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[Carl Jung on the “Technique of Analysis” “Treatment” “Transference” and “projection.”]
- starting from the neurosis, discussing the symptoms, their origin, manifestation and symbolism.
- starting from the phantasy material, or from the dream content.
- free association, which gives the material in a fundamental instinctual route or trend: (a) sexual; (b) power – according to what may be constellated between the analyst and the patient.
All dreams can be thus reductively analyzed to either sexual or power roots.
Freud’s censor is necessary to explain why this material should be disguised into the dream form.
But these basic instinctual phantasies can also be reached by free association from any starting point whatever.
The problem of the patient, however, is often not one of simple repression of the instincts; the problem is rather what to do about it.
This brings us to the question of why the dream chooses particular symbols.
The dream should be treated as an incomplete hieroglyphic inscription; then the patient must be kept close to the imagery of the dream; thus the associations are limited to a circle centering round the dream, and the image of the dream is enriched.
The associations around the symbol will be of a certain type, e.g.; intellectual, aesthetic, etc., thus the basin instinct no longer prevails, but rather the particular instinct governing that particular psychology.
Thus you get at what the dream image is like in the dreamer’s mind.
When this is done the compensatory function of the dream appears.
The dream is compensatory to consciousness; all those things excluded by the choice of one conscious line will turn up in the dream.
Here the art of the analyst Domes in in helping the activity and the understanding of the patient, for the material may be inaccessible to him.
For the unconscious works as the primitive mind does and not as the civilized mind.
Thus knowledge of anthropology, mythology and so forth are needed, e.g. Totem psychology and so forth may turn up.
Technique of treatment.
Things must not be left in a primitive condition.
The primitive even animal part of the psyche is awakened by analysis – this causes great conflict which might even be disastrous; a state of revolution occurs between the primitive and the civilized man in the patient.
The purpose of analysis is to fit these two sides together.
The synthesis must take into consideration the claims of the primitive as well as of the civilized half.
For example’ the murderous instincts of the primitive man in us cannot be satisfied with our moral conscience, thus a symbolic satisfaction must be found.
Again we seek for the way via the dream. The meaning of the dream must be fitted into the conscious attitude, thus acting as a ferment in the conscious attitude and out of that a new attitude is made, day by day.
This irrational thinking is customary in the East, e.g. China.
There followed further discussion of the meaning of the Chinese Middle Way, and our own reconciling symbolism…the tension between the East and the West.
Discovery of the thought of the East came as an enormous revitalizing of the West. Buddhism leads to complete non-existence – quietism is equivalent to our Christianity or Pagan religion; but the ancient idea was to go into an introversion and nothingness in order to come to rebirth and the way.
Two methods of compensation appear in dreams which can be likened to the methods of the puberty initiations (a) by intellectual prohibition; (b) by mimetic instruction with prohibition.
Overvaluation and undervaluation may both appear in the dream as warning or taboo.
Thus it may be necessary to go the wrong way until the wrongness appears.
Transference:
The phenomenon of transference was first described by the Nancy School as Rapport.
It was further defined by Freud who found that the patient who handed out his material clung to the analyst and transferred something to him.
This is equivalent to the idea of the medicine man who takes over the sickness of the patient and by his health disperses or cures it.
Or he transfers the illness to an animal, e.g. the scapegoat.
The patient carries over to the analyst not only his material but also the value of affects connected with it at the same time.
Compare the binding value of a secret held in common.
Persons with many secrets are necessarily, isolated; the imparting of such secrets causes a linking or binding proportionate to the value or importance of the secret imparted.
The dependence upon the receiver of the secret is proportionate to the dependence on the value of the secret, for the patient is still dependent on the secret, but the secret is now in the other person.
If you hand out your material in the wrong place you will suffer from “Loss of soul.”
Thus far transference is a conscious phenomenon.
There is also unconscious transference which is in a far less manageable form, for you are helpless because of your ignorance.
This is projection, which is a transference of unconscious products into the object.
The analyst is partly a conscious and partly an unconscious phenomenon, for he consists of supra- and subliminal impressions and conclusions.
Thus there are reactions on both planes.
When we use the term transference in analysis we generally mean the unconscious transference which is a projection and this is unknown.
When you become aware of a projection it ceases to be a projection.
The transference can be either negative or positive, or both or neither, with yet a certain dependence.
The quality of the transference depends on the unconscious material actually constellated by the intercourse with the object.
Neurotic transference is more than dependence on the person who helps.
It is really a substitute for the neurosis.
The patient projects onto the analyst all the material, the phantasy and other morbid materiel, that is, all the basis of his neurosis; thus the doctor becomes, as it were, his neurosis, the patient therefore suffers from transference neurosis.
Neurosis is an illness which is defined as inferior adaptation.
A neurosis or other psychological illness is a wrong psychological attitude.
In the neurotic state the patient is related but only via his neurosis.
When this way of relating is dissolved through analysis the patient becomes more and more isolated and adrift, and so naturally clings more and more to the analyst, where the transference takes the place of a life-belt.
Such a transference is absolutely vital; to out such a transference is fatal.
It can only be out when the patient has a sufficient reality function, that is, sufficient reality in the sense of sufficient relationship elsewhere.
Reasons for the Transference:
The causalistic theory does not explain entirely.
Teleological reasons must be sought.
The sex transference was next investigated.
Sexual transference is particularly strong in those cases where there is a great distance between analyst and analysand, a great lack of understanding.
Such a sexual urge disappears when the distance is reduced to the right amount – i.e. the abnormal sexuality can be dissolved so.
This will explain only urgent sex-transference.
In other types of transference this theory does not hold.
Here the transference aims at acquiring a function or value that the patient does not possess.
This can also be observed in everyday life – in mutual attraction between people who would never be expected to like each other, as a means of acquiring a particular function.
This is usually unconscious. They attract each other in order to form a symbiosis.
Treatment of the Transference.
- It is most important that the patient should accept the transference. That is, there is need for submission to things as they are. For the image of the object always has the gaps filled with subjective data which are projections. Such acceptance is the beginning of the dissolution of the transference, but the patient will be eternally bound until he submits to things as they are, till then he is still a slave of the unconscious. This act of submission may have to be repeated again and again.
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The next problem is how to live under these accepted conditions. No formula can be taught, an individual way must be found in order to make life possible under such conditions. No conscious way can be found; we are in a cul-de-sac. The cunning of the unconscious must be enlisted, for it possesses all the wisdom of the ages. By dream analysis we find that in the transference there is an impersonal factor as well as the personal one. This touches the problem of how far our psyche is individual and how far collective. For much of the transference is collective, not individual. Thus any object is able to replace the collective factor in the transference.
The first appearance of the transference is intensely personal, because the individual and collective factors in the patient are not differentiated.
That amount which is found to be individual is the germ of individual relationship, the remnant is collective and can be carried by practically anybody.
In the transference the undeveloped functions and values are projected.
For the unconscious appears First in the object.
For example, if thinking is repressed the power of thinking in others may either repel or attract, for repressed things are despised, often dirty! they are primitive and to be mistrusted; or on the other hand this power may be depreciated in order to protect the ego.
When the patient is still only in love with his projected values he Is living only in his own magic circle and the love is auto-eroticism.
When real love appears the analyst feels the spark, before that he feels nothing.
The typical difference between the extrovert and introvert appears at the next stage; the stage of reaction where the extrovert advances and the introvert withdraws.
The basic phenomena are the same for both types; and in the unconscious the types react in reversed style.
Question re: projection. Does the recipient of a projection necessarily have a hook on which it is hung?
For example, a patient with a morbid love of truth compels the analyst sooner or later to lie; he mistrusts everybody because nobody can come up to his standard.
Thus he becomes isolated and finally comes to the analyst who is “the perfect man.”
Answer. When the analyst lies it is either as a compensation for the patient’s exaggerated attitude; or because he is undermined by the patient’s unconscious.
Then the analyst must look into himself, to see whether he has lied on his own account or for the patient.
So shall the passionate lover of truth come to know that he is no small liar.
The analyst has to come down to the level of the morbid material so as to give a hand to the patient’s inferiority.
The analyst must not be a complete individual but must to a great extent mirror the patient, act as his compensatory function.
So at times he must even lie or be insincere.
As example, Jung told the story of how in talking to a very idealistic patient he once declared that Plato was a materialist and did not discover it till he was alone, and then could not imagine what could have made him make such a statement, which however mirrored the repressed aspect of the patient.
Projections are like a sand storm in which you are sitting, and en intuitive person feels the impact whether it is expressed or not.
Transference is composed of projections and is the alpha and omega of analysis; it is a fire between patient and analyst.
The same mechanism takes place in daily life, when you lie towards to all sorts of people.
It is not always something in the analyst which causes the projection; but it is also important that something of the sort happens in the relationship.
For example, the projection of lying.
The analyst may have lying in him as an individual or in his collective role; it may be personal or impersonal.
It is immaterial which it is, what matters is that the analyst should be proof against the lowering influence of such projections.
He must be able to stand such a shock without falling down. He must be able to withstand the inferiority aroused.
If the analyst is upset by a projection he must assume that he was unconscious of the hook.
Question. How can a transference occurring to someone outside of the analysis Erased in the analysis? the problem of the counter-pole.
Answer. A counter-pole is often assumed to prevent getting too much under-En-influence of the analyst; it is due to fear. This relationship is kept dark. But it is really fear of the Self, not of the analyst, fear of being carried away.
However, a genuine love object may really exist. Those relationships the analyst must be careful not to upset. For the actual relationships of the patient may be really valuable, furthermore morbid relationships may be successfully analyzed without breaking them and then they too are really valuable.
Where the patient is entirely in the family, the relations have to be completely upset. If a relation is maintained as equal to the relation to I the analyst this has to be cut down. But all the circumstances must be considered, so as not to upset economic and other similar conditions unnecessarily. Relationships must be fostered as far as possible and maintained, and thus a morbid transference can be avoided. ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Pages 1-5.
