2.3 The neurosis of the modern age

Many readers may wonder: What ‘Neurosis of the modern age’ is spoken of here? Surely neurosis is confined to the psychiatry, is it not? And yet, we cannot help but get the uneasy feeling that, no, neurosis can just as much permeate public life as it does the lunatic ayslum. Jung commented extensively on the ‘neurotic’ state of modern society and even though his commentary refers to the first half of the twentieth century, it has hardly aged. One may even opine that lots of it is even more valid in the present day. Jung was born into an age of sprouting materialism. Darwin’s theory of evolution was proclaimed as the new gospel. Its implications were becoming increasingly evident: All life processes were ‘shown’ to be reducible to mere matter, to the mere physiology of the brain, organs or glands. As a result, the existence of the spirit, of the soul and of God ultimately was increasingly ‘explained away’ by rational theories. Whether Freud, Marx or Nietzsche, each put their own personal spin on this rationalization.

And yet, in the practice of psychotherapy, Jung often discovered that the intellect ever so often fell short of providing any results. The unanimous emphasis on the intellect even seemed to preclude any cure from developing. Jung’s clients mostly had prior psychotherapeutic treatment ‘with partial or negative results’. And so, Jung was up to a mighty task. He was recurringly up against ‘the neurosis of our age’. About a third of his patients were ‘not suffering from any clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and aimlessness of their lives’ [1]. These cases he ascribed to the collective neurosis which modern culture instructs us in.

The first part of this chapter will debunk three main philosophical underpinnings of our modern attitude that lead to this situation. In the second part then, the repercussions of this belief system will be explained.

All is causally determined

Causality vs synchronicity

Let us return to the basics. What does causality mean? ‘Causality is an influence by which one event, process, state, or object (a cause) contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an effect)’ [2].

Based on this definition, causality then depends on the movement of objects in time. Specifically, the causing object must precede the effected object in time. If this were not so the two would merely coincide and no consecutive order could ever be established. In addition, certain ‘energy’ must be involved, for otherwise the causing object would scarcely be able to effect other objects. To sum up, causality seems to be dependent on the one hand on a time dimension and on the other on bodies in motion, mediated by ‘energy’.

This relative conception of causality is not anything new, but rather seems to be the worldview out of which consciousness has grown out of. Jung sums it up, as ever, succinctly and skillfully: ‘In man's original view of the world, as we find it among primitives, space and time have a very precarious existence. They become "fixed" concepts only in the course of his mental development, thanks largely to the introduction of measurement. In themselves, space and time consist of nothing. They are hypostatized concepts born of the discriminating ac­tivity of the conscious mind, and they form the indispensable co-ordinates for describing the behaviour of bodies in motion. They are, therefore, essentially psychic in origin. If space and time are only apparently properties of bodies in motion and are created by the intellectual needs of the observer, then their relativization by psychic conditions is no longer a matter for astonishment but is brought within the bounds of possibility’ [3].

Here we encounter the main principle which represents the counterpole to causality: Synchronicity. Unfortunately, in the interest of brevity, this article can only give a brief outline of this phenomenon. A separate article in itself will tackle this topic extensively, stay tuned! In short, synchronicity refers to ‘the simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary sub­jective state—and, in certain cases, vice versa’ [3].

For the modern reader, me included, such an acausal phenomenon is almost impossible to imagine because we are fundamentally raised to think in causal terms. Causality is tangible and immediately visible while acausality is eminently elusive and mysterious. To bring this rather abstract concept down to earth, Jung classifies synchronistic occurrences into three distinct categories:

1. ‘The coincidence of a psychic state in the observer with a simultaneous, objective, external event that corresponds to the psychic state or content (e.g., the scarab), where there is no evi­dence of a causal connection between the psychic state and the external event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space and time, such a connection is not even conceivable.

2. The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding (more or less simultaneous) external event taking place outside the observer's field of perception, i.e., at a distance, and only verifiable afterward (e.g., the Stockholm fire)

3. The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding, not yet existent future event that is distant in time and can likewise only be verified afterward.’ [3]

Jung emphasizes that the causal and acausal principle each have their separate zones of influence: ‘Unlike causality, which reigns despotically over the whole picture of the macrophysical world and whose universal rule is shattered only in certain lower orders of magnitude, synchronicity is a phenomenon that seems to be primarily connected with psychic conditions, that is to say with processes in the unconscious’ [3]. To the modern reader, this may sound ludicrous. Jung makes the following rejoinder: ‘Synchronicity is no more baffling or mysterious than the dis­continuities of physics. It is only the ingrained belief in the sovereign power of causality that creates intellectual difficulties and makes it appear unthinkable that causeless events exist or could ever occur’ [3].

According to Jung, these meaningful coincidences exist from all eternity, repeat themselves sporadically, and are not derivable from any known antecedents. The persisting skeptic will of course still doubt the existence of these phenomena which ever so often have the eccentric terms of parapsychology thrown over them. And yet, quantum physics abounds with analogous phenomena. For starters, the process of radioactive decay has, up to our present-day knowledge, no identifiable cause. It just happens of its own accord. Similarly, the quantum physicist will tell you that virtually all phenomena are intricately tied up with the observer (i.e. the factor of consciousness) when reviewed on a sufficiently low level of analysis. The 'Heisenberg uncertainty principle', the 'double slit experiment' and the phenomenon of 'quantum entanglement' are but three terms the curious reader can look up to realize the fundamental mystery of existence.

And yet, we must ‘guard against thinking of every event whose cause is unknown as "causeless."’ Only too quickly does the human bias of superstition overlay all sorts of patterns on our everyday life. Considering synchronicity is only admissible if a cause is unthinkable. Jung gives the following formal criteria for synchronicity: ‘Meaningful coincidences are thinkable as pure chance. But the more they multiply and the greater and more exact the correspondence is, the more their probability sinks and their unthinkability increases, until they can no longer be regarded as pure chance but, for lack of a causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements’ [3].

Causal vs final

But how come this debate is relevant to the problem of neurosis? Well, insofar as this illness has been brought on by too-narrow metaphysical beliefs of our modern age this discussion is of primary importance. For, as Jung stresses a neurosis is always intricately connected to the conscious attitude of an individual or people. In this context, modern culture lays virtually exclusive emphasis on the causal aspect of psychopathology. Nowhere is this more evident than in Freudian theories. According to them, diseases are always traced back to some form of adverse childhood experience. As a result, certain 'unacceptable' contents are then repressed. Over time, these accumulate in the unconscious of a person and orchestrate all sorts of disturbing symptoms. Jung emphasizes that this is the mechanistic view and concedes that it presents at least one pole of psychopathology. For this reason, Freudian therapy can prove effective in a certain proportion of patients.

However, as Jung noted with frustration throughout his career for lots of patients the theory falls short: All the past traumas have been unearthed that cause the neurosis, and yet the neurosis persists. They remain stuck in the muck. In these cases, a new vantage point must be taken. Namely, the final (i.e. goal-directed) point of view. Rather than looking at the historic factors of a neurosis, this perspective investigates the energy relations. ‘The idea of energy is not that of a substance moved in space; it is a concept abstracted from relations of movement. The concept, therefore, is founded not on the substances themselves but on their relations, whereas the mov­ing substance itself is the basis of the mechanistic view’ [4].

The energetic view thus poses for instance that every neurotic condition has a certain goal of further development that is implicit. Rather than perpetuating the ‘Why’ question indefinitely, all-too-common in Freudian psychoanalysis, a new question is asked: The all-important ‘What for’ question.

In conclusion, according to Jung the modern doctrine of causality must be complemented with an acknowledgement of synchronicity, a necessity that is especially pressing in psychotherapy. Sticking to a solely causal conception of psychopathology leaves a large proportion of patients without the tools to properly grapple with their illness. It condemns them to endlessly scour through past events while neglecting the present. They may have delineated their neurosis’s cause with scientific precision and yet they behave as pathological as ever. Deep down they know that they are looking in the wrong place. No amount of further rationality, of intellectual theorizing, will help them. The cure lies in its opposite. In acknowledging the odd purposive character of the neurosis and of the mysterious guiding hand of synchronicity. ‘No explanation of nature can be mechanistic only’ [4].

The statistical mean over individual life

Another cardinal pillar of western scientific thought is that it values statistical truth above individual truth. To give it its due, this has proven of tremendous practical utility in the development of technology. By sticking to the mean, all deviation can be disregarded for the time being. An objective view is thereby approximated, something that is of utmost importance in the natural sciences. Think of how crucial it is for the pharmaceutical developer to figure out the right dosage of a new drug for the average patient. Standardisation is the alpha and omega of any scientific enterprise.

Nonetheless, something is missing in this purely objectifying worldview: Subjectivity. In fact, it is the very thing that science with all its effort tries to continually extricate from its measurements. And yet, to the individual life, the subjective is more real, more true, than the objective. The former has an individual character while the latter necessarily has a collective one. Jung explains ‘The statistically significant state­ment only concerns regularly occurring events, and if con­sidered as axiomatic, it simply abolishes all exceptions to the rule’ [14]. But must we not keep in mind that without its exceptions there would be no statistics? That without its individuals there would be no collective? ‘Because the statistical method shows only the average aspects, it creates an artificial and predominantly conceptual picture of reality. It produces a merely average picture of natural events, but not a true picture of the world as it is’ [3].

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the therapy room. ‘Since psychology touches man on the practical side, it cannot be satisfied with averages, because these only give information about his general behaviour. Instead, it has to turn its attention to the individual exceptions, which are murdered by statistics. The human psyche attains its true meaning not in the average but in the unique, and this does not count in a scientific procedure’ [5].

And so, Jung mentions we come up against the problematic fact that each psychotherapeutic technique is only conditionally true. This makes up a large part of the famous feud Jung and Freud held over decades. Jung fundamentally objected to the systematising inherent in Freudian psychology. In other words, the schema's Freud proposed that always go along the lines of "If X then Y". ‘The statistical method shows the facts in the light of the ideal average but does not give us a picture of their empirical reality. While reflecting an indisputable aspect of reality, it can falsify the actual truth in a most misleading way. This is particularly true of theories which are based on statistics. The distinctive thing about real facts, however, is their individuality. Not to put too fine a point on it, one could say that the real picture consists of nothing but exceptions to the rule, and that, in con­sequence, absolute reality has predominantly the character of irregularity’ [5].

Of course, on an abstract and collective level, there are all sorts of regularities. Necessarily so, for otherwise psychology, or even languages, could not exist. The world would then consist of ‘an insoluble chaos of subjective opinions’. ‘Individuality, however, is only relative, the complement of human conformity or likeness; and therefore it is possible to make statements of general validity, i.e., scientific statements. These statements re­late only to those parts of the psychic system which do in fact conform, i.e., are amenable to comparison and statistically measurable’ [6]. To the part of the psyche that is individual and unique, science however can never ascend to, by definition. True individuality will always be unassailable to collective comparison. Individuality is the necessary complementary principle to collectivity that allows ‘for a complete description and explanation of nature’.

Only the material is ‘real’

‘Where rational­istic materialism holds sway, states tend to develop less into prisons than into lunatic asylums’ [7]. These are the famous words of Jung in his book Aion, one where he lets his honest frustrations and premonitions shine through. Jung hereby criticises a main pillar of modern culture, rational materialism.

Before going into this, let’s give a brief history of this philosophical movement. The materialist metaphysics of the present age has it’s origins in the Christian Reformation in the European Middle Ages. ‘When the spiritual catastrophe of the Reformation put an end to the Gothic Age with its impetuous yearning for the heights, its geographical confinement, and its restricted view of the world, the vertical outlook of the European mind was forthwith intersected by the horizontal outlook of modern times’ [8].

While in Gothic times the European Christian looked upward, increasingly the gaze was fixed on the expanse of land around one. ‘Consciousness ceased to grow upward, and grew instead in breadth of view, as well as in knowledge of the terrestrial globe. This was the period of the great voyages, and of the widening of man's ideas of the world by empirical discoveries’ [8].

The discovery of America, the colonization of the world and the sophistication of economic systems all marked important milestones in this shift from the vertical spiritual orientation to the horizontal material orientation. ‘Belief in the substantiality of the spirit yielded more and more to the obtrusive conviction that material things alone have substance, till at last, after nearly four hundred years, the leading European thinkers and investigators came to regard the mind as wholly dependent on matter and material causation’ [8].

In the course of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the Western world grew vastly wealthier and the fierce everyday struggle of peasant life could be largely alleviated. That indeed is a strong point which Jung also concedes. In addition, he emphasizes that this movement amounts to nothing short of fate. The collective unconscious itself collaborated, if not orchestrated, this enantiodromia. It meant a switching into the opposite from the one-sided spiritualism of the prior age. At the same time, we are running the risk of committing the same mistake and merely swinging over to the other extreme. In other words, of assuming just the same one-sided stance that the European Gothic took on.

In Jung’s view, one instance of the materialist bias can be found in the two prevailing psychodynamic theories of his time: Freud’s sexual theory and Adler’s power theory. Each reduces the psyche to a singular function. This conceptual conflation is made easier by the permeable border between the religious instinct, the sexual instinct and the power instinct. ‘The only thing we cannot doubt is that the most important of the fundamental instincts, the religious instinct for wholeness, plays the least conspicuous part in contemporary consciousness because, as history shows, it can free itself only with the greatest effort, and with continual backslidings, from contamination with the other two instincts. These can constantly appeal to common, everyday facts known to everyone, but the instinct for unholiness requires for its evidence a more highly differentiated consciousness, thoughtfulness, reflection, responsibility, and sundry other virtues’ [5]. By denying this instinct and subjugating it rather under the heading of either ‘sex’ or ‘power’ one no longer needs to contend with this great problem of the spirit. To the modern reductionist this is all too pleasing and comforting, for now all is explained and uncertainty is no more. Existence is now reducible to one singular principle and oh how marvelously simple and obvious everything appears.

On the other hand, accounting for the spiritual aspect of the psyche introduces unwelcome complexity. ‘Therefore it does not commend itself to the relatively unconscious man driven by his natural impulses, because, imprisoned in his familiar world, he clings to the commonplace, the obvious, the probable, the collectively valid, using for his motto: “Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!” It is an enormous relief to him when something that looks complicated, unusual, puzzling and problematical can be reduced to something ordinary and banal, especially when the solution strikes him as surprisingly simple and somewhat droll. The most convenient explanations are invariably sex and the power instinct’ [5]. At this point, Jung allows himself a jab at the deceptive nature of this philosophical hack.  ‘Reduction to these two dominants gives rationalists and materialists an ill-concealed satisfaction: they have neatly disposed of an intellectually and morally uncomfortable difficulty, and on top of that can enjoy the feeling of having accomplished a useful work of enlightenment which will free the individual from unnecessary moral and social burdens. In this way they can pose as benefactors of mankind’ [5].

The true repercussions of this however run deep and can be ever so grave, albeit well concealed on the surface of things. ‘On closer inspection, however, things look very different: the exemption of the individual from a difficult and apparently insoluble task drives sexuality into an even more pernicious repression, where it is replaced by rationalism or by soul-destroying cynicism, while the power instinct is driven towards some Socialistic ideal that has already turned half the world into the State prison of Communism. This is the exact opposite of what the striving for wholeness wants, namely, to free the individual from the compulsion of the other two instincts. The task before him comes back with all its energies unused, and reinforces, to an almost pathological degree, the very instincts that have always stood in the way of man’s higher development. At all events it has a neuroticizing effect characteristic of our time and must bear most of the blame for the splitting of the individual and of the world in general’ [5]. Jung concludes ‘The average intelligence takes refuge either in unbelief or in credulity, for to it the psyche is no more than a miserable wisp of vapour. Either there are hard and-fast facts, or else it is nothing but illusion begotten by repressed sexuality or an over-compensated inferiority complex’ [5].

But despite our modern denial of the psyche, it is as real as ever. All to frequently it resorts to ferocious intrusions for it to force itself into the field of vision of even the most devout materialist. To these unfortunate individuals it becomes plainly clear that the psyche is just as real, just as much a fact, as our physiology. Matter (physiology) and spirit (psyche) actually designate two opposite ends of a pole. Each can impact the other in a continual interplay.

On the one hand, Jung admits that the psyche is often strongly influenced by biological processes in the human body. ‘It is true that elementary psychic phenomena are closely allied to physio­logical processes, and there is not the slightest doubt that the physiological factor forms at least one pole of the psychic cosmos. The instinctive and affective processes, together with all the neurotic symptomatology that arises when these are dis­turbed, clearly rest on a physiological basis’ [9].

On the other hand, the psyche can just as much influence our body’s physiology, of turning physiological order into disorder or vice versa. The former process can be seen most clearly in the presence of a certain psychic disturbing factor.  ‘If the dis­turbance lies in a repression, then the disturbing factor—that is, the repressive force—belongs to a "higher" psychic order. It is not something elementary and physiologically conditioned, but, as experience shows, a highly complex determinant, as for example certain rational, ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other traditional ideas which cannot be scientifically proved to have any physiological basis’ [9]. Most strikingly, Jung mentions that based on his practical experience this spiritual pole ‘possesses an energy many times greater than that of the physiologically conditioned’ [9].

Our modern culture however is uncomfortable with acknowledging this fact, for one enters murky and difficult-to-measure territory. For the more spiritual the area of investation becomes, the less it runs by the dictates of causality, the less it is bound by our conventional notions of space and time. Nevertheless, it seems better to admit our ignorance in this area than to deny it outright. ‘It is an almost absurd prejudice to suppose that existence can only be physical. As a matter of fact, the only form of existence of which we have immediate knowledge is psychic. We might well say, on the contrary, that physical exist­ence is a mere inference, since we know of matter only in so far as we perceive psychic images mediated by the senses’ [10].

For Jung it is plain that ‘a factor exists which mediates between the apparent incommensurability of body and psyche, giving matter a kind of “psychic” faculty and the psyche a kind of “materiality,” by means of which the one can work on the other.’ This conceptualization manages to strike a balance between the two poles and does not commit the mistake of exclusively focusing on one end of the spectrum. Jung concludes ‘Both views, the materialistic as well as the spiritualistic, are metaphysical prejudices. It accords better with experience to suppose that living matter has a psychic aspect, and the psyche a physical aspect’ [5].

Conclusion

The reader may at this point ask, so what? So what that our modern age has a materialistic prejudice? This prejudice has afforded us great technological advancement and material prosperity, has it not? Indeed, it has enriched us immeasurably in historical terms. And yet if we look back at the 20th century we cannot help but notice the black marks staining our ‘enlightened’ age. Jung responds as concisely yet comprehensively as ever: ‘A predominantly scientific and technological education, such as is the usual thing nowadays, can also bring about a spiritual regression and a considerable increase of psychic dissociation. With hygiene and prosperity alone a man is still far from health, otherwise the most enlightened and most comfortably off among us would be the healthiest. But in regard to neuroses that is not the case at all, quite the contrary. Loss of roots and lack of tradi­tion neuroticize the masses and prepare them for collective hysteria’ [7].

Whether at a Nazi rally, at a Bolshevist uprising or at any of the contemporary instances of collective hysteria, it is obvious that for all our technological sophistication we are still as primitive as ever. ‘The problems which the integration of the unconscious sets modern doctors and psychologists can only be solved along the lines traced out by history, and the upshot will be a new assimila­tion of the traditional myth. This, however, presupposes the continuity of historical development. Naturally the present tendency to destroy all tradition or render it unconscious could interrupt the normal process of development for several hun­dred years and substitute an interlude of barbarism’ [7].

Wrapping up this sobering chapter, it must be emphasized that the Western psyche hangs on a thin thread. The dissociability of it is both a blessing and a curse. Jung reminds us of our beginnings: ‘We were stopped in the midst of a still barbarous polytheism, which was eradicated or suppressed in the course of centuries and not so very long ago. I suppose that this fact has given a peculiar twist to the Western mind. Our mental existence was trans­formed into something which it had not yet reached and which it could not yet truly be. And this could only be brought about by a dissociation between the conscious part of the mind and the unconscious. It was a liberation of consciousness from the burden of irrationality and instinctive impulsiveness at the ex­pense of the totality of the individual. Man became split into a conscious and an unconscious personality. The conscious per­sonality could be domesticated, because it was separated from the natural and primitive man. Thus we became highly disci­plined, organized, and rational on one side, but the other side remained a suppressed primitive, cut off from education and civilization’ [11].

A psyche split in two, where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing anymore. ‘This explains our many relapses into the most appalling bar­barity, and it also explains the really terrible fact that, the higher we climb the mountain of scientific and technical achievement, the more dangerous and diabolical becomes the misuse of our inventions. Think of the great triumph of the human mind, the power to fly: we have accomplished the age-old dream of humanity! And think of the bombing raids of modern war­fare! Is this what civilization means? Is it not rather a convinc­ing demonstration of the fact that, when our mind went up to conquer the skies, our other man, that suppressed barbarous individual, went down to hell?’ [11]. What this barbarous predisposition of ours implies for our dawning age of Artificial Intelligence should send a shudder down all our spines. At the very least, it should prompt us to stay ever-vigilant regarding this weakness of the modern psyche!

References

1.        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 4: The aims of psychotherapy]

2.        Wikipedia. (2024). Causality. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

3.        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 18: Synchronicity: An acausal connecting principle]

4.        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 1: On psychic energy]

5.        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]

6.        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]

7.        Jung, C. G. (1954). Aion. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., Vol. 9). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 12: Background to the Psychology of Christian Alchemical Symbolism]

8.        Jung, C. G. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. (W. S. Dell & C. F. Baynes, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace & World. [Chapter 9: The basic postulates of analytical psychology]

9.        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 6: Psychotherapy and a philosophy of life]

10.  Jung, C. G. (1954). Psychology and religion: East and West. The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., Vol. 11). Princeton University Press. [Chapter 1: Psychology and religion]

11.  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 22: What India can teach us]