Psychology of the Unconscious / A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought

by C. G. Jung

Following this distinction Jung sees in the Oedipus complex of Freud only a symbol for the “childish desire towards the parents and for the conflict which this craving evokes,” and cannot accept the theory that in this early stage of childhood the mother has any real sexual significance for the child.

The demands of the child upon the mother, the jealousy so often exhibited, are at first connected with the rôle of the mother as protector, caretaker and supplier of nutritive wants, and only later, with the germinating eroticism, does the child’s love become admixed with the developing sexual quality. The chief love objects are still the parents and he naturally continues to seek and to find in them satisfaction for all his desires. In this way the typical conflict is developed which in the son is directed towards the father and in the daughter towards the mother. This jealousy of the daughter towards the mother is called the Electra complex from the myth of Electra who took revenge on her mother for the murder of the husband because she was in this way deprived of her father.

Normally as puberty is attained the child gradually becomes more or less freed from his parents, and upon the degree in which this is accomplished depends his health and future well-being.

This demand of nature upon the young individual to free himself from the bonds of his childish dependency and to find in the world of reality his independent existence is so imperious and dominating that it frequently produces in the child the greatest struggles and severest conflicts, the period being characterized symbolically as a self-sacrifice by Jung.

It frequently happens that the young person is so closely bound in the family relations that it is only with the greatest difficulty that he can attain any measure of freedom and then only very imperfectly, so that the libido sexualis can only express itself in certain feelings and phantasies which clearly reveal the existence of the complex until then entirely hidden and unrealized. Now commences the secondary struggle against the unfilial and immoral feelings with a consequent development of intense resistances expressing themselves in irritation, anger, revolt and antagonism against the parents, or else in an especially tender, submissive and yielding attitude which over-compensates for the rebellion and reaction held within.

This struggle and conflict gives rise to the unconscious phantasy of self-sacrifice which really means the sacrificing of the childish tendencies and love type in order to free libido; for his nature demands that he attain the capacity for the accomplishment of his own personal fulfilment, the satisfaction of which belongs to the developed man and woman.

This conception has been worked out in detail by Jung in the book which is herein presented to English readers.

We now come to the most important of Jung’s conceptions in that it bears practically upon the treatment of certain types of the neuroses and stands theoretically in direct opposition to Freud’s hypothesis. While recognizing fully the influence of the parents and of the sexual constitution of the child, Jung refuses to see in this infantile past the real cause for the later development of the illness. He definitely places the cause of the pathogenic conflict in the present moment and considers that in seeking for the cause in the distant past one is only following the desire of the patient, which is to withdraw himself as much as possible from the present important period.

The conflict is produced by some important task or duty which is essential biologically and practically for the fulfilment of the ego of the individual, but before which an obstacle arises from which he shrinks, and thus halted cannot go on. With this interference in the path of progression libido is stored up and a regression takes place whereby there occurs a reanimation of past ways of libido occupation which were entirely normal to the child, but which for the adult are no longer of value. These regressive infantile desires and phantasies now alive and striving for satisfaction are converted into symptoms, and in these surrogate forms obtain a certain gratification, thus creating the external manifestations of the neurosis. Therefore Jung does not ask from what psychic experience or point of fixation in childhood the patient is suffering, but what is the present duty or task he is avoiding, or what obstacle in his life’s path he is unable to overcome? What is the cause of his regression to past psychic experiences?

Following this theory Jung expresses the view that the elaborate phantasies and dreams produced by these patients are really forms of compensation or artificial substitutes for the unfulfilled adaptation to reality. The sexual content of these phantasies and dreams is only apparently and not actually expressive of a real sexual desire or incest wish, but is a regressive employment of sexual forms to symbolically express a present-day need when the attainment of the present ego demand seems too difficult or impossible, and no adaptation is made to what is possible for the individual’s capability.[^[3]]