Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology

by C. G. Jung

This book has, I regret to say, met with many perhaps inevitable misunderstandings. But I have had one precious consolation, for my book received the approval of Flournoy himself, who published the original case which he knew personally. It is to be hoped that later works will make the standpoint of the Zürich school intelligible to a wider public. Whoever, by the help of this work, has taken the trouble to grasp the essence of the constructive method, will readily imagine how great are the difficulties of investigation, and how much greater still are the difficulties of objective presentation of such investigations.

Among the many difficulties and opportunities for misunderstanding I should like to adduce one difficulty which is especially characteristic. In an intensive study of Schreber's or any similar case, it will be discovered that these patients are consumed by the desire for a new world-philosophy which may be of the most bizarre kind. Their aim is obviously to create a system such as will help them in the assimilation of unknown psychical phenomena, i.e. enable them to adapt their own unconscious to the world. This arrangement produces a subjective system which must be considered as a necessary transition-stage on the path to the adaptation of their personality in regard to the world in general. But the patient remains stationary at this transitory stage and assumes his subjective view is the world's, hence he remains ill. He cannot free himself from his subjectivism and does not find the link to objective thinking, i.e. to society. He does not reach the real summit of self-understanding, for he remains with a merely subjective understanding of himself. But a mere subjective understanding is not real and adequate. As Feuerbach says: Understanding is only real when it is in accord with that of some other rational beings. Then it becomes objective[212] and the link with life is reached.

I am convinced that not a few will raise the objection that in the first place the psychological process of adaptation does not proceed by the method of first creating a world-philosophy; secondly, that it is in itself a sign of unhealthy mental disposition even to make the attempt to adapt oneself by way of a "world-philosophy."

Undoubtedly there are innumerable persons who are capable of adaptation without creating any preliminary philosophy. If they ever arrive at any general theory of the world it is always subsequently. But, on the other hand, there are just as many who are only able to adapt themselves by means of a preliminary intellectual formulation. To everything which they do not understand they are unable to adapt themselves. Generally it comes about that they do adapt themselves just in so far as they can grasp the situation intellectually. To this latter group seem to belong all those patients to whom we have been giving our consideration.

Medical experience has taught us that there are two large groups of functional nervous disorders. The one embraces all those forms of disease which are designated hysterical, the other all those forms which the French school has designated psychasthenic. Although the line of demarcation is rather uncertain, one can mark off two psychological types which are obviously different; their psychology is diametrically opposed. I have called these—the Introverted and Extroverted types. The hysteric belongs to the type of Extroversion, the psychasthenic to the type of Introversion, as does dementia præcox, in so far as we know it to-day. This terminology, Introversion and Extroversion, is bound up with my way of regarding mental phenomena as forms of energy. I postulate a hypothetical fundamental striving which I designate libido.[213] In the classical use of the word, libido never had an exclusively sexual connotation as it has in medicine. The word interest, as Claparède once suggested to me, could be used in this special sense, if this expression had to-day a less extensive application. Bergson's concept, élan vital, would also serve if this expression were less biological and more psychological. Libido is intended to be an energising expression for psychological values. The psychological value is something active and determining; hence it can be regarded from the energic standpoint without any pretence of exact measurement.

The introverted type is characterised by the fact that his libido is turned towards his own personality to a certain extent—he finds within himself the unconditioned value. The extroverted type has his libido to a certain extent externally; he finds the unconditioned value outside himself. The introvert regards everything from the aspect of his own personality; the extrovert is dependent upon the value of his object. I must emphasise the statement that this question of types is the question of our psychology, and that every further advance must probably proceed by way of this question. The difference between these types is almost alarming in extent. So far there is only one small preliminary communication by myself[214] on this theory of type, which is particularly important for the conception of dementia præcox. On the psychiatric side Gross[215] has called attention to the existence of two psychological types. His two types are (1) those with limited but deep consciousness, and (2) those with broad but superficial consciousness. The former correspond to my introverted and the latter to my extroverted type. In my article I have collected some other instances among which I would especially call attention to the striking description of the two types given by William James in his book on "Pragmatism." Fr. Th. Vischer has differentiated the two types very wittily by her division of the learned into "reason-mongers," and "matter-mongers." In the sphere of psychoanalysis Freud follows the psychology of Extraversion, Adler that of Introversion. The irreconcilable opposition between the views of Freud and those of Adler (see especially his book "Über den nervösen Charakter") is readily explained by the existence of two diametrically opposed psychological types which view the same things from entirely different aspects. An Extrovert can hardly, or only with great difficulty, come to any understanding with an Introvert, on any delicate psychological question.

An Extrovert can hardly conceive the necessity which compels the Introvert to conquer the world by means of a system. And yet this necessity exists, otherwise we should have no philosophical systems and dogmas, presumed to be universally valid. Civilised humanity would be only empiricists and the sciences only the experimental sciences. Causalism and empiricism are undoubtedly mighty forces in our present-day mental life but it may come to be otherwise.

This difference in type is the first great obstacle which stands in the way of an understanding concerning fundamental conceptions of our psychology. A second objection arises from the circumstance that the constructive method, faithful to itself, must adapt itself to the lines of the delusion. The direction along which the patient develops his morbid thoughts has to be accepted seriously, and followed out to its end; the investigator thus places himself at the standpoint of the psychosis. This procedure may expose him to the suspicion of being deranged himself; or at least risks a misunderstanding which is considered terribly disgraceful—he may himself have some world-philosophy! The confirmation of such a possibility is as bad as being "unscientific." But every one has a world-philosophy though not every one knows he has. And those who do not know it have simply an unconscious and therefore inadequate and archaic philosophy. But everything psychological that is allowed to remain in the mind neglected and not developed, remains in a primitive state. A striking instance of how universal theories are influenced by unconscious archaic points of view has been furnished by a famous German historian whose name matters to us not at all. This historian took it for granted that once upon a time people propagated themselves through incest, for in the first human families the brother was assigned to the sister. This theory is wholly based upon his still unconscious belief in Adam and Eve as the first and only parents of mankind. It is on the whole better to discover for oneself a modern world-philosophy, or at least to make use of some decent system which will prevent any errors of that kind.

One could put up with being despised as the possessor of a world-philosophy; but there is a greater danger. The public may come to believe the philosophy, beaten out by the constructive method, is to be regarded as a theoretical and objectively valid insight into the meaning of the world in general.

I must now again point out that it is an obstinate, scholastic misunderstanding not to be able to distinguish between a world-philosophy which is only psychological, and an extra-psychological theory, which concerns the objective thing. It is absolutely essential that the student of the results of the constructive method should be able to draw this distinction. In its first results the constructive method does not produce anything that could be called a scientific theory; it furnishes the psychological lines of development, a path so to say. I must here refer the reader to my book, "Psychology of the Unconscious."