On Carl Jung and Dualities

Sig and I set out some time ago to complete a paired reading of Carl Jung’s autobiographical book Memories, Dreams, Reflections. It did not go as I’d thought and hoped it would.

Jung is of interest to us for differing reasons, I suspect: more philosophically and intellectually for Sig; and mostly psychologically for me.¹ My brief academic exposure to Jung’s ideas left me curious about his life and work; I expected this relatively short book to provide a broader and deeper view of him. It did—and it didn’t. As this isn’t a typical book review, my focus is more on the dualities that brought me close to rage-quitting the book, rather than the customary review topics.

I cannot set aside my context and biases when evaluating others’ ideas; the best I can do is try to notice their influences and take them into account. So I swallowed a few large grains of salt when Jung’s early chapters focused on sharing his early memories and dreams, which he recounted as accurate retellings of the original events up to 70+ years prior.²

At the end of the overlong third chapter (“Student Years”), Jung conveniently disclaims an ability to “stand outside [him]self and observe my fate in a truly objective way,” as “man is an event which cannot judge itself, but, for better or worse, is left to the judgment of others.” How others are to achieve such objectivity is not addressed. This stance also frees him from considering his youthful hallucinations and splitting of his view of himself into “No. 1” and “No. 2” as possible indicators of mental illness.

Jung describes himself as a scientist, yet rejects certain scientific methods that would make his work more rigorous. In Chapter 4 (“Psychiatric Activities”), he recounts a session with a patient, at which 20 students were present to observe a demonstration of hypnosis. The demonstration did not go at all as he’d planned; the woman emerged from “hypnosis”³ completely cured of the leg pain that required her to walk with crutches. Did that lead him to try to study hypnosis in any rigorous way? No! It led Jung to abandon the practice entirely, in favor of dream analysis and “other manifestations of the unconscious.”

Freud and Jung’s relationship ended over Jung’s rejection of Freud’s sexual theory. In the chapter titled “Sigmund Freud,” this is recounted in largely religious terms: “For him [Freud], it [sexuality] was something to be religiously observed”; and “He remained the victim of the one aspect [sexuality/psychosexuality] he could recognize, and for that reason I see him as a tragic figure; for he was a great man, and what is more, a man in the grip of his daimon.” An overarching theme in Jung’s life and work is Christianity; one of his early psychological crises came via him allowing himself (after days of inner turmoil) to imagine God shitting on a church. I don’t think Freud was the only one in the grip of a daimon.

Whether Jung is a great thinker or theorist is best left for each individual to decide. He remains highly regarded in some areas of psychology as well as in psychiatry. I view his ideas on the unconscious mind as a substantial improvement over Freud’s in many ways; and I’ve benefited from aspects of his clinical techniques, specifically shadow work. Yet after reading of his ongoing studies in alchemy, parapsychology, and the occult, in addition to Christianity, I couldn’t help but start to wonder if there was anything he wouldn’t believe in.

I had hoped that Memories, Dreams, Reflections would give me more insight into Jung’s academic work. Alas, the focus on it in this book tends to be his most impenetrable thinking. Now that I know so much about Jung’s personal life and dreams, etc., I can’t help but be influenced by it all—and it’s telling me to invest my energies elsewhere. For me, the reality doesn’t support the legend that Carl Jung was presented as.

1: I had the misfortune of having a Jungian analyst teach my undergraduate course on personality theory; a required component of the course was keeping a dream journal, which he read and graded. I considered the exercise an invasion of my privacy, so needless to say, I didn’t do well on this element of the course. (back to the paragraph)

2: Memory research has repeatedly shown that remembering is more accurately described as an activity of reconstruction, rather than veridical recounting, of previous events. See the work of Elizabeth Loftus and Ulric Neisser for excellent starting points. (back to the paragraph)

3: She apparently had hypnotized herself, as Jung didn’t do anything to induce a hypnotic state and said at the end of the story, “I had not the slightest idea what had happened.” (back to the paragraph)