Mind Association

Artistic Form and the UnconsciousAuthor(s): Ernest JonesSource: Mind, New Series, Vol. 44, No. 176 (Oct., 1935), pp. 496-498Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2249913 .

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V.-DISCUSSION.

ARTISTIC FORM AND THE UNCONSCIOUS.

A Reply to Mr. Leon.

I confess to a distinct reluctance in acceding to the polemic to which Mr. Leon invites me in the last number of MIND (p. 347). Alleging a need for further information-which could easily be satisfied in a less public and more effective fashion than I can pre- tend to do here-Mr. Leon couples with two questions addressed to me a number of comments in which he imputes to me, by either in- sinuation or assertion, a number of views which I do not hold. It would be churlish of me to refrain from answering his questions, but if I restricted myself to answering them the further misunder- standings he has introduced would remain; I have therefore to comment on these as well.

Mr. Leon's first question runs as follows: ' (1) A philosophic, scientific, historical or psycho-analytical theory may be said to issue from an " Unconscious ", in the sense at any rate that before it has become a finished product the producer himself cannot envisage it, is not properly aware of it, while it is nevertheless operative within him, evolving itself, guiding his selection and rejection which con- stitute the process of production, assembling, so to speak, its parts. The same may undoubtedly be said of a poem or any other artistic product. But can or must a connection between art and the " Un- conscious" be predicated sensu eminentiori? (The theory, men- tioned by Dr. Jones towards the end, that the creative impulse is a substitute for, or modification of, other urges cannot differentiate art since the creative impulse is not peculiar to it. . . Dr. Jones speaks as though his psychology were the only claimant in the field.) '

The answer to this curiously worded question is simple. Anyone can surely predicate such a connection if he wishes to. I should not think of doing so myself, nor do I see why anyone must predicate it. My own view concerning the probability of the connection is a purely empirical one, determined by the experience I have had in investi- gating it. I agree with Mr. Leon that the theory of the creative impulse being a substitutive development does not diflerentiate art: I never said it did. To differentiate art needs a special study of the kind of substitution concerned, as well no doubt as of other features. I am sorry to have given Mr. Leon the impression of speaking as if my (!) psychology were the only claimant in the field, and can only hope that this remarkable impression is peculiar to him; if I were not

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ERNEST JONES: ARTISTIC FORM AND THE UNCONSCIOUS. 497

aware of the varieties of psychology extant it would not be for lack of plentiful opportunity and reason for becoming so.

Mr. Leon's second question is: '(2) The " Unconscious " from which creation comes is presumably healthy and dynamic. The "Unconscious" with which psycho-analysts deal therapeutically is ex hypothesi unhealthy and would seem to be mechanical. Why should the two be lumped together as " the Unconscious " ? '

I do not recognise the differentiation on which Mr. Leon here insists. The distinction between 'dynamic' and 'mechanical' is not at all clear to me: an aeroplane can, like the human mind, be equally well described by both terms. Psycho-analysts do not deal only therapeutically with the unconscious-far from it. Nor would they refer to any unconscious as being in itself unhealthy. The analogy of health and disease, drawn from the body, is a peculiarly misleading red herring in the field of psychology, but I have not the space to follow its trail here; it would need much exposition of clinical considerations, of the social and moral significance of mental suffering, and so on. Perhaps I may refer instead to a chapter I wrote in 'Problems of Personality' (Studies 'in Honour of Morton Prince).

I had used the term 'armchair' to designate some of the conceptions of the unconscious cited in the discussion. Mr. Leon evidently takes umbrage at the word and returns it to me in the following way. ' Is not Dr. Jones' own application of the theory to Shakespeare's Hamlet an " armchair " one ? . . . I should have thought that the only "proof " possible in this case was that the behaviour of the imaginary character Hamlet might be diagnosed as symptomatic of an incest- complex in him (possibly, but not necessarily, also in Shakespeare) but also of any one of many other alternatives. If this is not "armchair"' work, then what is?' I should agree did I assent to the supposi- tions Mr. Leon assumes I do. But it happens that I do not assent to them. My experience of the Hamlet manifestations in question, which I have over and over again seen reproduced, is that they always emanate from the same source, not at all that they might be symptomatic of a particular thing but also of any one of mrany other alternatives. Did I think this, then obviously to choose one of the alternatives arbitrarily would be an 'armchair' proceeding. My experience, however, leads me to the opposite conclusion, of a unitary source, and in my essay I cited facts of Shakespeare's life which in my opinion well accord with one's daily experience of this conclusion.

Then follows a confusion over the expression 'bringing up the Unconscious'. Mr. Leon asserts ' that Shakespeare, because of his special genius, is better at the job of bringing up the unconscious (especially his own) into consciousness than any psycho-analyst. In this I am borne out by Jung and Adler who bring imaginative writers into the court of Psycho-Analysis not in the way in which Dr. Jones seems to do, as patients or vilia corpora, but as masters

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498 ERNEST JONES: ARTISTIC FORM AND THE UNCONSCIOUS.

and experts. Dr. Jones would seem to hold that the artist's special business is with the Unconscious. Presumably it is to bring the latter into consciousness. But this, it appears, the artist cannot do; only the psycho-analyst can do it. It would seem to follow, there- fore, that Dr. Jones must hold that Psycho-Analysis should replace art.' I will not stigmatize the last sentence, which surely answers itself. Nor can I think that anyone who has troubled to read my Hamlet essay could say that I treat Shakespeare as a patient rather than as a master: it would be impertinent of me to praise his poetic genius, but I could not withhold my admiration of his flaw- less psychological intuition that accompanied and perhaps inspired it. The main point, however, is that this intuition is essentially affective. It enabled feeling to flow in Shakespeare's mind from the unconscious to consciousness, as the creative transformation of the content proceeded. But creative transformation is a very different thing from literal reproduction. The artist is capable of the one, the psycho-analyst of the other. By using the phrase ' bringing up the unconscious' for these totally different-operations Mr. Leon is able to suggest a preposterous competition between those who per- form them.

Mr. Leon very truly says that his conception of what psycho- analysts mean by the ' unconscious' is different from mine, and he illustrates this by asking if I would accept the following elaboration. ' Even to the patient himself and even with the help of the psycho- analytical technique, a content of his unconscious is never accessible as an object of acquaintance, but always only as an inferential construct (in the way, for example, in which Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon or his toot.hache is accessible to me), a construct presented in a verifiable but not provable hypothesis. . . . Further, what is relevant to the patient's cure is not so much the content of the explanation of his state offered to him, as his conviction that an explanation has been found; the content is as immaterial as the words of a magic formula.' I am afraid all this differs very widely from an analyst's view of the matter. Mr. Leon's description we should call an intellectualistic guessing, which might or might not be correct but which would remain unprovable. A successful analysis of a mental process is something far more individual and something which the subject concerned is in a position to prove up to the hilt. As for the content being immaterial, nothing could well be farther from the truth: Mr. Leon has here unwittingly hit on an essential distinction between suggestion and psycho-analysis. And, incidentally, there would in that case be no bringing up of the unconscious.

1Finally, lest a mis-statement be perpetuated, I should rectify Mr. Leon's citation of F. Kiunkel as 'a very successful psycho-analyst'. I can assure Mr. Leon that the writer he names is quite unknown in any psycho-analytical circle, and that it is incorrect to refer to him as a psycho-analyst, successful or otherwise.

ERNEST JONES.

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