JUNGUIAN WORLDVIEW

 

JUNGUIAN WORLDVIEW

José Delgado González. Psychologist and Junguian-oriented therapist.

 

Welcome to Junguian Psychology. Today I am going to talk about the Jungian worldview, that is, the way in which from the Junguian orientation we approach Psychology in particular, and the world in general. At first, I am going to focus on some fundamental guidelines that are part of the Jungian paradigm, that is, how we understand the psyche from a Jungian orientation.

To begin with, the object of study of psychology, as its very name indicates, is the soul or psyche. Therefore, it is not reduced only to the rational or conscious mind, and even less to the biology of the brain. The soul is the realm of emotion and imagination, abandoned and cursed not only by science, but also by the confessions.

One of the fundamental issues that arises in the consultation is the way in which the psyche is approached in the Western model of psychology. Thus, the aim is to transpose to the study of the soul the somatic or biological model, more typical of medicine than of psychology. Thus, the real object of treatment and study of psychology disappears: the psyche or the soul.

As we said above, the soul expresses itself in the realm of emotions and images. It is a world of images that flows like the flowing of the waters, or is reflected in the mirror of a fountain whose water returns to the place from which it came. We psychologists observe it in dreams, in the imagination and in creative activity (and, of course, in everything that the patient refers to). The psyche is, in truth, an image of the world. Consciousness can see the world from within when it observes the soul. Hence, all the conflicts that occur in the world are also occurring in the psyche of the individuals who participate in the world. The war in Ukraine is not only between Russia and Ukraine, as other countries are involved and, in the end, two paradigms or ways of seeing the world.

The Russian-Ukrainian war is also taking place in the psyche of those of us who live in these turbulent times. Today it is still ignored that each individual, each person, is a brick in the structure of geopolitical organizations and, therefore, participates in their conflicts. While it is true that people know that, as individuals, they are unimportant and consider themselves victims of uncontrollable powers (the Puebla group, the great magnates, the Euro-deputies, etc.), it is no less true that every individual carries a dangerous shadow and a terrible adversary who is implicated in the sinister machinations of the political monster called government. It is an inherent part of politics to always see evil in others, just as people have the tendency, almost impossible to uproot, to offload everything they do not know about themselves by attributing it to someone else. This tendency causes a separating and alienating effect among the members of society, while the withdrawal of mutual projections encourages understanding and the rapprochement of positions. But for this to happen, self-criticism is essential, since one cannot order the other to become aware of his or her projections.

For he will not recognize them as his own in the same way that he does not recognize them as his own. The only way to recognize prejudice and illusion is to start from a general psychological knowledge that allows us to doubt the belief in the accuracy of the things we suppose in order to compare them with objective facts. It is curious that "self-criticism" is on the lips of communist ideologies. However, this "self-criticism" is always subordinated to the reason of state, that is, to its own reason and not to truth and justice in the treatment of people among themselves. Communist massification is not interested in mutual understanding, nor in the relations between people, but rather in the mental isolation of people. The less connected the individuals are, the more the state organization gains in solidity, and vice versa, the more cohesive the individuals are, the less important the state will be.

On the other hand, modern psychiatry seems to suffer not only from a lack of knowledge of the object of study of psychology, that is, the psyche or the soul, but also, it would seem that it suffers from a lamentable lack of a true psychopathology. The gods are no longer on Olympus, nor do we observe them in the activity of nature. However, we see them at work in psychic ailments, creating pandemics that are enhanced by the mass media and social networks. The pandemics that have spread throughout the world like a malignant tumor are all those ideologies of a mass character, which strip the individual of individual freedom and of the necessary responsibility to take charge of his own life project.

The prevailing model in the current manual of mental disorders (DSM-V) is descriptive, comes from a nineteenth-century paradigm, although the publication of the first manual took place in the mid-twentieth century, and is composed of a set of features that in practice is often impossible to apply to specific cases.

In fact, seen in detail, any person is likely to present several traits or diagnostic criteria without suffering from any disorder or, also, there are overlaps that give rise to comorbidities. Psychology is not reduced to human ethology, as behavioral orientation claims. We repeat: psychology is the scientific study of the psyche. In any case, psychology encompasses the study of behavior and of the rational mind (cognitive as it is called in the academy), but it is not exhausted with it. For the unconscious dimension, in which emotion and image take precedence, is the true object of study of psychology. It is precisely the repression or abandonment of the imagination, which characterizes Western civilization and which began with the Enlightenment, that is the causative factor of all current psychopathology.

It is at least amusing, if not distressing, that the psychopathological model of psychiatry is presented as atheoretical. This is certainly inconceivable, and what happens is that the paradigm of psychiatry loses all its scientific character. For, as we have been pointing out, its theoretical premises are quite evident.

Cognitive psychology, which is derived from a positive psychology by an American author, Martin Seligman, aims to reduce the psychic to the mental. Thus, the object of study of psychology, the soul, is confined solely to the realm of consciousness. As if this were not enough, the aim of this approach is to present a model for achieving happiness. Happiness, of course, would consist of being socially successful. We should all learn from those who have succeeded. Thus, the happiest people should be the most successful. Let us all become influencers, let us all participate in operation triumph, let us all become "gurus" of spirituality or let us all become rich and famous and, with that, according to positive psychology, we will surely be happy and eat partridge.

The great problem of modern psychology and psychotherapy lies, on the other hand, in the lack of scientific certainty about the importance of the moral attitude in the treatment and cure of psychic disorders. It is fundamental what the patient does with the psychic contents that provoke his suffering and discomfort. That he integrates them into his consciousness and takes responsibility for them is vital, not only for his cure, but also for the maturation process that the Jungian psychological treatment promotes and favors.

Finally, I cannot fail to point out the philosophical reductionism that prevails in modern psychiatry. It is reflected in the attempt to reduce everything psychic to a neuronal functioning, so that the object of study of psychology, the soul, disappears or vanishes in the treatment.

It is not surprising that official psychiatry advocates the prescription of psychotropic drugs, all derived from analgesics, with the aim of eradicating or reducing the patient's pain or suffering. Of course, much progress has been made in research on psychotropic drugs and they can be of great help to certain patients. But it tends to become the first choice of treatment in the healthcare system.  This diminishes or eliminates what is fundamental in any psychotherapeutic treatment: the responsibility of the conscious self to take charge of the contents that provoke its suffering. In other words, the patient must take responsibility for his or her emotional life.

This is precisely where the patient's maturity lies and not, as official psychology maintains, in the best adaptation to social reality. One can be psychically an adolescent and be perfectly adapted to the public sphere. On the other hand, the individuation or realization of the patient's depth requires that the person be true to himself, to the voice that comes from the spirit that dwells in his deepest immanence (the psyche).

Unfortunately, modern psychology, as part of the spirit of this time, misunderstands the meaning of the term self, which Jungians use to refer to the experience of the sacred or numinous, to the core of the psyche, expressly differentiating it from the ego as the center of consciousness.

This lack of understanding, this manifest confusion between the personal and transpersonal dimensions is expressed in the foolish equating of diligent attention to depth with a kind of "spiritual narcissism". This is tantamount to identifying individualism with individuation. Of course, this unconscious identity tends to occur when a sufficient differentiation between the two dimensions has not been achieved: one does not have the remotest idea of the deep dimensions of the psyche, that is, of what we Jungian psychologists call the collective unconscious.

It is believed that, with the very unfortunate term of Spiritual Narcissism, something singular or novel has been discovered, when in reality it is a very frequent phenomenon, which can be traced in the history of humanity, and which in Jungian psychology we call inflation of the consciousness or, also, "possession" by the effect of an archetype. The ancient Greeks called it heroic hybris.

Inflation of consciousness or hybris occurs when the ego is affected by the action of an archetype. For a certain period of time, the ego identifies itself with the contents constellated or activated by the field of action of an archetype. Examples of inflation due to the effect of the archetype of the social mask or person are the order of the day in politicians, being especially evident in presidents of the government, in ministers and in all those persons who exercise functions in positions of work with certain power; they are also frequent in general directors of large corporations, in doctors, psychiatrists, professors, etc.

When inflation is due to the action of the archetype of the self (or the mana personality) then the ego may feel that it has superior knowledge, or that it is spiritually superior to other human beings: an unconscious identity between the ego and the self is produced. This is, in fact, the initial state or starting point in any individuation process. However, the opposite phenomenon can occur, called deflation of consciousness, as I have already developed in the article Phenomenology of Spirit. Individuation consists in the progressive assimilation and differentiation of the contents of the collective unconscious, that is, the archetypes, by the consciousness.

Another example of inflation is found in the identification between the contents of a dogma and the ego. In this case, inflationary behavior is expressed in an unconscious identity with orthodoxy and is especially noticeable in more or less fanatical attitudes. The history of religions is replete with examples of this type and inflation is responsible for the creation of orthodox positions that confront heterodox ones. In this case there is an identification with the ideas of Truth, Beauty and Goodness and, therefore, the shadow is cast on the heterodox positions, and vice versa. The "possessed" person feels morally superior to the rest of mortals. Both in official Christianity and in the Gnostic movements we find the inflationary phenomenon of the "possession" of the consciousness by the numinous effect of an archetype.

At present, we Jungian psychologists are observing the expansion of the effects of the "possession" of consciousness by the action of an archetype, the archetype of the Goddess, in the extension of feminist ideology. The mass consciousness (not to mention the null self-consciousness of its members) is practically non-existent and the effect of the archetype makes itself felt in the form of a psychic pandemic (ideology) that spreads and potentiates thanks to the mass media and social networks. When this happens, what we Jungian psychologists observe is a terrible disturbance that the unconscious provokes in the collective consciousness of an epoch. The masses are swept along by archetypal powers in a movement that precipitates an enantiodromic reaction whose consequences are as yet unforeseeable.

In the face of the advance of ideologies the only possible antidote is the strengthening of the individual, that is, the man whose consciousness maintains a relationship with his own depth. Such a man can answer affirmatively to the question about the immediate religious experience, about the relationship that his consciousness maintains with the depth, that is, with the Mystery, at the same time Fascinating and Tremendous, whose certainty protects him from dissolution in a mass ideology.

Bibliography

Delgado González, J. (2004). El retorno al Paraíso Perdido. La renovación de una cultura. Soria. Editorial Sotabur. 

Delgado González, J. (2020). Cómo integrar tu sombra. Madrid. Ed. El hacedor de lluvia.

Jung, C. G. (2011). Aion. Contribuciones al simbolismo del sí mismo. Madrid. Ed. Trotta Vol.9/2.

Jung, C. G. (2002) Mysterium Coniunctionis. Madrid. Ed. Trotta. Vol. 14.