Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology

by C. G. Jung

IV.—The Two Types of Psychology.

It is at this point that our most recent researches may suitably be introduced. We have found, in the first place, that there are two types of human psychology.[235] In the one type the fundamental function is feeling, and in the other it is thought. The one feels his way into the object, the other thinks about it. The one adapts himself to his surroundings by feeling, thinking coming later; whilst the other adapts himself by means of thought, preceded by understanding. The one who feels his way transfers himself to some extent to the object; whilst the other withdraws himself from the object to some extent, or pauses before it and reflects about it. The first we called the extroverted type, because in the main he goes outside himself to the object, the latter is called the introverted type, because in a major degree he turns away from the object, withdrawing into himself and thinking about it.

These remarks only give the broadest outline of the two types. But even this quite inadequate sketch enables us to recognise that the two theories are the outcome of the contrast between the two types. The sexual theory is promulgated from the standpoint of feeling, the power theory from that of thought; for the extrovert always places the accent upon the feelings that are connected with the object, whereas the introvert always puts the accent upon the ego, and is as much detached by thought from the object as possible.

The irreconcilable contradictions of the two theories are now to be understood, because both theories are the product of a one-sided psychology. We find an instance of the contrast of types in Nietzsche and Wagner. The dissension between the two is due to the contrast in their ideas of psychological values. What is most prized by the one is "affectation" for the other, and is deemed false to the very core. Each depreciates the other.

If we apply the sexual theory to an extrovert it tallies with the facts of the case; but if we apply it to an introvert, we simply maltreat and do violence to his psychology. The same applies to the contrary case. The relative rightness of the two hostile theories is explained by the fact that each one draws its material from cases that prove the correctness of the theory. There is a remnant of persons whom neither theory fits—has not every rule its exceptions?

Criticism of both theories is indispensable. Recognition of facts showed the necessity of overcoming their contrast, and of evolving a theory that should do justice not only to one or the other type, but equally to both.

Even the layman will to some extent have been struck by the fact that in spite of their correctness both theories really have a very unpleasant character and one not altogether pertinent under all circumstances to the strict views of science. The sexual theory is unæsthetic and unsatisfying intellectually. The power theory, on the other hand, is decidedly venomous. Both inevitably reduce high-flown ideals, heroic attitudes, pathos, and deep convictions, in a painful manner to a reality which is hackneyed and trite; that is, if these theories are applied to such things—but they should certainly not be so applied. Both theories are really only therapeutic instruments out of the tool-chest of the physician, whose sharp and merciless knife cuts out all that is pernicious and diseased. It was just such a misapplication of theory Nietzsche tried with his destructive criticism of ideals. He regarded ideals as rampant diseases of the soul of humanity; as indeed they really are. However, in the hands of a good physician who really knows the human soul, who, as Nietzsche says, "has a finger for the slightest shade," who applies the treatment only to what is really diseased in a soul—in such hands both theories prove wholesome caustics. The application must be adapted to the individual case. It is a dangerous therapy in the hands of those who do not understand how to deal out the treatment. These applications of criticism do good when there is something that should and must be destroyed, dissolved or brought low, but can easily damage what is being built up, or growing in response to life's requirements.

Both theories might, therefore, be allowed to pass without attack, in so far as they, like medicinal poisons, are entrusted to the safe hands of the physician. But fate has ordained that they should not remain solely in the care of those who are qualified to use them. First of all they naturally became known to the medical public. Every practising physician has an indefinitely high percentage of neurotics among his patients; he is therefore more or less obliged to look out for new and suitable systems of treatment. He ultimately lights upon the difficult method of psychoanalysis. He is at first not competent for this, for how should he have learnt about the secrets of the human soul? Certainly not through his academic studies. The smattering of psychiatry that he acquired for his examination barely suffices to enable him to recognise the symptoms of the commonest mental disturbances, and is far from giving him any sufficient insight into the human soul. He is, therefore, practically quite unprepared to apply the analytic method. An unusually far-reaching knowledge of the soul is indeed necessary in order to be able to apply this caustic treatment with advantage. One must be in a position to differentiate elements that are diseased and should be discarded, from those which are valuable and should be retained. This is plainly a matter of great difficulty. Any one who wishes to get a vivid impression of the way in which a psychologysing physician may unwarrantably violate a patient through an ignoble pseudo-scientific prejudice, should read what Moebius has written about Nietzsche. Or he may study various psychiatric writings about the "case of Christ," and will surely not hesitate to lament the lot of the patient whose fate it is to meet with such "understanding." Psychoanalysis—greatly to the regret of the medical man who, however, had not accepted it—then passed over into the hands of the teaching profession. This is right: for it is really, when rightly understood and handled, an educational method, and one of the social sciences. I would, however, never personally recommend that Freud's purely sexual analysis should be exclusively applied as an educational method. It might do much harm because of its one-sidedness. In order to make psychoanalysis available for educational purposes, all the metamorphoses that have been the work of the last few years were needed. The method had to be expanded from a general psychological point of view.

But the two theories of which I have spoken are not general theories. They are, as I have said, caustics to be applied, so to say, "locally," for they are both destructive and reductive. They explain to the patient that his symptoms come from here or there, and are "nothing but" this or that. It would be very unjust to wish to maintain that this reductive theory is wrong in a given case, but when exalted into a general explanation of the nature of the soul—whether sick or healthy—a reductive theory becomes impossible. For the human soul, whether it be sick or healthy, cannot be merely reductively explained. Sexuality it is true is always and everywhere present; the instinct for power certainly does penetrate the heights and the depths of the soul; but the soul itself is not solely either the one or the other, or even both together, it is also that which it has made and will make out of them both. A person is only half understood when one knows how everything in him came about. Only a dead man can be explained in terms of the past, a living one must be otherwise explained. Life is not made up of yesterdays only, nor is it understood nor explained by reducing to-day to yesterday. Life has also a to-morrow, and to-day is only understood if we are able to add the indications of to-morrow to our knowledge of what was yesterday. This holds good for all expressions of psychological life, even for symptoms of disease. Symptoms of neurosis are not merely consequences of causes that once have been, whether they were "infantile sexuality" or "infantile instinct for power." They are endeavours towards a new synthesis of life. It must immediately be added, however, they are endeavours that have miscarried. None the less they are attempts; they represent the germinal striving which has both meaning and value. They are embryos that failed to achieve life, owing to unpropitious conditions of an internal and external nature.

The reader will now probably propound the question: What possible value and meaning can a neurosis have? Is it not a most useless and repulsive pest of humanity? Can being nervous do anybody good? Possibly, in a way similar to that of flies and other vermin, which were created by God in order that man might exercise the useful virtue of patience. Stupid as this thought is from the standpoint of natural science, it might be quite shrewd from that of psychology; that is, if we substitute "nervous symptoms" in the place of "vermin." Even Nietzsche, who had an uncommon disdain for anything stupid and trite in thought, more than once acknowledged how much he owed to his illness. I have known more than one person who attributed all his usefulness, and the justification for his existence even, to a neurosis, that hindered all decisive stupidities of his life, compelling him to lead an existence which developed what was valuable in him; material that would have been crushed had not the neurosis with its iron grip forced the man to keep to the place where he really belonged. There are people the meaning of whose life—whose real significance—lies in the unconscious; in consciousness lies only all that is vain and delusive. With others the reverse is the case, and for them the neurosis has another significance. An extended reduction is appropriate to the one, but emphatically unsuitable to the other.