Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology
The only person who escapes the grim law of enantiodromia is the man who knows how to separate himself from the unconscious, not by repressing it—for then it simply attacks him from the rear—but by putting it clearly before him as that which he is not.
This prepares the way for the solution of the Scylla and Charybdis problem described above.
The patient must learn to differentiate what is ego and what is non-ego, i.e., collective psyche. In this way he finds the material to which he will henceforth have to accommodate himself.
His energy, until now laid up in unserviceable and pathological forms, has come into its proper sphere. It is essential, in differentiating the ego from the non-ego, that a man should be firmly rooted in his ego-function; that is, he must fulfil his duty to life, so as to be in every respect a viable member of the community.
All that he neglects in this respect falls into the unconscious and reinforces its position, so that he is in danger of being swallowed up by it.
But the penalties for this are heavy.
As Synesius opined of old, it is just the “inspired soul” ( Trvevixanxri \j/vxh ) that becomes god and demon, and as such suffers the divine punishment of being torn asunder like Zagreus.
This was what Nietzsche experienced at the onset of his malady.
Enantiodromia means being torn asunder into pairs of opposites, which are the attributes of “the god” and hence also of the godlike man, who owes his godlikeness to overcoming his gods.
As soon as we speak of the collective unconscious we find ourselves in a sphere, and concerned with a problem, which is altogether precluded in the practical analysis of young people or of those who have remained infantile too long.
Wherever the father and mother imagos have still to be overcome, wherever there is a little bit of life still to be conquered, which is the natural possession of the average man, then we had better make no mention of the collective unconscious and the problem of opposites.
But once the parental transferences and the youthful illusions have been mastered, or are at least ripe for mastery, then we must speak of these things.
We are here outside the range of Freudian and Adlerian reductions; we are no longer concerned with how to remove the obstacles to a man’s profession, or to his marriage, or to anything that means a widening of his life, but are confronted with the task of finding a meaning that will enable him to continue living at all—a meaning more than blank resignation and mournful retrospect. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 112-113
