Before defining the elusive concept of 'dissociation', a fundamental modern prejudice must first be addressed: In the usual medical class as well as medical appointment an implicit assumption almost always underlies the discussion. The assumption goes that the contents of consciousness are virtually exclusively determined by sense-perceptions. The usual procedure goes along the lines of, "The patient exhibits these physical symptoms with these accompanying senses and therefore the diagnosis is the following". In other words, the psyche is portrayed as a secondary manifestation, an epiphenomenon, which is completely dependent on the physical substrate. Psychic happenings are thereby reduced ‘to a kind of activity of the glands’ and thoughts are regarded as ‘secretions of the brain’. Jung points out that in this way a psychology without the psyche is achieved. ‘Consciousness, therefore, is taken as the sine qua non of psychic life, that is to say, as the psyche itself. And so it comes about that all modern "psychologies without the psyche" are psychologies of consciousness, for which an unconscious psychic life simply does not exist’ [1].
This line of reasoning were fully sound were it not for that pestering fact that, even in the present day, the fundamental nature of matter remains mysterious to us. As alluded to before, a brief conversation with the physicist is enough to convince one of this humbling fact. And not only from a theoretical but also from the practical standpoint we are provided with evidence that consciousness is but the tip of the iceberg. Look no further than the myriad manifestations of psychopathology. Those that seem to arise of their own accord from the all-to-familiar ‘unconscious’.
In Jung’s view this ‘unconscious’ is not only the receptacle of repressed contents, as Freud theorizes, but is the very matrix of psychic contents. ‘Everything that the human mind has ever created sprang from contents which, in the last analysis, existed once as unconscious seeds.’ ‘From this point of view the unconscious appears as the totality of all psychic contents in statu nascendi’ [2]. In other words, the unconscious creates new contents which gradually make their way to the threshold of consciousness. In this way, they have a striking analogy with plant seeds growing upwards to reach daylight.
Now, just as seeds can be prevented from sprouting by plastering a pavement on top of the ground, so we too can lose touch with our unconscious ‘instinctual’ roots. Such a chronic dissociation is detrimental to mental and physical health. This is because, fundamentally, the exchange of information between mind and body weakens which makes self-regulation increasingly difficult. ‘From the standpoint of mental equilibrium and physiological health in general, it is much better for the conscious and the unconscious to be connected and to move on parallel lines than for them to be dissociated’ [3].
The importance of this link the primitive only knows too well. ‘In a primitive world no one reckons without his host; he is constantly mindful of the gods, the spirits, of fate and the magical qualities of time and place, rightly recognizing that man’s solitary will is only a fragment of a total situation.’ For the dissociated individual things look rather different though. On the one hand, it appears that merely the ego exists. But to the degree the ego isolates itself, its intentions are increasingly sabotaged by an invisible opponent, an ‘internal government opposition’ so to say [4].
One way an individual can fall into opposition with themselves is if they deviate too far from their natural course of development. An example of this could be an adolescent which clings to the mother or father and thereby shrinks away from puberty. Such a dynamic in turn often produces ‘the growth of a second personality’. Talking of a case study involving a young girl in this conundrum, Jung explains: ‘The fact that her conscious mind fails to progress does not mean in the least that her unconscious personality will also remain at a standstill.’ The latter will advance undeterred as time goes on and if the discrepancy becomes too stark ‘it will appear on the scene and challenge the regressive ego’ [5]. Particularly individuals with a genius pay dearly for such regression. For the more intelligent the person, the mightier the unconscious opponent will be.
Another way this dissociation can happen is simply by taking the materialistic doctrine of the modern age slightly too literally. Unfortunately, as opposed to other hazardous substances the philosophy of materialism usually does not come with its ‘directions of use’ disclaimer. For, only the scientist in his laboratory can afford to take its principles wholly seriously. For the living individual, however, this can be dangerously one-sided. As mentioned previously the primitive lives in a world of wholeness still where their actions have a ‘total’ character. Civilized man strives to be rid of this seemingly unnecessary burden. In all fairness, Jung concedes that this development has afforded civilization a great deal of sophistication. A discriminating and concentrated consciousness has proven to be of immense practical utility. It gives modern man the ability to singularly specialize on one area of life. The division of labour as well as the economies of scale of the modern economy could never have been possible without this ability for unilateral orientation.
And yet, it also comes at the grave disadvantage of breaking down man’s original wholeness into separate functions that conflict with each other. Broadly, Jung differentiates between four functions, namely intellect, feeling, intuition and sensation. The ‘breaking down of wholeness’ hereby means that instead of cooperating in unity these functions are now fragmented with one of them becoming the ‘dominant function’. He explains: ‘Through this fragmentation process one or other of the functions of consciousness becomes highly differentiated and can then escape the control of the other functions to such an extent that it attains a kind of autonomy, constructing a world of its own into which these other functions are admitted only so far as they can be subjugated to the dominant function. In this way consciousness loses its balance: if the intellect predominates, then the value judgments of feeling are weakened, and vice versa. Again, if sensation is predominant, intuition is barred, this being the function that pays the least attention to tangible facts; and conversely, a man with an excess of intuition lives in a world of unproven possibilities’ [6]. Due to their antithetical character the one necessarily precludes the other.
‘Thus every directed function demands the strict exclusion of everything not suited to its nature: Thinking excludes all disturbing feelings, just as feeling excludes all disturbing thoughts. Without the repression of everything alien to itself, the directed function could never operate at all’ [7]. What complicates this dynamic is that from a standpoint of modern social morality, this specialism is encouraged and deemed a unanimous virtue. Yes, the individual can be mechanized to a surprising degree, shaped into a uniform social role and instructed along one discipline. Indeed, this may even be a virtue, in particular for the person in the first half of life. But never may the individual give themself up completely, ‘or only at the expense of the gravest injury’. A complete identification with the persona always degenerates the individual. ‘The self-regulation of the living organism requires by its very nature the harmonizing of the whole human being’ [7].
Jung concludes that for better or worse the modern mind ‘shows an alarming degree of dissociation and psychological confusion’. ‘We believe exclusively in consciousness and free will, and are no longer aware of the powers that control us to an indefinite degree, outside the narrow domain where we can be reasonable and exercise a certain amount of free choice and self-control’ [3]. But how about the lower floors of our house? What about the cellar? Are we really the master of our house there too? The average person of modern times likely answers in the negative, if ever so reluctantly. Jung closes off: ‘Consideration of the less favoured functions forces itself upon us as a vital necessity and an unavoidable task in the education of the human race’ [7].
References
1. Jung, C. G. (1954). The structure and dynamics of the psyche. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull (Trans.), Vol. 8). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 13: Basic postulates of analytical psychology]
2. Jung, C. G. (1954). The structure and dynamics of the psyche. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull (Trans.), Vol. 8). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 14: Analytical psychology and weltanschauung]
3. Jung, C. G. (1954) Miscellany. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., Vol. 18). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 2: Symbols and the interpretation of dreams]
4. Jung, C. G. (1954) The practice of psychotherapy: Essays on the psychology of the transference and other subjects. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., Vol. 16). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 1: Principles of practical psychotherapy]
5. Jung, C. G. (1954). The development of personality. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., Vol. 17). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 4: Analytical psychology and education]
6. Jung, C. G. (1954). Civilization in transition. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., Vol. 17). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 14: Flying saucers: A modern myth]
7. Jung, C. G. (1954). Psychological types. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull (Trans.), Vol. 6). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 9: The type problem in aesthetics]
Comentários