcefully and

implacably drawn.

Strict conditions are imposed upon the distribution

of all rewards, including love and positive regard.

This is not the world as ideal but the world as real.

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3RDSTAGE: CENTRING/INTEGRATING

The tasks in this stage of life are:

to embark upon the journey of becoming a centred

and whole individual; and

to relate to the transcendent as well as theimmediate concrete realities of human existence.

The ego now begins to answer to an inner call from

the psyche, rather than to an outer demand derived

from society.

Working to live and survive is no longer sufficient;

one must now find something worth living for.

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CENTRING/INTEGRATINGANDTHE SELF

Jung speaks of the Self integrating the shadow and

relating in a new conscious way to the anima and

animus.

The aim of the third stage is thus a degree of

integration of the inner opposites inherent in the

Self.

The Self is the goal towards which the process of

individuation strives. It represents psychic

wholeness and the process by which self-divisionmay be healed.

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JUNGONRELIGION

AND GOD

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JUNGSCHILDHOODEXPERIENCEOF GOD

Jungs impression of institutional religion as a child

was quite negative. He realised that his father, a

Swiss Reformed Church pastor, had lost his faith.

As a child he wanted to help his father, but did not

know how. Later in his life he did.

At the age of 11 Jung allowed a visionary revelation

to come over him as an act of obedience to God. It

revealed to him that God shared his view of the

institutional church. He found the vision completely emancipatory: he

experienced an unutterable bliss he had never

known before.

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JUNGSREFLECTIONONHISEXPERIENCE

Years later Jung wrote: That was what my father

had not understood, I thought; he had failed to

experience the will of God. He did not know the

immediate living God who stands, omnipotent and

free, above His Bible and His Church, who callsupon man to partake of His freedom.

It was obedience which brought me grace, and

after that experience I knew what Gods grace was.

One must be utterly abandoned to God; nothingmatters but fulfilling His will.

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GODASANARCHETYPE

Jung arrived at the view that the soul possesses by

nature a religious function.

Because of this natural religious function of the soul

Jung maintained that there is a God archetype in

the collective unconscious of all human beings.

However, Jung made a distinction between the

God-image archetype and God himself. In the

collective unconscious there is only a God-image.

Jungs main concern was with the ways in which

the God-archetype had manifested itself in actual

experiences.

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GODONEOFTHESOULSDEEPESTAND

CLOSESTINTIMACIES

Jung adopted the concept numinous from RudolfOtto to designate the particular emotional quality ofarchetypal experiences of God. Otto describes theexperience as the mysterium tremendum at

fascinens (terrifying and fascinating mystery). Itimplies an emotional apprehension of God aswholly other, awesome, overpowering, urgent andfascinating.

For Jung, it is psychologically quite unthinkable for

God to be wholly other. This is because a whollyother could never be one of the souls deepest andclosest intimacieswhich is precisely what God is.

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JUNGSTREATMENTOFCHRISTIANITY

Murray Stein has argued that Jungs stance

towards Christianity was basically that of therapist.

Frieda Fordham sees this as Jungs childhood

mission to restore his fathers faith by integrating

his psychological insights into existing Christiandogma.

People who found salvation in Christ, said Jung,

had assimilated the historical Jesus into the

archetype of the self. This archetypal idea is areflection of the individuals wholeness, i.e. of the

self, which is present in him as an unconscious

image.

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PERFECTIONBUTNOTWHOLENESSIN GOD

But this Christ-figure lacks the darkness of spirit,

and is also without sin. Without the integration of

evil there is not totality.

According to Jung, the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy

Spirit, represents perfection, but not wholeness.This is because Christianity has recognised the

need to face the question of human and cosmic

evil, but has excluded and repressed evil from the

presence of the Trinity.

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JUNGSUGGESTSAQUATERNITARIAN GOD

Jung suggested that evil be included within the

doctrine of God: that Satan be the fourth figure in

the Godhead. The Devil, he argued, represents

God the Fathers eternal adversary and should be

placed back in the realm from which it originated. In this way, said Jung, the act of love embodied in

the Son is counterbalanced by Lucifers denial.

The quaternitarian pattern implies completeness in

distinction from perfection which is implied by theTrinitarian pattern. Evil is the element of reality that

Trinitarian thought excludes.

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EVALUATIONOF JUNG

Appreciative

Jung made advances on Freud by broadening the

concept of libido to general psychic energy and

introducing the concept collective unconscious.

Individuation as a process of the dialectical

discussion between the conscious mind and the

unconscious in order to attain wholeness in the Self

is one of Jungs great contributions to humanity.

Individuation encompasses the integration andreconciliation of the unconscious dark side of our

human nature into the conscious ego thereby

helping us become whole people.

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SHORTCOMINGSANDCRITICISMS

Jung constructed a very complex structure of thehuman psyche that is not easy to understand fullyand clearly. He also changed his mind from time totime which shows how tenuous some of his

concepts and theories were. On the other hand, Jung was very dogmatic about

some of his theories. Renos Papadopoulos writesthat Jung stuck to theories he invented andpropagated them with the fervour of a zealot.

It was a mistake of Jung to restrict religion tonuminous experiences as many devout believerspursue their religion without such experiences.

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MOVINGBEYOND JUNG

Although there is much in Jungian analytical

psychology that is of value, we should not hesitate

to move beyond it to other schools of thought in

psychology and psychotherapy. Not one of them

has a monopoly on truth and insights into thehuman psyche. Rather, they each bring different

insights into knowing ourselves better and dealing

with challenges we face.

We can strive to reach that of God in us by differentmeans, not only numinous experiences. Praying,

listening and meditating are some of the routes we

can take.