Carl Jung: We could also speak of a retarded maturation of the personality.
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology
Yet it would, in my view, be wrong to suppose that in such cases the unconscious is working to a deliberate and concerted plan and is striving to realize certain definite ends.
I have found nothing to support this assumption.
The driving force, so far as it is possible for us to grasp it, seems to be in essence only an urge towards self-realization.
If it were a matter of some general teleological plan, then all individuals who enjoy a surplus of unconsciousness would necessarily be driven towards higher consciousness by an irresistible urge.
That is plainly not the case.
There are vast masses of the population who, despite their notorious unconsciousness, never get anywhere near a neurosis.
The few who are smitten by such a fate are really persons of the “higher” type who, for one reason or another, have remained too long on a primitive level.
Their nature does not in the long run tolerate persistence in what is for them an unnatural torpor.
As a result of their narrow conscious outlook and their cramped existence they save energy; bit by bit it accumulates in the unconscious
and finally explodes in the form of a more or less acute neurosis.
This simple mechanism does not necessarily conceal a “plan.”
A perfectly understandable urge towards self-realization would provide a quite satisfactory explanation.
We could also speak of a retarded maturation of the personality. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 291
