CARL JUNG

Psychology and Religion in the

Search for Personal Wholeness

Johann Maree

Summer School, UCT, Jan. 2012

INTRODUCTION: A FORMIDABLE

TASK

It is not easy to provide a clear exposition of Jung’s analytical psychology because he changed his mind as he went along.

In the foreword of Frieda Fordham’s book on Jung, he wrote: “As I cannot claim to have reached any definite theory my work consists of a series of different approaches, or one might call it, a circumambulation of unknown factors. This makes it rather 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.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

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.

Jung’s 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.

DOCTOR JUNG AND DOCTOR FREUD

Jung trained as a doctor and began working in

the famous Burghoelzli psychiatric hospital

linked to University of Zurich.

Jung was Freud’s junior by 19 years and was one

of first psychiatrists to support Freud’s

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

and theories of Freud first.

SIGMUND FREUD

Freud went to a medical school in Vienna and

initially 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 from

hysterical symptoms.

Freud was struck by how many of them were

related to repressed traumatic sexual experiences

in childhood.

THE SEXUAL INSTINCT AND 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

psyche in Freud’s model.

THE ID, EGO AND SUPEREGO

The id is the primitive, animalistic, instinctual

element, 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.

THE UNCONSCIOUS

One of Freud’s 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 conscious

due to a force that represses them and resists

bringing them out into the open.

JUNG’S SEPARATION FROM 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.

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 subject’s personal

learning or experience. He postulated that it

came from a collective unconscious derived

through aeons of repetition of human experience.

Jung wrote: ‘there exists a second psychic system

of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature

which is identical in all individuals. The

collective unconscious does not develop

individually but is inherited.’

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

individual’s life in invisible ways.’

It also consists of pre-existent forms that Jung

called archetypes. He first called them primordial

images in that he considered them to be archaic

or primordial types of universal images that date

back to humankind’s remotest beginnings.

Everyday realities like mother, father, husband

and wife create the mightiest archetypes.

THE ANIMA

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

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

Jung wrote: ‘Every man carries with him the eternal image of woman. This image is fundamentally unconscious, an imprint of all the ancestral experiences of the female, a deposit of all the impressions ever made by woman.’

To explain the existence of the anima Jung invoked the persona by which he means ‘the formation of the mask behind which most people live.’

PERSONA

Jung maintained that ‘a compensatory relationship exists between persona and anima.’He explained:

‘The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.’

‘Society expects every individual to play the part assigned to him, so that a man who is a parson must not only carry out his official functions, but at all times and in all circumstances play the role of parson in a flawless manner.’

THE COMPENSATORY

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONA

AND ANIMA

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 that reacts 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 to

his wife the protective role that his mother

played in his early life. This places the marriage

‘permanently on the brink of explosion’ .

ANIMUS

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

In the same way that man has an unconscious anima, woman has an unconscious animus which consists of “masculine” characteristics. The animus is also an active force on the woman who is unconscious of its presence.

The way to remove the negativity of the animus and to live in harmony with him is for woman to differentiate between her ego and the animus instead of assuming them to be one as she unconsciously does. Similarly, the man has to differentiate between his ego and the anima. This is achieved by individuation dealt with later.

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.

INDIVIDUATION AND THE 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 the unconscious and its shadowy

contents by the ego.

THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS

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 one’s own self. We could therefore

translate individuation as “coming to selfhood” or

“self-realization.”’

Individuation entails a lifelong development of

personality from conception to death. Jung

divided a full lifespan into two stages, a first half

of life and a second half.

THREE STAGES OF INDIVIDUATION

Erich Neumann has refined and expanded lifelong development 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 personality that one innately is potentially from the beginning of life.

The containment/nurturance stage lasts a long time in modern societies, much longer than childhood because it is preparing the person fully for adulthood.

CONTAINMENT/NURTURANCE (C/N)

STAGE

For the individuation process to develop to the full it is necessary for the person to go through primary and secondary school as well as some form of post-school training or education in order to acquire a profession. This period of dependence on parents may last as long as thirty years!

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

Nurturance is provided not only by mothers, but also by fathers, teachers, or institutions such as schools and churches.

TRANSITION FROM 1ST TO 2ND

STAGE

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.

2ND STAGE: 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.

3RD STAGE:

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 the

immediate 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.

CENTRING/INTEGRATING AND THE

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-division

may be healed.

JUNG ON

RELIGION AND

GOD

JUNG’S CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE

OF GOD

Jung’s 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.

JUNG’S REFLECTION ON HIS

EXPERIENCE

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 calls upon man to partake of His

freedom.”

“It was obedience which brought me grace, and

after that experience I knew what God’s grace

was. One must be utterly abandoned to God;

nothing matters but fulfilling His will.”

GOD AS AN ARCHETYPE

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.

Jung’s main concern was with the ways in which

the God-archetype had manifested itself in actual

experiences.

GOD ONE OF THE SOUL’S DEEPEST

AND CLOSEST INTIMACIES

Jung adopted the concept ‘numinous’ from Rudolf Otto to designate the particular emotional quality of archetypal experiences of God. Otto describes the experience as the mysterium tremendum at fascinens (terrifying and fascinating mystery). It implies an emotional apprehension of God as wholly other, awesome, overpowering, urgent and fascinating.

For Jung, it is ‘psychologically quite unthinkable’for God to be ‘wholly other’. This is because ‘a wholly other could never be one of the soul’s deepest and closest intimacies – which is precisely what God is.’

JUNG’S TREATMENT OF

CHRISTIANITY

Murray Stein has argued that Jung’s stance

towards Christianity was basically that of

therapist. Frieda Fordham sees this as Jung’s

childhood mission to restore his father’s faith by

integrating his psychological insights into

existing Christian dogma.

People who found salvation in Christ, said Jung,

had assimilated the historical Jesus into the

archetype of the self. ‘This archetypal idea is a

reflection of the individual’s wholeness, i.e. of the

self, which is present in him as an unconscious

image.’

PERFECTION BUT NOT WHOLENESS

IN 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.

JUNG SUGGESTS A

QUATERNITARIAN 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 Father’s 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 Lucifer’s denial.’

The quaternitarian pattern implies completeness

in distinction from perfection which is implied by

the Trinitarian pattern. Evil is the element of

reality that Trinitarian thought excludes.

EVALUATION OF 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 Jung’s great contributions to

humanity. Individuation encompasses the

integration and reconciliation of the unconscious

dark side of our human nature into the conscious

ego thereby helping us become whole people.

SHORTCOMINGS AND CRITICISMS

Jung constructed a very complex structure of the human psyche that is not easy to understand fully and clearly. He also changed his mind from time to time 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 writes that Jung stuck to theories he invented and propagated them ‘with the fervour of a zealot’.

It was a mistake of Jung to restrict religion to numinous experiences as many devout believers pursue their religion without such experiences.

MOVING BEYOND 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 the human 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

different means, not only numinous experiences.

Praying, listening and meditating are some of the

routes we can take.