A Jungian perspective: Doubt truth to be a liar
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2: Scene 2
Central to Jungian theory is a holistic view of the psyche.
This means the internal world is a vibrant system of interconnectedness, extending multi-dimensionally rather than through linear causal chains, into a living pattern of emergent self-organising structures.
Jung uses the term unus mundus (unitary world) to describe the transcendent existence uniting the duality of mind (psyche) and matter (physis) (Jung, 1955, par. 660).
Such a system is more than the assemblage of parts; it is continually growing and changing along with its elements (Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, & Flowers, 2005, p. 5), and meaning is associated with this “experience of totality” (Jaffe, 1984, p. 13).
Even if wholeness is unobtainable, it represents the goal and direction of individuation, with healthy development dependant on sacrifice or submission of the parts or elements for the purposes of the whole (L. Stein, 1966, p. 28).
The following chapter describes how perversion, through its defensive and segmented nature, directly opposes this psychic integrity.
The physicist Capra (1982, pp. 396–397) compares the different conceptual approaches of Freud and Jung to that between classical and modern physics, between the mechanistic and the holistic paradigm.
The Jungian, holistic paradigm is also characteristic of other theoretical systems.
For example, the biochemist Sheldrake, who regards some of his own theories as complementary to those of Jung, postulates a “morphogenetic field” (Sheldrake, 1987, p. 76) of selforganising systems at all levels of complexity from cellular to whole organism.
Each living system is a whole comprised of parts which are themselves whole at a lower level. He uses the term “morphic resonance” (1987, p. 98) to describe a dynamic evolutionary process, whereby every embodiment of a living system through its creation simultaneously contributes to a larger morphogenic field and to its evolution.
The specificity of perverse ideation and behaviour exemplifies this icro/macrocosmic equivalence (Chapter Seven).
Similarly, in the context of chaos theory, Briggs contrasts the logical, incremental, and predictable progression of a linear system with the acute sensitivity and constant change through internal and external fluctuation in a nonlinear system.
“. . . they are so webbed with positive feedback that the slightest twitch anywhere may become amplified into an unexpected convulsion or transformation” (Briggs,
1992, p. 19).
At the boundary of chaos and order, at any moment “the feedback in a dynamic system may amplify some unsuspected external or internal influence, displaying this holistic interconnection” (1992, p. 21).
The system in microcosm is represented in fractals:
“images of the way things fold and unfold, feeding back into each
other and themselves” (1992, p. 23).
Fractal scaling describes similar details on different scales with the system’s whole movement taking place continuously at every level (1992, p. 23).
The holographic paradigm structures a similar world view. Zinkin describes how Jung uses modern physics as an analogy for psychic processes.
In the paradigm of the hologram, “Any tiny fragment of the hologram will still reproduce the whole image” (Zinkin, 1987, p. 1).
He cites the physicist Bohm, who asserts the primacy of wholeness:
the whole organising the parts and the whole enfolded into the parts. A small part therefore contains the information of the whole (1987, p. 6).
Interconnectedness thereby replaces a mechanistic order and causality does not depend on proximity in time and space.
One implication that Zinkin highlights is the holistic working of the brain, with memory, even a discrete memory, spread throughout the brain rather than localised (1987, pp. 8–9).
This microcosmic representation of the psyche within a dynamic unity is associated in Chapter Seven with initial positive moves towards psychic integration whose failure can result in perversion as an unconscious choice.
Significantly, for the development of a Jungian understanding of perversion, the holographic paradigm and fractal scaling conform to the principle of symmetry, one of Matte Blanco’s principles of unconscious logic.
In the unconscious “all members of a set or class are treated as identical to one another and to the whole set or class and are therefore interchangeable . . .” (author’s italics) (Matte Blanco, 1975, p. 39).
It is a feature of reality poetically acknowledged by Blake:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour. Blake, 2000, p. 135
A holistic approach presents the opportunity for behaviour associated with perversion to be viewed in more than one light: the perverse scenario might be seen not only as a distressing symptom but also as a creative composition.
Indeed the artist Escher, renowned for his deceptive compositions, states that, “The artist’s ideal is to produce a crystal-clear reflection of his own true self” (Escher, 2010, p. 4).
“Compositions” are also one of the three categories into which the painter Kandinsky divided his works.
Compositions were distinguished from “impressions” (observations of the natural world) and “improvisations” (spontaneous expressions of mood or feeling), in
being inner visions with meticulous planning and intricate structure analogous to a symphony (Paul, 2006).
This categorisation is helpful in understanding what perverse expression is and what it is not.
Rigidity and exactness of repetition and lack of spontaneity immediately exclude it from the category of “improvisations”; it also lacks the freedom and feeling of an “impression”; whereas the inner vision, meticulous planning, and intricate structure of the “composition” are certainly present.
But in actuality the perverse scenario is far from an imaginatively composed symphony, it is a largely unconscious conception and its fragmentary and dissociated nature denies full expression of the concerted orchestra of the psyche.
Although perversion is not art, it is like art in being a subjective expression of a particular relationship to reality.
I would argue that a Jungian perspective can enhance our understanding of perversion and demonstrate how the concept is not adequately represented by the psycho-analytic model. Introducing this Jungian perspective involves adopting a broad understanding of the concept of libido, extending beyond the area of sexuality; linking of instinct through the collective unconscious to imagery and perceptive ideas; the acceptance of archetypal governance in psychic organisation
and in defence mechanisms; and understanding of a futural sense in the psyche, including teleological directness in the creation of symptoms.
There are four significant areas of conceptual difference in Jungian, as compared with Freudian, theory that all have implications for an expansion of the theory of perversion.
Each contributes to my theoretical formulation. ~Fiona Ross, Perversion: A Jungian Approach, Page 57-60
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