Problems of Modern Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy, or the treatment of the mind by psychological methods, is identified in popular thought today with “psychoanalysis.”
This word is now so widely accepted that everyone who uses it seems at the same
time to grasp its meaning; yet it is seldom that a layman knows precisely what it covers.
According to the intention of its creator, Freud, it can be appropriately applied only to his own particular method of explaining psychic symptoms in terms of certain repressed impulses.
Inasmuch as this technique is the consequence of a particular approach to life, the
idea of psychoanalysis includes certain theoretical assumptions, among them the Freudian theory of sexuality.
The founder of psychoanalysis himself explicitly insists upon this circumscription.
But, Freud notwithstanding, the layman applies the concept of psychoanalysis
to every kind of modern endeavour to probe the find by scientific methods.
Thus Adler’s school must submit to being labelled” psychoanalytic” despite the fact that Adler’s view-point and method are apparently in irreconcilable opposition to those of Freud.
Because of this contrast, Adler himself does not call his teaching “psychoanalysis,” but “individual psychology ” ; while I prefer to call my own approach ” analytical
psychology.”
I wish the term to stand for a general conception embracing both “psychoanalysis” and “individual psychology,” as well as other efforts in this field.
Since the mind is common to mankind it may seem to the layman that there can be only one psychology, and he may therefore suppose the divergences between
the schools to be either subjective quibbling, or else a commonplace disguise for the efforts of mediocrities who seek to exalt themselves upon a throne.
I could easily lengthen the list of .. psychologies” by mentioning other systems that are not to be included under the head of .. analytical psychology.”
There are, in fact, many methods, standpoints, views and convictions which are all at war with one another-the main reason for this being that, since they fail to be mutually comprehensible, none ot them can grant the validity of any other.
The many-sidedness and variety of psychlogical opinions in our time is nothing less than astonishing, and it is confusing for the layman that no general survey of them can be made.
When we find the most diverse remedies prescribed in a text-book of pathology for a given disease, we may confidently assume that none of these remedies is particularly efficacious. So, when many different ways of approaching the psyche are recommended, we may rest assured that none of them leads with absolute certainty to the goal, least of all those advocated in a fanatical way.
The very number of present-day” psychologies” mounts to a confession of perplexity.
The difficulty of gaining access to the mind is gradually borne in upon us, and the mind itself is seen to be, to use Nietzsche’s expression, a .. horned” problem.
It is small wonder therefore that efforts to attack this elusive riddle are multiplied, first from one side and then from :mother.
The variety of contradictory standpoints and opinions of which we have spoken is the inevitable result.
The reader will doubtless agree that in discussing psychoanalysis we should not limit ourselves to its narrower definition, but deal in general with the results
and failures of the various contemporary endeavours to solve the problem of the psyche-endeavours which we have agreed shall all be embraced in the concept of analytical psychology.
And moreover, why is there suddenly so much interest in the human psyche as something to be experienced ?
This has not been the case for thousands of years.
I wish merely to raise this apparently irrelevant question, and will not try to answer it.
It is in reality not irrelevant, because this interest underlies all such modern movements as theosophy, occultism, astrology and so forth.
All that is embraced today in the layman’s idea of ” psychoanalysis” originated in medical practice; and consequently most of it is medical psychology.
It bears the unmistakable imprint of the physician’s consulting-room-a fact which is evident not only in its terminology, but also in its framework of theory .
We constantly come upon postulates which the physician has taken over from natural science and in particular from biology.
This fact has largely contributed to the hostility between modern psychology and the academic fields of philosophy, history and classical learning.
Modern psychology is empirical and close to nature, while these studies are grounded in the intellect.
The distance between nature and mind; difficult to bridge at best, is increased by a medical and biological nomenclature which sometimes appears of practical utility, but more often severely taxes our good-will.
In view of the confusion of concepts that exists, I have felt it necessary to indulge in the foregoing general remarks.
I should like now to turn to the task in hand and consider the actual achievements of analytical psychology.
Since the various endeavours embraced by this term are so heterogeneous, it is extremely difficult to take up a generally inclusive standpoint.
If, then, with regard to the aims and results of these endeavours, I try to distinguish certain classes, or rather stages, I do it with some reservation.
I regard it as a merely provisional arrangement, and grant that it may seem as arbitrary as a surveyor’s triangulation of a country.
Be that as it may, I venture to arrange the sum-total of findings under the four heads of confession, explanation. education~ and transformation.
I shall now procced to discuss the meaning of these somewhat unusual terms.
The first beginnin~ of all analytical treatment are to be found in its prototype, the confessional.
Since, however, the two practices have no direct causal connection, but rather grow from a common psychic root, it is difficult for an outsider to see at once the relation between the groundwork of psychoanalysis and the religious institution of the confessional.
As soon as man was capable of conceiving the idea of sin, he had recourse to psychic concealment-<>r, to put it in analytical language, repressions arose.
Anything that is concealed is a secret.
The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates their
possessor from the community.
In small doses, this poison may actually be a priceless remedy, even an essential
preliminary to the differentiation of the individual.
This is so much the case that, even on a primitive level, man has felt an irresistible need to invent secrets; their possession saves him from dissolving in the unconsciousness of mere community life, and thus from a fatal psychic injury.
As is well known, the many ancient mystery cults with their secret rituals served this instinct for differentiation.
Even the Christian sacraments were looked upon as mysteries in the early Church, and, as in the case of baptism, were celebrated in private apartments and only referred to under a veil of allegory.
However beneficial a secret shared with several persons may be, a merely private secret has a destructive effect.
It resembles a burden of guilt which cuts off the unfortunate possessor from communion with his fellow-beings.
Yet if we are conscious of what we conceal, the harm done is decidedly less than if we do not know what we are repressing-<>r even that we have represions at all.
In the latter case we not merely keep a content consciously private, but we conceal it even from ourselves.
It then splits off from consciousness as an independent complex, to lead a separate existence in the unconscious, where it can be neither corrected nor interfered with by the conscious mind.
The complex is thus an autonomous portion of the psyche which, as experience has shown, develops a peculiar fantasy-life of its own.
What we call fantasy is simply spontaneous psychic activity; and it wells up whenever the repressive action of the conscious mind relaxes or ceases altogether,
as in sleep.
In sleep this activity shows itself in the form of dreams.
And we continue to dream in waking life beneath the threshold of consciousness, especially when this activity is conditioned by a repressed or otherwise unconscious complex.
It should be said in passing that unconscious contents are by no means
exclusively such as were once conscious and, by being repressed, have later grown into unconscious complexes.
Quite otherwise, the unconscious has contents peculiar to itself which, slowly growing upward from the depths, at last come into consciousness.
We should therefore in no wise picture the unconscious psyche to ourselves as a mere receptacle for contents discarded by the conscious mind.
All psychic contents which either approach the threshold of consciousness from below, or have sunk only slightly beneath it, have an effect upon our conscious
activities.
Since the content itself is not conscious, these effects are necessarily indirect.
Most of our lapses of the tongue, of the pen, of memory, and the like, are traceable to these disturbances, as are likewise all neurotic symptoms.
These are nearly always of psychic origin, the exceptions being shock effects from
shell-explosions and other causes.
The mildest forms of neurosis are the “lapses” already referred to-blunders of speech, the sudden forgetting of names and dates, unexpected clumsiness leading to injuries or accidents, misunderstandings of personal motives or of what we have heard or read, and so-called hallucinations of memory which cause us to suppose erroneously that we have said or done this or that.
In all these cases a thorough investigation can show the existence of a content
which in an indirect and unconscious way has distorted the conscious performance. ~Carl Jung, Undiscovered Self, Page 28-33
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