Carl Jung On Dementia Praecox
The depotentiation of the association process or abaissement du niveau mental, which consequently has a downright dreamlike quality, seems to indicate that a pathogenic agent [Noxe] contributes to dementia praecox which is absent in, say, hysteria.
The characteristics of the abaissement were assigned to the pathogenic agent, which was construed as organically conditioned and likened to a symptom of poisoning (e.g., paranoid states in chronic poisoning) ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 335
Carl Jung: The so-called “dulling of affect” in dementia praecox
Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche
Daily psychological experience affords proof of this statement.
The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm which is not easily disturbed, or else a brokenness that can hardly be healed.
Conversely, it is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed in order to produce valuable and lasting results.
Since our experience is confined to relatively closed systems, we are never in a position to observe an absolute psychological entropy; but the more the psychological system is closed off, the more clearly is the phenomenon of entropy manifested.
We see this particularly well in those mental disturbances which are characterized by intense seclusion from the environment.
The so-called “dulling of affect” in dementia praecox or schizophrenia may well be understood as a phenomenon of entropy.
The same applies to all those so-called degenerative phenomena which develop in psychological attitudes that permanently exclude all connection with the environment.
Similarly, such voluntarily directed processes as directed thinking and directed feeling can be viewed as relatively closed psychological systems.
These functions are based on the principle of the exclusion of the inappropriate, or unsuitable, which might bring about a deviation from the chosen path.
The elements that “belong” are left to a process of mutual equalization, and meanwhile are protected from disturbing influences from outside.
Thus after some time they reach their “probable” state, which shows its stability in, say, a “lasting” conviction or a “deeply ingrained” point of view, etc.
How firmly such things are rooted can be tested by anyone who has attempted to dissolve such a structure, for instance to uproot a prejudice or change a habit of thought. In the history of nations these changes have cost rivers of blood.
But in so far as absolute insulation is impossible (except, maybe, in pathological cases), the energic process continues as development, though, because of “loss by friction,” with lessening intensity and decreased potential. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 50
I avoid the treatment of such cases as much as possible.
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
To Louis S. London
My dear Dr. London, 24 September 1926
I suppose the news you heard of my successes in the treatment of Dementia praecox is greatly exaggerated.
As a matter of fact I only treated a limited number of cases, and these were all what one might call in a liquid condition, that is to say, not yet congealed.
I avoid the treatment of such cases as much as possible.
It is true they can be treated, and even with the most obvious success, but such a success costs almost your own life.
You have to make the most stupendous effort to reintegrate the dissociated psychic entities, and it is by no means a neat and simple technique which you can apply, but a creative effort together with a vast knowledge of the unconscious mind.
These are not merely big words but simple statements of the actual truth.
It is not too easy to cure a neurosis, but to cure a case on the borderline of D.P. is worse.
Moreover the treatment of D.P. [Dementia Praecox] is entirely based upon the empirical knowledge gained from the neuroses.
Therefore if you want to know anything about the treatment of D.P. you ought to begin with the study of the analytical treatment in general. …
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 45
