Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring 1985

The Value of Confession and Forgiveness According to Jung

ELIZABETH TODD

ABSTRACT: This article represents a broad survey of the views of C. G. Jung regarding con- fession and forgiveness. Man, a naturally religious being, has a need to confess his wrong and to gain forgiveness of one sanctioned to absolve. The curative effect of confession has been known for centuries. Without confession, man remains in moral isolation. Priests, ministers, and rabbis, as well as psychotherapists, attest to the universality of this human phenomenon. Confession is located in that place where psychology and religion meet--guilt. Jung's views on confession bridge the chasm between psychology and religion.

Confession is one of those difficult subjects. It is often a painful one as well, because it infers that one has done something wrong. Connected to the idea of confession is the idea of forgiveness. Forgiveness is as comforting and pleasant as confession is difficult and painful. The process is something like this: an individual commits a wrong of some kind; guilt emerges; he feels un- comfortable and alienated from self and significant others; he confesses the wrong and seeks forgiveness in order to achieve reconciliation. As one theologian stated, "Confessing one's guilt is an archetypal experience, one so deeply anchored in the very structure of the human psyche that the need for it will never disappear." i

Confession and forgiveness, then, are twin elements of a process frequently encountered in basic human relationships. The idea of confession and forgiveness is located in that place where psychology and religion meet--guilt. Priests, ministers, and rabbis, as well as psychotherapists and counselors, can attest to the prevalence and universality of this richly human phenomenon. Confession is often a part of the psychotherapeutic process. Confession is a highly visible and formal religious practice. In the Catholic Church confession is a sacrament and a ritual.

Man has instinctual need to confess that which he perceives to be a wrong or an offense against himself, against fellowman, or against God. It is believed that man's sense of wholeness and integrity and his sense of community are impaired if wrongs are not confessed. The experience of guilt causes man to use, in some form, the tool of confession. Seen in this light, confession is a universal practice, arising from human need to de reconciled to significant others. The above statements represent a belief system of this writer. This belief arises from this writer's clinical experience and theoretical framework.

The thought of C. G. Jung has been selected to describe the human phenomenon of confession and forgiveness. There are two reasons for this selection. One reason is that the views of Jung provide strong support for this

Elizabeth Todd, R.N., C., M.S.N., M.A.Th., is a psychiatric-mental health clinical nurse specialist in independent practice in the Pittsburgh area.

39 9 1985 Institutes of Religion and Health

40 Journal of Religion and Health

writer's belief. High value is placed on the breadth and depth of Jung's thought. The second reason is that Jung is thought to have bridged the chasm between psychology and religion.

Jung's personal history. 2

Carl Gustav Jung {1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist and founder of the school of analytic psychology, was the son of a well-educated scholar and Lutheran country pastor. His maternal grandfather was a distinguished theologian and Hebraist. Jung identified with his brilliant, successful, and romantic paternal grandfather, Carl Gustav Jung, who, it was rumored, was the illegitimate son of Goethe. Jung's personal life was enriched by the humanistic tradition of his home town of Basel, one of the hearths of Europe's culture. His was the ex- perience of seeing eminent thinkers of history and philosophy. He was in- fluenced by literature, art, philosophy, theology, mythology, alchemy, and the classics. Jung studied medicine at the University of Basel. Later he studied with Janet and Bleuler. Jung was deeply impressed by the work of Freud; and as editor of the psychoanalytical and psychopathological journal and as the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, Jung was sec- ond only to Freud in the movement. However, with Jung's 1912 publication of Wandlungen und Symbole derLibido, important differences became clearly ar- ticulated, and a formal break occurred about 1913. Jung's school, founded following the break with Freud, was a late offshoot of romanticism and philosophy of nature. His analytic psychology rejected positivism, scientism, and Darwinism, indicating that his thought confronted and challenged major ideas and movements of his day. The period between 1913 and 1916 became the setting for Jung's creative illness, his Nekyia, or journey through his un- conscious. This period is the key to understanding his doctrine and was to be the matrix from which his later works evolved. In 1919 he terminated his creative illness, emerging a new man with a new teaching. The event was marked by euphoria, feelings of exhilaration, need for activity, and a sense of freedom and relief. He was a man no longer burdened.

Jung was the inheritor of many trends of nineteenth-century thought. He developed a massive system of thought which drew attention to the spiritual and psychological needs of modern man. In doing so, Jung seems to have ap- proached objectivity and annexed to science a realm of the human soul in- termediate between psychology and religion. Jung was credited, by 1930, with overcoming "the psychology without a soul," popular in the nineteenth cen- tury. He continued to develop ideas and elaborate his system until his death. He was celebrated and eulogized as a prophet who had stayed the over- whelming flow of rationalism. He had given man the courage to have a soul!

Jung' s religious system

"Experience shows that religion is, at the very least, a psychic fact that has

Elizabeth Todd 41

existed from time immemorial and expresses itself in a thousand different forms. ''3 One of Jung's favorite assertions is that man is naturally religious. 4 According to Jung, the religious instinct in man is as powerful as the instinct of sex or aggression. He believed that numerous neuroses spring from a disregard for the natural religious aspect of the psyche. "Among all my pa- tients in the second half of l i fe . . , there has not been one whose problem was not that of finding a religious outlook on life." 5

Religion appears to me to be a peculiar attitude of mind which could be for- mulated in accordance with the original use of the word religio, which means a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors that are con- ceived as "powers": spirits, daemons, gods, laws, ideas, ideals, or whatever name man has given to such factors in his world as he has found powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful and meaningful enough to be devoutly worshipped and loved. 6

Confession: Jung' s views

It was during the psychoanalytic period {1907-1913} that Jung became in- creasingly interested in dogma, symbols, and rituals as practices of religion. He began to speak of the significant importance of the ritual of confession. He believed confession had a great beneficial effect; this has been known for cen- turies and is still valid. 7

Definition

The word confession has a variety of meanings. Simply stated, it is an avowal of sin, made either to God or to man. In the Catholic Church there is a rite known as the sacrament of penance. "Confession is a manifestation of personal sins to the Church in the person of a duly authorized priest for the purpose of obtaining sacramental absolution by virtue of the power of the keys. ''8 After Vatican Council II the rite has undergone revisions and is now known as the rite of reconciliation. 9

The scriptures offer expanded meaning of confession. In I John 1:8, 9 RSV, confession is seen as a necessary condition for receiving the forgiveness of God. It represents the necessary link between the sin of the individual and the forgiveness of God. According to Barton, confession is said to be "the ac- cusation that a man makes of his own sins to a priest, with a view to necessary absolution." 10

This writer unsuccessfully attempted to find Jung's definition of confession. However, it is possible to construct an acceptable "working" definition from his thought. Confession is the act of stating one's sin to another person who is sanctioned to "hear" and to supply the reassurance of pardon and forgiveness. When Jung is speaking of confession, he is referring to a ritual which has two parts: the need to confess and the need to be forgiven and reconciled. The penitent is relieved of strain and tension. He is reconciled and welcomed back into the arms of humanity. Jung valued confession as an aid to psychological

42 Journal of Religion and Health

health. The chief value of confession lies in the aspect of relief of strain and the resultant reconciliation.

Jung stated:

The tremendous feeling of relief which usually follows a confession can be ascribed to the readmission of the lost sheep into the human community. His moral isolation and seclusion, which were so difficult to bear, cease. Herein lies the chief psychological value of confession. 11

We now focus on the second part of confession, the significant other who forgives. "Confessions made to one's secret self generally have little or no ef- fect, whereas confessions made to another are much more promising. '''2 Ac- cording to Jung, the presence and the relationship of the person who hears an individual's confession is crucial. Formally, in the Catholic Church, it is the priest who hears confession. He is sanctioned by the Church to do so. He is suitable from the viewpoint of personal virtue, and he, as God's agent, assures the penitent of God's pardon and forgiveness. Absolution is provided by the priest, the sanctioned person, whose authority is recognized by the penitent.

In psychotherapy the therapist is the person who is clinically sanctioned to "hear" confessed material of real or fantasied wrongs, to receive the patient and his confession, and to offer reassurance. Jung identifies a "transference relationship" in confession and in psychotherapy:

Through the transference of his secret and all the unconscious fantasies un- derlying it, a moral bond is formed between the patient and his father confessor. We call this a "transference relationship." Anyone with psychoanalytic ex- perience knows how much the personal significance of the analyst is enhanced when the patient is able to confess his secrets to him. 13

It is essential that the confession involves another human being who hears, accepts, and pardons. The penitent is no longer alone. His burden of shame and guilt is now shared and lessened. The isolation and alienation are lessened. His moral exile has ended. The full degree of comfort gained through the catharsis of confession and the reconciliation of forgiveness makes one feel: "Now we are there, everything has come out, everything is known, the last terror lived through and the last tear shed; now everything will be all right."14 Jung con- tinues, "The goal of the cathartic method is full confession--not merely the in- tellectual recognition of the facts with the head, but their confirmation by the heart and the actual release of suppressed emotion." ,5

The psychogenic secret, withheld emotion, and the shadow

In discussions about confession Jung often included his notion about the psychogenic secret:

Once the human mind had succeeded in inventing the idea of sin, man had re- course to psychic concealment, or, in analytical parlance, repression arose. Any-

Elizabeth Todd 43

thing concealed is a secret9 The possession of secrets acts like a psychic poison that alienates their possessor from the community9 16

A secret shared is as beneficial as a secret held pr ivate is destruct ive. An un- conscious secret is more injurious than a conscious one. I t is essential that a psychogenic secret be brought to the conscious level. Jung asserted that all personal secrets have the effect of sin or guilt, whether or not they are moral ly wrongful secrets. Confession is a means of br inging personal secrets to the sur- face.

Connected with the notion of the psychogenic secret is the notion of withheld emotion. While it is acknowledged, of course, that self-restraint is healthy, beneficial, and virtuous, it is most effective when pract iced as an un- dertak ing shared by others. Withheld emotion is just as t roublesome as the psychogenic secret.

The injurious effect of withheld emotion and the heal ing of express ing emotions are poignant ly revealed in Saint August ine 's Confessions as he describes his experience of sorrow at the t ime of the death of Monica, his mother:

But I know, he says, I was suppressing my heart, and I suffered still another sorrow at my sorrow, and was afflicted with a two-fold grief . . . . It was a relief to weep on Thy sight about her and for her, about myself and for myself. I gave free course to the tears which I was still restraining, permitting them to flow as fully as they wished, spreading them out as a pillow for my heart9 It rested on them. 9 I wept for my mother during a little part of an hour, the mother who had wept over me for many years that I might live before Thy eyes. 17

Jung leaves no doubt regarding the danger and pitfall of withheld emotion:

To cherish secrets and hold back emotion is a psychic misdemeanor for which nature finally visits us with sickness--that is when we do these things in private. But when they are done in communion with others they satisfy nature and may even count as useful virtues. It is only restraint practiced for oneself alone that is unwholesome . . . . There would appear to be a conscience in mankind which severely punishes everyone who does not somehow and at sometime, at whatever cost to his virtuous pride, cease to defend and assert himself, and instead confess himself fallible and human9 Until he can do this, an impenetrable wall shuts him off from the vital feeling that he is a man among other men. This explains the ex- traordinary significance of genuine, straightforward confession--a truth that was probably known to all the initiation rites and mystery cults of the ancient world. There is a saying from the Greek mysteries, "Give up what thou hast, and then thou wilt receive9

The shadow is an important notion in Jung ian thought. I t is something like the notion of the psychogenic secret. The shadow is usual ly unconscious; the secret may be either conscious or unconscious. The shadow designates the dark side of the personal ity, the other side. I t represents that which the in- dividual rages against and condemns. We say to the brother within us, "Raca . " (Matthew 5:22, KJV.) I t is the part of the personal i ty f rom which the individual wishes to hide and which he wishes to hide f rom the world.

44 Journal of Religion and Health

Another way to understand the shadow, as Jung describes it, is to recall that Jung believed man evolved from animals.'9 The shadow represents the rem- nants of the beast. It is that which is inferior to the individual and that which he denies and condemns. Nature works to conceal the shadow, banishing it to the realm of the unconscious where it is inaccessible for correction. There it lurks in the dark caves of the psyche, uncorrected and unbridled, yet distort- ing the performance of the conscious mind.

Jung stated:

Everyone carries a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual's con- scious life, the blacker and denser it is . . . . The shadow is merely somewhat in- ferior, primitive, unadapted and awkward, not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities which would, in a way, vitalize and embellish human existence.2~

Jung continued:

The inferior and even the worthless belongs to me as my shadow and gives me substance and mass. How can I be substantial without casting a shadow? I must have a dark side too if I am to be whole; and by becoming conscious of my shadow I remember once more that I am a human being like any other. 21

The shadow might also be thought of as an opposite. "Without the experi- ence of the opposites there is no experience of wholeness and hence no inner ap- proach to the sacred figures. ''~2 One must have the opposite. It is needed for psychic wholeness.

Jung warns that "mere suppression of the shadow is as little of a remedy as beheading would be for headache. ''23 It is necessary to confront the shadow, to accept it, for change cannot occur without acceptance. The individual must become conscious of the shadow. He must find a way to have his shadow, his opposites, and his conscious personality live together. 24 Confession is the bridge that spans the gulf between us and our shadow, our secret self. Con- fession is a means of confronting the shadow, of bringing the shadow to the surface, of undergoing the correction necessary for acceptance of one's whole self, even the least of oneself. Wholeness and integrity of personality are restored and reconstituted.

Confession and the psychic apparatus

Jung viewed confession as a highly significant and valuable means of restoring and maintaining psychological health. In Jung's system confession is a sacral action that acts like a vessel recovering the contents of the unconscious. As a ritual, confession is the means of gathering the lower instinctual forces of the psyche into symbols and integrating them into the hierarchy of the spirit. It accomplishes this operation by dramatizing the living occurrence of ar- chetypal meaning, making a direct impact on the unconscious. As symbols, the unconscious forces are integrated and brought into the field of con- sciousness where they are readily accessible and correctable.

Elizabeth Todd 45

Pastoral implications

The person who hears the confession is crucial. The penitent feels the need for a person of authority who can impart absolution. The penitent has two needs for authority. One is that authority will guarantee that confession will have the intended effect: deliverance from sin. Also the penitent seeks help and guidance for the conduct of his future life. Both these needs are found in the authoritative position of the priest-confessor, a position maintained in part by the endorsement he gains from the church as an institution and by his personal virtues. The penitent must be able to believe and trust that the confessor has the authority and power to pardon and to assure the forgiveness granted by God. "The priest, equipped with all the insignia of paternal authority, becomes the responsible leader and shepherd of his flock. He is the father confessor and the members of his parish are his penitent children." 25 The chief psychological value of confession is the relief from strain and the end of the penitent's moral exile. The priest-confessor plays a vital role in the establishment of these two conditions.

The priest is trained in the "ready-made pastoral technique in the historically sanctioned form of confession, penance and absolution. ''26 He of- ficiates authoritatively against the background of a rich and palpably ritualistic symbolism. The tradition of Catholic practice provides the most favorable milieu for the success of confession.

Jung places high value on confession for two reasons. One reason is that the treatment of the soul often begins with voluntary and genuine confession. The second reason is the curative effect of relief that the patient feels. Jung qualifies these two points. He states confession as treatment should be followed by elucidation, education, and transformation. 27 Another qual- ification is that confession is not a panacea, and he is not calling for "whole- sale" confession of sin. 2s

Protestant loss

Jung believed that the Protestant tradition lost something valuable when con- fession was left behind. "Protestant theology, strangely de luded. . , robs itself of the most effective means of combatting man's insecurity--the confessional, which the Catholic Church has wisely appropriated for the benefit of mankind. ''29 He continued: "The decline of confession and absolution sharp- ened the moral conflict of the individual and burdened him with problems which previously the Church had settled for him . . . . -30 Jung believed Protestantism incurred major losses. The aura of the symbol was lost; the ritual and its authority were lost; the dogmatic fences came down. "Protes- tantism has, in the main, lost all finer shades of traditional Christianity: the mass, confession, the greater part of the liturgy, and the vicarious function of the priesthood. ''31 Jung stated the Protestant pastor without the technique of confession would turn to analytic psychology as a means to cure the soul. 32

It was stated earlier that man is inherently religious and has a need to con- fess and receive forgiveness and that when man's need is not provided in one

46 Journal of Religion and Health

place, man will seek to have needs satisfied in another place. The modern Protestant, being without confession in the church, has developed ways to con- fess. The best evidence can be found in the Oxford Group movement. "The safety value of the Oxford Group movement . . , prescribes lay confession as a substitute, and group experience instead of absolution. ''33 The individual con- fesses, and the group acts like the confessor by hearing, receiving, pardoning, and assuring the penitent of restoration to full membership in the community.

Confession and psychotherapy

Jung stated:

It is usual for psychotherapy.., to begin by eliciting from the patient a more or less voluntary confession of things he dislikes, is ashamed of, or fears. This is like the much older confessional in the Church, which in many ways anticipated modern psychotherapeutic techniques.34

Therapy begins with the act of confession including the patient's conscious recollections and the recovery of unconscious material that has been repressed, even concealed. It is through confession that the patient is able to end his moral isolation and feel restored to the community represented by the therapist. The psychotherapeutic process includes other steps which follow confession. As mentioned earlier, these are elucidation, education, and trans- formation. 3~

The methods of both Freud and Jung are built on confession. Jung believed the techniques of psychoanalysis, in which confessed material leads to wishes and drives repressed in the unconscious, was the logical development of con- fession. "My method, like Freud's, is built upon the practice of confession. ''36 He continued, " I t aims at an artificial introversion for the purpose of making conscious the unconscious components of the patient." 37

Jung stated:

The first beginnings of all analytical treatment of the soul are to be found in its prototype, the confessional. Since, however, the two have no direct causal con- nection, but rather grow from a common irrational psychic root, it is difficult for an outsider to see at once the relation between the groundwork of psychoanalysis and the religious institution of the confessional. 3s

The goal of the cathartic method is full confession in which the patient un- burdens himself of his secret and feels cleansed of all guilt and sin and is then able to feel restored and reconciled in community. In psychotherapy the psychogenic secret is confronted and accepted. Once confessed, it is no longer injurious. Man must confess himself fallible and human. If this is not done in full and honest confession, an impenetrable wall goes up, shutting the in- dividual off from that vital feeling that he is a man among men.

Jung found that there were neuroses that could not be treated with ordinary

Elizabeth Todd 47

rational methods. For example, a neurosis that is located entirely in a spiritual form of suffering could be treated best in a religious setting. The recourse, then, is to the established religion of the patient. Jung believed this opinion was based on sound instinct because our religion contains the still living remains of the mythological age. 39 It is historically justified that all religions, primitive and advanced, are forms of psychotherapy that treat and heal the suffering of the soul. Hence, the best results are achieved with patients for whom the mythological is still alive or for whom the mythological can be recreated.

The brevity of this manuscript prohibits a full discussion of many areas, both pertinent and relevant, to a broad discussion and understanding of Jung's views on confession and religion. These areas include information regarding the historic background of psychiatry during the formative years of Jung's thought, Jung's family and national background, Jung's School of Analytic Psychology, Jung's religious system, the relevance of Jung's views for modern man, this writer's personal appreciation of Jungian thought, as well as this writer's personal difficulties with Jungian thought.

I have attempted to present a clear idea of Jung's position on confession. The thesis here is that Jung's was a positive position believing confession not only had a beneficial effect but was necessary to psychological health. The material presented represents approximately 18 months of persistent library research, using Jung as a primary source. Faithful interpreters and followers of Jung were cautiously and j udiciously selected to support the basic thesis.

References

1. Monden, L., "Confession: Psychology Is Not Enough." In Taylor, M.J., ed., The Mystery of Sin and Forgiveness. New York, Alba House, 1971, p. 167.

2. For details of Jung's personal history this writer relies entirely on Ellenberger, H., Discovery of the Unconscious, 2nd printing. New York, Basic Books, 1970.

3. Jung, C.G., "Editorial." In The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, R.F.C. Hull, trans., Bollingen Series XX {hereafter abridged as CW), vol. 10. New York, Pantheon Books, 1964, p. 549.

4. Ellenberger, op. cit., p. 724. 5. Jung, Psychotherapists or the Clergy, CW, vol. 11. New York, Pantheon Books, 1958, p. 334. 6. - - - , Psychology and Religion, CW, vol. 11. New York, Pantheon Books, 1958, p. 8. 7. Ellenberger, op. cit., p. 698. 8. Latko, E.F., "Confession, Auricular." In New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, 1967, p. 131. 9. Paragraph 72 in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy reads: "The rite and formulas for

the sacrament of penance are to be revised so that they give more luminous expression to both the nature and effect of the sacrament." Documents of Vatican II, Abbot, W., ed. New York, Guild Press, 1966, p. 161.

10. Barton, J.M.T., Penance and Absolution. New York, Hawthorne Books, 1961, p. 65. 11. Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis, CW, vol. 4. New York, Pantheon Books, 1961, p. 192. 12. - - , Psychology of the Transference, CW, vol. 16. New York, Pantheon Books, 1954, p.

292. 13. - - , The Theory of Psychoanalysis, op. cit., p. 192. 14. - - - , Problems of Modern Psychotherapy, CW, vol. 16. New York, Pantheon Books, 1954,

p. 68. 15. Ibid., p. 59. 16. Ibid., p. 55. 17. Moreno, A., Jung, Gods and Modern Man. Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press,

1970, pp. 44-45. 18. Jung, Problems of Modern Psychotherapy, op. cit., p. 58.

48 Journal of Religion and Health

19. Moreno, op. cit., p. 41. (This writer is aware of the apparent contradiction between Moreno here and Ellenberger's reference to Jung's rejection of Darwinism, referred to earlier in this article.)

20. Jung, Psychology andReligion, op. cit., p. 76. 21. - - , Problems of Modern Psychotherapy, op. cit., p. 59. 22. , Introduction to the Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy, CW, vol. 12.

New York, Pantheon Books, 1953, p. 20. 23. - - , Psychology andReligion, o19. cir., p. 77. 24. Ibid. 25. Jung, The Theory ofPsychoanalysis, op. cit., p. 192. 26. - - , Psychoanalysis and the Cure of Souls, CW, vol. 11. New York, Pantheon Books,

1958, p. 353. 27. - - , Problems of Modern Psychotherapy, op. cit., pp. 55-75. 28. Ibid., p. 60. 29. Jung, "Editorial," op. cit., pp. 549-550. 30. - - , Yoga and the West, CW, vol. 11. New York, Pantheon Books, 1958, p. 531. 31. Ibid., p. 21. 32. Ibid., p. 351. 33. Jung, Prob/ems of Modern Psychotherapy, op. cir., p. 16. 34. - - , Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams, CW, vol. 18. Princeton, Princeton Univer-

sity Press, 1976, p. 223. 35. - - , Problems of Modern Psychotherapy, op. cir., pp. 55-75. 36. - - , Yoga and the West, op. cit., p. 536. 37. Ibid. 38. Jung, Problems of Modern Psychotherapy, op. cit., p. 55. 39. - - , GeneralProblems of Psychotherapy, CW, vol. 16. New York, Pantheon Books, 1954,

p. 16.