The Practice Of Psychotherapy Essays On The Psychology Of The Transference And Other Subjects

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The practice 'of Psychotherapy 



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BOLLINGEN SERIES XX 

THE COLLECTED WORKS 
OF 

C.G.JUNG 

VOLUME 16 

EDITORS 

SIR HERBERT READ 

MICHAEL FORDHAM, M.D., M.R.C.P, 

GERHARD ADLER, PH.D. 



THE PRACTICE 

OF 

PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ESSAYS ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 
AND OTHER SUBJECTS 

C. G.JUNG 




TRANSLATED BY R. F. C. HULL 
14 ILLUSTRATIONS 

BOLLINGEN SERIES XX 
PANTHEON BOOKS 



COPYRIGHT 1954 BY BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION INC., NEW YORK, N. Y. 
PUBLISHED FOR BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION INC. 
BY PANTHEON BOOKS, INC., NEW YORK, N. Y. 



THIS EDITION IS BEING PUBLISHED IN THE 
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TION, ALL THE VOLUMES COMPRISING THE 
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VOLUME IS NUMBER l6 OF THE COLLECTED 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 52-8757 

MANUFACTURED IN THE U. S. A. BY H. WOLFF 

NEW YORK, N. Y. 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

This volume contains, in addition to "Psychology of the Trans- 
ference," published as a separate volume in Switzerland, all Pro- 
fessor Jung's various papers on psychotherapy. Only two works 
of importance have not previously appeared in English: "Prin- 
ciples of Practical Psychotherapy" and "Psychology of the Trans- 
ference." The first contains a new formulation of the analytical 
relationship; this formulation Jung calls the dialectical pro- 
cedure. The second gives the only authoritative statement from 
his pen of the way in which the individuation process expresses 
itself in the transference. 

It was felt that since many will read this volume who may have 
not an adequate classical scholarship at their command, a trans- 
lation of the Latin quotations from little known alchemical texts, 
in the final paper, would be of assistance in promoting a deeper 
understanding of the material. A bibliography giving details of 
the extensive literature has been added; in it a number of English 
and American editions of foreign books will be found, though 
the translations in these volumes have not necessarily been used 
in the text. All bibliographical references are printed in bold- 
face type. 

The sources of the translations are given in the table of con- 
tents, and further bibliographical details will be found at the 
opening of each paper. The Latin and Greek passages were origi- 
nally translated by Dr. A. Wasserstein and were later somewhat 
revised by Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz, whose expert knowledge 
of alchemical Latin has been invaluable. 



TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 

Certain of the essays in this volume were previously translated 
and published in Contributions to Analytical Psychology 
(London and New York, 1928), Modem Man in Search of a Soul 
(London and New York, 1933), and Essays on Contemporary 
Events (London, 1947). I wish to thank Mrs. Gary F. Baynes 
and Miss Mary Briner for permission to make full use of those 
texts in preparing the present revised versions. My particular 
thanks are due to Miss Barbara Hannah for placing at my dis- 
posal her draft translation of the opening chapters of "Psychology 
of the Transference/* 

It may be noted that two papers, "Some Aspects of Modern 
Psychotherapy" and "The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction," 
were written by Professor Jung in English, and are published 
here only with certain editorial modifications. 



VI 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



EDITORIAL NOTE V 

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE vi 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

PART ONE 

GENERAL PROBLEMS OF 
PSYCHOTHERAPY 

i. Principles of Practical Psychotherapy 3 

Translated from "Grundsatzliches zur praktischen 
Psychotherapie," Zentralblatt fur Psychotherapie 
(Zurich), VIII (1935). 

n. What Is Psychotherapy? 21 

Translated from "Was ist die Psychotherapie?/' 
Schweizerische Aerztezeitung fur Standesfragen 
(Zurich), XVI (1935). 

in. Some Aspects of Modern Psychotherapy 29 

Originally published in English, Journal of State 
Medicine (London), XXXVIII (1930). 

iv. The Aims of Psychotherapy 36 

Translated from "Ziele der Psychotherapie," Seelen- 
probleme der Gegenwart (Zurich: Rascher, 1931). 

v. Problems of Modern Psychotherapy 53 

Translated from "Die Probleme der modernen 
Psychotherapie," Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart 
(Zurich: Rascher, 1931). 

vi. Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life 76 

Translated from "Psychotherapie und Weltan- 
schauung," Aufsatze zur Zeitgeschichte (Zurich: 
Rascher, 1946). 

vii 



CONTENTS 



vii. Medicine and Psychotherapy 84 

Translated from "Medizin und Psychotherapie," 
Bulletin der Schweizerischen Akademie der med- 
izinischen Wissenschaften (Basel), I (1945). 

vni. Psychotherapy Today 94 

Translated from "Die Psychotherapie in der Gegen- 
wart/' Aufsdtze zur Zeitgeschichte (Zurich: Rascher, 
1946). 

ix. Fundamental Questions of Psychotherapy 1 1 1 

Translated from "Grundfragen der Psychothera- 
pie/' Dialectica (Neuchatel), V (1951). 

PART TWO 

SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF 
PSYCHOTHERAPY 

i. The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction 129 

Originally published in English; this is a revised ver- 
sion, from Contributions to Analytical Psychology 
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner; New 
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928). 

n. The Practical Use of Dream-Analysis 1 39 

Translated from "Die praktische Verwendbarkeit 
der Traumanalyse," Wirklichkeit der Seele (Zurich: 
Rascher, 1934). 

in. Psychology of the Transference 1 63 

Translated from Die Psychologic der Ubertragung 
(Zurich: Rascher, 1946). 

FOREWORD 1 64 

INTRODUCTION 1 Qtj 

AN ACCOUNT OF THE TRANSFERENCE PHENOMENA 
BASED ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE * 'ROSARIUM 
PHILOSOPHORUM " 203 

viii 



CONTENTS 



/. 


The Mercurial Fountain 


203 


2. 


King and Queen 


211 


3- 


The Naked Truth 


S 35 


4- 


Immersion in the Bath 


240 


5- 


The Conjunction 


246 


6. 


Death 


256 


7- 


The Ascent of the Soul 


265 


8. 


Purification 


271 


P- 


The Return of the Soul 


281 


70. 


The New Birth 


304 



EPILOGUE 319 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 



INDEX 341 



IX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Figures i-io are full pages, with woodcuts, reproduced from the Rosarium 
philosophorum, secunda pars alchemiae de lapide philosophico (Frankfort, 
1550). The sections which they pertain to are indicated in brackets. 

1. [The Mercurial Fountain] 205 

2. [King and Queen] 213 

3. [The Naked Truth] 237 

4. [Immersion in the" Bath] 24 1 

5. [The Conjunction] 247 
5a. [The Conjunction] 249 

6. [Death] 257 

7. [The Ascent of the Soul] 267 

8. [Purification] 273 

9. [The Return of the Soul] 283 
10. [The New Birth] 305 

Figures 1 i i 3 are full pages reproduced from the textless picture book 
Mutus liber, in quo tamen iota philosophia hermetica . . . depingitur 
(La Rochelle, 1677). They are described on page 320, note i. 

1113. following 320 



I 



GENERAL PROBLEMS 

OF 
PSYCHOTHERAPY 



PRINCIPLES OF 
PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 1 

Psychotherapy is a domain of the healing art which has de- 
veloped and acquired a certain independence only within the 
last fifty years. Views in this field have changed and become 
differentiated in a great variety of ways, and the mass of experi- 
ence accumulated has given rise to all sorts of different in- 
terpretations. The reason for this lies in the fact that psycho- 
therapy is not the simple, straightforward method people at 
first believed it to be, but, as has gradually become clear, a kind 
of dialectical process, a dialogue or discussion between two per- 
sons. Dialectic was originally the art of conversation among the 
ancient philosophers, but very early became the term for the 
process of creating new syntheses. A person is a psychic system 
which, when it affects another person, enters into reciprocal 
reaction with another psychic system. This, perhaps the most 
modern, formulation of the psycho therapeutic relation between 
physician and patient is clearly very far removed from the orig- 
inal view that psychotherapy was a method which anybody 
could apply in stereotyped fashion in order to reach the desired 
result. It was not the needs of speculation which prompted this 
unsuspected and, I might well say, unwelcome widening of the 
horizon, but the hard facts of reality. In the first place, it was 
probably the fact that one had to admit the possibility of dif- 
ferent interpretations of the observed material. Hence there 
grew up various schools with diametrically opposed views. I 
would remind you of the Li6beault-Bernheim French method of 
suggestion therapy, reeducation de la volonte; Babinski's "per- 
suasion"; Dubois' "rational psychic orthopedics"; Freud's psy- 
choanalysis, with its emphasis on sexuality and the unconscious; 

i [Delivered as a lecture to the Zurich Medical Society in 1935. Published as 
"Grundsatzliches zur praktischen Psychotherapie," Zentralblatt fur Psychothera- 
pie, VIII (1935): 2, 66-82. EDITORS.] 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



Adler's educational method, with its emphasis on power-drives 
and conscious fictions; Schultz's autogenic training to name 
only the better known methods. Each of them rests on special 
psychological assumptions and produces special psychological 
results; comparison between them is difficult and often well- 
nigh impossible. Consequently it was quite natural that the 
champions of any one point of view should, in order to sim- 
plify matters, treat the opinions of the others as erroneous. 
Objective appraisal of the facts shows, however, that each of 
these methods and theories is justified up to a point, since each 
can boast not only of certain successes but of psychological data 
that largely prove its particular assumption. Thus we are faced 
In psychotherapy with a situation comparable with that in 
modern physics where, for instance, there are two contradictory 
theories of light. And just as physics does not find this contra- 
diction unbridgeable, so the existence of many possible stand- 
points in psychology should not give grounds for assuming that 
the contradictions are irreconcilable and the various views 
merely subjective and therefore incommensurable. Contradic- 
tions in a department of science merely indicate that its subject 
displays characteristics which at present can be grasped only 
by means of antinomieswitness the wave theory and the cor- 
puscular theory of light. Now the psyche is infinitely more com- 
plicated than light; hence a great number of antinomies is re- 
quired to describe the nature of the psyche satisfactorily. One 
of the fundamental antinomies is the statement that psyche de- 
pends on body and body depends on psyche. There are clear 
proofs for both sides of this antinomy, so that an objective 
judgment cannot give more weight to thesis or to antithesis. 
The existence of valid contradictions shows that the object 
of investigation presents the inquiring mind with excep- 
tional difficulties, as a result of which only relatively valid 
statements can be made, at least for the time being. That is to 
say, the statement is valid only in so far as it indicates what kind 
of psychic system we are investigating. Hence we arrive at the 
dialectical formulation which tells us precisely that psychic influ- 
ence is the reciprocal reaction of two psychic systems. Since the 
individuality of the psychic system is infinitely variable, there 
must be an infinite variety of relatively valid statements. But 
if individuality were absolute in its particularity, if one indi- 

4 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



vidual were totally different from every other individual, then 
psychology would be impossible as a science, for it would con- 
sist in 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 re- 
late only to those parts of the psychic system which do in fact 
conform, i.e., are amenable to comparison and statistically 
measurable; they do not relate to that part of the system which 
is individual and unique. The second fundamental antinomy 
in psychology therefore runs: the individual signifies nothing 
in comparison with the universal,, and the universal signifies 
nothing in comparison with the individual. There are, as we 
all know, no universal elephants, only individual elephants. 
But if a generality, a constant plurality, of elephants did not 
exist, a single individual elephant would be exceedingly im- 
probable. 

: These logical reflections may appear somewhat remote from 
our theme. But in so far as they are the outcome of previous 
psychological experience, they yield practical conclusions of 
no little importance. When, as a psychotherapist, I set myself 
up as a medical authority over my patient and on that account 
claim to know something about his individuality, or to be able 
to make valid statements about it, I am only demonstrating my 
lack of criticism, for I am in no position to judge the whole of 
the personality before me. I cannot say anything valid about 
him except in so far as he approximates to the "universal man." 
But since all life is to be found only in individual form, and I 
myself can assert of another individuality only what I find in 
my own, I am in constant danger either of doing violence to 
the other person or of succumbing to his influence. If I wish to 
treat another individual psychologically at all, I must for better 
or worse give up all pretensions to superior knowledge, all au- 
thority and desire to influence. I must perforce adopt a dialec- 
tical procedure consisting in a comparison of our mutual find- 
ings. But this becomes possible only if I give the other person 
a chance to play his hand to the full, unhampered by my as- 
sumptions. In this way his system is geared to mine and acts 
upon it; my reaction is the only thing with which I as an in- 
dividual can legitimately confront my patient. 

5 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



3 These considerations of principle produce in the psycho- 
therapist a very definite attitude which, in all cases of indi- 
vidual treatment, seems to me to be absolutely necessary be- 
cause it alone is scientifically responsible. Any deviation from 
this attitude amounts to therapy by suggestion, the kind of ther- 
apy whose main principle is: "The individual signifies nothing 
in comparison with the universal/' Suggestion therapy includes 
all methods that arrogate to themselves, and apply, a knowledge 
or an interpretation of other individualities. Equally it includes 
all strictly technical methods, because these invariably assume 
that all individuals are alike. To the extent that the insignifi- 
cance of the individual is a truth, suggestive methods, technical 
procedures, and theorems in any shape or form are entirely 
capable of success and guarantee results with the universal man 
as for instance, Christian Science, mental healing, faith cures, 
remedial training, medical and religious techniques, and count- 
less other isms. Even political movements can, not without 
justice, claim to be psychotherapy in the grand manner. The 
outbreak of war cured many a compulsion neurosis, and from 
time immemorial certain miraculous localities have caused neu- 
rotic states to disappear; similarly, popular movements both 
large and small can exert a curative influence on the individual. 

4 This fact finds the simplest and most nearly perfect expres- 
sion in the primitive idea of "mana." Mana is a universal medi- 
cinal or healing power which renders men, animals, and plants 
fruitful and endows chieftain and medicine-man with magical 
strength. Mana, as Lehmann has shown, is identified with any- 
thing "extraordinarily potent/* or simply with anything im- 
pressive. On the primitive level anything impressive is there- 
fore "medicine." Since it is notorious that a hundred intelligent 
heads massed together make one big fathead, virtues and en- 
dowments are essentially the hallmarks of the individual and 
not of the universal man. The masses always incline to herd 
psychology, hence they are easily stampeded; and to mob psychol- 
ogy, hence their witless brutality and hysterical emotionalism. 
The universal man has the characteristics of a savage and must 
therefore be treated with technical methods. It is in fact bad 
practice to treat collective man with anything other than "tech- 
nically correct" methods, i.e., those collectively recognized and 
believed to be effective. In this sense the old hypnotism or the 

6 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



still older animal magnetism achieved, in principle, just as 
much as a technically irreproachable modern analysis, or for 
that matter the amulets of the primitive medicine-man. It all 
depends on the method the therapist happens to believe in. His 
belief is what does the trick. If he really believes, then he 
will do his utmost for the sufferer with seriousness and per- 
severance, and this freely given effort and devotion will have 
a curative effect up to the level of collective man's mentality. 
But the limits are fixed by the "individual-universal" anti- 
nomy. 

5 This antinomy constitutes a psychological as well as a philo- 
sophical criterion, since there are countless people who are not 
only collective in all essentials but are fired by a quite peculiar 
ambition to be nothing but collective. This accords with all 
the current trends in education which like to regard individu- 
ality and lawlessness as synonymous. On this plane anything 
individual is rated inferior and is repressed. In the correspond- 
ing neuroses individual contents and tendencies appear as psy- 
chological poisons. There is also, as we know, an overestirnation 
of individuality based on the rule that "the universal signifies 
nothing in comparison with the individual." Thus, from the 
psychological (not the clinical) point of view, we can divide the 
psychoneuroses into two main groups: the one comprising col- 
lective people with underdeveloped individuality, the other in- 
dividualists with atrophied collective adaptation. The thera- 
peutic attitude differs accordingly, for it is abundantly clear 
that a neurotic individualist can only be cured by recognizing 
the collective man in himself hence the need for collective 
adaptation. It is therefore right to bring him down to the level 
of collective truth. On the other hand, psychotherapists are 
familiar with the collectively adapted person who has every- 
thing and does everything that could reasonably be required 
as a guarantee of health, but yet is ill. It would be a bad mis- 
take, which is nevertheless very often committed, to normalize 
such a person and try to bring him down to the collective level. 
In certain cases all possibility of individual development is 
thereby destroyed. 

6 Since individuality, as we stressed in our introductory argu- 
ment, is absolutely unique, unpredictable, and uninterpretable, 
in these cases the therapist must abandon all his preconcep- 

7 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



tions and techniques and confine himself to a purely dialectical 
procedure, adopting the attitude that shuns all methods. 

7 You will have noticed that I began by presenting the dialec- 
tical procedure as the latest phase of psychotherapeutic devel- 
opment. I must now correct myself and put this procedure in 
the right perspective: it is not so much an elaboration of previous 
theories and practices as a complete abandonment of them in fa- 
vour of the most unbiased attitude possible. In other words, the 
therapist is no longer the agent of treatment but a fellow par- 
ticipant in a process of individual development. 

8 I would not like it to be supposed that these discoveries 
dropped straight into our laps. They too have their history. Al- 
though I was the first to demand that the analyst should him- 
self be analysed, we are largely indebted to Freud for the in- 
valuable discovery that analysts too have their complexes and 
consequently one or two blind spots which act as so many preju- 
dices. The psychotherapist gained this insight in cases where it 
was no longer possible for him to interpret or to guide the pa- 
tient from on high or ex cathedra, regardless of his own per- 
sonality, but was forced to admit that his personal idiosyncra- 
sies or special attitude hindered the patient's recovery. When 
one possesses no very clear idea about something, because one is 
unwilling to admit it to oneself, one tries to hide it from the pa- 
tient as well, obviously to his very great disadvantage. The 
demand that the analyst must be analysed culminates in the 
idea of a dialectical procedure, where the therapist enters into 
relationship with another psychic system both as questioner 
and answerer. No longer is he the superior wise man, judge, 
and counsellor; he is a fellow participant who finds himself 
involved in the dialectical process just as deeply as the so-called 
patient. 

9 The dialectical procedure has another source, too, and that 
is the multiple significance of symbolic contents. Silberer dis- 
tinguishes between the psychoanalytic and the anagogic in- 
terpretation, while I distinguish between the analytical-reduc- 
tive and the synthetic-hermeneutic interpretation. I will explain 
what I mean by instancing the so-called infantile fixation on 
the parental imago, one of the richest sources of symbolic con- 
tents. The analytical-reductive view asserts that interest ("li- 
bido") streams back regressively to infantile reminiscences and 

8 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



there "fixates" if indeed it has ever freed itself from them. The 
synthetic or anagogic view, on the contrary, asserts that certain 
parts of the personality which are capable of development are 
in an infantile state, as though still in the womb. Both interpre- 
tations can be shown to be correct. We might almost say that 
they amount virtually to the same thing. But it makes an enor- 
mous difference in practice whether we interpret something re- 
gressively or progressively. It is no easy matter to decide aright 
in a given case. Generally we feel rather uncertain on this point. 
The discovery that there are essential contents of an indubi- 
tably equivocal nature has thrown suspicion on the airy appli- 
cation of theories and techniques, and thus helped to range the 
dialectical procedure alongside the subtler or cruder sugges- 
tion methods. 

> The depth-dimension which Freud has added to the prob- 
lems of psychotherapy must logically lead sooner or later to the 
conclusion that any final understanding between doctor and pa- 
tient is bound to include the personality of the doctor. The old 
hypnotists and Bernheim with his suggestion therapy were well 
enough aware that the healing effect depended firstly on the "rap- 
port" in Freud's terminology, "transference "and secondly on 
the persuasive and penetrative powers of the doctor's person- 
ality. In the doctor-patient relationship, as we have said, two 
psychic systems interact, and therefore any deeper insight into 
the psychotherapeutic process will infallibly reach the conclusion 
that in the last analysis, since individuality is a fact not to be ig- 
nored, the relationship must be dialectical. 

It is now perfectly clear that this realization involves a very 
considerable shift of standpoint compared with the older forms 
of psychotherapy. In order to avoid misunderstandings, let me 
say at once that this shift is certainly not meant to condemn the 
existing methods as incorrect, superfluous, or obsolete. The 
more deeply we penetrate the nature of the psyche, the more 
the conviction grows upon us that the diversity, the multi- 
dimensionality of human nature requires the greatest variety 
of standpoints and methods in order to satisfy the variety of 
psychic dispositions. It is therefore pointless to subject a simple 
soul who lacks nothing but a dose of common sense to a com- 
plicated analysis of his impulses, much less expose him to the 
bewildering subtleties of psychological dialectic. It is equally 

9 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



obvious that with complex and highly intelligent people we 
shall get nowhere by employing well-intentioned advice, sug- 
gestions, and other efforts to convert them to some kind of sys- 
tem. In 'such cases the best thing the doctor can do is lay aside 
his whole apparatus of methods and theories and trust to luck 
that his personality will be steadfast enough to act as a signpost 
for the patient. At the same time he must give serious considera- 
tion to the possibility that in intelligence, sensibility, range 
and depth the patient's personality is superior to his own. But 
in all circumstances the prime rule of dialectical procedure is 
that the individuality of the sufferer has the same value, the 
same right to exist, as that of the doctor, and consequently that 
every development in the patient is to be regarded as valid, un- 
less of course it corrects itself of its own accord. Inasmuch as a 
man is merely collective, he can be changed by suggestion to 
the point of becomingor seeming to become different from 
what he was before. But inasmuch as he is an individual he can 
only become what he is and always was. To the extent that 
"cure" means turning a sick man into a healthy one, cure is 
change. Wherever this is possible, where it does not demand 
too great a sacrifice of personality, we should change the sick 
man therapeutically. But when a patient realizes that cure 
through change would mean too great a sacrifice, then the doc- 
tor can, indeed he should, give up any wish to change^or cure. 
He must either refuse to treat the patient or risk the dialectical 
procedure. This is of more frequent occurrence than one might 
think. In my own practice I always have a fair number of highly 
cultivated and intelligent people of marked individuality who, 
on ethical grounds, would vehemently resist any serious attempt 
to change them. In all such cases the doctor must leave the indi- 
vidual way to healing open, and then the cure will bring about 
no alteration of personality but will be the process we call "in- 
dividuation," in which the patient becomes what he really is. 
If the worst comes to the worst, he will even put up with his 
neurosis, once he has understood the meaning of his illness. More 
than one patient has admitted to me that he has learned to accept 
his neurotic symptoms with gratitude, because, like a barometer, 
they invariably told him when and where he was straying from 
his individual path, and also whether he had let important 
things remain unconscious. 



10 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



12 Although the new, highly differentiated methods allow us 
an unsuspected glimpse into the endless complications o psy- 
chic relationships and have gone a long way to putting them on 
a theoretical basis, they nevertheless confine themselves to the 
analytical-reductive standpoint, so that the possibilities of indi- 
vidual development are obscured by being reduced to some gen- 
eral principle, such as sexuality. This is the prime reason why 
the phenomenology of individuation is at present almost virgin 
territory. Hence in what follows I must enter into some detail, 
for I can only give you an idea of individuation by trying to 
indicate the workings of the unconscious as revealed in the ob- 
served material itself. For, in the process of individual develop- 
ment, it is above all the unconscious that is thrust into the fore- 
front of our interest. The deeper reason for this may lie in the 
fact that the conscious attitude of the neurotic is unnaturally 
one-sided and must be balanced by complementary or compen- 
satory contents deriving from the unconscious. The unconscious 
has a special significance in this case as a corrective to the one- 
sidedness of the conscious mind; hence the need to observe the 
points of view and impulses produced in dreams, because these 
must take the place once occupied by collective controls, such 
as the conventional outlook, habit, prejudices of an intellec- 
tual or moral nature. The road the individual follows is defined 
by his knowledge of the laws that are peculiar to himself; other- 
wise he will get lost in the arbitrary opinions of the conscious 
mind and break away from the mother-earth of individual in- 
stinct. 

*3 So far as our present knowledge extends, it would seem that 
the vital urge which expresses itself in the structure and in- 
dividual form of the living organism produces in the unconscious 
a process, or is itself such a process, which on becoming partially 
conscious depicts itself as a fugue-like sequence of images. Per- 
sons with natural introspective ability are capable of perceiving 
fragments of this autonomous or self-activating sequence with- 
out too much difficulty, generally in the form of visual fantasies, 
although they often fall into the error of thinking that they 
have created these fantasies, whereas in reality the fantasies have 
merely occurred to them. Their spontaneous nature can no 
longer be denied, however, when, as often happens, some fan- 
tasy-fragment becomes an obsession, like a tune you cannot get 

11 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



out of your head, or a phobia, or a "symbolic tic." Closer to the 
unconscious sequence of images are the dreams which, if exam- 
ined over a long series, reveal the continuity of the unconscious 
pictorial flood with surprising clearness. The continuity Is 
shown in the repetition of motifs. These may deal with people, 
animals, objects, or situations. Thus the continuity of the pic- 
ture sequence finds expression in the recurrence of some such 
motif over a long series of dreams. 

14 In a dream series extending over a period of two months, one 
of my patients had the water-motif in twenty-six dreams. In the 
first dream it appeared as the surf pounding the beach, then in 
the second as a view of the glassy sea. In the third dream the 
dreamer was on the seashore watching the rain fall on the 
water. In the fourth there was an indirect allusion to a voyage, 
for he was journeying to a distant country. In the fifth he was 
travelling to America; in the sixth, water was poured into a 
basin; in the seventh he was gazing over a vast expanse of sea 
at dawn; in the eighth he was aboard ship. In the ninth he 
travelled to a far-off savage land. In the tenth he was again 
aboard ship. In the eleventh he went down a river. In the 
twelfth he walked beside a brook. In the thirteenth he was on 
a steamer. In the fourteenth he heard a voice calling, "This is 
the way to the sea, we must get to the seal 1 * In the fifteenth he 
was on a ship going to America. In the sixteenth, again on a 
ship. In the seventeenth he drove to the ship in an automobile. 
In the eighteenth he made astronomical calculations on a ship. 
In the nineteenth he went down the Rhine. In the twentieth he 
was on an island, and again in the twenty-first. In the twenty- 
second he navigated a river with his mother. In the twenty- 
third he stood on the seashore. In the twenty-fourth he looked 
for sunken treasure. In the twenty-fifth his father was telling 
him about the land where the water comes from. And finally 
in the twenty-sixth he went down a small river that debouched 
into a larger one. 

15 This example illustrates the continuity of the unconscious 
theme and also shows how the motifs can be evaluated statis- 
tically. Through numerous comparisons one can find out to 
what the water-motif is really pointing, and the interpretation 
of motifs follows from a number of similar dream-series. Thus 
the sea always signifies a collecting-place where all psychic life 

12 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



originates, i.e., the collective unconscious. Water in motion 
means something like the stream of life or the energy-potential. 
The ideas underlying all the motifs are visual representations 
of an archetypal character, symbolic primordial images which 
have served to build up and differentiate the human mind. 
These primordial images are difficult to define; one might 
even call them hazy. Cramping intellectual formulae rob them 
of their natural amplitude. They are not scientific concepts 
which must necessarily be clear and unequivocal; they are uni- 
versal perceptions of the primitive mind, and they never denote 
any particular content but are significant for their wealth of 
associations. Levy-Bruhl calls them "collective representations," 
and Hubert and Mauss call them a priori categories of the imag- 
ination. 

16 In a longer series of dreams the motifs frequently change 
places. Thus, after the last of the above dreams, the water-motif 
gradually retreated to make way for a new motif, the "un- 
known woman." In general, dreams about women refer to 
women whom the dreamer knows. But now and then there are 
dreams in which a female figure appears who cannot be shown 
to be an acquaintance and whom the dream itself distinctly 
characterizes as unknown. This motif has an interesting phe- 
nomenology which I should like to illustrate from a dream 
series extending over a period of three months. In this series 
the motif occurred no less than fifty-one times. At the outset it 
appeared as a throng of vague female forms, then it assumed 
the vague form of a woman sitting on a step. She then appeared 
veiled, and when she took off the veil her face shone like the 
sun. Then she was a naked figure standing on a globe, seen from 
behind. After that she dissolved once more into a throng of 
dancing nymphs, then into a bevy of syphilitic prostitutes. A 
little later the unknown appeared on a ball, and the dreamer 
gave her some money. Then she was a syphilitic again. From 
now on the unknown becomes associated with the so-called 
"dual motif," a frequent occurrence in dreams. In this series a 
savage woman, a Malay perhaps, is doubled. She has to be 
taken captive, but she is also the naked blonde who stood on 
the globe, or else a young girl with a red cap, a nursemaid, or 
an old woman. She is very dangerous, a member of a robber- 
band and not quite human, something like an abstract idea. She 

13 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



is a guide, who takes the dreamer up a high mountain. But she Is 
also like a bird, perhaps a marabou or pelican* She is a man- 
catcher. Generally she is fair-haired, a hairdresser's daughter, 
but has a dark Indian sister. As a fair-haired guide she in- 
forms the dreamer that part of his sister's soul belongs to her. 
She writes him a love-letter, but is another man's wife. She 
neither speaks nor is spoken to. Now she has black hair, now 
white. She has peculiar fantasies, unknown to the dreamer. She 
may be his father's unknown wife, but is not his mother. She 
travels with him in an airplane, which crashes. She is a voice 
that changes into a woman. She tells him that she is a piece of 
broken pottery, meaning presumably that she is a part-soul. 
She has a brother who is prisoner in Moscow. As the dark figure 
she is a servant-girl, stupid, and she has to be watched. Often 
she appears doubled, as two women who go mountain-climbing 
with him. On one occasion the fair-haired guide comes to him 
in a vision. She brings him bread, is full of religious ideas, 
knows the way he should go, meets him in church, acts as his 
spiritual guide. She seems to pop out of a dark chest and can 
change herself from a dog into a woman. Once she appears as 
an ape. The dreamer draws her portrait in a dream, but what 
comes out on the paper is an abstract symbolic ideogram con- 
taining the trinity, another frequent motif. 

The unknown woman, therefore, has an exceedingly con- 
tradictory character and cannot be related to any normal 
woman. She represents some fabulous being, a kind of fairy; 
and indeed fairies have the most varied characters. There are 
wicked fairies and good fairies; they too can change themselves 
into animals, they can become invisible, they are of uncertain 
age, now young, now old, elfin in nature, with part-souls, allur- 
ing, dangerous, and possessed of superior knowledge. We shall 
hardly be wrong in assuming that this motif is identical with the 
parallel ideas to be found in mythology, where we come across 
this elfin creature in a variety of formsnymph, oread, sylph, 
undine, nixie, hamadryad, succubus, lamia, vampire, witch, 
and what not. Indeed the whole world of myth and fable is an 
outgrowth of unconscious fantasy just like the dream. Fre- 
quently this motif replaces the water-motif. Just as water de- 
notes the unconscious in general, so the figure of the unknown 
woman is a personification of the unconscious, which I have 

14 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



called the "anima." This figure only occurs in men, and she 
emerges clearly only when the unconscious starts to reveal its 
problematical nature. In man the unconscious has feminine 
features, in woman masculine; hence in man the personification 
of the unconscious is a feminine creature of the type we have just 
described. 

18 I cannot, within the compass of a lecture, describe all the 
motifs that crop up in the process of individuation when, that 
is to say, the material is no longer reduced to generalities ap- 
plicable only to the collective man. There are numerous motifs, 
and we meet them everywhere in mythology. Hence we can 
only say that the psychic development of the individual pro- 
duces something that looks very like the archaic world of fable, 
and that the individual path looks like a regression to man's pre- 
history, and that consequently it seems as if something very unto- 
ward were happening which the therapist ought to arrest. We 
can in fact observe similar things in psychotic illnesses, espe- 
cially in the paranoid forms of schizophrenia, which often 
swarm with mythological images. The fear instantly arises that 
we are dealing with some misdevelopment leading to a world 
of chaotic or morbid fantasy. A development of this kind may 
be dangerous with a person whose social personality has not 
found its feet; moreover any psychotherapeutic intervention 
may occasionally run into a latent psychosis and bring it to 
full flower. For this reason to dabble in psychotherapy is to 
play with fire, against which amateurs should be stringently 
cautioned. It is particularly dangerous when the mythological 
layer of the psyche is uncovered, for these contents have a fear- 
ful fascination for the patient which explains the tremendous 
influence mythological ideas have had on mankind. 
19 Now, it would seem that the recuperative process mobilizes 
these powers for its own ends. Mythological ideas with their ex- 
traordinary symbolism evidently reach far into the human 
psyche and touch the historical foundations where reason, will, 
and good intentions never penetrate; for these ideas are born 
of the same depths and speak a language which strikes an an- 
swering chord in the inner man, although our reason may not 
understand it. Hence, the process that at first sight looks like 
an alarming regression is rather a reculer pour mieux sauter, 

15 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



an amassing and integration of powers that will develop into a 
new order. 

20 A neurosis at this level is an entirely spiritual form of suf- 
fering which cannot be tackled with ordinary rational methods. 
For this reason there are not a few psychotherapists who, when 
all else fails, have recourse to one of the established religions 
or creeds. I am far from wishing to ridicule these efforts. On the 
contrary, I must emphasize that they are based on an extremely 
sound instinct, for our religions contain the still living remains 
of a mythological age. Even a political creed may occasionally re- 
vert to mythology, as is proved very clearly by the swastika, the 
German Christians, and the German Faith Movement. Not 
only Christianity with its symbols of salvation, but all religions, 
including the primitive with their magical rituals, are forms 
of psychotherapy which treat and heal the suffering of the soul, 
and the suffering of the body caused by the soul. How much in 
modern medicine is still suggestion therapy is not for me to say. 
To put it mildly, "consideration of the psychological factor" in 
practical therapeutics is by no means a bad thing. The history 
of medicine is exceedingly revealing in this respect. 

21 Therefore, when certain doctors resort to the mythological 
ideas of some religion or other, they are doing something his- 
torically justified. But they can only do this with patients for 
whom the mythological remains are still alive. For these pa- 
tients some kind of rational therapy is indicated until such 
time as mythological ideas become a necessity. In treating de- 
vout Catholics, I always refer them to the Church's confessional 
and its means of grace. It is more difficult in the case of Protes- 
tants, who must do without confession and absolution. The 
more modern type of Protestantism has, however, the safety- 
valve of the Oxford Group movement, which prescribes lay 
confession as a substitute, and group experience instead of ab- 
solution. A number of my patients have joined this movement 
with my entire approval, just as others have become Catholics, 
or at least better Catholics than they were before. In all these 
cases I refrain from applying the dialectical procedure, since 
there is no point in promoting individual development beyond 
the needs of the patient. If he can find the meaning of his life 
and the cure for his disquiet and disunity within the framework 
of an existing credo including a political credo that should 

16 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



be enough for the doctor. After all, the doctor's main concern 
is the sick, not the cured. 

22 There are, however, very many patients who have either no 
religious convictions at all or highly unorthodox ones. Such 
persons are, on principle, not open to any conviction. All ra- 
tional therapy leaves them stuck where they were, although on 
the face of it their illness is quite curable. In these circum- 
stances nothing is left but the dialectical development of the 
mythological material which is alive in the sick man himself, 
regardless of history and tradition. It is here that we come across 
those mythological dreams whose characteristic sequence of 
images presents the doctor with an entirely new and unexpected 
task. He then needs the sort of knowledge for which his pro- 
fessional studies have not equipped him in the least. For the 
human psyche is neither a psychiatric nor a physiological prob- 
lem; it is not a biological problem at all but precisely a psy- 
chological one. It is a field on its own with its own peculiar 
laws. Its nature cannot be deduced from the principles of other 
sciences without doing violence to the idiosyncrasy of the 
psyche. It cannot be identified with the brain, or the hormones, 
or any known instinct; for better or worse it must be accepted 
as a phenomenon unique in kind.VThe phenomenology of the 
psyche contains more than the measurable facts of the nat- 
ural sciences: it embraces the problem of mind, the father of 
all science. The psychotherapist becomes acutely aware of this 
when he is driven to penetrate below the level of accepted opin- 
ion. It is often objected that people have practised psycho- 
therapy before now and did not find it necessary to go into all 
these complications. I readily admit that Hippocrates, Galen, 
and Paracelsus were excellent doctors, but I do not believe that 
modern medicine should on that account give up serum therapy 
and radiology. It is no doubt difficult, particularly for the lay- 
man, to understand the complicated problems of psychother- 
apy; but if he will just consider for a moment why certain situ- 
ations in life or certain experiences are pathogenic, he will 
discover that human opinion often plays a decisive part. Cer- 
tain things accordingly seem dangerous, or impossible, or harm- 
ful, simply because there are opinions that cause them to ap- 
pear in that light. For instance, many people regard wealth as 
the supreme happiness and poverty as man's greatest curse, al- 

17 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



though in actual fact riches never brought supreme happiness 
to anybody, nor is poverty a reason for melancholia/But we have 
these opinions, and these opinions are rooted in certain mental 
preconceptions in the Zeitgeist, or in certain religious or anti- 
religious views. These last play an important part in moral con- 
flicts. As soon as the analysis of a patient's psychic situation 
impinges on the area of his mental preconceptions, we have al- 
ready entered the realm of general ideas. The fact that dozens 
of normal people never criticize their mental preconceptions- 
obviously not, since they are unconscious of themdoes not 
prove that these preconceptions are valid for all men, or in- 
deed unconscious for all men, any more than it proves that they 
may not become the source of the severest moral conflict. Quite 
the contrary: in our age of revolutionary change, inherited 
prejudices of a general nature on the one hand and spiritual 
and moral disorientation on the other are very often the deeper- 
lying causes of far-reaching disturbances in psychic equili- 
brium. To these patients the doctor has absolutely nothing to 
offer but the possibility of individual development. And for 
their sake the specialist is compelled to extend his knowledge 
over the field of the humane sciences, if he is to do justice to 
the symbolism of psychic contents. 

I would make myself guilty of a sin of omission if I were 
to foster the impression that specialized therapy needed noth- 
ing but a wide knowledge. Quite as important is the moral 
differentiation of the doctor's personality. Surgery and obstet- 
rics have long been aware that it is not enough simply to wash 
the patientthe doctor himself must have clean hands. A neu- 
rotic psychotherapist will invariably treat his own neurosis in 
the patient. A therapy independent of the doctor's personality 
is just conceivable in the sphere of rational techniques, but it is 
quite inconceivable in a dialectical procedure where the doctor 
must emerge from his anonymity and give an account of him- 
self, just as he expects his patient to do. I do not know which 
is the more difficult: to accumulate a wide knowledge or to re- 
nounce one's professional authority and anonymity. At all 
events the latter necessity involves a moral strain that makes 
the profession of psychotherapist not exactly an enviable one. 
Among laymen one frequently meets with the prejudice that 
psychotherapy is the easiest thing in the world and consists in 

18 



PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the art of putting something over on people or wheedling 
money out of them. But actually it is a tricky and not undanger- 
ous calling. Just as all doctors are exposed to infections and 
other occupational hazards, so the psychotherapist runs the risk 
of psychic infections which are no less menacing. On the one 
hand he is often in danger of getting entangled in the neuroses 
of his patients; on the other hand if he tries too hard to guard 
against their influence, he robs himself of his therapeutic ef- 
ficacy. Between this Scylla and this Charybdis lies the peril, but 
also the healing power. 

24 Modern psychotherapy is built up of many layers, corre- 
sponding to the diversities of the patients requiring treatment. 
The simplest cases are those who just want sound common 
sense and good advice. With luck they can be disposed of in a 
single consultation. This is certainly not to say that cases which 
look simple are always as simple as they look; one is apt to 
make disagreeable discoveries. Then there are patients for 
whom a thorough confession or "abreaction" is enough. The se- 
verer neuroses usually require a reductive analysis of their 
symptoms and states. And here one should not apply this or that 
method indiscriminately but, according to the nature of the 
case, should conduct the analysis more along the lines of Freud 
or more along those of Adler. St. Augustine distinguishes two 
cardinal sins: concupiscence and conceit (superb ia). The first 
corresponds to Freud's pleasure principle, the second to Adler's 
power-drive, the desire to be on top. There are in fact two 
categories of people with different needs. Those whose main 
characteristic is infantile pleasure-seeking generally have the 
satisfaction of incompatible desires and instincts more at heart 
than the social role'they could play, hence they are often well- 
to-do or even successful people who have arrived socially. But 
those who want to be "on top" are mostly people who are either 
the under-dogs in reality or fancy that they are not playing the 
role that is properly due to them. Hence they often have diffi- 
culty in adapting themselves socially and try to cover up their 
inferiority with power fictions. One can of course explain all 
neuroses in Freudian or Adlerian terms, but in practice it is 
better to examine the case carefully beforehand. In the case 
of educated people the decision is not difficult: I advise them 
to read a bit of Freud and a bit of Adler. As a rule they soon 

19 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



find out which o the two suits them best. So long as one is 
moving in the sphere of genuine neurosis one cannot dispense 
with the views of either Freud or Adler. 

25 But when the thing becomes monotonous and you begin 
to get repetitions, and your unbiased judgment tells you that a 
standstill has been reached, or when mythological or "arche- 
typal" contents appear, then is the time to give up the analyti- 
cal-reductive method and to treat the symbols anagogically or 
synthetically, which is equivalent to the dialectical procedure 
and the way of individuation. 

26 All methods of influence, including the analytical, require 
that the patient be seen as often as possible. I content myself 
with a maximum of four consultations a week. With the be- 
ginning of synthetic treatment it is of advantage to spread out 
the consultations. I then generally reduce them to one or two 
hours a week, for the patient must learn to go his own way. 
This consists in his trying to understand his dreams himself, 
so that the contents of the unconscious may be progressively 
articulated with the conscious mind; for the cause of neurosis 
is the discrepancy between the conscious attitude and the trend 
of the unconscious. This dissociation is bridged by the assimila- 
tion of unconscious contents. Hence the interval between con- 
sultations does not go unused. In this way one saves oneself and 
the patient a good deal of time, which is so much money to 
him; and at the same time he learns to stand on his own feet 
instead of clinging to the doctor. 

27 The work done by the patient through the progressive as- 
similation of unconscious contents leads ultimately to the in- 
tegration of his personality and hence to the removal of the neu- 
rotic dissociation. To describe the details of this development 
would far exceed the limits of a lecture. I must therefore rest 
content with having given you at least a general survey of the 
principles of practical psychotherapy* 



20 



II 

WHAT IS PSYCHOTHERAPY? 1 

28 It is not so very long ago that fresh air, application of cold 
water, and "psychotherapy" were all recommended in the same 
breath by well-meaning doctors in cases mysteriously compli- 
cated by psychic symptoms. On closer examination "psycho- 
therapy" meant a sort of robust, benevolently paternal advice 
which sought to persuade the patient, after the manner of 
Dubois, that the symptom was "only psychic" and therefore a 
morbid fancy. 

29 It is not to be denied that advice may occasionally do some 
good, but advice is about as characteristic of modern psycho- 
therapy as bandaging of modern surgery that is to say, personal 
and authoritarian influence is an important factor in healing, 
but not by any means the only one, and in no sense does it con- 
stitute the essence of psychotherapy. Whereas formerly it seemed 
to be everybody's province, today psychotherapy has become a 
science and uses the scientific method. With our deepened 
understanding of the nature of neuroses and the psychic com- 
plications of bodily ills, the nature of the treatment, too, has 
undergone considerable change and differentiation. The earlier 
suggestion theory, according to which symptoms had to be 
suppressed by counteraction, was superseded by the psycho- 
analytical viewpoint of Freud, who realized that the cause of 
the illness was not removed with the suppression of the symp- 
tom and that the symptom was far more a kind of signpost point- 
ing, directly or indirectly, to the cause. This novel attitude 
which has been generally accepted for the last thirty years or 
socompletely revolutionized therapy because, in contradic- 
tion to suggestion therapy, it required that, the causes be 
brought to consciousness. 

l [First published as "Was ist die Psychotherapie?/' Schweizerische Aerztezeitung 
fur Standesfragen, XVI: 26 (June, 1935), 335-39. EDITORS.] 

21 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



30 Suggestion therapy (hypnosis, etc.) was not lightly aban- 
donedit was abandoned only because its results were so un- 
satisfactory. It was fairly easy and practical to apply, and allowed 
skilled practitioners to treat a large number of patients at the 
same time, and this at least seemed to offer the hopeful begin- 
nings of a lucrative method. Yet the actual cures were exceed- 
ingly sparse and so unstable that even the delightful possibility 
of simultaneous mass treatment could no longer save it. But 
for that, both the practitioner and the health insurance of- 
ficer would have had every interest in retaining this method. It 
perished, however, of its own insufficiency. 

3* Freud's demand that the causes be made conscious has be- 
come the leitmotiv or basic postulate of all the more recent 
forms of psychotherapy. Psychopathological research during the 
last fifty years has proved beyond all possibility of doubt that 
the most important aetiological processes in neurosis are essen- 
tially unconscious; while practical experience has shown that 
the making conscious of aetiological facts or processes is a cura- 
tive factor of far greater practical importance than suggestion. 
Accordingly in the course of the last twenty-five or thirty years 
there has occurred over the whole field of psychotherapy a 
swing away from direct suggestion in favour of all forms of 
therapy whose common standpoint is the raising to conscious- 
ness of the causes that make for illness. 

32 As already indicated, the change of treatment went hand 
in hand with a profounder and more highly differentiated the- 
ory of neurotic disturbance. So long as treatment was restricted 
to suggestion, it could content itself with the merest skeleton 
of a theory. People thought it sufficient to regard neurotic symp- 
toms as the "fancies" of an overwrought imagination, and from 
this view the therapy followed easily enough, the object of 
which was simply to suppress those products of imagination 
the "imaginary" symptoms. But what people thought they 
could nonchalantly write off as "imaginary" is only one mani- 
festation of a morbid state that is positively protean in its symp- 
tomatology. No sooner is one symptom suppressed than another 
is there. The core of the disturbance had not been reached. 

33 Under the influence of Breuer and Freud the so-called 
"trauma" theory of neuroses held the field for a long time. 
Doctors tried to make the patient conscious of the original 

22 



WHAT IS PSYCHOTHERAPYi* 



traumatic elements with the aid of the "cathartic method." But 
even this comparatively simple method and its theory demanded 
an attitude of doctor to patient very different from the sugges- 
tion method, which could be practised by anyone with the nec- 
essary determination. The cathartic method required careful 
individual scrutiny of the case in question and a patient attitude 
that searched for possible traumata. For only through the most 
meticulous observation and examination of the material could 
the traumatic elements be so constellated as to result in abreac- 
tion of the original affective situations from which the neurosis 
arose. Hence a lucrative group treatment became exceedingly 
difficult, if not impossible. Although the performance expected 
of the doctor was qualitatively higher than in the case of sugges- 
tion, the theory was so elementary that there was always the 
possibility of a rather mechanical routine, for in principle there 
was nothing to prevent the doctor from putting several patients 
at once into the relaxed condition in which the traumatic memo- 
ries could be abreacted. 

34 As a result of this more exhaustive treatment of the indi- 
vidual case it could no longer be disguised that the trauma theory 
was a hasty generalization. Growing experience made it clear to 
every conscientious investigator of neurotic symptoms that spe- 
cifically sexual traumata and other shocks may indeed account 
for some forms of neurosis, but not by any means for all. Freud 
himself soon stepped beyond the trauma theory and came out 
with his theory of "repression." This theory is much more 
complicated, and the treatment became differentiated accord- 
ingly. It was realized that mere abreaction cannot possibly lead 
to the goal, since the majority of neuroses are not traumatic 
at all. The theory of repression took far more account of the 
fact that typical neuroses are, properly speaking, developmental 
disturbances. Freud put it that the disturbance was due to the 
repression of infantile sexual impulses and tendencies which 
were thereby made unconscious. The task of the theory was to 
track -down these tendencies in the patient. But since by defini- 
tion they are unconscious, their existence could only be proved 
by a thorough examination of the patient's anamnesis as well 
as his actual fantasies. 

35 In general the infantile impulses appear mainly in dreams, 
and that is why Freud now turned to a serious study of the 

23 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



dream. This was the decisive step that made modern psycho- 
therapy a method of individual treatment. It is quite out of the 
question to apply psychoanalysis to several patients at once. It 
is anything but a mechanical routine. 

3 6 Now whether this form of treatment calls itself "individual 
psychology" with Adler or "psychoanalysis" with Freud and 
Stekel, the fact remains that modern psychotherapy of whatever 
kind, so far as it claims to be medically conscientious and sci- 
entifically reliable, can no longer be mass-produced but is 
obliged to give undivided and generous attention to the indi- 
vidual. The procedure is necessarily very detailed and lengthy. 
True, attempts are often made to shorten the length of treat- 
ment as much as possible, but one could hardly say that the 
results have been very encouraging. The point is that most 
neuroses are misdevelopments that have been built up over 
many years, and these cannot be remedied by a short and in- 
tensive process. Time is therefore an irreplaceable factor in 
healing. 

37 Neuroses are still very unjustly counted as mild illnesses, 
mainly because their nature is not tangible and of the body. 
People do not "die" of a neurosis as if every bodily illness had 
a fatal outcome! But it is entirely forgotten that, unlike bodily 
illnesses, neuroses may be extremely deleterious in their psychic 
and social consequences, often worse than psychoses, which 
generally lead to the social isolation of the sufferer and thus 
render him innocuous. An anchylosed knee, an amputated foot, 
a long-drawn-out phthisis, are in every respect preferable to a 
severe neurosis. When the neurosis is regarded not merely from 
the clinical but from the psychological and social standpoint, 
one comes to the conclusion that it really is a severe illness, par- 
ticularly in view of its effects on the patient's environment and 
way of life. The clinical standpoint by itself is not and can- 
not be fair to the nature of a neurosis, because a neurosis is more 
a psychosocial phenomenon than an illness in the strict sense. 
It forces us to extend the term "illness" beyond the idea of an 
individual body whose functions are disturbed, and to look 
upon the neurotic person as a sick system of social relationships. 
When one has corrected one's views in this way, one will no 
longer find it astonishing that a proper therapy of neuroses is 
an elaborate and complicated matter. 

24 



WHAT IS PSYCHOTHERAPY? 



38 Unfortunately, the medical faculties have bothered far too 
little with the fact that the number of neuroses (and above 
all the frequency of psychic complications in organic diseases) 
is very great and thus concerns the general practitioner in un- 
usually high degree, even though he may not realize it. Never- 
theless his studies give him no preparation whatever in this 
most important respect; indeed, very often he never has a 
chance to find out anything about this subject, so vital in prac- 
tice. 

39 Although the beginnings of modern psychotherapy rest in 
the main on the services of Freud, we should be very wrong 
if we as so often happensidentified psychological treatment 
with Freudian "psychoanalysis" pure and simple. This error 
is certainly fostered by Freud himself and his adherents, who, 
in most sectarian fashion, regard their sexual theory and their 
methodology as the sole means of grace. Adler's "individual 
psychology" is a contribution not to be underestimated, and 
represents a widening of the psychological horizon. There is 
much that is right and true in the theory and method of psy- 
choanalysis; nevertheless it restricts its truth essentially to the 
sexual frame of reference and is blind to everything that is not 
subordinate to it. Adler has proved that not a few neuroses 
can be more successfully explained in quite another way. 

40 These newer developments of theory have as their thera- 
peutic aim not only the raising to consciousness of pathogenic 
contents and tendencies, but their reduction to original "sim- 
ple" instincts, which is supposed to restore the patient to his 
natural, unwarped state. Such an aim is no less praiseworthy 
than it is logical and promising in practice. The wholesome re- 
sults are, when one considers the enormous difficulties in treat- 
ing the neuroses, most encouraging, if not so ideal that we need 
wish for nothing better. 

41 Reduction to instinct is itself a somewhat questionable 
matter, since man has always been at war with his instincts 
that is to say, they are in a state of perpetual strife; hence the 
danger arises that the reduction to instinct will only replace the 
original neurotic conflict by another. (To give but one exam- 
ple: Freud replaces the neurosis by the so-called "transference 
neurosis.") In order to avoid this danger, psychoanalysis tries to 
devalue the infantile desires through analytical insight, whereas 

25 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



individual psychology tries to replace them by collectivizing the 
individual on the basis of the herd instinct. Freud represents 
the scientific rationalism of the nineteenth century, Adler the 
socio-political trends of the twentieth. 

4* Against these views, which clearly rest on time-bound as- 
sumptions, I have stressed the need for more extensive indi- 
vidualization of the method of treatment and for an irrationaliza- 
tion of its aims especially the latter, which would ensure the 
greatest possible freedom from prejudice. In dealing with psy- 
chological developments, the doctor should, as a matter of prin- 
ciple, let nature rule and himself do his utmost to avoid influ- 
encing the patient in the direction of his own philosophical, 
social, and political bent. Even if all citizens are equal before 
the law, they are very unequal as individuals, and therefore each 
can find happiness only in his own way. This is not to preach 
"individualism," but only the necessary pre-condition for re- 
sponsible action: namely that a man should know himself and his 
own peculiarities and have the courage to stand by them. Only 
when a man lives in his own way is he responsible and capable of 
action otherwise he is just a hanger-on or follower-on with no 
proper personality. 

43 I mention these far-reaching problems of modern psycho- 
therapy not, indeed, to give an elaborate account of them but 
simply to show the reader the sort of problems which the practi- 
tioner comes up against when his avowed aim is to guide the 
neurotic misdevelopment back to its natural course. Consider a 
man who is largely unconscious of his own psychology: in order 
to educate him to the point where he can consciously take the 
right road for him and at the same time clearly recognize his 
own social responsibilities, a detailed and lengthy procedure 
is needed. If Freud, by his observation of dreams which are 
so very important therapeutically has already done much to 
complicate the method, it is rendered even more exacting, 
rather than simplified, by further individualization, which log- 
ically sets greater store by the patient's individual material. 
But to the extent that his particular personality is thereby 
brought into play, his collaboration can be enlisted all the more. 
The psychoanalyst thinks he must see his patient for an hour a 
day for months on end; I manage in difficult cases with three 
or four sittings a week. As a rule I content myself with two, and 

26 



WHAT IS PSYCHOTHERAPY? 



once the patient has got going, he is reduced to one* In the in- 
terim he has to work at himself, but under my control. I provide 
him with the necessary psychological knowledge to free himself 
from my medical authority as speedily as possible. In addition, I 
break off the treatment every ten weeks or so, in order to throw 
him back on his normal milieu. In this way he is not alienated 
from his world for he really suffers from his tendency to live at 
another's expense. In such a procedure time can take effect as 
a healing factor, without the patient's having to pay for the doc- 
tor's time. With proper direction most people become capable 
after a while of making their contributionhowever modest at 
first to the common work. In my experience the absolute 
period of cure is not shortened by too many sittings. It lasts a 
fair time in all cases requiring thorough treatment. Conse- 
quently, in the case of the patient with small means, if the sit- 
tings are spaced out and the intervals filled in with the patient's 
own work, the treatment becomes financially more endurable 
than when undertaken daily in the hope of (problematical) sug- 
gestive effects. 

44 In all clear cases of neurosis a certain re-education and 
regeneration of personality are essential, for we are dealing 
with a misdevelopment that generally goes far back into the in- 
dividual's childhood. Accordingly the modern method must 
also take account of the philosophical and pedagogical views of 
the humane sciences, for which reason a purely medical educa- 
tion is proving increasingly inadequate. Such an activity should 
in all cases presuppose a thorough knowledge of psychiatry. But 
for adequate treatment of dreams a plentiful admixture of sym- 
bolical knowledge is needed, which can only be acquired by a 
study of priimtive psychology, comparative mythology, and re- 
ligion. 

45 Much to the astonishment of the psychotherapist, the ob- 
ject of his labours has not grown simpler with deepened knowl- 
edge and experience, but has visibly increased in scope and 
complexity; and in the clouds of the future the lineaments of 
a new practical psychology have already begun to take shape, 
which will embrace the insights of the doctor as well as of 
the educator and all those whose concern is the human soul. 
Till then, psychotherapy will assuredly remain the business 
of the doctor, and it is to be hoped that the medical faculties 

27 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



will not long continue to turn a deaf ear to this plea addressed 
to the doctor by the sick. The educated public knows of the ex- 
istence of psychotherapy, and the intelligent doctor knows, from 
his own practice, the great importance of psychological influence. 
Hence in Switzerland there is already a fine body of doctors who 
stand up for the rights of psychotherapy and practise it with 
self-sacrificing devotion, despite the fact that their work is often 
made bitter for them by ridicule, misinterpretation, and criti- 
cism, as inept as it is malevolent. 



28 



Ill 

SOME ASPECTS OF 
MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 1 

4 6 Modern psychotherapy finds itself in rather an awkward 
position at a public-health congress. It can boast of no inter- 
national agreements, nor can it provide the legislator or the 
minister of public hygiene with suitable or workable advice. It 
must assume the somewhat humble role of personal charity 
work versus the big organizations and institutions of public 
welfare, and this despite the fact that neuroses are alarmingly 
common and occupy no small place among the host of evils that 
assail the health of civilized nations. 

47 Psychotherapy and modern psychology are as yet individual 
experiments with little or no general applicability. They rest 
upon the initiative of individual doctors, who are not supported 
even by the universities. Nevertheless the problems of modern 
psychology have aroused a widespread interest out of all pro- 
portion to the exceedingly restricted official sympathy. 

48 I must confess that I myself did not find it at all easy to 
bow my head to Freud's innovations. I was a young doctor then, 
busying myself with experimental psychopathology and mainly 
interested in the disturbances of mental reactions to be observed 
in the so-called association experiments. Only a few of Freud's 
works had then been published. But I could not help seeing 
that ray conclusions undoubtedly tended to confirm the facts 
indicated by Freud, namely the facts of repression, substitu- 
tion, and "symbolization." Nor could I honestly deny the very 
real importance of sexuality in the aetiology and indeed in the 
actual structure of neuroses. 

49 Medical psychology is still pioneer work, but it looks as if 
the medical profession were beginning to see a psychic side 

1 [Written in English. Read at the Congress of the Society of Public Health, Zur- 
ich, in 1929. First published in Journal of State Medicine (London), XXXVIII: 6 
(June, 1930), 348-54,-EwTORs.] 

29 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



to many things which have hitherto been considered from the 
physiological side only, not to mention the neuroses, whose 
psychic nature is no longer seriously contested. Medical psy- 
chology seems, therefore, to be coming into its own. But where, 
we may ask, can the medical student learn it? It is important 
for the doctor to know something about the psychology of his 
patients, and about the psychology of nervous, mental, and 
physical diseases. Quite a lot is known about these things among 
specialists, though the universities do not encourage such 
studies. I can understand their attitude. If I were responsible 
for a university department, I should certainly feel rather hesi- 
tant about teaching medical psychology. 

5 In the first place, there is no denying the fact that Freud's 
theories have come up against certain rooted prejudices. It was 
to no purpose that he modified the worst aspects of his theories 
in later years. In the public eye he is branded by his first state- 
ments. They are one-sided and exaggerated; moreover they are 
backed by a philosophy that is falling more and more out of 
favour with the public: a thoroughly materialistic point of 
view which has been generally abandoned since the turn of 
the century. Freud's exclusive standpoint not only offends too 
many ideals but also misinterprets the natural facts of the hu- 
man psyche. It is certain that human nature has its dark side, 
but the layman as well as the reasonable scientist is quite con- 
vinced that it also has its good and positive side, which is just 
as real. Common sense does not tolerate the Freudian tendency 
to derive everything from sexuality and other moral incom- 
patibilities. Such a view is too destructive. 

51 The extraordinary importance which Freud attaches to the 
unconscious meets with scant approval, although it is an in- 
teresting point with a certain validity. But one should not stress 
it too much, otherwise one robs the conscious mind of its prac- 
tical significance and eventually arrives at a completely mecha- 
nistic view of things. This goes against our instincts, which have 
made the conscious mind the arbiter mundi. It is nevertheless 
true that the conscious mind has been overvalued by the ration- 
alists. Hence it was a healthy sign to give the unconscious its due 
share of value. But this should not exceed the value accorded 
to consciousness. 

30 



SOME ASPECTS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



52 A further reason for hesitation is the absence of a real medi- 
cal psychology, though there may be a psychology for doctors. 
Psychology is not for professionals only, nor is it peculiar to 
certain diseases. It is something broadly human, with profes- 
sional and pathological variations. Nor, again, is it merely in- 
stinctual or biological. If it were, it could very well be just a 
chapter in a text-book of biology. It has an immensely im- 
portant social and cultural aspect without which we could not 
imagine a human psyche at all. It is therefore quite impossible 
to speak of a general or normal psychology as the mere expres- 
sion of a clash between instinct and moral law, or other incon- 
veniences of that kind. Since the beginning of history man has 
been the maker of his own laws; and even if, as Freud seems 
to think, they were the invention of our malevolent forefathers, 
it is odd how the rest of humanity has conformed to them and 
given them silent assent. 

53 Even Freud, who tried to restrict what he called psycho- 
analysis to the medical sphere (with occasional, somewhat in- 
appropriate excursions into other spheres), even he was forced 
to discuss fundamental principles that go far beyond purely 
medical considerations. The most cursory professional treat- 
ment of an intelligent patient is bound to lead to basic issues, 
because a neurosis or any other mental conflict depends much 
more on the personal attitude of the patient than on his in- 
fantile history. No matter what the influences are that disturbed 
his youth, he still has to put up with them and he does so by 
means of a certain attitude. The attitude is all-important. 
Freud emphasizes the aetiology of the case, and assumes that 
once the causes are brought into consciousness the neurosis will 
be cured. But mere consciousness of the causes does not help 
any more than detailed knowledge of the causes of war helps 
to raise the value of the French franc. The task of psycho- 
therapy is to correct the conscious attitude and not to go chas- 
ing after infantile memories. Naturally you cannot do the one 
without paying attention to the other, but the main emphasis 
should be upon the attitude of the patient. There are extremely 
practical reasons for this, because there is scarcely a neurotic 
who does not love to dwell upon the evils of the past and to 
wallow in self -commiserating memories. Very often his neurosis 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



consists precisely in his hanging back and constantly excusing 
himself on account of the past. 

54 (^ As you know, I am critical of Freud in this particular 
x respect, but my criticism would not go so far as to deny the 

extraordinary power of the retrospective tendency. On the 
contrary, I consider it to be of the greatest importance, so im- 
portant that I would not call any treatment thorough that did 
not take it into account. Freud in his analysis follows this regres- 
sive tendency to the end and thus arrives at the findings you all 
know. These findings are only apparent facts; in the main they 
are interpretations. He has a special method of interpreting psy- 
chic material, and it is partly because the material has a sexual 
aspect and partly because he interprets it in a special way that 
he arrives at his typical conclusions. Take for instance his treat- 
ment of dreams. He believes that the dream is a facade. He says 
you can turn it inside out, that this or that factor is eliminated 
by a censor, and so forth. 

55 I hold that interpretation is the crux of the whole matter. 
One can just as well assume that the dream is not a facade, that 
there is no censor, and that the unconscious appears in dreams 
in the nai'vest and most genuine way. The dream is as gen- 
uine as the albumen in urine, and this is anything but a facade. 
If you take the dream like this, you naturally come to very 
different conclusions. And the same thing happens with the 
patient's regressive tendency. I have suggested that it is not 
just a relapse into infantilism, but a genuine attempt to get at 
something necessary. There is, to be sure, no lack of infantile 
perversions. But are we so certain that what appears to be, and 
is interpreted as, an incestuous craving is really only that? When 
we try, conscientiously and without theoretical bias, to find out 
what the patient is really seeking in his father or mother, we 
certainly do not, as a rule, find incest, but rather a genuine 
horror of it. We find that he is seeking something entirely dif- 
ferent, something that Freud only appreciates negatively: the 
universal feeling of childhood innocence, the sense of security, of 
protection, of reciprocated love, of trust, of faith a thing that 
has many names. 

5 6 Is this goal of the regressive tendency entirely without jus- 
tification? Or is it not rather the very thing the patient urgently 
needs in order to build up his conscious attitude? 

32 



SOME ASPECTS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 

57 I believe that incest and the other perverted sexual aspects 
are, in most cases, no more than by-products, and that the es- 
sential contents of the regressive tendency are really those which 
I have just mentioned. I have no objection to a patient's going 
back to that kind of childhood, nor do I mind his indulging 
in such memories. 

5 8 I am not blind to the fact that the patient must sink or 
swim, and that he may possibly go under as the result of in- 
fantile indulgence; but I call him back to these valuable mem- 
ories with conscious intent. I appeal to his sense of values de- 
liberately, because I have to make the man well and therefore 
I must use all available means to achieve the therapeutic aim. 

59 The regressive tendency only means that the patient is seek- 
ing himself in his childhood memories, sometimes for better, 
sometimes for worse. His development was one-sided; it left im- 
portant items of character and personality behind, and thus it 
ended in failure. That is why he has to go back. In my volume 
Psychological Types (84), I tried to establish the general lines 
along which these one-sided developments move. There are two 
main attitudes which differ fundamentally, namely introversion 
and extraversion. Both are perfectly good ways of living, so 
long as they co-operate reasonably well. It is only a dominating 
one-sidedness that leads to disaster. Within this very general 
framework there are more subtle distinctions based upon what- 
ever function is preferred by the individual. Thus somebody 
with a good brain will develop a powerful intellect at the ex- 
pense of his feelings. Or again, the facts perceived by the realist 
will obliterate the beautiful visions of the intuitive. All such 
people will look back to childhood when they come to the end 
of their particular tether, or they will hanker for some state 
when they were still in touch with the lost world, or their 
dreams will reproduce enchanting memories of a past that has 
sunk into oblivion. 

60 By adopting a more idealistic philosophy, one can interpret 
things differently and produce a perfectly decent and respect- 
able psychology which is just as true, relatively speaking, as 
the sordid underside. I do not see why one should not interpret 
the facts in a decent and positive way when one can easily af- 
ford to do so. For many people this is much better and more 
encouraging than to reduce everything to primitive constitu- 

33 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ents with nasty names. But here too we must not be one-sided, 
because certain patients are all the better for being told some 
drastic but cleansing truth. 

6ir-r Freud's original idea of the unconscious was that it was a 
sort of receptacle or storehouse for repressed material, infantile 
wishes, and the like. But the unconscious is far more than that: 
it is the basis and precondition of all consciousness. It repre- 
sents the unconscious functioning of the psyche in general. It 
is psychic life before, during, and after consciousness. And inas- 
much as the newborn child is presented with a ready-made, 
highly developed brain which owes its differentiation to the 
accretions of untold centuries of ancestral life, the unconscious 
psyche must consist of inherited instincts, functions, and forms 
that are peculiar to the ancestral psyche. This collective heri- 
tage is by no means made up of inherited ideas, but rather of 
the possibilities of such ideas in other words, of a priori cate- 
gories of possible functioning. Such an inheritance could be 
called instinct, using the word in its original sense. But it is 
not quite so simple. On the contrary, it is a most intricate web 
of what I have called archetypal conditions. This implies the 
probability that a man will behave much as his ancestors be- 
haved, right back to Methuselah. Thus the unconscious is seen 
as the collective predisposition to extreme conservatism, a guar- 
antee, almost, that nothing new will ever happen. 

62 If this statement were unreservedly true, there would be 
none of that creative fantasy which is responsible for radical 
changes and innovations. Therefore our statement must be in 
part erroneous, since creative fantasy exists and is not simply 
the prerogative of the unconscious psyche. Generally speaking, 
it is an intrusion from the realm of the unconscious, a sort of 
lucky hunch, different in kind from the slow reasoning of the 
conscious mind. Thus the unconscious is seen as a creative fac- 
tor, even as a bold innovator, and yet it is at the same time the 
stronghold of ancestral conservatism. A paradox, I admit, but 
it cannot be helped. It is no more paradoxical than man him- 
self and that cannot be helped either. 

63 There are sound philosophical reasons why our arguments 
should end in paradox and why a paradoxical statement is the 
better witness to truth than a one-sided, so-called "positive" 

34 



SOME ASPECTS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



statement. But this is not the place to embark on a lengthy 
logical discourse. 

64 Now if you will bear in mind what we have just said about 
the significance of the unconscious, and if you will recall our dis- 
cussion of the regressive tendency, you will discover a further and 
cogent reason why the patient should have such a tendency, 
and why he is quite justified in having it. To be retrospective 
and introspective is a pathological mistake only when it stops 
short at futilities like incest and other squalid fantasies, or at 
feelings of inferiority. Retrospection and introspection should 
be carried much further, because then the patient will not only 
discover the true reason for his childhood longings, but, going 
beyond himself into the sphere of the collective psyche, he will 
enter first into the treasure-house of collective ideas and then 
into creativity. In this way he will discover his identity with the 
whole of humanity, as it ever was, is, and ever shall be. He will 
add to his modest personal possessions which have proved them- 
selves insufficient. Such acquisitions will strengthen his atti- 
tude, and this is the very reason why collective ideas have al- 
ways been so important. 

65 It looks as if Freud had got stuck in his own pessimism, 
clinging as he does to his thoroughly negative and personal 
conception of the unconscious. You get nowhere if you assume 
that the vital basis of man is nothing but a very personal and 
therefore very private affaire scandaleuse. This is utterly hope- 
less, and true only to the extent that a Strindberg drama is true. 
But pierce the veil of that sickly illusion, and you step out of 
your narrow, stuffy personal corner into the wide realm of the 
collective psyche, into the healthy and natural matrix of the 
human mind, into the very soul of humanity. That is the true 
foundation on which we can build a new and more workable 
attitude. 



35 



IV 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 1 

66 It is generally agreed today that neuroses are functional 
psychic disturbances and are therefore to be cured preferably 
by psychological treatment. But when we come to the question 
of the structure of the neuroses and the principles of therapy, 
all agreement ends, and we have to acknowledge that we have 
as yet no fully satisfactory conception, of the nature of the neu- 
roses or of the principles of treatment. While it is true that two 
currents or schools of thought have gained a special hearing, 
they by no means exhaust the number of divergent opinions 
that actually exist. There are also numerous non-partisans who, 
amid the general conflict of opinion, have their own special 
views. If, therefore, we wanted to paint a comprehensive pic- 
ture of this diversity, we should have to mix upon our palette 
all the hues and shadings of the rainbow. I would gladly paint 
such a picture if it lay within my power, for I have always felt 
the need for a conspectus of the many viewpoints. I have never 
succeeded in the long run in not giving divergent opinions their 
due. Such opinions could never arise, much less secure a follow- 
ing, if they did not correspond to some special disposition, 
some special character, some fundamental psychological fact 
that is more or less universal. Were we to exclude one such 
opinion as simply wrong and worthless, we should be rejecting 
this particular disposition or this particular fact as a misin- 
terpretationin other words, we should be doing violence to 
our own empirical material. The wide approval which greeted 
Freud's explanation of neurosis in terms of sexual causation and 
his view that the happenings in the psyche turn essentially 
upon infantile pleasure and its satisfaction should be instruc- 

l [Delivered as a lecture at a congress of the German Society for Psychotherapy, 
1929. Published as "Ziele der Psycho therapie" in Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart 
(Zurich, 1931), pp. 87-114. Previously trans, by C. F. Baynes and W. S. Dell in 
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (London and New York, 1933). EDITORS.] 

36 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



tive to the psychologist. It shows him that this manner of think- 
ing and feeling coincides with a fairly widespread trend or 
spiritual current which, independently of Freud's theory, has 
made itself felt in other places, in other circumstances, in other 
minds, and in other forms. I should call it a manifestation of 
the collective psyche. Let me remind you here of the works of 
Havelock Ellis and Auguste Forel and the contributors to 
Anthropophyteia; 2 then of the changed attitude to sex in Anglo- 
Saxon countries during the post-Victorian period, and the broad 
discussion of sexual matters in literature, which had already 
started with the French realists. Freud is one of the exponents 
of a contemporary psychological fact which has a special history 
of its own; but for obvious reasons we cannot go into that here. 

67 The acclaim which Adler, like Freud, has met with on both 
sides of the Atlantic points similarly to the undeniable fact that, 
for a great many people, the need for self-assertion arising from 
a sense of inferiority is a plausible basis of explanation. Nor 
can it be disputed that this view accounts for psychic actuali- 
ties which are not given their due in the Freudian system. I 
need hardly mention in detail the collective psychological forces 
and social factors that favour the Adlerian view and make it 
their theoretical exponent. These matters are sufficiently obvious. 

68 It would be an unpardonable error to overlook the element 
of truth in both the Freudian and the Adlerian viewpoints, but 
it would be no less unpardonable to take either of them as the 
sole truth. Both truths correspond to psychic realities. There 
are in fact some cases which by and large can best be described 
and explained by the one theory, and some by the other. 

69 I can accuse neither of these two investigators of any funda- 
mental error; on the contrary, I endeavour to apply both hy- 
potheses as far as possible because I fully recognize their rela- 
tive rightness. It would certainly never have occurred to me to 
depart from Freud's path had I not stumbled upon facts which 
forced me into modifications. And the same is true of my rela- 
tion to the Adlerian viewpoint. 

70 After what has been said it seems hardly necessary to add 
that I hold the truth of my own deviationist views to be equally 
relative, and feel myself so very much the mere exponent of 
another disposition that I could almost say with Coleridge: "I 

2 [Published at Leipzig, 1 904-1 S.-EDITORS.] 

37 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



believe in the one and only saving Church, of which at present 
I am the only member/' 3 

7* It is in applied psychology, if anywhere, that we must be 
modest today and bear with an apparent plurality of contra- 
dictory opinions; for we are still far from having anything like 
a thorough knowledge of the human psyche, that most chal- 
lenging field of scientific inquiry. At present we have merely 
more or less plausible opinions that cannot be squared with one 
another. 

72 If, therefore, I undertake to say something about my views 
I hope I shall not be misunderstood. I am not advertising a 
novel truth, still less am I announcing a final gospel. I can only 
speak of attempts to throw light on psychic facts that are ob- 
scure to me, or of efforts to overcome therapeutic difficulties. 

73 And it is just with this last point that I should like to begin, 
for here lies the most pressing need for modifications. As is well 
known, one can get along for quite a time with an inadequate 
theory, but not with inadequate therapeutic methods. In my 
psychotherapeutic practice of nearly thirty years I have met 
with a fair number of failures which made a far deeper impres- 
sion on me than my successes. Anybody can have successes in 
psychotherapy, starting with the primitive medicine-man and 
faith-healer. The psychotherapist learns little or nothing from 
his successes, for they chiefly confirm him in his mistakes. But 
failures are priceless experiences because they not only open 
the way to a better truth but force us to modify our views and 
methods. 

74 I certainly recognize how much my work has been furthered 
first by Freud and then by Adler, and in practice I try to acknowl- 
edge this debt by making use of their views, whenever possible, 
in the treatment of my patients. Nevertheless I must insist that I 
have experienced failures which, I felt, might have been avoided 
had I considered the facts that subsequently forced me to modify 
their views. 

75 To describe all the situations I came up against is almost 
impossible, so I must content myself with singling out a few 
typical cases. It was with older patients that I had the greatest 
difficulties, that is, with persons over forty. In handling younger 

8 [It has not been possible to trace this quotation and to find the original word- 
ing. EDITORS.] 

38 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



people I generally get along with the familiar viewpoints of 
Freud and Adler, for these tend to bring the patient to a certain 
level of adaptation and normality. Both views are eminently ap- 
plicable to the young, apparently without leaving any disturbing 
after-effects. In my experience this is not so often the case 
with older people. It seems to me that the basic facts of the 
psyche undergo a very marked alteration In the course of life, 
so much so that we could almost speak of a psychology of life's 
morning and a psychology of its afternoon. As a rule, the life 
of a young person is characterized by a general expansion and 
a striving towards concrete ends; and his neurosis seems mainly 
to rest on his hesitation or shrinking back from this necessity. 
But the life of an older person is characterized by a contrac- 
tion of forces, by the affirmation of what has been achieved, and 
by the curtailment of further growth. His neurosis comes mainly 
from his clinging to a youthful attitude which is now out of 
season. Just as the young neurotic is afraid of life, so the older 
one shrinks back from death. What was a normal goal for the 
young man becomes a neurotic hindrance to the old just as, 
through his hesitation to face the world, the young neurotic's 
originally normal dependence on his parents grows into an 
incest-relationship that is inimical to life. It is natural that 
neurosis, resistance, repression, transference, "guiding fictions/* 
and so forth should have one meaning in the young person 
and quite another in the old, despite apparent similarities. The 
aims of therapy should undoubtedly be modified to meet this 
fact. Hence the age of the patient seems to me a most important 
indicium. 

76 But there are various indicia also within the youthful phase 
of life. Thus, in my estimation, it is a technical blunder to 
apply the Freudian viewpoint to a patient with the Adlerian 
type of psychology, that is, an unsuccessful person with an in- 
fantile need to assert himself. Conversely, it would be a gross 
misunderstanding to force the Adlerian viewpoint on a success- 
ful man with a pronounced pleasure-principle psychology. When 
in a quandary the resistances of the patient may be valuable sign- 
posts. I am inclined to take deep-seated resistances seriously at 
first, paradoxical as this may sound, for I am convinced that 
the doctor does not necessarily know better" than the patient's 
own psychic constitution, of which the patient himself may be 

39 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



quite unconscious. This modesty on the part of the doctor is 
altogether becoming in view of the fact that there is not only no 
generally valid psychology today but rather an untold variety 
of temperaments and of more or less individual psyches that re- 
fuse to fit into any scheme. 

77 You know that in this matter of temperament I postulate 
two different basic attitudes in accordance with the typical 
differences already suspected by many students of human na- 
turenamely, the extraverted and the introverted attitudes. 
These attitudes, too, I take to be important indicia, and like- 
wise the predominance of one particular psychic function over 
the others. 4 

7 8 The extraordinary diversity of individual life necessitates 
constant modifications of theory which are often applied quite 
unconsciously by the doctor himself, although in principle they 
may not accord at all with his theoretical creed. 

79 While we are on this question of temperament I should not 
omit to mention that there are some people whose attitude is 
essentially spiritual and others whose attitude is essentially ma- 
terialistic. It must not be imagined that such an attitude is 
acquired accidentally or springs from mere misunderstanding. 
Very often they are ingrained passions which no criticism and 
no persuasion can stamp out; there are even cases where an ap- 
parently outspoken materialism has its source in a denial of re- 
ligious temperament. Cases of the reverse type are more easily 
credited today, although they are not more frequent than the 
others. This too is an indicium which in my opinion ought 
not to be overlooked. 

80 When we use the word indicium it might appear to mean, 
as is usual in medical parlance, that this or that treatment is 
indicated. Perhaps this should be the case, but psychotherapy 
has at present reached no such degree of certaintyfor which 
reason our indicia are unfortunately not much more than warn- 
ings against one-sidedness. 

81 The human psyche is a thing of enormous ambiguity. In 
every single case we have to ask ourselves whether an attitude 
or a so-called habitus is authentic, or whether it may not be 
just a compensation for its opposite. I must confess that I have 
so often been deceived in this matter that in any concrete case 
4 [Viz., thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. EDITORS.] 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



I am at pains to avoid all theoretical presuppositions about the 
structure of the neurosis and about what the patient can and 
ought to do. As far as possible I let pure experience decide the 
therapeutic aims. This may perhaps seem strange, because it is 
commonly supposed that the therapist has an aim. But in psy- 
chotherapy it seems to me positively advisable for the doctor 
not to have too fixed an aim. He can hardly know better than 
the nature and will to live of the patient. The great decisions 
in human life usually have far more to do with the instincts 
and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious 
will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one 
person pinches another; there is no universal recipe for living. 
Each of us carries his own life-form within him an irrational 
form which no other can outbid. 

82 All this naturally does not prevent us from doing our ut- 
most to make the patient normal and reasonable. If the thera- 
peutic results are satisfactory, we can probably let it go at that. 
If not, then for better or worse the therapist must be guided 
by the patient's own irrationalities. Here we must follow nature 
as a guide, and what the doctor then does is less a question of 
treatment than of developing the creative possibilities latent 
in the patient himself. 

83 What I have to say begins where the treatment leaves off 
and this development sets in. Thus my contribution to psycho- 
therapy confines itself to those cases where rational treatment 
does not yield satisfactory results. The clinical material at my 
disposal is of a peculiar composition: new cases are decidedly in 
the minority. Most of them already have some form of psycho- 
therapeutic treatment behind them, with partial or negative 
results. About a third of my cases are not suffering from any 
clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and 
aimlessness of their lives. I should not object if this were called 
the general neurosis of our age. Fully two thirds of my patients 
are in the second half of life. 

84 This peculiar material sets up a special resistance to ra- 
tional methods of treatment, probably because most of my pa- 
tients are socially well-adapted individuals, often of outstanding 
ability, to whom normalization means nothing. As for so-called 
normal people, there I really am in a fix, for I have no ready- 
made philosophy of life to hand out to them. In the majority 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of my cases the resources of the conscious mind are exhausted 
(or, in ordinary English, they are "stuck"). It is chiefly this 
fact that forces me to look for hidden possibilities. For I do not 
know what to say to the patient when he asks me, "What do 
you advise? What shall I do?" I don't know either. I only know 
one thing: when my conscious mind no longer sees any pos- 
sible road ahead and consequently gets stuck, my unconscious 
psyche will react to the unbearable standstill. 

85 This "getting stuck" is a psychic occurrence so often re- 
peated during the course of human history that it has become 
the theme of many myths and fairytales. We are told of the 
Open sesame! to the locked door, or of some helpful animal 
who finds the hidden way. In other words, getting stuck is a 
typical event which, in the course of time, has evoked typical 
reactions and compensations. We may therefore expect with 
some probability that something similar will appear in the re- 
actions of the unconscious, as, for example, in dreams. 

86 In such cases, then, my attention is directed more particu- 
larly to dreams. This is not because I am tied to the notion 
that dreams must always be called to the rescue, or because I 
possess a mysterious dream-theory which tells me how every- 
thing must shape itself; but quite simply from perplexity. I 
do not know where else to go for help, and so I try to find it 
in dreams. These at least present us with images pointing to 
something or other, and that is better than nothing. I have no 
theory about dreams, I do not know how dreams arise. And I 
am not at all sure that my way of handling dreams even de- 
serves the name of a "method." I share all your prejudices 
against dream-interpretation as the quintessence of uncertainty 
and arbitrariness. On the other hand, I know that if we medi- 
tate on a dream sufficiently long and thoroughly, if we carry 
it around with us and turn it over and over, something almost 
always comes of it. This something is not of course a scientific 
result to be boasted about or rationalized; but it is an important 
practical hint which shows the patient what the unconscious is 
aiming at. Indeed, it ought not to matter to me whether the re- 
sult of my musings on the dream is scientifically verifiable or 
tenable, otherwise I am pursuing an ulterior and therefore 
autoerotic aim. I must content myself wholly with the fact that 
the result means something to the patient and sets his life in 

42 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



motion again. I may allow myself only one criterion for the 
result of my labours: Does it work? As for my scientific hobby- 
my desire to know why it works this I must reserve for my 
spare time. 

87 Infinitely varied are the contents of the initial dreams, that 
is, the dreams that come at the outset of the treatment. In many 
cases they point directly to the past and recall things lost and 
forgotten. For very often the standstill and disorientation arise 
when life has become one-sided, and this may, in psychological 
terms, cause a sudden loss of libido. All our previous activities 
become uninteresting, even senseless, and our aims suddenly 
no longer worth striving for. What in one person is merely a 
passing mood may in another become a chronic condition. In 
these cases it often happens that other possibilities for developing 
the personality lie buried somewhere or other in the past, un- 
known to anybody, not even to the patient. But the dream may 
reveal the clue. 

88 In other cases the dream points to present facts, for exam- 
ple marriage or social position, which the conscious mind has 
never accepted as sources of problems or conflicts. 

8 9 Both possibilities come within the sphere of the rational, and 
I daresay I would have no difficulty in making such initial 
dreams seem plausible. The real difficulty begins when the 
dreams do not point to anything tangible, and this they do 
often enough, especially when they hold anticipations of the fu- 
ture. I do not mean that such dreams are necessarily prophetic, 
merely that they feel the way, they "reconnoitre." These dreams 
contain inklings of possibilities and for that reason can never 
be made plausible to an outsider. Sometimes they are not plaus- 
ible even to me, and then I usually say to the patient, "I don't 
believe it, but follow up the clue." As I have said, the sole cri- 
terion is the stimulating effect, but it is by no means necessary 
for me to understand why such an effect takes place. 

90 This is particularly true of dreams that contain something 
like an "unconscious metaphysics," by which I mean mytho- 
logical analogies that are sometimes incredibly strange and 
baffling. 

9 1 Now, you will certainly protest: How on earth can I know 
that the dreams contain anything like an unconscious meta- 
physics? And here I must confess that I do not really know. I 

43 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



know far too little about dreams for that. I see only the effect 
on the patient, of which I would like to give you a little exam- 
pie. 

92 In a long initial dream of one of my "normal" patients, the 
illness of his sister's child played an important part. She was a 
little girl of two. 

93 Some time before, this sister had in fact lost a boy through 
illness, but otherwise none of her children was ill. The occur- 
rence of the sick child in the dream at first proved baffling to 
the dreamer, probably because it failed to fit the facts. Since 
there was no direct and intimate connection between the 
dreamer and his sister, he could feel in this image little that was 
personal to him. Then he suddenly remembered that two years 
earlier he had taken up the study of occultism, in the course of 
which he also discovered psychology. So the child evidently 
represented his interest in the psyche an idea I should never 
have arrived at of my own accord. Seen purely theoretically, 
this dream image can mean anything or nothing. For that mat- 
ter, does a thing or a fact ever mean anything in itself? The 
only certainty is that it is always man who interprets, who as- 
signs meaning. And that is the gist of the matter for psychology. 
It impressed the dreamer as a novel and interesting idea that 
the study of occultism might have something sickly about it. 
Somehow the thought struck home. And this is the decisive point: 
the interpretation works, however we may elect to account for 
its working. For the dreamer the thought was an implied criti- 
cism, and through it a certain change of attitude was brought 
about. By such slight changes, which one could never think up 
rationally, things are set in motion and the dead point is over- 
come, at least in principle. 

94 From this example I could say figuratively that the dream 
meant that there was something sickly about the dreamer's oc- 
cult studies, and in this sense since the dream brought him to 
such an ideaI can also speak of "unconscious metaphysics." 

95 But I go still further: Not only do I give the patient an 
opportunity to find associations to his dreams, I give myself the 
same opportunity. Further, I present him with my ideas and 
opinions. If, in so doing, I open the door to "suggestion," I see 
no occasion for regret; for it is well known that we are suscep- 
tible only to those suggestions with which we are already se- 

44 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



cretly in accord. No harm is done if now and then one goes 
astray in this riddle-reading: sooner or later the psyche will 
reject the mistake, much as the organism rejects a foreign body. 
I do not need to prove that my interpretation of the dream is 
right (a pretty hopeless undertaking anyway), but must simply 
try to discover, with the patient, what acts for him I am al- 
most tempted to say, what is actual. 

96 For this reason it is particularly important for me to know 
as much as possible about primitive psychology, mythology, 
archaeology, and comparative religion, because these fields offer 
me invaluable analogies with which I can enrich the associa- 
tions of my patients. Together, we can then find meaning in 
apparent irrelevancies and thus vastly increase the effectiveness 
of the dream. For the layman who has done his utmost in the 
personal and rational sphere of life and yet has found no mean- 
ing and no satisfaction there, it is enormously important to 
be able to enter a sphere of irrational experience. In this way, 
too, the habitual and the commonplace come to wear an altered 
countenance, and can even acquire a new glamour. For it all 
depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in 
themselves. The least of things with a meaning is always worth 
more in life than the greatest of things without it. 

97 I do not think I underestimate the risk of this undertak- 
ing. It is as if one began to build a bridge out into space. In- 
deed, the ironist might even allege and has often done so 
that in following this procedure both doctor and patient are 
indulging in mere fantasy-spinning. 

98 This objection is no counter-argument, but is very much to 
the point. I even make an effort to second the patient in his 
fantasies. Truth to tell, I have no small opinion of fantasy. 
To me, it is the maternally creative side of the masculine mind. 
When all is said and done, we can never rise above fantasy. 
It is true that there are unprofitable, futile, morbid, and un- 
satisfying fantasies whose sterile nature is immediately recog- 
nized by every person endowed with common sense; but the 
faulty performance proves nothing against the normal perform- 
ance. All the works of man have their origin in creative imagi- 
nation. What right, then, have we to disparage fantasy? In the 
normal course of things, fantasy does not easily go astray; it 
is too deep for that, and too closely bound up with the tap-root 

45 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of human and animal instinct. It has a surprising way o always 
coming out right in the end. The creative activity of imagina- 
tion frees man from his bondage to the "nothing but" 5 and 
raises him to the status of one who plays. As Schiller says, 
man is completely human only when he is at play. 

99 My aim is to bring about a psychic state in which my pa- 
tient begins to experiment with his own nature a state of flu- 
idity, change, and growth where nothing is eternally fixed and 
hopelessly petrified. I can here of course adumbrate only the 
principles of my technique. Those of you who happen to be 
acquainted with my works can easily imagine the necessary 
parallels. I would only like to emphasize that you should not 
think of my procedure as entirely without aim or limit. In 
handling a dream or fantasy I make it a rule never to go be- 
yond the meaning which is effective for the patient; I merely 
try to make him as fully conscious of this meaning as possible, 
so that he shall also become aware of its supra-personal con- 
nections. For, when something happens to a man and he sup- 
poses it to be personal only to him, whereas in reality it is a 
quite universal experience, then his attitude is obviously 
wrong, that is, too personal, and it tends to exclude him from 
human society. By the same token we need to have not only a 
personal, contemporary consciousness, but also a supra-personal 
consciousness with a sense of historical continuity. However ab- 
stract this may sound, practical experience shows that many 
neuroses are caused primarily by the fact that people blind 
themselves to their own religious promptings because of a child- 
ish passion for rational enlightenment. It is high time the psy- 
chologist of today recognized that we are no longer dealing 
with dogmas and creeds but with the religious attitude per se y 
whose importance as a psychic function can hardly be over- 
rated. And it is precisely for the religious function that the 
sense of historical continuity is indispensable. 

10 Coming back to the question of my technique, I ask my- 
self how far I am indebted to Freud for its existence. At all 

5 [The term "nothing but" (nichts als] occurs frequently in Jung, and is used to 
denote the common habit of explaining something unknown by reducing it to 
something apparently known and thereby devaluing it. For instance, when a cer- 
tain illness is said to be "nothing but psychic," it is explained as imaginary and 
is thus devalued. EDITORS.] 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



events I learned It from Freud's method of free association, and 
I regard it as a direct extension of that. 

l l So long as I help the patient to discover the effective ele- 
ments in his dreams, and so long as I try to get him to see the 
general meaning of his symbols, he Is still, psychologically 
speaking, in a state of childhood. For the time being he is de- 
pendent on his dreams and is always asking himself whether 
the next dream will give him new light or not. Moreover, he Is 
dependent on my having ideas about his dreams and on my 
ability to increase his insight through my knowledge. Thus he 
is still in an undesirably passive condition where everything 
is rather uncertain and questionable; neither he nor I know 
the journey's end. Often it is not much more than a groping 
about in Egyptian darkness. In this condition we must not ex- 
pect any very startling results the uncertainty is too great for 
that. Besides which there is always the risk that what we have 
woven by day the night will unravel. The danger is that noth- 
ing permanent is achieved, that nothing remains fixed. It not 
infrequently happens in these situations that the patient has 
a particularly vivid or curious dream, and says to me, "Do 
you know, if only I were a painter I would make a picture of 
it." Or the dreams are about photographs, paintings, drawings, 
or illuminated manuscripts, or even about the films. 

102 I have turned these hints to practical account, urging my 
patients at such times to paint in reality what they have seen 
in dream or fantasy. As a rule I am met with the objection, 
"But I am not a painter!" To this I usually reply that neither 
are modern painters, and that consequently modern painting 
is free for all, and that anyhow it is not a question of beauty 
but only of the trouble one takes with the picture. How true 
this is I saw recently in the case of a talented professional por- 
traitist; she had to begin my way of painting all over again with 
pitiably childish efforts, literally as if she had never held a 
brush in her hand. To paint what we see before us is a different 
art from painting what we see within. 

103 Many of my more advanced patients, then, begin to paint. 
I can well understand that everyone will be profoundly im- 
pressed with the utter futility of this sort of dilettantism. Do not 
forget, however, that we are speaking not of people who still 
have to prove their social usefulness, but of those who can no 

47 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



longer see any sense in being socially useful and who have come 
upon the deeper and more dangerous question of the meaning 
of their own individual lives. To be a particle in the mass has 
meaning and charm only for the man who has not yet reached 
that stage, but none for the man who is sick to death of being 
a particle. The importance of what life means to the individual 
may be denied by those who are socially below the general level 
of adaptation, and is invariably denied by the educator whose 
ambition it is to breed mass-men. But those who belong to 
neither category will sooner or later come up against this pain- 
ful question. 

104 Although my patients occasionally produce artistically 
beautiful things that might very well be shown in modern 
"art" exhibitions, I nevertheless treat them as completely worth- 
less when judged by the canons of real art. As a matter of fact, 
it is essential that they should be considered worthless, other- 
wise my patients might imagine themselves to be artists, and the 
whole point of the exercise would be missed. It is not a ques- 
tion of art at all or rather, it should not be a question of art 
but of something more and other than mere art, namely the 
living effect upon the patient himself. The meaning of indi- 
vidual life, whose importance from the social standpoint is 
negligible, stands here at its highest, and for its sake the patient 
struggles to give form, however crude and childish, to the in- 
expressible. 

10 5 But why do I encourage patients, when they arrive at a 
certain stage in their development, to express themselves by 
means of brush, pencil, or pen at all? 

106 Here again my prime purpose is to produce an effect. In 
the state of psychological childhood described above, the pa- 
tient remains passive; but now he begins to play an active part. 
To start off with, he puts down on paper what he has passively 
seen, thereby turning it into a deliberate act. He not only talks 
about it, he is actually doing something about it. Psychologi- 
cally speaking, it makes a vast difference whether a man has an 
interesting conversation with his doctor two or three times a 
week, the results of which are left hanging in mid air, or 
whether he has to struggle for hours with refractory brush and 
colours, only to produce in the end something which, taken at 
its face value, is perfectly senseless. If it were really senseless to 

48 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



him, the effort to paint it would be so repugnant that he could 
scarcely be brought to perform this exercise a second time. But 
because his fantasy does not strike him as entirely senseless, his 
busying himself with it only increases its effect upon him. 
Moreover, the concrete shaping of the image enforces a con- 
tinuous study of it in all its parts, so that it can develop its 
effects to the full. This invests the bare fantasy with an element 
of reality, which lends it greater weight and greater driving 
power. And these rough-and-ready pictures do indeed produce 
effects which, I must admit, are rather difficult to describe. 
For instance, a patient needs only to have seen once or twice 
how much he is freed from a wretched state of mind by work- 
ing at a symbolical picture, and he will always turn to this 
means of release whenever things go badly with him. In this 
way something of inestimable importance is won the begin- 
ning of independence, a step towards psychological maturity. 
The patient can make himself creatively independent through 
this method, if I may call it such. He is no longer dependent on 
his dreams or on his doctor's knowledge; instead, by painting 
himself he gives shape to himself. For what he paints are active 
fantasies that which is active within him. And that which is 
active within is himself, but no longer in the guise of his 
previous error, when he mistook the personal ego for the self; 
it is himself in a new and hitherto alien sense, for his ego now 
appears as the object of that which works within him. In count- 
less pictures he strives to catch this interior agent, only to dis- 
cover in the end that it is eternally unknown and alien, the 
hidden foundation of psychic life. 

10 7 It is impossible for me to describe the extent to which 
this discovery changes the patient's standpoint and values, and 
how it shifts the centre of gravity of his personality. It is as 
though the earth had suddenly discovered that the sun was the 
centre of the planetary orbits and of its own earthly orbit as 
well. 

108 But have we not always known this to be so? I myself be- 
lieve that we have always known it. But I may know something 
with my head which the other man in me is far from knowing, 
for indeed and in truth I live as though I did not know it. Most 
of my patients knew the deeper truth, but did not live it. And 
why did they not live it? Because 'of that bias which makes us 

49 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



all live from the ego, a bias which comes from overvaluation 
of the conscious mind. 

10 9 It is of the greatest importance for the young person, who 
is still unadapted and has as yet achieved nothing, to shape 
his conscious ego as effectively as possible, that is, to edu- 
cate his will. Unless he is a positive genius he cannot, indeed 
he should not, believe in anything active within him that is not 
identical with his will. He must feel himself a man of will, and 
may safely depreciate everything else in him and deem it sub- 
ject to his will, for without this illusion he could not succeed 
in adapting himself socially. 

no It is otherwise with a person in the second half of life who 
no longer needs to educate his conscious will, but who, to un- 
derstand the meaning of his individual life, needs to experience 
his own inner being. Social usefulness is no longer an aim for 
him, although he does not deny its desirability. Fully aware as 
he is of the social unimportance of his creative activity, he feels 
it more as a way of working at himself to his own benefit. In- 
creasingly, too, this activity frees him from morbid dependence, 
and he thus acquires an inner stability and a new trust in him- 
self. These last achievements now redound to the good of the 
patient's social existence; for an inwardly stable and self-con- 
fident person will prove more adequate to his social tasks than 
one who is on a bad footing with his unconscious. 

111 I have purposely avoided loading my lecture with theory, 
hence much must remain obscure and unexplained. But, in or- 
der to make the pictures produced by my patients intelligible, 
certain theoretical points must at least receive mention. A fea- 
ture common to all these pictures is a primitive symbolism 
which is conspicuous both in the drawing and in the colouring. 
The colours are as a rule quite barbaric in their intensity. 
Often an unmistakable archaic quality is present. These pe- 
culiarities point to the nature of the underlying creative forces. 
They are irrational, symbolistic currents that run through the 
whole history of mankind, and are so archaic in character that 
it is not difficult to find their parallels in archaeology and com- 
parative religion. We may therefore take it that our pictures 
spring chiefly from those regions of the psyche which I have 
termed the collective unconscious. By this I understand an un- 
conscious psychic functioning common to all men, the source 

5 



THE AIMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



not only of our modern symbolical pictures but of all similar 
products in the past. Such pictures spring from, and satisfy, a 
natural need. It is as if a part of the psyche that reaches far 
back into the primitive past were expressing itself in these pic- 
tures and finding it possible to function in harmony with our 
alien conscious mind. This collaboration satisfies and thus 
mitigates the psyche's disturbing demands upon the latter. It 
must, however, be added that the mere execution of the pic- 
tures is not enough. Over and above that, an intellectual and 
emotional understanding is needed; they require to be not 
only rationally integrated with the conscious mind, but mor- 
ally assimilated. They still have to be subjected to a work of 
synthetic interpretation. Although I have travelled this path 
with individual patients many times, I have never yet suc- 
ceeded in making all the details of the process clear enough for 
publication. So far this has been fragmentary only. The truth 
is, we are here moving in absolutely new territory, and a rip- 
ening of experience is the first requisite. For very important 
reasons I am anxious to avoid hasty conclusions. We are deal- 
ing with a process of psychic life outside consciousness, and our 
observation of it is indirect. As yet we do not know to what 
depths our vision will plumb. It would seem to be some kind 
of centring process, for a great many pictures which the pa- 
tients themselves feel to be decisive point in this direction. 
During this centring process what we call the ego appears to 
take up a peripheral position. The change is apparently brought 
about by an emergence of the historical part of the psyche. 
Exactly what is the purpose of this process remains at first 
sight obscure. We can only remark its important effect on the 
conscious personality. From the fact that the change heightens 
the feeling for life and maintains the flow of life, we must con- 
clude that it is animated by a peculiar purposefulness. We 
might perhaps call this a new illusion. But what is "illusion"? 
By what criterion do we judge something to be an illusion? 
Does anything exist for the psyche that we are entitled to call 
illusion? What we are pleased to call illusion may be for the 
psyche an extremely important life-factor, something as indis- 
pensable as oxygen for the body a psychic actuality of over- 
whelming significance. Presumably the psyche does not trouble 
itself about our categories of reality; for it, everything that works 

5 1 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



Is real. The investigator o the psyche must not confuse it 
with his consciousness, else he veils from his sight the object of 
his investigation. On the contrary, to recognize it at all, he must 
learn to see how different it is from consciousness. Nothing is 
more probable than that what we call illusion is very real for 
the psyche for which reason we cannot take psychic reality to 
be commensurable with conscious reality. To the psychologist 
there is nothing more fatuous than the attitude of the mission- 
ary who pronounces the gods of the "poor heathen" to be mere 
illusion. Unfortunately we still go blundering along in the 
same dogmatic way, as though our so-called reality were not 
equally full of illusion. In psychic life, as everywhere in our 
experience, all things that work are reality, regardless of the 
names man chooses to bestow on them. To take these realities 
for what they are not foisting other names on them that is 
our business. To the psyche, spirit is no less spirit for being 
named sexuality. 

I must repeat that these designations and the changes rung 
upon them never even remotely touch the essence of the proc- 
ess we have described. It cannot be compassed by the rational 
concepts of the conscious mind, any more than life itself; and it is 
for this reason that my patients consistently turn to the repre- 
sentation and interpretation of symbols as the more adequate 
and effective course. 

With this I have said pretty well everything I can say about 
my therapeutic aims and intentions within the broad frame- 
work of a lecture. It can be no more than an incentive to 
thought, and I shall be quite content if such it has been. 



V 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 1 

1*4 Psychotherapy, or the treatment of the mind by psycho- 
logical methods, is today identified in popular thought with 
' 'psychoanalysis. ' ' 

1*5 The word "psychoanalysis" has become so much a part of 
common speech that everyone who uses it seems to understand 
what it means. But what the word actually connotes is unknown 
to most laymen. According to the intention of its creator, Freud, 
it can be appropriately applied only to the method, inaug- 
urated by himself, of reducing psychic symptoms and complexes 
to certain repressed impulses; and in so far as this procedure is 
not possible without the corresponding points of view, the idea 
of psychoanalysis also includes certain theoretical assumptions, 
formulated as the Freudian theory of sexuality expressly in- 
sisted upon by its author. But, Freud notwithstanding, the lay- 
man employs the term "psychoanalysis" loosely for all modern 
attempts whatsoever to probe the mind by scientific methods. 
Thus Adler's school must submit to being labelled "psycho- 
analytic" despite the fact that Adler's viewpoint and method 
are apparently in irreconcilable opposition to those of Freud. 
In consequence, Adler does not call his psychology "psychoanal- 
ysis" but "individual psychology"; while I prefer to call my own 
approach "analytical psychology," by which I mean some- 
thing like a general concept embracing both psychoanalysis and 
individual psychology as well as other endeavours in the field of 
"complex psychology." 

116 Since, however, there is but one mind, or one psyche, in 
man, it might seem to the layman that there can be only one 
psychology, and he might therefore suppose these distinctions 
to be either subjective quibbles or the commonplace attempts 

l [Published as "Die Probleme der modernen Psychotherapie" in Schweizerisches 
Medizinisches Jahrbuch, 1929, and in Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart (Zurich, 
1931), pp. 1-39. Previously trans, by C. F. Baynes and W. S. Dell in Modern Man 
in Search of a Soul (London and New York, 1933). EDITORS.] 

53 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of small-minded persons to set themselves up on little thrones. 
I could easily lengthen the list of ' 'psychologies" by mentioning 
other systems not included under "analytical psychology." 
There are in fact many different methods, standpoints, views, 
and beliefs which are all at war with one another, chiefly because 
they all misunderstand one another and refuse to give one an- 
other their due. The many-sidedness, the diversity, of psycho- 
logical opinions in our day is nothing less than astonishing, not 
to say confusing for the layman. 

117 If, in a text-book of pathology, we find numerous rem- 
edies of the most diverse kind prescribed for a given disease, 
we may safely conclude that none of these remedies is partic- 
ularly efficacious. So, when many different ways of approaching 
the psyche are recommended, we may rest assured that none of 
them leads with absolute certainty to the goal, least of all those 
advocated with fanaticism. The very number of present-day 
psychologies is a confession of perplexity. The difficulty of gain- 
ing access to the psyche is gradually being borne in upon us, 
and the psyche itself is seen to be a "horned problem," to use 
Nietzsche's expression. It is small wonder therefore that efforts 
to attack this elusive riddle keep on multiplying, first from one 
side and then from another. The variety of contradictory stand- 
points and opinions is the inevitable result. 

"8 The reader will doubtless agree that in speaking of psy- 
choanalysis we should not confine ourselves to its narrower 
connotation, but should deal in general with the successes and 
failures of the various contemporary endeavours, which we sum 
up under the term "analytical psychology," to solve the prob- 
lem of the psyche. 

!*9 But why this sudden interest in the human psyche as a 
datum of experience? For thousands of years it was not so. I 
wish merely to raise this apparently irrelevant question, not to 
answer it. In reality it is not irrelevant, because the impulses 
at the back of our present-day interest in psychology have a sort 
of subterranean connection with this question. 

120 All that now passes under the layman's idea of "psycho- 
analysis" has its origin in medical practice; consequently most 
of it is medical psychology. This psychology bears the unmis- 
takable stamp of the doctor's consulting-room, as can be seen 
not only in its terminology but also in its theoretical set-up. 

54 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



Everywhere we come across assumptions which the doctor has 
taken over from natural science and biology. It is this that has 
largely contributed to the divorce between modern psychology 
and the academic or humane sciences, for psychology explains 
things in terms of irrational nature, whereas the latter studies 
are grounded in the intellect. The distance between mind and 
nature, difficult to bridge at best, is still further increased by 
a medical and biological nomenclature which often strikes us as 
thoroughly mechanical, and more often than not severely over- 
taxes the best-intentioned understanding. 

121 Having expressed the hope that the foregoing general re- 
marks may not be out of place in view of the confusion of 
terms existing in this field, I should now like to turn to the real 
task in hand and scrutinize the achievements of analytical 
psychology. 

122 Since the endeavours of our psychology are so extraordi- 
narily heterogeneous, it is only with the greatest difficulty that 
we can take up a broadly inclusive standpoint. If, therefore, 
I try to divide the aims and results of these endeavours into 
certain classes, or rather stages, I do so with the express reserva- 
tion appropriate to a purely provisional undertaking which, it 
may be objected, is just as arbitrary as the surveyor's triangula- 
tion of a landscape. Be that as it may, I would venture to regard 
the sum total of our findings under the aspect of four stages, 
namely, confession, elucidation, education, and transformation. 
I shall now proceed to discuss these somewhat unusual terms. 

123 The first beginnings of all analytical treatment of the soul 
are to be found in its prototype, the confessional. Since, how- 
ever, the two have no direct causal connection, but rather grow 
from a common irrational psychic root, it is difficult for an out- 
sider to see at once the relation between the groundwork of psy- 
choanalysis and the religious institution of the confessional. 

124 Once the human mind had succeeded in inventing the idea 
of sin, man had recourse to psychic concealment; or, in analyti- 
cal parlance, repression arose. Anything concealed is a secret. 
The possession of secrets acts like a psychic poison that alien- 
ates their possessor from the community. In small doses, this 
poison may be an invaluable medicament, even an essential 
pre-condition of individual differentiation, so much so that 
even on the primitive level man feels an irresistible need actu- 

55 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ally to invent secrets: their possession safeguards him from dis- 
solving in the featureless flow of unconscious community life 
and thus from deadly peril to his soul. It is a well known fact 
that the widespread and very ancient rites of initiation with their 
mystery cults subserved this instinct for differentiation. Even 
the Christian sacraments were looked upon as "mysteries" in 
the early Church, and, as in the case of baptism, were celebrated 
in secluded spots and only mentioned under the veil of allegory. 

!25 A secret shared with several persons is as beneficial as a 
merely private secret is destructive. The latter works like a 
burden of guilt, cutting off the unfortunate possessor from 
communion with his fellows. But, if we are conscious of what 
we are concealing, the harm done is decidedly less than if we 
do not know what we are repressing or even that we have re- 
pressions at all. In this case the hidden content is no longer 
consciously kept secret; we are concealing it even from our- 
selves. It then splits off from the conscious mind as an inde- 
pendent complex and leads a sort of separate existence in the 
unconscious psyche, where it can be neither interfered with nor 
corrected by the conscious mind. The complex forms, so to 
speak, a miniature self-contained psyche which, as experience 
shows, develops a peculiar fantasy-life of its own. What we call 
fantasy is simply spontaneous psychic activity, and it wells up 
wherever the inhibitive action of the conscious mind abates or, 
as in sleep, ceases altogether. In sleep, fantasy takes the form of 
dreams. But in waking life, too, we continue to dream beneath 
the threshold of consciousness, especially when under the influ- 
ence of repressed or other unconscious complexes. Incidentally, 
unconscious contents are on no account composed exclusively of 
complexes that were once conscious and subsequently became 
unconscious by being repressed. The unconscious, too, has its 
own specific contents which push up from unknown depths and 
gradually reach consciousness. Hence we should in no wise pic- 
ture the unconscious psyche as a mere receptacle for contents 
discarded by the conscious mind. 

126 All unconscious contents, which either approach the thresh- 
old of consciousness from below, or have sunk only slightly 
beneath it, affect the conscious mind. Since the content does 
not appear as such in consciousness, these effects are necessarily 
indirect. Most of our "lapses" are traceable to such disturb- 

56 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ances, as are all neurotic symptoms, which are nearly always, 
in medical parlance, of a psychogenic nature, the exceptions be- 
ing shock effects (shell-shock and the like). The mildest forms 
of neurosis are the lapses of consciousness mentioned above 
e.g., slips of the tongue, suddenly forgetting names and dates, 
inadvertent clumsiness leading to injuries and accidents, mis- 
understandings and so-called hallucinations of memory, as when 
we think we have said something or done something, or faulty 
apprehension of things heard and said, and so on. 
*2? In all these instances a thorough investigation can show 
the existence of some content which, in an indirect and un- 
conscious way, is distorting the performance of the conscious 
mind. 

128 Generally speaking, therefore, an unconscious secret is 
more injurious than a conscious one. I have seen many patients 
who, as a result of difficult circumstances that might well have 
driven weaker natures to suicide, sometimes developed a sui- 
cidal tendency but, because of their inherent reasonableness, 
prevented it from becoming conscious and in this way gener- 
ated an unconscious suicide-complex. This unconscious urge 
to suicide then engineered all kinds of dangerous accidents 
as, for instance, a sudden attack of giddiness on some exposed 
place, hesitation in front of a motor-car, mistaking corrosive 
sublimate for cough mixture, a sudden zest for dangerous 
acrobatics, and so forth. When it was possible to make the sui- 
cidal leaning conscious in these cases, common sense could inter- 
vene as a salutary check: the patients could then consciously 
recognize and avoid the situations that tempted them to self-de- 
struction. 

129 All personal secrets, therefore, have the effect of sin or 
guilt, whether or not they are, from the standpoint of popular 
morality, wrongful secrets. 

13 Another form of concealment is the act of holding some- 
thing back. What we usually hold back are emotions or affects. 
Here too it must be stressed that self-restraint is healthy and 
beneficial; it may even be a virtue. That is why we find self- 
discipline to be one of the earliest moral arts even among 
primitive peoples, where it has its place in the initiation cere- 
monies, chiefly in the form of ascetic continence and the stoical 
endurance of pain and fear. Self-restraint is here practised within 

57 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



a secret society as an undertaking shared with others. But if 
self-restraint is only a personal matter, unconnected with any re- 
ligious views, it may become as injurious as the personal secret. 
Hence the well-known bad moods and irritability of the over- 
virtuous. The affect withheld is likewise something we con- 
ceal, something we can hide even from ourselves an art in 
which men particularly excel, while women, with very few 
exceptions, are by nature averse to doing such injury to their 
affects. When an affect is withheld it is just as isolating and just 
as disturbing in its effects as the unconscious secret, and just 
as guilt-laden. In the same way that nature seems to bear us a 
grudge if we have the advantage of a secret over the rest of hu- 
manity, so she takes it amiss if we withhold our emotions from 
our fellow men. Nature decidedly abhors a vacuum in this re- 
spect; hence there is nothing more unendurable in the long run 
than a tepid harmony based on the withholding of affects. The 
repressed emotions are often of a kind we wish to keep secret. 
But more often there is no secret worth mentioning, only emo- 
tions which have become unconscious through being withheld 
at some critical juncture. 

13 1 The respective predominance of secrets or of inhibited 
emotions is probably responsible for the different forms of neu- 
rosis. At any rate the hysterical subject who is very free with 
his emotions is generally the possessor of a secret, while the 
hardened psychasthenic suffers from emotional indigestion. 

132 To cherish secrets and hold back emotion is a psychic mis- 
demeanour for which nature finally visits us with sickness 
that is, when we do these things in private. But when they 
are done in communion with others they satisfy nature ajid may 
even count as useful virtues. It is only restraint practised for one- 
self alone that is unwholesome. It is as if man had an in- 
alienable right to behold all that is dark, imperfect, stupid, and 
guilty in his fellow men for such, of course, are the things we 
keep secret in order to protect ourselves. It seems to be a sin 
in the eyes of nature to hide our inferiorityjust as much as to 
live entirely on our inferior side. There would appear to be a 
sort of conscience in mankind which severely punishes every 
one who does not somehow and at some time, at whatever cost 
to his virtuous pride, cease to defend and assert himself, and 
instead confess himself fallible and human. Until he can do 

58 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



this, an impenetrable wall shuts him off from the vital feeling 
that he is a man among other men. 

133 This explains the extraordinary significance of genuine, 
straightforward confessiona truth that was probably known 
to all the initiation rites and mystery cults of the ancient world. 
There is a saying from the Greek mysteries: "Give up what 
thou hast, and then thou wilt receive." 

134 We may well take this saying as a motto for the first stage 
in psychotherapeutic treatment. The beginnings of psychoanal- 
ysis are in fact nothing else than the scientific rediscovery of an 
ancient truth; even the name that was given to the earliest 
methodcatharsis, or cleansing is a familiar term in the classi- 
cal rites of initiation. The early cathartic method consisted in 
putting the patient, with or without the paraphernalia of hyp- 
nosis, in touch with the hinterland of his mind, hence into that 
state which the yoga systems of the East describe as meditation 
or contemplation. In contrast to yoga, however, the aim here 
is to observe the sporadic emergence, whether in the form of 
images or of feelings, of those dim representations which de- 
tach themselves in the darkness from the invisible realm of the 
unconscious and move as shadows before the inturned gaze. In 
this way things repressed and forgotten come back again. This 
is a gain in itself, though often a painful one, for the inferior 
and even the worthless belongs to me as rny shadow and gives 
me substance and mass. How can I be substantial without cast- 
ing a shadow? I must have a dark side too if I am to be whole; 
and by becoming conscious of my shadow I remember once 
more that I am a human being like any other. At any rate, if 
this rediscovery of my own wholeness remains private, it will 
only restore the earlier condition from which the neurosis, i.e., 
the split-off complex, sprang. Privacy prolongs my isolation and 
the damage is only partially mended. But through confession I 
throw myself into the arms of humanity again, freed at last from 
the burden of moral exile. The goal of the cathartic method is 
full confession not merely the intellectual recognition of the 
facts with the head, but their confirmation by the heart and the 
actual release of suppressed emotion. 

135 As may easily be imagined, the effect of such a confession 
on simple souls is very great, and its curative results are often 
astonishing. Yet I would not wish to see the main achievement 

59 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of our psychology at this stage merely in the fact that some 
sufferers are cured, but rather in the systematic emphasis it 
lays upon the significance of confession. For this concerns us 
all. All of us are somehow divided by our secrets, but instead 
of seeking to cross the gulf on the firm bridge of confession, we 
choose the treacherous makeshift of opinion and illusion. 

1 3$ Now I am far from wishing to enunciate a general maxim. 
It would be difficult to imagine anything more unsavoury than 
a wholesale confession of sin. Psychology simply establishes the 
fact that we have here a sore spot of first-rate importance. As 
the next stage, the stage of elucidation, will make clear, it can- 
not be tackled directly, because it is a problem with quite par- 
ticularly pointed horns. 

137 It is of course obvious that the new psychology would 
have remained at the stage of confession had catharsis proved 
itself a panacea. First and foremost, however, it is not always 
possible to bring the patients close enough to the unconscious 
for them to perceive the shadows. On the contrary, many of 
them and for the most part complicated, highly conscious 
persons are so firmly anchored in consciousness that nothing 
can pry them loose. They develop the most violent resistances 
to any attempt to push consciousness aside; they want to talk 
with the doctor on the conscious plane and go into a rational 
explanation and discussion of their difficulties. They have quite 
enough to confess already, they say; they do not have to turn 
to the unconscious for that. For such patients a complete tech- 
nique for approaching the unconscious is needed. 

*3 8 This is one fact which at the outset seriously restricts the 
application of the cathartic method. The other restriction re- 
veals itself later on and leads straight into the problems of the 
second stage. Let us suppose that in a given case the cathartic 
confession has occurred, the neurosis has vanished, or rather 
the symptoms are no longer visible. The patient could now be 
dismissed as cured if it depended on the doctor alone. But he 
or especially shecannot get away. The patient seems bound 
to the doctor through the confession. If this seemingly sense- 
less attachment is forcibly severed, there is a bad relapse. Sig- 
nificantly enough, and most curiously, there are cases where no 
attachment develops; the patient goes away apparently cured, 
but he is now so fascinated by the hinterland of his own mind 

60 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



that he continues to practise catharsis on himself at the expense 
of his adaptation to life. He is bound to the unconscious, to 
himself, and not to the doctor. Clearly the same fate has be- 
fallen him as once befell Theseus and Peirithous his compan- 
ion, who went down to Hades to bring back the goddess of the 
underworld. Tiring on the way, they sat down to rest for a 
.while, only to find that they had grown fast to the rocks and 
could not rise. 

These curious and unforeseen mischances need elucida- 
tion just as much as the first-mentioned cases, those that 
proved inaccessible to catharsis. In spite of the fact that the two 
categories of patients are apparently quite different, elucida- 
tion is called for at precisely the same point that is, where 
the problem of fixation arises, as was correctly recognized by 
Freud. This is immediately obvious with patients who have 
undergone catharsis, especially if they remain bound to the 
doctor. The same sort of thing had already been observed as 
the unpleasant result of hypnotic treatment, although the inner 
mechanisms of such a tie were not understood. It now turns 
out that the nature of the tie in question corresponds more or 
less to the relation between father and child. The patient falls 
into a sort of childish dependence from which he cannot de- 
fend himself even by rational insight. The fixation is at times 
extraordinarily powerfulits strength is so amazing that one 
suspects it of being fed by forces quite outside ordinary expe- 
rience. Since the tie is the result of an unconscious process, the 
conscious mind of the patient can tell us nothing about it. 
Hence the question arises of how this new difficulty is to be met. 
Obviously we are dealing with a neurotic formation, a new 
symptom directly induced by the treatment. The unmistakable 
outward sign of the situation is that the "feeling-toned" mem- 
ory-image of the father is transferred to the doctor, so that 
whether he likes it or not the doctor appears in the role of the 
father and thus turns the patient into a child. Naturally the 
patient's childishness does not arise on that account it was al- 
ways present, but repressed. Now it comes to the surface, and 
the long-lost father being found again tries to restore the 
family situation of childhood. Freud gave to this symptom the 
appropriate name of "transference." That there should be a 
certain dependence on the doctor who has helped you is a per- 

61 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



fectly normal and humanly understandable phenomenon. What 
is abnormal and unexpected is the extraordinary toughness of 
the tie and its imperviousness to conscious correction. 

It is one of Freud's outstanding achievements to have ex- 
plained the nature of this tie, or at least the biological aspects 
of it, and thus to have facilitated an important advance in psy- 
chological knowledge. Today it has been incontestably proved 
that the Ue is caused by unconscious fantasies. These fantasies 
have in the main what we may call an "incestuous" charac- 
ter, which seems adequately to explain the fact that they 
remain unconscious, for we can hardly expect such fantasies, 
barely conscious at best, to come out even in the most scrupu- 
lous confession. Although Freud always speaks of incest-fan- 
tasies as though they were repressed, further experience has 
shown that in very many cases they were never the contents 
of the conscious mind at all or were conscious only as the 
vaguest adumbrations, for which reason they could not have 
been repressed intentionally. It is more probable that the in- 
cest-fantasies were always essentially unconscious and remained 
so until positively dragged into the light of day by the ana- 
lytical method. This is not to say that fishing them out of the 
unconscious is a reprehensible interference with nature. It is 
something like a surgical operation on the psyche, but abso- 
lutely necessary inasmuch as the incest-fantasies are the cause 
of the transference and its complex symptoms, which are no 
less abnormal for being an artificial product. 

While the cathartic method restores to the ego such con- 
tents as are capable of becoming conscious and should normally 
be components of the conscious mind, the process of clearing 
up the transference brings to light contents which are hardly 
ever capable of becoming conscious in that form. This is the 
cardinal distinction between the stage of confession and the 
stage of elucidation. 

We spoke earlier of two categories of patients: those who 
prove impervious to catharsis and those who develop a fixation 
after catharsis. We have just dealt with those whose fixation 
takes the form of transference. But, besides these, there are 
people who, as already mentioned, develop no attachment to 
the doctor but rather to their own unconscious, in which they 
become entangled as in a web. Here the parental imago is not 

62 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



transferred to any human object but remains a fantasy, al- 
though as such it exerts the same pull and results in the same 
tie as does the transference. The first category, the people who 
cannot yield themselves unreservedly to catharsis, can be un- 
derstood in the light of Freudian research. Even before they 
came along for treatment they stood in an identity-relation- 
ship to their parents, deriving from it that authority, inde- 
pendence, and critical power which enabled them successfully 
to withstand the catharsis. They are mostly cultivated, differ- 
entiated personalities who, unlike the others, did not fall help- 
less victims to the unconscious activity of the parental imago, 
but rather usurped this activity by unconsciously identifying 
themselves with their parents. 

*43 Faced with the phenomenon of transference, mere con- 
fession is of no avail; it was for this reason that Freud was 
driven to substantial modifications of Breuer's original cathar- 
tic method. What he now practised he called the "interpreta- 
tive method/* 

M4 This further step is quite logical, for the transference re- 
lationship is in especial need of elucidation. How very much 
this is the case the layman can hardly appreciate; but the doc- 
tor who finds himself suddenly entangled in a web o incom- 
prehensible and fantastic notions sees it all too clearly. He 
must interpret the transference explain to the patient what 
he is projecting upon the doctor. Since the patient himself 
does not know what it is, the doctor is obliged to submit 
what scraps of fantasy he can obtain from the patient to ana- 

# lytical interpretation. The first and most important products 
of this kind are dreams. Freud therefore proceeded to ex- 
amine dreams exclusively for their stock of wishes that had 
been repressed because incompatible with reality, and in the 
process discovered the incestuous contents of which I have 
spoken. Naturally the investigation revealed not merely in- 
cestuous material in the stricter sense of the word, but every 
conceivable kind of filth of which human nature is capable 
and it is notorious that a lifetime would be required to make 
even a rough inventory of it. 

*45 The result of the Freudian method o elucidation is a 
minute elaboration of man's shadow-side unexampled in any 
previous age. It is the most effective antidote imaginable to 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



all the Idealistic illusions about the nature of man; and It is 
therefore no wonder that there arose on all sides the most vio- 
lent opposition to Freud and his school. I will not speak of 
the inveterate illusionists; I would merely point out that among 
the opponents of this method of explanation there are not a 
few who have no illusions about man's shadow-side and yet 
object to a biased portrayal of man from the shadow-side alone. 
After all, the essential thing is not the shadow but the body 
which casts it. 

146 Freud's interpretative method rests on "reductive" explana- 
tions which unfailingly lead backwards and downwards, and It 
is essentially destructive if overdone or handled one-sidedly. Nev- 
ertheless psychology has profited greatly from Freud's pioneer 
work; it has learned that human nature has its black side and 
not man alone, but his works, his institutions, and his convic- 
tions as well. Even our purest and holiest beliefs rest on very 
deep and dark foundations; after all, we can explain a house 
not only from the attic downwards, but from the basement 
upwards, and the latter explanation has the prime advantage 
of being genetically the more correct, since houses are In fact 
built bottom-side first, and the beginning of all things is simple 
and crude. No thinking person can deny that Salomon Rei- 
nach's explanation of the Last Supper in terms of primitive 
totemism is fraught with significance; nor will he reject 'the 
application of the incest hypothesis to the myths of the Greek 
divinities. Certainly it pains our sensibilities to interpret ra- 
diant things from the shadow-side and thus in a measure tram- 
ple them in the sorry dirt of their beginnings. But I hold it 
to be an imperfection in things of beauty, and a frailty in 
man, if anything of such a kind permit itself to be destroyed 
by a mere shadow-explanation. The uproar over Freud's in- 
terpretations is entirely due to our own barbarous or childish 
naivete, which does not yet understand that high rests on low, 
and that les extremes se touchent really is one of the ultimate 
verities. Our mistake lies in supposing that the radiant things 
are done away with by being explained from the shadow-side. 
This is a regrettable error into which Freud himself has fallen. 
Shadow pertains to light as evil to good, and vice versa. There- 
fore I cannot lament the shock which this exposure adminis- 
tered to our occidental illusions and pettiness; on the contrary 

64 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



I welcome it as an historic and necessary rectification of almost 
incalculable importance. For it forces us to accept a philo- 
sophical relativism such as Einstein embodies for mathematical 
physics, and which is fundamentally a truth of the Far East 
whose ultimate effects we cannot at present foresee. 

147 Nothing, it is true, is less effective than an intellectual 
idea. But when an idea is a psychic fact that crops up in two 
such totally different fields as psychology and physics, appar- 
ently without historical connection, then we must give it our 
closest attention. For ideas of this kind represent forces which 
are logically and morally unassailable; they are always stronger 
than man and his brain. He fancies that he makes these ideas, 
but in reality they make him and make him their unwitting 
mouthpiece. 

H8 To return to our problem of fixation, I should now like 
to deal with the effects of elucidation. The fixation having been 
traced back to its dark origins, the patient's position becomes 
untenable; he cannot avoid seeing how inept and childish his 
demands are. He will either climb down from his exalted po- 
sition of despotic authority to a more modest level and accept 
an insecurity which may prove very wholesome, or he will real- 
ize the inescapable truth that to make claims on others is a 
childish self-indulgence which must be replaced by a greater 
sense of responsibility. 

149 The man of insight will draw his own moral conclusions. 
Armed with the knowledge of his deficiencies, he will plunge 
into the struggle for existence and consume in progressive work 
and experience all those forces and longings which previously 
caused him to cling obstinately to a child's paradise, or at least 
to look back at it over his shoulder. Normal adaptation and 
forbearance with his own shortcomings: these will be his guid- 
ing moral principles, together with freedom from sentimental- 
ity and illusion. The inevitable result is a turning away from 
the unconscious as from a source of weakness and temptation 
the field of moral and social defeat. 

!5 The problem which now faces the patient is his education 
as a social being, and with this we come to the third stage. For 
many morally sensitive natures, mere insight into themselves 
has sufficient motive force to drive them forward, but it is not 
enough for people with little moral imagination. For them 

65 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



to say nothing of those who may have been struck by the an- 
alyst's interpretation but still doubt it in their heart of hearts 
self-knowledge without the spur of external necessity is in- 
effective even when they are deeply convinced of its truth. Then 
again it is just the intellectually differentiated people who 
grasp the truth of the reductive explanation but cannot tolerate 
mere deflation of their hopes and ideals. In these cases, too, 
the power of insight will be of no avail. The explanatory 
method always presupposes sensitive natures capable of draw- 
ing independent moral conclusions from insight. It is true that 
elucidation goes further than uninterpreted confession alone, 
for at least it exercises the mind and may awaken dormant 
forces which can intervene in a helpful way. But the fact re- 
mains that in many cases the most thorough elucidation leaves 
the patient an intelligent but still incapable child. Moreover 
Freud's cardinal explanatory principle in terms of pleasure and 
its satisfaction is, as further research has shown, one-sided and 
therefore unsatisfactory. Not everybody can be explained from 
this angle. No doubt we all have this angle, but it is not al- 
ways the most important. We can give a starving man a beau- 
tiful painting; he would much prefer bread. We can nominate 
a languishing lover President of the United States; he would far 
rather wrap his arms round his adored. On the average, all 
those who have no difficulty in achieving social adaptation and 
social position are better accounted for by the pleasure prin- 
ciple than are the unadapted who, because of their social in- 
adequacy, have a craving for power and importance. The elder 
brother who follows in his father's footsteps and wins to a 
commanding position in society may be tormented by his de- 
sires; while the younger brother who feels himself suppressed 
and overshadowed by the other two may be goaded by ambi- 
tion and the need for self-assertion. He may yield so completely 
to this passion that nothing else can become a problem for 
him, anyway not a vital one. 

At this point in Freud's system of explanation there is a 
palpable gap, into which there stepped his one-time pupil, 
Adler. Adler has shown convincingly that numerous cases of 
neurosis can be far more satisfactorily explained by the power 
instinct than by the pleasure principle. The aim of his inter- 
pretation is therefore to show the patient that he "arranges" 

66 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



his symptoms and exploits his neurosis in order to achieve a 
fictitious importance; and that even his transference and his 
other fixations subserve the will to power and thus represent 
a "masculine protest" against imaginary suppression. Obvi- 
ously Adler has in mind the psychology of the under-dog or 
social failure, whose one passion is self-assertion. Such individ- 
uals are neurotic because they always imagine they are hard 
done by and tilt at the windmills of their own fancy, thus put- 
ting the goal they most desire quite out of reach. 
152 Adler's method begins essentially at the stage of elucida- 
tion; he explains the symptoms in the sense just indicated, and 
to that extent appeals to the patient's understanding. Yet it is 
characteristic of Adler that he does not expect too much of 
understanding, but, going beyond that, has clearly recognized 
the need for social education. Whereas Freud is the investigator 
and interpreter, Adler is primarily the educator. He thus takes 
up the negative legacy which Freud bequeathed him, and, re- 
fusing to leave the patient a mere child, helpless despite his 
valuable understanding, tries by every device of education to 
make him a normal and adapted person. He does this evidently 
in the conviction that social adaptation and normalization are 
desirable goals, that they are absolutely necessary, the con- 
summation of . human life. From this fundamental attitude 
comes the widespread social activity of the Adlerian school, 
but also its depreciation of the unconscious, which, it seems, oc- 
casionally amounts to its complete denial. This is probably a 
swing of the pendulum the inevitable reaction to the emphasis 
Freud lays on the unconscious, and as such quite in keeping 
with the natural aversion which we noted in patients struggling 
for adaptation and health. For, if the unconscious is held to be 
nothing more than a receptacle for all the evil shadow-things 
in human nature, including deposits of primeval slime, we 
really do not see why we should linger longer than necessary 
on the edge of this swamp into which we once fell. The scienti- 
fic inquirer may behold a world of wonders in a mud puddle, 
but for the ordinary man it is something best left alone. Just 
as early Buddhism had no gods because it had to free itself 
from an inheritance of nearly two million gods, so psychology, 
if it is to develop further, must leave behind so entirely nega- 
tive a thing as Freud's conception of the unconscious. The edu- 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



cational aims of the Adlerian school begin precisely where Freud 
leaves off; consequently they meet the needs of the patient 
who, having come to understand himself, wants to find his 
way back to normal life. It is obviously not enough for him 
to know how his illness arose and whence it came, for we sel- 
dom get rid of an evil merely by understanding its causes. Nor 
should it be forgotten that the crooked paths of a neurosis lead 
to as many obstinate habits, and that for all our insight these 
do* not disappear until replaced by other habits. But habits 
are won only by exercise, and appropriate education is the sole 
means to this end. The patient must be drawn out of himself 
into other paths, which is the true meaning of "education," 
and this can only be achieved by an educative will. We can 
therefore see why Adler's approach has found favour chiefly 
with clergymen and teachers, while Freud's approach is fancied 
by doctors and intellectuals, who are one and all bad nurses 
and educators. 

153 Each stage in the development of our psychology has 
something curiously final about it. Catharsis, with its heart-felt 
outpourings, makes one feel: "Now we are there, everything 
has come out, everything is known, the last terror lived through 
and the last tear shed; now everything will be all right." Eluci- 
dation says with equal conviction: "Now we know where the 
neurosis came from, the earliest memories have been un- 
earthed, the last roots dug up, and the transference was nothing 
but the wish-fulfilling fantasy of a childhood paradise or a re- 
lapse into the family romance; the road to a normally disillu- 
sioned life is now open/' Finally comes education, pointing 
out that no amount of confession and no amount of explaining 
can make the crooked plant grow straight, but that it must be 
trained upon the trellis of the norm by the gardener's art. Only 
then will normal adaptation be reached. 

154 This curious sense of finality which attends each of the 
stages accounts for the fact that there are people using cathartic 
methods today who have apparently never heard of dream in- 
terpretation, Freudians who do not understand a word of Adler, 
and Adlerians who do not wish to know anything about the 
unconscious. Each is ensnared in the peculiar finality of his 
own stage, and thence arises that chaos of opinions and views 

68 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



which makes orientation in these troubled waters so exceed- 
ingly difficult. t, t 

155 Whence comes the feeling of finality that evokes so much 
authoritarian bigotry on all sides? 

15 6 I can only explain it to myself by saying that each stage 
does in fact rest on a final truth, and that consequently there 
are always cases which demonstrate this particular truth in the 
most startling way. In our delusion-ridden world a truth is so 
precious that nobody wants to let it slip merely for the sake of 
a few so-called exceptions which refuse to toe the line. And who- 
ever doubts this truth is invariably looked on as a faithless 
reprobate, so that a note of fanaticism and intolerance every- 
where creeps into the discussion. 

*57 And yet each of us can carry the torch of knowledge but 
a part of the way, until another takes it from him. If only we 
could understand all this impersonally could understand that 
we are not the personal creators of our truths, but only their 
exponents, mere mouthpieces of the day's psychic needs, then 
much venom and bitterness might be spared and we should be 
able to perceive the profound and supra-personal continuity of 
the human mind. 

*5 8 As a rule, we take no account of the fact that the doctor 
who practises catharsis is not just an abstraction which auto- 
matically produces nothing but catharsis. He is also a human 
being, and although his thinking may be limited to his special 
field, his actions exert the influence of a complete human be- 
ing. Without giving it a name and without being clearly con- 
scious of it, he unwittingly does his share of explanation and 
education, just as the others do their share of catharsis without 
raising it to the level of a principle. 

159 All life is living history. Even the reptile still lives in us 
par sous-entendu. In the same way, the three stages of analytical 
psychology so far dealt with are by no means truths of such a 
nature that the last of them has gobbled up and replaced the 
other two. On the contrary, all three are salient aspects of one 
and the same problem, and they no more invalidate one another 
than do confession and absolution. 

160 The same is true of the fourth stage, transformation. It too 
should not claim to be the finally attained and only valid truth. 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



It certainly fills a gap left by the earlier stages, but in so doing 
it merely fulfils a further need beyond the scope of the others, 
ifo In order to make clear what this fourth stage has in view 
and what is meant by the somewhat peculiar term "transforma- 
tion/* we must first consider what psychic need was not given a 
place In the earlier stages. In other words, can anything lead 
further or be higher than the claim to be a normal and adapted 
social being? To be a normal human being is probably the 
most useful and fitting thing of which we can think; but the 
very notion of a "normal human being/' like the concept of 
adaptation, implies a restriction to the average which seems a 
desirable improvement only to the man who already has some 
difficulty in coming to terms with the everyday world a man, 
let us say, whose neurosis unfits him for normal life. To be 
"normal" is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful, for all those who 
are still below the general level of adaptation. But for people of 
more than average ability, people who never found it difficult 
to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world's 
work for them the moral compulsion to be nothing but normal 
signifies the bed of Procrustes deadly and insupportable bore- 
dom, a hell of sterility and hopelessness. Consequently there are 
just as many people who become neurotic because they are 
merely normal, as there are people who are neurotic because 
they cannot become normal. That it should enter anyone's head 
to educate them to normality is a nightmare for the former, 
because their deepest need is really to be able to lead "ab- 
normal" lives. 

162 A man can find satisfaction and fulfilment only in what 
he does not yet possess, just as he can never be satisfied with 
something of which he has already had too much. To be a social 
and adapted person has no charms for one to whom such an as- 
piration is child's play. Always to do the right thing becomes a 
bore for the man who knows how, whereas the eternal bungler 
cherishes a secret longing to be right for once in some distant 
future. 

163 The needs and necessities of mankind are manifold. What 
sets one man free is another man's prison. So also with normal- 
ity and adaptation. Even if it be a biological axiom that man 
is a herd animal who only finds optimum health in living as 
a social being, the very next case may quite possibly invert this 

70 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



axiom and show us that he is completely healthy only when 
leading an abnormal and unsocial life. It is enough to drive 
one to despair that in practical psychology there are no uni- 
versally valid recipes and rules. There are only individual cases 
with the most heterogeneous needs and demands so hetero- 
geneous that we can virtually never know in advance what 
course a given case will take, for which reason it is better for the 
doctor to abandon all preconceived opinions. This does not 
mean that he should throw them overboard, but that in any 
given case he should use them merely as hypotheses for a possi- 
ble explanation. Not, however, in order to instruct or convince 
his patient, but rather to show how the doctor reacts to that par- 
ticular individual. For, twist and turn the matter as we may, 
the relation between doctor and patient remains a personal one 
within the impersonal framework of professional treatment. By 
no device can the treatment be anything but the product of 
mutual influence, in which the whole being of the doctor as well 
as that of his patient plays its part. In the treatment there is an 
encounter between two irrational factors, that is to say, between 
two persons who are not fixed and determinable quantities but 
who bring with them, besides their more or less clearly defined 
fields of consciousness, an indefinitely extended sphere of non- 
consciousness. Hence the personalities of doctor and patient 
are often infinitely more important for the outcome of the 
treatment than what the doctor says and thinks (although what 
he says and thinks may be a disturbing or a healing factor not 
to be underestimated). For two personalities to meet is like 
mixing two different chemical substances: if there is any 
combination at all, both are transformed. In any effective psy- 
chological treatment the doctor is bound to influence the pa- 
tient; but this influence can only take place if the patient has a 
reciprocal influence on the doctor. You can exert no influence 
if you are not susceptible to influence. It is futile for the doctor 
to shield himself from the influence of the patient and to sur- 
round himself with a smoke-screen of fatherly and professional 
authority. By so doing he only denies himself the use of a highly 
important organ of information. The patient influences him 
unconsciously none the less, and brings about changes in the 
doctor's unconscious which are well known to many psycho- 
therapists: psychic disturbances or even injuries peculiar to the 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



profession, a striking illustration of the patient's almost "chem- 
ical" action. One of the best known symptoms of this kind is 
the counter-transference evoked by the transference. But the 
effects are often much more subtle, and their nature can best be 
conveyed by the old idea of the demon of sickness. According to 
this, a sufferer can transmit his disease to a healthy person 
whose powers then subdue the demonbut not without im- 
pairing the well-being of the subduer. 

164 Between doctor and patient, therefore, there are impon- 
derable factors which bring about a mutual transformation. In 
the process, the stronger and more stable personality will decide 
the final issue. I have seen many cases where the patient assimi- 
lated the doctor in defiance of all theory and of the latter's 
professional intentions generally, though not always, to the dis- 
advantage of the doctor. 

165 The stage of transformation is grounded on these facts, but 
it took more than twenty-five years of wide practical experience 
for them to be clearly recognized. Freud himself has admitted 
their importance and has therefore seconded my demand for 
the analysis of the analyst. 

166 What does this demand mean? Nothing less than that the 
doctor is as much "in the analysis" as the patient. He is equally 
a part of the psychic process of treatment and therefore equally 
exposed to the transforming influences. Indeed, to the extent 
that the doctor shows himself impervious to this influence, he 
forfeits influence over the patient; and if he is influenced only 
unconsciously, there is a gap in his field of consciousness which 
makes it impossible for him to see the patient in true perspec- 
tive. In either case the result of the treatment is compromised. 

167 The doctor is therefore faced with the same task which 
he wants his patient to face that is, he must become socially 
adapted or, in the reverse case, appropriately non-adapted. This 
therapeutic demand can of course be clothed in a thousand 
different formulae, according to the doctor's beliefs. One doc- 
tor believes in overcoming infantilism therefore he must first 
overcome his own infantilism. Another believes in abreacting 
all affects therefore he must first abreact all his own affects. 
A third believes in complete consciousness therefore he must 
first reach consciousness of himself. The doctor must con- 
sistently strive to meet his own therapeutic demand if he wishes 

7* 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



to ensure the right sort of influence over his patients. All these 
guiding principles of therapy make so many ethical demands, 
which can be summed up in the single truth: be the man 
through whom you wish to influence others. Mere talk has al- 
ways been counted hollow, and there is no trick, however artful, 
by which this simple truth can be evaded in the long run. The 
fact of being convinced and not the thing we are convinced of- 
that is what has always, and at all times, worked. 

168 Thus the fourth stage of analytical psychology requires 
the counter-application to the doctor himself of whatever sys- 
tem is believed inand moreover with the same relentlessness, 
consistency, and perseverance with which the doctor applies it 
to the patient. 

169 When one considers with what attentiveness and critical 
judgment the psychologist must keep track of his patients in 
order to show up all their false turnings, their false conclusions 
and infantile subterfuges, then it is truly no mean achievement 
for him to perform the same work upon himself. We are sel- 
dom interested enough in ourselves for that; moreover nobody 
pays us for our introspective efforts. Again, the common neg- 
lect into which the reality of the human psyche has fallen is still 
so great that self-examination or preoccupation with ourselves 
is deemed almost morbid. Evidently we suspect the psyche of 
harbouring something unwholesome, so that any concern with it 
smells of the sick-room. The doctor has to overcome these re- 
sistances in himself, for who can educate others if he is himself 
uneducated? Who can enlighten others if he is still in the dark 
about himself? And who purify others if himself impure? 

170 The step from education to self-education is a logical ad- 
vance that completes the earlier stages. The demand made by 
the stage of transformation, namely that the doctor must^change 
himself if he is to become capable of changing his patient, is, 
as may well be imagined, a rather unpopular one, and for three 
reasons. First, because it seems unpractical; second, because of 
the unpleasant prejudice against being preoccupied with ^ one- 
self; and third, because it is sometimes exceedingly painful 
to live up to everything one expects of one's patient. The last 
item in particular contributes much to the unpopularity of this 
demand, for if the doctor conscientiously doctors himself he 
will soon discover things in his own nature which are utterly 

73 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



opposed to normalization, or which continue to haunt him in 
the most disturbing way despite assiduous explanation and 
thorough abreaction. What is he to do about these things? He 
always knows what the patient should do about them it is 
his professional duty to do so. But what, in all sincerity, will 
he do when they recoil upon himself or perhaps upon those 
who stand nearest to him? He may, in his self-investigations, 
discover some inferiority which brings him uncomfortably close 
to his patients and may even blight his authority. How will he 
deal with this painful discovery? This somewhat "neurotic" 
question will touch him on the raw, no matter how normal he 
thinks he is. He will also discover that the ultimate questions 
which worry him as much as his patients cannot be solved by 
any treatment, that to expect solutions from others is childish 
and keeps you childish, and that if no solution can be found 
the question must be repressed again. 

i? 1 I will not pursue any further the many problems raised by 
self-examination because, owing to the obscurity which still 
surrounds the psyche, they would be of little interest today. 

17* Instead, I would like to emphasize once again that the new- 
est developments in analytical psychology confront us with the 
imponderable elements in the human personality; that we have 
learned to place in the foreground the personality of the doctor 
himself as a curative or harmful factor; and that what is now 
demanded is his own transformation the self-education of the 
educator. Consequently, everything that occurred on the objec- 
tive level in the history of our psychology confession, elucida- 
tion, education passes to the subjective level; in other words, 
what happened to the patient must now happen to the doctor, 
so that his personality shall not react unfavourably on the pa- 
tient. The doctor can no longer evade his own difficulty by 
treating the difficulties of others: the man who suffers from a 
running abscess is not fit to perform a surgical operation. 

*73 Just as the momentous discovery of the unconscious 
shadow-side in man suddenly forced the Freudian school to 
deal even with questions of religion, so this latest advance 
makes an unavoidable problem of the doctor's ethical attitude. 
The self-criticism and self-examination that are indissolubly 
bound up with it necessitates a view of the psyche radically dif- 
ferent from the merely biological one which has prevailed 

74 



PROBLEMS OF MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPY 



hitherto; for the human psyche is far more than a mere object 
of scientific interest. It is not only the sufferer but the doctor 
as well, not only the object but also the subject, not only a 
cerebral function but the absolute condition of consciousness 
itself. 

174 What was formerly a method of medical treatment now 
becomes a method of self-education, and with this the horizon 
of our psychology is immeasurably widened. The crucial thing 
is no longer the medical diploma, but the human quality. This 
is a significant turn of events, for it places all the implements 
of the psychotherapeutic art that were developed in clinical 
practice, and then refined and systematized, at the service of our 
self-education and self-perfection, with the result that analyti- 
cal psychology has burst the bonds which till then had bound 
it to the consulting-room of the doctor. It goes beyond itself 
to fill the hiatus that has hitherto put Western civilization at 
a psychic disadvantage as compared with the civilizations of the 
East. We Westerners knew only how to tame and subdue the 
psyche; we knew nothing about its methodical development 
and its functions. Our civilization is still young, and young 
civilizations need all the arts of the animal-tamer to make the 
defiant barbarian and the savage in us more or less tractable. 
But at a higher cultural level we must forgo compulsion and 
turn to self-development. For this we must have a way, a 
method, which, as I said, has so far been lacking. It seems to 
me that the findings and experiences of analytical psychology 
can at least provide a foundation, for as soon as psychotherapy 
takes the doctor himself for its subject, it transcends its medical 
origins and ceases to be merely a method for treating the sick. It 
now treats the healthy or such as have a moral right to psychic 
health, whose sickness is at most the suffering that torments us 
all. For this reason analytical psychology can claim to serve the 
common weal more so even than the previous stages which 
are each the bearer of a general truth. But between this claim 
and present-day reality there lies a gulf, with no bridge leading 
across. We have yet to build that bridge stone by stone. 



75 



VI 



PSYCHOTHERAPY AND A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 1 

175 So much is psychotherapy the child of practical improvi- 
sation that for a long time it had trouble in thinking out its 
own intellectual foundations. Empirical psychology relied very 
much at first on physical and then on physiological ideas, and 
ventured only with some hesitation on the complex phenomena 
which constitute its proper field. Similarly, psychotherapy was 
at first simply an auxiliary method; only gradually did it free 
itself from the world of ideas represented by medical thera- 
peutics and come to understand that its concern lay not merely 
with physiological but primarily with psychological principles. 
In other words, it found itself obliged to raise psychological 
issues which soon burst the framework of the experimental 
psychology of that day with its elementary statements. The de- 
mands of therapy brought highly complex factors within the 
purview of this still young science, and its exponents very 
often lacked the equipment needed to deal with the problems 
that arose. It is therefore not surprising that a bewildering as- 
sortment of ideas, theories, and points of view predominated 
in all the initial discussions of this new psychology which had 
been, so to speak, forced into existence by therapeutic experi- 
ence. An outsider could hardly be blamed if he received an im- 
pression of babel. This confusion was inevitable, for sooner or 
later it was bound to become clear that one cannot treat the 
psyche without touching on man and life as a whole, including 
the ultimate and deepest issues, any more than one can treat 
the sick body without regard to the totality of its functions or 
rather, as a few representatives of modern medicine maintain, 
the totality of the sick man himself. 

l [The introductory address to a discussion held by the Swiss Society for Psychol- 
ogy, Zurich, September 26, 1942. Published as "Psychotherapie und Weltanschau- 
ung" in the Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Psychologic und ihre Anwendungen, 
I (i943):3, 157-64; and in Aufsdtze zur Zeitgeschichte (Zurich, 1946), pp. 57-72. 
Previously trans, by Mary Briner in Essays on Contemporary Events (London, 
1947). EDITORS.] 



PSYCHOTHERAPY AND A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 

17 6 The more "psychological" a condition is, the greater its com- 
plexity and the more it relates to the whole of life. It is true 
that elementary psychic phenomena are closely allied to physio- 
logical 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 dis- 
turbed, clearly rest on a physiological basis. But, on the other 
hand, the disturbing factor proves equally clearly that it has 
the power to turn physiological order into disorder. If the dis- 
turbance lies in a repression, then the disturbing factorthat 
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. These extremely complex dominants 
form the other pole of the psyche. Experience likewise shows 
that this pole possesses an energy many times greater than that 
of the physiologically conditioned psyche. 

177 With its earliest advances into the field of psychology 
proper, the new psychotherapy came up against the problem of 
opposites a problem that is profoundly characteristic of the 
psyche. Indeed, the structure of the psyche is so contradictory 
or contrapuntal that one can scarcely make any psychological 
assertion or general statement without having immediately to 
state its opposite. 

178 The problem of opposites offers an eminently suitable 
and ideal battleground for the most contradictory theories, and 
above all for partially or wholly unrealized prejudices regard- 
ing one's philosophy of life. With this development psycho- 
therapy stirred up a hornets' nest of the first magnitude. Let us 
take as an example the supposedly simple case of a repressed 
instinct. If the repression is lifted, the instinct is set free. Once 
freed, it wants to live and function in its own way. But this 
creates a difficult sometimes intolerably difficult situation. 
The instinct ought therefore to be modified, or "sublimated," 
as they say. How this is to be done without creating a new re- 
pression nobody can quite explain. The little word "ought" 
always proves the helplessness of the therapist; it is an admis- 

77 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



sion that he has come to the end of his resources. The final 
appeal to reason would be very fine if man were by nature a 
rational animal, but he is not; on the contrary, he is quite as 
much irrational. Hence reason is often not sufficient to modify 
the instinct and make it conform to the rational order. Nobody 
can conceive the moral, ethical, philosophical, and religious 
conflicts that crop up at this stage of the problem the facts sur- 
pass all imagination. Every conscientious and truth-loving psy- 
chotherapist could tell a tale here, though naturally not in 
public. All the contemporary problems, all the philosophical 
and religious questionings of our day, are raked up, and unless 
either the psychotherapist or the patient abandons the attempt 
in time it is likely to get under both their skins. Each will be 
driven to a discussion of his philosophy of life, both with him- 
self and with his partner. There are of course forced answers 
and solutions, but in principle and in the long run they are 
neither desirable nor satisfying. No Gordian knot can be per- 
manently cut; it has the awkward property of always tying itself 
again. 

179 This philosophical discussion is a task which psychother- 
apy necessarily sets itself, though not every patient will come 
down to basic principles. The question of the measuring rod 
with which to measure, of the ethical criteria which are to de- 
termine our actions, must be answered somehow, for the patient 
may quite possibly expect us to account for our judgments and 
decisions. Not all patients allow themselves to be condemned 
to infantile inferiority because of our refusal to render such an 
account, quite apart from the fact that a therapeutic blunder 
of this kind would be sawing off the branch on which we sit. 
In other words, the art of psychotherapy requires that the thera- 
pist be in possession of avowable, credible, and defensible con- 
victions which have proved their viability either by having re- 
solved any neurotic dissociations of his own or by preventing 
them from arising. A therapist with a neurosis is a contradic- 
tion in terms. One cannot help any patient to advance further 
than one has advanced oneself. On the other hand, the posses- 
sion of complexes does not in itself signify neurosis, for com- 
plexes are the normal foci of psychic happenings, and the fact 
that they are painful is no proof of pathological disturbance. 
Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to hap- 

78 



PSYCHOTHERAPY AND A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 

plness. A complex becomes pathological only when we think 
we have not got it. 

180 As the most complex of psychic structures, a man's philoso- 
phy of life forms the counterpole to the physiologically condi- 
tioned psyche, and, as the highest psychic dominant, it ultimately 
determines the latter's fate. It guides the life of the therapist 
and shapes the spirit of his therapy. Since it is an essentially 
subjective system despite the most rigorous objectivity, it may 
and very likely will be shattered time after time on colliding 
with the truth of the patient, but it rises again, rejuvenated 
by the experience. Conviction easily turns into self-defence 
and is seduced into rigidity, and this is inimical to life. The 
test of a firm conviction is its elasticity and flexibility; like every 
other exalted truth it thrives best on the admission of its errors. 

181 I can hardly draw a veil over the fact that we psychothera- 
pists ought really to be philosophers or philosophic doctors 
or rather that we already are so, though we are unwilling to ad- 
mit it because of the glaring contrast between our work and 
what passes for philosophy in the universities. We could also 
call it religion in statu nascendi, for in the vast confusion that 
reigns at the roots of life there is no line of division between 
philosophy and religion. Nor does the unrelieved strain of the 
psychotherapeutic situation, with its host of impressions and 
emotional disturbances, leave us much leisure for the systema- 
tization of thought. Thus we have no clear exposition of guid- 
ing principles drawn from life to offer either to the philosophers 
or to the theologians. 

182 Our patients suffer from bondage to a neurosis, they are 
prisoners of the unconscious, and if we attempt to penetrate 
with understanding into that realm of unconscious forces, we 
have to defend ourselves against the same influences to which 
our patients have succumbed. Like doctors who treat epidemic 
diseases, we expose ourselves to powers that threaten our con- 
scious equilibrium, and we have to take every possible precau- 
tion if we want to rescue not only our own humanity but that 
of the patient from the clutches of the unconscious. Wise self- 
limitation is not the same thing as text-book philosophy, nor 
is an ejaculatory prayer in a moment of mortal danger a 
theological treatise. Both are the outcome of a religious and 

79 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



philosophical attitude that is appropriate to the stark dynamism 
of life. 

*8s The highest dominant always has a religious or a philo- 
sophical character, It is by nature extremely primitive, and con- 
sequently we find it in full development among primitive 
peoples. Any difficulty, danger, or critical phase of life immedi- 
ately calls forth this dominant. It is the most natural reaction 
to all highly charged emotional situations. But often it remains 
as obscure as the semiconscious emotional situation which 
evoked it. Hence it is quite natural that the emotional dis- 
turbances of the patient should activate the corresponding re- 
ligious or philosophical factors in the therapist. Often he is 
most reluctant to make himself conscious of these primitive 
contents, and he quite understandably prefers to turn for help 
to a religion or philosophy which has reached his consciousness 
from outside. This course does not strike me as being illegiti- 
mate in so far as it gives the patient a chance to take his place 
within the structure of some protective institution existing in 
the outside world. Such a solution is entirely natural, since 
there have always and everywhere been totem clans, cults, and 
creeds whose purpose it is to give an ordered form to the cha- 
otic world of the instincts. 

l8 4 The situation becomes difficult, however, when the pa- 
tient's nature resists a collective solution. The question then 
arises whether the therapist is prepared to risk having his con- 
victions dashed and shattered against the truth of the patient. 
If he wants to go on treating the patient he must abandon all 
preconceived notions and, for better or worse, go with him in 
search of the religious and philosophical ideas that best cor- 
respond to the patient's emotional states. These ideas present 
themselves in archetypal form, freshly sprung from the maternal 
soil whence all religious and philosophical systems originally 
came. But if the therapist is not prepared to have his convic- 
tions called in question for the sake of the patient, then there 
is some reason for doubting the stability of his basic attitude. 
Perhaps he cannot give way on grounds of self-defence, which 
threatens him with rigidity. The margin of psychological elas- 
ticity varies both individually and collectively, and often it is 
so narrow that a certain degree of rigidity really does represent 
the maximum achievement. Ultra posse nemo obligatur. 

80 



PSYCHOTHERAPY AND A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 

185 Instinct Is not an isolated thing, nor can it be isolated in 
practice. It always brings in its train archetypal contents of a 
spiritual nature, which are at once its foundation and its limi- 
tation. In other words, an instinct is always and inevitably 
coupled with something like a philosophy of life, however ar- 
chaic, unclear, and hazy this may be. Instinct stimulates 
thought, and if a man does not think of his own free will, then 
you get compulsive thinking, for the two poles of the psyche, 
the physiological and the mental, are indissolubly connected. 
For this reason instinct cannot be freed without freeing the 
mind, just as mind divorced from instinct is condemned to fu- 
tility. Not that the tie between mind and instinct is necessarily 
a harmonious one. On the contrary it is full of conflict and 
means suffering. Therefore the principal aim of psychotherapy 
is not to transport the patient to an impossible state of happi- 
ness, but to help him acquire steadfastness and philosophic pa- 
tience in face of suffering. Life demands for its completion and 
fulfilment a balance between joy and sorrow. But because suf- 
fering is positively disagreeable, people naturally prefer not to 
ponder how much fear and sorrow fall to the lot of man. So 
they speak soothingly about progress and the greatest possible 
happiness, forgetting that happiness is itself poisoned if the 
measure of suffering ha^not been fulfilled. Behind a neurosis 
there is so often concealed all the natural and necessary suf- 
fering the patient has been unwilling to bear. We can see this 
most clearly from hysterical pains, which are relieved in the 
course of treatment by the corresponding psychic suffering 
which the patient sought to avoid. 

186 The Christian doctrine of original sin on the one hand, 
and of the meaning and value of suffering on the other, is there- 
fore of profound therapeutic significance and is undoubtedly far 
better suited to Western man than Islamic fatalism. Similarly 
the belief in immortality gives life that untroubled flow into 
the future so necessary if stoppages and regressions are to be 
avoided. Although we like to use the word "doctrine" for these 
psychologically speaking extremely important ideas, it would 
be a great mistake to think that they are just arbitrary intel- 
lectual theories. Psychologically regarded, they are emotional 
experiences whose nature cannot be discussed. If I may permit 
myself a banal comparison, when I feel well and content no- 
Si 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



body can prove to me that I am not. Logical arguments simply 
bounce off the facts felt and experienced. Original sin, the 
meaning of suffering, and immortality are emotional facts of 
this kind. But to experience them is a charisma which no hu- 
man art can compel. Only unreserved surrender can hope to 
reach such a goal. 

187 Not everybody is capable of this surrender. There is no 
"ought" or "must" about it, for the very act of exerting the 
will inevitably places such an emphasis on my will to sur- 
render that the exact opposite of surrender results. The Titans 
could not take Olympus by storm, and still less may a Chris- 
tian take Heaven. The most healing, and psychologically the 
most necessary, experiences are a "treasure hard to attain," 
and its acquisition demands something out of the common from 
the common man. 

188 As we know, this something out of the common proves, in 
practical work with the patient, to be an invasion by archetypal 
contents. If these contents are to be assimilated, it is not enough 
to make use of the current philosophical or religious ideas, 
for they simply do not fit the archaic symbolism of the material. 
We are therefore forced to go back to pre-Christian and non- 
Christian conceptions and to conclude that Western man 
does not possess the monopoly of human wisdom and that the 
white race is not a species of Homo sapiens specially favoured 
by God. Moreover we cannot do justice to certain contemporary 
collective phenomena unless we revert to the pre-Christian 
parallels. 

189 Medieval physicians seem to have realized this, for they 
practised a philosophy whose roots can be traced back to pre- 
Christian times and whose nature exactly corresponds to our 
experiences with patients today. These physicians recognized, 
besides the light of divine revelation, a lumen naturae as a sec- 
ond, independent source of illumination, to which the doctor 
could turn if the truth as handed down by the Church should 
for any reason prove ineffective either for himself or for the 
patient. 

!9 It was eminently practical reasons, and not the mere caper- 
ings of a hobby-horse, that prompted me to undertake my his- 
torical researches. Neither our modern medical training nor 
academic psychology and philosophy can equip the doctor with 

82 



PSYCHOTHERAPY AND A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 

the necessary education, or with the means, to deal effectively 
and understandingly with the often very urgent demands of his 
psychotherapeutic practice. It therefore behoves us, unembar- 
rassed by our shortcomings as amateurs of history, to go to 
school once more with the medical philosophers of a distant 
past, when body and soul had not yet been wrenched asunder 
into different faculties. Although we are specialists par excel- 
lence, our specialized field, oddly enough, drives us to uni- 
versalism and to the complete overcoming of the specialist at- 
titude, if the totality of body and soul is not to be just a matter 
of words. Once we have made up our minds to treat the soul, 
we can no longer close our eyes to the fact that neurosis is not 
a thing apart but the whole of the pathologically disturbed 
psyche. It was Freud's momentous discovery that the neurosis 
is not a mere agglomeration of symptoms, but a wrong func- 
tioning which affects the whole psyche. The important thing is 
not the neurosis, but the man who has the neurosis. We have to 
set to work on the human being, and we must be able to do him 
justice as a human being. 

The conference we are holding today proves that our 
psychotherapy has recognized its aim, which is to pay equal atten- 
tion to the physiological and to the spiritual factor. Originat- 
ing in natural science, it applies the objective, empirical meth- 
ods of the latter to the phenomenology of the mind. Even if 
this should remain a mere attempt, the fact that the attempt 
has been made is of incalculable significance. 



VII 



MEDICINE AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 



! 9* Speaking before an audience of doctors, I always experi- 
ence^, certain difficulty in bridging the differences that exist be- 
tween medicine on the one hand and psychotherapy on the other 
in their conception of pathology. These differences are the 
source of numerous misunderstandings, and it is therefore of 
the greatest concern to rne, in this short talk, to express one or 
two thoughts which may serve to clarify the special relationship 
that psychotherapy bears to medicine. Where distinctions exist, 
well-meaning attempts to stress the common ground are no- 
toriously lacking in point. But it is extremely important, in his 
own interests, that the psychotherapist should not in any cir- 
cumstances lose the position he originally held in medicine, 
and this precisely because the peculiar nature of his experi- 
ence forces upon him a certain mode of thought, and certain 
interests, which no longer have or perhaps I should say, do not 
yet have a rightful domicile in the medicine of today. Both 
these factors tend to lead the psychotherapist into fields of study 
apparently remote from medicine, and the practical importance 
of these fields is generally difficult to explain to the non-psy- 
chotherapist. From accounts of case histories and miraculously 
successful cures the non-psychotherapist learns little, and that 
little is frequently false. I have yet to come across a respectable 
specimen of neurosis of which one could give anything like an 
adequate description in a short lecture, to say nothing of all 
the therapeutic intricacies that are far from clear even to the 
shrewdest professional. 

193 With your permission I will now examine the three stages 
of medical procedure anamnesis, diagnosis, and therapy from 

l [Delivered as a lecture to a scientific meeting of the Senate of the Swiss Academy 
of Medical Science, Zurich, May 12, 1945. Published as "Medizin und Psycho- 
therapie," Bulletin der Schweizerischen Akademie der medizinischen Wissen- 
schaften, I (1945): 5, 3 15-25. -EDITORS.] 



MEDICINE AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the psychotherapeutic point of view. The pathological material 
I am here presupposing is pure psychoneurosis. 

194 We begin with the anamnesis, as is customary in medicine 
in general and psychiatry in particularthat is to say, we try to 
piece together the historical facts of the case as flawlessly as 
possible. The psychotherapist, however, does not rest content 
with these facts. He is aware not only of the unreliability of all 
evidence, but, over and above that, of the special sources of 
error in statements made on one's own behalf the statements 
of the patient who, wittingly or unwittingly, gives prominence 
to facts that are plausible enough in themselves but may be 
equally misleading as regards the pathogenesis. The patient's 
whole environment may be drawn into this system of explana- 
tion in a positive or negative sense, as though it were in uncon- 
scious collusion with him. At all events one must be prepared 
not to hear the very things that are most important. The psy- 
chotherapist will therefore take pains to ask questions about 
matters that seem to have nothing to do with the actual illness. 
For this he needs not only his professional knowledge; he has 
also to rely on intuitions and sudden ideas, and the more 
widely he casts his net of questions the more likely he is to suc- 
ceed in catching the complex nature of the case. If ever there 
were an illness that cannot be localized, because it springs from 
the whole of a man, that illness is a psychoneurosis. The psy- 
chiatrist can at least console himself with diseases of the brain; 
not so the psychotherapist, even if he privately believes in such 
a maxim, for the case before him demands the thorough psy- 
chological treatment of a disturbance that has nothing to do 
with cerebral symptoms. On the contrary, the more the psycho- 
therapist allows himself to be impressed by hereditary factors 
and the possibility of psychotic complications, the more crip- 
pled he will be in his therapeutic action. For better or worse he 
is obliged to overlook such cogent factors as heredity, the pres- 
ence of schizophrenic symptoms, and the like, particularly when 
these dangerous things are put forward with special emphasis, 
His assessment of anamnestic data may therefore turn out to be 
very different from a purely medical one. 

195 It is generally assumed in medical circles that the examina- 
tion of the patient should lead to the diagnosis of his illness, 
so far as this is possible at all, and that with the establishment 

85 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of the diagnosis an important decision has been arrived at as 
regards prognosis and therapy. Psychotherapy forms a startling 
exception to this rule: the diagnosis is a highly irrelevant 
affair since, apart from affixing a more or less lucky label to a 
neurotic condition, nothing is gained by it, least of all as re- 
gards prognosis and therapy. In flagrant contrast to the rest of 
medicine, where a definite diagnosis is often, as it were, logically 
followed by a specific therapy and a more or less certain prog- 
nosis, the diagnosis of any particular psychoneurosis means, at 
most, that some form of psychotherapy is indicated. As to the 
prognosis, this is in the highest degree independent of the diag- 
nosis. Nor should we gloss over the fact that the classification 
of the neuroses is very unsatisfactory, and that for this reason 
alone a specific diagnosis seldom means anything real. In gen- 
eral, it is enough to diagnose a "psychoneurosis" as distinct from 
some organic disturbance the word means no more than that. 
I have in the course of years accustomed myself wholly to dis- 
regard the diagnosing of specific neuroses, and I have sometimes 
found myself in a quandary whqi some word-addict urged me 
to hand him a specific diagnosisrJThe Greco-Latin compounds 
needed for this still seem to have a not inconsiderable market 
value and are occasionally indispensable for that reason. 

The sonorous diagnosis of neuroses secundum ordinem 
is just a facade, it is not the psychotherapist's real diagnosis. 
His establishment of certain facts might conceivably be called 
"diagnosis," though it is psychological rather than medical in 
character. Nor is it meant to be communicated; for reasons of 
discretion, and also on account of the subsequent therapy, he 
usually keeps it to himself. The facts so established are simply 
perceptions indicating the direction the therapy is to take. They 
can hardly be reproduced in the sort of Latin terminology that 
sounds scientific; but there are on the other hand expressions 
of ordinary speech which adequately describe the essential psy- 
chotherapeutic facts. The point is, we are not dealing with clin- 
ical diseases but with psychological ones.^Wlirtiber a person 
is suffering from hysteria, or an anxiety neurosis, or a phobia, 
means little beside the much more important discovery that, 
shall we say, he is fils & papa.^ltrt something fundamental has 
been said about the content of the neurosis and about the dif- 
ficulties to be expected in the treatment. So that in psycho- 

86 

V . ' 



MEDICINE AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 



therapy the recognition of disease rests much less on the clin- 
ical picture than on the content of complexes. Psychological 
diagnosis aims at the diagnosis of complexes and hence at the 
formulation of facts which are far more likely to be concealed 
than revealed by the clinical picture.] The real toxin is to be 
sought in the complex, and this is a more or less autonomous 
psychic quantity. It proves its autonomous nature by not fit- 
ting into the hierarchy of the conscious mind, or by the re- 
sistance it successfully puts up against the will. This fact, which 
can easily be established by experiment, is the reason why psy- 
choneuroses and psychoses have from time immemorial been 
regarded as states of possession^ since the impression forces itself 
upon the naive observer that the complex forms something like 
a shadow-government of the ego. [ 

*97 The content of a neurosis can never be established by a 
single examination, or even by several. It manifests itself only 
in the course of treatment. Hence the paradox that the true psy- 
chological diagnosis becomes apparent only at the end. Just as 
a sure diagnosis is desirable and a thing to be aimed at in medi- 
cine, so, conversely, it will profit the psychotherapist to know 
as little as possible about specific diagnoses. It is enough if he 
is reasonably sure of the differential diagnosis between organic 
and psychic, and if he knows what a genuine melancholy is and 
what it can mean. Generally speaking, the less the psychothera- 
pist knows in advance, the better the chances for the treatment. 
Nothing is more deleterious than a routine understanding of 
everything. 

198 We have now established that the anamnesis appears more 
than usually suspect to the psychotherapist, and that clinical 
diagnosis is, for his purposes, well-nigh meaningless. Finally, 
the therapy itself shows the greatest imaginable departures from 
the views commonly accepted in medicine. There are numerous 
physical diseases where the diagnosis also lays down the lines for 
a specific treatment; a given disease cannot be treated just any- 
how. But for the psychoneuroses the only valid principle is that 
their treatment must be psychological. In this respect there is 
any number of methods, rules, prescriptions, views, and doc- 
trines, and the remarkable thing is that any given therapeutic 
procedure in any given neurosis can have the desired result. 
The various psychotherapeutic dogmas about which such a 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



great fuss is made do not, therefore, amount to very much in 
the end. Every psychotherapist who knows his job will, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, theory notwithstanding, ring all the 
changes that do not figure in his own theory. He will occasion- 
ally use suggestion, to which he is opposed on principle. There 
is no getting round Freud's or Adler's or anybody else's point 
of view. Every psycho therapist^ not only has his own method- 
he himself is that method. ATS requirit totum hominem, says 
an old master." The great healing factor in psychotherapy is the 
doctor's personality, which is something not given at the start; 
it represents his performance at its highest and not a doctrinaire 
blueprint. Theories are to be avoided, except as mere auxilia- 
ries. As soon as a dogma is made of them, it is evident that an 
inner doubt is being stifled. Very many theories are needed 
before we can get even a rough picture of the psyche's com- 
plexity. It is therefore quite wrong when people accuse psycho- 
therapists of being unable to reach agreement even on their 
own theories. .Agreement could only spell one-sidedness and 
desiccation. One could as little catch the psyche in a theory as 
one could catch the world. Theories are not articles of faith, 
they are either instruments of knowledge and of therapy, or 
they are no good at all. 

*99 Psychotherapy can be practised in a great variety of ways, 
from psychoanalysis, or something of that kind, to hypnotism, 
and so on right down to cataplasms of honey and possets of bat's 
dung. Successes can be obtained with them all. So at least it 
appears on a superficial view. On closer inspection, however, 
one realizes that the seemingly absurd remedy was exactly the 
right thing, not for this particular neurosis, but for this particu- 
lar human being, whereas in another case it would have been 
the worst thing possible. Medicine too is doubtless aware that 
sick people exist as well as sicknesses; but psychotherapy knows 
first and foremost or rather should know that its proper con- 
cern is not the fiction of a neurosis but the distorted totality of 
the human being. iTrue, it too has tried to treat neurosis like 
an ulcus cruris, where it matters not a jot for the treatment 
whether the patient was the apple of her father's eye or 
whether she is a Catholic, a Baptist, or what not; whether the 
man she married be old or young, and all the rest of it. Psycho- 
therapy began by attacking the symptom, just as medicine did. 



MEDICINE AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 



Despite its undeniable youthfulness as a scientifically avowable 
method, it is yet as old as the healing art itself and, consciously 
or otherwise, has always remained mistress of at least half the 
medical field. Certainly its real advances were made only in the 
last half century when, on account of the specialization needed, 
it withdrew to the narrower field of the psychoneuroses. But 
here it recognized relatively quickly that to attack symptoms 
or, as it is now called, symptom analysis was only half the story, 
and that the real point is the treatment of the whole psychic 
, human being. 

> What does this mean: the whole psychic human being? 

>! ^.Medicine in general has to deal, in the first place, with 
man as an anatomical and physiological phenomenon, and 
only to a lesser degree with the human being psychically de- 
fined. But this precisely is the subject of psychotherapy. When 
we direct our attention to the psyche from the viewpoint of the 
natural sciences, it appears as one biological factor among many 
others. In man this factor is usually identified with the con- 
scious mind, as has mostly been done up to now by the so-called 
humane sciences as well. I subscribe entirely to the biological 
view that the psyche is one such factor, but at the same time I 
am given to reflect that the psychein this case, consciousness- 
occupies an exceptional position among all these biological fac- 
tors. For without consciousness it would never have become 
known that there is such a thing as a world, and without the 
psyche there would be absolutely no possibility of knowledge, 
since the object must go through a complicated physiological 
and psychic process of change in order to become a psychic im- 
age. This image alone is the immediate object of knowledge. 
The existence of the world has two conditions: it to exist, and 
us to know it. 

>2 Now, whether the psyche is understood as an epiphenome- 
non of the living body, or as an ens per se, makes little differ- 
ence to psychology, in so far as the psyche knows itself to exist 
and behaves as such an existent, having its own phenomenology 
which can be replaced by no other. Thereby it proves itself 
to be a biological factor that can be described phenomeno- 
logically like any other object of natural science. The begin- 
nings of a phenomenology of the psyche lie in psychophysiology 
and experimental psychology on the one hand, and, on the 

89 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



other, in descriptions of diseases and the diagnostic methods of 
psychopathology (e.g., association experiments and Rorschach's 
irrational ink-blots). But the most convincing evidence is to be 
found in every manifestation of psychic life, in the humane sci- 
ences, religious and political views and movements, the arts, and 
so forth. 

203 The "whole psychic human being" we were asking about 
thus proves to be nothing less than a world, that is, a micro- 
cosm, as the ancients quite rightly thought, though for the 
wrong reasons. The psyche reflects, and knows, the whole of 
existence, and everything works in and through the psyche. 

204 But, in order to get a real understanding of this, we must 
very considerably broaden our conventional conception of the 
psyche. Our original identification of psyche with the conscious 
mind does not stand the test of empirical criticism. The medi- 
cal philosopher C. G. Carus had a clear inkling of this and was 
the first to set forth an explicit philosophy of the unconscious. 
Today he would undoubtedly have been a psychotherapist. 
But in those days the psyche was still the anxiously guarded 
possession of philosophy and therefore could not be discussed 
within the framework of medicine, although the physicians of 
the Romantic Age tried all sorts of unorthodox experiments in 
this respect. I am thinking chiefly of Justinus Kerner. It was 
reserved for the recent past to fill in the gaps in the conscious 
processes with hypothetical unconscious ones. The existence of 
an unconscious psyche is as likely, shall we say, as the existence 
of an as yet undiscovered planet, whose presence is inferred 
from the deviations of some known planetary orbit. Unfor- 
tunately we lack the aid of the telescope that would make cer- 
tain of its existence. But once the idea of the unconscious was 
introduced, the concept of the psyche could be expanded to 
the formula "psyche = ego-consciousness -f- unconscious." 

205 The unconscious was understood personalistically at first 
that is to say, its contents were thought to come exclusively 
from the sphere of ego-consciousness and to have become un- 
conscious only secondarily, through repression. Freud later ad- 
mitted the existence of archaic vestiges in the unconscious, but 
thought they had more or less the significance of anatomical 
atavisms. Consequently we were still far from an adequate con- 
ception of the unconscious. Certain things had yet to be discov- 



MEDICINE AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ered, although actually they lay ready to hand: above all the 
fact that in every child consciousness grows out of the uncon- 
scious in the course of a few years, also that consciousness is 
always only a temporary state based on an optimum physio- 
logical performance and therefore regularly interrupted by 
phases of unconsciousness (sleep), and finally that the uncon- 
scious psyche not only possesses the longer lease of life but is 
continuously present. From this arises the important conclu- 
sion that the real and authentic psyche is the unconscious, 
whereas the ego-consciousness can be regarded only as a tem- 
porary epiphenomenon. 

206 In ancient times the psyche was conceived as a microcosm, 
and this was one of the characteristics attributed to the psycho- 
physical man. To attribute such a characteristic to the ego-con- 
sciousness would be boundlessly to overestimate the latter. But 
with the unconscious it is quite different. This, by definition 
and in fact, cannot be circumscribed. It must therefore be 
counted as something boundless: infinite or infinitesimal. 
Whether it may legitimately be called a microcosm depends 
simply and solely on whether certain portions of the world be- 
yond individual experience can be shown to exist in the uncon- 
sciouscertain constants which are not individually acquired 
but are a priori presences. The theory of instinct and the find- 
ings of biology in connection with the symbiotic relationship 
between plant and insect have long made us familiar with these 
things. But when it comes to the psyche one is immediately 
seized with the fear of having to do with "inherited ideas/' We 
are not dealing with anything of the sort; it is more a question of 
a priori or prenatally determined modes of behaviour and func- 
tion. It is to be conjectured that just as the chicken comes out of 
the egg in the same way all the world over, so there are psychic 
modes of functioning, certain ways of thinking, feeling, and 
imagining, which can be found everywhere and at all times, quite 
independent of tradition. A general proof of the Tightness of this 
expectation lies in the ubiquitous occurrence of parallel myth- 
ologems, Bastian's * 'folk- thoughts" or primordial ideas; and a 
special proof is the autochthonous reproduction of such ideas 
in the psyche of individuals where direct transmission is out 
of the question. The empirical material found in such cases 
consists of dreams, fantasies, delusions, etc. 

9* 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



207 Mythologems are the aforementioned "portions of the 
world" which belong to the structural elements of the psyche. 
They are constants whose expression is everywhere and at all 
times the same. 

208 You may ask in some consternation: What has all this to 
do with psychotherapy? That neuroses are somehow connected 
with instinctual disturbances is not surprising. But, as biology 
shows, instincts are by no means blind, spontaneous, isolated 
impulses; they are on the contrary associated with typical situ- 
ational patterns and cannot be released unless existing condi- 
tions correspond to the a priori pattern. The collective contents 
expressed in mythologems represent such situational patterns, 
which are so intimately connected with the release of instinct. 
For this reason knowledge of them is of the highest practical 
importance to the psychotherapist. 

209 Clearly, the investigation of these patterns and their prop- 
erties must lead us into fields that seem to lie infinitely far from 
medicine. That is the fate of empirical psychology, and its mis- 
fortune: to fall between all the academic stools. And this comes 
precisely from the fact that the human psyche has a share in all 
the sciences, because it forms at least half the ground necessary 
for the existence of them all. 

210 It should be clear from the foregoing discussion that every- 
thing psychotherapy has in common with symptomatology 
clinically understood i.e., with the medical picture is, I will 
not say irrelevant, but of secondary importance in so far as the 
medical picture of disease is a provisional one. The real and 
important thing is the psychological picture, which can only be 
discovered in the course of treatment behind the veil of patho- 
logical symptoms. In order to get closer to the sphere of 
the psyche, the ideas derived from the sphere of medicine are 
not enough. But, to the extent that psychotherapy, considered 
as part of the healing art, should never, for many cogent rea- 
sons, slip out of the doctor's control and should therefore be 
taught in medical faculties, it is forced to borrow from the 
other sciences which is what other medical disciplines have 
been doing for a long time. Yet whereas medicine in general can 
limit its borrowings to the natural sciences, psychotherapy 
needs the help of the humane sciences as well. 

92 



MEDICINE AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 



211 In order to complete my account of the differences be- 
tween medicine and psychotherapy, I ought really to describe 
the phenomenology of those psychic processes which manifest 
themselves in the course of treatment and do not have their 
counterpart in medicine. But such an undertaking would ex- 
ceed the compass of my lecture, and I must therefore refrain. 
I trust, however, that the little I have been privileged to say 
has thrown some light on the relations between psychotherapy 
and the medical art. 



93 



VIII 



PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 1 

It would be a rewarding task to examine in some detail the 
relationship between psychotherapy and the state of mind in 
Europe today. Yet probably no one would be blamed for shrink- 
ing from so bold a venture, for who could guarantee that the 
picture he has formed of the present psychological and spiritual 
plight of Europe is true to reality? Are we, as contemporaries of 
and participants in these cataclysmic events, at all capable of 
cool judgment and of seeing clearly amid the indescribable 
political and ideological chaos of present-day Europe? Or should 
we perhaps do better to narrow the field of psychotherapy and 
restrict our science to a modest specialists' corner, remaining 
indifferent to the ruin of half the world? I fear that such a 
course, in spite of its commendable modesty, would ill accord 
with the nature of psychotherapy, which is after all the "treat- 
ment of the soul." Indeed, the concept of psychotherapy, how- 
ever one may choose to interpret it, carries with it very great 
pretensions: for the soul is the birth-place of all action and 
hence of everything that happens by the will of man. It would 
be difficult, if not impossible, to carve out an arbitrarily limited 
segment o the infinitely vast realm of the psyche and call that 
the secluded theatre of psychotherapy. Medicine, it is true, has 
found itself obliged to mark off a specific field, that of the neu- 
roses and psychoses, and this is both convenient and feasible 
for the practical purpose of treatment. But the artificial restric- 
tion must be broken down immediately psychotherapy under- 
stands its problems not simply as those of a technique but as 

1 [A lecture delivered to a Section of the Swiss Society for Psychotherapy at its 
fourth annual meeting (1941). The Section was formed to further the interests of 
psychotherapists in Switzerland. The lecture was published as "Die Psychotherapie 
in der Gegenwart" in the Schweizerische Zeitschrift filr Psychologie und ihre Anwen- 
dungen, IV (1945), 1-18; and in Aufsdtze zur Zeitgeschichte (Zurich, 1946), pp. 25-56, 
from which the present translation was made. Previously trans, by Mary Briner in 
Essays on Contemporary Events (London, 1947). EDITORS.] 

94 



PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



those of a science. Science qua science has no boundaries, and 
there is no speciality whatever that can boast of complete self- 
sufficiency. Any speciality is bound to spill over its borders and 
to encroach on adjoining territory if it is to lay serious claim to 
the status of a science. Even so highly specialized a technique as 
Freudian psychoanalysis was unable, at the very outset, to avoid 
poaching on other, and sometimes exceedingly remote, scientific 
preserves. It is, in fact, impossible to treat the psyche, and hu- 
man personality in general, sectionally. In all psychic disturb- 
ances it is becoming clear perhaps even more so than in the 
case of physical illnessesthat the psyche is a whole in which 
everything hangs together. When the patient comes to us with 
a neurosis, he does not bring a part but the whole of his 
psyche and with it the fragment of world on which that psyche 
depends, and without which it can never be properly under- 
stood. Psychotherapy is therefore less able than any other 
specialized department of science to take refuge in the sanctu- 
ary of a speciality which has no further connection with the 
world at large. Try as we may to concentrate on the most per- 
sonal of personal problems, our therapy nevertheless stands or 
falls with the question: What sort of world does our patient 
come from and to what sort of world has he to adapt himself? 
The world is a supra-personal fact to which an essentially per- 
sonalistic psychology can never do justice. Such a psychology 
only penetrates to the personal element in man. But in so far 
as he is also a part of the world, he carries the world in himself, 
that is, something at once impersonal and supra-personal. It in- 
cludes his entire physical and psychic basis, so far as this" is 
given from the start. Undoubtedly the personalities of father 
and mother form the first and apparently the only world of man 
as an infant; and, if they continue to do so for too long, he is 
on the surest road to neurosis, because the great world he will 
have to enter as a whole person is no longer a world of fathers 
and mothers, but a supra-personal fact. The child first begins to 
wean itself from the childhood relation to father and mother 
through its relation to its brothers and sisters. The elder brother 
is no longer the true father and the elder sister no longer the 
true mother. Later, husband and wife are originally strangers 
to one another and come from different families with a different 
history and often a different social background. When children 

95 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



come, they complete the process by forcing the parents into the 
role of father and mother, which the parents, in accordance with 
their infantile attitude, formerly saw only in others, thereby try- 
ing to secure for themselves all the advantages of the childhood 
role. Every more or less normal life runs this enantiodromian 
course and compels a change of attitude from the extreme of the 
child to the other extreme of the parent. The change requires 
the recognition of objective facts and values which a child can 
dismiss from his mind. School, however, inexorably instils into 
him the idea of objective time, of duty and the fulHlment of 
duty, of outside authority, no matter whether he likes or loathes 
the school and his teacher. And with school and the relentless 
advance of time, one objective fact after another increasingly 
forces its way into his personal life, regardless of whether it is 
welcome or not and whether he has developed any special atti- 
tude towards it Meanwhile it is made overpoweringly clear that 
any prolongation of the father-and-mother world beyond its al- 
lotted span must be paid for dearly. All attempts to carry the in- 
fant's personal world over into the greater world are doomed to 
failure; even the transference which occurs during the treatment 
of neurosis is at best only an intermediate stage, giving the pa- 
tient a chance to shed all the fragments of egg-shell still adher- 
ing to him from his childhood days, and to withdraw the 
projection of the parental imagos from external reality. This 
operation is one of the most difficult tasks of modern psycho- 
therapy. At one time it was optimistically assumed that the pa- 
rental imagos could be more or less broken down and destroyed 
through analysis of their contents. But in reality that is not the 
case: although the parental imagos can be released from the 
state of projection and withdrawn from the external world, 
they continue, like everything else acquired in early childhood, 
to retain their original freshness. With the withdrawal of the 
projection they fall back into the individual psyche, from which 
indeed they mainly originated. 2 

213 Before we go into the question of what happens when the 
parental imagos are no longer projected, let us turn to another 
question: Is this problem, which has been brought to light by 
2 As we know, the parental imago is constituted on the one hand by the personally 
acquired image of the personal parents, but on the other hand by the parent arche- 
type which exists a priori, i.e., in the pre-conscious structure of the psyche. 

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PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



modern psychotherapy, a new one in the sense that it was un- 
known to earlier ages which possessed no scientific psychology 
as we understand it? How did this problem present itself in the 
past? 

214 In so far as earlier ages had in fact no knowledge of psycho- 
therapy in our sense of the word, we cannot possibly expect to 
find in history any formulations similar to our own. But since 
the transformation of child into parent has been going on 
everywhere from time immemorial and, with the increase of 
consciousness, was also experienced subjectively as a difficult 
process, we must conjecture the existence of various general 
psychotherapeutic systems which enabled man to accomplish 
the difficult transition-stages. And we do find, even at the most 
primitive level, certain drastic measures at all those moments in 
life when psychic transitions have to be effected. The most im- 
portant of these are the initiations at puberty and the rites per- 
taining to marriage, birth, and death. All these ceremonies, 
which in primitive cultures still free from foreign influence are 
observed with the utmost care and exactitude, are probably 
designed in the first place to avert the psychic injuries liable to 
occur at such times; but they are also intended to impart to the 
initiand the preparation and teaching needed for life. The 
existence and prosperity of a primitive tribe are absolutely 
bound up with the scrupulous and traditional performance of 
the ceremonies. Wherever these customs fall into disuse through 
the influence of the white man, authentic tribal life ceases; the 
tribe loses its soul and disintegrates. Opinion is very much 
divided about the influence of Christian missionaries in this 
respect; what I myself saw in Africa led me to take an extremely 
pessimistic view. 

215 On a higher and more civilized level the same work is per- 
formed by the great religions. There are the christening, con- 
firmation, marriage, and funeral ceremonies which, as is well 
known, are much closer to their origins, more living and com- 
plete, in Catholic ritual than in Protestantism. Here too we see 
how the father-mother world of the child is superseded by a 
wealth of analogical symbols: a patriarchal order receives the 
adult into a new filial relationship through spiritual generation 
and rebirth. The pope as pater patrum and the ecclesia mater 
are the parents of a family that embraces the whole of Christen- 

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GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



dom, except such parts of it as protest. Had the parental images 
been destroyed in the course of development and thus been 
rendered ineffective, an order of this kind would have lost 
not only its raison d'etre but the very possibility of its existence. 
As it is, however, a place is found for the ever-active parental 
imagos as well as for that ineradicable feeling of being a 
child, a feeling which finds meaning and shelter in the bosom of 
the Church. In addition, a number of other ecclesiastical insti- 
tutions provide for the steady growth and constant renewal of 
the bond. Among them I would mention in particular the mass 
and the confessional. The Communion is, in the proper sense 
of the word, the family table at which the members foregather 
and partake of the meal in the presence of God, following a 
sacred custom that goes far back into pre-Christian times. 

It is superfluous to describe these familiar things in greater 
detail. I mention them only to show that the treatment of the 
psyche in times gone by had in view the same fundamental 
facts of human life as modern psychotherapy. But how differ- 
ently religion deals with the parental imagos! It does not dream 
of breaking them down or destroying them; on the contrary, 
it recognizes them as living realities which it would be neither 
possible nor profitable to eliminate. Religion lets them live on 
in changed and exalted form within the framework of a strictly 
traditional patriarchal order, which keeps not merely decades 
but whole centuries in living connection. Just as it nurtures and 
preserves the childhood psyche of the individual, so also it has 
conserved numerous and still living vestiges of the childhood 
psyche of humanity. In this way it guards against one of the 
greatest psychic dangers loss of roots which is a disaster not 
only for primitive tribes but for civilized man as well. The 
breakdown of a tradition, necessary as this may be at times, is 
always a loss and a danger; and it is a danger to the soul because 
the life of instinct the most conservative element in man- 
always expresses itself in traditional usages. Age-old convictions 
and customs are deeply rooted in the instincts. If they get lost, 
the conscious mind becomes severed from the instincts and loses 
its roots, while the instincts, unable to express themselves, fall 
back into the unconscious and reinforce its energy, causing this 
in turn to overflow into the existing contents of conscious- 
ness. It is then that the rootless condition of consciousness be- 

98 



PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



comes a real danger. This secret vis a tergo results in a hybris 
o the conscious mind which manifests itself in the form of exag- 
gerated self-esteem or an inferiority complex. At all events a loss 
of balance ensues, and this is the most fruitful soil for psychic 
injury. 

217 If we look back over the thousand-odd years of our Eu- 
ropean civilization, we shall see that the Western ideal of the 
education and care of the soul has been, and for the most part 
still is, a patriarchal order based on the recognition of parental 
imagos. Thus in dealing with the individual, no matter how 
revolutionary his conscious attitude may be, we have to reckon 
with a patriarchal or hierarchical orientation of the psyche 
which causes it instinctively to seek and cling to this order. 
Any attempt to render the parental imagos and the childhood 
psyche ineffective is therefore doomed to failure from the 
outset. 

218 At this point we come back to our earlier question of what 
happens when the parental imagos are withdrawn from projec- 
tion. The detachment of these imagos from certain persons who 
carry the projection is undoubtedly possible and belongs to the 
stock in trade of psychotherapeutic success. On the other hand 
the problem becomes more difficult when there is a transference 
of the imagos to the doctor. In these cases the detachment can 
develop into a crucial drama. For what is to happen to the ima- 
gos if they are no longer attached to a human being? The pope 
as supreme father of Christendom holds his office from God; he 
is the servant of servants, and transference of the imagos to him 
is thus a transference to the Father in heaven and to Mother 
Church on earth. But how fares it with men and women who 
have been uprooted and torn out of their tradition? Professor 
Murray 3 of Harvard University has shown on the basis of ex- 
tensive statistical material thus confirming my own previous- 
ly published experience that the incidence of complexes is, on 
the average, highest among Jews; second come Protestants; and 
Catholics third. That a man's philosophy of life is directly con- 
nected with the well-being of the psyche can be seen from the 
fact that his mental attitude, his way of looking at things, is 
of enormous importance to him and his mental health so* 
much so that we could almost say that things are less what they 

3 In Explorations in Personality, 118. 

99 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



are than how we see them. If we have a disagreeable view of a 
situation or thing, our pleasure in it is spoiled, and then it 
does in fact usually disagree with us. And, conversely, how 
many things become bearable and even acceptable if we can 
give up certain prejudices and change our point of view. 
Paracelsus, who was above all a physician of genius, empha- 
sized that nobody could be a doctor who did not understand 
the art of "theorizing." 4 What he meant was that the doctor 
must induce, not only in himself but also in his patient, a 
way of looking at the illness which would enable the doctor to 
cure and the patient to recover, or at least to endure being ill. 
That is why he says "every illness is a purgatorial fire/' 5 He 
consciously recognized and made full use of the healing power 
of a man's mental attitude. When, therefore, I am treating 
practising Catholics, and am faced with the transference prob- 
lem, I can, by virtue of my office as a doctor, step aside and 
lead the problem over to the Church. But if I am treating a 
non-Catholic, that way out is debarred, and by virtue of my 
office as a doctor I cannot step aside, for there is as a rule nobody 
there, nothing towards which I could suitably lead the father- 
imago. I can, of course, get the patient to recognize with his rea- 
son that I am not the father. But by that very act I become the 
reasonable father and remain despite everything the father. Not 
only nature, but the patient too, abhors a vacuum. He has an 
instinctive horror of allowing the parental imagos and his child- 
hood psyche to fall into nothingness, into a hopeless past that 
has no future. His instinct tells him that, for the sake of his own 
wholeness, these things must be kept alive in one form or an- 
other. He knows that a complete withdrawal of the projection 
will be followed by an apparently endless isolation within the 
ego, which is all the more burdensome because he has so little 
love for it. He found it unbearable enough before, and he is un- 
likely to bear it now simply out of sweet reasonableness. There- 
fore at this juncture the Catholic who has been freed from an 
excessively personal tie to his parents can return fairly easily to 
the mysteries of the Church, which he is now in a position to un- 
derstand better and more deeply. There are also Protestants 

*Labyrinthus medicorum erranttum, 128, Cap. VIII, "Theorica medica." [The 
word fecooia originally meant "a looking about one and seeing the world." TRANS.] 
$De ente Dei, 129, Tract. V, Cap. I. 

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PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



who can discover In one of the newer variants of Protestantism 
a meaning which appeals to them, and so regain a genuine re- 
ligious attitude. All other casesunless there is a violent and 
sometimes injurious solution will, as the saying goes, "get 
stuck" in the transference relationship, thereby subjecting both 
themselves and the doctor to a severe trial of patience. Probably 
this cannot be avoided, for a sudden fall into the orphaned, 
parentless state may in certain cases namely, where there is a 
tendency to psychosis have dangerous consequences owing to 
the equally sudden activation of the unconscious which always 
accompanies it. Accordingly the projection can and should be 
withdrawn only step by step. The integration of the contents 
split off in the parental imagos has an activating effect on the 
unconscious, for these imagos are charged with all the energy 
they originally possessed in childhood, thanks to which they 
continued to exercise a fateful influence even on the adult. 
Their integration therefore means a considerable afflux of en- 
ergy to the unconscious, which soon makes itself felt in the in- 
creasingly strong coloration of the conscious mind by un- 
conscious contents. Isolation in pure ego-consciousness has the 
paradoxical consequence that there now appear in dreams and 
fantasies impersonal, collective contents which are the very 
material from which certain schizophrenic psychoses are con- 
structed. For this reason the situation is not without its dan- 
gers, since the releasing of the ego from its ties with the 
projection and of these the transference to the doctor plays 
the principal part involves the risk that the ego, which was 
formerly dissolved in relationships to the personal environ- 
ment, may now be dissolved in the contents of the collective 
unconscious. For, although the parents may be dead in the 
world of external reality, they and their imagos have passed 
over into the "other" world of the collective unconscious, 
where they continue to attract the same ego-dissolving projec- 
tions as before. 

219 But at this point a healthful, compensatory operation comes 
into play which each time seems to me like a miracle. Strug- 
gling against that dangerous trend towards disintegration, 
there arises out of this same collective unconscious a counter- 
action, characterized by symbols which point unmistakably to 
a process of centring. This process creates nothing less than 

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GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



a new centre of personality, which the symbols show from the 
first to be superordinate to the ego and which later proves its 
superiority empirically. The centre cannot therefore be classed 
with the ego, but must be accorded a higher value. Nor can 
we continue to give it the name of "ego/' for which reason I 
have called it the "self." To experience and realize this self 
is the ultimate aim of Indian yoga, and in considering the 
psychology of the self we would do well to have recourse 
to the treasures of Indian wisdom. In India, as with us, the ex- 
perience of the self has nothing to do with intellectualism; it is 
a vital happening which brings about a fundamental transfor- 
mation of personality. I have called the process that leads to this 
experience the "process of individuation." If I recommend the 
study of classical yoga, it is not because I am one of ^those who 
roll up their eyes in ecstasy when they hear such magic words as 
dhyana or buddhi or mukti, but because psychologically we can 
learn a great deal from yoga philosophy and turn it to practical 
account. Furthermore, the material lies ready to hand, clearly 
formulated in the Eastern books and the translations made of 
them. Here again my reason is not that we have nothing 
equivalent in the West: I recommend yoga merely because the 
Western knowledge which is akin to it is more or less inac- 
cessible except to specialists. It is esoteric, and it is distorted 
beyond recognition by being formulated as an arcane disci- 
pline and by all the rubbish that this draws in its wake. In 
alchemy there lies concealed a Western system of yoga medita- 
tion, but it was kept a carefully guarded secret from fear of 
heresy and its painful consequences. For the practising psy- 
chologist, however, alchemy has one inestimable advantage 
over Indian yoga its ideas are expressed almost entirely in an 
extraordinarily rich symbolism, the very symbolism we still 
find in our patients today. The help which alchemy affords 
us in understanding the symbols of the individuation process 
is, in my opinion, of the utmost importance. 6 
220 Alchemy describes what I call the "self" as incorruptibile, 
that is, an indissoluble substance, a One and Indivisible that can- 
not be reduced to anything else and is at the same time a Uni- 
versal, to which a sixteenth-century alchemist even gave the 

Cf. my Psychology and Alchemy, 85, and Psychology and Religion, 86, 



102 



PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



name of filius macrocosmiJ Modern findings agree in principle 
with these formulations, 

221 I had to mention all these things in order to get to the 
problem of today. For if we perseveringly and consistently fol- 
low the way of natural development, we arrive at the experience 
of the self, and at the state of being simply what one is. This 
is expressed as an ethical demand by the motto of Paracel- 
sus, the four-hundredth anniversary of whose birth we cele- 
brated in the autumn of 1941: "Alterius non sit, qui suus esse 
potest" (That man no other man shall own,/ Who to himself 
belongs alone) a motto both characteristically Swiss and char- 
acteristically alchemical. But the way to this goal is toilsome 
and not for all to travel. "Est longissima via," say the alchem- 
ists. We are still only at the beginning of a development whose 
origins lie in late antiquity, and which throughout the Mid- 
dle Ages led little more than a hole-and-corner existence, vege- 
tating in obscurity and represented by solitary eccentrics who 
were called, not without reason, tenebriones. Nevertheless 
men like Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and Paracelsus were 
among the fathers of modern science, and their spirit did 
much to shake the authority of the "total" Church. Our mod- 
ern psychology grew out of the spirit of natural science and, 
without realizing it, is carrying on the work begun by the 
alchemists. These men were convinced that the donum artis 
was given only to the few electis, and today our experience 
shows us only too plainly how arduous is the work with each 
patient and how few can attain the necessary knowledge and 
experience. Meanwhile the disintegration and weakening of 
that salutary institution, the Christian Church, goes on at an 
alarming rate, and the loss of any firm authority is gradually 
leading to an intellectual, political, and social anarchy which is 
repugnant to the soul of European man, accustomed as he is to 
a patriarchal order. The present attempts to achieve full indi- 
vidual consciousness and to mature the personality are, so- 
cially speaking, still so feeble that they carry no weight at all 
in relation to our historic needs. If our European social order is 
not to be shaken to its foundations, authority must be restored 
at all costs. 

7 Khunrath, Von hylealischen . . . Chaos, 97. 

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GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



222 This is probably one reason for the efforts now being made 
in Europe to replace the collectivity of the Church by the col- 
lectivity of the State. And just as the Church was once absolute 
in its determination to make theocracy a reality, so the State is 
now making an absolute bid for totalitarianism. The mystique 
of the spirit has not been replaced by a mystique either of na- 
ture or of the lumen naturae, as Paracelsus named it, but by 
the total incorporation of the individual in a political collec- 
tive called the "State." This offers a way out of the dilemma, 
for the parental imagos can now be projected upon the State 
as the universal provider and the authority responsible for all 
thinking and willing. The ends of science are made to serve 
the social collective and are only valued for their practical util- 
ity to the collective's ends. The natural course of psycholog- 
ical development is succeeded, not by a spiritual direction 
which spans the centuries and keeps cultural values alive, but 
by a political directorate which ministers to the power strug- 
gles of special groups and promises economic benefits to the 
masses. In this way European man's deep-seated longing for 
a patriarchal and hierarchical order finds an appropriate con- 
crete expression which accords only too well with the herd 
instinct, but is fixed at such a low level as to be in every 
respect detrimental to culture. 

223 It is here that opinion is apt to be divided. In so far as 
psychotherapy claims to stand on a scientific basis and thus by 
the principle of free investigation, its declared aim is to educate 
people towards independence and moral freedom in accordance 
with the knowledge arrived at by unprejudiced scientific re- 
search. Whatever the conditions to which the individual 
wishes to adapt himself, he should always do so consciously 
and of his own free choice. But, in so far as political aims and 
the State are to claim precedence, psychotherapy would in- 
evitably become the instrument of a particular political sys- 
tem, and it is to its aims that people would have to be educated 
and at the same time seduced from their own highest destiny. 
Against this conclusion it will undoubtedly be objected that 
man's ultimate destiny lies not in his existence as an individ- 
ual but in the aspirations of human society, because without 
this the individual could not exist at all. This objection is a 
weighty one and cannot be lightly dismissed. It is an un- 

104 



PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



doubted truth that the individual exists only by virtue of so- 
ciety and has always so existed. That is why among primitive 
tribes we find the custom of initiation into manhood, when, 
by means of a ritual death, the individual is detached from his 
family and indeed from his whole previous identity, and is 
reborn as a member of the tribe. Or we find early civilizations, 
such as the Egyptian and Babylonian, where all individuality 
is concentrated in the person of the king, while the ordinary 
person remains anonymous. Or again, we observe whole fami- 
lies in which for generations the individuality of the name has 
compensated for the nonentity of its bearers; or a long succes- 
sion of Japanese artists who discard their own name and adopt 
the name of a master, simply adding after it a modest numeral. 
Nevertheless, it was the great and imperishable achievement 
of Christianity that, in contrast to these archaic systems which 
are all based on the original projection of psychic contents, 
it gave to each individual man the dignity of an immortal 
soul, whereas in earlier times this prerogative was reserved 
to the sole person of the king. It would lead me too far to 
discuss here just how much this Christian innovation repre- 
sents an advance of human consciousness and of culture in 
general, by putting an end to the projection of the highest 
values of the individual soul upon the king or other dignitaries. 
The innate will to consciousness, to moral freedom and culture, 
proved stronger than the brute compulsion of projections which 
keep the individual permanently imprisoned in the dark of 
unconsciousness and grind him down into nonentity. Certainly 
this advance laid a cross upon him the torment of conscious- 
ness, of moral conflict, and the uncertainty of his own thoughts. 
This task is so immeasurably difficult that it can be accom- 
plished, if at all, only by stages, century by century, and it must 
be paid for by endless suffering and toil in the struggle against 
all those powers which are incessantly at work persuading us 
to take the apparently easier road of unconsciousness. Those 
who go the way of unconsciousness imagine that the task can 
safely be left to "others" or, ultimately, to the anonymous State. 
But who are these "others," these obvious supermen who pre- 
tend to be able to do what everybody is only too ready to believe 
that he cannot do? They are men just like ourselves, who think 
and feel as we do, except that they are past masters in the art of 

105 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY' 



"passing the buck." Exactly who is the State? The agglomera- 
tion of all the nonentities composing it. Could it be personi- 
fied, the result would be an individual, or rather a monster, 
intellectually and ethically far below the level of most of the 
individuals in it, since it represents mass psychology raised to 
the nth power. Therefore Christianity in its best days never 
subscribed to a belief in the State, but set before man a supra- 
mundane goal which should redeem him from the com- 
pulsive force of his projections upon this world, whose ruler 
is the spirit of darkness. And it gave him an immortal soul 
that he might have a fulcrum from which to lift the world 
off its hinges, showing him that his goal lies not in the mastery 
of this world but in the attainment of the Kingdom of God, 
whose foundations are in his own heart. 

2*4 If, then, man cannot exist without society, neither can he 
exist without oxygen, water, albumen, fat, and so forth. Like 
these, society is one of the necessary conditions of his existence. 
It would be ludicrous to maintain that man lives in order to 
breathe air. It is equally ludicrous to say that the individual 
exists for society. "Society" is nothing more than a term, a con- 
cept for the symbiosis of a group of human beings. A concept 
is not a carrier of life. The sole and natural carrier of life is the 
individual, and that is so throughout nature. 8 "Society" or 
"State" is an agglomeration of life-carriers and at the same time, 
as an organized form of these, an important condition of life. It 
is therefore not quite true to say that the individual can exist 
only as a particle in society. At all events man can live very 
much longer without the State than without air. 

8 Pestalozzi said (Ideen, 181, p. 187): "None of the institutions, measures, and means 
of education established for the masses and the needs of men in the aggregate, 
whatever shape or form they may take, serve to advance human culture. In the vast 
majority of cases they are completely worthless for that purpose and are directly 
opposed to it. Our race develops its human qualities in essence only from face to 
face, from heart to heart. Essentially it develops only in little intimate circles which 
gradually grow in graciousness and love, in confidence and trust. All the means 
requisite for the education of man, which serve to make him truly humane and to 
bring him to mankindliness, are in their origin and essence the concern of the indi- 
vidual and of such institutions as are closely and intimately attached to his heart 
and mind. They never were nor will be the concern of the masses. They never were 
nor will be the concern of civilization." [See note 10 below.TRANs.] 

1O6 



PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



225 When the political aim predominates there can be no doubt 
that a secondary thing has been made the primary thing. 
Then the individual is cheated of his rightful destiny and two 
thousand years of Christian civilization are wiped out. Con- 
sciousness, instead of being widened by the withdrawal of pro- 
jections, is narrowed, because society, a mere condition of 
human existence, is set up as a goal. Society is the greatest 
temptation to unconsciousness, for the mass infallibly swallows 
up the individual who has no security in himself and reduces 
him to a helpless particle. The totalitarian State could not 
tolerate for one moment the right of psychotherapy to help 
man fulfil his natural destiny. On the contrary, it would be 
bound to insist that psychotherapy should be nothing but a 
tool for the production of manpower useful to the State. In this 
way it would become a mere technique tied to a single aim, that 
of increasing social efficiency. The soul would forfeit all life of 
its own and become a function to be used as the State saw fit. 
The science of psychology would be degraded to a study of the 
ways and means to exploit the psychic apparatus. As to its 
therapeutic aim, the complete and successful incorporation of 
the patient into the State machine would be the criterion of 
cure. Since this aim can best be achieved by making the individ- 
ual completely soullessthat is, as unconscious as possible all 
methods designed to increase consciousness would at one stroke 
become obsolete, and the best thing would be to bring out of 
the lumber-rooms of the past all the methods that have ever 
been devised to prevent man from becoming conscious of his 
unconscious contents. Thus the art of psychotherapy would 
be driven into a complete regression. 9 

9 Ibid., pp. i8g.: "The collective existence of our race can only produce civiliza- 
tion, not culture. [See note 10 below. TRANS.] Is it not true, do we not see every day, 
that in proportion as the herd-like aggregations of men become more important, 
and in proportion as officialdom, which represents the legal concentration of the 
power of the masses, has freer play and wields greater authority, the divine breath 
of tenderness is the more easily extinguished in the hearts of the individuals 
composing these human aggregations and their officials, and that the receptivity 
to truth which lies deep in man's nature perishes within them to the same degree? 
"The collectively unified man, if truly he be nothing but that, sinks down in 
all his relations into the depths of civilized corruption, and sunk in this corrup- 
tion, ceases to seek more over the whole earth than the wild animals in the forest 
seek." 

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GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



226 Such, in broad outline, is the alternative facing psycho- 
therapy at this present juncture. Future developments will de- 
cide whether Europe, which fancied it had escaped the Middle 
Ages, is to be plunged for a second time and for centuries into 
the darkness of an Inquisition. This will only happen if the 
totalitarian claims of the State are forcibly carried through and 
become a permanency. No intelligent person will deny that the 
organization of society, which we call the State, not only feels a 
lively need to extend its authority but is compelled by circum- 
stances to do so. If this comes about by free consent and the con- 
scious choice of the public, the results will leave nothing to be 
desired. But if it comes about for the sake of convenience, in 
order to avoid tiresome decisions, or from lack of consciousness, 
then the individual runs the certain risk of being blotted out as 
a responsible human being. The State will then be no different 
from a prison or an ant-heap. 

227 Although the conscious achievement of individuality is con- 
sistent with man's natural destiny, it is nevertheless not his 
whole aim. It cannot possibly be the object of human education 
to create an anarchic conglomeration of individual existences. 
That would be too much like the unavowed ideal of extreme 
individualism, which is essentially no more than a morbid reac- 
tion against an equally futile collectivism. In contrast to all 
this, the natural process of individuation brings to birth a 
consciousness of human community precisely because it makes 
us aware of the unconscious, which unites and is common to all 
mankind. Individuation is an at-one-ment with oneself and at 
the same time with humanity, since oneself is a part of human- 
ity. Once the individual is thus secured in himself, there is 
some guarantee that the organized accumulation of individuals 
in the State even in one wielding greater authority will re- 
sult in the formation no longer of an anonymous mass but of a 
conscious community. The indispensable condition for this is 
conscious freedom of choice and individual decision. Without 
this freedom and self-determination there is no true community, 
and, it must be said, without such community even the free 
and self-secured individual cannot in the long run prosper. 10 

10 More than a hundred years ago, in times not so unlike our own, Pestalozzi wrote 
(ibid., p. 186): "The race of men cannot remain socially united without some order- 
ing power. Culture has the power to unite men as individuals, in independence and 

108 



PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY 



Moreover, the common weal is best served by independent per- 
sonalities. Whether man today possesses the maturity needed 
for such a decision is another question. On the other hand, 
solutions which violently forestall natural development and 
are forced on mankind are equally questionable. The facts of 
nature cannot in the long run be violated. Penetrating and 
seeping through everything like water, they will undermine 
any system that fails to take account of them, and sooner or 
later they will bring about its downfall. But an authority wise- 
enough in its statesmanship to give sufficient free play to na- 
tureof which spirit is a part need fear no premature decline. 
It is perhaps a humiliating sign of spiritual immaturity that 
European man needs, and wants, a large measure of authority. 
The fact has to be faced that countless millions in Europe with 
the guilty complicity of reformers whose childishness is only 
equalled by their lack of tradition have escaped from the 
authority of the Church and the patria potestas of kings and 
emperors only to fall helpless and senseless victims to any power 
that cares to assume authority. The immaturity of man is a fact 
that must enter into all our calculations. 

228 We in Switzerland are not living on a little planetoid re- 
volving in empty space, but on the same earth as the rest of 
Europe. We are right in the middle of these problems, and if we 
are unconscious, we are just as likely to succumb to them as the 
other nations. The most dangerous thing would be for us to 
imagine that we are on a higher plane of consciousness than our 
neighbours. There is no question of that. While it would be an 
impropriety for a handful of psychologists and psychotherapists 
like ourselves to take our importance too seriously or I might 
say, too pompously I would nevertheless emphasize that just 
because we are psychologists it is our first task and duty to under- 
stand the psychic situation of our time and to see clearly the 
problems and challenges with which it faces us. Even if our voice 

freedom, through law and art. But a cultureless civilization unites them as masses, 
without regard to independence, freedom, law or art, through the power of coer- 
cion." [N.B. Pestalozzi evidently subscribes to the Germanic distinction between 
Kultur and Zivilisation, where the latter term is employed in a pejorative sense. 
The idea is that culture, deriving ultimately from tillage and worship (cultus), is a 
natural organic growth, whereas civilization is an affair of the city (civis) and thus 
something artificial. Cf. note 9 above. TRANS.] 

109 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



is too weak to make itself heard above the tumult of political 
strife and fades away ineffectively, we may yet comfort ourselves 
with the saying of the Chinese Master: "When the enlightened 
man is alone and thinks rightly, it can be heard a thousand miles 
away/* 

229 All beginnings are small. Therefore we must not mind 
doing tedious but conscientious work on obscure individuals, 
even though the goal towards which we strive seems unattain- 
ably far off. But one goal we can attain, and that is to develop 
and bring to maturity individual personalities. And inasmuch 
as we are convinced that the individual is the carrier of life, we 
have served life's purpose if one tree at least succeeds in bearing 
fruit, though a thousand others remain barren. Anyone who 
proposed to bring all growing things to the highest pitch of 
luxuriance would soon find the weeds those hardiest of per- 
ennialswaving above his head. I therefore consider it the 
prime task of psychotherapy today to pursue with singleness of 
purpose the goal of individual development. So doing, our 
efforts will follow nature's own striving to bring life to the full- 
est possible fruition in each individual, for only in the indi- 
vidual can life fulfil its meaning not in the bird that sits in a 
gilded cage. 



no 



IX 

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS 
OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 1 

230 In the medical text-books of a few years back, under the 
general heading of "therapy/* at the end of a list of cures and 
pharmaceutical prescriptions, one might find a mysterious item 
called "psychotherapy." What exactly one was to understand by 
this remained shrouded in eloquent obscurity. What did it 
mean? Was it hypnosis, suggestion, persuasion, catharsis, psy- 
choanalysis, Adlerian education, autogenic training, or what? 
This list amply illustrates the vague multiplicity of opinions, 
views, theories, and methods that all pass under the name of 
* 'psychotherapy. ' ' 

23* When a new and uninhabited continent is discovered, there 
are no landmarks, no names, no highways, and every pioneer who 
sets foot upon it comes back with a different story. Something of 
this kind seems to have happened when medical men plunged 
for the first time into the new continent named "psyche." One 
of the first explorers to whom we are indebted for more or less 
intelligible reports is Paracelsus. His uncanny knowledge, which 
is at times not lacking in prophetic vision, was, however, ex- 
pressed in a language that was informed by the spirit of the six- 
teenth century. It abounds not only in demonological and al- 
chemical ideas, but in Paracelsian neologisms, whose florid 
exuberance compensated a secret feeling of inferiority quite in 
keeping with the self-assertiveness of their much maligned, and 
not unjustly misunderstood, creator. The scientific era, which 
began in earnest with the seventeenth century, cast out the 
pearls of Paracelsus' medical wisdom along with the other lum- 
ber. Not until two centuries later did a new and altogether dif- 
ferent kind of empiricism arise with Mesmer's theory of animal 
magnetism, stemming partly from practical experiences which 

i [First published as "Grundfragen der Psychotherapie," Dialecttca (Neuch^tel), V 
(1951): i, 8-54. EDITORS.] 

Ill 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



today we should attribute to suggestion, and partly from the old 
alchemical lore. Working along these lines, the physicians of the 
Romantic Age then turned their attention to somnambulism, 
thus laying the foundations for the clinical discovery of hysteria. 
But almost another century had to pass before Charcot and his 
school could begin to consolidate ideas in this field. We have to 
thank Pierre Janet for a deeper and more exact knowledge of 
hysterical symptoms, and the two French physicians, Liebeault 
and Bernheim, later to be joined by August Forel in Switzer- 
land, for a systematic investigation and description of the phe- 
nomena of suggestion, With the discovery by Breuer and Freud 
of the affective origins of psychogenic symptoms, our knowledge 
of their causation took a decisive step forward into the realm of 
psychology. The fact that the affectively toned memory images 
which are lost to consciousness lay at the root of the hysterical 
symptom immediately led to the postulate of an unconscious 
layer of psychic happenings. This layer proved to be, not "so- 
matic," as the academic psychology of those days was inclined 
to assume, but psychic, because it behaves exactly like any other 
psychic function from which consciousness is withdrawn, and 
which thus ceases to be associated with the ego. As Janet showed 
almost simultaneously with Freud, but independently of him, 
this holds true of hysterical symptoms generally. But whereas 
Janet supposed that the reason for the withdrawal of conscious- 
ness must lie in some specific weakness, Freud pointed out that 
the memory images which produce the symptoms are character- 
ized by a disagreeable affective tone. Their disappearance from 
consciousness could thus easily be explained by repression. 
Freud therefore regarded the aetiological contents as "incom- 
patible** with the tendencies of the conscious mind. This hy- 
pothesis was supported by the fact that repressed memories 
frequently arouse a moral censorship, and do so precisely on 
account of their traumatic or morally repellent nature. 
* Freud extended the repression theory to the whole field of 
psychogenic neuroses with great practical success; indeed, he went 
on to use it as an explanation of culture as a whole. With this he 
found himself in the sphere of general psychology, which had 
long been entrusted to the philosophical faculty. Apart from a 
few technical terms and methodical points of view, psychology, 
as practised by the doctor, had not so far been able to borrow 

112 



FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

much from the philosophers, and so medical psychology, on en- 
countering an unconscious psyche right at the beginning of its 
career, literally stepped into a vacuum. The concept of the un- 
conscious was, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, anathematized 
by academic psychology, so that only the phenomena of conscious- 
ness were left as a possible object for psychological research. The 
collision between the medical approach and the general psychol- 
ogy then prevailing was therefore considerable. On the other 
hand, Freud's discoveries were just as much of a challenge and a 
stumbling-block to the purely somatic views of the doctors. And 
so they have remained for the last fifty years. It needed the trend 
towards psychosomatic medicine that came over from America 
to put a fresher complexion on the picture. Even so, general psy- 
chology has still not been able to draw the necessary conclusions 
from the fact of the unconscious. 

*33 Any advance into new territory is always attended by certain 
dangers, for the pioneer has to rely in all his undertakings upon 
the equipment he happens to take with him. This, in the present 
instance, is his training in somatic medicine, his general educa- 
tion, and his view of the world, which is based chiefly on subjec- 
tive premises, partly temperamental, partly social. His medical 
premises enable him to size up correctly the somatic and biologi- 
cal aspects of the material he has to deal with; his general educa- 
tion makes it possible for him to form an approximate idea of the 
nature of the repressive factor; and finally, his view of the world 
helps him to put his special knowledge on a broader basis and to 
fit it into a larger whole. But when scientific research moves into 
a region hitherto undiscovered and therefore unknown, the 
pioneer must always bear in mind that another explorer, setting 
foot on the new continent at another place and with other equip- 
ment, may well sketch quite another picture. 

2 34 So it happened with Freud: his pupil Alfred Adler devel- 
oped a view which shows neurosis in a very different light. It is 
no longer the sexual urge, or the pleasure principle, that domi- 
nates the picture, but the urge to power (self-assertion, "mascu- 
line protest/' "the will to be on top"). As I have shown in a 
concrete instance, 2 both theories can be successfully applied to 
one and the same case; moreover it is a well-known psycholog- 
ical fact that the two urges keep the scales balanced, and that 

2 Two Essays, 88, pars. 16-55. 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the one generally underlies the other. Adler remained as one- 
sided as Freud, and both agree that not only the neurosis, but 
the man himself, can be explained from the shadow side, in 
terms of his moral inferiority. 

235 All this points to the existence of a personal equation, a sub- 
jective prejudice that was never submitted to criticism. The rigid- 
ity with which both men adhered to their position denotes, as 
always, the compensating of a secret uncertainty and an inner 
doubt. The facts as described by the two investigators are, if taken 
with a pinch of salt, right enough; but it is possible to interpret 
them in the one way as much as in the other, so that both are 
partially wrong, or rather, they are mutually complementary. 
The lesson to be drawn from this is that in practice one would 
do well to consider both points of view. 

23 The reason for this first dilemma of medical psychology pre- 
sumably lies in the fact that the doctors found no cultivated 
ground under their feet, since ordinary psychology had nothing 
concrete to offer them. They were therefore thrown back on their 
own subjective prejudices as soon as they looked round for tools. 
For me, this resolved itself into the pressing need to examine the 
kind of attitudes which human beings in general adopt towards 
the object (no matter what this object may be). Accordingly, I 
have come to postulate a number of types which all depend on 
the respective predominance of one or the other orienting func- 
tion of consciousness, and have devised a tentative scheme into 
which the various attitudes can be articulated. From this it would 
appear that there are no less than eight theoretically possible 
attitudes. If we add to these all the other more or less individual 
assumptions, it is evident that there is no end to the possible 
viewpoints, all of which have their justification, at least subjec- 
tively. In consequence, criticism of the psychological assumptions 
upon which a man's theories are based becomes an imperative 
necessity. Unfortunately, however, this has still not been gen- 
erally recognized, otherwise certain viewpoints could not be 
defended with such obstinacy and blindness. One can only under- 
stand why this should be so when one considers what the subjec- 
tive prejudice signifies: it is as a rule a carefully constructed 
product into whose making has gone the whole experience of a 
lifetime. It is the individual psyche colliding with the environ- 
ment. In the majority of cases, therefore, it is a subjective variant 

114 



FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

of a universal human experience, and for that very reason care- 
ful self-criticism and detailed comparison are needed if we are to 
frame our judgments on a more universal basis. But the more we 
rely on the principles of consciousness in endeavouring to per- 
form this essential task, the greater becomes the danger of our in- 
terpreting experience in those terms, and thus of doing violence 
to the facts by excessive theorizing. Our psychological experience 
is still too recent and too limited in scope to permit of general 
theories. The investigator needs a lot more facts which would 

, throw light on the nature of the psyche before he can begin to 
think of universally valid propositions. For the present we must 
observe the rule that a psychological proposition can only lay 
claim to significance if the obverse of its meaning can also be 
accepted as true. 

237 Personal and theoretical -prejudices are the most serious ob- 
stacles in the way of psychological judgment. They can, however, 
be eliminated with a little good will and insight. Freud himself 
accepted my suggestion that every doctor should submit to a 
training analysis before interesting himself in the unconscious of 
his patients for therapeutic purposes. All intelligent psycho- 
therapists who recognize the need for conscious realization of 
unconscious aetiological factors agree with this view. Indeed it is 
sufficiently obvious, and has been confirmed over and over again 
by experience, that what the doctor fails to see in himself he 
either will not see at all, or will see grossly exaggerated, in his 
patient; further, he encourages those things to which he himself 
unconsciously inclines, and condemns everything that he abhors 
in himself. Just as one rightly expects the surgeon's hands to be 
free from infection, so one ought to insist with especial emphasis 
that the psychotherapist be prepared at all times to exercise ade- 
quate self-criticism, a necessity which is all the more incumbent 
upon him when he comes up against insuperable resistances in 
the patient which may possibly be justified. He should remember 
that the patient is there to be treated and not to verify a theory. 
For that matter, there is no single theory in the whole field of 
practical psychology that cannot on occasion prove basically 
wrong. In particular, the view that the patient's resistances are 
in no circumstances justified is completely fallacious. The resist- 
ance might very well prove that the treatment rests on false 
assumptions. 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



*3 8 I have dwelt on the theme of training analysis at some 
length because of late there have been renewed tendencies to 
build up the doctor's authority as such, and thus to inaugurate 
another era of ex cathedra psychotherapy, a project which 
differs in no way from the somewhat antiquated techniques of 
suggestion, whose inadequacy has long since become apparent. 
(This is not to say that suggestion therapy is never indicated.) 

2 39 The intelligent psychotherapist has known for years that 
any complicated treatment is an individual, dialectical process, 
in which the doctor, as a person, participates just as much as the 
patient. In any such discussion the question of whether the doctor 
has as much insight into his own psychic processes as he expects 
from his patient naturally counts for a very great deal, particu- 
larly in regard to the "rapport," or relationship of mutual confi- 
dence, on which the therapeutic success ultimately depends. The 
patient, that is to say, can win his own inner security only from 
the security of his relationship to the doctor as a human being. 
The doctor can put over his authority with fairly good results on 
people who are easily gulled. But for critical eyes it is apt to look 
a little too threadbare. This is also the reason why the priest, the 
predecessor of the doctor in his role of healer and psychologist, 
has in large measure forfeited his authority, at any rate with the 
educated public. Difficult cases, therefore, are a veritable ordeal 
for both patient and doctor. The latter should be prepared for 
this as far as possible by a thorough training analysis. It is far 
from being either an ideal or an absolutely certain means of dis- 
pelling illusions and projections, but at least it demonstrates the 
need for self-criticism and can reinforce the psychotherapist's 
aptitude in this direction. No analysis is capable of banishing all 
unconsciousness for ever. The analyst must go on learning end- 
lessly, and never forget that each new case brings new problems to 
light and thus gives rise to unconscious assumptions that have 
never before been constellated. We could say, without too much 
exaggeration, that a good half of every treatment that probes at 
all deeply consists in the doctor's examining himself, for only 
what he can put right in himself can he hope to put right in the 
patient. It is no loss, either, if he feels that the patient is hitting 
him, or even scoring off him: it is his own hurt that gives the 
measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the mean- 
ing of the Greek myth of the wounded physician. 3 

3 Ker&iyi, Der gdttliche Arzt, 95, p. 84. 



FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

24 The problems with which we are concerned here do not occur 
in the field of "minor" psychotherapy, where the doctor can get 
along quite well with suggestion, good advice, or an apt explana- 
tion. But neuroses or psychotic borderline states in complicated 
and intelligent people frequently require what is called "major" 
psychotherapy, that is, the dialectical procedure. In order to con- 
duct this with any prospect of success, all subjective and theoreti- 
cal assumptions must be eliminated as far as practicable. One 
cannot treat a Mohammedan on the basis of Christian beliefs, nor 
a Parsi with Jewish orthodoxy, nor a Christian with the pagan 
philosophy of the ancient world, without introducing dangerous 
foreign bodies into his psychic organism. This sort of thing is 
constantly practised, and not always with bad results; but, for all 
that, it is an experiment whose legitimacy seems to me exceed- 
ingly doubtful. I think a conservative treatment is the more ad- 
visable. One should, if possible, not destroy any values that have 
not proved themselves definitely injurious. To replace a Chris- 
tian view of the world by a materialistic one is, to my way of 
thinking, just as wrong as the attempt to argue with a convinced 
materialist. That is the task of the missionary, not of the doctor. 

24 1 Many psychotherapists, unlike me, hold the view that theo- 
retical problems do not enter into the therapeutic process at all. 
The aetiological factors, they think, are all questions of purely 
personal psychology. But if we scrutinize these factors more 
closely, we find that they present quite a different picture. Take, 
for example, the sexual urge, which plays such an enormous role 
in Freudian theory. This urge, like every other urge, is not a per- 
sonal acquisition, but Is an objective and universal datum that 
has nothing whatever to do with our personal wishes, desires, 
opinions, and decisions. It is a completely impersonal force, and 
all we can do is to try to come to terms with it with the help of 
subjective and theoretical judgments. Of these latter, only the 
subjective premises (and then only a part of them) belong to the 
personal sphere; for the rest they are derived from the stream of 
tradition and from environmental influences, and only a very 
small fraction of them has been built up personally as a result of 
conscious choice. Just as I find myself moulded by external and 
objective social influences, so also I am moulded by internal and 
unconscious forces, which I have summed up under the term "the 
subjective factor/* The man with the extraverted attitude bases 
himself primarily on social relationships; the other, the introvert, 

117 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



primarily on the subjective factor. The former is largely unaware 
of his subjective determinacy and regards it as insignificant; as 
a matter of fact, he is frightened of it. The latter has little or no 
interest in social relationships; he prefers to ignore them, feeling 
them to be onerous, even terrifying. To the one, the world of 
relationships is the important thing; for him it represents normal- 
ity, the goal of desire. The other is primarily concerned with the 
inner pattern of his life, with his own self -consistency. 

242 When we come to analyse the personality, we find that the 
extravert makes a niche for himself in the world of relationships 
at the cost of unconsciousness (of himself as a subject); while the 
introvert, in realizing his personality, commits the grossest mis- 
takes in the social sphere and blunders about in the most absurd 
way. These two very typical attitudes are enough to show quite 
apart from the types of physiological temperament described by 
Kretschmer how little one can fit human beings and their neu- 
roses into the strait jacket of a single theory. 

243 As a rule these subjective premises are quite unknown to the 
patient, and also, unfortunately, to the doctor, so that the latter 
is too often tempted to overlook the old adage quod licet ]ovi, 
non licet bovi, or in other words, one man's meat is another man's 
poison, and in this way to unlock doors that were better shut, and 
vice versa. Medical theory is just as likely as the patient to become 
the victim of its own subjective premises, even if to a lesser de- 
gree, since it is at least the outcome of comparative work on a 
large number of cases and has therefore rejected any excessively 
individual variants. This, however, is only in the smallest degree 
true of the personal prejudices of its creator. Though the com- 
parative work will do something to mitigate them, they will 
nevertheless give a certain colouring to his medical activities and 
will impose certain limits. Accordingly, one urge or the other, one 
idea or the other, will then impose itself as the limit and become 
a bogus principle which is the be-all and end-all of research. With- 
in this framework everything can be observed correctly and 
according to the subjective premise logically interpreted, as 
was undoubtedly the case with Freud and Adler; and yet in spite 
of this, or perhaps just because of it, very different views will 
result, in fact to all appearances they will be flatly irreconcilable. 
The reason obviously lies in the subjective premise, which assimi- 
lates what suits it and discards what does not. 

118 



FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

244 Such developments are by no means the exception in the his- 
tory of science, they are the rule. Anyone who accuses modern 
medical psychology of not even being able to reach agreement on 
its own theories is completely forgetting that no science can retain 
its vitality without divergences of theory. Disagreements of this 
kind are, as always, incentives to a new and deeper questioning. 
So also in psychology. The Freud-Adler dilemma found its solu- 
tion in the acceptance of divergent principles, each of which laid 
stress on one particular aspect of the total problem. 

245 Seen from this angle, there are numerous lines of research still 
waiting to be opened up. One of the most interesting, perhaps, is 
the problem of the a priori attitude-type and of the functions 
underlying it. This was the line followed by the Rorschach test, 
Gestalt psychology, and the various other attempts to classify 
type-differences. Another possibility, which seems to me equally 
important, is the investigation of the theoretical 4 factors that 
have proved to be of such cardinal importance when it comes to 
choosing and deciding. They have to be considered not only in 
the aetiology of neurosis, but in the evaluation of the analytical 
findings. Freud himself laid great emphasis on the function of the 
moral "censor" as one cause of repression, and he even felt obliged 
to hold up religion as one of the neuroticizing factors which lend 
support to infantile wish-fantasies. There are, in addition, theo- 
retical assumptions that claim to play a decisive part in "sublima- 
tion" value-categories that are supposed to help or hinder the 
work of fitting the tendencies revealed by the analysis of the un- 
conscious into the life-plan of the patient. The very greatest sig- 
nificance attaches to the investigation of these so-called theore- 
tical factors, not only in regard to the aetiology but what is far 
more important in regard to the therapy and necessary recon- 
struction of the personality, as Freud himself confirmed, even if 
only negatively, in his later writings. A substantial part of these 
factors was termed by him the "super-ego," which is the sum of 
all the collective beliefs and values consciously handed down by 
tradition. These, like the Torah for the orthodox Jew, constitute 

4 [Literally weltanschaulich, "pertaining to one's view of the world/* Weltan- 
schauung is usually translated as "philosophy (of life)," "world-view," etc. In the 
present context, "theoretical" is used in the precise sense of the Greek fteooQta, 
which meant "looking about the world," "contemplation"; hence "speculation." 
Cf. p. 100, note 4. TRANS.] 

1*9 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



a solidly entrenched psychic system which is superordinate to the 
ego and the cause of numerous conflicts. 

246 Freud also observed that the unconscious occasionally pro- 
duces images that can only be described as "archaic/' They are 
found more particularly in dreams and in waking fantasies. He, 
too, tried to interpret or amplify such symbols "historically/' as 
for example in his study of the dual mother motif in a dream of 
Leonardo da Vinci, 5 

247 Now it is a well-known fact that the factors composing the 
"super-ego" correspond to the "collective representations" which 
Levy-Bruhl posited as basic to the psychology of primitive man. 
The latter are general ideas and value-categories which have their 
origin in the primordial motifs of mythology, and they govern the 
psychic and social life of the primitive in much the same way as 
our lives are governed and moulded by the general beliefs, views, 
and ethical values in accordance with which we are brought up 
and by which we make our way in the world. They intervene 
almost automatically in all our acts of choice and decision, as 
well as being operative in the formation of concepts. With a little 
reflection, therefore, we can practically always tell why we do 
something and on what general assumptions our judgments and 
decisions are based. The false conclusions and wrong decisions of 
the neurotic have pathogenic effects because they are as a rule in 
conflict with these premises. Whoever can live with these premises 
without friction fits into our society as perfectly as the primitive, 
who takes his tribal teachings as an absolute rule of conduct. 

248 But when an individual, as a result perhaps of some anomaly 
in his personal disposition (no matter what this may be), ceases to 
conform to the canon of collective ideas, he will very likely find 
himself not only in conflict with society, but in disharmony with 
himself, since the super-ego represents another psychic system 
within him. In that case he will become neurotic: a dissociation 
of the personality supervenes, which, given the necessary psycho- 
pathic foundation, may lead to its complete fragmentation, that 
is, to the schizoid personality and to schizophrenia. Such a case 
serves as a model for the personal neurosis, for which an explana- 
tion in personalistic terms is quite sufficient, as we know from 
experience that no further procedure is necessary for a cure except 
the demolition of the subject's false conclusions and wrong deci- 
5 Freud, 52. 

120 



FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

sions. His wrong attitude having been corrected, the patient can 
then fit into society again. His illness was in fact nothing but the 
product of a certain "weakness," either congenital or acquired. 
In cases of this kind it would be a bad mistake to try to alter any- 
thing in the fundamental idea, the "collective representation." 
That would only thrust the patient still deeper into his conflict 
with society by countenancing his pathogenic weakness. 

249 Clinical observations seem to show that schizophrenes fall 
into two different groups: an asthenic type (hence the French 
term psychasthenie) and a spastic type, given to active conflict. 
And the same is true of neurotics. The first type is represented by 
the kind of neurosis which can be explained purely personal- 
istically, as it is a form of maladjustment based on personal weak- 
ness. The second type is represented by individuals who could be 
adjusted without much difficulty, and who have also proved their 
aptitude for it. But for some reason or other they cannot or will 
not adjust themselves, and they do not understand why their own 
particular "adjustment" does not make normal life possible for 
them, when in their estimation such a life should be well within 
the bounds of possibility. The reason for their neurosis seems to 
lie in their having something above the average, an overplus for 
which there is no adequate outlet. We may then expect the 
patient to be consciously orin most cases unconsciously critical 
of the generally accepted views and ideas. Freud, too, seems to 
have come across similar experiences, otherwise he w^ould hardly 
have felt impelled to attack religion from the standpoint of the 
medical psychologist, as being the cornerstone of a man's funda- 
mental beliefs. Seen in the light of medical experience, however, 
this attempt was, in a sense, thoroughly consistent with its own 
premises, although one can hold a very different view on the 
manner in which it was conducted; for not only is religion not the 
enemy of the sick, it is actually a system of psychic healing, as the 
use of the Christian term "cure of souls" makes clear, and as is 
also evident from the Old Testament. 6 

250 It is principally the neuroses of the second type that confront 
the doctor with problems of this kind. There are in addition not 
a few patients who, although they have no clinically recognizable 
neurosis, come to consult the doctor on account of psychic con- 
flicts and various other difficulties in their lives, laying before 

6 E.g., Psalms 147:3 and Job 5:18. 

121 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



him problems whose answer inevitably involves a discussion of 
fundamental questions. Such people often know very well-what 
the neurotic seldom or never knowsthat their conflicts have to 
do with the fundamental problem of their own attitude, and that 
this is bound up with certain principles or general ideas, in a 
word, with their religious, ethical, or philosophical beliefs. It is 
precisely because of such cases that psychotherapy has to spread 
far beyond the confines of somatic medicine and psychiatry into 
regions that were formerly the province of priests and philoso- 
phers. From the degree to which priests and philosophers no 
longer discharge any duties in this respect or their competence to 
do so has been denied by the public, we can see what an enormous 
gap the psychotherapist is sometimes called upon to fill, and how 
remote religion on the one hand and philosophy on the other 
have become from the actualities of life. The parson is blamed 
because one always knows in advance what he is going to say; the 
philosopher, because he never says anything of the slightest prac- 
tical value. And the odd thing is that both of them with few and 
ever fewer exceptionsare distinctly unsympathetic towards 
psychology. 

* The positive meaning of the religious factor in a man's philo- 
sophical outlook will not, of course, prevent certain views and 
interpretations from losing their force and becoming obsolete, 
as a result of changes in the times, in the social conditions, and in 
the development of human consciousness. The old mythologems 
upon which all religion is ultimately based are, as we now see 
them, the expression of inner psychic events and experiences; 
and, by means of a ritualistic "anamnesis," they enable the con- 
scious mind to preserve its link with the unconscious, which con- 
tinues to send out or "ecphorate" 7 the primordial images just as 
it did in the remote past. These images give adequate expression 
to the unconscious, and its instinctive movements can in that way 
be transmitted to the conscious mind without friction, so that the 
conscious mind never loses touch with its instinctive roots. If, 
however, certain of these images become antiquated, if, that is to 
say, they lose all intelligible connection with our contemporary 
consciousness, then our conscious acts of choice and decision are 
sundered from their instinctive roots, and a partial disorienta- 
tion results, because our judgment then lacks any feeling of 

7 [From E5t(poQ80>, "to carry forth." TRANS.] 



FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

definiteness and certitude, and there is no emotional driving- 
force behind decision. The collective representations that con- 
nect primitive man with the life of his ancestors or with the 
founders of his tribe form the bridge to the unconscious for 
civilized man also, who, if he is a believer, will see it as the world 
of divine presences. Today these bridges are in a state of partial 
collapse, and the doctor is in no position to hold those who are 
worst hit responsible for the disaster. He knows that it is due far 
more to a shifting, of the whole psychic situation over many cen- 
turies, such as has happened more than once in human history. 
In the face of such transformations the individual is powerless. 

252 The doctor can only look on and try to understand the at- 
tempts at restitution and cure which nature herself is making. 
Experience has long shown that between conscious and uncon- 
scious there exists a compensatory relationship, and that the un- 
conscious always tries to make whole the conscious part of the 
psyche by adding to it the parts that are missing, and so prevent a 
dangerous loss of balance. In our own case, as might be expected, 
the unconscious produces compensating symbols which are meant 
to replace the broken bridges, but which can only do so with the 
active co-operation of consciousness. In other words, these sym- 
bols must, if they are to be effective, be "understood" by the con- 
scious mind; they must be assimilated and integrated. A dream 
that is not understood remains a mere occurrence; understood, it 
becomes a living experience. 

253 I therefore consider it my main task to examine the manifes- 
tations of the unconscious in order to learn its language. But 
since, on the one hand, the theoretical assumptions we have 
spoken of are of eminently historical interest, and, on the other 
hand, the symbols produced by the unconscious derive from ar- 
chaic modes of psychic functioning, one must, in carrying out 
these investigations, have at one's command a vast amount of 
historical material; and, secondly, one must bring together and 
collate an equally large amount of empirical material based on 
direct observation. 

254 The practical need for a deeper understanding of the prod- 
ucts of the unconscious is sufficiently obvious. In pursuit of this, 
I am only going further along the path taken by Freud, though I 
certainly try to avoid having any preconceived metaphysical 
opinions. I try rather to keep to first-hand experience, and to 

123 



GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



leave metaphysical beliefs, either for or against, to look after 
themselves. I do not imagine for a moment that I can stand above 
or beyond the psyche, so that it would be possible to judge it, as it 
were, from some transcendental Archimedean point "outside." I 
am fully aware that I am entrapped in the psyche and that I can- 
not do anything except describe the experiences that there befall 
me. When, for instance, one examines the world of fairytales, one 
can hardly avoid the impression that one is meeting certain fig- 
ures again and again, albeit in altered guise. Such comparisons 
lead on to what the student of folklore calls the investigation of 
motifs. The psychologist of the unconscious proceeds no differ- 
ently in regard to the psychic figures which appear in dreams, 
fantasies, visions, and manic ideas, as in legends, fairytales, myth, 
and religion. Over the whole of this psychic realm there reign 
certain motifs, certain typical figures which we can follow far 
back into history, and even into prehistory, and which may there- 
fore legitimately be described as "archetypes." 8 They seem to me 
to be built into the very structure of man's unconscious, for in 
no other way can I explain why it is that they occur universally 
and in identical form, whether the redeemer-figure be a fish, a 
hare, a lamb, a snake, or a human being. It is the same redeemer- 
figure in a variety of accidental disguises. From numerous expe- 
riences of this kind I have come to the conclusion that the most 
individual thing about man is surely his consciousness, but that 
his shadow, by which I mean the uppermost layer of his uncon- 
scious, is far less individualized, the reason being that a man is 
distinguished from his fellows more by his virtues than by his 
negative qualities. The unconscious, however, in its principal 
and most overpowering manifestations, can only be regarded as a 
collective phenomenon which is everywhere identical, and, be- 
cause it never seems to be at variance with itself, it may well 
possess a marvellous unity and self-consistency, the nature of 
which is at present shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Another 
fact to be considered here is the existence today of parapsychol- 
ogy, whose proper subject is manifestations that are directly con- 
nected with the unconscious. The most important of these are 

8 The concept of the archetype is a specifically psychological instance of the "pat- 
tern of behaviour" in biology. Hence it has nothing whatever to do with inherited 
ideas, but with modes of behaviour. 

124 



FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

the E.S.P. 9 phenomena, which medical psychology should on no 
account ignore. If these phenomena prove anything at all, it is 
the fact of a certain psychic relativity of space and time, which 
throws a significant light on the unity of the collective uncon- 
scious. For the present, at any rate, only two groups of facts have 
been established with any certainty: firstly, the congruence of 
individual symbols and mythologems; and secondly, the phe- 
nomenon of extra-sensory perception. The interpretation of these 
phenomena is reserved for the future, 

9 Extra-sensory perception. 



125 



II 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS 

OF 
PSYCHOTHERAPY 



THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ABREACTION * 

5 In his discussion of William Brown's paper, "The Revival 
of Emotional Memories and Its Therapeutic Value/' William 
McDougall, writing in the British Journal of Psychology* gave 
expression to some important considerations which I would 
like to underline here. The neuroses resulting from the Great 
War have, with their essentially traumatic aetiology, revived 
the whole question of the trauma theory of neurosis. During 
the years of peace this theory had rightly been kept in the back- 
ground of scientific discussion, since its conception of neurotic 
aetiology is far from adequate. 

6 The originators of the theory were Breuer and Freud. 
Freud went on to a deeper investigation of the neuroses and 
soon adopted a view that took more account of their real ori- 
gins. In by far the greater number of ordinary cases there is no 
question of a traumatic aetiology. 

7 But, in order to create the impression that the neurosis is 
caused by some trauma or other, unimportant and secondary 
occurrences must be given an artificial prominence for the sake 
of the theory. These traumata, when they are not mere products 
of medical fantasy, or else the result of the patient's own com- 
pliancy, are secondary phenomena, the outcome of an attitude 
that is already neurotic. The neurosis is as a rule a pathological, 
one-sided development of the personality, the imperceptible 
beginnings of which can be traced back almost indefinitely into 
the earliest years of childhood. Only a very arbitrary judgment 
can say where the neurosis actually begins. 

1 [Written in English. First published in the British Journal of Psychology (Lon- 
don), Medical Section, II (1921): i, 13-22. Revised and published in Contributions 
to Analytical Psychology (London and New York, 1928), pp. 282-94. Some verbal 
alterations to the revised version have been made here. EDITORS.] 

2 Brown, 31; McDougall, 111. 

129 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



*5V-~ If we were to relegate the determining cause as far back as 
/the patient's prenatal life, thus involving the physical and 

\ psychic disposition of the parents at the time of conception and 
/ pregnancy a view that seems not at all improbable in certain 
v ) cases such an attitude would be more justifiable than the arbi- 
trary selection of a definite point of neurotic origin in the indi- 
vidual life of the patient. 

259 Clearly, in dealing with this question, one should never be 
influenced too much by the surface appearance of the symptoms, 
even when both the patient and his family synchronize the first 
manifestation of these with the onset of the neurosis. A more 
thorough investigation will almost invariably show that some 
morbid tendency existed long before the appearance of clinical 
symptoms. 

260 These obvious facts, long familiar to every specialist, 
pushed the trauma theory into the background until, as a re- 
sult of the war, there was a regular spate of traumatic neuroses. 

261 Now, if we set aside the numerous cases of war neurosis 
where a trauma a violent shock impinged upon an established 
neurotic history, there still remain not a few cases where no 
neurotic disposition can be established, or where it is so insig- 
nificant that the neurosis could hardly have arisen without a 
trauma. Here the trauma is more than an agent of release: it is 
causative in the sense of a causa efficient, especially when we 
include, as an essential factor, the unique psychic atmosphere of 
the battlefield. 

262 These cases present us with a new therapeutic problem 
which seems to justify a return to the original Breuer-Freud 
method and its underlying theory; for the trauma is either a 
single, definite, violent impact, or a complex of ideas and emo- 
tions which may be likened to a psychic wound. Everything that 
touches this complex, however slightly, excites a vehement re- 
action, a regular emotional explosion. Hence one could easily 
represent the trauma as a complex with a high emotional 
charge, and because this enormously effective charge seems at 
first sight to be the pathological cause of the disturbance, one 
can accordingly postulate a therapy whose aim is the complete 
release of this charge. Such a view is both simple and logical, 
and it is in apparent agreement with the fact that abreaction 
i.e., the dramatic rehearsal of the traumatic moment, its emo- 

130 



THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ABREACTION 



tional recapitulation in the waking or in the hypnotic state- 
often has a beneficial therapeutic effect. We all know that a 
man feels a compelling need to recount a vivid experience 
again and again until it has lost its affective value. As the 
proverb says, "What filleth the heart goeth out by the mouth." 
The unbosoming gradually depotentiates the affectlvity of the 
traumatic experience until it no longer has a disturbing influ- 
ence. 

263 This conception, apparently so clear and simple, is unfor- 
tunatelyas McDougall rightly objects no more adequate than 
many another equally simple and therefore delusive explana- 
tion. Views of this kind have to be fiercely and fanatically de- 
fended as though they were dogmas, because they cannot hold 
their own in the face of experience. McDougall is also right 
to point out that in quite a large number of cases abreaction 
is not only useless but actually harmful. 

264 In reply, it is possible to take up the attitude of an in- 
jured theorist and say that the abreactive method never claimed 
to be a panacea, and that refractory cases are to be met with in 
every method. 

265 But, I would rejoin, it is precisely here, in a careful study 
of the refractory cases, that we gain the most illuminating in- 
sight into the method or theory in question, for they disclose 
far more clearly than the successes just where the theory is 
weak. Naturally this does not disprove the efficacy of the method 
or its justification, but it does at least lead to a possible im- 
provement of the theory and, indirectly, of the method. 

266 McDougall, therefore, has laid his finger on the right spot 
when he argues that the essential factor is the dissociation of 
the psyche, and not the existence of a highly charged affect and, 
consequently, that the main therapeutic problem is not abre- 
action but how to integrate the dissociation. This argument ad- 
vances our discussion and entirely agrees with our experience 
that a traumatic complex brings about dissociation of the 
psyche. The complex is not under the control of the will and 
for this reason it possesses the quality of psychic autonomy. 

267 Its autonomy consists in its power to manifest itself in- 
dependently of the will and even in direct opposition to con- 
scious tendencies: it forces itself tyrannically upon the con- 
scious mind. The explosion of affect is a complete invasion of 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the individual, it pounces upon him like an enemy or a wild 
animal. I have frequently observed that the typical traumatic 
affect is represented in dreams as a wild and dangerous animal 
a striking illustration of its autonomous nature when split off 
from consciousness. 

268 Considered from this angle, abreaction appears in an es- 

C sentially different light: as an attempt to reintegrate the au- 

I tonomous complex, to incorporate it gradually into the con- 

) scious mind as an accepted content, by living the traumatic 

j situation over again, once or repeatedly. 

269 But I rather question whether the thing is as simple as 
that, or whether there may not be other factors essential to the 
process. For it must be emphasized that mere rehearsal of the 
experience does not itself possess a curative effect: the experi- 
ence must be rehearsed in the presence of the doctor. 

*7 If the curative effect depended solely upon the rehearsal 
of experience, abreaction could be performed by the patient 
alone, as an isolated exercise, and there would be no need of 
any human object upon whom to discharge the affect. But the 
intervention of the doctor is absolutely necessary. One can 
easily see what it means to the patient when he can confide his 
experience to an understanding and sympathetic doctor. His 
conscious mind finds in the doctor a moral support against 
the unmanageable affect of his traumatic complex. No longer 
does he stand alone in his battle with these elemental powers, 
but some one whom he trusts reaches out a hand, lending him 
moral strength to combat the tyranny of uncontrolled emotion. 
In this way the integrative powers of his conscious mind are re- 
inforced until he is able once more to bring the rebellious af- 
fect under control. This influence on the part of the doctor, 
which is absolutely essential, may, if you like, be called sugges- 
tion. 

27 1 For myself, I would rather call it his human interest and 
personal devotion. These are the property of no method, nor 
can they ever become one; they are moral qualities which are 
of the greatest importance in all methods of psychotherapy, and 
not in the case of abreaction alone. The rehearsal of the trau- 
matic moment is able to reintegrate the neurotic dissociation 
only when the conscious personality of the patient is so far re- 
inforced by his relationship to the doctor that he can con- 

132 



THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ABREACTION 



sciously bring the autonomous complex under the control of 
his will. 

272 Only under these conditions has abreaction a curative 
value. But this does not depend solely on the discharge of af- 
fective tension; it depends, as McDougall shows, far more on 
whether or not the dissociation is successfully resolved. Hence 
the cases where abreaction has a negative result appear in a 
different light. 

273 In the absence of the conditions just mentioned, abreac- 
tion by itself is not sufficient to resolve the dissociation. If the 
rehearsal of the trauma fails to reintegrate the autonomous com- 
plex, then the relationship to the doctor can so raise the level 
of the patient's consciousness as to enable him to overcome the 
complex and assimilate it. But it may easily happen that the 
patient has a particularly obstinate resistance to the doctor, or 
that the doctor does not have the right kind of attitude to the 
patient. In either case the abreactive method breaks down. 

74 It stands to reason that when dealing with neuroses which 
are traumatically determined only to a minor degree, the 
cathartic method of abreaction will meet with poor success. It 
has nothing to do with the nature of the neurosis, and its rigid 
application is quite ludicrous here. Even when a partial success 
is obtained, it can have no more significance than the success 
of any other method which admittedly had nothing to do with 
the nature of the neurosis. 

75 Success in these cases is due to suggestion; it is usually of 
very limited duration and clearly a matter of chance. The prime 
cause is always the transference to the doctor, and this is estab- 
lished without too much difficulty provided that the doctor 
evinces an earnest belief in his method. Precisely because it has 
as little to do with the nature of neurosis as, shall we say, hyp- 
nosis and other such cures, the cathartic method has, with few 
exceptions, long been abandoned in favour of analysis. 

276 Now it happens that the analytical method is most unas- 
sailable just where the cathartic method is most shaky: that is, 
in the relationship between doctor and patient. It matters little 
that, even today, the view prevails in many quarters that analy- 
sis consists mainly in "digging up" the earliest childhood com- 
plex in order to pluck out the evil by the root. This is merely 
the aftermath of the old trauma theory. Only in so far as they 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



hamper the patient's adaptation to the present have these his- 
torical contents any real significance. The painstaking pursuit 
of all the ramifications of infantile fantasy is relatively unim- 
portant in itself; the therapeutic effect comes from the doctor's 
efforts to enter into the psyche of his patient, thus establishing a 
psychologically adapted relationship. For the patient is suffer- 
ing precisely from the absence of such a relationship. Freud 
himself has long recognized that the transference is the alpha 
and omega of psychoanalysis. The transference is the patient's 
attempt to get into psychological rapport with the doctor. He 
needs this relationship if he Is to overcome the dissociation. 
The feebler the rapport, i.e., the less the doctor and patient 
understand one another, the more intensely will the transfer- 
ence be fostered and the more sexual will be its form. 

277 To attain the goal of adaptation is of such vital importance 
to the patient that sexuality intervenes as a function of com- 
pensation. Its aim is to consolidate a relationship that cannot 
ordinarily be achieved through mutual understanding. In 
these circumstances the transference can well become the most 
powerful obstacle to the success of the treatment. It is not 
surprising that violent sexual transferences are especially fre- 
quent when the analyst concentrates too much on the sexual 
aspect, for then all other roads to understanding are barred. 
An exclusively sexual interpretation of dreams and fantasies 
is a shocking violation of the patient's psychological material: 
infantile-sexual fantasy is by no means the whole story, since 
the material also contains a creative element, the purpose of 
which is to shape a way out of the neurosis. This natural means 
of escape is now blocked; the doctor is the only certain refuge 
in a wilderness of sexual fantasies, and the patient has no al- 
ternative but to cling to him with a convulsive erotic transfer- 
ence, unless he prefers to break off the relationship in hatred. 

2 78 In either case the result is spiritual desolation. This is the 
more regrettable since, obviously, psychoanalysts do not in the 
least desire such a melancholy result; yet they often bring it 
about through their blind allegiance to the dogma of sexuality. 

279 Intellectually, of course, the sexual interpretation is ex- 
tremely simple; it concerns itself at most with a handful of 
elementary facts which recur in numberless variations. One al- 
ways knows in advance where the matter will end. Inter faeces 

134 



THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ABREAGTION 



et urinam nascimur remains an eternal truth, but it is a sterile, 
a monotonous, and above all an unsavoury truth. There is ab- 
solutely no point in everlastingly reducing all the finest striv- 
ings of the soul back to the womb. It is a gross technical blunder 
because, instead of promoting, it destroys psychological under- 
standing. More than anything else neurotic patients need that 
psychological rapport; in their dissociated state it helps them 
to adjust themselves to the doctor's psyche. Nor is it by any 
means so simple to establish this kind of human relationship; 
it can only be built up with great pains and scrupulous atten- 
tion. The continual reduction of all projections to their origins 
and the transference is made up of projectionsmay be of 
considerable historical and scientific interest, but it never pro- 
duces an adapted attitude to life; for it constantly destroys the 
patient's every attempt to build up a normal human relation- 
ship by resolving it back into its elements. 

280 if, in spite of this, the patient does succeed in adapting 
himself to life, it will have been at the cost of many moral, in- 
tellectual, and aesthetic values whose loss to a man's character 
is a matter for regret. Quite apart from this major loss, there 
is the danger of perpetually brooding on the past, of looking 
back wistfully to things that cannot be remedied now: the mor- 
bid tendency, very common among neurotics, always to seek 
the cause of their inferiority in the dim bygone, in their up- 
bringing, the character of their parents, and so forth. 

281 This minute scrutiny of minor determinants will affect 
their present inferiority as little as the existing social condi- 
tions would be ameliorated by an equally painstaking investi- 
gation of the causes of the Great War. The real issue is the 
moral achievement of the whole personality. 

282 To assert, as a general principle, that a reductive analysis 
is unnecessary would of course be short-sighted and no more 
intelligent than to deny the value of all research into the causes 
of war. The doctor must probe as deeply as possible into the 
origins of the neurosis in order to lay the foundations of a 
subsequent synthesis. As a result of reductive analysis, the pa- 
tient is deprived of his faulty adaptation and led back to his 
beginnings. The psyche naturally seeks to make good this loss 
by intensifying its hold upon some human object- generally 
the doctor, but occasionally some other person, like the pa- 

135 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



tient's husband or a friend who acts as a counterpole to the 
doctor. This may effectively balance a one-sided transference, 
but it may also turn out to be a troublesome obstacle to the 
progress of the work. The intensified tie to the doctor is a com- 
pensation for the patient's faulty attitude to reality. This tie 
is what we mean by "transference." 

283 The transference phenomenon is an inevitable feature of 
every thorough analysis, for it is imperative that the doctor 
should get into the closest possible touch with the patient's 
line of psychological development. One could say that in the 
same measure as the doctor assimilates the intimate psychic 
contents of the patient into himself, he is in turn assimilated 
as a figure into the patient's psyche. I say "as a figure," because 
I mean that the patient sees him not as he really is, but as one 
of those persons who figured so significantly in his previous 
history. He becomes associated with those memory images in 
the patient's psyche because, like them, he makes the patient 
divulge all his intimate secrets. It is as though he were charged 
with the power of those memory images. 

284 The transference therefore consists in a number of pro- 
jections which act as a substitute for a real psychological rela- 
tionship. They create an apparent relationship and this is very 
important, since it comes at a time when the patient's habitual 
failure to adapt has been artificially intensified by his analytical 
removal into the past. Hence a sudden severance of the trans- 
ference is always attended by extremely unpleasant and even 
dangerous consequences, because it maroons the patient in an 
impossibly unrelated situation. 

285 Even if these projections are analysed back to their ori- 
ginsand all projections can be dissolved and disposed of in 
this way the patient's claim to human relationship still remains 
and should be conceded, for without a relationship of some 
kind he falls into a void. 

286 Somehow he must relate himself to an object existing in 
the immediate present if he is to meet the demands of adapta- 
tion with any degree of adequacy. Irrespective of the reduc- 
tive analysis, he will turn to the doctor not as an object of 
sexual desire, but as an object of purely human relationship in 
which each individual is guaranteed his proper place. Naturally 
this is impossible until all the projections have been consciously 

136 



THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ABREACTION 



recognized; consequently they must be subjected to a reduc- 
tive analysis before all else, provided of course that the legiti- 
macy and importance of the underlying claim to personal 
relationship is constantly borne in mind. 

387 Once the projections are recognized as such, the particu- 
lar form of rapport known as the transference is at an end, and 
the problem of individual relationship begins. Every student 
who has perused the literature and amused himself with in- 
terpreting dreams and unearthing complexes in himself and 
others can easily get as far as this, but beyond it no one has the 
right to go except the doctor who has himself undergone a 
thorough analysis, or can bring such passion for truth to the 
work that he can analyse himself through his patient. The doc- 
tor who has no wish for the one and cannot achieve the other 
should never touch analysis; he will be found wanting, cling 
as he may to his petty conceit of authority. 

288 in the last resort his whole work will be intellectual bluff 
for how can he help his patient to conquer his morbid inferi- 
ority when he himself is so manifestly inferior? How can the 
patient learn to abandon his neurotic subterfuges when he sees 
the doctor playing hide-and-seek with his own personality, as 
though unable, for fear of being thought inferior, to drop the 
professional mask of authority, competence, superior knowl- 
edge, etc.? 

289 The touchstone of every analysis that has not stopped 
short at partial success, or come to a standstill with no success 
at all, is always this person-to-person relationship, a psychologi- 
cal situation where the patient confronts the doctor upon equal 
terms, and with the same ruthless criticism that he must in- 
evitably learn from the doctor in the course of his treatment. 

290 This kind of personal relationship is a freely negotiated 
bond or contract as opposed to the slavish and humanly de- 
grading bondage of the transference. For the patient it is like 
a bridge; along it, he can make the first steps towards a worth- 
while existence. He discovers that his own unique personality 
has value, that he has been accepted for what he is, and that he 
has it in him to adapt himself to the demands of life. But this 
discovery will never be made while the doctor continues to hide 
behind a method, and allows himself to carp and criticize with- 
out question. Whatever method he then adopts, it will be little 

137 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



different from suggestion, and the results will match the 
method. In place of this, the patient must have the right to the 
freest criticism, and a true sense of human equality. 

29 1 I think I have said enough to indicate that, in my view, 
analysis makes far higher demands on the mental and moral 
stature of the doctor than the mere application of a routine 
technique, and also that his therapeutic influence lies primarily 
in this more personal direction. 

292 But if the reader should conclude that little or nothing 
lay in the method, I would regard that as a total misapprehen- 
sion of my meaning. Mere personal sympathy can never give 
the patient that objective understanding of his neurosis which 
makes him independent of the doctor and sets up a counter- 
influence to the transference. 

293 For the objective understanding of his malady, and for 
the creation of a personal relationship, science is needednot 
a purely medical knowledge that embraces only a limited field, 
but a wide knowledge of every aspect of the human psyche. The 
treatment must do more than destroy the old morbid attitude; 
it must build up a new attitude that is sound and healthy. This 
requires a fundamental change of vision. Not only must the 
patient be able to see the cause and origin of his neurosis, he 
must also see the legitimate psychological goal towards which 
he is striving. We cannot simply extract his morbidity like a 
foreign body, lest something essential be removed along with 
it, something meant for life. Our task is not to weed it out, but 
to cultivate and transform this growing thing until it can play 
its part in the totality of the psyche. 



138 



II 

THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS l 

294 The use of dream-analysis in psychotherapy is still a much 
debated question. Many practitioners find it indispensable in 
the treatment of neuroses, and consider that the dream is a 
function whose psychic importance is equal to that of the con- 
scious mind itself. Others, on the contrary, dispute the value 
of dream-analysis and regard dreams as a negligible by-product 
of the psyche. Obviously, if a person holds the view that the un- 
conscious plays a decisive part in the aetiology of neuroses, he 
will attribute a high practical importance to dreams as direct 
expressions of the unconscious. Equally obviously, if he denies 
the unconscious or at least thinks it aetiologically insignificant, 
he will minimize the importance of dream-analysis. It might be 
considered regrettable that in this year of grace 1931, more 
than half a century after Carus formulated the concept of the 
unconscious, more than a century after Kant spoke of the "il- 
limitable field of obscure ideas/' and nearly two hundred years 
after Leibniz postulated an unconscious psychic activity, not to 
mention the achievements of Janet, Flournoy, Freud, and many 
more that after all this, the actuality of the unconscious should 
still be a matter for controversy. But, since it is my intention to 
deal exclusively with practical questions, I will not advance in 
this place an apology for the unconscious, although our special 
problem of dream-analysis stands or falls with such an hypothe- 
sis. Without it, the dream is a mere freak of nature, a mean- 
ingless conglomeration of fragments left over from the day. 
Were that really so, there would be no excuse for the present 
discussion. We cannot treat our theme at all unless we recog- 
nize the unconscious, for the avowed aim of dream-analysis is 
not only to exercise our wits, but to uncover and realize those 

i [Read at the sixth congress of the International General Medical Society for Psy- 
chotherapy, Dresden, 1931. Published as "Die praktische Verwendbarkeit der 
Traumanalyse" in Wirklichkeit der Seele (Zurich, 1934), pp. 68-103. Previously 
trans, by C. F. Baynes and W. S. Dell in Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New 
York and London, 1933). EDITORS.] 

139 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



hitherto unconscious contents which are considered to be of 
importance in the elucidation or treatment of a neurosis. Any- 
one who finds this hypothesis unacceptable must simply rule 
out the question of the applicability of dream-analysis. 

295 But since, according to our hypothesis, the unconscious 
possesses an aetiological significance, and since dreams are the 
direct expression of unconscious psychic activity, the attempt to 
analyse and interpret dreams is theoretically justified from a sci- 
entific standpoint. If successful, we may expect this attempt to 
give us scientific insight into the structure of psychic causality, 
quite apart from any therapeutic results that may be gained. 
The practitioner, however, tends to consider scientific discov- 
eries as, at most, a gratifying by-product of his therapeutic 
work, so he is hardly likely to take the bare possibility of the- 
oretical insight into the aetiological background as a sufficient 
reason for, much less an indication of, the practical use of 
dream-analysis. He may believe, of course, that the explanatory 
insight so gained is of therapeutic value, in which case he will 
elevate dream-analysis to a professional duty. It is well known 
that the Freudian school is of the firm opinion that very valu- 
able therapeutic results are achieved by throwing light upon 
the unconscious causal factors-that is, by explaining them to 
the patient and thus making him fully conscious of the sources 
of his trouble. 

296 Assuming for the moment that this expectation is justified 
by the facts, then the only question that remains is whether 
dream-analysis can or cannot be used, alone or in conjunction 
with other methods, to discover the unconscious aetiology. The 
Freudian answer to this question is, I may assume, common 
knowledge. I can confirm this answer inasmuch as dreams, par- 
ticularly the initial dreams which appear at the very outset 
of the treatment, often bring to light the essential aetiological 
factor in the most unmistakable way. The following example 
may serve as an illustration: 

297 I was consulted by a man who held a prominent position 
in the world. He was afflicted with a sense of anxiety and 
insecurity, and complained of dizziness sometimes resulting in 
nausea, heaviness in the head, and constriction of breath a 
state that might easily be confused with mountain sickness. 
He had had an extraordinarily successful career, and had risen, 

140 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



by dint of ambition, industry, and native talent, from his hum- 
ble origins as the son of a poor peasant. Step by step he had 
climbed, attaining at last a leading position which held every 
prospect of further social advancement. He had now in fact 
reached the spring-board from which he could have commenced 
his flight into the empyrean, had not his neurosis suddenly in- 
tervened. At this point in his story the patient could not refrain 
from that familiar exclamation which begins with the stereo- 
typed words: "And just now, when. . . ." The fact that he had 
all the symptoms of mountain sickness seemed highly appropri- 
ate as a drastic illustration of his peculiar impasse. He had also 
brought to the consultation two dreams from the preceding 
night. The first dream was as follows: "I am back again in the 
small village where I was born. Some peasant lads who went to 
school with me are standing together in the street. I walk past, 
pretending not to know them. Then I hear one of them say, 
pointing at me: 'He doesn't often come back to our village.'" 

*9 8 It requires no feat of interpretation to see in this dream a 
reference to the humble beginnings of the dreamer's career and 
to understand what this reference means. The dream says quite 
clearly: "You forgot how far down you began. 1 ' 

299 Here is the second dream: "I am in a great hurry because 
I want to go on a journey. I keep on looking for things to pack, 
but can find nothing. Time flies, and the train will soon be 
leaving. Having -finally succeeded in getting all my things to- 
gether, I hurry along the street, only to discover that I have 
forgotten a brief-case containing important papers. I dash back 
all out of breath, find it at last, then race to the station, but I 
make hardly any headway. With a final effort I rush on to the 
platform only to see the train just steaming out of the station 
yard. It is very long, and it runs in a curious S-shaped curve, 
and it occurs to me that if the engine-driver does not look out, 
and puts on steam when he comes into the straight, the rear 
coaches will still be on the curve and will be thrown off the rails 
by the gathering speed. And this is just what happens: the 
engine-driver puts on steam, I try to cry out, the rear coaches 
give a frightful lurch and are thrown off the rails. There is a 
terrible catastrophe. I wake up in terror" 

3 Here again no effort is needed to understand the message 
of the dream. It describes the patient's frantic haste to advance 

141 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



himself still further. But since the engine-driver in front steams 
relentlessly ahead, the neurosis happens at the back: the coaches 
rock and the train is derailed. 

3 01 It is obvious that, at the present phase of his life, the pa- 
tient has reached the highest point of his career; the strain of 
the long ascent from his lowly origin has exhausted his strength. 
He should have rested content with his achievements, but in- 
stead of that his ambition drives him on and on, and up and up 
into an atmosphere that is too thin for him and to which he is 
not accustomed. Therefore his neurosis comes upon him as a 
warning. 

3s Circumstances prevented me from treating the patient 
further, nor did my view of the case satisfy him. The upshot 
was that the fate depicted in the dream ran its course. He tried 
to exploit the professional openings that tempted his ambition, 
and ran so violently off the rails that the catastrophe was real- 
ized in actual life. 

303 Thus, what could only be inferred from the conscious 
anamnesis namely that the mountain sickness was a symbolical 
representation of the patient's inability to climb any further 
was confirmed by the dreams as a fact. 

34 Here we come upon something of the utmost importance 
for the applicability of dream-analysis: the dream describes the 
inner situation of the dreamer, but the conscious mind denies 
its truth and reality, or admits it only grudgingly. Consciously 
the dreamer could not see the slightest reason why he should 
not go steadily forward; on the contrary, he continued his am- 
bitious climbing and refused to admit his own inability which 
subsequent events made all too plain. So long as we move in 
the conscious sphere, we are always unsure in such cases. The 
anamnesis can be interpreted in various ways. After all, the 
common soldier carries the marshal's baton in his knapsack, 
and many a son of poor parents has achieved the highest suc- 
cess. Why should it not be the case here? Since my judgment 
is fallible, why should my conjecture be better than his? At this 
point the dream comes in as the expression of an involuntary, 
unconscious psychic process beyond the control of the con- 
scious mind. It shows the inner truth and reality of the patient 
as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would 
like it to be, but as it is. I have therefore made it a rule to re- 

142 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



gard dreams as I regard physiological facts: if sugar appears in 
the urine, then the urine contains sugar, and not albumen 
or urobilin or something else that might fit in better with my 
expectations. That is to say, I take dreams as diagnostically val- 
uable facts. 

35 As is the way of all dreams, my little dream example gives 
us rather more than we expected. It gives us not only the aeti- 
ology of the neurosis but a prognosis as well. What is more, we 
even know exactly where the treatment should begin: we must 
prevent the patient from going full steam ahead. This is just 
what he tells himself in the dream. 

36 Let us for the time being content ourselves with this hint 
and return to our consideration of whether dreams enable us 
to throw light on the aetiology of a neurosis. The dreams I have 
cited actually do this. But I could equally well cite any number 
of initial dreams where there is no trace of an aetiological fac- 
tor, although they are perfectly transparent. I do not wish for 
the present to consider dreams which call for searching analy- 
sis and interpretation. 

307 The point is this: there are neuroses whose real aetiology 
becomes clear only right at the end of an analysis, and other 
neuroses whose aetiology is relatively unimportant. This brings 
me back to the hypothesis from which we started, that for the 
purposes of therapy it is absolutely necessary to make the pa- 
tient conscious of the aetiological factor. This hypothesis is little 
more than a hang-over from the old trauma theory. I do not 
of course deny that many neuroses are traumatic in origin; I 
simply contest the notion that all neuroses are of this nature 
and arise without exception from some crucial experience in 
childhood. Such a view necessarily results in the causalistic ap- 
proach. The doctor must give his whole attention to the pa- 
tient's past; he must always ask "Why?" and ignore the equally 
pertinent question "What for?" Often this has a most deleteri- 
ous effect on the patient, who is thereby compelled to go 
searching about in his memory perhaps for years for some 
hypothetical event in his childhood, while things of immediate 
importance are grossly neglected. The purely causalistic ap- 
proach is too narrow and fails to do justice to the true signifi- 
cance either of the dream or of the neurosis. Hence an approach 
that uses dreams for the sole purpose of discovering the aetio- 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



logical factor is biased and overlooks the main point of the 
dream. Our example indeed shows the aetiology clearly enough, 
but it also offers a prognosis or anticipation of the future as well 
as a suggestion about the treatment. There are in addition large 
numbers of initial dreams which do not touch the aetiology at 
all, but deal with quite other matters, such as the patient's atti- 
tude to the doctor. As an example of this I would like to tell 
you three dreams, all from the same patient, and each dreamt at 
the beginning of a course of treatment under three different 
analysts. Here is the first: "I have to cross the frontier into an- 
other country, but cannot find the frontier and nobody can tell 
me where it is." 

38 The ensuing treatment proved unsuccessful and was broken 
off after a short time. The second dream is as follows: "I 
have to cross the frontier, but the night is pitch-black and I 
cannot find the customs-house. After a long search I see a tiny 
light far off in the distance, and assume that the frontier is 
over there. But in order to get there, I have to pass through a 
valley and a dark wood in which I lose my way. Then I notice 
that someone is near me. Suddenly he clings to me like a mad- 
man and I awake in terror." 

39 This treatment, too, was broken off after a few weeks be- 
cause the analyst unconsciously identified himself with the pa- 
tient and the result was complete loss of orientation on both 
sides. 

3* The third dream took place under my treatment: ef l have 
to cross a frontier, or rather, I have already crossed it and find 
myself in a Swiss customs-house. I have only a handbag with 
me and think I have nothing to declare. But the customs official 
dives into my bag and, to my astonishment, pulls out a pair of 
twin beds." 

3 11 The patient had got married while under my treatment, 
and at first she developed the most violent resistance to her 
marriage. The aetiology of the neurotic resistance came to light 
only many months afterwards and there is not a word about it 
in the dreams. They are without exception anticipations of the 
difficulties she is to have with the doctors concerned. 

3*2 These examples, like many others of the kind, may suffice 
to show that dreams are often anticipatory and would lose their 
specific meaning completely on a purely causalistic view, 

144 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



They afford unmistakable information about the analytical 
situation, the correct understanding of which is of the greatest 
therapeutic importance. Doctor A understood the situation cor- 
rectly and handed the patient over to Doctor B. Under him she 
drew her own conclusions from the dream and decided to leave. 
My interpretation of the third dream was a disappointment to 
her, but the fact that the dream showed the frontier as already 
crossed encouraged her to go on in spite of all difficulties. 
3*3 Initial dreams are often amazingly lucid and clear-cut. But 
as the work of analysis progresses, the dreams tend to lose their 
clarity. If, by way of exception, they keep it we can be sure that 
the analysis has not yet touched on some important layer of the 
personality. As a rule, dreams get more and more opaque and 
blurred soon after the beginning of the treatment, and this 
makes the interpretation increasingly difficult. A further dif- 
ficulty is that a point may soon be reached where, if the truth 
be told, the doctor no longer understands the situation as a 
whole. That he does not understand is proved by the fact that 
the dreams become increasingly obscure, for we all know that 
their "obscurity" is a purely subjective opinion of the doctor. 
To the understanding nothing is obscure; it is only when we 
do not understand that things app'ear unintelligible and mud- 
dled. In themselves dreams are naturally clear; that is, they are 
just what they must be under the given circumstances. If, from 
a later stage of treatment or from a distance of some years, we 
look back at these unintelligible dreams, we are often astounded 
at our own blindness. Thus when, as the analysis proceeds, we 
come upon dreams that are strikingly obscure in comparison 
with the illuminating initial dreams, the doctor should not be 
too ready to accuse the dreams of confusion or the patient of 
deliberate resistance; he would do better to take these findings 
as a sign of his own growing inability to understand just as the 
psychiatrist who calls his patient "confused" should recognize 
that this is a projection and should rather call himself con- 
fused, because in reality it is he whose wits are confused by 
the patient's peculiar behaviour. Moreover it is therapeutically 
very important for the doctor to admit his lack of under- 
standing in time, for nothing is more unbearable to the pa- 
tient than to be always understood. He relies far too much any- 
way on the mysterious powers of the doctor and, by appealing to 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



his professional vanity, lays a dangerous trap for him. By taking 
refuge in the doctor's self-confidence and "profound" under- 
standing, the patient loses all sense of reality, falls into a stub- 
born transference, and retards the cure. 

3*4 Understanding is clearly a very subjective process. It can 
be extremely one-sided, in that the doctor understands but not 
the patient. In such a case the doctor conceives it to be his duty 
to convince the patient, and if the latter will not allow himself 
to be convinced, the doctor accuses him of resistance. When the 
understanding is all on my side, I say quite calmly that I do not 
understand, for in the end it makes very little difference 
whether the doctor understands or not, but it makes all the 
difference whether the patient understands. Understanding 
should therefore be understanding in the sense of an agree- 
ment which is the fruit of joint reflection. The danger of a one- 
sided understanding is that the doctor may judge the dream 
from the standpoint of a preconceived opinion. His judgment 
may be in line with orthodox theory, it may even be funda- 
mentally correct, but it will not win the patient's assent, he will 
not come to an understanding with him, and that is in the prac- 
tical sense incorrect incorrect because it anticipates and thus 
cripples the patient's development. The patient, that is to say, 
does not need to have a truth inculcated into him if we do 
that, we only reach his head; he needs far more to grow up to 
this truth, and in that way we reach his heart, and the appeal 
goes deeper and works more powerfully. 

315 When the doctor's one-sided interpretation is based on 
mere agreement as to theory or on some other preconceived 
opinion, his chances of convincing the patient or of achieving 
any therapeutic results depend chiefly upon suggestion. Let no 
one deceive himself about this. In itself, suggestion is not to be 
despised, but it has serious limitations, not to speak of the sub- 
sidiary effects upon the patient's independence of character 
which, in the long run, we could very well do without. A prac- 
tising analyst may be supposed to believe implicitly in the sig- 
nificance and value of conscious realization, whereby hitherto 
unconscious parts of the personality are brought to light and 
subjected to conscious discrimination and criticism. It is a proc- 
ess that requires the patient to face his problems and that taxes 
his powers of conscious judgment and decision. It is nothing less 

146 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



than a direct challenge to his ethical sense, a call to arms that 
must be answered by the whole personality. As regards the ma- 
turation of personality, therefore, the analytical approach is of 
a higher order than suggestion, which is a species of magic that 
works in the dark and makes no ethical demands upon the per- 
sonality. Methods of treatment based on suggestion are decep- 
tive makeshifts; they are incompatible with the principles of 
analytical therapy and should be avoided if at all possible. 
Naturally suggestion can only be avoided if the doctor is con- 
scious of its possibility. There is at the best of times always 
enough and more than enough unconscious suggestion. 

3 l6 The analyst who wishes to rule out conscious suggestion 
must therefore consider every dream interpretation invalid un- 
til such time as a formula is found which wins the assent of the 
patient. 

3 1 ? The observance of this rule seems to me imperative when 
dealing with those dreams whose obscurity is evidence of the 
lack of understanding of both doctor and patient. The doctor 
should regard every such dream as something new, as a source 
of information about conditions whose nature is unknown to 
him, concerning which he has as much to learn as the patient. It 
goes without saying that he should give up all his theoretical as- 
sumptions and should in every single case be ready to construct 
a totally new theory of dreams. There are still boundless oppor- 
tunities for pioneer work in this field. The view that dreams are 
merely the imaginary fulfilments of repressed wishes is hope- 
lessly out of date. There are, it is true, dreams which mani- 
festly represent wishes or fears, but what about all the other 
things? Dreams may contain ineluctable truths, philosophical 
pronouncements, illusions, wild fantasies, memories, plans, an- 
ticipations, irrational experiences, even telepathic visions, and 
heaven knows what besides. One thing we ought never to for- 
get: almost half our life is passed in a more or less unconscious 
state. The dream is specifically the utterance of the unconscious. 
Just as the psyche has a diurnal side which we call conscious- 
ness, so also it has a nocturnal side: the unconscious psychic 
activity which we apprehend as dreamlike fantasy. It is certain 
that the conscious mind consists not only of wishes and fears, 
but of vastly more besides; and it is highly probable that our 
dream psyche possesses a wealth of contents and living forms 

147 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



equal to or even greater than those of the conscious mind, 
which is characterized by concentration, limitation, and exclu- 
sion. 

3 l8 This being so, ft is imperative that we should not pare 
down the meaning of the dream to fit some narrow doctrine. 
We must remember that there are not a few patients who imi- 
tate the technical or theoretical jargon of the doctor, and do this 
even in their dreams, in accordance with the old tag, Canis 
panem somniat, piscator pisces. This is not to say that the fishes 
of which the fisherman dreams are fishes and nothing more. 
There is no language that cannot be misused. As may easily be 
imagined, the misuse often turns the tables on us; it even seems 
as if the unconscious had a way of strangling the doctor in the 
coils of his own theory. Therefore I leave theory aside as much 
as possible when analysing dreams not entirely, of course, for 
we always need some theory to make things intelligible. It is on 
the basis of theory, for instance, that I expect dreams to have a 
meaning. I cannot prove in every case that this is so, for there 
are dreams which the doctor and the patient simply do not 
understand. But I have to make such an hypothesis in order 
to find courage to deal with dreams at all. To say that dreams 
add something important to our conscious knowledge, and that 
a dream which fails to do so has not been properly interpreted 
that, too, is a theory. But I must make this hypothesis as well 
in order to explain to myself why I analyse dreams in the first 
place. All other hypotheses, however, about the function and 
the structure of dreams are merely rules of thumb and must be 
subjected to constant modification. In dream-analysis we must 
never forget, even for a moment, that we move on treacher- 
ous ground where nothing is certain but uncertainty. If it were 
not so paradoxical, one would almost like to call out to the 
dream interpreter: "Do anything you like, only don't try to 
understand!" 

5 1 9 When we take up an obscure dream, our first task is not 
to understand and interpret, but to establish the context with 
minute care. By this I do not mean unlimited "free associa- 
tion" starting from any and every image in the dream, but a 
careful and conscious illumination of the interconnected as- 
sociations objectively grouped round particular images. Many 
patients have first to be educated to this, for they resemble the 

148 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



doctor in their insuperable desire to understand and interpret 
offhand, especially when they have been primed by ill-digested 
reading or by a previous analysis that went wrong. They begin 
by associating in accordance with a theory, that is, they try to 
understand and interpret, and they nearly always get stuck. 
Like the doctor, they want to get behind the dream at once in 
the false belief that the dream is a mere facade concealing the 
true meaning. But the so-called facade of most houses is by no 
means a fake or a deceptive distortion; on the contrary, it fol- 
lows the plan of the building and often betrays the interior ar- 
rangement. The "manifest" dream-picture is the dream itself 
and contains the whole meaning of the dream. When I find 
sugar in the urine, it is sugar and not just a facade for albumen. 
What Freud calls the "dream-facade " is the dream's obscurity, 
and this is really only a projection of our own lack of under- 
standing. We say that the dream has a false front only because 
we fail to see into it. We would do better to say that we are 
dealing with something like a text that is unintelligible not be- 
cause it has a facade a text has no facade but simply because 
we cannot read it. We do not have to get behind such a text, but 
must first learn to read it. 

S 20 The best way to do this, as I have already remarked, is to 
establish the context. Free association will get me nowhere, any 
more than it would help me to decipher a Hittite inscription. 
It will of course help me to uncover all my own complexes, but 
for this purpose I have no need of a dream I could just as well 
take a public notice or a sentence in a newspaper. Free associa- 
tion will bring out all my complexes, but hardly ever the mean- 
ing of a dream. To understand the dream's meaning I must 
stick as close as possible to the dream images. When somebody 
dreams of a "deal table/' it is not enough for him to associate 
it with his writing-desk which does not happen to be made of 
deal. Supposing that nothing more occurs to the dreamer, this 
blocking has an objective meaning, for it indicates that a par- 
ticular darkness reigns in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
dream-image, and that is suspicious. We would expect him to 
have dozens of associations to a deal table, and the fact that there 
is apparently nothing is itself significant. In such cases I keep 
on returning to the image, and I usually say to my patient, 
"Suppose I had no idea what the words 'deal table' mean. De- 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



scribe this object and give me its history in such a way that I 
cannot fail to understand what sort of a thing it is." 
32* In this way we manage to establish almost the whole con- 
text of the dream-image. When we have done this for all the 
images in the dream we are ready for the venture of interpre- 
tation. 

322 Every interpretation is an hypothesis, an attempt to read an 
unknown text. An obscure dream, taken in isolation, can hardly 
ever be interpreted with any certainty. For this reason I at- 
tach little importance to the interpretation of single dreams. 
A relative degree of certainty is reached only in the interpreta- 
tion of a series of dreams, where the later dreams correct the 
mistakes we have made in handling those that went before. 
Also, the basic ideas and themes can be recognized much better 
in a dream-series, and I therefore urge my patients to keep a 
careful record of their dreams and of the interpretations given. 
I also show them how to work out their dreams in the manner 
described, so that they can bring the dream and its context 
with them in writing to the consultation. At a later stage I get 
them to work out the interpretation as well. In this way the 
patient learns how to deal correctly with his unconscious with- 
out the doctor's help. 

323 Were dreams nothing more than sources of information 
about factors of aetiological importance, the whole work of 
dream-interpretation could safely be left to the doctor. Again, 
if their only use was to provide the doctor with a collection 
of useful hints and psychological tips, my own procedure would 
be entirely superfluous. But since, as my examples have shown, 
dreams contain something more than practical helps for the 
doctor, dream-analysis deserves very special attention. Some- 
times, indeed, it is a matter of life and death. Among many 
instances of this sort, there is one that has remained particu- 
larly impressive. It concerns a colleague of mine, a man some- 
what older than myself, whom I used to see from time to time 
and who always teased me about my dream-interpretations. 
Well, I met him one day in the street and he called out to me, 
"How are things going? Still interpreting dreams? By the way, 
I've had another idiotic dream. Does that mean something too?" 
This is what he had dreamed: "I am climbing a high moun- 
tain, over steep snow-covered slopes. I climb higher and higher, 
and it is marvellous weather. The higher I climb the better I 

150 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



feel. I think> 'If only I could go on climbing like this for ever! 9 
When I reach the summit my happiness and elation are so 
great that I feel I could mount right up into space. And I dis- 
cover that I can actually do so: I mount upwards on empty air, 
and awake in sheer ecstasy." 

324 After some discussion, I said, "My dear fellow, I know you 
can't give up mountaineering, but let me implore you not to 
go alone from now on. When you go, take two guides, and 
promise on your word of honour to follow them absolutely/' 
"Incorrigible!" he replied, laughing, and waved good-bye. I 
never saw him again. Two months later the first blow fell. 
When out alone, he was buried by an avalanche, but was dug 
out in the nick of time by a military patrol that happened to be 
passing. Three months afterwards the end came. He went on a 
climb with a younger friend, but without guides. A guide 
standing below saw him literally step out into the air while de- 
scending a rock face. He fell on the head of his friend, who was 
waiting lower down, and both were dashed to pieces far below. 
That was ecstasis with a vengeance! 2 

325 No amount of scepticism and criticism has yet enabled me 
to regard dreams as negligible occurrences. Often enough they 
appear senseless, but it is obviously we who lack the sense and 
ingenuity to read the enigmatic message from the nocturnal 
realm of the psyche. Seeing that at least half our psychic exist- 
ence is passed in that realm, and that consciousness acts upon 
our nightly life just as much as the unconscious overshadows 
our daily life, it would seem all the more incumbent on medi- 
cal psychology to sharpen its senses by a systematic study of 
dreams. Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experi- 
ence; why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious 
happenings? They also are part of our life, and sometimes more 
truly a part of it for weal or woe than any happenings of the 
day. 

326 Since dreams provide information about the hidden inner 
life and reveal to the patient those components of his per- 
sonality which, in his daily behaviour, appear merely as neu- 
rotic symptoms, it follows that we cannot effectively treat him 
from the side of consciousness alone, but must bring about a 
change in and through the unconscious. In the light of our 

2 [This dream is discussed at greater length in Jung's "Analytical Psychology and 
Education," 79, pars. 117!:. EDITORS.] 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



present knowledge this can be achieved only by the thorough 
and conscious assimilation of unconscious contents. 

327 "Assimilation" in this sense means mutual penetration of 
conscious and unconscious, and not as is commonly thought 
and practised a one-sided evaluation, interpretation, and de- 
formation of unconscious contents by the conscious mind. As 
to the value and significance of unconscious contents in gen- 
eral, very mistaken views are current. It is well known that the 
Freudian school presents the unconscious in a thoroughly nega- 
tive light, much as it regards primitive man as little better than 
a monster. Its nursery-tales about the terrible old man of the 
tribe and its teachings about the "infantile-perverse-criminal" 
unconscious have led people to make a dangerous ogre out 
of something perfectly natural. As if all that is good, reason- 
able, worth while, and beautiful had taken up its abode in the 
conscious mind! Have the horrors of the World War done 
nothing to open our eyes, so that we still cannot see that the con- 
scious mind is even more devilish and perverse than the nat- 
uralness of the unconscious? 

328 The charge has recently been laid at my door that my 
teaching about the assimilation of the unconscious would un- 
dermine civilization and deliver up our highest values to sheer 
primitivity. Such an opinion can only be based on the totally 
erroneous supposition that the unconscious is a monster. It is a 
view that springs from fear of nature and the realities of life. 
Freud invented the idea of sublimation to save us from the 
imaginary claws of the unconscious. But what is real, what ac- 
tually exists, cannot be alchemically sublimated, and if anything 
is apparently sublimated it never was what a false interpreta- 
tion took it to be. 

3 2 9 The unconscious is not a demoniacal monster, but a nat- 
ural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and in- 
tellectual judgment go, is completely neutral. It only becomes 
dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. 
To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases. But the 
moment the patient begins to assimilate contents that were pre- 
viously unconscious, its danger diminishes. The dissociation of 
personality, the anxious division of the day-time and the night- 
time sides of the psyche, cease with progressive assimilation. 
What my critic feared the overwhelming of the conscious mind 

15* 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



by the unconscious is far more likely to ensue when the un- 
conscious is excluded from life by being repressed, falsely 
interpreted, and depreciated. 

33 ' The fundamental mistake regarding the nature of the un- 
conscious is probably this: it is commonly supposed that its 
contents have only one meaning and are marked with an un- 
alterable plus or minus sign. In my humble opinion, this view 
is too naive. The psyche is a self-regulating system that main- 
tains its equilibrium just as the body does. Every process that 
goes too far immediately and inevitably calls forth compensa- 
tions, and without these there would be neither a normal me- 
tabolism nor a normal psyche. In this sense we can take the 
theory of compensation as a basic law of psychic behaviour. 
Too little on one side results in too much on the other. Simi- 
larly, the relation between conscious and unconscious is com- 
pensatory. This is one of the best-proven rules of dream in- 
terpretation. When we set out to interpret a dream, it is always 
helpful to ask: What conscious attitude does it compensate? 

13 i Compensation is not as a rule merely an illusory wish- 
fulfilment, but an actual fact that becomes still more actual the 
more we repress it. We do not stop feeling thirsty by repressing 
our thirst. In the same way, the dream-content is to be regarded 
with due seriousness as an actuality that has to be fitted into the 
conscious attitude as a codetermining factor. If we fail to do 
this, we merely persist in that eccentric frame of mind which 
evoked the unconscious compensation in the first place. It is 
then difficult to see how we can ever arrive at a sane judgment 
of ourselves or at a balanced way of living. 

332 If it should occur to anyone to replace the conscious con- 
tent by an unconscious one and this is the prospect which my 
critics find so alarminghe would only succeed in repressing it, 
and it would then reappear as an unconscious compensation. 
The unconscious would thus have changed its face completely: 
it would now be timidly reasonable, in striking contrast to its 
former tone. It is not generally believed that the unconscious 
operates in this way, yet such reversals constantly take place 
and constitute its proper function. That is why every dream is 
an organ of information and control, and why dreams are our 
most effective aid in building up the personality. 

153 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



333 The unconscious does not harbour in itself any explosive 
materials unless an overweening or cowardly conscious atti- 
tude has secretly laid up stores of explosives there. All the 
more reason, then, for watching our step. 

334 From all this it should now be clear why I make it an 
heuristic rule, in interpreting a dream, to ask myself: What 
conscious attitude does it compensate? By so doing, I relate the 
dream as closely as possible to the conscious situation; indeed, 
I would even assert that without knowledge of the conscious 
situation the dream can never be interpreted with any degree 
of certainty. Only in the light of this knowledge is it possible 
to make out whether the unconscious content carries a plus or 
a minus sign. The dream is not an isolated event completely 
cut off from daily life and lacking its character. If it seems 
so to us, that is only the result of our lack of understanding, 
a subjective illusion. In reality the relation between the con- 
scious mind and the dream is strictly causal, and they interact 
in the subtlest of ways. 

335 I should like to show by means of an example how important 
it is to evaluate the unconscious contents correctly. A young 
man brought me the following dream: "My father is driving 
away from the house in his new car. He drives very clumsily , and 
I get very annoyed over his apparent stupidity. He goes this way 
and that, -forwards and backwards, and manoeuvres the car into 
a dangerous position. Finally he runs into a wall and damages 
the car badly. I shout at him in a perfect fury that he ought to 
behave himself. My father only laughs, and then I see that he is 
dead drunk" This dream has no foundation in fact. The 
dreamer is convinced that his father would never behave like 
that, even when drunk. As a motorist he himself is very careful 
and extremely moderate in the use of alcohol, especially when 
he has to drive. Bad driving, and even slight damage to the car, 
irritate him greatly. His relation to his father is positive. He ad- 
mires him for being an unusually successful man. We can say, 
without any great feat of interpretation, that the dream presents 
a most unfavourable picture of the father. What, then, should 
we take its meaning to be for the son? Is his relation to his father 
good only on the surface, and does it really consist in over-com- 
pensated resistances? If so, we should have to give the dream- 
content a positive sign; we should have to tell the young man: 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



"That is your real relation to your father." But since I could 
find nothing neurotically ambivalent in the son's real relation to 
his father, I had no warrant for upsetting the young man's feelings 
with such a destructive pronouncement. To do so would have 
been a bad therapeutic blunder. 

S3 6 But, if his relation to his father is in fact good, why must 
the dream manufacture such an improbable story in order to 
discredit the father?' In the dreamer's unconscious there must 
be some tendency to produce such a dream/Is that because he 
has resistances after all, perhaps fed by eiivy or some other in- 
ferior motive? Before we go out of our way to burden his con- 
scienceand with sensitive young people this is always rather 
a dangerous proceedingwe would do better to inquire not 
why he had this dream, but what its purpose is. The answer 
in this case would be that his unconscious is obviously trying 
to take the father down a peg. If we regard this as a compensa- 
tion, we are forced to the conclusion that his relation to his 
father is not only good, but actually too good. In fact he de- 
serves the French soubriquet of fils a papa. His father is still 
too much the guarantor of his existence, and the dreamer is 
still living what I would call a provisional life. His particular 
danger is that he cannot see his own reality on account of his 
father; therefore the unconscious resorts to a kind of artificial 
blasphemy so as to lower the father and elevate the son. "An 
immoral business," we may be tempted to say. An unintelligent 
father would probably take umbrage, but the compensation is 
entirely to the point, since it forces the son to contrast himself 
with his father, which is the only way he could become con- 
scious of himself. 

337 The interpretation just outlined was apparently the cor- 
rect one, for it struck home. It won the spontaneous assent of 
the dreamer, and no real values were damaged, either for the 
father or for the son. But this interpretation was only possible 
when the whole conscious phenomenology of the father-son re- 
lationship had been carefully studied. Without a knowledge of 
the conscious situation the real meaning of the dream would 
have remained in doubt. 

S3 8 For dream-contents to be assimilated, it is of overriding 
importance that no real values of the conscious personality 

155 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



should be damaged, much less destroyed, otherwise there is no 
one left to do the assimilating. The recognition of the uncon- 
scious is not a Bolshevist experiment which puts the lowest on 
top and thus re-establishes the very situation it intended to 
correct. We must see to it that the values of the conscious per- 
sonality remain intact, for unconscious compensation is only 
effective when it co-operates with an integral consciousness. 
Assimilation is never a question of "this or that/' but always of 
"this and that." 

339 Just as the interpretation of dreams requires exact knowl- 
edge of the conscious status quo, so the treatment of dream sym- 
bolism demands that we take into account the, dreamer's philo- 
sophical, religious, and moral convictions. It is far wiser in 
practice not to regard dream-symbols semiotically, i.e., as signs 
or symptoms of a fixed character, but as true symbol^ i.e., as 
expressions of a content not yet consciously recognized or con- 
ceptually formulated, in addition, they must be considered in 
relation to the dreamer's immediate state of consciousnesjL I 
say that this procedure is advisable in practice because in theory 
relatively fixed symbols do exist whose meaning must on no 
account be referred to anything known and formulable as a 
concept. If there were no such relatively fixed symbols it would 
be impossible to determine the structure of the unconscious, 
for there would be nothing that could in any way be laid hold 
of or described. 

34<> It may seem strange that I should attribute an as it were 
indefinite content to these relatively fixed symbols. Yet if their 
content were not indefinite, they would not be symbols at all, 
but signs or symptoms. We all know how the Freudian school 
operates with hard-and-fast sexual "symbols" which in this 
case I would call "signs" and endows them with an apparently 
definitive content, namely sexuality. Unfortunately Freud's 
idea of sexuality is incredibly elastic and so vague that it can 
be made to include almost anything. The word sounds familiar 
enough, but what it denotes is no more than an indeterminable 
x that ranges from the physiological activity of the glands at 
one extreme to the sublime reaches of the spirit at the other. 
Instead of yielding to a dogmatic conviction based on the illu- 
sion that we know something because we have a familiar word 
for it, I prefer to regard the symbol as an unknown quantity, 

156 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



hard to recognize and, in the last resort, never quite determin- 
ate. Take, for instance, the so-called phallic symbols which 
are supposed to stand for the membrum virile and nothing 
more. Psychologically speaking, the membrum is itself as 
Kranefeldt points out in a recent work 3 an emblem of some- 
thing whose wider content is not at all easy to determine. But 
primitive people, who, like the ancients, make the freest use of 
phallic symbols, would never dream of confusing the phallus, 
as a ritualistic symbol, with the penis. The phallus always means 
the creative mana, the power of healing and fertility, the "ex- 
traordinarily potent/' to use Lehmann's expression, whose 
equivalents in mythology and in dreams are the bull, the ass, 
the pomegranate, the yoni, the he-goat, the lightning, the horse's 
hoof, the dance, the magical cohabitation in the furrow, and the 
menstrual fluid, to mention only a few of the thousand other 
analogies. That which underlies all the analogies, and sexuality 
itself, is an archetypal image whose character is hard to de- 
fine, but whose nearest psychological equivalent is perhaps the 
primitive mana-symbol. 

341 All these symbols are relatively fixed, but in no single case 
can we have the a priori certainty that in practice the symbol 
must be interpreted in that way. 

342 Practical necessity may call for something quite different. 
Of course, if we had to give an exhaustive scientific interpreta- 
tion of a dream, in accordance with a theory, we should have 
to refer every such symbol to an archetype. But in practice 
that can be a positive mistake, for the patient's psychological 
state at the moment may require anything but a digression 
into dream theory/ It is therefore advisable to consider first 
and foremost the meaning of the symbol in relation to the 
conscious situation in other words, to treat the symbol as if it 
were not fixed/This is as much as to say that we must renounce 
all preconceived opinions, however knowing they make us feel, 
and try to discover what things mean for the patient. In so 
doing, we shall obviously not get very far towards a theoretical 
interpretation; indeed we shall probably get stuck at the very 
beginning. But if the practitioner operates too much with fixed 
symbols, there is a danger of his falling into mere routine and 
pernicious dogmatism, and thus failing his patient. Unfor- 

3 "Komplex und Mythos," 102. 

157 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



tunately I must refrain from illustrating this point, for I should 
have to go into greater detail than space here permits. More- 
over I have published sufficient material elsewhere in support 
of my statements. 

343 It frequently happens at the very beginning of the treat- 
ment that a dream will reveal to the doctor, in broad perspec- 
tive, the whole programme of the unconscious. But for practical 
reasons it may be quite impossible to make clear to the 
patient the deeper meaning o the dream. In this respect, too, 
we are limited by practical considerations. Such insight is ren- 
dered possible by the doctor's knowledge of relatively fixed sym- 
bols. It can be of the greatest value in diagnosis as well as in 
prognosis. I was once consulted about a seventeen-year-old 
girl. One specialist had conjectured that she might be in the 
first stages of progressive muscular atrophy, while another 
thought that it was a case of hysteria. In view of the second opin- 
ion, I was called in. The clinical picture made me suspect an 
organic disease, but there were signs of hysteria as well. I asked 
for dreams. The patient answered at once: "Yes, I have ter- 
rible dreams. Only recently I dreamt I was coming home at 
night. Everything is as quiet as death. The door into the living- 
room is half open, and I see my mother hanging from the 
chandelier, swinging to and fro in the cold wind that blows in 
through the open windows. Another time I dreamt that a ter- 
rible noise broke out in the house at night. I get up and dis- 
cover that a frightened horse is tearing through the rooms. At 
last it finds the door into the hall, and jumps through the hall 
window from the fourth floor into the street below. I was ter- 
rified when I saw it lying there, all mangled." 

844 The gruesome character of the dreams is alone sufficient to 
make one pause. All the same, other people have anxiety dreams 
now and then. We must therefore look more closely into the 
meaning of the two main symbols, "mother" and "horse/* They 
must be equivalents, for they both do the same thing: they 
commit suicide. "Mother" is an archetype and refers to the 
place of origin, to nature, to that which passively creates, hence 
to substance and matter, to materiality, the womb, the vegeta- 
tive functions. It also means the unconscious, our natural and 
instinctive life, the physiological realm, the body in which we 
dwell or are contained; for the "mother" is also the matrix, the 

158 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



hollow form, the vessel that carries and nourishes, and it thus 
stands psychologically for the foundations of consciousness. Be- 
ing inside or contained in something also suggests darkness, 
something nocturnal and fearful, hemming one in. These allu- 
sions give the idea of the mother in many of its mythological and 
etymological variants; they also represent an important part 
of the Yin idea in Chinese philosophy. This is no individ- 
ual acquisition of a seventeen-year-old girl; it is a collective in- 
heritance, alive and recorded in language, inherited along with 
the structure of the psyche and therefore to be found at all 
times and among all peoples. 

345 The word "mother," which sounds so familiar, apparently 
refers to the best-known, the individual mother to "my 
mother." But the mother-symbol points to a darker background 
which eludes conceptual formulation and can only be vaguely 
apprehended as the hidden, nature-bound life of the body. Yet 
even this is too narrow and excludes too many vital subsidiary 
meanings. The underlying, primary psychic reality is so incon- 
ceivably complex that it can be grasped only at the farthest 
reach of intuition, and then but very dimly. That is why it 
needs symbols. 

346 If we apply our findings to the dream, its interpretation 
will be: The unconscious life is destroying itself. That is the 
dream's message to the conscious mind of the dreamer and to 
anybody who has ears to hear. 

347 "Horse" is an archetype that is widely current in mythol- 
ogy and folklore. As an animal it represents the non-human 
psyche, the subhuman, animal side, the unconscious. That is 
why horses in folklore sometimes see visions, hear voices, and 
speak. As a beast of burden it is closely related to the mother- 
archetype (witness the Valkyries that bear the dead hero to 
Valhalla, the Trojan horse, etc.). As an animal lower than man 
it represents the lower part of the body and the animal im- 
pulses that rise from there. The horse is dynamic and vehicular 
power: it carries one away like a surge of instinct. It is subject 
to panics like all instinctive creatures who lack higher con- 
sciousness. Also it has to do with sorcery and magical spells 
especially the black night-horses which herald death. 

348 It is evident, then, that "horse" is an equivalent of "mother" 
with a slight shift of meaning. The mother stands for life at its 

159 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



origin, the horse for the merely animal life of the body. If we 
apply this meaning to the text of our dream, its interpretation 
will be: The animal life is destroying itself. 

349 The two dreams make nearly identical statements, but, as 
is usually the case, the second is the more specific. Note the 
peculiar subtlety of the dream: there is no mention of the death 
of the individual. It is notorious that one often dreams of one's 
own death, but that is no serious matter. When it is really a 
question of death, the dream speaks another language. 

350 Both dreams point to a grave organic disease with a fatal 
outcome. This prognosis was soon confirmed. 

35 1 As for the relatively fixed symbols, this example gives a fair 
idea of their general nature. There are a great many of them, 
and all are individually marked by subtle shifts of meaning. 
It is only through comparative studies in mythology, folklore, 
religion, and philology that we can evaluate their nature sci- 
entifically. The evolutionary stratification of the psyche is 
more clearly discernible in the dream than in the conscious 
mind. In the dream, the psyche speaks in images, and gives ex- 
pression to instincts, which derive from the most primitive levels 
of nature. Therefore, through the assimilation of unconscious 
contents, the momentary life of consciousness can once more be 
brought into harmony with the law of nature from which it 
all too easily departs, and the patient can be led back to the 
natural law of his own being. 

35^ I have not been able, in so short a space, to deal with any- 
thing but the elements of the subject, I could not put together 
before your eyes, stone by stone, the edifice that is reared in 
every analysis from the materials of the unconscious and finally 
reaches completion in the restoration of the total personality. 
The way of successive assimilations goes far beyond the curative 
results that specifically concern the doctor. It leads in the end 
to that distant goal which may perhaps have been the first urge 
to life: the complete actualization of the whole human be- 
ing, that is, individuation. We physicians may well be the first 
conscious observers of this dark process of nature. As a rule we 
see only the pathological phase of development, and we lose 
sight of the patient as soon as he is cured. Yet it is only after 
the cure that we would really be in a position to study the nor- 
mal process, which may extend over years and decades. Had 

160 



THE PRACTICAL USE OF DREAM-ANALYSIS 



we but a little knowledge of the ends toward which the uncon- 
scious development is tending, and were the doctor's psycho- 
logical insight not drawn exclusively from the pathological 
phase, we should have a less confused idea of the processes 
mediated to the conscious mind by dreams and a clearer recog- 
nition of what the symbols point to. In my opinion, every doc- 
tor should understand that every procedure in psychotherapy, 
and particularly the analytical procedure, breaks into a pur- 
poseful and continuous process of development, now at this 
point and now at that, and thus singles out separate phases 
which seem to follow opposing course/. Each individual analysis 
by itself shows only one part or one aspect of the deeper process, 
and for this reason nothing but hopeless confusion can result 
from comparative case histories. .For this reason, too, I have 
preferred to confine myself t^o the rudiments of the subject and 
to practical considerations;, for only in closest contact with the 
everyday facts.can we come to anything like a satisfactory un- 
derstanding, / 



161 



Ill 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 1 



INTERPRETED IN CONJUNCTION WITH 
A SET OF ALCHEMICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



Quaero non pono, nihil hie determine) dictans 
Coniicio, conor, confero, tento, rogo. . . . 

(I inquire, I do not assert; I do not here 
determine anything -with final assurance; I 
conjecture, try, compare, attempt, ask. . . .) 

Motto to the Adumbratio Kabbalae 
Christianas (9) 



TO MY WIFE 



[First published, in book form, as Die Psychologic der Ubertragung (Zurich, 1946). 
EDITORS.] 



FOREWORD 

Everyone who has had practical experience of psychotherapy 
knows that the process which Freud called "transference" often 
presents a difficult problem. It is probably no exaggeration to 
say that almost all cases requiring lengthy treatment gravitate 
round the phenomenon of transference, and that the success 
or failure of the treatment appears to be bound up with it in 
a very fundamental way. Psychology, therefore, cannot very well 
overlook or avoid this problem., nor should the psychotherapist 
pretend that the so-called "dissolution of the transference" is 
just a matter of course. We meet with a similar optimism in the 
treatment of "sublimation," a process closely connected with 
the transference. In discussing these phenomena, people often 
talk as though they could be dealt with by reason, or by intelli- 
gence and will, or could be remedied by the ingenuity and art 
of a doctor armed with superior technique. This euphemistic 
and propitiatory approach is useful enough when the situation 
is the reverse of simple and no easy results are to be had; but it 
has the disadvantage of disguising the difficulty of the problem 
and thus preventing or postponing deeper investigation. Al- 
though I originally agreed with Freud that the importance of 
the transference could hardly be overestimated, increasing ex- 
perience has forced me to realize that its importance is relative. 
The transference is like those medicines which are a panacea 
for one and pure poison for another. In one case its appearance 
denotes a change for the better, in another it is a hindrance and 
an aggravation, if not a change for the worse, and in a third it 
is relatively unimportant. Generally speaking, however, it is a 
critical phenomenon of varying shades of meaning and its ab- 
sence is as significant as its presence. 

In this book I am concerned with the "classical" form of 
transference and its phenomenology. As it is a form of relation- 
ship, it always implies a vis-a-vis. Where it is negative or not 
there (it all? the vis-a-vis plays an unimportant part, as is gen- 

164 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



erally the case, for instance, when there is an inferiority com- 
plex coupled with a compensating need for self-assertion. 2 

It may seem strange to the reader that, in order to throw 
light on the transference, I should turn to something so ap- 
parently remote as alchemical symbolism. But anyone who has 
read my book Psychology and Alchemy (85) will know what 
close connections exist between alchemy and those phenomena 
which musty for practical reasons, be considered in the psychol- 
ogy of the unconscious. Consequently he will not be surprised 
to learn that this phenomenon, shown by experience to be so 
frequent and so important, also has its place in the symbolism 
and imagery of alchemy. Such images are not likely to be con- 
scious representations of the transference relationship; rather, 
they unconsciously take that relationship for granted, and for 
this reason we may use them as an Ariadne thread to guide us 
in our argument. 

The reader will not find an account of the clinical phe- 
nomena of transference in this book. It is not intended for the 
beginner who would first have to be instructed in such matters, 
but is addressed exclusively to those who have already gained 
sufficient experience in their own practice. My object is to pro- 
vide some kind of orientation in this newly discovered and still 
unexplored territory, and to acquaint the reader with some of 
its problems. In view of the great difficulties that beset our 
understanding here, I would like to stress the provisional char- 
acter of my investigation. I have tried to put together my ob- 
servations and ideas, and I recommend them to the reader's 
consideration in the hope of directing his attention to certain 
points of view whose importance has forced itself upon me in 
the course of time. I am afraid that my description will not be 
easy reading for those who do not possess some knowledge of 
my earlier works. I have therefore indicated in the footnotes 
those of my writings which might be of assistance. 

The reader who approaches this book more or less unpre- 

2 This is not to say that a transference never occurs in such cases. The negative 
form of transference in the guise of resistance, dislike, or hate endows the other 
person with great importance from the start, even if this importance is nega- 
tive; and it tries to put every conceivable obstacle in the way of a positive trans- 
ference. Consequently the symbolism so characteristic of the latter the synthesis 
of opposites cannot develop. 

165 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



pared will perhaps be astonished at the amount of historical 
material I bring to bear on my investigation. The reason and 
inner necessity for this lie in the fact that it is only possible 
to come to a right understanding and appreciation of a con- 
temporary psychological problem when we can reach a point 
outside our own time from which to observe it. This point can 
only be some past epoch that was concerned with the same 
problems^ although under different conditions and in other 
forms. The comparative analysis here undertaken naturally 
demands a correspondingly detailed account of the historical 
aspects of the situation. These could be described much more 
succinctly if we were dealing with well-known material, where 
a few references and hints would suffice. But unfortunately 
that is not the case, since the psychology of alchemy here under 
review is almost virgin territory. I must therefore take it for 
granted that the reader has some knowledge of my Psychology 
and Alchemy, otherwise it will be hard for him to gain access to 
the present volume. The reader whose professional and per- 
sonal experience has sufficiently acquainted him with the scope 
of the transference problem will forgive me this expectation. 
Although the present study can stand on its own, it forms 
at the same time an introduction to a more comprehensive ac- 
count of the problem of opposites in alchemy,, and of their phe- 
nomenology and synthesis* I would like to express my thanks 
here to all those who read my manuscript and drew my attention 
to defects. My particular thanks are due to Dr. Marie-Louise von 
Franz for her generous help. 
Autumn, 1 94 5 C. G. JUNG 

3 [Mysterium Contunctionis, to be published by Rascher Verlag, Zurich, and subse- 
quently to appear, in translation, as Volume 14 of the Collected Works. -EDITORS.] 



166 



INTRODUCTION 



Bellica pax, vulnus dulce, suave malum. 

(A warring peace, a sweet wound, an agreeable 

evil.) 

JOHN GOWER, Confessio amantis, 57, II, p. 35 



353 The fact that the idea of the mystic marriage plays such 
an important part in alchemy is not so surprising when we 
remember that the term most frequently employed for it, con- 
iunctio, referred in the first place to what we now call chemical 
combination, and that the substances or "bodies" to be com- 
bined were drawn together by what we would call affinity. In 
days gone by, people used a variety of terms which all expressed 
a human, and more particularly an erotic, relationship, such as 
nuptiae, matrimonium, coniugium, amicitia, attractio, adulatio. 
Accordingly the bodies to be combined were thought of as 
agens et patiens, as vir or masculus, and as femina, mulier, femi- 
neus; or they were described more picturesquely as dog and 
bitch, 1 horse (stallion) and donkey, 2 cock and hen, 3 and as the 
winged or wingless dragon. 4 The more anthropomorphic and 
theriomorphic the terms become, the more obvious is the part 

1 "Accipe canem corascenum masculum et caniculum Armeniae" (Take a Cor- 
ascen dog and an Armenian bitch). Hoghelande, 5, i, p. 163. A quotation from 
Kallid (in the Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 248) runs: "Accipe canem coetaneum et catulam 
Armeniae" (Take a Coetanean dog and an Armenian bitch). In a magic papyrus, 
Selene (moon) is called wkov (bitch). Paris MS. Z 2280, in Preisendanz, 136, I, 
p. 142. In Zosimos, dog and wolf. Berthelot, 29, III, xii, 9. [No translation of the 
words corascenum and coetaneum has been attempted, as we are advised that they 
are probably corrupt, or may indicate geographical names. Cf. par. 458. EDITORS.] 

2 Zosimos, in 29, III, xii, 9. 

3 The classical passage is to be found in Senior, 164, p. 8: "Tu mei indiges, sicut 
gallus gallinae indiget" (You need me as the cock needs the hen). 

4 Numerous pictures of it exist in the literature. 

167 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



played by creative fantasy and thus by the unconscious, and 
the more we see how the natural philosophers of old were 
tempted, as their thoughts explored the dark, unknown quali- 
ties of matter, to slip away from a strictly chemical investiga- 
tion and to fall under the spell of the "myth of matter." Since 
there can never be absolute freedom from prejudice, even the 
most objective and impartial investigator is liable to become 
the victim of some unconscious assumption upon going into a 
region where the darkness has never been illuminated and 
where he can recognize nothing. This need not necessarily 
be a misfortune, since the idea which then presents itself as a 
substitute for the unknown will take the form of an archaic 
though not inapposite analogy. Thus Kekule's vision of the 
dancing couples, 5 which first put him on the track of the struc- 
ture of certain carbon compounds, namely the benzene ring, 
was surely a vision of the coniunctio, the mating that had pre- 
occupied the minds of the alchemists for seventeen centuries. 
It was precisely this image that had always lured the mind of 
the investigator away from the problem of chemistry and back 
to the ancient myth of the royal or divine marriage; but in 
Kekule's vision it reached its chemical goal in the end, thus 
rendering the greatest imaginable service both to our under- 
standing of organic compounds and to the subsequent unprece- 
dented advances in synthetic chemistry. Looking back, we can 
say that the alchemists had keen noses when they made this 
arcanum arcanorumf this donum Dei et secretum altissimi, 7 thi$ 
inmost mystery of the art of gold-making, the climax of their 
work. The subsequent confirmation of the other idea central 
to gold-making the transmutability of chemical elements also 
takes a worthy place in this belated triumph of alchemical 
thought. Considering the eminently practical and theoretical 
importance of these two key ideas, we might well conclude that 
they were intuitive anticipations whose fascination can be ex- 
plained in the light of later developments. 8 

5 Kekule", 94, 1, pp. 624!, and Fierz-David, 42, pp. 235!:. 

6 Zacharias, 5, v, p. 826. 

7 "Consilium coniugii," 1, ii, p. 259. Cf. "Aurora consurgens," 19, Part I, Ch. II: "Est 
namque donum et sacramentum Dei atque res divina" (For it is a gift and sacra- 
ment of God and a thing divine). 

8 This does not contradict the fact that the coniunctio motif owes its fascination 
primarily to its archetypal character. 

168 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



354 We find, however, that alchemy did not merely change 
into chemistry by gradually discovering how to break away from 
its mythological premises, but that it also became, or had al- 
ways been, a kind of mystic philosophy. The idea of the con- 
iunctio served on the one hand to shed light on the mystery of 
chemical combination, while on the other it became the symbol 
of the unto mystica, since, as a mythologem, it expresses the 
archetype of the union of opposites. Now the archetypes do not 
represent anything external, non-psychic, although they do of 
course owe the concreteness of their imagery to impressions re- 
ceived from without. Rather, independently of, and sometimes 
in direct contrast to, the outward forms they may take, they 
represent the life and essence of a non-individual psyche. 
Although this psyche is innate in every individual it can neither 
be modified nor possessed by him personally. It is the same in 
the individual as it is in the crowd and ultimately in every- 
body. It is the precondition of each individual psyche, just as 
the sea is the carrier of the individual wave. 

355 The alchemical image of the coniunctio, whose practical 
importance was proved at a later stage of development, is 
equally valuable from the psychological point of view: that is 
to say, it plays the same role in the exploration of the darkness 
of the psyche as it played in the investigation of the riddle of 
matter. Indeed, it could never have worked so effectively in the 
material world had it not already possessed the power to fasci- 
nate and thus to fix the attention of the investigator along those 
lines. The coniunctio is an a priori image which has always oc- 
cupied an important place in man's mental development. If 
we trace this idea back we find it has two sources in alchemy, 
one Christian, the other pagan. The Christian source is un- 
mistakably the doctrine of Christ and the Church, sponsus 
and sponsa, where Christ takes the role of Sol and the Church 
that of Luna. 9 The pagan source is on the one hand the hieros 
gamos, 10 on the other the marital union of the mystic with 
God. 11 These psychic experiences and the traces they have 
left behind in tradition explain much that would otherwise 

9 Cf. the detailed account in Rahner, 140. 

10 A collection of the classical sources is to be found in Klinz, 99. 
HBousset, 30, pp. 698:., 263^, 3158:.; Leisegang, 108, I, p. 235. 

169 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



be totally unintelligible in the strange world of alchemy 
and its secret language. 

35 6 As we have said above, the image of the coniunctio always 
appears at an important point in the history of the human 
mind. Recent developments in modern medical psychology 
have, by observing the mental processes in neuroses and psy- 
choses, forced us to become more and more thorough in our 
investigation of the psychic background, commonly called the 
unconscious. It is psychotherapy above all that makes such 
investigations necessary, because it can no longer be denied 
that morbid disturbances of the psyche are not to be explained 
exclusively by the changes going on in the body or in the con- 
scious mind; we must adduce a third factor by way of explana- 
tion, namely hypothetical unconscious processes. 12 

357 Practical analysis has shown that unconscious contents are 
invariably projected at first upon concrete persons and situa- 
tions. Many projections can ultimately be integrated back into 
the individual once he has recognized their subjective origin; 
others resist integration, and although they may be detached 
from their original objects, they thereupon transfer themselves 
to the doctor. Among these contents the relation to the parent of 
opposite sex plays a particularly important part, i.e., the rela- 
tion of son to mother, daughter to father, and also that of 
brother to sister. 13 As a rule this complex cannot be integrated 
completely, since the doctor is nearly always put in the place of 
the father, the brother, and even (though naturally more 
rarely) the mother. Experience has shown that this projection 
persists with all its original intensity (which Freud regarded as 
aetiological), thus creating a bond that corresponds in every re- 
spect to the initial infantile relationship, with a tendency to 
recapitulate all the experiences of childhood on the doctor. In 
other words, the neurotic maladjustment of the patient is now 

12 1 call unconscious processes "hypothetical" because the unconscious is by defi- 
nition not amenable to direct observation and can only be inferred. 
13 1 leave out of account the so-called homosexual forms, such as father-son, 
mother-daughter, etc. In alchemy, as far as I know, this variation is alluded to 
only once, in the "Visio Arislei" (2, i, p. 147): "Doraine quamvis rex sis, male 
tamen imperas et regis: masculos namque masculis coniunxisti, sciens quod mas- 
culi non gignunt" (Lord, though thou art king, yet thou rulest and governest 
badly; for thou hast joined males with males, knowing that males do not produce 
offspring). 

170 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



transferred to him. 14 Freud, who was the first to recognize and 
describe this phenomenon, coined the term " transference neu- 
rosis." 15 

35 8 This bond is often of such intensity that we could almost 
speak of a "combination." When two chemical substances com- 
bine, both are altered. This is precisely what happens in the 
transference. Freud rightly recognized that this bond is of the 
greatest therapeutic importance in that it gives rise to a mix- 
turn compositum of the doctor's own mental health and the pa- 
tient's maladjustment. In Freudian technique the doctor tries 
to ward off the transference as much as possible which is un- 
derstandable enough from the human point of view, though in 
certain cases it may considerably impair the therapeutic effect. 
It is inevitable that the doctor should be influenced to a cer- 
tain extent and even that his nervous health should suffer. 16 

14 Freud says (Introductory Lectures, 51, p. 380): "The decisive part of the work is 
carried through by creating in the relationship to the physician, in the 'trans- 
ference' new editions of those early conflicts, in which the patient strives to be- 
have as he originally behaved. ... In place of the patient's original illness 
appears the artificially acquired transference, the transference-disorder; in place 
of a variety of unreal objects of his libido appears the single object, equally 'fan- 
tastic/ namely the person of the physician/' It is open to doubt whether the 
transference is always produced artificially, since it is a phenomenon that can take 
place quite apart from any treatment, and is moreover a very frequent natural oc- 
currence. Indeed, in any human relationship that is at all intimate, certain trans- 
ference phenomena will almost always operate as helpful or disturbing factors. 
is "if the patient does but show compliance enough to respect the necessary con- 
ditions of the analysis, we can regularly succeed in giving all the symptoms of the 
illness a new transference-colouring, and in replacing the genuine neurosis by 
a 'transference-neurosis* . . /' (Clin. Papers, 47, p. 374). Freud puts down a little 
too much to his own account here. A transference is not by any means always the 
work of the doctor. Often it is in full swing before he has even opened his mouth. 
Freud's conception of the transference as a "new edition of the old disease," a 
"newly created and transformed neurosis," or an "artificially acquired neurosis" 
(51, pp. 37if), is right in so far as the transference of a neurotic patient is 
equally neurotic, but this neurosis is neither new nor artificial nor created: it is 
the same old neurosis, and the only new thing about it is that the doctor is now 
drawn into the vortex, more as its victim than as its creator. 
16 Freud had already discovered the phenomenon of the "counter-transference." 
Those acquainted with his technique will be aware of its marked tendency to 
keep the person of the doctor as far as possible beyond the reach of this effect. 
Hence the doctor's preference for sitting behind the patient, also his pretence 
that the transference is a product of his technique, whereas in reality it is a per- 
fectly natural phenomenon that can happen to him just as it can happen to the 

171 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



He quite literally "takes over" the sufferings of his patient and 
shares them with him. For this reason he runs a risk and must 
run it in the nature of things, 17 The enormous importance that 
Freud attached to the transference phenomenon became clear 
to me at our first personal meeting in 1907. After a conversa- 
tion lasting many hours there came a pause. Suddenly he asked 
me out of the blue, "And what do you think about the transfer- 
ence?" I replied with the deepest conviction that it was the 
alpha and omega of the analytical method, whereupon he said, 
"Then you have grasped the main thing/ 7 

359 The great importance of the transference has often led to 
the mistaken idea that it is absolutely indispensable for a cure, 
that it must be demanded from the patient, so to speak. But a 
thing like that can no more be demanded than faith, which is 
only valuable when it is spontaneous. Enforced faith is nothing 
but spiritual cramp. Anyone who thinks that he must "demand" 
a transference is forgetting that this is only one of the thera- 
peutic factors, and that the very word "transference" is closely 
akin to "projection"a phenomenon that cannot possibly be 
demanded. 18 I personally am always glad when there is only a 
mild transference or when it is practically unnoticeable. Far 

teacher, the clergyman, the general practitioner, and last but not leastthe hus- 
band, Freud also uses the expression "transference-neurosis" as a collective term 
for hysteria, hysterical fears, and compulsion neuroses (Ibid., p. 372). 
17 The effects of this on the doctor or nurse can be very far-reaching. I know of 
cases where, in dealing with borderline schizophrenics, short psychotic attacks 
were actually "taken over," and during these moments it happened that the pa- 
tients were feeling more than ordinarily well. I have even met a case of induced 
paranoia in a doctor who was analysing a woman patient in the early stages of 
latent persecution mania. This is not so astonishing since certain psychic disturb- 
ances can be extremely infectious if the doctor himself has a latent predisposition 
in that direction. 

is Freud himself says (Clin. Papers, 48, p. 380) of this: "I can hardly imagine a more 
nonsensical proceeding. It robs the phenomenon of that element of spontaneity 
which is so convincing, and it lays up obstacles ahead which are extremely diffi- 
cult to overcome." Here Freud stresses the "spontaneity" of the transference, in 
contrast to his views quoted above. Nevertheless those who "demand" the trans- 
ference can fall back on the following cryptic utterance of their master (Case His- 
tories, 49, p. 139): "When one goes into the theory of the analytical technique one 
comes to realize that the transference is something necessarily demanded." 
[". . . that the transference is an inevitable necessity," as in the authorized trans- 
lation, is to stretch the meaning of Freud's "etwas notwendig Gef order tes." 
TKANS.] 

172 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



less claim is then made upon one as a person, and one can be 
satisfied with other effective therapeutic factors. Among these 
the patient's own insight plays an important part, also his good- 
will, the doctor's authority, suggestion, 1 ^ good advice, 20 under- 
standing, sympathy, encouragement, etc. Naturally the more 
serious cases do not come into this category. 

360 Careful analysis of the transference phenomenon yields an 
extremely complicated picture with such startlingly pronounced 
features that we are often tempted to pick out one of them as 
the most important and then exclaim by way of explanation: 
"Of course, it's nothing but . . .1" I am referring chiefly to 
the erotic or sexual aspect of transference fantasies. The ex- 
istence of this aspect is undeniable, but it is not always the only 
one and not always the essential one. Another is the will to 
power (described by Adler), which proves to be coexistent with 
sexuality, and it is often very difficult to make out which of the 
two predominates. These two aspects alone offer sufficient 
grounds for a paralysing conflict. 

3 61 There are, however, other forms of instinctive concupis- 
centia that come more from "hunger," from wanting to pos- 
sess; others again are based on the instinctive negation of desire, 
so that life seems to be founded on fear or self-destruction. A 
certain abaissement du niveau mental, i.e., a weakness in the 
hierarchical order of the ego, is enough to set these instinctive 
urges and desires in motion and bring about a dissociation 
of personality in other words, a multiplication of its centres of 
gravity. (In schizophrenia there is an actual fragmentation of 
personality.) These dynamic components must be regarded as 
real or symptomatic, vitally decisive or merely syndromal, ac- 
cording to the degree of their predominance. Although the 
strongest instincts undoubtedly require concrete realization 
and generally enforce it, they cannot be considered exclusively 
biological since the course they actually follow is subject to 
powerful modifications coming from the personality itself. If 
a man's temperament inclines him to a spiritual attitude, even 

19 Suggestion happens of its own accord, without the doctor's being able to pre- 
vent it or taking the slightest trouble to produce it. 

20 "Good advice" is often a doubtful remedy, but generally not dangerous be- 
cause it has so little effect. It is one of the things the public expects in the persona 
medici. 

173 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the concrete activity of the instincts will take on a certain sym- 
bolical character. This activity is no longer the mere satisfaction 
of instinctual impulses, for it is now associated with or compli- 
cated by "meanings." In the case of purely syndromal instinc- 
tive processes, which do not demand concrete realization to the 
same extent, the symbolical character of their fulfilment is all 
the more marked. The most vivid examples of these complica- 
tions are probably to be found in erotic phenomenology. Four 
stages were known even in the late classical period: Hawwah 
(Eve), Helen (of Troy), the Virgin Mary, and Sophia. The series 
is repeated in Goethe's Faust: in the figures of Gretchen as the 
personification of a purely instinctual relationship (Eve); 
Helen as an anima figure; 21 Mary as the personification of the 
"heavenly," i.e., Christian or religious, relationship; and the 
"eternal feminine" as an expression of the alchemical Sapientia. 
The nomenclature shows that we are dealing with the hetero- 
sexual Eros- or anima-figure in four stages, and consequently 
with four stages of the Eros cult. The first stage Hawwah, 
Eve, earthis purely biological; woman is equated with the 
mother and only represents something to be fertilized. The 
second stage is still dominated by the sexual Eros, but on an 
aesthetic and romantic level where woman has already acquired 
some value as an individual. The third stage raises Eros to the 
heights of religious devotion and thus spiritualizes him: Haw- 
wah has been replaced by spiritual motherhood. Finally, the 
fourth stage illustrates something which unexpectedly goes 
beyond the almost unsurpassable third stage: Sapientia. How 
can wisdom transcend the most holy and the most pure? Pre- 
sumably only by virtue of the truth that the less sometimes 
means the more. This stage represents spiritualization of Helen 
and consequently of Eros as such. That is why Sapientia was re- 
garded as a parallel to the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon. 



Not only are there different instincts which cannot for- 
cibly be reduced to one another, there are also different levels 
on which they move. In view of this far from simple situation, 

21 Simon Magus' Helen (Selene) is another excellent example. 

174 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



it is small wonder that the transference also an instinctive 
process, in part is very difficult to interpret and classify. The 
instincts and their specific fantasy-contents are partly concrete, 
partly symbolical (i.e., "unreal"), sometimes one, sometimes 
the other, and they have the same paradoxical character when 
they are projected. The transference is far from being a simple 
phenomenon with only one meaning, and we can never make 
out beforehand what it is all about. The same applies to its 
specific content, commonly called incest. We know that it is 
possible to interpret the fantasy-contents of the instincts either 
as signs, as self-portraits of the instincts, i.e., reductively; or as 
symbols, as the spiritual meaning of the natural instinct. In the 
former case the instinctive process is taken to be "real" and in 
the latter "unreal." 

363 In any particular case it is often almost impossible to say 
what is "spirit" and what is "instinct." Together they form an 
impenetrable mass, a veritable magma sprung from the depths 
of primeval chaos. When one meets such contents one immedi- 
ately understands why the psychic equilibrium of the neurotic 
is disturbed, and why the whole psychic system is broken up in 
schizophrenia. They emit a fascination which not only grips 
and has already grippedthe patient, but can also have an in- 
ductive effect on the unconscious of the impartial spectator, 
in this case the doctor. The burden of these unconscious and 
chaotic contents lies heavy on the patient; for, although they 
are present in everybody, it is only in him that they have be- 
come active, and they isolate him in a spiritual loneliness which 
neither he nor anybody else can understand and which is bound 
to be misinterpreted. Unfortunately, if we do not feel our way 
into the situation and if we approach it from the outside, it 
is only too easy^to dismiss it with a light word or to push it in 
the wrong direction. This is what the patient has long been do- 
ing on his own account, giving the doctor every opportunity 
for misinterpretation. At first the secret seems to lie with his 
parents, but when this tie has been loosed and the projection 
withdrawn, the whole weight falls upon the doctor, who is faced 
with the question: "What are you going to do about the trans- 
ference?" 

364 The doctor, by voluntarily and consciously taking over 
the psychic sufferings of the patient, exposes himself to the 

175 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



overpowering contents of the unconscious and hence also to 
their inductive action. The case begins to "fascinate" him. 
Here again it is easy to explain this in terms of personal likes 
and dislikes, but one overlooks the fact that this would be 
an instance of ignotum per ignotius. In reality these personal 
feelings, if they exist at all in any decisive degree, are governed 
by those same unconscious contents which have become acti- 
vated. An unconscious tie is established and now, in the pa- 
tient's fantasies, it assumes all the forms and dimensions so 
profusely described in the literature. The patient, by bringing 
an activated unconscious content to bear upon the doctor, con- 
stellates the corresponding unconscious material in him, owing 
to the inductive effect which always emanates from projections 
in greater or lesser degree. Doctor and patient thus find them- 
selves in a relationship founded on mutual unconsciousness. 
3 6 5 It is none too easy for the doctor to make himself aware 
of this fact. One is naturally loath to admit that one could be 
affected in the most personal way by just any patient. But the 
more unconsciously this happens, the more the doctor will be 
tempted to adopt an "apotropaic" attitude, and the persona 
medici he hides behind is, or rather seems to be, an admirable 
instrument for this purpose. Inseparable from the persona is 
the doctor's routine and his trick of knowing everything be- 
forehand, which is one of the favourite props of the well-versed 
practitioner and of all infallible authority. Yet this lack of in- 
sight is an ill counsellor, for the unconscious infection brings 
with it the therapeutic possibilitywhich should not be under- 
estimatedof the illness being transferred to the doctor. We 
must suppose as a matter of course that the doctor is the better 
able to make the constellated contents conscious, otherwise it 
would only lead to mutual imprisonment in the same state of 
unconsciousness. The greatest difficulty here is that contents 
are often activated in the doctor which might normally remain 
latent. He might be so normal as not to need any such uncon- 
scious standpoints to compensate for his conscious situation. 
At least this is often how it looks, though whether it is so in a 
deeper sense is an open question. Presumably he had good rea- 
sons for choosing the profession of psychiatrist and for being 
particularly interested in the treatment of psychoneuroses; and 
he cannot very well do that without gaining some insight into 

176 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



his own unconscious processes. Nor can his concern with the 
unconscious be explained entirely by a free choice of interests, 
but rather by a fateful disposition which originally inclined 
him to the medical profession. The more one sees of human fate 
and the more one examines its secret springs of action, the more 
one is impressed by the strength of unconscious motives and by 
the limitations of free choice. The doctor knows or at least he 
should know that he did not choose this career by chance; and 
the psychotherapist in particular should clearly understand that 
psychic infections, however superfluous they seem to him, are 
in fact the predestined concomitants o his work, and thus 
fully in accord with the instinctive disposition of his own 
life. This realization also gives him the right attitude to his 
patient. The patient then means something to him personally, 
and this provides the most favourable basis for treatment. 



366 in the old pre-analytical psychotherapy, going right back 
to the doctors of the Romantic Age, the transference was al- 
ready defined as "rapport." It forms the basis of therapeutic 
influence once the patient's initial projections are broken. 
During this work it becomes clear that the projections can 
also obscure the judgment of the doctor only to a small extent, 
of course, for otherwise all therapy would be impossible. Al- 
though we may justifiably expect the doctor at the very least to 
be acquainted with the effects of the unconscious on his own 
person, and may therefore demand that anybody who intends 
to practise psychotherapy should first submit to a "training 
analysis," yet even the best preparation will not suffice to teach 
him everything about the unconscious. A complete "emptying" 
of the unconscious is out of the question, if only because its 
creative powers are continually producing new formations. 
Consciousness, no matter how extensive it may be, must always 
remain the smaller circle within the greater circle of the uncon- 
scious, an island surrounded by the sea; and, like the sea itself, 
the unconscious yields an endless and self-replenishing abun- 
dance of living creatures, a wealth beyond our fathoming. We 
may long have known the meaning, effects, and characteristics 

177 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of unconscious contents without ever having fathomed their 
, depths and potentialities, for they are capable of infinite varia- 
tion and can never be depotentiated. The only way to get at 
them in practice is to try to attain a conscious attitude which 
allows the unconscious to co-operate instead of being driven 
into opposition. 

367 Even the most experienced psychotherapist will discover 
again and again that he is caught up in a bond, a combination 
resting on mutual unconsciousness. And though he may believe 
himself to be in possession of all the necessary knowledge con- 
cerning the constellated archetypes, he will in the end come to 
realize that there are very many things indeed of which his aca- 
demic knowledge never dreamed. Each new case that requires 
thorough treatment is pioneer work, and every trace of routine 
then proves to be a blind alley. Consequently the higher psy- 
chotherapy is a most exacting business and sometimes it sets 
tasks which challenge not only our understanding or our sym- 
pathy, but the whole man. The doctor is inclined to demand 
this total effort from his patient, yet he must realize that this 
same demand only works if he is aware that it also applies to 
himself. 

368 I said earlier that the contents which enter into the trans- 
ference were as a rule originally projected upon the parents or 
other members of the family. Owing to the fact that these con- 
tents seldom or never lack an erotic aspect or are genuinely 
sexual in substance (apart from the other factors already men- 
tioned), an incestuous character does undoubtedly attach to 
them, and this has given rise to the Freudian theory of incest. 
Their exogamous transference to the doctor does not alter the 
situation. He is merely drawn into the peculiar atmosphere of 
family incest through the projection. This necessarily leads to 
an unreal intimacy which is highly distressing to both doctor 
and patient and arouses resistance and doubt on both sides. 
The violent repudiation of Freud's original discoveries gets 
us nowhere, for we are dealing with an empirically demon- 
strable fact which meets with such universal confirmation that 
only the ignorant still try to oppose it. But the interpretation 
of this fact is, in the very nature of the case, highly controver- 
sial. Is it a genuine incestuous instinct or a pathological varia- 
tion? Or is the incest one of the "arrangements" (Adler) of the 

178 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



will to power? Or is it a regression of normal libido 22 to the 
infantile level, from fear of an apparently impossible task in 
life? 23 Or is all incest-fantasy purely symbolical, and thus a re- 
activation of the incest archetype, which plays such an im- 
portant part in the history of the mind? 

3 6 9 For all these widely differing interpretations we can mar- 
shal more or less satisfactory arguments. The view which prob- 
ably causes most offence is that incest is a genuine instinct. But, 
considering the almost universal prevalence of the incest taboo, 
we may legitimately remark that a thing which is not liked and 
desired generally requires no prohibition. In my opinion, each 
of these interpretations is justified up to a point, because all 
the corresponding shades of meaning are present in concrete 
instances, though with varying intensity. Sometimes one aspect 
predominates and sometimes another. I ani far from asserting 
that the above list could not be supplemented further. 

37 In practice, however, it is of the utmost importance how 
the incestuous aspect is interpreted. The explanation will vary 
according to the nature of the case, the stage of treatment, the 
perspicacity of the patient, and the maturity of his judgment. 

37 1 The existence of the incest element involves not only an 
intellectual difficulty but, worst of all, an emotional complica- 
tion of the therapeutic situation. It is the hiding place for all 
the most secret, painful, intense, delicate, shamefaced, timorous, 
grotesque, unmoral, and at the same time the most sacred 
feelings which go to make up the incredible and inexplicable 
wealth of human relationships and give them their compelling 
power. Like the tentacles of an octopus they twine themselves 
invisibly round parents and children and, through the trans- 
ference, round doctor and patient. This binding force shows 
itself in the irresistible strength and obstinacy of the neurotic 
symptom and in the patient's desperate clinging to the world 
of infancy or to the doctor. The word "possession" describes 
this state in a way that could hardly be bettered. 

22 The reader will know that I do not understand libido in the original Freudian 
sense as appetitus sexualis, but as an appetitus which can be defined as psychic 
energy. See "On Psychic Energy," 82. 

23 This is the view I have put forward as an explanation of certain processes in 
"The Theory of Psychoanalysis," 92. 

179 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



372 The remarkable effects produced by unconscious contents 
allow us to infer something about their energy. All uncon- 
scious contents, once they are activated i.e., have made them- 
selves felt possess as it were a specific energy which enables 
them to manifest themselves everywhere (like the incest motif, 
for instance). But this energy is normally not sufficient to thrust 
the content into consciousness. For that there must be a certain 
predisposition on the part of the conscious mind, namely a defi- 
cit in the form of loss of energy. The energy so lost raises the 
psychic potency of certain compensating contents in the uncon- 
scious. The abaissement du niveau mental^ the energy lost to 
consciousness, is a phenomenon which shows itself most dras- 
tically in the "loss of soul" among primitive peoples, who also 
have interesting psychotherapeutic methods for recapturing the 
soul that has gone astray. This is not the place to go into these 
things in detail, so a bare mention must suffice. 24 Similar phe- 
nomena can be observed in civilized man. He too is liable to 
a sudden loss of initiative for no apparent reason. The dis- 
covery of the real reason is no easy task and generally leads to 
a somewhat ticklish discussion of things lying in the back- 
ground. Carelessness of all kinds, neglected duties, tasks post- 
poned, wilful outbursts of defiance, and so on, all these can 
dam up his vitality to such an extent that certain quanta of 
energy, no longer finding a conscious outlet, stream off into 
the unconscious, where they activate other, compensating con- 
tents, which in turn begin to exert a compulsive influence on 
the conscious mind. (Hence the very common combination of 
extreme neglect of duty and a compulsion neurosis!) 

373 This is one way in which loss of energy may come about. 
The other way causes loss not through a malfunctioning of the 
conscious mind but through a "spontaneous 1 * activation of un- 
conscious contents, which react secondarily upon the conscious 
mind. There are moments in human life when a new page is 
turned. New interests and tendencies appear which have 
hitherto received no attention, or there is a sudden change of 
personality (a so-called mutation of character). During the in- 
cubation period of such a change we can often observe a loss of 
conscious energy: the new development has drawn off the en- 
ergy it needs from consciousness. This lowering of energy can be 

24 1 refer the reader to Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, 45, pp. 54$. 

l8o 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



seen most clearly before the onset of certain psychoses and also 
in the empty stillness which precedes creative work. 25 
374 The remarkable potency of unconscious contents, there- 
fore, always indicates a corresponding weakness in the con- 
scious mind and its functions. It is as though the latter were 
threatened with impotence. For primitive man this danger is 
one of the most terrifying instances o "magic." So we can un- 
derstand why this secret fear is also to be found among civilized 
people. In serious cases it is the secret fear of going mad; in less 
serious, the fear of the unconscious a fear which even the nor- 
mal person exhibits in his resistance to psychological views and 
explanations. This resistance borders on the grotesque when 
it comes to scouting all psychological explanations of art, phi- 
losophy, and religion, as though the human psyche had, or 
should have, absolutely nothing to do with these things. The 
doctor knows these well-defended zones from his consulting 
hours: they are reminiscent of island fortresses from which the 
neurotic tries to ward off the octopus. ("Happy neurosis is- 
land/* as one of my patients called his conscious state!) The 
doctor is well aware that the patient needs an island and would 
be lost without it. It serves as a refuge for his consciousness 
and as the last stronghold against the threatening embrace of 
the unconscious. The same is true of the normal person's taboo 
regions which psychology must not touch. But since no war was 
ever won on the defensive, one must, in order to terminate hos- 
tilities, open negotiations with the enemy and see what his 
terms really are. Such is the intention of the doctor who volun- 
teers to act as a mediator. He is far from wishing to disturb the 
somewhat precarious island idyll or pull down the fortifica- 
tions. On the contrary, he is thankful that somewhere a firm 
foothold exists that does not first have to be fished up out of 
the chaos, always a desperately difficult task. He knows that the 
island is a bit cramped and that life on it is pretty meagre and 
plagued with all sorts of imaginary wants because too much 
life has been left outside, and that as a result a terrifying mon- 
ster is created, or rather roused out of its slumbers. He also 
knows that this seemingly alarming animal stands in a secret 

25 The same phenomenon can be seen on a smaller scale, but no less clearly, in 
the apprehension and depression which precede any special psychic exertion, such 
as an examination, a lecture, an important interview, etc. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



compensatory relationship to the island and could supply every- 
thing that the island lacks. 

375 The transference, however, alters the psychological stature 
of the doctor, though this is at first imperceptible to him. 
He too becomes affected, and has as much difficulty in dis- 
tinguishing between the patient and what has taken possession 
of him as has the patient himself. This leads both of them to a 
direct confrontation with the daemonic forces lurking in the 
darkness. The resultant paradoxical blend of positive and nega- 
tive, of trust and fear, of hope and doubt, of attraction and re- 
pulsion, is characteristic of the initial relationship. It is the 
velttoc; %al qpdia (hate and love) of the elements, which the al- 
chemists likened to the primeval chaos. The activated uncon- 
scious appears as a flurry of unleashed opposites and calls forth 
the attempt to reconcile them, so that, in the words of the al- 
chemists, the great panacea, the medicina catholica, may be 
born. 



It must be emphasized that in alchemy the dark initial 
state or nigredo is often regarded as the product of a previous 
operation, and that it therefore does not represent the absolute 
beginning. 26 Similarly, the psychological parallel to the nigredo 
is the result of the foregoing preliminary talk which, at a cer- 
tain moment, sometimes long delayed, "touches" the uncon- 
scious and establishes the unconscious identity 27 of doctor and 
patient. This moment may be perceived and registered con- 
sciously, but generally it happens outside consciousness and 
the bond thus established is only recognized later and indi- 
rectly by its results. Occasionally dreams occur about this time, 

26 Where the nigredo is identified with the putrefactio it does not come at the 
beginning, as for example in the series of pictures to- the Rosarium philosophorum 
(2, xiii, p. 254). In Mylius, 120, p. 116, the nigredo only appears in the fifth 
grade of the work, during the "putrefactio, quae in umbra purgatorii celebratur" 
(putrefaction which is celebrated in the darkness of Purgatory); but further on 
(p. 118), we read in contradiction to this: "Et haec denigratio est operis initium, 
putrefactionis indicium'* etc. (And this denigratio is the beginning of the work, 
an indication of the putrefaction). 

27 "Unconscious identity" is the same as Le"vy-BruhVs participation mystique 
(in How Natives Think, 109). 

18* 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



announcing the appearance of the transference. For instance, a 
dream may say that a fire has started in the cellar, or that a 
burglar has broken in, or that the patient's father has died, or 
it may depict an erotic or some other ambiguous situation. 28 
From the moment when such a dream occurs there may be initi- 
ated a queer unconscious time-reckoning, lasting for months or 
even longer. I have often observed this process and will give a 
practical instance of it: 

377 When treating a lady of over sixty, I was struck by the 
following passage in a dream she had on October 21, 1938: "A 
beautiful little child, a girl of six months old, is playing in the 
kitchen with her grandparents and myself, her mother. The 
grandparents are on the left of the room and the child stands 
on the square table in the middle of the kitchen. I stand by the 
table and play with the child. The old woman says she can 
hardly believe we have known the child for only six months. 
I say that it is not so strange because we knew and loved the 
child long before she was born," 

37S It is immediately apparent that the child is something 
special, i.e., a child hero or divine child. The father is not men- 
tioned; his absence is part of the picture. 29 The kitchen, as scene 
of the happening, points to the unconscious. The square table 
is the quaternity, the classical basis of the "special" child, 30 for 
the child is a symbol of the self and the quaternity is a sym- 

28 A pictorial representation of this moment, in the form of a flash of lightning 
and a "stone-birth," is to be found in my "Study in Individuation," 90, fig. 2. 

29 Because he is the "unknown father/* a theme to be met with in Gnosticism. See 
Bousset, 30, Ch. II, pp. 58-91. 

30 cf. Nicholas of Flue's vision of the threefold fountain arising in the square 
container (Lavaud, 105, p. 67, and Stockli, 154, p. 19). A Gnostic text says: "In 
the second Fatherpiood] the five trees are standing and in their midst is a 
trapeza [TQcbtsta]- Standing on the trapeza is an Only-begotten word [^6705 
u,ovovE'VT]$]." (Charlotte Baynes, 23, p. 70.) The trapeza is an abbreviation of 
TET0djT8^a, a four-legged table or podium (23, p. 71). Cf. Irenaeus, 72, III, 11, 
where he compares the "fourfold gospel" with the four cherubim in the vision 
of Ezekiel, the four regions of the world, and the four winds: "ex quibus mani- 
festum est, quoniam qui est omnium artifex Verbum, qui sedet super Cherubim 
et continet omnia, dedit nobis quadriforme Evangelium, quod uno spiritu con- 
tinetur" (from which it is clear that He who is the Maker of all things, the Word 
[Logos] who sits above the Cherubim and holds all things together, gave unto us 
the fourfold gospel, which is contained in one spirit). 

Concerning the kitchen, cf. Lavaud, 105, p. 66, and Stockli, 154, p. 18. 

183 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



bolical expression of this. The self as such is timeless and ex- 
isted before any birth. 31 The dreamer was strongly influenced 
by Indian writings and knew the Upanishads well, but not the 
medieval Christian symbolism which is in question here. The 
precise age of the child made me ask the dreamer to look in 
her notes to see what had happened in the unconscious six 
months earlier. Under April 20, 1938, she found the following 
dream: 

379 ''With some other women I am looking at a piece of tap- 
estry, a square with symbolical figures on it. Immediately after- 
wards I am sitting with some women in front of a marvellous 
tree. It is magnificently grown^ at first it seems to be some kind 
of conifer,, but then I think in the dream that it is a monkey- 
puzzle [a tree of genus Araucaria] with the branches growing 
straight up like candles [a confusion with Cereus candelabrum]. 
A Christmas tree is fitted into it in such a way that at first it 
looks like one tree instead of two.""- As the dreamer was writ- 
ing down this dream immediately on waking, with a vivid 
picture of the tree before her, she suddenly had a vision of a 
tiny golden child lying at the foot of the tree (tree-birth mo- 
tif). She had thus gone on dreaming the sense of the dream. 
It undoubtedly depicts the birth of the divine ("golden") child. 

3 8 But what had happened nine months previous to April 
20, 1938? Between July 19 and 22, 1937, she had painted a pic- 
ture showing, on the left, a heap of coloured and polished 
(precious) stones surmounted by a silver serpent, winged and 
crowned. In the middle of the picture there stands a naked 
female figure from whose genital region the same serpent rears 
up towards the heart, where it bursts into a five-pointed, gor- 
geously flashing golden star. A coloured bird flies down on 
the right with a little twig in its beak. On the twig five flowers 
are arranged in a quaternio> one yellow, one blue, one red, 
one green, but the topmost is golden obviously a mandala 
structure. 32 The serpent represents the hissing ascent of Kunda- 
lini, and in the corresponding yoga this marks the first moment 
in a process which ends with deification in the divine Self, the 
syzygy of Shiva and Shakti. 33 It is obviously the moment of 

si This is not a metaphysical statement but a psychological fact. 

32 AS regards the bird with the flowering twig, see the Rosarium pictures below. 

33 Avalon, The Serpent Power, 20, pp. 345! 

184 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



symbolical conception, which is both Tantric andbecause of 
the bird Christian in character, being a contamination of the 
allegory of the conception with Noah's dove and the sprig of 
olive. 

This case, and more particularly the last image, is a classi- 
cal example of the kind of symbolism which marks the onset 
of the transference. Noah's dove (the prototype of reconcilia- 
tion), the incarnatio Dei, the union of God with the materia 
for the purpose of begetting the mediator, the serpent path, 
the Sushumna representing the line midway between sun 
and moonall this is the first, anticipatory stage of an as-yet- 
unfulfilled programme that culminates in the union of oppo- 
sites. This union is analogous to the "royal marriage** in 
alchemy. The prodromal events signify the meeting or collision 
of various opposites and can therefore appropriately be called 
chaos and blackness. As mentioned above, this may take place 
at the beginning of the treatment, or it may first have to go 
through a lengthy analysis, a stage of rapprochement. Such is 
particularly the case when the patient shows violent resistances 
coupled with fear of the activated contents of the unconscious. 34 
There is good reason and ample justification for these resis- 
tances and they should never, under any circumstances, be rid- 
den over roughshod or otherwise argued out of existence. 
Neither should they be belittled, disparaged, or made ridiculous; 
on the contrary, they should be taken with the utmost serious- 
ness as a vitally important defence mechanism against overpow- 
ering contents which are often very difficult to control. The 
general rule should be that the weakness of the conscious atti- 
tude is proportional to the strength of the resistance. When, 
therefore, there are strong resistances, the conscious rapport 
with the patient must be carefully watched, and in certain 

4 Freud, as we know, looks at the transference problem from the standpoint of 
a personalistic psychology and thus overlooks the very essence of the transference 
the collective contents of an archetypal nature. The reason for this is his no- 
toriously negative attitude to the psychic reality of archetypal images, which he 
dismisses as 'Illusion." This materialistic bias precludes strict application of the 
phenomenological principle without which an objective study of the psyche is abso- 
lutely impossible. My handling of the transference problem, in contrast to Freud's, 
includes the archetypal aspect and thus gives rise to a totally different picture. 
Freud's rational treatment of the problem is quite logical as far as his purely 
personalistic premises go, but both in theory and in practice they do not go far 
enough, since they fail to do justice to the obvious admixture of archetypal data. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



cases his conscious attitude must be supported to such a degree 
that, in view of later developments, one would be bound to 
charge oneself with the grossest inconsistency. That is inevita- 
ble, because one can never be too sure that the weak state of the 
patient's conscious mind will prove equal to the subsequent 
assault of the unconscious. In fact, one must go on supporting 
his conscious (or, as Freud thinks, "repressive") attitude until 
the patient can let the "repressed" contents rise up spontane- 
ously. Should there by any chance be a latent psychosis 35 
which cannot be detected beforehand, this cautious procedure 
may prevent the devastating invasion of the unconscious or at 
least catch it in time. At all events the doctor then has a clear 
conscience, knowing that he has done everything in his power 
to avoid a fatal outcome. 36 Nor is it beside the point to add 
that consistent support of the conscious attitude has in itself 
a high therapeutic value and not infrequently serves to bring 
about satisfactory results. It would be a dangerous prejudice 
to imagine that analysis of the unconscious is the one and only 
panacea which should therefore be employed in every case. It is 
rather like a surgical operation and we should only resort to 
the knife when other methods have failed. So long as it does 
not obtrude itself the unconscious is best left alone. The reader 
should be quite clear that my discussion of the transference 
problem is not an account of the daily routine of the psycho- 
therapist, but far more a description of what happens when 
the check normally exerted on the unconscious by the conscious 
mind is disrupted, though this need not necessarily occur at all. 
: Cases where the archetypal problem of the transference 
becomes acute are by no means always "serious" cases, i.e., grave 
states of illness. There are of course such cases among them, 
but there are also mild neuroses, or simply psychological diffi- 
culties which we would be at a loss to diagnose. Curiously 
enough, it is these latter cases that present the doctor with the 
most difficult problems. Often the persons concerned endure 

35 The numerical proportion of latent to manifest psychoses is about equal to 
that of latent to active cases of tuberculosis. 

36 The violent resistance, mentioned by Freud, to the rational termination of the 
transference is often due to the fact that in some markedly sexual forms of trans- 
ference there are concealed collective unconscious contents which defy all rational 
solution. Or, if this solution succeeds, the patient is cut off from the collective un- 
conscious and comes to feel this as a loss. 

186 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



unspeakable suffering without developing any neurotic symp- 
toms that would entitle them to be called ill. We can only call 
it an intense suffering, a passion of the soul but not a disease of 
the mind. 



; Once an unconscious content is constellated, it tends to break 
down the relationship of conscious trust between doctor and 
patient by creating, through projection, an atmosphere of illu- 
sion which either leads to continual misinterpretations and 
misunderstandings, or else produces a most disconcerting im- 
pression of harmony. The latter is even more trying than the 
former, which at worst (though it is sometimes for the best!) 
can only hamper the treatment, whereas in the other case a 
tremendous effort is needed to discover the points of difference. 
But in either case the constellation of the unconscious is a trou- 
blesome factor. The situation is enveloped in a kind of fog, and 
this fully accords with the nature of the unconscious con- 
tent: it is dark and black "nigrum, nigrius nigro," 37 as the 
alchemists rightly say and in addition it is charged with dan- 
gerous polar tensions, with the inimicitia elementorum. One 
finds oneself in an impenetrable chaos, which is indeed one of 
the synonyms for the mysterious prima materia. The latter cor- 
responds to the nature of the unconscious content in every 
respect, with one exception: this time it does not appear in the 
alchemical substance but in man himself. In the case of al- 
chemy it is quite evident that the unconscious content is of hu- 
man origin, as I have shown in my Psychology and Alchemy . S7a 
Hunted for centuries and never found, the prima materia or 
lapis philosophorum is, as a few alchemists rightly suspected, 
to be discovered in man himself. But it seems that this content 
can never be found and integrated directly, but only by the 
circuitous route of projection. For as a rule the unconscious 
first appears in projected form. Whenever it appears to obtrude 
itself directly, as in visions, dreams, illuminations, psychoses, 
etc., these are always preceded by psychic conditions which give 
clear proof of projection. A classical example of this is Saul's 

37 Cf. Lully, 3, ii, pp. 790!?., and Maier, Symbola, 114, pp. 
37a 201, pars. 342! 

187 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



fanatical persecution of the Christians before Christ appeared 
to him in a vision. 

The elusive, deceptive, ever-changing content that possesses 
the patient like a demon now flits about from patient to doctor 
and, as the third party in the alliance, continues its game, 
sometimes impish and teasing, sometimes really diabolical. 
The alchemists aptly personified it as the wily god of revelation, 
Hermes or Mercurius; and though they lament over the way 
he hoodwinks them, they still give him the highest names, 
which bring him very near to deity. 38 But for all that, they 
deem themselves good Christians whose faithfulness of heart is 
never in doubt, and they begin and end their treatises with 
pious invocations. 39 Yet it would be an altogether unjustifiable 
suppression of the truth were I to confine myself to the negative 
description of Mercurius* impish drolleries, his inexhaustible 
invention, his insinuations, his intriguing ideas and schemes, his 
ambivalence and often his unmistakable malice. He is also 
capable of the exact opposite, and I can well understand why 
the alchemists endowed their Mercurius with the highest spir- 
itual qualities, although these stand in flagrant contrast to his 
exceedingly shady character. The contents of the unconscious 
are indeed of the greatest importance, for the unconscious is 
after all the matrix of the human mind and its inventions. 
Wonderful and ingenious as this other side of the unconscious 
is, it can be most dangerously deceptive on account of its nu- 
minous nature. Involuntarily one thinks of the devils men- 
tioned by St. Athanasius in his life of St. Anthony, who talk 

38 Cf. my "The Spirit Mercurius/' 89. 

39 Thus the second part of the "Aurora consurgens" (2, iii, pp. 2466:.) closes with 
the words: "Et haec est probata medicina Philosophorum, quam omni inuesti- 
ganti fideli et pio volenti, praestare dignetur Dominus noster Jesus Christus, 
qui cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat, Deus per infinita seculorum 
secula, Amen" (And this is the approved medicine of the philosophers, which our 
Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and rules with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God 
through Eternity, may deign to give to every searcher who is faithful, pious, and 
of good will, Amen). This conclusion no doubt comes from the Offertorium 
(prayer during the commixtio), where it says: ". . . qui humanitatis nostrae fieri 
dignatus est particeps, Jesus Christus, Filius Tuus, Dominus noster: qui tecum 
vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum. 
Amen/' (. . . who vouchsafed to become partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ, 
Thy Son, our Lord: who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy 
Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.) 

188 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



very piously, sing psalms, read the holy books, and worst of 
all speak the truth. The difficulties of our psychotherapeutic 
work teach us to take truth, goodness, and beauty where we 
find them. They are not always found where we look for them: 
often they are hidden in the dirt or are in the keeping of the 
dragon. "In stercore invenitur" (it is found in filth) 40 runs 
an alchemical dictumnor is it any the less valuable on that 
account. But, it does not transfigure the dirt and does not di- 
mmish the evil, any more than these lessen God's gifts. The con- 
trast is painful and the paradox bewildering. Sayings like 

ovQavo avco (Heaven above 

OVQOCVO uato> Heaven below 

(xotQa avco Stars above 

ctatQa xatco Stars below 

jtav o avco All that is above 

TODTO xoctG) Also is below 

Tccirra Aa(3s Grasp this 

xe eimjxe And rejoice) 41 



are too optimistic and superficial; they forget the moral tor- 
ment occasioned by the opposites, and the importance of ethical 
values. 

3 8 5 The refining of the prima materia, the unconscious con- 
tent, demands endless patience, perseverance, 42 equanimity, 
knowledge, and ability on the part of the doctor; and, on the 
part of the patient, the putting forth of his best powers and a 
capacity for suffering which does not leave the doctor altogether 
unaffected. The deep meaning of the Christian virtues, espe- 
cially the greatest among these, will become clear even to the 
unbeliever; for there are times when he needs them all if he is 
to rescue his consciousness, and his very life, from this pocket 
of chaos, whose final subjugation, without violence, is no ordi- 

40 Cf. Tractatus aureus, 1, i, p. *i. 

41 Kircher, 98, II, Class X, Cap. V, p. 414. There is a connection between this 
text and the "Tabula smaragdina"; cf. Ruska, 149, p. 217. 

42 The Rosarium (2, xiii, p. 230) says: "Et scias, quod haec est longissima via, 
ergo patientia et mora sunt necessariae in nostro magisterio" (And you must 
know that this is a very long road; therefore patience and perseverance are need- 
ful in our magistery). Cf. "Aurora consurgens," 19, Ch. 10: "Tria sunt necessaria 
videlicet patientia mora et aptitudo instrumentorum" (Three things are neces- 
sary, namely: patience, leisure, and skill with the instruments). Kallid minor. 

189 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



nary task. If the work succeeds, it often works like a miracle, and 
one can understand what it was that prompted the alchemists 
to insert a heartfelt Deo concedente in their recipes, or to al- 
low that only if God wrought a miracle could their procedure 
be brought to a successful conclusion. 



3 86 It may seem strange to the reader that a "medical pro- 
cedure" should give rise to such considerations. Although in 
illnesses of the body there is no remedy and no treatment that 
can be said to be infallible in all circumstances, there are still 
a great many which will probably have the desired effect with- 
out either doctor or patient having the slightest need to insert 
a Deo concedente. But we are not dealing here with the body 
we are dealing with the psyche. Consequently we cannot speak 
the language of body-cells and bacteria; we need another lan- 
guage commensurate with the nature of the psyche, and equally 
we must have an attitude which measures the danger and can 
meet it. And all this must be genuine or it will have no effect; 
if it is hollow, it will damage both doctor and patient. The 
Deo concedente is not just a rhetorical flourish; it expresses the 
firm attitude of the man who does not imagine that he knows 
better on every occasion and who is fully aware that the un- 
conscious material before him is something alive, a paradoxical 
Mercurius of whom an old master says: "Et est ille quern natura 
paululum operata est et in metallicam formam formavit, tamen 
imperfectum relinquit" (And he is that on whom nature hath 
worked but a little, and whom she hath wrought into metallic 
form yet left unfinished) 43 a natural being, therefore, that 
longs for integration within the wholeness of a man. It is like a 
fragment of primeval psyche into which no consciousness has 
as yet penetrated to create division and order, a "united dual 
nature," as Goethe says an abyss of ambiguities. 

387 Since we cannot imagine unless we have lost our critical 
faculties altogether that mankind today has attained the high- 
est possible degree of consciousness, there must be some poten- 

43 Rosarium,, 2, xiii, p. 231. What the alchemist sees in "metallic form" the psycho- 
therapist sees in man. 

190 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



tial unconscious psyche left over whose development would 
result in a further extension and a higher differentiation of con- 
sciousness. No one can say how great or small this "remnant" 
might be, for we have no means of measuring the possible extent 
of conscious development, let alone the extent of the uncon- 
scious. But there is not the slightest doubt that a massa confusa 
of archaic and undifferentiated contents exists, which not only 
manifests itself in neuroses and psychoses but also forms the 
"skeleton in the cupboard" of innumerable people who are not 
really pathological. We are so accustomed to hear that every- 
body has his "difficulties and problems" that we simply accept 
it as a banal fact, without considering what these difficulties 
and problems really mean. Why is one never satisfied with one- 
self? Why is one unreasonable? Why is one not always good 
and why must one ever leave a cranny for evil? Why does one 
sometimes say too much and sometimes too little? Why does 
one do foolish things which could easily be avoided with a 
little forethought? What is it that is always frustrating us and 
thwarting our best intentions? Why are there people who never 
notice these things and cannot even admit their existence? And 
finally, why do people in the mass beget the historical lunacy 
of the last thirty years? Why couldn't Pythagoras, twenty-four 
hundred years ago, have established the rule of wisdom once 
and -for all, or Christianity have set up the Kingdom of Heaven 
upon earth? 

> The Church has the doctrine of the devil, of an evil prin- 
ciple, whom we like to imagine complete with cloven hoofs, 
horns, and tail, half man, half beast, a chthonic deity appar- 
ently escaped from the rout of Dionysus, the sole surviving 
champion of the sinful joys of paganism. An excellent picture, 
and one which exactly describes the grotesque and sinister side 
of the unconscious; for we have never really come to grips 
with it and consequently it has remained in its original savage 
state. Probably no one today would still be rash enough to 
assert that the European is a lamblike creature and not pos- 
sessed by a devil. The frightful records of our age are plain 
for all to see, and they surpass in hideousness everything that 
any previous age, with its feeble instruments, could have hoped 
to accomplish. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



3 8 9 If, as many are fain to believe, the unconscious were only 
nefarious, only evil, then the situation would be simple and the 
path clear: to do good and to eschew evil. But what is "good" 
and what is "evil"? The unconscious is not just evil by nature, 
it is also the source of the highest good: 44 not only dark but 
also light, not only bestial, semi-human, and demonic but su- 
perhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, 
"divine." The Mercurius who personifies the unconscious 45 is 
essentially "duplex," paradoxically dualistic by nature, fiend, 
monster, beast, and at the same time panacea, "the philosophers' 
son," sapientia Dei, and donum Spiritus Sancti. 4Q 

39 Since this is so, all hope of a simple solution is destroyed. 
All definitions of good and evil become suspect or actually 
invalid. As moral forces, good and evil remain unshaken, and 
as the simple verities for which the penal code, the ten com- 
mandments, and conventional Christian morality take them 
undoubted. But conflicting loyalties are much more subtle and 
dangerous things, and a conscience sharpened by worldly wis- 
dom can no longer rest content with precepts, ideas, and fine 
words. When it has to deal with that remnant of primeval 
psyche, pregnant with the future and yearning for develop- 
ment, it grows uneasy and looks round for some guiding prin- 
ciple or fixed point Indeed, once this stage has been reached 
in our dealings with the unconscious, these desiderata become 
a pressing necessity. Since the only salutary powers visible in 
the world today are the great "psychotherapeutic" systems 
which we call the religions, and from which we expect the souFs 
salvation, it is quite natural that many people should make the 
justifiable and often successful attempt to find a niche for them- 
selves in one of the existing faiths and to acquire a deeper 
insight into the meaning of the traditional saving verities. 

44 Here I must expressly emphasize that I am not dabbling in metaphysics or dis- 
cussing questions of faith, but am speaking o psychology. Whatever religious ex- 
perience or metaphysical truth may be in themselves, looked at empirically they 
are essentially psychic phenomena, that is, they manifest themselves as such and 
must therefore be submitted to psychological criticism, evaluation, and investiga- 
tion. Science comes to a stop at its own borders. 

45 Cf. my "The Spirit Mercurius," 89. 

46 The alchemists also liken him to Lucifer ("bringer of light"), God's fallen and 
most beautiful angel. Cf. Mylius, 120, p. 18. 

193 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



39 1 This solution, is normal and satisfying in that the dog- 
matically formulated truths of the Christian Church express, 
almost perfectly, the nature of psychic experience. They are the 
repositories of the secrets of the soul, and this matchless knowl- 
edge is set forth in grand symbolical images. The unconscious 
thus possesses a natural affinity with the spiritual values of the 
Church, particularly in their dogmatic form, which owes its 
special character to centuries of theological controversy ab- 
surd as this seemed in the eyes of later generations and to the 
passionate efforts of many great men. 



392 The Church would be an ideal solution for anyone seek- 
ing a suitable receptacle for the chaos of the unconscious were 
it not that everything man-made, however refined, has its im- 
perfections. The fact is that a return to the Church, i.e., to a 
particular creed, is not the general rule. Much the more fre- 
quent is a better understanding of, and a more intense relation 
to, religion as such, which is not to be confused with a creed. 47 
This, it seems to me, is mainly because anyone who appreciates 
the legitimacy of the two viewpoints, of the two branches into 
which Christianity has been split, cannot maintain the exclu- 
sive validity of either of them, for to do so would be to deceive 
himself. As a Christian, he has to recognize that the Christen- 
dom he belongs to has been split for four hundred years and 
that his Christian beliefs, far from redeeming him, have ex- 
posed him to a conflict and a division that is still rending the 
body of Christ. These are the facts, and they cannot be abol- 
ished by each creed pressing for a decision in its favour, as 
though each were perfectly sure it possessed the absolute truth. 
Such an attitude is unfair to modern man; he can see very well 
the advantages that Protestantism has over Catholicism and vice 
versa, and it is painfully clear to him that this sectarian insistence 
is trying to corner him against his better judgment in other 
words, tempting him to sin against the Holy Ghost. He even 
understands why the churches are bound to behave in this way, 
and knows that it must be so lest any joyful Christian should 

47 Cf. my Psychology and Religion, 86, pars. 6ff. (1938 ed., pp. 4ff.). 

193 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



imagine himself already reposing in Abraham's anticipated 
bosom, saved and at peace and free from all fear. Christ's passion 
continues for the life of Christ in the corpus mysticum, or 
Christian life in both camps, is at loggerheads with itself and 
no honest man can deny the split. We are thus in the precise 
situation of the neurotic who must put up with the painful 
realization that he is in the midst of conflict. His repeated ef- 
forts to repress the other side have only made his neurosis 
worse. The doctor must advise him to accept the conflict just 
as it is, with all the suffering this inevitably entails, otherwise 
the conflict will never be ended. Intelligent Europeans, if at all 
interested in such questions, are consciously or semiconsciously 
protestant Catholics and catholic Protestants, nor are they any 
the worse for that. It is no use telling me that no such people 
exist: I have seen both sorts, and they have considerably raised 
my hopes about the European of the future. 
393 But the negative attitude of the public at large to the 
Church seems to be less the result of religious convictions than 
one symptom of the general mental sloth and ignorance of re- 
ligion. We can wax indignant over man's notorious lack of 
spirituality, but when one is a doctor one does not invariably 
think that the disease is intractable or the patient morally in- 
ferior; instead, one supposes that the negative results may pos- 
sibly be due to the remedy applied. Although it may reasonably 
be doubted whether man has made any marked or even percep- 
tible progress in morality during the known five thousand years 
of human civilization, it cannot be denied that there has been 
a notable development in consciousness and its functions. 
Above all, there has been a tremendous extension of conscious- 
ness in the form of knowledge. Not only have the individual 
functions become differentiated, but to a large extent they have 
been brought under the control of the ego in other words, 
man's will has developed. This is particularly striking when we 
compare our mentality with that of primitives. The security of 
our ego has, in comparison with earlier times, greatly increased 
and has even taken such a dangerous leap forward that, al- 
though we sometimes speak of "God's will," we no longer 
know what we are saying, for in the same breath we assert, 
"Where there's a will there's a way." And who would ever 
think of appealing to God's help rather than to the goodwill, 

194 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



the sense of responsibility and duty, the reason or intelligence, 
of his fellow men? 

394 Whatever we may think of these changes of outlook, we 
cannot alter the fact of their existence. Now when there is a 
marked change in the individual's state of consciousness, the 
unconscious contents which are thereby constellated will also 
change. And the further the conscious situation moves away 
from a certain point of equilibrium, the more forceful and 
accordingly the more dangerous become the unconscious con- 
tents that are struggling to re-establish the balance. This leads 
ultimately to a dissociation: on the one hand, ego-consciousness 
makes convulsive efforts to shake off an invisible opponent (if 
it does not suspect its next-door neighbour of being the devil!), 
while on the other hand it increasingly falls victim to the tyran- 
nical will of an internal "Government opposition" which dis- 
plays all the characteristics of a daemonic subman and superman 
combined. 

395 When a few million people get into this state, it produces 
the sort of situation which has afforded us such an edifying 
object-lesson every day for the last ten years. These contempo- 
rary events betray their psychological background by their very 
singularity. The insensate destruction and devastation are a 
reaction against the deflection of consciousness from the point 
of equilibrium. For an equilibrium does in fact exist between 
the psychic ego and non-ego, and that equilibrium is a religio, 
a "careful consideration" 48 of ever-present unconscious forces 
which we neglect at our peril. The present crisis has been 
brewing for centuries because of this shift in man's conscious 
situation. 

39 6 Have the Churches adapted themselves to this secular 
change? Their truth may, with more right than we realize, call 
itself "eternal/ 7 but its temporal garment must pay tribute to 
the evanescence of all earthly things and should take account of 
psychic changes. Eternal truth needs a human language that 
alters with the spirit of the times. The primordial images un- 
dergo ceaseless transformation and yet remain ever the same, 
but only in a new form can they be understood anew. Always 
they require a new interpretation if, as each formulation be- 
comes obsolete, they are not to lose their spellbinding power 

481 use the classical etymology of religio and not that of the Church Fathers, 

195 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



over that fugax Mercurius 49 and allow that useful though dan- 
gerous enemy to escape. What is that about "new wine in old 
bottles"? Where are the answers to the spiritual needs and trou- 
bles of a new epoch? And where the knowledge to deal with 
the psychological problems raised by the development of mod- 
ern consciousness? Never before has "eternal" truth been faced 
with such a hybris of will and power. 



8 

397 Here, apart from motives of a more personal nature, prob- 
ably lie the deeper reasons for the fact that the greater part of 
Europe has succumbed to neo-paganism and anti-Christianity, 
and has set up a religious ideal of worldly power in opposition 
to the metaphysical ideal founded on love. But the individual's 
decision not to belong to a Church does not necessarily denote 
an anti-Christian attitude; it may mean exactly the reverse: a 
reconsidering of the kingdom of God in the human heart 
where, in the words of St. Augustine, 49a the "mysterium 
paschale" is accomplished "in interioribus ac superioribus suis." 
The ancient and long obsolete idea of man as a microcosm 
contains a supreme psychological truth that has yet to be discov- 
ered. In former times this truth was projected upon the body, 
just as alchemy projected the unconscious psyche upon chem- 
ical substances. But it is altogether different when the micro- 
cosm is understood as that interior world whose inward nature 
is fleetingly glimpsed in the unconscious. An inkling of this 
is to be found in the words of Origen: "Intellige te alium mun- 
dum esse in parvo et esse intra te Solem, esse Lunam, esse etiam 
Stellas" (Understand that thou art a second world in miniature, 
and that the sun and the moon are within thee, and also the 
stars). 50 And just as the cosmos is not a dissolving mass of par- 
ticles, but rests in the unity of God's embrace, so man must not 
dissolve into a whirl of warring possibilities and tendencies mod- 
elled on the unconscious, but must become the unity that em- 
braces them all. Origen says pertinently: "Vides, quomodo ille, 

49 Maier, Symbola, 114, p. 386. 50 Horn, in Leviticum, 126, 5, 2. 

4**Epistula LV, 18, V, 8. 

196 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



qui putatur unus esse, non est unus, sed tot in eo personae viden- 
tur esse, quot mores" (Thou seest that he who seemeth to be one 
is yet not one, but as many persons appear in him as he hath 
velleities). 51 Possession by the unconscious means being torn 
apart into many people and things, a disiunctio. That is why, 
according to Origen, the aim of the Christian is to become an 
inwardly united human being. 52 The blind insistence on the 
outward community of the Church naturally fails to fulfil this 
aim; on the contrary, it inadvertently provides the inner 
disunity with an outward vessel without really changing the 
disiunctio into a coniunctio. 

* The painful conflict that begins with the nigredo or tene- 
brositas is described by the alchemist as the separatio or divisio 
elementorum, the solutio, calcinatio, incineratio, or as dismem- 
berment of the body, excruciating animal sacrifices, amputation 
of the mother's hands or the lion's paws, atomization of the 
bridegroom in the body of the bride, and so on. 53 While this 
extreme form of disiunctio is going on, there is a transforma- 
tion of that arcanum be it substance or spirit which invari- 
ably turns out to be the mysterious Mercurius. In other words, 
out of the monstrous animal forms there gradually emerges a 
res simplex, whose nature is one and the same and yet consists 
of a duality (Goethe's "united dual nature"). The alchemist tries 
to get round this paradox or antinomy with his various pro- 
cedures and formulae, and to make one out of two. 64 But the 
very multiplicity of his symbols and symbolic processes proves 
that success is doubtful. Seldom do we find symbols of the goal 
whose dual nature is not immediately apparent. His filius 
philosophorum,; his lapis, his rebis, his homunculus, are all 
hermaphroditic. His gold is non vulgi, his lapis is spirit and 
body, and so is his tincture, which is a sanguis spiritualisn 
spiritual blood. 55 We can therefore understand why the nuptiae 
chymicae, the royal marriage, occupies such an important place 

51 Ibid. ["Velleities" is an attempt to translate the author's rendering of "mores" as 
"Eigenwilligkeiten." Possible alternative translations might be "idiosyncrasies" or 
"whims." TRANS.] 52 Horn, in Librum regnorum, 127, i, 4. 

53 "Hounded from one bride-chamber to the next." Faust, Part I. 

54 For the same process in the individual psyche, see Psychology and Alchemy, 85, 
pars. 44ff. 

55 cf. Ruska, Turba, 150, Senno XIX, p. 129. The term comes from al-Habib's 
book (ibid., p. 43). 

197 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



in alchemy as a symbol of the supreme and ultimate union, 
since it represents th* magic-by-analogy which is supposed to 
bring the work to its final consummation and bind the op- 
posites by love, for "love is stronger than death." 



399 Alchemy describes, not merely in general outline but often 
in the most astonishing detail, the same psychological phenome- 
nology which can be observed in the analysis of the unconscious 
process. The individual's specious unity that emphatically says 
*7 want, / think" breads down under the impact of the un- 
conscious. So long as the patient can think that somebody 
else (his father or mother) is responsible for his difficulties, he 
can save some semblance of unity (putatur unus esse!). But 
once he realizes that he himself has a shadow, that his enemy 
is in his own heart, then the conflict begins and one becomes 
two. Since the "other" will eventually prove to be yet another 
duality, a compound of opposites, the ego soon becomes a shut- 
tlecock tossed between a multitude of "velleities," with the re- 
sult that there is an "obfuscation of the light/' i.e., conscious- 
ness is depotentiated and the patient is at a loss to know where 
his personality begins or ends. It is like passing through the 
valley of the shadow, and sometimes the patient has to cling to 
the doctor as the last remaining shred of reality. This situation 
is difficult and distressing for both parties; often the doctor is 
in much the same position as the alchemist who no longer 
knew whether he was melting the mysterious amalgam in the 
crucible or whether he was the salamander glowing in the 
fire. Psychological induction inevitably causes the two parties 
to get involved in the transformation of the third and to be 
themselves transformed in the process, and all the time the doc- 
tor's knowledge, like a flickering lamp, is the one dim light in 
the darkness. Nothing gives a better picture of the psychologi- 
cal state of the alchemist than the division of his work-room 
into a "laboratory," where he bustles about with crucibles and 
alembics, and an "oratory," where he prays to God for the 

198 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



much needed illumination "purge the horrible darknesses of 
our mind/' 56 as the author of the "Aurora" quotes. 
4 "Ars requirit to turn hominem/' we read in an old treatise. 57 
This is in the highest degree true of psychotherapeutic work. A 
genuine participation, going right beyond professional routine, 
is absolutely imperative, unless of course the doctor prefers to 
jeopardize the whole proceeding by evading his own problems, 
which are becoming more and more insistent. The doctor must 
go to the limits of his subjective possibilities, otherwise the pa- 
tient will be unable to follow suit. Arbitrary limits are no 
use, only real ones. It must be a genuine process of purification 
where "all superfluities are consumed in the fire" and the basic 
facts emerge. Is there anything more fundamental than the real- 
ization, "This is what I am"? It reveals a unity which neverthe- 
less is or was a diversity. No longer the earlier ego with its 
make-believes and artificial contrivances, but another, "objec- 
tive" ego, which for this reason is better called the "self." No 
longer a mere selection of suitable fictions, but a string of 
hard facts, which together make up the cross we all have to carry 
or the fate we ourselves are. These first indications of a future 
synthesis of personality, as I have shown in my earlier publica- 
tions, appear in dreams or in "active imagination," where they 
take the form of the mandala symbols which were also not un- 
known in alchemy. But the first signs of this symbolism are far 
from indicating that unity has been attained. Just as alchemy 
has a great many very different procedures, ranging from the 
sevenfold to the thousandfold distillation, or from the "work 
of one day" to "the errant quest" lasting for decades, so the 
tensions between the psychic pairs of opposites ease off only 
gradually; and, like the alchemical end-product, which always 
betrays its essential duality, the united personality will never 
quite lose the painful sense of innate discord. Complete re- 
demption from the sufferings of this world is and must remain 
an illusion. The symbolical prototype of Christ's earthly life 
likewise ended, not in complacent bliss, but on the cross. (It 

56 "Spiritus alme, /illustrator hominum,/horridas nostrae/mentis purga tenebras." 
(Sublime spirit, enlightener of mankind, purge the horrible darknesses of our 
mind.) Pentecostal hymn (124) by Notker Balbulus (d. 912). 

57 Hoghelande, 5> i, p. 139. 

199 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



is a remarkable fact that in their hedonistic aims materialism 
and a certain species o "joyful" Christianity join hands like 
brothers.) The goal is only important as an idea; the essential 
thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a 
lifetime. In its attainment "left and right" 58 are united, and 
conscious and unconscious work in harmony. 



10 

The coniunctio oppositorum in the guise of Sol and Luna, 
the royal brother-sister or mother-son pair, occupies such an 
important place in alchemy that sometimes the entire process 
takes the form of the hieros gamos and its mystic consequences. 
The most complete and the simplest illustration of this is per- 
haps the series of pictures contained in the Rosarium philoso- 
phorum of 1550, which series I reproduce in what follows. 
Its psychological importance justifies closer examination. Every- 
thing that the doctor discovers and experiences when analysing 
the unconscious of his patient coincides in the most remarkable 
way with the content of these pictures. This is not likely to be 
mere chance, because the old alchemists were often doctors as 
well, and thus had ample opportunity for such experiences if, 
like Paracelsus, they worried about the psychological well-being 
of their patients or inquired into their dreams (for the purpose 
of diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy). In this way they could 
collect information of a psychological nature, not only from 
their patients but also from themselves, i.e., from the observa- 
tion of their own unconscious contents which had been acti- 
vated by induction. 59 Just as the unconscious expresses itself 
even today in a picture-series, often drawn spontaneously by the 
patient, so those earlier pictures, such as we find in the Codex 
Rhenovacensis lys; 59 * in Zurich, and in other treatises, were no 
doubt produced in a ?| similar way, that is, as the deposit of im- 



58 Acts of John, 7: . . . HOI dgjicyvia crcxpiag* o*oq>ta 6"fc 08c?a v OWOVIQL wcdg- 

eliot xal &Qior6Qoi, Suvajxeig, tlowiai, dgxal xal fiaiM-oveg, Iveg- 
(" . . Harmony of wisdom, but when there is wisdom the left and 
the right are in harmony: powers, principalities, archons, daemons, forces . . ."). 

59 Cardan (32) is an excellent example of one who examined his own dreams. 



200 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



pressions collected during the work and then interpreted or 
modified by traditional factors. 60 In the modern pictures, too, 
we find not a few traces of traditional themes side by side with 
spontaneous repetitions of archaic or mythological ideas. In 
view of this close connection between picture and psychic con- 
tent, it does not seem to me out of place to examine a medieval 
series of pictures in the light of modern discoveries, or even to 
use them as an Ariadne thread in our account of the latter. 
These curiosities of the Middle Ages contain the seeds of much 
that only emerged in clearer form many centuries later. 

60 As regards the work of reinterpretation, see my essay, "Bruder Klaus," 80. 
Also Lavaud, 105, Ch. Ill, "La Grande Vision." 



2O1 



Invenit gratiam in deserto populus. . . . 

JEREMIAS (VULGATE) 31:2 

The people . . . found grace in the desert. . . . 

JEREMIAS (D.V.) 31:2 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE TRANSFERENCE PHENOMENA 

BASED ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE 

"ROSARIUM PHILOSOPHORUM" 



THE MERCURIAL FOUNTAIN 

We are the metals* first nature and only source/ 
The highest tincture of the Art is made through us. 
No fountain and no water has my like/ 
I make both rich and poor men whole or sick. 
For deadly can I be and poisonous. 1 

[Figure j] 

402 This picture goes straight to the heart of alchemical sym- 
bolism, for it is an attempt to depict the mysterious basis of the 
opus. It is a quadratic quaternity, characterized by the four 
stars in the four corners. These are the four elements. Above, 
in the centre, there is a fifth star which represents the fifth 
entity, the "One" derived from the four, the quinta essentia. 
The basin below is the vas Hermeticum,, where the transforma- 
tion takes place. It contains the mare nostrum, the aqua per- 
manens or $800 Q -&ELOV, the "divine water." This is the mare tene- 
brosum, the chaos. The vessel is also called the uterus 2 in 

1 [These mottoes, where they appear, translate the verses under the woodcuts in 
the figures. Figs. 1-10 are full pages reproduced from the Frankfort first edition 
(1550) of the Rosarium philosophorum, 144. The textual citations of the Rosarium, 
however, are drawn from the version printed in the Artis auriferae (Basel, 1593) 
2, xiii, except for the poem on pp. go7f . EMTOKS.] 

2 The "Consilium coniugii" (I, ii, p. 147) says: "Et locus generationis, licet si 
artificialis, tamen imitatur naturalem, quia est concavus, conclusus" etc. (The 
place of gestation, even though it is artificial, yet imitates the natural place, since 
it is concave and closed). And (p. 204): "Per matricem, intendit fundum cu- 
curbitae" (By matrix he means the root of the gourd). 

203 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



which the foetus spagyricus (the homunculus) is gestated. 3 This 
basin, in contrast to the surrounding square, is circular, be- 
cause it is the matrix of the perfect form into which the square, 
as an imperfect form, must be changed. In the square the ele- 
ments are still separate and hostile to one another and must 
therefore be united in the circle. The inscription on the rim 
of the basin bears out this intention. It runs (filling in the ab- 
breviations): "Unus est Mercurius mineralis, Mercurius vege- 
tabilis, Mercurius animalis." (Vegetabilis should be translated 
as "living" and animalis as "animate" or even "psychic" in the 
sense of having a soul. 4 ) On the outside of the basin there are 
six stars which together with Mercurius represent the seven 
planets or metals. They are all as it were contained in Mer- 
curius, since he is the pater metallorum. When personified, he 
is the unity of the seven planets, an Anthropos whose body is 
the world, like Gayomart, from whose body the seven metals 
flow into the earth. Owing to his feminine nature, Mercurius 
is also the mother of the seven, and not only of the six, for he 
is his own father and mother. 5 

4s Out of the "sea," then, there rises this Mercurial Fountain, 
triplex nomine, as is said with reference to the three mani- 
festations of Mercurius. 6 He is shown flowing out of three 

3 Cf. Ruska, Turba, 150, p. 163. 

* Cf. Hortulanus (Ruska, Tabula, 149, p. 186): "Unde infinitae sunt partes mundi, 
quas omnes philosophus in tres partes dividit sell, in partem Mineralem Vegeta- 
bilem et Animalem. . . . Et ideo dicit habens tres partes philosophiae totius 
mimdi, quae partes continentur in imico lapide scil. Mercurio Philosophorum" 
(Hence the parts of the world are infinite, all of which the philosopher divides into 
three parts, namely mineral, vegetable, animal. . . . And therefore he claims to 
have the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world, which parts are con- 
tained in the single stone, namely the Mercurius of the Philosophers). Ch. 13: "Et 
ideo vocatur lapis iste perfectus, quia in se habet naturam mineralium et vegeta- 
bilium et animalium. Est enim lapis triunus et unus, quatuor habens naturas" (And 
this stone is called perfect because it has in itself the nature of mineral, vegetable, 
and animaL For the stone is triple and one, having four natures). 
5 Cf. the alchemical doctrine of the increatum: Psychology and Alchemy, 85, pars. 



e A quotation based on Rosinus in the Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 249, says: "Triplex in 
nomine, unus in esse." Cf. the threefold fountain of God in the vision of Brother 
Klaus (Lavaud, 105, p. 66). The actual Rosinus passage (itself a quotation from 
Rhazes) runs (2, iv, p. 300): "Lapis noster cum mundi creatofre] nomen habet, qui 
est trinus et unus" (Our stone has a name common with the Creator of the world 
who is triple and one). Senior (164, p. 45) says: "Aes nostrum est sicut homo, 
Jiabens spiritum, animam et corpus, Propterea dicunt sapientes: Tria et Tria 



ROSARiVM 




2evft brunn rtodb waffer f (I rn^n gfc|<&/ 



Succot 



Figure i 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



pipes in the form of lac uirginls, acetum fontis^ and aqua vitae. 
These are three of his innumerable synonyms. The aforemen- 
tioned unity of Mercurius is here represented as a triad. It is 
repeatedly emphasized that he is a trinity, triunus or trinus, the 
chthonic, lower, or even infernal counterpart of the Heavenly 
Trinity, just as Dante's devil is three-headed. 7 For the same 
reason Mercurius is often shown as a three-headed serpent. 
Above the three pipes we find the sun and moon, who are the 
indispensable acolytes and parents of the mystic transforma- 
tion, and, a little higher, the quintessential star, symbol of the 
unity of the four hostile elements. At the top of the picture is 
the serpens bifidus, the divided (or two-headed) serpent, the 
fatal binarius which Dorn defines as the devil. 8 This serpent is 
the serpens mercurialis? representing the duplex natura of 
Mercurius. The heads are spitting forth fire, from which Maria 
the Copt or Jewess derived her "duo fumi." 10 These are the two 
vapours whose condensation initiates the process xl which leads 
to a multiple sublimation or distillation for the purpose of 
purifying away the mali odores, the foetor sepulcrorum, 12 and 
the clinging darkness of the beginning. 

sunt unum. Deinde dixerunt: in uno sunt tria." (Our copper is like a man, 
having spirit, soul, and body. Therefore the wise men say: Three and Three are 
One. Further they said: In One there are Three.) Cf. also Zosimos (Berthelot, 
152, III, vi, 18). The mercurial fountain recalls the joiYrj iisyakv] of the Perates 
(Hippolytus, 67, V, 12, 2), which forms one part of the threefold world. The 
three parts correspond to 3 gods, 3 Xoyot, 3 spirits (<voi), 3 men. This triad 
is opposed by a Christ equipped with all the properties of the triad and himself 
of triadic nature, coming from above, from the dyev-VTicaa, before the separa- 
tion. (Here I prefer Bernays' reading JCQO T% [cf. 67, p. 105] because it makes more 
sense.) 

7 In al-Iraqi the lapis is called al-shaitan^ "Satan"; cf. Holmyard, 69, p. 422. 

8 The serpent is also triplex nomine, as the inscriptions "animalis," "vegetabilis," 
"mineralis" show. 9 Jung, Psychology and Alchemy,, 85. 

JO 2, v, p. 321: "Ipsa sunt duo fumi complectentes duo lumina" (They are the two 
vapours enveloping the two lights). 

11 We find the same motif in the frontispiece of Le Songe de Poliphile (37), as the 
leaves which fall from the tree rooted in the fire. See Psychology and Alchemy, 85, 
fig. 4. 

12 Cf. "Aurora consurgens," I, 12, Ch. IV: "odores et vapores mali mentem labo- 
rantis inficientes" (Bad odours and vapours infecting the mind of the laborant). 
Also Morienus (2, xii, p. 34): "Hie enim est odor, qui assimilatur odori sepul 
crorum . . ." (For this is the odour that is similar to the stench of a grave- 
yard . . .). 

206 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



404 This structure reveals the tetrameria (fourfold nature) of 
the transforming process, already known to the Greeks. It be- 
gins with the four separate elements, the state of chaos, and 
ascends by degrees to the three manifestations of Mercurius In 
the inorganic, organic, and spiritual worlds; and, after attain- 
ing the form of Sol and Luna (i.e., the precious metals gold 
and silver, but also the radiance of the gods who can overcome 
the strife of the elements by love), it culminates in the one and 
indivisible (incorruptible, ethereal, eternal) nature of the 
anima, the quinta essentia, aqua permanent, tincture, or lapis 
philosophorum. This progression from the number 4 to 3 to 2 
to i is the "axiom of Maria," and it runs in various forms 
through the whole of alchemy like a leitmotiv. If we set aside 
the numerous "chemical'' explanations we come to the follow- 
ing symbolical ground-plan: the initial state of wholeness is 
marked by four mutually antagonistic tendencies-4 being the 
minimum number by which a circle can be naturally and 
clearly defined. The reduction of this number aims at final 
unity. The first to appear in this progression is the number 3, 
a masculine number, and out of it comes the feminine num- 
ber 2. 13 Male and female inevitably constellate the idea of 
sexual union as the means to producing the i, which is then 
consistently called the "filius regius" or "films philosophorum." 

405 At bottom, therefore, our symbolical picture is an illustra- 
tion of the methods and philosophy of alchemy. These are 
not warranted by the nature of matter as known to the old 
masters; they can only derive from the unconscious psyche. No 
doubt there was also a certain amount of conscious speculation 
among the alchemists, but this is no hindrance whatever to un- 
conscious projection, for wherever the mind of the investigator 
departs from exact observation of the facts before it and goes 
its own way, the unconscious spiritus rector will take over the 
reins and lead the mind back to the unchangeable, underlying 
archetypes, which are then forced into projection by this re- 
gression. 

406 The quaternity is one of the most widespread archetypes 
and has also proved to be one of the most useful diagrams for 
representing the arrangement of the functions by which the 

13 The interpretation of uneven numbers as masculine and of even numbers as 
feminine is general in alchemy and originated in antiquity. 

207 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



conscious mind takes its bearings. 14 It is like the crossed threads 
in the telescope of our understanding. The cross formed by the 
points of the quaternity is no less universal and has in addition 
the highest possible moral and religious significance for West- 
ern man. Similarly the circle, as the symbol of completeness and 
perfect being, is a widespread expression for heaven, sun, and 
God; it also expresses the primordial image of man and the 
soul. 15 The minimum plural number, 4, represents the plural 
state of the man who has not yet attained inner unity, hence the 
state of bondage and disunion, of disintegration, and of being 
torn in different directions an agonizing, unredeemed state 
which longs for union, reconciliation, redemption, healing, and 
wholeness. 

407 The triad appears as "masculine," i.e., as the active resolve 
or agent whose alchemical equivalent is the "upwelling." In 
relation to it the dyad is "feminine," the receptive, absorbent 
patiens, or the material that still has to be formed and impreg- 
nated (informatio> impraegnatio). The psychological equivalent 
of the triad is want, desire, instinct, aggression and determina- 
tion, whereas the dyad corresponds to the reaction of the psychic 
system as a whole to the impact or the decisions of the conscious 
mind. The latter is absolutely impotent by itself, unless it can 
succeed in overcoming the inertia of the whole human being 
and in achieving its object despite his laziness and constant re- 
sistance. But by dint of compulsion or persuasion the conscious 
mind can carry through its purpose, and only in the resultant 
action is a man a living whole and a unity ("in the beginning 
was the deed") 16 -~provided, of course, that the action is the ma- 
ture product of a process embracing the complete psyche and 
not just a spasm or impulse designed to repress it. We are mov- 
ing here in familiar waters. These things are described in the 
most magnificent images in the last and greatest work of alche- 
myGoethe's Faust. He gives a vivid account of the experience 
of the alchemist who discovers that what he has projected into 

14 Cf. Jacobi, 75, Diagrams IV-VII. 

16 For the soul as square, circle, or sphere see Psychology and Alchemy, 85, pars. 109 

and 439, n. 44. 

16 The above remarks should be understood only psychologically and not in the 

moral sense. The "deed" as such is not the essence of the psychic life-process but 

only a part of it, although a very important part. 

208 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



the retort is his own darkness, his unredeemed state, his pas- 
sion, his struggles to reach the goal, i.e., to become what he 
really is, to fulfil the purpose for which his mother bore him, 
and, after the peregrinations of a long life full of confusion and 
error, to become the filius regius, son of the supreme mother. 
Or we can go even further back to the important forerunner of 
Faust) the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz (1616), 
which was assuredly known to Goethe. 17 Fundamentally it is the 
same theme, the same "Axioma Mariae," telling how Rosen- 
creutz is transformed out of his former unenlightened condition 
and comes to realize that he is related to "royalty." But in keep- 
ing with its period (beginning of the seventeenth century), the 
whole process is far more projected and the withdrawal of the 
projection into the herowhich in Faust's case turns him into 
a superman 18 is only fleetingly hinted at. Yet the psychological 
process is essentially the same: the becoming aware of those 
powerful contents which alchemy sensed in the secrets of 
matter. 

4<>8 The text that follows the picture of the Mercurial Foun- 
tain is mainly concerned with the "water" of the art, i.e., mer- 
cury. In order to avoid repetition, I would refer the reader to 
my lecture on "The Spirit Mercurius" (89). Here I will only 
say that this fluid substance, with all its paradoxical qualities, 
really signifies the unconscious which has been projected into 
it. The "sea" is its static condition, the "fountain" its activa- 
tion, and the "process" its transformation. The integration of 
unconscious contents is expressed in the idea of the elixir, the 
medicina catholica or universalis y the aurum potabile^ the cibus 
sempiternus (everlasting food), the health-giving fruits of the 
philosophical tree, the vinum ardens, and all the other in- 
numerable synonyms. Some of them are decidedly ominous 
but no less characteristic, such as succus lunariae or lunatica 

17 145. Incidentally, Johann Valentin Andreae, the real author of the Chymical 
Wedding, also wrote a Faust drama in Latin entitled Turbo, sive Moleste et 
frustra per cuncta divagans ingenium (1616), the story of a man who knew every- 
thing and was finally disappointed, but who found his salvation in the con- 
templatio Christi. The author, a theologian in Wiirttemberg, lived from 1586 to 
1654. 

18 1 have dealt with this psychological process at length in Two Essays, 88, pars. 
f., 38of. 

209 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



(juice of the moon-plant), 19 aqua Saturni (note that Saturn is 
a baleful deity!), poison, scorpion, dragon, son of the fire, boys' 
or dogs 1 urine, brimstone, devil, etc. 

409 Although not expressly stated in the text, the gushing up 
and flowing back of the Mercurial Fountain within its basin 
completes a circle, and this is an essential characteristic of Mer- 
curius because he is also the serpent that fertilizes, kills, and de- 
vours itself and brings itself to birth again. We may mention 
in this connection that the circular sea with no outlet, which 
perpetually replenishes itself by means of a spring bubbling 
up in its centre, is to be found in Nicholas of Cusa as an al- 
legory of God. 20 

19 An allusion to madness. The afflictio animae is mentioned in Olympiodorus 
(Berthelot, 29, II, iv, 43), Morienus (2, xii, p. 18), and Maier (Symbola, 114, p. 568), 
and in Chinese alchemy (Wei Po-yang, 162, pp. 241-45). 

20 God is the source, river, and sea which all contain the same water. The Trinity 
is a life "qui va de me'me au me"me, en passant par le me'me." Vansteensberghe, 
158, pp. 2g6f . 



2510 



KING AND QUEEN 

4 10 The arcanum artis, or coniunctio Soils et Lunae as supreme 
union of hostile opposites, was not shown in our first pic- 
ture; but now it is illustrated in considerable detail, as its 
importance deserves, in a series of pictures. King and Queen, 
bridegroom and bride, approach one another for the purpose 
of betrothal or marriage. The incest element appears in the 
brother-sister relationship of Apollo and Diana. The pair of 
them stand respectively on sun and moon, thus indicating their 
solar and lunar nature in accordance with the astrological as- 
sumption of the importance of the sun's position for man and 
the moon's for woman. The meeting is somewhat distant at 
first, as the court clothes suggest. The two give each other their 
left hands, and this can hardly be unintentional since it is con- 
trary to custom. The gesture points to a closely guarded secret, 
to the "left-hand path," as the Indian Tantrists call their Shiva 
and Shakti worship. The left-hand (sinister) side is the dark, 
the unconscious side. The left is inauspicious and awkward; 
also it is the side of the heart, from which comes not only love 
but all the evil thoughts connected with it, the moral contra- 
dictions in human nature that are expressed most clearly in our 
affective life. The contact of left hands could therefore be 
taken as an indication of the affective nature of the relation- 
ship, of its dubious character, since this is a mixture of "heav- 
enly and earthly" love further complicated by an incestuous 
sous-entendu. In this delicate yet altogether human situation 
the gesture of the right hands strikes us as compensatory. They 
are holding a device composed of five (4 + i) flowers. There 
are two flowers on each branch; these four again refer to 
the four elements of which two fire and air are active and 
twowater and earthpassive, the former being ascribed to 
the man and the latter to the woman. The fifth flower comes 
from above and presumably represents the quinta essentia; it 

211 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



is brought by the dove of the Holy Ghost, an analogy of Noah's 
dove that carried the olive branch of reconciliation in its beak. 
The bird descends from the quintessential star (cf. fig. i). 

411 But the real secret lies in the union of right hands, for, as 
the picture shows, this is mediated by the donum Spiritus 
Sancti, the royal art. The "sinister" left-handed contact here 
becomes associated with the union, effected from above, of the 
two quaternities (the masculine and feminine manifestations 
of the four elements), in the form of an ogdoad consisting of 
five flowers and three branches. These masculine numbers point 
to action, decision, purpose, and movement. The 5 is shown 
as superior to the 4 in that it is brought by the dove. The three 
branches correspond to the upwelling of Mercurius triplex 
nomine or to the three pipes of the fountain. So once again we 
have an abbreviated recapitulation of the opus, i.e., of its deeper 
meaning as shown in the first picture. The text to figure 2 be- 
gins significantly with the words: "Mark well, in the art of our 
magisterium nothing is concealed by the philosophers except 
the secret of the art which may not be revealed to all and sun- 
dry. For were that to happen, that man would be accursed; he 
would incur the wrath of God and perish of the apoplexy. 
Wherefore all error in the art arises because men do not begin 
with the proper substance, 1 and for this reason you should em- 
ploy the venerable Nature, because from her and through her 
and in her is our art born and in naught else: and so our 
magisterium is the work of Nature and not of the worker." 2 

4 12 If we take the fear of divine punishment for betrayal at its 
face value, the reason for this must lie in something that is 
thought to endanger the soul's salvation, i.e., a typical "peril of 
the soul." The causal "wherefore" with which the next sentence 
begins can only refer to the secret that must not be revealed; 
but because the prima materia remains unknown in conse- 
quence, all those who do not know the secret fall into error, 

1 Debtta materia, meaning the prima materia of the process. 

2 Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 219: "Nota bene: In arte nostri magisterii nihil est celatum 
a Philosopliis excepto secreto artis, quod non licet ciriquam revelare: quodsi fieret, 
ille malediceretur et indignationem Domini incurreret et apoplexia moreretur. 
Quare omnis error in arte existit ex eo quod debitam materiam non accipiunt. 
Igitur venefabili utimini natura, quia ex ea et per earn et in ea generatur ars 
nostra et non in alio: et ideo magisterium nostrum est opus naturae et non 
opificis." 

212 



PHJLOSOPHORVM. 




Nota bene: In arte noftrf magfftcrfj nihil eft 
celatuaphilofophisexcepto fecreto arris, quod 
non licet cuiquam reuelare, quod fi fierer illc ma 
ledfccrctur a & indignationcm dominf incur* 
jgret , topople_xia rnoreretur^ ^Quare oin^ 
nis error in arte cxiftit > ex co, quod debitam 
~~~ ~ 



Figure 2 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



and this happens because, as said, they choose something arbi- 
trary and artificial instead of pure Nature. The emphasis laid 
on the venerabilis natura 3 gives us some idea of that passion for 
investigation which ultimately gave birth to natural science, 
but which so often proved inimical to faith. Worship of 
nature, a legacy from the past, stood in more or less secret op- 
position to the views of the Church and led the mind and heart 
in the direction of a 'left-hand path/ 1 What a sensation Pe- 
trarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux caused! St. Augustine had 
warned in his Confessions (16, X, viii): "And men go forth to 
admire the high mountains and the great waves of the sea and the 
broad torrent of the rivers and the vast expanse of the ocean and 
the orbits of the stars, and to turn away from themselves. . . ." 

4*3 The exclusive emphasis on nature as the one and only basis 
of the art is in flagrant contrast to the ever-recurring prot- 
estation that the art is a donum Spiritus Sancti, an arcanum 
of the sapientia Dei, and so forth, from which we would have 
to conclude that the alchemists were unshakably orthodox in 
their beliefs. I do not think that this can be doubted as a rule. 
On the contrary, their belief in illumination through the Holy 
Ghost seems to have been a psychological necessity in view of 
the ominous darkness of nature's secrets. 

4*4 Now if a text which insists so much on pure nature is ex- 
plained or illustrated by a picture like figure 2, we must assume 
that the relationship between king and queen was taken to be 
something perfectly natural. Meditation and speculation about 
the mystery of the coniunctio were inevitable, and this would 
certainly not leave the erotic fantasy untouched, if only be- 
cause these symbolical pictures spring from the corresponding 
unconscious contentshalf spiritual, half sexualand are also 
intended to remind us of that twilit region, for only from 
indistinguishable night can the light be born. This is what na- 
ture and natural experience teach, but the spirit believes in the 
lumen de luminethe light born of light. 4 Somehow the artist 
was entangled in this game of unconscious projection and was 

3 a. Uuska, Turba, 150, Sermo XXIX, p. 137. 

4 Cf . "Aurora consurgens," I, where the parables "Of the black earth/' "Of the 
deluge and death," "O the Babylonian captivity/' are followed by the parable 
"Of the philosophical faith" with its creed of the lumen de lumine. C. also 
Avicenna, 5, xii, p. 990. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



bound to experience the mysterious happening with shudders 
of fear, as a tremendum. Even that scoffer and blasphemer 
Agrippa von Nettesheim displays a remarkable reticence when 
criticizing the "Alkumistica." 5 After saying a great deal about 
this dubious art, he adds: 6 "Permulta adhuc de hoc arte 
(mihi tamen non ad modum inimica) dicere possem, nisi iura- 
tum esset (quod facere solent, qui mysteriis initiantur) de 
silentio" (I could say much more about this art (which I do not 
find so disagreeable) were it not for the oath of silence usually 
taken by initiates into mysteries). 7 Such a mitigation of his 
criticism, most unexpected in Agrippa, makes one think that he 
is on the defensive: somehow he was impressed by the royal art. 

415 It is not necessary to think of the secret of the art as any- 
thing very lurid. Nature knows nothing of moral squalor, in- 
deed her truth is alarming enough. We need only bear in mind 
one fact: that the desired coniunctio was not a legitimate 
union but was alwaysone could almost say, on principle- 
incestuous. The fear that surrounds this complex- the "fear of 
incest"- is quite typical and has already been stressed by Freud. 
It is further exacerbated by fear of the compulsive force which 
emanates from most unconscious contents. 

4*6 The left-handed contact and crosswise union of the right 
hands sub rosa is a startlingly concrete and yet very subtle hint 
of the delicate situation in which 'Venerable nature" has placed 
the adept. Although the Rosicrucian movement cannot be 
traced further back than the Fama and Confessio fraternitatis 

5 A corruption of "alchymia." 

6 De incertitudine et vanitate omnium sdeniiarum, 10, Ch. XC. 

7 Later, Agrippa (ibid.) says one or two other things about the stone: "As to that 
unique and blessed substance, besides which there is no other although you may 
find it everywhere, as to that most sacred stone of the philosophers almost I had 
broken my oath and made myself a desecrator of temples by blurting out its name 
I shall nevertheless speak in circumlocutions and dark hints, so that none but 
the sons of the art and the initiates of this mystery shall understand. The thing 
is one which hath neither too fiery nor too earthen a substance. . . . More I am 
not permitted to say, and yet there be greater things than these. However, I con- 
sider this art with which I have a certain familiarity as being the most worthy of 
that honour which Thucydides pays to an upright woman, when he says that the 
best is she of whom least is said either in praise or blame/' Concerning the oath 
of secrecy, see also Senior, 164, p. 92: "Hoc est secretum, super quo iuraverunt, 
quod non indicarent in aliquo libro" (This is the secret which they promised on 
oath not to divulge in any book). 

215 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of Andreae at the beginning of the seventeenth century, 8 we are 
nevertheless confronted with a "rosie cross" in this curious 
bouquet of three flowering branches, which evidently origi- 
nated sometime before 1550 but, equally obviously, makes 
no claim to be a true rosicrux. g As we have already said, its 
threefold structure is reminiscent of the Mercurial Fountain, 
while at the same time it points to the important fact that the 
"rose" is the product of three living things: the king, the 
queen, and between them the dove of the Holy Ghost. Mer- 
curius triplex nomine is thus converted into three figures, and 
he can no longer be thought of as a metal or mineral, but only 
as "spirit." In this form also he is triple-natured masculine, 
feminine, and divine. His coincidence with the Holy Ghost 
as the third person in the Trinity certainly has no founda- 
tion in dogma, but "venerable nature" evidently enabled the 
alchemist to provide the Holy Ghost with a most unorthodox 
and distinctly earth-bound partner, or rather to complement 
Him with that divine spirit which had been imprisoned in all 
creatures since the day of Creation. This "lower" spirit is the 
Primordial Man, hermaphroditic by nature and of Iranian ori- 
gin, who was imprisoned in physis. 10 He is the spherical, i.e., 
perfect, man who appears at the beginning and end of time 
and is man's own beginning and end. He is man's totality, which 
is beyond the division of the sexes and can only be reached 
when male and female come together in one. The revelation 
of this higher meaning solves the problems created by the "sin- 
ister" contact and produces from the chaotic darkness the lumen 
quod superat omnia lumina. 

4*7 If I did not know from ample experience that such devel- 
opments also occur in modern man, who cannot possibly be 
suspected of having any knowledge of the Gnostic doctrine of 
the Anthropos, I should be inclined to think that the alchem- 
ists were keeping up a secret tradition, although the evidence 
for this (the hints contained in the writings of Zosimos of 
Panopolis) is so scanty that Waite, who knows medieval alchemy 

8 Both texts are supposed to have been in circulation in manuscript from about 

1610, according to F. Maack, editor, in Rosencreutz, 145, pp. xxxviif. [They are 

found in 145, pp. 47-84. EDITORS.] 

$ A kind of "rosie cross" can also be seen in Luther's crest. 

10 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, 85, par. 436, and Reitzenstein and Schaeder, 142. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



relatively well, doubts whether a secret tradition existed at all. 10a 
I am therefore of the opinion, based on my professional work, 
that the Anthropos idea in medieval alchemy was largely "au- 
tochthonous," i.e., the outcome of subjective experience. It is 
an "eternal" idea, an archetype that can appear spontaneously 
at any time and in any place. We meet the Anthropos even in 
ancient Chinese alchemy, in the writings of Wei Po-yang, about 
A.D. 142. There he is called chen-jen (the true man). 11 

4 18 The revelation of the Anthropos is associated with no ordi- 
nary religious emotion; it signifies much the same thing as the 
vision of Christ for the believing Christian. Nevertheless it does 
not appear ex opere divino but ex opere naturae; not from 
above but from the transformation of a shade from Hades, 
akin to evil itself and bearing the name of the pagan god of 
revelation. This dilemma throws a new light on the secret of 
the art: the very serious danger of heresy. Consequently the 
alchemists found themselves between Scylla and Charybdis: 
on the one hand they ran the conscious risk of being misunder- 
stood and suspected of fraudulent gold-making, and on the 
other of being burned at the stake as heretics. As to the gold, 
right at the beginning of the text to figure 2, the Rosarium 
quotes the words of Senior: "Aurum nostrum non est aurum 
vulgi." But, as history shows, the alchemist would rather risk 
being suspected of gold-making than of heresy. It is still an 
open question, which perhaps can never be answered, how far 
the alchemist was conscious of the true nature of his art. Even 
texts as revealing as the Rosarium or the " Aurora consurgens" 
do not help us in this respect. 

419 As regards the psychology of this picture, we must stress 
above all else that it depicts a human encounter where love 
plays the decisive part. The conventional dress of the pair sug- 
gests an equally conventional attitude in both of them. Con- 
vention still separates them and hides their natural reality, but 
the crucial contact of left hands points to something "sinister," 
illegitimate, morganatic, emotionally instinctive, i.e., the fatal 
touch of incest and its "perverse" fascination. At the same time 
the intervention of the Holy Ghost reveals the hidden meaning 
of the incest, whether of brother and sister or of mother and son, 
as a repulsive symbol for the unio mystica. Although the union 

lOa Waite, The Secret Tradition, 161. n Wei Po-yang, 162, p. 241. 

217 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of close blood-relatives is everywhere taboo, it is yet the preroga- 
tive of kings (witness the incestuous marriages of the Pharaohs, 
etc.). Incest symbolizes union with one's own being, it means 
individuation or becoming a self, and, because this is so vitally 
important, it exerts an unholy fascination not, perhaps, as a 
crude reality, but certainly as a psychic process controlled by 
the unconscious, a fact well known to anybody who is familiar 
with psychopathology. It is for this reason, and not because of 
occasional cases of human incest, that the first gods were be- 
lieved to propagate their kind incestuously. Incest is simply the 
union of like with like, which is the next stage in the develop- 
ment of the primitive idea of self-fertilization. 12 
4*0 This psychological situation sums up what we can all see 
for ourselves if we analyse a transference carefully. The con- 
ventional meeting is followed by an unconscious "familiariza- 
tion* 1 of one's partner, brought about by the projection of ar- 
chaic, infantile fantasies which were originally vested in mem- 
bers of the patient's own family and which, because of their 
positive or negative fascination, attach him to parents, brothers, 
and sisters. 18 The transference of these fantasies to the doctor 
draws him into the atmosphere of family intimacy, and al- 
though this is the last thing he wants, it nevertheless provides a 
workable prima materia. Once the transference has appeared, 
the doctor must accept it as part of the treatment and try to 
understand it, otherwise it will be just another piece of neurotic 
stupidity. The transference itself is a perfectly natural phe- 
nomenon which does not by any means happen only in the con- 
sulting-room it can be seen everywhere and may lead to all 
sorts of nonsense, like all unrecognized projections. Medical 
treatment of the transference gives the patient a priceless oppor- 
tunity to withdraw his projections, to make good his losses, and 
to integrate his personality. The impulses underlying it cer- 
tainly show their dark side to begin with, however much one 
may try to whitewash them; for an integral part of the work is 

12 The union of "like with like" in the form of homosexual relationships is to be 
found in the "Visio Arislei," marking the stage preceding the brother-sister incest. 

13 According to Freud, these projections are infantile wish-fantasies. But a more 
thorough examination of neuroses in childhood shows that such fantasies are 
largely dependent on the psychology of the parents, that is, are caused by the 
parents' wrong attitude to the child. Cf. my "Analytical Psychology and Educa- 
tion," 79, pars. sti6f. 

218 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



the umbra soils or sol niger of the alchemists, the black shadow 
which everybody carries with him, the inferior and therefore 
hidden aspect of the personality, the weakness that goes with 
every strength, the night that follows every day, the evil in the 
good. 14 The realization of this fact is naturally coupled with the 
danger of falling victim to the shadow, but the danger also 
brings with it the possibility of consciously deciding not to be- 
come its victim. A visible enemy is always better than an invisi- 
ble one. In this case I can see no advantage whatever in behav- 
ing like an ostrich. It is certainly no ideal for people always to 
remain childish, to live in a perpetual state of delusion about 
themselves, foisting everything they dislike on to their neigh- 
bours and plaguing them with their prejudices and projections. 
How many marriages are wrecked for years, and sometimes for- 
ever, because he sees his mother in his wife and she her father 
in her husband, and neither ever recognizes the other's reality! 
Life has difficulties enough without that; we might at least 
spare ourselves the stupidest of them. But, without a funda- 
mental discussion of the situation, it is often simply impossible 
to break these infantile projections. As this is the legitimate aim 
and real meaning of the transference, it inevitably leads, what- 
ever method of rapprochement be used, to discussion and 
understanding and hence to a heightened consciousness, which 
is a measure of the personality's integration. During this dis- 
cussion the conventional disguises are dropped and the true 
man comes to light. He is in very truth reborn from this psycho- 
logical relationship, and his field of consciousness is rounded 
into a circle. 

421 It would be quite natural to suppose that the king and 
queen represent a transference relationship in which the king 
stands for the masculine partner and the queen for the femi- 
nine partner. But this is by no means the case, because the 
figures represent contents which have been projected from the 
unconscious of the adept (and his soror mystica). Now the adept 
is conscious of himself as a man, consequently his masculinity 
cannot be projected, since this only happens to unconscious 
contents. As it is primarily a question of man and woman here, 

14 Hence the "Aurora consurgens," I, Ch. VI, says: ". . . et a facie iniquitatis meae 
conturbata sunt omnia ossa mea." Compare Psalm 37:4 (D.V.): ". . . there is 
no peace for my bones, because of my sins." 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the projected fragment of personality can only be the feminine 
component of the man, I.e., his anima. 15 Similarly, in the wom- 
an's case, only the masculine component can be projected. 
There is thus a curious crossing of the sexes: the man (in this 
case the adept) is represented by the queen, and the woman (the 
soror mystica) by the king. It seems to me that the flowers form- 
ing the "symbol" suggest this crossing. The reader should there- 
fore bear in mind that the picture shows two archetypal figures 
meeting, and that Luna is secretly in league with the adept, and 
Sol with his woman helper. The fact that the figures are royal 
expresses, like real royalty, their archetypal character; they are 
collective figures common to large numbers of people. If the 
main ingredient of this mystery were the enthronement of a 
king or the deification of a mortal, then the figure of the king 
might possibly be a projection and would in that case corre- 
spond to the adept. But the further development of the drama 
has quite another meaning, so we can discount this possibility. 16 
422 The fact that, for reasons which can be proved empirically, 
king and queen play cross roles and represent the unconscious 
contra-sexual side of the adept and his soror leads to a painful 
complication which by no means simplifies the problem of 
transference. Scientific integrity, however, forbids all simplifica- 
tion of situations that are not simple, as is obviously the case 
here. The pattern of relationship is simple enough, but, when 

15 Cf, Two Essays, 88, pars. 2g6ff., where the relevant literature is also given, 
is It may be helpful to remind the reader that in Rider Haggard's She (61) there is 
a description of this "royal" figure. Leo Vincey, the hero, is young and handsome, 
the acme of perfection, a veritable Apollo. Beside him there stands his fatherly 
guardian, Holly, whose resemblance to a baboon is described in great detail. But 
inwardly Holly is a paragon of wisdom and moral rectitude even his name hints 
at "holy." In spite of their banality both of them have superhuman qualities, Leo 
as well as the devout "baboon/* (Together they correspond to the sol et umbra 
eius.) The third figure is the faithful servant who bears the significant name of 
Job. He stands for the long-suffering but loyal companion who has to endure 
both superhuman perfection and subhuman baboonishness. Leo may be regarded 
as the sun-god; he goes in quest of "She" who "dwells among the tombs" and who 
is reputed to kill her lovers one by one a characteristic also ascribed by Benoit 
(24) to his "Atlantide" and to rejuvenate herself by periodically bathing in a 
pillar of fire. She stands for Luna, and particularly for the dangerous new moon. 
(It is at the synodus of the noviluniumi.e., at the coniunctio of the Sun and Moon 
at the time of the new moon that the bride kills her lover.) The story eventually 
leads, in Ayesha (60), another novel of Haggard's, to the mystical hieros gamos. 

220 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



it comes to detailed description in any given case, it is extremely 
difficult to see from which angle it is being described and what 
aspect we are describing. The pattern is as follows: 



Adept * Soror 




Anima <* 



423 The direction of the arrows indicates the pull from mascu- 
line to feminine and vice versa, and from the unconscious of 
one person to the conscious of the other, thus denoting a posi- 
tive transference relationship. The following relationships have 
therefore to be distinguished, although in certain cases they 
can all merge into each other, and this naturally leads to the 
greatest possible confusion: 

(a) An uncomplicated personal relationship. 

(b) A relationship of the man to his anima and of the woman 
to her animus. 

(c) A relationship of anima to animus and vice versa. 

(d) A relationship of the feminine animus to the man 
(which happens when the woman is identical with her animus), 

and of the masculine anima to the woman (which happens 
when the man is identical with his anima). 

424 In describing the transference problem with the help of this 
series of illustrations, I have not always kept these different pos- 
sibilities apart; for in real life they are invariably mixed up 
and it would have put an intolerable strain on the explanation 
had I attempted a rigidly schematic exposition. Thus the king 
and queen each display every conceivable shade of meaning 
from the superhuman to the subhuman, sometimes appear- 
ing as a transcendental figure, sometimes hiding in the figure 
of the adept. The reader should bear this in mind if he comes 
across any real or supposed contradictions in the remarks which 
follow. 

221 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



425 These intercrossing transference relationships are foreshad- 
owed in folklore: the archetype of the crossed marriage, 
which I call the "marriage quaternity," 17 can also be found in 
fairytales. An Icelandic fairytale 1S tells the following story: 

4* 6 Finna was a girl with mysterious powers. One day, when 
her father was setting out for the Althing, she begged him to 
refuse any suitor who might ask for her hand. There were many 
suitors present, but the father refused them all. On the way 
home he met a strange man, Geir by name, who forced the 
father at point of sword to promise his daughter to him. So 
they were married, and Finna took Sigurd her brother with 
her to her new home. About Christmas-time, when Finna was 
busy with the festive preparations, Geir disappeared. Finna and 
her brother went out to look for him and found him on an 
island with a beautiful woman. After Christinas, Geir suddenly 
appeared in Finna's bedroom. In the bed lay a child. Geir asked 
her whose child it was, and Finna answered that it was her 
child. And so it happened for three years in succession, and 
each time Finna accepted the child. But at the third time, Geir 
was released from the spell. The beautiful woman on the island 
was Ingeborg, his sister. Geir had disobeyed his stepmother, a 
witch, and she had laid a curse on him: he was to have three 
children by his sister, and unless he found a wife who knew 
everything and held her peace, he would be changed into a 
snake and his sister into a filly. Geir was saved by the conduct 
of his wife; and he married his sister Ingeborg to Sigurd. 

427 Another example is the Russian fairytale "Prince Danila 
Govorila": 19 There is a young prince who is given a lucky 
ring by a witch. But its magic will work only on one condition: 
he must marry none but the girl whose finger the ring fits. 
When he grows up he goes in search of a bride, but all in vain, 
because the ring fits none of them. So he laments his fate to his 
sister, who asks to try on the ring. It fits perfectly. Thereupon 
her brother wants to marry her, but she thinks it would be a 
sin and sits at the door of the house weeping. Some old beggars 
who are passing comfort her and give her the following advice: 
"Make four dolls and put them in the four corners of the room. 

17 The alchemical pairs of opposites are often arranged in such quaternities. Cf . 
my Symbols of Transformation, 91. 

18 44, i, No. 8, pp. 472. 19 44, Hi, pp. 35 iff. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



If your brother summons you to the wedding, go, but if he sum- 
mons you to the bedchamber, do not hurry! Trust in God and 
follow our advice." 

428 After the wedding her brother summons her to bed. Then 
the four dolls begin to sing; 

Cuckoo, Prince Danila, 
Cuckoo, Govorila, 
Cuckoo, he takes his sister, 
Cuckoo, for a wife, 
Cuckoo, earth open wide, 
Cuckoo, sister fall inside. 

429 The earth opens and swallows her up. Her brother calls 
her three times, but by the third time she has already vanished. 
She goes along under the earth until she comes to the hut of 
Baba Yaga, 20 whose daughter kindly shelters her and hides her 
from the witch. But before long the witch discovers her and 
heats up the oven. The two girls then seize the old woman and 
put her in the oven instead, thus escaping the witch's persecu- 
tion. They reach the prince's castle, where the sister is recog- 
nized by her brother's servant. But her brother cannot tell the 
two girls apart, they are so alike. So the servant advises him to 
make a test: the prince is to fill a skin with blood and put it 
under his arm. The servant will then stab him in the side with 
a knife and the prince is to fall down as if dead. The sister 
will then surely betray herself. And so it happens: the sister 
throws herself upon him with a great cry, whereupon the prince 
springs up and embraces her. But the magic ring also fits the 
finger of the witch's daughter, so the prince marries her and 
gives his sister to a suitable husband. 

43 In this tale the incest is on the point of being committed, 
but is prevented by the peculiar ritual with the four dolls. The 
four dolls in the four corners of the room form the marriage 
quaternity, the aim being to prevent the incest by putting four 
in place of two. The four dolls form a magic simulacrum which 
stops the incest by removing the sister to the underworld, where 
she discovers her alter ego. Thus we can say that the witch who 
gave the young prince the fatal ring is his mother-in-law-to-be, 

20 The Russian arch- witch. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



for, as a witch, she must certainly have known that the ring 
would fit not only his sister but her own daughter. 
43 l In both tales the incest is an evil fate that cannot easily 
be avoided. Incest, as an endogamous relationship, is an ex- 
pression of the libido which serves to hold the family together. 
One could therefore define it as "kinship libido," a kind of 
instinct which, like a sheep-dog, keeps the family group in- 
tact. This form of libido is the diametrical opposite of the ex- 
ogamous form. The two forms together hold each other in 
check: the endogamous form tends towards the sister and the 
exogamous form towards some stranger. The best compromise 
is therefore a first cousin. There is no hint of this in our fairy- 
stories, but the marriage quaternity is clear enough. In the Ice- 
landic story we have the pattern: 

marriage 
Geir Finna (magic) 

incest 

marriage 
Ingehorg Sigurd 

In the Russian: 

marriage 
Prince Witch's daughter (magic) 

incest 

marriage 
Sister Stranger 

43* The two patterns agree in a remarkable way. In both cases 
the hero wins a bride who has something to do with magic or 
the world beyond. Assuming that the archetype of the marriage 
quaternio described above is at the bottom of these quaternities 
which are authenticated by folklore, the stories are obviously 
based on the following pattern: 

marriage 
Adept Anima 

marriage 
Soror Animus 

433 Marriage with the anima is the psychological equivalent 
of absolute identity between conscious and unconscious. But 

224 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



since such a condition is only possible in the complete absence 
of psychological self-knowledge, it must be more or less primi- 
tive, i.e., the man's relationship to the woman is essentially an 
anima projection. The only sign that the whole thing is "uncon- 
scious" is the remarkable fact that the carrier of the anima- 
image is distinguished by magical characteristics. These charac- 
teristics are missing from the soror-animus relationship in the 
stories; that is, the unconscious does not make itself felt at all 
as a separate experience. From this we must conclude that the 
symbolism of the stories rests on a much more primitive frame 
of mind than the alchemical quaternio and its psychological 
equivalent. Therefore we must expect that on a still more prim- 
itive level the anima too will lose her magical attributes, the 
result being an uncomplicated, purely matter-of-fact marriage 
quaternity. And we do find a parallel to the two crossed pairs in 
the so-called "cross-cousin marriage." In order to explain this 
primitive form of marriage I must go into some detail. The 
marriage of a man's sister to his wife's brother is a relic of the 
"sister-exchange marriage," characteristic of the structure of 
many primitive tribes. But at the same time this double mar- 
riage is the primitive parallel to the problem which concerns us 
here: the conscious and unconscious dual relationship between 
adept and soror on the one hand and king and queen (or ani- 
mus and anima) on the other. John Layard's important study, 
"The Incest Taboo and the Virgin Archetype" (106), put me in 
mind of the sociological aspects of our psychologem. The primi- 
tive tribe falls into two halves, of which Howitt says: "It is 
upon the division of the whole community into two exogamous 
intermarrying classes, that the whole social structure is built 
up." 21 These "moieties" show themselves in the lay-out of set- 
tlements 22 as well as in many strange customs. At ceremonies, 
for instance, the two moieties are strictly segregated and neither 
may trespass on the other's territory. Even when going out on 
a hunt, they at once divide into two halves as soon as they set 
up camp, and the two camps are so arranged that there is a 
natural obstacle between them, e.g., the bed of a stream. On 
the other hand the two halves are connected by what Hocart 
calls "the ritual interdependence of the two sides" or "mutual 

21 The Native Tribes of S.E. Australia^ 71, p. 157; cf. Frazer, Totemism and Ex- 
ogamy, 46, I, p. 306. 22 Layard, Stone Men of Malekula, 107, pp. 6sff. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ministration." In New Guinea one side breeds and fattens pigs 
and dogs, not for themselves but for the other side, and vice 
versa. Or when there is a death in the village and the funeral 
feast is prepared, this is eaten by the other side, and so on. 23 The 
division also shows itself in the widespread institution of "dual 

kingship." 24 . 

434 The names given to the two sides are particularly enlight- 
ening, such asto mention only a few east and west, high and 
low, day and night, male and female, water and land, left and 
right. It is not difficult to see from these names that the two 
halves are felt to be antithetical and thus the expression of an 
endopsychic antithesis. The antithesis can be formulated as the 
masculine ego versus the feminine "other," i.e., conscious ver- 
sus unconscious personified as anima. The primary splitting of 
the psyche into conscious and unconscious seems to be the cause 
of the division within the tribe and the settlement. It is a 
division founded on fact but not consciously recognized as such. 

435 The social split is by origin a matrilineal division into two, 
but in reality it represents a division of the tribe and settle- 
ment into four. The quartering comes about through the 
crossing of the matrilineal by a patrilineal line of division. 25 
The practical purpose of this quartering is the separation and 
differentiation of marriage classes. (Marriage on this level 
amounts to "group marriage/ 1 ) The entire population is di- 
vided into moieties, and a man can take a wife only from the 
opposite moiety. The basic pattern is a square or circle divided 
by a cross; it forms the ground-plan of the primitive settlement 
and the archaic city, also of monasteries, convents, etc., as can 
be seen in Europe, Asia, and prehistoric America. 26 The Egyp- 
tian hieroglyph for "city" is a St. Andrews's cross in a circle. 21 

436 In specifying the marriage classes, it should be mentioned 
that every man belongs to his father's patrilineal moiety and 
can only take a wife from his mother's matrilineal moiety. In 
order to avoid the possibility of incest, he marries his mother's 
brother's daughter and gives his sister to his wife's brother 

(sister-exchange marriage). This results in the cross-cousin 
marriage. 28 

437 This form of union, consisting of two brother-and-sister 
marriages crossing each other, seems to be the original pattern 

23 Hocart, 68, p. 265. 25 Layard, 107, pp. 85*?. 27 Ibid., p. 250. 

24 Ibid., pp. 157, 193. 26 Hocart, 68, pp. 24^- 2S Layard, 106, pp. 27off. 

226 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



of the peculiar psychologem which we find in alchemy: 
Adept ^^^ ^^-Soror mystica 




Rex (animus) *^ ^ Regina 29 (anima) 



When I say "pattern" I do not mean that the system of mar- 
riage classes was the cause and our psychologem the effect. I 
merely wish to point out that this system predated the alchemi- 
cal quaternity. Nor can we assume that the primitive marriage 
quaternio is the absolute origin of this archetype, for the latter 
is not a human invention at all but a fact that existed long be- 
fore consciousness, as is true of all ritual symbols among primi- 
tives as well as among civilized peoples today. We do certain 
things simply without thinking, because they have always been 
done like that. 30 

The difference between the primitive and the cultural mar- 
riage quaternio consists in the fact that the former is a socio- 
logical and the latter a mystical phenomenon. While marriage 
classes have all but disappeared among civilized peoples, they 
nevertheless re-emerge on a higher cultural level as spiritual 
ideas. In the interests of the welfare and development of the 
tribe, the exogamous social order thrust the endogamous tend- 
ency into the background so as to prevent the dangerous for- 
mation of small and ever smaller groups. It insisted on the 
introduction of "new blood" both physically and spiritually, 
and it thus proved to be a powerful instrument in the develop- 
ment of culture. In the words of Spencer and Gillen: "This 
system of what has been called group marriage, serving as it 
does to bind more or less closely together groups of individuals 
who are mutually interested in one another's welfare, has been 
one of the most powerful agents in the early stages of the up- 
ward development of the human race." 31 Layard has amplified 
this idea in his above-mentioned study. He regards the en- 
dogamous (incest) tendency as a genuine instinct which, if 

29 I would remind the reader that Rex and Regina are usually brother and siste* 
or sometimes mother and son. 

30 if we think at all when doing these things, it must be a preconscious or rathe\ 
an unconscious act of thought. Psychological explanations cannot very well get 
on without such an hypothesis. 

31 The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, 152, p. 74. 

2*7 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



denied realization in the flesh, must realize itself in the spirit. 
Just as the exogamous order made culture possible in the first 
place, so also it contains a latent spiritual purpose. Layard says: 
"Its latent or spiritual purpose is to enlarge the spiritual horizon 
by developing the idea that there is after all a sphere in which 
the primary desire may be satisfied, namely the divine sphere 
of the gods together with that of their semi-divine counter- 
parts, the culture heroes." S2 The idea of the incestuous hieros 
gamos does in fact appear in the civilized religions and blos- 
soms forth in the supreme spirituality of Christian imagery 
(Christ and the Church, sponsus and sponsa., the mysticism of 
the Song of Solomon, etc.). "Thus the incest taboo/' says 
Layard, "leads in full circle out of the biological sphere into 
the spiritual." 3E On the primitive level the feminine image, 
the anima, is still completely unconscious and therefore in a 
state of latent projection. Through the differentiation of the 
"four-class marriage system" into the eight-class, 34 the degree of 
kinship between marriage partners is considerably diluted, and 
in the twelve-class system it becomes almost negligible. These 
"dichotomies" 35 obviously serve to enlarge the framework of the 
marriage classes and thus to draw more and more groups of 
people into the kinship system. Naturally such an enlargement 
was possible only where a sizeable population was expanding. 36 
The eight-class and particularly the twelve-class systems mean 
a great advance for the exogamous order, but an equally severe 
repression of the endogamous tendency, which is thereby stim- 
ulated to a new advance in its turn. Whenever an instinctive 
force i.e., a certain sum of psychic energy is driven into the 
background through a one-sided (in this case, exogamous) at- 
titude on the part of the conscious mind, it leads to a dissocia- 
tion of personality. The conscious personality with its single 
(exogamous) line of thought comes up against an invisible 
(endogamous) opponent, and because this is unconscious it is 
felt to be a stranger and therefore manifests itself in projected 
form. At first it makes its appearance in human figures who 
have the power to do what others may not do kings and 

32 Layard, 106, p. 284. 33 ibid., p. 293. 

34 in this system a man marries his grandmother's brother's granddaughter. 

35 Hocart, 68, p. 259. 

36 In China, for instance, one can still find vestiges of the twelve-class system. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



princes, for example. This is probably the reason for the royal 
incest prerogative, as in ancient Egypt. To the extent that the 
magical power of royalty was derived increasingly from the 
gods, the incest prerogative shifted to the latter and so gave 
rise to the incestuous hieros gamos. But when the numinous 
aara surrounding the person of the king Is taken over by the 
gods, it has been transferred to a spiritual authority, which re- 
sults in the projection of an autonomous psychic complex in 
other words, psychic life becomes a reality. Thus Layard logi- 
cally derives the anima from the numen of the goddess. 37 The 
anima is manifestly projected in the shape of the goddess, but 
in her proper (psychological) shape she is introfected; she is, as 
Layard says, the "anima within." She is the natural sponsa, 
man's mother or sister or daughter or wife from the beginning, 
the companion whom the endogamous tendency vainly seeks 
to win in the form of mother and sister. She represents that 
longing which has always had to be sacrificed since the grey 
dawn of history. Layard therefore speaks very rightly of "inter- 
nalization through sacrifice/' 38 

439 The endogamous tendency finds an outlet in the exalted 
sphere of the gods and in the higher world of the spirit. Here it 
shows itself to be an instinctive force of a spiritual nature; and, 
regarded in this light, the life of the spirit on the highest level 
is a return to the beginnings, so that man's development be- 
comes a recapitulation of the stages that lead ultimately to the 
perfection of life in the spirit. 

440 The specifically alchemical projection looks at first sight 
like a regression: god and goddess are reduced to king and 
queen, and these in turn look like mere allegories of chemical 
substances which are about to combine. But the regression is 
only apparent. In reality it is a highly remarkable develop- 
ment: the conscious mind of the medieval investigator was still 
under the influence of metaphysical ideas, but because he could 
not derive them from nature he projected them into nature. 
He tried to find them in matter, because he supposed that they 
were most likely to be found there. It was really a question 



37 Layard, 106, pp. 

38 Ibid., p. 284. Perhaps I may note the similar conclusions reached in my earlier 
Psychology of the Unconscious, 87, Part II, Ch. VIII, "The Sacrifice." (91, pt. ii, 
Ch. VII.) 

229 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of a transference of numen similar to that from the king to the 
god. The numen seemed to have migrated in some mysterious 
way from the world of the spirit to the realm of matter. But 
the descent of the projection into matter had led some of the 
old alchemists, for example Morienus Romanus, to the distinct 
realization that this matter was not just the human body (or 
something in it) but the human personality itself. These presci- 
ent masters had already got beyond the inevitable stage of ob- 
tuse materialism which had yet to be born from the womb of 
time. But it was not until the discoveries of modern psychology 
that this human "matter" of the alchemists could be recognized 
as the psyche. 

441 On the psychological level, the tangle of relationships in the 
cross-cousin marriage reappears in the transference problem. 
The dilemma here consists in the fact that anima and animus 
are projected upon their human counterparts and thus create 
by suggestion a primitive relationship which evidently goes 
back to the time of group marriages. But in so far as anima and 
animus undoubtedly represent the contrasexual components of 
the personality, their kinship character does not point back- 
wards to group marriage but ''forwards" to the integration of 
personality, i.e., to individuation. 

442 Our present-day civilization with its cult of consciousness 
if this can be called civilization has a Christian stamp, which 
means that neither anima nor animus is integrated but is still 
in the state of projection, i.e., expressed by dogma. On this 
level both these figures are unconscious as components of per- 
sonality, though their effectiveness is still apparent in the numi- 
nous aura surrounding the dogmatic ideas of bridegroom and 
bride. Our "civilization," however, has turned out to be a very 
doubtful proposition, a distinct falling away from the lofty 
ideal of Christianity; and, in consequence, the projections have 
largely fallen away from the divine figures and have necessarily 
settled in the human sphere. This is understandable enough, 
since the "enlightened" intellect cannot imagine anything 
greater than man except those tin gods with totalitarian pre- 
sumptions who call themselves State or Fuehrer. This regression 
has made itself as plain as could be wished in Germany and 
other countries. And even where it is not so apparent, the lapsed 
projections have a disturbing effect on human relationships and 

230 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



wreck at least a quarter of the marriages. If we decline to 
measure the vicissitudes of the world's history by the standards 
of right and wrong, true and false, good and evil, but prefer to 
see the retrograde step in every advance, the evil in every good, 
the error in every truth, we might compare the present regres- 
sion with the apparent retreat which led from scholasticism to 
the mystical trend of natural philosophy and thence to material- 
ism. Just as materialism led to empirical science and thus to a 
new understanding of the soul, so the totalitarian psychosis 
with its frightful consequences and the intolerable disturbance 
of human relationships is forcing us to pay attention to the 
psyche and our abysmal unconsciousness of it. Never before 
has mankind as a whole experienced the numen of the psycho- 
logical factor on so vast a scale. In one sense this is a catas- 
trophe and a retrogression without parallel, but it is not beyond 
the bounds of possibility that such an experience also has its 
positive aspects and might become the seed of a nobler culture 
in a regenerated age. It is possible that ultimately the endog- 
amous tendency is not aiming at projection at all; it may be 
trying to unite the different components of the personality on 
the pattern of the cross-cousin marriage, but on a higher plane 
where "spiritual marriage" becomes an inner experience that 
is not projected. Such an experience has long been depicted in 
dreams as a mandala divided into four, and it seems to repre- 
sent the goal of the individuation process, i.e., the self. 39 
443 Following the growth of population and the increasing 
dichotomy of the marriage classes, which led to a further ex- 
tension of the exogamous order, all barriers gradually broke 
down and nothing remained but the incest-taboo. The original 
social order made way for other organizing factors culminating 
in the modern idea of the State. Now, everything that is past 
sinks in time into the unconscious, and this is true also of the 
original social order. As an archetype, it combined exogamy 
and endogamy in the most fortunate way, for while it pre- 
vented marriage between brother and sister it provided a sub- 
stitute in the cross-cousin marriage. This relationship is still 
close enough to satisfy the endogamous tendency more or less, 
but distant enough to include other groups and to extend the 
orderly cohesion of the tribe. But with the gradual abolition 

89 Cf. my Psychology and Religion, 86. 

231 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of exogamous restrictions through increasing dichotomy, the en- 
dogamous tendency was bound to gain strength in order to give 
due weight to consanguineous relationships and so hold them 
together. This reaction was chiefly felt in the religious and then 
in the political field, with the growth on the one hand of relig- 
ious societies and sects we have only to think of the brother- 
hoods and the Christian ideal of "brotherly love" and of 
nations on the other. Increasing internationalism and the weak- 
ening of religion have largely abolished or bridged over these 
last remaining barriers and will do so still more in the future, 
only to create an amorphous mass whose preliminary symptoms 
can already be seen in the modern phenomenon of the mass 
psyche. Consequently the original exogamous order is rapidly 
approaching a condition of chaos painfully held in check. For 
this there is but one remedy: the inner consolidation of the indi- 
vidual, who is otherwise threatened with inevitable stultifica- 
tion and dissolution in the mass psyche. The recent past has 
given us the clearest possible demonstration of what this would 
mean. No religion has afforded any protection, and our organ- 
izing factor, the State, has proved to be the most efficient ma- 
chine for turning out mass-men. In these circumstances the 
immunizing of the individual against the toxin of the mass 
psyche is the only thing that can help. As I have already said, 
it is just conceivable that the endogamous tendency will inter- 
vene compensatorily and restore the consanguineous marriage, 
or the union of the divided components of the personality, on 
the psychic level that is to say, within the individual. This 
would form a counterbalance to the progressive dichotomy, the 
psychic dissociation of collective man. 

444 It is of supreme importance that this process should take 
place consciously, otherwise the psychic consequences of mass- 
mindedness will harden and become permanent. For, if the 
inner consolidation of the individual is not conscious, it will 
occur spontaneously and will then take the well-known form of 
that incredible hard-heartedness which collective man displays 
towards his fellow men. He becomes a soulless herd animal gov- 
erned only by panic and lust: his soul, which can live only in 
and from human relationships, is irretrievably lost. But the 
conscious achievement of inner unity clings desperately to hu- 
man relationships as to an indispensable condition, for without 

232 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



the conscious acknowledgment and acceptance of our kinship 
with those around us there can be no synthesis of personality. 
That mysterious something in which the inner union takes 
place is nothing personal, has nothing to do with the ego, is in 
fact superior to the ego because, as the self, it is the synthesis of 
the ego and the supra-personal unconscious. The inner con- 
solidation of the individual is not just the hardness of collective 
man on a higher plane, in the form of spiritual aloofness and 
inaccessibility: it emphatically includes our fellow man. 

445 To the extent that the transference is projection and noth- 
ing more, it divides quite as much as it connects. But experi- 
ence teaches that there is one connection in the transference 
which does not break off with the severance of the projection. 
That is because there is an extremely important instinctive 
factor behind it: the kinship libido. This has been pushed 
so far into the background by the unlimited expansion of the 
exogamous tendency that it can find an outlet, and a modest 
one at that, only within the immediate family circle, and some- 
times not even there, because of the quite justifiable resistance 
to incest. While exogamy was limited by endogamy, it resulted 
in a natural organization of society which has entirely disap- 
peared today. Everyone is now a stranger among strangers. Kin- 
ship libido which could still engender a satisfying feeling of 
belonging together, as for instance in the early Christian com- 
munitieshas long been deprived of its object. But, being an 
instinct, it is not to be satisfied by any mere substitute such 
as a creed, party, nation, or state. It wants the human connec- 
tion. That is the core of the whole transference phenomenon, 
and it is impossible to argue it away, because relationship to the 
self is at once relationship to our fellow man, and no one can 
be related to the latter until he is related to himself. 

446 If the transference remains at the level of projection, the 
connection it establishes shows a tendency to regressive con- 
cretization, i.e., it reverts to the primitive order of society. This 
tendency has no possible foothold in our modern world, so 
that every step in this direction only leads to a deeper conflict, 
and ultimately to a real transference neurosis. Analysis of the 
transference is therefore an absolute necessity, because the pro- 
jected contents must be reintegrated if the patient is to gain the 
broader view he needs for free decision. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



447 If, however, the projection is broken, the connection 
whether it be negative (hate) or positive (love) may collapse 
for the time being so that nothing seems to be left but the 
politeness of a professional tete-a-tete. One cannot begrudge 
either doctor or patient a sigh of relief when this happens, 
although one knows full well that the problem has only been 
postponed for both of them. Sooner or later, here or in some 
other place, it will present itself again, for behind it there 
stands the restless urge towards individuation. 

448 Individuation has two principal aspects: in the first place it 
is an internal and subjective process of integration, and in the 
second it is an equally indispensable process of objective re- 
lationship. Neither can exist without the other, although some- 
times the one and sometimes the other predominates. This 
double aspect has two corresponding dangers. The first is the 
danger of the patient's using the opportunities for spiritual 
development arising out of the analysis of the unconscious as 
a pretext for evading the deeper human responsibilities, and 
for affecting a certain "spirituality" which cannot stand up to 
moral criticism; the second is the danger that atavistic tend- 
encies may gain the ascendency and drag the relationship down 
to a primitive level. Between this Scylla and that Charybdis 
there is a narrow passage, and both medieval Christian mysti- 
cism and alchemy have contributed much to its discovery. 

449 Looked at in this light, the bond established by the trans- 
ferencehowever hard to bear and however unintelligible it 
may seem is vitally important not only for the individual but 
also for society, and indeed for the moral and spiritual progress 
of mankind. So, when the psychotherapist has to struggle with 
difficult transference problems, he can at least take comfort in 
these reflections. He is not just working for this particular pa- 
tient, who may be quite insignificant, but for himself as well 
and his own soul, and in so doing he is perhaps laying an infini- 
tesimal grain in the scales of humanity's soul. Small and invis- 
ible as this contribution may be, it is yet an opus magnum, 
for it is accomplished in a sphere but lately visited by the 
numen, where the whole weight of mankind's problems has set- 
tled. The ultimate questions of psychotherapy are not a private 
matter they represent a supreme responsibility. 

234 



3 

THE NAKED TRUTH 

450 The text to this picture (fig. 3) is, with a few alterations, 
a quotation from the Tractatus aureus.^ It runs: "He who 
would be initiated into this art and secret wisdom must put 
away the vice of arrogance, must be devout, righteous, deep- 
witted, humane towards his fellows, of a cheerful countenance 
and a happy disposition, and respectful withal. Likewise he 
must be an observer of the eternal secrets that are revealed to 
him. My son, above all I admonish thee to fear God who seeth 
thine actions [in quo dispositionis tuae visus est\ and in whom 
is help for the solitary, whosoever he may be [adiuvatio cuius- 
libet sequestrati\J* 2 And the Rosarium adds from Pseudo-Aris- 
totle: "Could God but find a man of faithful understanding, He 
would open His secret to him/' 3 

45* This appeal to obviously moral qualities makes one thing 
quite clear: the opus demands not only intellectual and tech- 
nical ability as in the study and practice of modern chemistry; 
it is a moral as well as a psychological undertaking. The texts 
are full of such admonitions, and they indicate the kind of 
attitude that is required in the execution of a religious work. 
The alchemists undoubtedly understood the opus in this sense, 
though it is difficult to square our picture with such an ex- 
ordium. The chaste disguises have fallen away. 4 Man and 
woman confront one another in unabashed naturalness. Sol 
says, "O Luna, let 4a me be thy husband," and Luna, "O Sol, I 

lAn Arabic treatise whose origin is still obscure. It is to be found in the Ars 
chemica, 1, and (with scholia) in the Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, 3. 
2 This passage is rather different in the original text (1, i, p. 14): "in quo est nisus 
tuae dispositionis, et adunatio cuiuslibet sequestrati/' Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, 
85, par. 385 and footnote. 3 2, xiii, pp. 227-28. 

*Cf. Cant. 5:3 (Vulg.): "Exspoliavi me tunica mea" (D.V.: "I have put off my gar- 
ment"). 4a Original is illegible: ?vgan. 

235 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



must submit to thee." The dove bears the inscription: "Spir- 
itus est qui unificat." 5 This remark hardly fits the unvarnished 
eroticism of the picture, for if what Sol and Luna say-who, 
be it noted, are brother and sister means anything at all, it 
must surely mean earthly love. But since the spirit descending 
from above is stated to be the mediator, 6 the situation acquires 
another aspect: it is supposed to be a union in the spirit. This 
is borne out admirably by one important detail in the pic- 
ture: the contact of left hands has ceased. Instead, Luna's left 
hand and Sol's right hand now hold the branches (from which 
spring the fiores Mercurii, corresponding to the three pipes of 
the fountain), while Luna's right and Sol's left hand are touch- 
ing the flowers. The left-handed relationship is no more: the 
two hands of both are now connected with the "uniting sym- 
bol." This too has been changed: there are only three flowers 
instead of five, it is no longer an ogdoad but a hexad, T a six- 
rayed figure. The double quaternity has thus been replaced by 
a double triad. This simplification is evidently the result of the 
fact that two elements have each paired off, presumably with 
their opposites, for according to alchemical theory each element 

5 This is the reading of the 1593 edition. The first edition of 1550 has "vivificat." 

6 The dove is also the attribute of the goddess of love and was a symbol of amor 
coniugalis in ancient times. 

TCf. Joannes Lydus, 110, II, 11: "The sixth day they ascribe to Phosphorus 
[morning star], who is the begetter of warmth and generative moisture [ Yovijawg 
fyccttvovu]. Perhaps this is the son of Aphrodite, like Hesperus the evening 
star, as appeared to the Greeks. Aphrodite we could call the nature of the visible 
universe, the first-born Hyle which the oracle names star-like ['Acrcscaav] as 
well as heavenly. The number 6 is most skilled in begetting [YewnTixcfaatos], for 
it is even and uneven, partaking both of the active nature on account of the 
uneven [jtsQnrcfcv also means "superfluous" or "excessive"], and of the ^hylical 
nature on account of the even, for which reason the ancients also named it mar- 
riage and harmony. For among those that follow the number i, it is the only 
number perfect in all its parts, being composed of these: its halves of the num- 
ber 3, its thirds of the number 2, and its sixths of the number i [6 = 3 + a + i]. 
And they say also that it is both male and female, like Aphrodite herself, who is 
of male and female nature and is accordingly called hermaphroditic by the theo- 
logians. And another says that the number 6 is soul-producing [or belongs 
to the ^xoyovta, ilwxoYOVixog], because it multiplies itself into the world- 
sphere [&iure8^8vog=TOXXoOTXo<na0|A6sl and because in it the opposites are 
mingled. It leads to like-mindedness [ouxSvoiav] and friendship, giving health to 
the body, harmony to songs and music, virtue to the soul, prosperity to the state, 
and forethought [jtQovoiav] to the universe." 

236 



PHILOSOPHORVM, 

Ic/pfislecundumgquafirate mfpiflcntun So|u 
cmi^alprteperatus ejt huipjdjtaris mfoifla tuius 
et mfxtibnis perfeStums, et non (uperexceden.^T 
N a genera does et procreatfones reru naturaliu 
habentfolu fieri per teperatifiimucaloreet ^cjua 
le> vti eft iblus fimus equmus humidus et calidu^* 




Figure 3 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



contains its opposite "within" it. Affinity, in the form of a "lov- 
ing" approach, has already achieved a partial union of the ele- 
ments, so that now only one pair of opposites remains: mascu- 
line-feminine or agens-patiens, as indicated by the inscription. 
In accordance with the axiom of Maria, the elementary quater- 
nity has become the active triad, and this will lead to the con- 
iunctio of the two. 

452 Psychologically we can say that the situation has thrown 
off the conventional husk and developed into a stark encounter 
with reality, with no false veils or adornments of any kind. 
Man stands forth as he really is and shows what was hidden 
under the mask of conventional adaptation: the shadow. This 
is now raised to consciousness and integrated with the ego, 
which means a move in the direction of wholeness. Wholeness 
is not so much perfection as completeness. Assimilation of the 
shadow gives a man body, so to speak; the animal sphere of 
instinct, as well as the primitive or archaic psyche, emerge into 
the zone of consciousness and can no longer be repressed by 
fictions and illusions. In this way man becomes for himself the 
difficult problem he really is. He must always remain conscious 
of the fact that he is such a problem if he wants to develop at 
all. Repression leads to a one-sided development if not to stag- 
nation, and eventually tp neurotic dissociation. Today it is no 
longer a question of "How can I get rid of my shadow?" for 
we have seen enough of the curse of one-sidedness. Rather we 
must ask ourselves: "How can man live with his shadow with- 
out its precipitating a succession of disasters?" Recognition of 
the shadow is a reason for humility, for genuine fear of the 
abysmal depths in man. This caution is most expedient, since 
the man without a shadow thinks himself harmless precisely 
because he is ignorant of his shadow. The man who recognizes 
his shadow knows very well that he is not harmless, for it brings 
the archaic psyche, the whole world of the archetypes, into 
direct contact with the conscious mind and saturates it with 
archaic influences. This naturally adds to the dangers of "af- 
finity," with its deceptive projections and its urge to assimilate 
the object in terms of the projection, to draw it into the family 
circle in order to actualize the hidden incest situation, which 
seems all the more attractive and fascinating the less it is under- 
stood. The advantage of the situation, despite all its dangers, is 

238 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



that once the naked truth has been revealed the discussion can 
get down to essentials; ego and shadow are no longer divided 
but are brought together in an admittedly precarious unity. 
This is a great step forward, but at the same time it shows up 
the "differentness" of one's partner all the more clearly, and 
the unconscious usually tries to close the gap by increasing the 
attraction, so as to bring about the desired union somehow or 
other. All this is borne out by the alchemical idea that the fire 
which maintains the process must be temperate to begin with 
and must then gradually be raised to the highest intensity. 



239 



IMMERSION IN THE BATH 

453 A new motif appears in this picture: the bath. In a sense 
this takes us back to the first picture of the Mercurial Foun- 
tain, which represents the "up welling." The liquid is Mer- 
curius, not only of the three but of the "thousand" names. He 
stands for the mysterious psychic substance which nowadays we 
would call the unconscious psyche. The rising fountain of the 
unconscious has reached the king and queen, or rather they 
have descended into it as into a bath. This is a theme with many 
variations in alchemy. Here are a few of them: the king is in 
danger of drowning in the sea; he is a prisoner under the sea; 
the sun drowns in the mercurial fountain; the king sweats in 
the glass-house; the green lion swallows the sun; Gabricus dis- 
appears in the body of his sister Beya, where he is dissolved 
into atoms; and so forth. Interpreted on the one hand as a 
harmless bath and on the other hand as the perilous encroach- 
ment of the "sea," the earth-spirit Mercurius in his watery 
form now begins to attack the royal pair from below, just as he 
had previously descended from above in the shape of the dove. 
The contact of left hands in figure 2 has evidently roused the 
spirit of the deep and called up a rush of water. 

454 The immersion in the "sea" signifies the soZwta'o -"disso- 
lution" in the physical sense of the word and at the same time, 
according to Dorn, the solution of a problem. 1 It is a return 
to the dark initial state, to the amniotic fluid of the gravid 
uterus. The alchemists frequently point out that their stone 
grows like the child in its mother's womb; they call the vas 

IDorn, 5, ii, p. 303: "Studio philosophorum comparator putrefactio chemica. 
. . . Ut per solutionem corpora solvuntur, ita per cognitionem resolvuntur phi- 
losophorum dubia" (The chemical putrefaction can be compared with the study 
of the philosophers. ... As bodies are dissolved through the solutio, so the 
doubts of the philosophers are resolved through the [acquisition of] knowledge). 

240 



ROSARIVOT 

ig^ 

'artemaliquid fieri poteft* Ratio dtquSarsprf( 

lapiarl 



corpora, S^quodnatura iplainccpit hocpcr ar 
tern adperfeciibne dcducftur^Sf in ipfo Mcrcu 



no operar mcepes 
fcdum^inueniesincoperfedioneetgaudebfe. 
Perfedumnonalteratur,(edcorrunipitur* 
Sedfmperfedumbenealtcratur, ergo corrupt 
tio vnius eft generauo alterius. 




Speculum 

Figure 4 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



hermeticum the uterus and its content the foetus. What is said 
of the lapis is also said of the water: "This stinking water con- 
tains everything it needs/' 2 It is sufficient unto itself, like the 
Uroboros, the tail-eater, which is said to beget, kill, and devour 
itself. Aqua est, quae occidit et vivificat-the water is that which 
kills and vivifies, 3 It is the aqua benedicta, the lustral water, 4 
where the birth of the new being is prepared. As the text to 
our picture explains: "Our stone is to be extracted from the 
nature of the two bodies." It also likens the water to the ventus 
of the "Tabula smaragdina," where we read: "Portavit eum 
ventus in ventre suo" (The wind hath carried it in his belly). 
The Rosarium adds: "It is clear that wind is air, and air is life, 
and life is soul, that is, oil and water." 5 The curious idea that 
the soul (i.e., the breath-soul) is oil and water derives from the 
dual nature of Mercurius. The aqua permanent is one of his 
many synonyms, and the terms oleum, oleaginitas, unctuosum, 
unctuositas, all refer to the arcane substance which is likewise 
Mercurius. The idea is a graphic reminder of the ecclesiastical 
use of various unguents and of the consecrated water. The dual 
substance mentioned above is represented by the king and 
queen, a possible reference to the commixtio of the two sub- 
stances in the chalice of the Mass. A similar coniunctio is shown 
in the "Grandes heures du due de Berry," 6 where a naked 
"little man and woman" are being anointed by two saintly servi- 
tors in the baptismal bath of the chalice. There can be no doubt 
of the connections between the alchemical opus and the Mass, as 
the treatise of Melchior Cibinensis (5, x) proves. Our text says: 
"Anima est Sol et Luna." The alchemist thought in strictly 

2 Instead of the meaningless "aqua foetum" I read "aqua foetida" (Rosarium, 2, 
xiii, p. 241). Cf. "Consilium coniugii," p, 64: Leo viridis, id est ... aqua foetida, 
quae est mater omnium ex qua et per quam et cum qua praeparant . . ." (The 
green lion, that is ... the stinking water, which is the mother of all things, and 
out of it and through it and with it, they prepare . . .). 

$ Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 214. Cf. "Aurora consurgens," I, Ch. XII, where the bride 
says of herself in God's words (Vulg., Deut, 32:39): ". . . ego occidam, et ego vivere 
faciam . . . et non est qui de manu mea possit eruere." (D.V.: "I will kill and 
I will make to live . . . and there is none that can deliver out of my hand"). 

4 Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 213. 

5 Ibid., p. 237. This goes back to Senior, 164, pp. 19, 31, 33. 
35, ii. Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, 85, fig. 159. 

242 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



medieval trichotomous terms: 7 anything" alive and his lapis is 
undoubtedly alive -consists of corpus, anima, and spiritus. The 
Rosarium remarks (p. 239) that "the body is Venus and fem- 
inine, the spirit is Mercurius and masculine"; hence the anima, 
as the "vinculum," the link between body and spirit, would be 
hermaphroditic, 8 i.e., a coniunctio Solis et Lunae. Mercurius 
is the hermaphrodite par excellence. From all this it may be 
gathered that the queen stands for the body 9 and the king for 
the spirit, but that both are unrelated without the soul, since 
this is the vinculum which holds them together. 10 If no bond 
of love exists, they have no soul. In our pictures the bond is 
effected by the dove from above and by the water from below. 
These constitute the link in other words, they are the soul. 11 
Thus the underlying idea of the psyche proves it to be a half 
bodily, half spiritual substance, an anima media natural as 
the alchemists call it, 13 an hermaphroditic being 14 capable of 
uniting the opposites, but who is never complete in the indi- 
vidual unless related to another individual. The unrelated hu- 
man being lacks wholeness, for he can achieve wholeness only 
through the soul, and the soul cannot exist without its other 
side, which is always found in a "You." Wholeness is a combi- 

7Cf. "Aurora consurgens," I, Ch. IX, "qualis pater talis filius, tails et Spiritus 

Sanctus et hi tres unum sunt, corpus, spiritus et anima, quia omnis perfectio in 

numero ternario consistit, hoc est mensura, numero et pondere" (As the Father, 

such is the Son, and such is also the Holy Spirit; and these three are One, body, 

spirit, and soul, since all perfection consists in the number Three, i.e., in measure, 

number, and weight). 

8 "Anima vocatur Rebis." 2, ii, p. 180. 

According to Firmicus Maternus (43, p. 3), Luna is "humanorum corporum 

mater." 

10 Sometimes the spirit is the vinculum, or else the latter is a natura ignea 
(Zadiarias, 5, v, p. 887). 

11 Psychologically one should read mens for spiritus. 

12 Cf. "De arte chymica," 2, xi, pp. 5848:., and Mylius, 120 5 p. 9. 

13 "Turba," 2, ii, p. 180: ". . . Spiritus et corpus unum sunt mediante anima, quae 
est apud spiritum et corpus. Quod si anima non esset, tune spiritus et corpus 
separarentur ab invicem per ignem, sed anima adiuncta spiritui et corpori, hoc 
totum non curat ignem nee ullam rem mundi." (. . . The spirit and the body are 
one, the soul acting as a mediator which abides with the spirit and the body. If 
there were no soul, the spirit and the body would separate from each other by 
the fire, but because the soul is joined to the spirit and the body, this whole is 
unaffected by fire or by any other thing in the world.) 

14 Cf. the observations of Winthuis, 163. 

243 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



nation of I and You, and these show themselves to be parts of a 
transcendent unity 15 whose nature can only be grasped sym- 
bolically, as in the symbols of the rotundum, the rose, the 
wheel, 16 or the coniunctio Soils et Lunae. The alchemists even 
go so far as to say that the corpus, anima, and spiritus of the ar- 
cane substance are one, "because they come from the One, and of 
the One, and with the One, which is its own root" (Quia ipsa 
omnia sunt ex uno et de uno et cum uno, quod est radix ipsius." 
Rosarium, p. 369). A thing which is the cause and origin of 
itself can only be God, unless we adopt the implied dualism 
of the Paracelsists, who were of the opinion that the prima ma- 
teria is an increatum.^ Similarly, the pre-Paracelsist Rosarium 
maintains (p. 251) that the quintessence is a "self-subsistent 
body, differing from all the elements and from everything com- 
posed thereof." 

455 Coming now to the psychology of the picture, it is clearly 
a descent into the unconscious. The immersion in the bath is 
another "night sea journey," 18 as the "Visio Arislei" (2, i) 
proves. There the philosophers are shut up with the brother- 
sister pair in a triple glass-house at the bottom of the sea 
by the Rex Marinus. Just as, in the primitive myths, it is so 
stiflingly hot in the belly of the whale that the hero loses his 
hair, so the philosophers suffer very much from the intense 
heat 19 during their confinement. The hero-myths deal with 
rebirth and apocatastasis, and the "Visio" likewise tells of the 
resuscitation of the dead Thabritius (Gabricus) or, in another 
version, of his rebirth. 20 The night sea journey is a kind of 

151 do not, of course, mean the synthesis or identification of two individuals, 
but the conscious union of the ego with everything that has been projected into 
the "You/' Hence wholeness is the result of an intrapsychic process which de- 
pends essentially on the relation of one individual to another. Such a relation- 
ship paves the way for individuation and makes it possible, but is itself no proof 
of wholeness. The projection upon the feminine partner contains the anima and 
sometimes the self. l 6 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy f 85, index. 

17 Ibid., pars. 430^. 18 Cf. Frobenius, Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes, 53. 

is 2, i, p. 148: "Mansimus in tenebris undarum et intense aestatis calore ac maris 
perturbatione" (We remained in the darknesses of the waves and in the intense 
heat of summer and in the perturbation of the sea). 

20 Cf. the birth of Mithras: "de solo aestu libidinis" (Jerome, 76, col. 246). In 
Arabic alchemy, too, the fire that causes the fusion is called "libido." Cf. "Turba," 
2, ii, Exercitatio XV, p. 181: "Inter supradicta tria (scil., corpus anima, spiritus) 
in est libido," etc. (Between the aforementioned three, i.e., body, soul, spirit, there is 
a libido). 

244 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



descensus ad inferosz descent into Hades and a journey to the 
land of ghosts somewhere beyond this world, beyond conscious- 
ness, hence an immersion in the unconscious. In our picture the 
immersion is effected by the rising up of the fiery, chthonic 
Mercurius, presumably the sexual libido which engulfs the 
pair 21 and is the obvious counterpart to the heavenly dove. The 
latter has always been regarded as a love-bird, but it also has a 
purely spiritual significance in the Christian tradition accepted 
by the alchemists. Thus the pair are united above by the symbol 
of the Holy Ghost, and it looks as if the immersion in the bath 
were also uniting them below,, i.e., in the water which is the 
counterpart of spirit ("It is death for souls to become water,'* 
says Heraclitus). Opposition and identity at once a philosophi- 
cal problem only when taken as a psychological one! 
456 This development recapitulates the story of how the original 
man (Nous) stepped down from heaven to earth and was 
wrapped in the embrace of Physis a primordial image that runs 
through the whole of alchemy. The modern equivalent of this 
stage is the conscious realization of sexual fantasies which colour 
the transference accordingly. It is significant that even in this 
quite unmistakable situation the pair are still holding on with 
both hands to the starry symbol brought by the Holy Ghost, 
which signalizes the meaning of their relationship: man's long- 
ing for transcendent wholeness. 

21 See the inscription to fig. 53: 

"But here King Sol is tight shut in, 
And Mercurius philosophorum pours over him." 

The sun drowning in the mercurial fountain (Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 315) and the 
lion swallowing the sun (p. 367) both have this meaning, which is also an allusion 
to the ignea natura of Mercurius (Leo is the House of the Sun) . For this aspect of 
Mercurius see my "The Spirit Mercurius," 89, pars. ii3f. (1948 ed., pp. isof.). 



245 



THE CONJUNCTION 

O Luna, folded in my sweet embrace/ 

Be you as strong as I, as fair of face. 

O Sol, brightest of all lights known to men/ 

And yet you need me, as the cock the hen. 

[Figure 5] 

457 The sea has closed over the king and queen, and they have 
gone back to the chaotic beginnings, the massa confusa. Physis 
has wrapped the "man of light" in a passionate embrace. As the 
text says: "Then Beya [the maternal sea] rises up over Gabricus 
and encloses him in her womb, so that nothing more of him is 
to be seen. And she embraced Gabricus with so much love that 
she utterly consumed him in her own nature and dissolved him 
into atoms." These verses from Merculinus are then quoted: 

Candida mulier, si rubeo sit nupta marito, 
Mox complexantur, complexaque copulantur, 
Per se solvuntur, per se quoque conficiuntur, 
Ut duo qui fuerant, unum quasi corpore fiant. 

(White-skinned lady, lovingly joined to her ruddy-limbed husband, 
Wrapped in each other's arms in the bliss of connubial union, 
Merge and dissolve as they come to the goal of perfection: 
They that were two are made one, as though of one body.) 

458 In the fertile imagination of the alchemists the hieros 
gamos of Sol and Luna continues right down to the animal king- 
dom, as is shown by the following instructions: "Take a Co- 
etanean dog and an Armenian bitch, mate them, and they 
will bear you a son in the likeness of a dog." 1 The symbolism 
is about as crass as it could be. On the other hand the Rosarium 
says (p. 247): "In hora coniunctionis maxima apparent mirac- 

1 Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 248. Quotation after Kallid, 2, vi, p. 340. [Cf. par. 353, n. i; 
also n. 2 supra. EDITORS.] 

246 



CONIVNCTIO S1VB 




COirjf it 

(t>SoI 

30 betwf}! oko4) man A!$ $*r ^n bcr 

ARISLEVS IN VISIONS 



Coniunge ergo filium mum Gabrfcum 
^iorcm tibi in omnibus filfjs tuis cum fua fororc 



Figures 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ula" (In the hour of conjunction the greatest marvels ap- 
pear). For this is the moment when the filius philosoporum 
or lapis is begotten. A quotation from Alfidius adds (p. 248): 
"Lux moderna ab eis gignitur" (The new light is begotten by 
them). Kallid says of the "son in the likeness of a dog" that he 
is "of a celestial hue" and that "this son will guard you ... in 
this world and in the next." 2 Likewise Senior: "She hath borne 
a son who served his parents in all things, save that he is more 
splendid and refulgent than they," 3 i.e., he outshines sun and 
moon. The real meaning of the coniunctio is that it brings to 
birth something that is one and united. It restores the vanished 
"man of light" who is identical with the Logos in Gnostic and 
Christian symbolism and who was there before the creation; 
we also meet him at the beginning of the Gospel of St. John. 
Consequently we are dealing with a cosmic idea, and this amply 
explains the alchemists' use of superlatives. 

459 The psychology of this central symbol is not at all simple. 
On a superficial view it looks as if natural instinct had tri- 
umphed. But if we examine it more closely we note that the 
coitus is taking place in the water, the mare tenebrositatis, i.e., 
the unconscious. This idea is borne out by a variant of the 
picture (fig. 5a). There again Sol and Luna are in the water, 
but both are winged. They thus represent spiritthey are aerial 
beings, creatures of thought. The texts indicate that Sol and 
Luna are two vapores or fumi which gradually develop as the fire 
increases in heat, and which then rise as on wings from the 

2 Kallid, 2, vi> p. 340: "Et dixit Hermes patri suo: Pater timeo ab inimico in mea 
mansione. Et dixit: Fili, accipe canem masculiim Corascenem et caniculam Arme- 
niae et iunge in simul et parient canem coloris coeli et imbibe ipsum una siti ex 
aqua maris: quia ipse custodiet tuum amicum et custodiet te ab inimico tuo et 
adiuvabit te ubicumque sis, semper tecum existendo in hoc mundo et in alio." 
(And Hermes said to his father: Father, I am afraid of the enemy in my house. 
And he said: My son, take a Corascen dog and an Armenian bitch, join them 
together, and they will beget a dog of a celestial hue, and if ever he is thirsty, 
give him sea water to drink: for he will guard your friend, and he will guard 
you from your enemy, and he will help you wherever you may be, always being 
with you, in this world and in the next.) 

32, xiii, p. 248. The radiant quality (cn;Q,|3cov) is characteristic of Mercurius 
and also of the first man, Gayomart or Adam. Cf. Christensen, 33, pp. ssfL, 
and Kohut, 101, pp. 68, 72, 87. 

248 



FERMENTATIO. 




Figure sa 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



decoctio and digestio of the prima material That is why the 
paired opposites are sometimes represented as two birds fight- 
ing 6 or as winged and wingless dragons. 6 The fact that two 
aerial creatures should mate on or beneath the water does not 
disturb the alchemist in the least, for he is so familiar with the 
changeable nature of his synonyms that for him water is not 
only fire but all sorts of astonishing things besides. If we in- 
terpret the water as steam we may be getting nearer the truth. 
It refers to the boiling solution in which the two substances 
unite. 

460 As to the frank eroticism of the pictures, I must remind 
the reader that they were drawn for medieval eyes and that 
consequently they have a symbolical rather than a pornographic 
meaning. Medieval hermeneutics and meditation could contem- 
plate even the most delicate passages in the Song of Solomon 
without taking offence and view them through a veil of spirit- 
uality. Our pictures of the coniunctio are to be understood in 
this sense: union on the biological level is a symbol of the unio 
oppositorum at its highest. This proves that the union of oppo- 
sites in the royal art is just as real as coitus in the common ac- 
ceptation of the word, so that the opus becomes an analogy of 
the natural process by means of which instinctive energy is 
transformed, at least in part, into symbolical activity. The crea- 
tion of such analogies frees instinct and the biological sphere as 
a whole from the pressure of unconscious contents. Absence of 
symbolism, however, overloads the sphere of instinct. 7 The 
analogy contained in figure 5 is a little too obvious for our mod- 
ern taste, so that it almost fails of its object. 

461 As every specialist knows, the psychological parallels en- 
countered in medical practice often take the form of fantasy- 

4 The "Practica Mariae" (2, v, p. 321) makes the two into four: "(Kibrich et 
Zubech) . . . ipsa sunt duo fumi complectentes duo luminaria" (They are the two 
vapours enveloping the two lights). These four evidently correspond to the four ele- 
ments, since we read on p. 320: ". . . si sunt apud homines omnia 4 elementa, 
dixit compleri possent et complexionari et coagulari eorum fumi . . ." (He said 
that if there are in men all 4 elements their vapours could, as he says, be com- 
pleted and intermingled and coagulated). 5 See Lambspringk, 4 iii. 

6 Frontispiece to Le Songe de Poliphile, 37. See Psychology and Alchemy t 85, fig. 4. 

7 Hence the ambivalent saying in Mylius, 120, p. 182: "In habentibus symbolum 
i'acilis est transitus" (For those that have the symbol the passage is easy). 

250 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



images which, when drawn, differ hardly at all from our pic- 
tures. The reader may remember the typical case I mentioned 
earlier (par. 3776:.)* where the act of conception was represented 
symbolically and, exactly nine months later, the unconscious, as 
though influenced by a suggestion a echeance, produced the 
symbolism of a birth, or o a new-born child, without the pa- 
tient's being conscious of the preceding psychological concep- 
tion or having consciously reckoned the period o her "preg- 
nancy." As a rule the whole process passes off in a series of 
dreams and is discovered only retrospectively, when the dream 
material comes to be analysed. Many alchemists compute the 
duration of the opus to be that of a pregnancy, and they liken 
the entire procedure to such a period of gestation. 8 
462 The main emphasis falls on the unio mystica, as is shown 
quite clearly by the retention of the uniting symbol in the 
earlier pictures. It is perhaps not without deeper significance 
that this symbol has disappeared in the pictures of the con- 
iunctio. For at this juncture the meaning of the symbol is ful- 
filled: the partners have themselves become symbolic. At first 
each represented two elements; then each of them united into 
one (integration of the shadow!); and finally the two together 
with the third become a whole "ut duo qui fuerant, unum 
quasi corpore fiant." Thus the axiom of Maria is fulfilled. In 
this union the Holy Ghost disappears as well, but to make up 
for that, Sol and Luna themselves become spirit. The real 
meaning, therefore, is Goethe's "higher copulation/' 9 a union 
in unconscious identity, which could be compared with the 
primitive, initial state of chaos, the massa confusa, or rather with 
the state of participation mystique where heterogeneous factors 
merge in an unconscious relationship. The coniunctio differs 
from this not as a mechanism but because it is by nature never 
an initial state: it is always the product of a process or the goal 
of endeavour. This is equally the case in psychology, though 
here the coniunctio comes about unintentionally and is opposed 
to the bitter end by all biologically minded and conscientious 

8 Cf. Kallid, 2, vii, pp. 355!. 

"No more shall you stay a prisoner 
Wrapped in darkest obfuscation; 
New desires call you upwards 
To the higher copulation." West-ostlicher Divan. 

251 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



doctors. That is why they speak of "severing the transference/' 
The detachment of the patient's projections from the doctor 
is desirable for both parties and, if successful, may be counted 
as a positive result. This is a practical possibility when, owing to 
the patient's immaturity, or his fate, or because of some misun- 
derstanding arising out of the projection, or because reason and 
plain common sense demand it, the continued transformation 
of projected unconscious contents comes to a hopeless standstill, 
and at the same time an opportunity presents itself from out- 
side for the projection to be switched to another "object." This 
solution has about the same merit as persuading a person not 
to go into a monastery or not to set out on a dangerous expedi- 
tion or not to make a marriage which everybody agrees would 
be stupid. We cannot rate reason highly enough, but there are 
times when we must ask ourselves: do we really know enough 
about the destinies of individuals to enable us to give good ad- 
vice under all circumstances? Certainly we must act according 
to our best convictions, but are we so sure that our convictions 
are for the best as regards the other person? Very often we do 
not know what is best for ourselves, and in later years we may 
come to thank God from the bottom of our hearts that his 
kindly hand preserved us from the "reasonableness" of our 
former plans. It is easy for the critic to say after the event, "Ah, 
but that wasn't the right sort of reason!" Who can know with 
unassailable certainty when he has the right sort? Moreover, 
is it not essential to the true art of living, sometimes, in defiance 
of all reason and fitness, to include the unreasonable and the 
unfitting within the ambience of the possible? 
463 Therefore it should not surprise us to find that there are 
not a few cases where, despite every effort, no possibility pre- 
sents itself of severing the transference, although the patient 
is from the rational point of view equipped with the neces- 
sary understanding and neither he nor the doctor can be ac- 
cused of any technical negligence or oversight. Both of them 
may be so deeply impressed by the vast irrationality of the un- 
conscious as to come to the conclusion that the best thing is 
to cut the Gordian knot with a drastic decision. But the surgi- 
cal partition of these Siamese twins is a perilous operation. 
There may be successes, though in my experience they are few 
and far between. I am all for a conservative solution of the 

252 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



problem. If the situation really is such that no other possibili- 
ties of any kind can be considered, and the unconscious obvi- 
ously insists on the retention of the tie, then the treatment must 
be continued hopefully. It may be that the severance will only 
occur at a later stage, but it may also be a case of psychological 
' 'pregnancy " whose natural outcome must be awaited with pa- 
tience, or again it may be one of those fatalities which, rightly 
or wrongly, we take on our own shoulders or else try to avoid. 
The doctor knows that always, wherever he turns, man is 
dogged by his fate. Even the simplest illness may develop sur- 
prising complications; or, equally unexpectedly, a condition 
that seemed very serious may take a turn for the better. Some- 
times the doctor's art helps, sometimes it is useless. In the do- 
main of psychology especially, where we still know so little, we 
often stumble upon the unforeseen, the inexplicable some- 
thing of which we can make neither head nor tail. Things can- 
not be forced, and wherever force seems to succeed it is gener- 
ally regretted afterwards. Better always to be mindful of the 
limitations of one's knowledge and ability. Above all one needs 
forbearance and patience, for often time can do more than art. 
Not everything can and must be cured. Sometimes dark moral 
problems or inexplicable twists of fate lie hidden under the 
cloak of a neurosis. One patient suffered for years from depres- 
sions and an unaccountable phobia about Paris. She managed 
to rid herself of the depressions, but the phobia proved inac- 
cessible. However, she felt so well that she was prepared to risk 
ignoring her phobia. She succeeded in getting to Paris, and the 
next day she lost her life in a car smash. Another patient had a 
peculiar and abiding horror of flights of steps. One day he got 
caught up in some street-rioting and shots were fired. He found 
himself in front of a public building with a broad flight of steps 
leading up to it. In spite of his phobia he dashed up them to 
seek shelter inside the building, and fell on the steps, mortally 
wounded by a stray bullet. 

464 These examples show that psychic symptoms need to be 
judged with the greatest caution. This is also true of the vari- 
ous forms of transference and its contents. They sometimes set 
the doctor almost insoluble problems or cause him all manner 
of worries which may go to the limits of the endurable and 
even beyond. Particularly if he has a marked ethical personality 

253 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



and takes his psychological work seriously, this may lead to 
moral conflicts and divided loyalties whose real or supposed 
incompatibility has been the occasion of more than one disaster. 
On the basis of long experience I would therefore like to warn 
against too much therapeutic enthusiasm. Psychological work is 
full of snags, but it is just here that incompetents swarm. The 
medical faculties are largely to blame for this, because for years 
they refused to admit the psyche among the aetiological factors 
of pathology, even though they had neither use for it. Igno- 
rance is certainly never a recommendation, but often the best 
knowledge is not enough either. Therefore I say to the psycho- 
therapist: let no day pass without humbly remembering that 
everything has still to be learned, ^ ^ 

465 The reader should not imagine that the psychologist is in 
any position to explain what "higher copulation" is, or the 
coniunctio, or "psychic pregnancy," let alone the "soul's child." 
Nor should one feel annoyed if the newcomer to this delicate 
subject, or one's own cynical self, gets disgusted with theseas he 
thinks them-phoney ideas and brushes them aside with a pity- 
ing smile and an offensive display of tact. The unprejudiced 
scientific inquirer who seeks the truth and nothing but the 
truth must guard against rash judgments and interpretations, 
for here he is confronted with psychological facts which the in- 
tellect cannot falsify and conjure out of existence. There are 
among one's patients intelligent and discerning persons who are 
just as capable as the doctor of giving the most disparaging inter- 
pretations, but who cannot avail themselves of such a weapon in 
the face of these insistent facts. Words like "nonsense" only 
succeed in banishing little things not the things that thrust 
themselves tyrannically upon you in the stillness and loneli- 
ness of the night. The images welling up from the uncon- 
scious do precisely that. What we choose to call this fact does 
not affect the issue in any way. If it is an illness, then this 
morbus sacer must be treated according to its nature. The doc- 
tor can solace himself with the reflection that he, like the rest 
of his colleagues, does not only have patients who are curable, 
but chronic patients too, where curing becomes nursing. At all 
events the empirical material gives us no sufficient grounds for 
always talking about "illness"; on the contrary, one comes to 
realize that it is a moral problem and often one wishes for a 

254 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



priest who, instead of confessing and proselytizing, would just 
listen, obey, and put this singular matter before God so that He 
could decide. 

466 Patientia et mora are absolutely necessary in this kind of 
work. One must be able to wait on events. Of work there is 
plentythe careful analysis of dreams and other unconscious 
contents. Where the doctor fails, the patient will fail too, which 
is why the doctor should possess a real knowledge of these 
things and not just opinions, the offscourings of our modern 
philosophy for everyman. In order to augment this much- 
needed knowledge, I have carried my researches back to those 
earlier times when naive introspection and projection were 
still at work, mirroring a psychic hinterland that is virtually 
blocked for us today. In this way I have learned much for my 
own practice, especially as regards understanding the formid- 
able fascination of the contents in question. These may not al- 
ways strike the patient as particularly fascinating, so he suffers 
instead from a proportionately strong compulsive tie in whose 
intensity he can rediscover the force of those subliminal im- 
ages. He will, however, try to interpret the tie rationalistically, 
in the spirit of the age, and consequently does not perceive 
and will not admit the irrational foundations of his transfer- 
ence, namely the archetypal images. 



255 



DEATH 

Here King and Queen are lying dead/ 
In great distress the soul is sped. 

[Figure 6] 

467 Vas hermeticum, fountain, and sea have here become sar- 
cophagus and tomb. King and queen are dead and have melted 
into a single being with two heads. The feast of life is followed 
by the funereal threnody. Just as Gabricus dies after becoming 
united with his sister, and the son-lover always comes to an early 
end after consummating the hieros gamos with the mother- 
goddess of the Near East, so, after the coniunctio oppositorum, 
deathlike stillness reigns. When the opposites unite, all energy 
ceases: there is no more flow. The waterfall has plunged to its 
full depth in that torrent of nuptial joy and longing; now only 
a stagnant pool remains, without wave or current. So at least it 
appears, looked at from the outside. As the legend tells us, the 
picture represents the putrefactio, the corruption, the decay of a 
once living creature. Yet the picture is also entitled "Concep- 
tio." The text says: "Corruptio unius generatio est alterius" 
the corruption of one is the genesis of the other, 1 an indication 
that this death is an interim stage to be followed by a new life. 
No new life can arise, say the alchemists, without the death of 
the old. They liken the art to the work of the sower, who buries 
the grain in the earth: it dies only to waken to new life. 2 Thus 

i Avicenna, 2, x, p. 426. 

2Cf. "Aurora," I, 12, Ch. XII (after John 12:24). Hortulanus (Ruska, Tabula, 
149, p. 186): "Vocatur [lapis] etiam granum frumenti, quod nisi mortuum fuerit, 
ipsum solum manet," etc. (It [the stone] is also called "grain of wheat," since it 
remains itself alone, unless it dies). Equally unfortunate is the other comparison, 
also a favourite; "Habemus exemplum in ovo quod putrescit prirao, et tune gigni- 
tur pullus, qui post totum corruptum est animal vivens" (We have an example in 
the egg: first it decays and then the chicken is born, a living animal coming after 
the decay of the whole) .Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 255. 

256 



PHILOSOPHORVM, 
CONCEPTIOSEV PVTRE 




tigen ttnig tn& Kntn^n toe/ 
(icfc mfcgrojftr not* 



ARISTOTELES REX ET 



Vnguamvidialiquodaniniattim crefccre 
fi autem fiat 



cum, 



Figure 6 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



with their mortificatio, interfectio, putrefactio, combustio, 
incineratio, calcinatio, etc., they are imitating the work of na- 
ture. Similarly they liken their labours to human mortality, 
without which the new and eternal life cannot be attained. 3 
468 The corpse left over from the feast is already a new body, 
a hermaphroditus (a compound of Hermes-Mercurius and 
Aphrodite- Venus). For this reason one half of the body in the 
alchemical illustrations is masculine, the other half feminine (in 
the Rosarium this is the left half 3a ). Since the hermaphroditus 
turns out to be the long-sought rebis or lapis, it symbolizes that 
mysterious being yet to be begotten, for whose sake the opus is 
undertaken. But the opus has not yet reached its goal, because 
the lapis has not come alive. The latter is thought of as animal, 
a living being with body, soul, and spirit. The legend says that 
the pair who together represented body and spirit are dead, 
and that the soul (evidently only one 4 soul) parts from them 
"in great distress/' 5 Although various other meanings play a 
part here, one cannot rid oneself of the impression that the 
death is a sort of tacit punishment for the sin of incest, for "the 
wages of sin is death/' e That would explain the soul's "great 
distress" and also the blackness 7 mentioned in the variant of 
our picture ("Here is Sol turned black"). 8 This blackness is 

3Cf. Ruska, Turba. 150, p. 139: "Tune autem, doctrinae filii, ilia res igne In 
diget, quousque illius corporis spiritus vertatur et per noctes dimittatur, ut homo 
in suo tumulo, et pulvis fiat. His peractis reddet ei Deus et animam suam et 
spiritum, ac infirmitate ablata confortatur ilia res ... quemadmodum homo 
post resurrectionem fortior fit," etc. (But, sons of the doctrine, that thing will 
need fire, until the spirit of its body is changed and is sent away through the nights, 
like a man in his grave, and becomes dust. When this has happened, God will 
give back to it its soul and its spirit and, with all infirmity removed, that thing is 
strengthened ... as man becomes stronger after the resurrection.) 
Sag, xiii,p. 291. 

4 Cf. Senior, 164, p. 16: ". . . et reviviscit, quod fuerat morti deditum, post 
inopiam magnam" (What had been given over to death, comes to life again after 
great tribulation). 

5 Cf. par. 451, n. 7, the olmxovtyvta in Lydus* account of the hexad. 

6 For the alchemist, this has a precedent in Gen. 2:17: "for in the day that thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam's sin is part of the drama of the 
creation. "Cum peccavit Adam, eius est anima mortua" (When Adam sinned his 
soul died), says Gregory the Great (58, Epist. CXIV). 

7 Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 324. 

8 The nigredo appears here not as the initial state but as the product of a prior 
process. The time-sequence of phases in the opus is very uncertain. We see the 

258 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



the immunditia (uncleanliness), as is proved by the ablutio 
that subsequently becomes necessary. The coniunctio was in- 
cestuous and therefore sinful, leaving pollution behind it. The 
nigredo always appears in conjunction with tenebrositas, the 
darkness of the tomb and of Hades, not to say of Hell. Thus 
the descent that began in the marriage-bath has touched rock- 
bottom: death, darkness, and sin. For the adept, however, the 
hopeful side of things is shown in the anticipated appearance 
of the hermaphrodite, though the psychological meaning of 
this is at first obscure. 

469 The situation described in our picture is a kind o Ash 
Wednesday. The reckoning is presented, and a dark abyss 
yawns. Death means the total extinction of consciousness and 
the complete stagnation of psychic life, so far as this is capable 
of consciousness. So catastrophic a consummation, which has 
been the object of annual lamentations in so many places (e.g., 
the laments for Linus, Tammuz, 9 and Adonis), must surely 
correspond to an important archetype, since even today we have 
our Good Friday. An archetype always stands for some typical 
event. As we have seen, there is in the coniunctio a union of 
two figures, one representing the daytime principle, i.e., lucid 
consciousness, the other a nocturnal light, the unconscious. Be- 
cause the latter cannot be seen directly, it is always projected; 
for, unlike the shadow, it does not belong to the ego but is col- 
lective. For this reason it is felt to be something alien to us, and 
we suspect it of belonging to the particular person with whom 
we have emotional ties. In addition a man's unconscious has a 
feminine character; it hides in the feminine side of him which 
he naturally does not see in himself but in the woman who 
fascinates him. That is probably why the soul (anima) is femi- 
nine. If, therefore, man and woman are merged in some kind 
of unconscious identity, he will take over the traits of her ani- 
mus and she the traits of his anima. Neither anima nor animus 

same uncertainty in the indlviduation process, so that a typical sequence of 
stages can only be constructed in very general terms. The deeper reason for this 
"disorder" is probably the "timeless" quality of the unconscious, where conscious 
succession becomes simultaneity, a phenomenon I have called "synchronicity." 
From another point of view we would be justified in speaking of the "elasticity 
of unconscious time" on the analogy of the equally real "elasticity of space." For 
the relations between psychology and atomic physics, see Meier, "Moderne Physik/' 
115. *>Ezek. 8:14: *'. . . behold, there sat women weeping for Tamnmz." 

259 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



can be constellated without the intervention of the personality 
to whom each corresponds, but this is not to say that the re- 
sultant situation is nothing but a personal relationship and a 
personal entanglement. The personal side of it is a fact, but not 
the main fact. The main fact is the subjective experience of the 
situationin other words, it is a mistake to believe that one's 
personal dealings with one's partner play the most important 
part. Quite the reverse: the most important part falls to the 
man's dealings with the anima and the woman's dealings with 
the animus. Nor does the coniunctio take place with the per- 
sonal partner; it is a royal game played out between the active, 
masculine side of the woman (the animus) and the passive, fem- 
inine side of the man (the anima). Although the two figures are 
always tempting the ego to identify itself with them, a real un- 
derstanding even on the personal level is possible only if the 
identification is refused. Non-identification demands consider- 
able moral effort. Moreover it is only legitimate when not used 
as a pretext to avoid the necessary degree of personal under- 
standing. On the other hand, if we approach this task with psy- 
chological views that are too personalistic, we fail to do justice 
to the fact that we are dealing with an archetype which is any- 
thing but personal. It is, on the contrary, a postulate so univer- 
sal in scope and incidence that it often seems advisable to speak 
less of my anima or my animus and more of the anima and the 
animus. As archetypes, these figures are semi-collective and im- 
personal quantities, so that when we identify ourselves with 
them and fondly imagine that we are then most truly ourselves, 
we are in fact most estranged from ourselves and most like the 
average type of Homo sapiens. The personal protagonists in 
the royal game should steadfastly bear in mind that at bottom 
it represents the "trans-subjective" union of archetypal figures, 
and it should never be forgotten that it is a symbolical rela- 
tionship whose goal is complete individuation. In our series of 
pictures this idea is suggested sub rosa. Hence, if the opus inter- 
poses itself in the form of the rose or wheel, the unconscious 
and purely personal relationship becomes a psychological prob- 
lem which, while it prevents a descent into complete darkness, 
does not in any way cancel out the operative force of the arche- 
type. The right way, like the wrong way, must be paid for, and 
however much the alchemist may extol the venerabilis natura, 

260 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



it is in either case an opus contra naturam. It goes against 
nature to commit incest, and it goes against nature not to yield 
to an ardent desire. And yet it is nature that prompts such 
an attitude in us, because of the kinship libido. So it is as 
Pseudo-Democritus says: "Nature rejoices in nature, nature 
subdues nature, nature rules over nature." 10 Man's instincts are 
not all harmoniously arranged, they are perpetually jostling 
each other out o the way. The ancients were optimistic enough 
to see this struggle not as a chaotic muddle but as aspiring to 
some higher order. 

47 Thus the encounter with anima and animus means con- 
flict and brings us up against the hard dilemma in which na- 
ture herself has placed us. Whichever course one takes, nature 
will be mortified and must suffer, even to the death; for the 
merely natural man must die in part during his own lifetime. 
Tlje Christian symbol of the crucifix is therefore a prototype 
and an "eternal" truth. There are medieval pictures showing 
how Christ is nailed to the Cross by his own virtues. Other 
people meet the same fate at the hands of their vices. Nobody 
who finds himself on the road to wholeness can escape that char- 
acteristic suspension which is the meaning of crucifixion. For 
he will infallibly run into things that thwart and "cross" him: 
first, the thing he has no wish to be (the shadow); second, the 
thing he is not (the "other," the individual reality of the 
"You"); and third, his psychic non-ego (the collective uncon- 
scious). This being at cross purposes with ourselves is suggested 
by the crossed branches held by the king and queen, who are 
themselves man's cross in the form of the anima and woman's 
cross in the form of the animus. The meeting with the collective 
unconscious is a fatality of which the natural man has no ink- 
ling until it overtakes him. As Faust says: "You are conscious 
only of the single urge/ O may you never know the other!" 

47 1 This process underlies the whole opus, but to begin with 
it is so confusing that the alchemist tries to depict the conflict, 
death, and rebirth figuratively, on a higher plane, first in his 
practicain the form of chemical transformations and then 
in his theoriain the form of conceptual images. The same 
process may also be conjectured to underlie certain religious 

10 Berthelot, 28, II, i, 3: <H <pvaig TB cpvasi T^Qrcerca, xal ^ <p<um, TTIV qnfotv 
& xal fi (pvai rfyv qxuoiv xQOtet. 

26l 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



opera, since notable parallels exist between ecclesiastical sym- 
bolism and alchemy. In psychotherapy and in the psychology of 
neuroses it is recognized as the psychic process par excellence, 
because it typifies the content of the transference neurosis. The 
supreme aim of the opus psychologicum is conscious realization, 
and the first step is to make oneself conscious of contents that 
have hitherto been projected. This endeavour gradually leads 
to knowledge of one's partner and to self-knowledge, and so to 
the distinction between what one really is and what is projected 
into one, or what one imagines oneself to be. Meanwhile, one is 
so taken up with one's own efforts that one is hardly conscious 
of the extent to which "nature" acts not only as a driving-force 
but as a helper in other words, how much instinct insists that 
the higher level of consciousness be attained. This urge to a 
higher and more comprehensive consciousness fosters civiliza- 
tion and culture, but must fall short of the goal unless man vol- 
untarily places himself in its service. The alchemists are of the 
opinion that the artifex is the servant of the work, and that not 
he but nature brings the work to fruition. All the same, there 
must be will as well as ability on man's part, for unless both 
are present the urge remains at the level of merely natural sym- 
bolism and produces nothing but a perversion of that instinct 
for wholeness which, if it is to fulfil its purpose, needs all 
parts of the whole, including those that are projected into a 
"You." Instinct seeks them there, in order to re-create that royal 
pair which every human being has in his wholeness, i.e., that 
bisexual First Man who "has no need of anything but himself." 
Whenever this instinct for wholeness appears, it begins by dis- 
guising itself under the symbolism of incest, for, unless he seeks 
it in himself, a man's nearest feminine counterpart is to be 
found in his mother, sister, or daughter. 

472 With the integration of projections which the merely 
natural man in his unbounded naivete can never recognize as 
such the personality becomes so vastly enlarged that the nor- 
mal ego-personality is almost extinguished. In other words, if 
the individual identifies himself with the contents awaiting in- 
tegration, a positive or negative inflation results. Positive in- 
flation comes very near to a more or less conscious megalo- 
mania; negative inflation is felt as an annihilation of the ego. 
The two conditions may alternate. At all events the integration 

262 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



of contents that were always unconscious and projected involves 
a serious lesion of the ego. Alchemy expresses this through the 
symbols of death, mutilation, or poisoning, or through the curi- 
ous idea of dropsy, which in the A enigma Merlini u is rep- 
resented as the king's desire to drink inordinate quantities of 
water. He drinks so much that he melts away and has to be 
cured by the Alexandrian physicians. 12 He suffers from a surfeit 
of the unconscious and becomes dissociated "ut mihi videtur 
omnia membra mea ab invicem dividuntur" (so that all my limbs 
seem divided one from another). 13 As a matter of fact, even 
Mother Alchemia is dropsical in her lower limbs. 14 In alchemy, 
inflation evidently develops into a psychic oedema. 15 
473 The alchemists assert that death is at once the conception 
of the filius philosophorum, a peculiar variation of the doctrine 
of the Anthropos. 16 Procreation through incest is a royal or 
divine prerogative whose advantages the ordinary man is for- 
bidden to enjoy. The ordinary man is the natural man, but the 
king or hero is the "supernatural" man, the pneumatikos who is 
"baptized with spirit and water," i.e., begotten in the aqua 
benedicta and born from it, He is the Gnostic Christ who de- 
scends upon the human Jesus during his baptism and departs 
from him again before the end. This "son" is the new man, the 
product of the union of king and queen though here he is not 

11 Merlinus probably has as little to do with Merlin the magician as "King Artus" 
with King Arthur. It is more likely that Merlinus is "Merculinus," a diminutive 
form of Mercurius and the pseudonym of some Hermetic philosopher. "Artus" 
is the Hellenistic name for Horus. The form "Merqulius" and "Marqftlius" for 
Mercurius is substantiated in Arabic sources. Junan ben Marqulius is the Greek 
Ion, who according to Byzantine mythology is a son of Mercurius (Chwolsohn, 
34, I, p. 796). al-Maqrizi says: "The Merqulians ... are the Edessenes who 
were in the neighbourhood of Harran," obviously the Sabians (ibid., II, p. 615) . 
The Ion in Zosimos (Berthelot, 28, III, i, 2) probably corresponds to the above Ion. 

12 Merlinus, 2, ix: "Rex autem . . . bibit et rebibit, donee omnia membra sua 
repleta sunt, et omnes venae eius inflatae" (But the king drinks and drinks again 
until all his limbs are full and all his veins inflated). 

13 In the Tractatus aureus (4, i, p. 51), the king drinks the "aqua pernigra," here 
described as "pretiosa et sana," for strength and health. He represents the new 
birth, the self that has assimilated the "black water," i.e., the unconscious. In the 
Apocalypse of Baruch (22) the black water signifies the sin of Adam, the coming of 
the Messiah, and the end of the world. 14 "Aurora," 2, iii, p. 196. 

15 Hence the warning: "Cave ab hydropisi et diluvio Noe" (Beware of dropsy 
and the flood of Noah). Ripley, 143, p. 69. 

16 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, 85, pars. 456!*. 

263 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



born of the queen, but queen and king are themselves trans- 
formed into the new birth. 17 

474 Translated into the language of psychology, the mytholo- 
gem runs as follows: the union of the conscious mind or ego- 
personality with the unconscious personified as anima produces 
a new personality compounded of both "ut duo qui fuerant, 
unum quasi corpore fiant." Not that the new personality is a 
third thing midway between cqnscious and unconscious, it is 
both together. Since it transcends consciousness it can no longer 
be called "ego" but must be given the name of "self/ 1 Refer- 
ence must be made here to the Indian idea of the atman, whose 
personal and cosmic modes of being form an exact parallel to 
the psychological idea of the self and the filius philoso- 
phorum. 1 * The self too is both ego and non-ego, subjective and 
objective, individual and collective. It is the "uniting sym- 
bol'* which epitomizes the total union of opposites. 19 As such 
and in accordance with its paradoxical nature, it can only be ex- 
pressed by means of symbols. These appear in dreams and 
spontaneous fantasies and find visual expression in the man- 
dates- that occur in the patient's dreams, drawings, and paint- 
ings. Hence, properly understood, the self is not a doctrine 
or theory but an image born of nature's own workings, a na- 
tural symbol far removed from all conscious intention. I must 
stress this obvious fact because certain critics still believe that 
unconscious phenomena can be written off as pure speculation. 
But they are matters of observed fact, as every doctor knows 
who has to deal with such cases. The integration of the self is a 
fundamental problem which arises in the second half of life. 
Dream symbols having all the characteristics of mandalas may 
occur long beforehand without the development of the inner 
man becoming an immediate problem. Isolated incidents of this 
kind can easily be overlooked, so that it then seems as if the 
phenomena I have described were rare curiosities. They are 
in fact nothing of the sort; they occur wherever the individua- 
tion process becomes the object of conscious scrutiny, or where, 
as in psychoses, the collective unconscious peoples the conscious 
mind with archetypal figures. 

17 One of several versions. 

is This is meant only as a psychological and not as a metaphysical parallel. 
i Cf. my Psychological Types, 84, Part I, pars. 405! (1946 edn.: pp. gssof.). 

264 



THE ASCENT OF THE SOUL 

Here is the division of the four elements/ 
As from the lifeless corpse the soul ascends. 

[Figure 7] 

475 This picture carries the putrefactio a stage further. Out 
of the decay the soul mounts up to heaven. Only one soul de- 
parts from the two, for the two have indeed become one. This 
brings out the nature of the soul as a vinculum or ligamentum: 
it is a function of relationship. As in real death, the soul de- 
parts from the body and returns to its heavenly source. The 
One born of the two represents the metamorphosis of both, 
though it is not yet fully developed and is still a "conception" 
only. Yet, contrary to the usual meaning of conception, the 
soul does not come down to animate the body, but leaves the 
body and mounts heavenwards. The ''soul" evidently represents 
the idea of unity which has still to become a concrete fact and 
is at present only a potentiality. The idea of a wholeness made 
up of sponsus and sponsa has its correlate in the rotundus glo- 
bus coelestis* 

476 This picture corresponds psychologically to a dark state of 
disorientation. The decomposition of the elements indicates 
dissociation and the collapse of the existing ego-consciousness. 
It is closely analogous to the schizophrenic state, and it should 
be taken very seriously because this is the moment when latent 
psychoses may become acute, i.e., when the patient becomes 
aware of the collective unconscious and the psychic non-ego. 
This collapse and disorientation of consciousness may last a 
considerable time and it is one of the most difficult transitions 
the analyst has to deal with, demanding the greatest patience, 
courage, and faith on the part of both doctor and patient. It is 
a sign that the patient is being driven along willy-nilly without 

l Tractatus aureus, 4, i, p. 47. 

265 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



any sense of direction, that, In the truest sense of the word, 
he is in an utterly soulless condition, exposed to the full force 
of autoerotic affects and fantasies. Referring to this state of 
deadly darkness, an alchemist says: "Hoc est ergo magnum sig- 
num, in cuius investigatione nonnulli perierant" (This is a 
great sign, in the investigation of which not a few have per- 
ished). 2 . . 

477 This critical state, where the conscious mind is liable to be 
submerged at any moment in the unconscious, is akin to the 
"loss of soul" that frequently attacks primitives. It is a sudden 
abaissement du niveau mental, a slackening of the conscious 
tension, to which primitive man is especially prone because his 
consciousness is still relatively weak and means a considerable 
effort for him. Hence his lack of will-power, his inability to 
concentrate and the fact that, mentally, he tires so easily, as 

1 have experienced to my cost during "palavers."^ The wide- 
spread practice of yoga and dhyana in the East is a similar 
abaissement deliberately induced for the purpose of relaxation, 
a technique for releasing the soul. With certain patients, I have 
even been able to establish the existence of subjectively experi- 
enced levitations in moments of extreme derangement. 3 Lying 
in bed, the patients felt that they were floating horizontally in 
the air a few feet above their bodies. This is a suggestive re- 
minder of the phenomenon called the "witch's trance," and also 
of the parapsychic levitations reported of many saints* 

478 The corpse in our picture is the residue of the past and 
represents the man who is no more, who is destined to decay. 
The "torments" which form part of the alchemist's procedure 
belong to this stage of the iterum morithe reiterated death. 
They consisted in "membra secare, arctius sequestrare ac panes 
mortificare et in naturam, quae in eo [lapide] est, vertere" 
(cutting up the limbs, dividing them into smaller and smaller 
pieces, mortifying the parts, and changing them into the nature 
which is in [the stone]), as the Rosarium says, quoting from 
Hermes. The passage continues: "You must guard the water 
and fire dwelling in the arcane substance and contain those 
waters with the permanent water, even though this be no water, 

2 Quotation from a source unknown to me, given as "Sorin" in the Rosarium, 
2, xiii, p. 264. 

a One such case is described in Meier, "Spontamnanifestationen," 116, p. 290. 

266 



ROSARIVM 
ANIM&EXTRACT1OVEL 




Figure 7 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



but the fiery form of the true water." 4 For the precious sub- 
stance, the soul, is in danger of escaping from the bubbling 
solution in which the elements are decomposed. This precious 
substance is a paradoxical composite of fire and water, i.e., Mer- 
curius, the serous or cerous fugitivus who is ever about to flee 
or who, in other words, resists integration (into consciousness). 
He has to be "contained" by the "water/' whose paradoxical 
nature corresponds to the nature of Mercurius and actually con- 
tains him within itself. Here we seem to have a hint about the 
treatment required: faced with the disorientation of the pa- 
tient, the doctor must hold fast to his own orientation; that is, 
he must know what the patient's condition means, he must 
understand what is of value in the dreams, and do so moreover 
with the help of that aqua doctrinae which alone is appropriate 
to the nature of the unconscious. In other words, he must ap- 
proach his task with views and ideas capable of grasping uncon- 
scious symbolism. Intellectual or supposedly scientific theories 
are not adequate to the nature of the unconscious, because they 
make use of a terminology which has not the remotest connec- 
tion with its pregnant symbolism. The waters must be drawn 
together and held fast by the one water, by the forma ignea 
verae aquae. The kind of approach that makes this possible 
must therefore be plastic and symbolical, and itself the outcome 
of personal experience with unconscious contents. It should not 
stray too far in the direction of abstract intellectualism; hence 
we are best advised to remain within the framework of tradi- 
tional mythology, which has already proved comprehensive 
enough for all practical purposes. This does not preclude the 
satisfaction of theoretical requirements, but these should be 
Deserved for the private use of the doctor. 

Therapy aims at strengthening the conscious mind, and 
whenever possible I try to rouse the patient to mental activity 
and get him to subdue the massa confusa of his mind with his 
own understanding, 5 so that he can reach a vantage-point au- 

4 2, xiii, p. 264: "Et eorum aquas sua aqua continere, si qua non est aqua, forma 
ignea verae aquae.** 

5 Remembering the rule that every proposition in psychology may be inverted with 
advantage, I would point out that it is always a bad thing to accentuate the con- 
scious attitude when this has shown itself to be so strong in the first place as to vio- 
lently suppress the unconscious. 

268 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



dessus de la melee. Nobody who ever had any wits is in danger 
of losing them in the process, though there are people who 
never knew till then what their wits are for. In such a situation, 
understanding acts like a life-saver. It integrates the uncon- 
scious, and gradually there comes into being a higher point of 
view where both conscious and unconscious are represented. It 
then proves that the invasion by the unconscious was rather like 
the flooding of the Nile: it increases the fertility of the land. 
The panegyric addressed by the Rosarium to this state is to be 
taken in that sense: "O natura benedicta et benedicta est tua 
operatic, quia de imperfecto facis perfectum cum vera putrefac- 
tione quae est nigra et obscura. Postea facis germinare novas 
res et diversas, cum tua viriditate facis diversos colores ap- 
parere." (O blessed Nature, blessed are thy works, for that thou 
makest the imperfect to be perfect through the true putrefac- 
tion, which is dark and black. Afterwards thou makest new and 
multitudinous things to grow, causing with thy verdure the 
many colours to appear.) 6 It is not immediately apparent why 
this dark state deserves special praise, since the nigredo is 
universally held to be of a sombre and melancholy humour 
reminiscent of death and the grave. But the fact that medieval 
alchemy had connections with the mysticism of the age, or 
rather was itself a form of mysticism, allows us to adduce as a 
parallel to the nigredo the writings of St. John of the Cross 6a 
concerning the "dark night." This author conceives the "spirit- 
ual night" of the soul as a supremely positive state, in which the 
invisibleand therefore dark radiance of God comes to pierce 
and purify the soul. 

4 8 The appearance of the colours in the alchemical vessel, 
the so-called cauda pavonis,, denotes the spring, the renewal of 
life post tenebras lux. The text continues: "This blackness is 
called earth." The Mercurius in whom the sun drowns is an 
earth-spirit, a Deus terrenus 7 as the alchemists say, or the Sapi- 
entia Dei which took on body and substance in the creature 

<* 2, xiii, p. 265. 6a The Dark Night of the Soul, 78. 

7 Ventura, 5, ix, p. 260. There is in the gold a "quiddam essentials Divinum" 
(something of Divine essence) ("Tractatus Aristotelis," 5, xvi, p. 892). "Natura est 
vis quaedam insita rebus. . . . Deus est natura et natura Deus, a Deo oritur aliquid 
proximum ei" (Nature is a certain force innate in things. . . . God is Nature and 
Nature is God, and from God originates something very near to him). Penotus, 
5, vii, p. 153. God is known in the tinea in se reducta of the gold (Maier, 112, p. 16). 

269 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



by creating it. The unconscious is the spirit of chthonic nature 
and contains the archetypal images of the Sapientia Dei. But 
the intellect of modern civilized man has strayed too far in the 
world of consciousness, so that it received a violent shock when 
it suddenly beheld the face of its mother, the earth. 

481 The fact that the soul is depicted as a homunculus in our 
picture indicates that it is on the way to becoming the filius 
regius, the undivided and hermaphroditic First Man, the An- 
thropos. Originally he fell into the clutches of Physis, but now 
he rises again, freed from the prison of the mortal body. He is 
caught up in a kind of ascension, and, according to the Tabula 
smaragdinaj unites himself with the "upper powers." He is the 
essence of the "lower power" which, like the "third filiation" 
in the doctrine of Basilides, is ever striving upwards from the 
depths, 8 not with the intention of staying in heaven, but solely 
in order to reappear on earth as a healing force, as an agent of 
immortality and perfection, as a mediator and saviour. The con- 
nection with the Christian idea of the Second Coming is un- 
mistakable. 

4 8 * The psychological interpretation of this process leads into 
regions of inner experience which defy our powers of scien- 
tific description, however unprejudiced or even ruthless we 
may be. At this point, unpalatable as it is to the scientific 
temperament, the idea of mystery forces itself upon the mind 
of the inquirer, not as a cloak for ignorance but as an admis- 
sion of his inability to translate what he knows into the 
everyday speech of the intellect. I must therefore content my- 
self with a bare mention of the archetype which is inwardly 
experienced at this stage, namely the birth of the "divine child" 
or in the language of the mysticsthe inner man. 9 

8 Hippolytus, 67, VII, 26, 10. 

& Angelus Silesius, 13, Book IV, p. 194: "The work that God loves best and most 
wants done/ Is this: that in you he can bear his son.'* Book II, p. 103: "There 
where God bends on you his spirit mild/ Is born within the everlasting child/' 



270 



8 



PURIFICATION 

Here falls the heavenly dew, to lave/ 
The soiled black body in the grave. 

[Figure 8] 

4 8 3 The falling dew is a portent of the divine birth now at 
hand. Ros Gedeonis (Gideon's dew) 1 is a synonym for the 
aqua permanens, hence for Mercurius. 2 A quotation from Sen- 
ior at this point in the Rosarium text says: "But the water I 
have spoken of is something [res] that comes down from heaven, 
and the earth's humidity absorbs it, and the water of heaven is 
retained with the water of the earth, and the water of the earth 
honours that water with its lowliness and its sand, and water 
consorts with water and water will hold fast to water and Albira 
is whitened with Astuna." 3 

4 8 4 The whitening (albedo or dealbatio) is likened to the 
ortus soliS; the sunrise; it is the light, the illumination, that 
follows the darkness. Hermes says: "Azoth. et ignis latonem 
abluunt et nigredinern ab eo auferunt" (Azoth and fire cleanse 
the lato and remove the blackness). 4 The spirit Mercurius de- 
scends in his heavenly form as sapientia and as the fire of the 
Holy Ghost, to purify the blackness. Our text continues: "Deal- 

1 Judges 6:36^. 

2 My "The Spirit Mercurius," 89, pars. 8gf. (1948 Swiss edn., pp. gof.). 

3 2, xiii, pp. 275! Cf. Senior, 164, pp. 17-18: "Dixit iterum Maria: Aqua, quam iam 
memoravi, est rex de coelo descendens et terra cum humore suo suscepit eum 
et retinetur aqua coeli cum aqua terrae propter servitium suum et propter 
arenam suam honorat earn et congregatur aqua in aquam, Alkia in Alkiam et 
dealbatur Alkia cum Astuam." In the Arabic text "Astua" appears also as "Alkia"; 
"al-kiyan" = "life principle" (Stapleton, 153, p. 152) . "Alkia" occurs in the "Liber 
Platonis quartorum" (5, xiii, p. 152) in the sense of "life principle" or "libido." 

4 Azoth is the arcane substance (cf. Senior, 164, p. 95) and the lato is the black 
substance, a mixture of copper, cadmium, and orichalcum (iXotQO-v; see Du 
Cange, 40). 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



bate latonem et libros rumpite, ne corda vestra rumpantur. 5 
Haec est enim compositio omnium Sapientum et etiam tertia 
pars totius operis. 6 Jungite ergo, ut dicitur in Turba, siccum 
humido: id est terrain nigram cum aqua sua et coquite donee 
dealbatur. Sic habes aquam et terram per se et terram cum aqua 
dealbatam: ilia albedo dicitur aer." (Whiten the lato and 
rend the books lest your hearts be rent asunder. 5 For this is the 
synthesis of the wise and the third part of the whole opus. 6 Join 
therefore, as is said in the Turba, 7 the dry to the moist, the 
black earth with its water, and cook till it whitens. In this man- 
ner you will have the essence of water and earth, having whit- 
ened the earth with water: but that whiteness is called air.) 
So that the reader may know that the "water" is the aqua sapi- 
entiae, and the dew falling from heaven the divine gift of il- 
lumination and wisdom, there follows a long disquisition on 
wisdom, entitled "Septimum Sapientiae Salomonis": "Solomon 
has shown men how to use this wisdom as a light, and he set it 
above all beauty and fortune and said that it had no equal 
among precious stones. For in comparison with the stone all 
gold is but sand, and silver but clay. Hence the acquisition of 
the stone is better than the fruits of purest gold and silver. Its 
fruits are more precious than all the riches of this world, and 
everything that seems desirable in this world is not to be com- 
pared with it. Long life and health are at its right hand, and 
at its left hand renown and wealth without end. Its ways are 
fair and praiseful operations, not to be contemned, and its 

5 Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 277. This oft-repeated quotation is to be found in the trea- 
tise of Morienus (2, xii, pp. ^ff.), which appears to have been translated from the 
Arabic by Robert of Chartres in the i2th century. Morienus attributes it to the 
obsolete author Elbo Interfector. It must be of very early origin, but hardly earlier 
than the 8th century. 

6 Reference to the Tabula smaragdina: "Itaque vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus 
habens tres partes philosophiae totius mundi" (Therefore I am called Hermes 
Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world). 

7 A classic of Arabic origin, put into Latin between the nth and isth centuries. 
The Turba quotation in the Rosarium comes from Zosimos, 2, iv, pp. 284^ Ruska, 
150, p. 158, has only: "Siccum igitur humido miscete, quae sunt terra et aqua; ac 
igne et aere coquite, unde spiritus et anima desiccantur" (Therefore mix the dry 
with the moist, which are earth and water, and cook them with fire and air, whence 
spirit and soul are dried out). 

272 



PHILOSOPHORVM 

ABLVTIO VEL 
Mundijicatto 




felt tor JTrtiiw wit St'mmel ^<r4 V 



Figure 8 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



paths are measured and not hurried, 8 but .are joined with the 
steadfastness of persevering labour. A tree of life is this [Sapi- 
entia or Scientia Dei] for all them that grasp it, and an unfail- 
ing light. Blessed are those that have understood it, for God's 
wisdom shall never pass away, as Alfidius testifies when he says: 
Whoever has found this wisdom, for him it will be his rightful 
and eternal food." 9 

485 In this connection I would like to point out that water as 
a symbol of wisdom and spirit can be traced back to the parable 
which Christ told to the Samaritan woman at the well. 10 The 
uses to which this allegory was put can be seen in one of the ser- 
mons of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, a contemporary of our 
alchemists: "In puteo Jacob est aqua, quae humano ingenio 
quaesita et reperta est, et potest significari quoad hoc philoso- 
phia humana, quae penetratione laboriosa sensibilium quaeri- 
tur. In Verbo autem Dei, quod est in profundo vivi putei, scl. 
humanitatis Christi, est fons refrigerans spiritum. Et ita no- 
temus puteum sensibilem Jakob, puteum rationalem, et puteum 
sapiential em. De primo puteo, qui est naturae animalis et altus, 
bibit pater, filii et pecora; de secundo, qui altior in orizonte 
naturae, bibunt filii hominum tantum, scl. ratione vigentes, 
et philosophi vocantur; de tertio, qui altissimus, bibunt filii 
excelsi, qui dicuntur dii et sunt veri theologi. Christus secun- 
dum humanitatem puteus quidem dici potest altissimus. . . . 
In illo profundissimo puteo est fons sapientiae, quae praestat 
felicitatem et immortalitatem . . . portat vivus puteus fontem 
suae vitae ad sitientes, vocat sitientes ad aquas salutares, ut aqua 
sapientiae salutaris reficiantur." (There is in Jacob's well a 
water which human ingenuity has sought and found. Philoso- 
phy is its name, and it is found through laborious investigation 

8 A reference to the saying of Morienus (2, xii, p. 21): ". . . omnis festinatio 

[sell, festinantia] ex parte Diaboli est" (. . . all haste is of the devil). Hence the 

Rosarium says (p. 352): "Ergo qui patientiam non habet ab opere manum sus- 

pendat, quia impedit eum ob festinantiam. credulitas" (Therefore, he who has 

not patience, let him keep his hands from the work, for rash credulity hinders 

him because of his haste). 

& Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 277. Cf. "Aurora consurgens," I, 12, Ch. I. 

10 John 4:13-14: ". , . Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But 

whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the 

water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into 

everlasting life." 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



of the world of the senses. But in the Word of God, which dwells 
in the depths of the living well of Christ's humanity, there is a 
fountain for the refreshment of the spirit. Here, then, we have 
Jacob's well of the senses, the well of reason and the well of wis- 
dom. From the first well, which is of animal nature and deep, 
the father drinks, together with his children and cattle; from 
the second, which is yet deeper and on the very margin of na- 
ture, there drink only the children of men, namely those whose 
reason has awakened and whom we call philosophers; from the 
third, the deepest of all, drink the sons of the All-Highest, whom 
we call gods and true theologians. Christ in his humanity may 
be called the deepest well. ... In this deepest well is the source 
which brings wisdom, bliss, and immortality. . . . The living 
well bears the source of its own life, it calls the thirsty to the 
waters of salvation that they may be quickened with the water 
of healing wisdom.) Another passage in the same sermon says: 
"Whosoever drinks the spirit, drinks of a bubbling spring." 
Finally, Cusanus says: "Adhuc nota, quod intellectus nobis 
datus est cum virtute seminis intellectualis: unde in se habet 
principium fontale, mediante quo in seipso generat aquam in- 
telligentiae, et fons ille non potest nisi aquam suae naturae pro- 
ducere, scl. humanae intelligentiae, sicut intellectus principii, 
'quodlibet est vel non est' producit aquas metaphysicales, ex 
quibus alia flumina scientiarum emanant indesinenter." (Mark 
well, our reason is given to us with the power of a spiritual seed; 
wherefore it contains a welling principle through which it gen- 
erates in itself the water of understanding. And this well can 
yield naught but water of a like nature, namely, the water of 
human understanding; just as the understanding of the prin- 
ciple 'each thing is or is not' yields the metaphysical water from 
which all the other streams of science flow without cease.) 11 
486 After all this there can be no more doubt that the black 
darkness is washed away by the aqua sapientiae of "our science/' 
namely the God-given gift of the royal art and the knowledge 
it bestows. The mundificatio (purification) means, as we have 
seen, the removal of the superfluities that always cling to merely 
natural products, and especially to the symbolic unconscious 
contents which the alchemist found projected into matter. He 

11 See Koch, 100, pp. 124, 132, 134. 

*75 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



therefore acted on Cardan's rule that the object of the work 
of interpretation is to reduce the dream material to its lowest 
common denominator. 12 This is what the laboratory worker 
called the extractio animae, and what in the psychological field 
we would call the working out of the idea contained in the 
dream. We all know that this requires a necessary premise or 
hypothesis, a certain intellectual structure by means of which 
"apperceptions" can be made. In the case of the alchemist, such 
a premise was ready to hand in the aqua (doctrinae), or the God- 
inspired sapientia which he could also acquire through a dili- 
gent study of the "books," the alchemical classics. Hence the 
reference to the books; but, at this stage of the work, they must 
be destroyed or avoided "lest your hearts be rent asunder." 
This singular exhortation, altogether inexplicable from the 
"chemical" point of view, has a profound significance here. 
The absolvent water or aqua sapientiae had been established in 
the teachings and sayings of the masters as the donum Spiritus 
Sancti which enables the philosopher to understand the mirac- 
ula operis. Therefore he might easily be tempted to assume that 
philosophical knowledge is the highest good, as the above quo- 
tation shows. The psychological equivalent of this situation is 
when people imagine that they have reached the goal of the 
work once the unconscious contents have been made conscious 
and theoretically appreciated. In both cases this would be arbi- 
trarily to define "spirit" as a mere matter of thinking and intui- 
tion. Both disciplines, it is true, are aiming at a "spiritual" goal: 
the alchemist undertakes to produce a new, volatile (hence 
aerial or "spiritual") essence endowed with corpus, anima, et 
spiritus, where corpus is naturally understood as a "subtle" 
body or "breath body"; the analyst tries to bring about a certain 
attitude or frame of mind, a certain "spirit" therefore. But 
because the body, even when conceived as the corpus glorifica- 
tiontSj is grosser than anima and spiritus, a "remnant of earth" 
necessarily clings to it, albeit a very subtle one. 13 Hence an at- 

12 Cardan, 32: "Unumquodque somnium ad sua generalia deducendum est" (Every 
dream must be reduced to its common denominator). 

1*". . . subtilietur lapis, donee in ultimam subtilitatis puritatem deveniat et 
ultimo volatilis fiat" (The stone should be refined until it reaches the ultimate 
purity of refinement and becomes, in the end, volatile). Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 351. 
Or again (ibid., p. 285): "Sublimatio est duplex: Prima est remotio superfluitatis, ut 
remaneant partes purissimae a faecibus elementaribus segregatae sicque virtutem 

276 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



titude that seeks to do justice to the unconscious as well as to 
one's fellow human beings cannot possibly rest on knowledge 
alone, in so far as this consists merely of intellect and intuition. 
It would lack the function that perceives values, i.e., feeling, as 
well as the fonction du reel, i.e., sensation, the sensible percep- 
tion of reality. 14 

487 Thus if books and the knowledge they impart are given ex- 
clusive value, man's emotional and affective life is bound to 
suffer. That is why the purely intellectual attitude must be 
abandoned. "Gideon's dew" is a sign of divine intervention, it 
is the moisture that heralds the return of the soul. 

4 8 8 The alchemists seem to have perceived the danger that 
the work and its realization may get stuck in one of the con- 
scious functions. Consequently they stress the importance of 
theoria, i.e., intellectual understanding as opposed to the prac- 
tica, which consisted merely of chemical experiments. We 
might say that the practica corresponds to pure perception, and 
that this must be supplemented by apperception. But this sec- 
ond stage still does not bring complete realization. What is still 
lacking is heart or feeling, which imparts an abiding value to 
anything we have understood. The books must therefore be 
"destroyed" lest thinking impair feeling and thus hinder the 
return of the soul. 

4 8 9 These difficulties are familiar ground to the psychothera- 
pist. It often happens that the patient is quite satisfied with 
merely registering a dream or fantasy, especially if he has pre- 
tensions to aestheticism. He will then fight against even intel- 
lectual understanding because it seems an affront to the reality 
of his psychic life. Others try to understand with their brains 
only, and want to skip the purely practical stage. And when they 
have understood, they think they have done their full share of 
realization. That they should also have a feeling-relationship 
to the contents of the unconscious seems strange to them or 

quintae essentiae possideant. Et haec sublimatio est corponim in spiritum re- 
ductio cum scilicet corporalis densitas transit in spiritus subtilitatem." (Sublima- 
tion is twofold: The first is the removal of the superfluous so that the purest 
parts shall remain, free from elementary dregs, and shall possess the quality of 
the quintessence. The other sublimation is the reduction of the bodies to spirit, 
i.e., when the corporeal density is transformed into spiritual thinness.) 
14 Cf. my Psychological Types, 84, part ii, defs. 13, so, 22, 36. 

277 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



even ridiculous. Intellectual understanding and aestheticism 
both produce the deceptive, treacherous sense of freedom and 
superiority which is liable to collapse if feeling intervenes. Feel- 
ing always binds one to the reality and meaning of symbolic 
contents, and these in turn impose binding standards of ethical 
behaviour from which aestheticism and intellectualism are only 
too ready to emancipate themselves. 

*9 Owing to the almost complete lack of psychological dif- 
ferentiation in the age of alchemy, it is hardly surprising that 
such considerations as these are only hinted at in the trea- 
tises. But hints do exist, as we have seen. Since then the dif- 
ferentiation of the functions has increased apace, with the re- 
sult that they have become more and more segregated from 
one another. Consequently it is very easy for the modern mind 
to get stuck in one or other of the functions and to achieve only 
an incomplete realization. It is hardly necessary to add that in 
time this leads to a neurotic dissociation. To this we owe the 
further differentiation of the individual functions as well as 
the discovery of the unconscious, but at the price of psycho- 
logical disturbance. Incomplete realization explains much that 
is baffling both in the individual and in the contemporary 
scene. It is the crux of the matter for the psychotherapist, par- 
ticularly for those who still believe that intellectual insight and 
routine understanding, or even mere recollection, are enough to 
effect a cure. The alchemists thought that the opus demanded 
not only laboratory work, the reading of books, meditation, and 
patience, but also love. 

49 1 Nowadays we would speak of "feeling-values" and of reali- 
zation through feeling. One is often reminded of Faust's shat- 
tering experience when he was shaken out of the "deadly dull 
rut" of his laboratory and philosophical work by the revelation 
that "feeling is all." In this we can already see the modern 
man who has got to the stage of building his world on a single 
function and is not a little proud of his achievement. The medi- 
eval philosophers would certainly never have succumbed to the 
idea that the demands of feeling had opened up a new world. 
The pernicious and pathological slogan Vart pour I'art would 
have struck them as absurd, for when they contemplated the 
mysteries of nature, sensation, creation, thinking, cognition 
and feeling were all one to them. Their state of mind was not 

278 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



yet split up into so many different functions that each stage of 
the realization process would have needed a new chapter of life. 
The story of Faust shows how unnatural our condition is: it 
required the intervention of the devil in anticipation of Stein- 
ach to transform the ageing alchemist into a young gallant and 
make him forget himself for the sake of the all-too-youthful 
feelings he had just discovered! That is precisely the risk mod- 
ern man runs: he may wake up one day to find that he has 
missed half his life. 

492 Nor is realization through feeling the final stage. Although 
it does not really belong to this chapter, yet it might not be 
out of place to mention the fourth stage after the three already 
discussed, particularly since it has such a very pronounced sym- 
bolism in alchemy. This fourth stage is the anticipation of the 
lapis. The imaginative activity of the fourth function intui- 
tion, without which no realization is complete is plainly evi- 
dent in this anticipation of a possibility whose fulfilment could 
never be the object of empirical experience at all: already in 
Greek alchemy it was called Itdog ov XMk> "the stone that is no 
stone." Intuition gives outlook and insight; it revels in the gar- 
den of magical possibilities as if they were real. Nothing is more 
charged with intuitions than the lapis philosophorum. This 
keystone rounds off the work into an experience of the totality 
of the individual. Such an experience is completely foreign to 
our age, although no previous age has ever needed wholeness so 
much. It is abundantly clear that this is the prime problem con- 
fronting the art of psychic healing in our day, as a consequence 
of which we are now trying to loosen up oui rigid psychologic 
a compartiments by putting in a few communicating doors. 

493 After the ascent of the soul, with the body left behind in 
the darkness of death, there now comes an enantiodromia: the 
nigredo gives way to the albedo. The black or unconscious 
state that resulted from the union of opposites reaches the nadir 
and a change sets in. The falling dew signals resuscitation and 
a new light: the ever deeper descent into the unconscious sud- 
denly becomes illumination from above. For, when the soul 
vanished at death, it was not lost; in that other world it formed 
the living counterpole to the state of death in this world. Its 
reappearance from above is already indicated by the dewy mois- 

279 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



ture. This dewiness partakes of the nature of the psyche, for 
ojAjjcn is cognate with i)ruxQ (cold) and ojruxa> (to freshen and 
animate), while on the other hand dew is synonymous with the 
aqua permanens, the aqua sapientiae, which in turn signifies 
illumination through the realization of meaning. The preced- 
ing union of opposites has brought light, as always, out of the 
darkness of night, and by this light it will be possible to see 
what the real meaning of that union was. 



280 



THE RETURN OF THE SOUL 

Here is the soul descending from on high/ 
To quick the corpse we strove to purify. 

[Figure 9] 

494 Here the reconciler, the soul, dives down from heaven to 
breathe life into the dead body. The two birds at the bottom 
left of the picture represent the allegorical winged and wing- 
less dragons in the form of fledged and unfledged birds. 1 This is 
one of the many synonyms for the double nature of Mercurius, 
who is both a chthonic and a pneumatic being. The presence 
of this divided pair of opposites means that although the 
hermaphrodite appears to be united and is on the point of com- 
ing alive, the conflict between them is by no means finally re- 
solved and has not yet disappeared: it is relegated to the "left" 
and to the "bottom" of the picture, i.e., banished to the sphere 
of the unconscious. The fact that these still unintegrated op- 
posites are represented theriomorphically (and not anthro- 
pomorphically as before) bears out this supposition. 

495 The text of the Rosarium continues with a quotation from 
Morienus: "Despise not the ashes, for they are the diadem of 
thy heart." These ashes, the inert product of incineration, refer 
to the dead body, and the admonition establishes a curious 

i Cf. Lambspringk's Symbols, 4, iii, p. 355, with the verses: 

"Nidus in sylva reperitur (A nest is found in the forest 

In quo Hermes suos pullos habet, In which Hermes has his birds. 

Unus semper conatur volatum, One always tries to fly away, 

Alter in nido manere gaudet, The other rejoices in the nest to stay 

Et alter alterum non dimittit." And will not let the other go.) 

This image comes from Senior, 164, p. 15: "Abscissae sunt ab eo alae et pennae et 
est manens, non recedens ad superiora" (Its wings are cut off and its feathers, and 
it is stationary, not returning to the heights). Likewise Stolcius de Stolcenberg, 155, 
Fig. XXXIII. In Maier, De circulo, 113, p. 127, the opposites are represented as 
"vultur in cacumine mentis et corvus sine alls" (a vulture on the peak of the moun- 
tain and a raven without wings). Cf. 1, i, pp. 11-12, and 2, iv, p. 316. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



connection between body and heart which at that time was re- 
garded as the real seat of the soul. 2 The "diadem" refers of 
course to the supreme kingly ornament. Coronation plays some 
part in alchemythe Rosarium philosophorum, for instance, has 
a picture 3 of the Coronatio Marine, signifying the glorification 
of the white, moonlike (purified) body. The text then quotes 
Senior as follows: "De Tinctura alba: Si parentes dilecti mei 
de vita gustaverint et lacte mero lactati fuerint et meo albo 
inebriati fuerint et in lectulo meo nupserint, generabunt 
filium Lunae, qui totam parentelam suam praevalebit. Et si 
dilectus meus de tumulo rubeo petrae potaverit et fontem 
matris suae gustaverit et inde copulatus fuerit et vino meo 
rubeo et mecum inebriatus fuerit et in lecto [meo] mihi amica- 
biliter concubuerit, et in amore meo sperma suum cellulam 
meam subintraverit, concipiam et ero praegnans et tempore 
meo pariam filium potentissimum, dominantem et regnantem 
prae cunctis regibus et principibus terrae, coronatum aurea 
corona victoriae, ad omnia a Deo altissimo, qui vivit et regnat 
in seculorum secula" (Concerning the white tincture: When 
my beloved parents have tasted of life, have been nourished 
with pure milk and become drunk with my white substance, 
and have embraced each other in my bed, they shall bring 
forth the son of the moon, who will excel all his kindred. And 
when my beloved has drunk from the red rock sepulchre and 
tasted the maternal fount in matrimony, and has drunk with me 
of my red wine and lain with me in my bed in friendship, then 
I, loving him and receiving his seed into my cell, shall conceive 
and become pregnant and when my time is come shall bring 
forth a most mighty son, who shall rule over and govern all 
the kings and princes of the earth, crowned with the golden 
crown of victory by the supreme God who liveth and reigneth 
for ever more).* 

496 The coronation picture that illustrates this text 5 proves 
that the resuscitation of the purified corpse is at the same time 
a glorification, since the process is likened to the crowning of 

2 Of. my "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon/' 83, par. 238 (or 1942 Swiss edn., 
p. 138). 3 Psychology and Alchemy } 85, fig. 235. 

4 2, xiii, p. 377, Cf. "Consilium coniugii," 1, ii, p. 129, and Zosimos, 2, iv, pp. agiff. 

5 The style of the pictures derives from the i6th century, but the text may be a 
century older. Ruska (Tabula, 149, p. 193) relegates the text to the 141*1 century. 
The later dating, i5th century (Ruska, Turba, 150, p. 342), is probably the more 
accurate. 

282 



PHILOSOPHORVM 
ANIMJE I VBILATIO SEV 




fcie fcfem'ngt ficfc We fcfe|)erft &er/ 



rr- 



Figure 9 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the Virgin. 6 The allegorical language of the Church supports 
such a comparison. The connections of the Mother of God with 
the moon, 7 water, and fountains are so well known that I need 
not substantiate them further. But whereas it is the Virgin who 
is crowned here, in the Senior text it is the son who receives 
the "crown of victory" which is quite in order since he is the 
filius regius who replaces his father. In the "Aurora" the crown 
is given to the regina austrij Sapientia, who says to her beloved: 
"I am the crown wherewith my beloved is crowned," so that 
the crown serves as a connection between the mother and her 
son-lover. 8 In a later text 9 the aqua amara is defined as "crowned 
with light." At that time Isidore of Seville's etymology was still 
valid: mare ab amaro which vouches for "sea" as synonymous 
with the aqua permanent. It is also an allusion to the water 
symbolism of Mary (jtriyri, "fountain"). 11 Always we must note 
that the alchemist proceeds like the unconscious in the choice of 
his symbols: every idea finds both a positive and a negative ex- 
pression. Sometimes he speaks of a royal pair, sometimes of dog 
and bitch; and the water symbolism is likewise expressed in vio- 
lent contrasts. We read that the royal diadem appears "in men- 
struo meretricis," 12 or the following instructions are given: 
"Take the foul deposit [fecerri] that remains in the cooking- 
vessel and preserve it, for it is the crown of the heart." The 
deposit corresponds to the corpse in the sarcophagus, and the sar- 
cophagus corresponds in turn to the mercurial fountain or the 
vas hermeticum. 

6 See Psychology and Alchemy, 85, par. 499. 7 See ibid., fig. 220. 

s Vulgate, Cant. 3:11: "... videte . . . regem Salomonem in diademate, quo 
coronavit ilium mater sua in die desponsationis illius," etc. (D.V.: ... see king 
Solomon in the diadem, wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his es- 
pousals . . .). Gregory the Great comments that the mother is Mary "quae coronavit 
eum diademate, quia humanitatem nostram ex ea ipsa assumpsit. . . . Et hoc in 
die desponsationis eius . . . factum esse dicitur: quia quando unigenitus filius Dei 
divinitatem suam humanitati nostrae copulare voluit, quando. . . . Ecclesiam 
sponsam suam sibi assumere placuit: tune . . . carnem nostram ex matre Virgine 
suscipere voluit" (who crowned him with the crown because he assumed our human 
nature from her. . . . And that is said to have been done on the day of his es- 
pousals: Since, when the only-begotten son of God wished to join His divinity with 
our human nature, He decided to take unto Himself, as His bride, the Church. 
Then it was that He wished to assume our flesh out of His virgin mother). St. 
Gregory, "Cantica," 59, Ch. III. & "Gloria mundi," 4, ii, p. 213. 10 74, XIII, 14. 
11 Psychology and Alchemy , 85> par. 92. 12 Philalethes, 4, iv, p. 654. 

284 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



497 The soul descending from heaven is identical with the 
dew, the aqua divina, which, as the Rosarium, quoting Hermes, 
explains, is "Rex de coelo descenderis." 13 Hence this water is 
itself crowned and forms the "diadem of the heart/' 14 in appar- 
ent contradiction to the earlier statement that the ashes were 
the diadem. It is difficult to tell whether the alchemists were 
so hopelessly muddled that they did not notice these flat con- 
tradictions, or whether their paradoxes were sublimely deliber- 
ate. I suspect it was a bit of both, since the ignorantes, stulti, 
fatui would take the texts at their face value and get bogged in 
the welter of analogies, while the more astute reader, realizing 
the necessity for symbolism, would handle it like a virtuoso with 
no trouble at all. Intellectual responsibility seems always to 
have been the alchemists' weak spot, though a few of them tell 
us plainly enough how we are to regard their peculiar lan- 
guage. 15 The less respect they showed for the bowed shoulders 

13 This appears as a quotation from Maria, not Hermes, in Senior, 164, p. 17. 
J4 It is just possible that the idea of the diadema is connected with the cabalistic 
Kether (corona). The Diadema purpureum is Malchuth, "the female," "the 
bride." Purple relates to the vestimentum, an attribute of the Shekhina (the Di- 
vine Presence), which "enim est Vestis et Palatium Modi Tiphereth, non enim 
potest fieri mentio Nominis Tetragrammati nisi in Palatio eius, quod est Adonai. 
Appellaturque nomine Diadematis, quia est Corona in capite mariti sui" (. . . is 
the Garment and the Palace of the Modus Tiph'ereth [Glory], for no mention 
can be made of the Four-Letter Name which is Adonai, except in His Palace. 
And it is called by the name of Diademe because it is the crown on the head of 
the husband). Kabbala denudata, 93, I, p. 131. "... Malchuth vocatur Kether 
nempe corona legis," etc. (Malchuth is called Kether since it is the crown of the 
Law). "Sephirah decima vocatur Corona: quia est mundus Dilectionum, quae 
omnia circumdant," etc. (The tenth Sephira [number] is called the crown, because it 
is the world of delights which surround all things). Ibid., p. 487. "[Corona] sicut 
vocatur Malchuth, quando ascendit usque ad Kether; ibi enim existens est Corona 
super caput mariti sui" [The Crown] is called Malchuth when it ascends up to 
Kether; for there is the crown upon the head of the husband) .Ibid., p. 624. 
15 Norton's "Ordinall" (6, i, p. 40) says: 

"For greatly doubted evermore all suche, 

That of this Scyence they may write too muche: 

Every each of them tought but one pointe or twayne, 

Whereby his fellowes were made certayne: 

How that he was to them a Brother, 

For every of them understoode each other; 

Alsoe they wrote not every man to teache, 

But to shew themselves by a secret speache: [continued} 

285 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of the sweating reader, the greater was their obligation, willing 
or unwilling, to the unconscious, for the infinite variety of their 

Trust not therefore to reading of one Boke, 

But in many Auctors works ye may looke; 

Liber librum apperit saith Arnolde the great Clerke." 

"The Book of Krates" (Berthelot, 29, III, p. 52) says: "Tes intentions sont ex- 
cellentes, mais ton ame ne se r&oudra jamais a divulguer la vrit, a cause des 
diversits des opinions et des miseres de 1'orgueil." Hoghelande (5, i, p. 155) says: 
"At haec [scientia] . . . tradit opus suum immiscendo falsa veris et vera falsis, 
nunc diminute nimium, nunc superabundanter, et sine ordine, et saepius prae- 
postero ordine, et nititur obscure tradere et occultare quantum potest" (This 
[science] transmits its work by mixing the false with the true and the true with the 
false, sometimes very briefly, at other times in a most prolix manner, without 
order and quite often in the reverse order; and it endeavours to transmit [the 
work] obscurely, and to hide it as much as possible). Senior (164, p. 55) says: 
"Verum dixerunt per omnia, Homines vero non intelligunt verba eorum . . . 
unde falsificant veridicos, et verificant falsificos opinionibus suis. . . . Error 
enim eorum est ex ignorantia intentionis eorum, quando audiunt diversa verba, 
sed ignota intellectui eorum, cum sint in intellectu occulto." (They told the truth 
by means of all things, but men do not understand their words . . . whence through 
their assumptions they falsify the verities and verify the falsities. . . . The error 
springs from ignorance of their [the writers'] meaning, when they hear divers 
words unknown to their understanding, since these have a hidden meaning.) Of 
the secret hidden in the words of the wise, Senior says: "Est enim illud interius 
subtiliter perspicientis et cognoscentis" (For this belongs to him who subtly per- 
ceives and is cognizant of the inner meaning). The Rosarium (2, xiii, p. 230) ex- 
plains: "Ergo non dixi omnia apparentia et necessaria in hoc opere, quia simt 
aliqua quae non licet homini loqui" (So I did not declare all that appears and is 
necessary in this work, because there are things which one must not tell to a human 
being). Again (p. 274): "Talis materia debet tradi mystice, sicut poesis fabulose et 
parabolice" (Such matters must be transmitted in mystical terms, like poetry em- 
ploying fables and parables). Khunrath (Chaos, 97, p. 21) mentions the saying: 
"Arcana publicata vilescunt" (secrets that are published become cheap) words 
which Andreae used as a motto for his Chymical Wedding. Abu'l Qasim Muhammad 
ibn Ahmad al-Simawi, known as al-Iraqi, says in his "Book of the Seven Climes" 
(see 69, p. 410) regarding Jabir ibn Hayyan's method of instruction: "Then he 
spoke enigmatically concerning the composition of the External and the Internal. 
. . . Then he spoke darkly . . . that in the External there is no complete tincture 
and that the complete tincture is to be found only in the Internal. Then he spoke 
darkly . . . saying, Verily we have made the External nothing more than a veil 
over the Internal . . . that the Internal is like this and like that and he did not 
cease from this kind of behaviour until he had completely confused all except the 
most quick-witted of his pupils. . . ." Wei Po-yang (c. 142 B.C.) says: "It would be 
a great sin on my part not to transmit the Tao which would otherwise be lost to 
the world forever. I shall not write on silk lest the divine secret be unwittingly 
spread abroad. In hesitation I sigh . . ." (162, p. 243). 

286 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



images and paradoxes points to a psychological fact of prime 
importance, namely the indefiniteness of the archetype with 
its multitude of meanings, all presenting different facets of a 
single, simple truth. The alchemists were so steeped in their 
inner experiences that their sole concern was to devise fitting 
images and expressions regardless of whether these were intel- 
ligible or not. Although in this respect they remained behind 
the times, they nevertheless performed the inestimable service 
of having constructed a phenomenology of the unconscious long 
before the advent of psychology. We, as heirs to these riches, do 
not find our heritage at all easy to enjoy. Yet we can comfort 
ourselves with the reflection that the old masters were equally at 
a loss to understand one another, or that they did so only with 
difficulty. Thus the author of the Rosarium says that the "an- 
tiqui Philosophi tarn obscure quam confuse scripserunt," so that 
they only baffled the reader or put him off altogether. For his 
part, he says, he would make the "experimentum verissimum" 
plain for all eyes to see and reveal it "in the most certain and hu- 
man manner" and then proceeds to write exactly like all the 
others before him. This was inevitable, as the alchemists did not 
really know what they were writing about. Whether we know 
today seems to me not altogether sure. At any rate we no longer 
believe that the secret lies in chemical substances, but that it 
is rather to be found in one of the darker and deeper layers of 
the psyche, although we do not know the nature of this layer. 
Perhaps in another century or so we shall discover a new dark- 
ness from which there will emerge something we do not under- 
stand, but whose presence we sense with the utmost certainty. 
498 The alchemist saw no contradiction in comparing the 
diadem with a "foul deposit" and then, in the next breath, 
saying that it is of heavenly origin. He follows the rule laid 
down in the "Tabula smaragdina": "Quod est inferius, est sicut 
quod est superius. Et quod est superius, est sicut quod est in- 
ferius/* ie His faculty for conscious discrimination was not as 
acute as modern man's, and was distinctly blunter than the 
scholastic thought of his contemporaries. This apparent re- 
gression cannot be explained by any mental backwardness on 
the part of the alchemist; it is more the case that his main in- 

16 The parallel to this is the paradoxical relation of Malchuth to Kether, the 
lowest to the highest (see note 14 above). 

287 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



terest was focussed on the unconscious Itself and not at all on 
the powers of discrimination and formulation which mark the 
concise conceptual thinking of the schoolmen. He is content 
if he succeeds in finding expressions to delineate afresh the se- 
cret he feels. How these expressions relate to and differ from 
one another is of the smallest account to him, for he never sup- 
poses that anybody could reconstruct the art from his ideas 
about it, but that those who approach the .art at all are already 
fascinated by its secret and are guided by sure intuition, or are 
actually elected and dedicated thereto by God. Thus the Rosar- 
ium says, quoting Hortulanus: 17 "Solus ille, qui scit facere 
lapidem Philosophorum, intelligit verba eorum de lapide" 
(Only he who knows how to make the philosophers' stone can 
understand their words concerning it) (p. 270). The darkness 
of the symbolism scatters before the eyes of the enlightened 
philosopher. Hortulanus says again: "Nihil enim prodest occul- 
tatio philosophorum in sermonibus, ubi doctrina Spiritus sancti 
operatur" 1S (The mystification in the sayings of the philoso- 
phers is of no avail where the word of the Holy Ghost is at 
work). 

499 The alchemist's failure to distinguish between corpus and 
spiritus is here assisted by the assumption that, owing to the 
preceding mortificatio and sublimatio, the body has taken on 
"quintessential" or spiritual form and consequently, as a cor- 
pus mundum (pure substance), is not so very different from 
spirit. It may shelter spirit or even draw it down to itself. 19 
All these ideas lead one to conclude that not only the coniunc- 
tio but the reanimation of the "body" is an altogether trans- 
mundane event, a process occurring in the psychic non-ego. 
This would explain why the process is so easily projected, 

17 He is thought to be identical with Joannes de Garlandia, who lived in the 
second half of the isth century and wrote the "Commentariolus in Tabulam 
smaragdinam," 70. 

18 Ibid., p. 365. Since the alchemists were, as "philosophers," the empiricists of the 
psyche, their terminology is of secondary importance compared with their experi- 
ence, as is the case with empiricism generally. The discoverer is seldom a good 
classifier. 

19 Thus Dorn (5, iii, p. 409) says: "Spagirica foetura terrestris caelicam naturam 
induat per ascensum, et deinceps suo descensu centri naturam terreni recipiat" 
(The terrestrial spagiric offspring shall assume heavenly nature through ascent, 
and in turn by its descent shall assume the nature of the centre of the earth). 

288 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



for If it were of a personal nature its liability to projection 
would be considerably reduced, because it could then be made 
conscious without too much difficulty. At any rate this liability 
would not have been sufficient to cause a projection upon in- 
animate matter, which is the polar opposite of the living psyche. 
Experience shows that the carrier of the projection is not just 
any object but is always one that proves adequate to the nature 
of the content projected that is to say, it must offer the content 
a "hook" to hang on. 20 

500 Although the process is essentially transcendental, the pro- 
jection brings it down to reality by violently affecting the con- 
scious and personal psyche. The result is an inflation, and 
it then becomes clear that the coniunctio is a hieros gamos of 
the gods and not a mere love-affair between mortals. This is very 
subtly suggested in the Chymical Wedding, where Rosen- 
creutz, the hero of the drama, is only a guest at the feast and, 
though forbidden to do so, slips into the bedchamber of Venus 
in order to gaze admiringly on the naked beauty of the sleeper. 
As a punishment for this intrusion Cupid wounds him in the 
hand with an arrow. 21 His own personal, secret connection with 
the royal marriage is only fleetingly indicated right at the end: 
the king, alluding to Rosencreutz, says that he (Rosencreutz) 
was his father. 22 Andreae, the author, must have been a man of 
some wit, since at this point he tries to extricate himself from 
the affair with a jest. He gives a clear hint that he himself is 
the father of his characters and gets the king to confirm this. 
The voluntarily proffered information about the paternity of 
this "child" is the familiar attempt of a creative artist to bolster 
up the prestige of his ego against the suspicion that he is the 
victim of the creative urge welling out of the unconscious. 
Goethe could not shake off the grip of Faust his "main busi- 
ness' 'half so easily. (Lesser men have correspondingly more 
need of greatness, hence they must make others think more 
highly of them.) Andreae was as fascinated by the secret of the art 
as any alchemist; the serious attempt he made to found the 

20 This explains why the projection usually has some influence on the carrier, 
which is why the alchemists in their turn expected the "projection" of the stone 
to bring about a transmutation of base metals. 

21 The alchemists regarded the arrow as the telum passionis of Mercurius. 

22 Rosencreutz, 145. 

289 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



Rosicrucian Order is proof of this, and it was largely for reasons 
of expediency, owing to his position as a cleric, that he was led 
to adopt a more distant attitude in later years. 23 
* If there is such a thing as an unconscious that is not per- 
sonal i.e., does not consist of individually acquired contents, 
whether forgotten, subliminally perceived, or repressed then 
there must also be processes going on in this non-ego, spontane- 
ous archetypal events which the conscious mind can only per- 
ceive when they are projected. They are immemorially strange 
and unknown, and yet we seem to have known them from ever- 
lasting; they are also the source of a remarkable fascination that 
dazzles and illuminates at once. They draw us like a magnet and 
at the same time frighten us; they manifest themselves in fan- 
tasies, dreams, hallucinations, and in certain kinds of religious 
ecstasy. 24 The coniunctio is one of these archetypes. The absorp- 
tive power of the archetype explains not only the widespread 
incidence of this theme but also the passionate intensity with 
which it seizes upon the individual, often in defiance of all rea- 
son and understanding. To the peripeteia of the coniunctio also 
belong the processes illustrated in the last few pictures. They 
deal with the after-effects of the fusion of opposites, which have 
involved the conscious personality in their union. The extreme 
consequence of this is the dissolution of the ego in the un- 
conscious, a state resembling death. It results from the more or 
less complete identification of the ego with unconscious factors, 
or, as we would say, from contamination. This is what the 
alchemists experienced as immunditia, pollution. They saw it 
as the defilement of something transcendent by the gross and 
opaque body which had for that reason to undergo sublimation. 
But the body, psychologically speaking, is the expression of our 
individual and conscious existence, which, we then feel, is in 
danger of being swamped or poisoned by the unconscious. We 
therefore try to separate the ego-consciousness from the uncon- 
scious and free it from that perilous embrace. Yet, although 
the power of the unconscious is feared as something sinister, 
this feeling is only partially justified by the facts, since we also 

23 Waite, Real History of the Rosicrucians, 160. 

24 Intoxicants that induce delirious states can also release these processes, for which 
purpose datura (Jimson weed) and peyotl are used in primitive rites. See Hastings, 
Encyclopedia, 65, IV, pp. 735! 

290 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



know that the unconscious is capable of producing beneficial 
effects. The kind of effect it will have depends to a large extent 
on the attitude of the conscious mind. 

502 Hence the mundificatio purification is an attempt to dis- 
criminate the mixture, to sort out the coincidentia oppositorum 
that has overwhelmed the individual. The rational man, in 
order to live in this world, has to make a distinction between 
"himself" and what we might call the "eternal man." Although 
he is a unique individual, he also stands for "man" as a species, 
and thus he has a share in all the movements of the collective 
unconscious. In other words, the "eternal" truths become dan- 
gerously disturbing factors when they suppress the unique ego 
of the individual and live at his expense. If our psychology is 
forced, owing to the special nature of its empirical material, 
to stress the importance of the unconscious, that does not in 
any way diminish the importance of the conscious mind. It is 
merely the one-sided over-valuation of the latter that has to be 
checked by a certain relativization of values. But this relativi- 
zation should not be carried so far that the ego is completely 
fascinated and overpowered by the archetypal truths. The ego 
lives in space and time and must adapt itself to their laws if 
it is to exist at all. If it is absorbed by the unconscious to such 
an extent that the latter alone has the power of decision, then 
the ego is stifled, and there is no longer any medium in which 
the unconscious could be integrated and in which the work of 
realization could take place. The separation of the empirical 
ego from the "eternal" and universal man is therefore of vital 
importance, particularly today, when mass-degeneration of the 
personality is making such threatening strides. Mass-degenera- 
tion does not come only from without: it also comes from 
within, from the collective unconscious. Against the outside, 
some protection was afforded by the droits de Vhomme which 
at present are lost to the greater part of Europe, 25 and even 
where they are not actually lost we see political parties, as naive 
as they are powerful, doing their best to abolish them in favour 
of the slave state, with the bait of social security. Against the 
daemonism from within, the Church offers some protection so 
long as it wields authority. But protection and security are 

25 As this book was written in 1943, I leave this sentence as it stands, in the hope 
of a better world to come. 

291 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



only valuable when not excessively cramping to our existence; 
and in the same way the superiority of consciousness is desirable 
only if it does not suppress and shut out too much life. As al- 
ways, life is a voyage between Scylla and Charybdis. 

503 The process of differentiating the ego from the uncon- 
scious, 26 then, has its equivalent in the mundificatio, and, just 
as this is the necessary condition for the return of the soul to 
the body, so the body is necessary if the unconscious is not to 
have destructive effects on the ego-consciousness, for it is the 
body that gives bounds to the personality. The unconscious 
can only be integrated if the ego holds its ground. Conse- 
quently, the alchemist's endeavour to unite the corpus mun- 
durriy the purified body, with the soul is also the endeavour of 
the psychologist once he has succeeded in freeing the ego- 
conscious from contamination with the unconscious. In al- 
chemy the purification is the result of numerous distillations; 
in psychology too it comes from an equally thorough separation 
of the ordinary ego-personality from all inflationary admixtures 
of unconscious material. This task entails the most painstaking 
self-examination and self-education, which can, however, be 
passed on to others by one who has acquired the discipline him- 
self. The process of psychological differentiation is no light 
work; it needs the tenacity and patience of the alchemist, who 
must purify the body from all superfluities in the fiercest heat 
of the furnace, and pursue Mercurius "from one bride chamber 
to the next/* As alchemical symbolism shows, a radical under- 
standing of this kind is impossible without a human partner. 
A general and merely academic "insight into one's mistakes" is 
ineffectual, for then the mistakes are not really seen at all, only 
the idea of them. But they show up acutely when a human 
relationship brings them to the fore and when they are noticed 
by the other person as well as by oneself. Then and then only 
can they really be felt and their true nature recognized. Simi- 
larly, confessions made to one's secret self generally have little 
or no effect, whereas confessions made to another are much 
more promising. 

504 The "soul" which is reunited with the body is the One born 
of the two, the vinculum common to both. 27 It is therefore the 

26 This process is described in the second of my Two Essays, 88. 

27 Cf. Pseudo-Aristotle, 2, viii, p. 371. 

292 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



very essence of relationship. Equally the psychological anima, 
as representative of the collective unconscious, has a "collec- 
tive" character. The collective unconscious is a natural and 
universal datum and its manifestation always causes an uncon- 
scious identity, a state of participation mystique. If the conscious 
personality becomes caught up in it and offers no resistance, 
the relationship is personified by the anima (in dreams, for in- 
stance) which then, as a more or less autonomous part of the 
personality, generally has a disturbing effect. But if, as the 
result of a long and thorough analysis and the withdrawal of 
projections, the ego has been successfully separated from the 
unconscious, the anima will gradually cease to act as an autono- 
mous personality and will become a function of relationship 
between conscious and unconscious. So long as it is projected 
it leads to all sorts of illusions about people and things and 
thus to endless complications. The withdrawal of projections 
makes the anima what it originally was: an archetypal image 
which, in its right place, functions to the advantage of the indi- 
vidual. Interposed between the ego and the world, it acts like 
an ever-changing Shakti, who weaves the veil of Maya and 
dances the illusion of existence. But, functioning between the 
ego and the unconscious, the anima becomes the matrix of all 
the divine and semi-divine figures, from the pagan goddess to 
the Virgin, from the messenger of the Holy Grail to the saint. 28 
The "unconscious" anima is a creature without relationships, 
an autoerotic being whose one aim is to take total possession 
of the individual. When this happens to a man he becomes 
strangely womanish in the worst sense, with a moody and un- 
controlled disposition which, in time, has a deleterious effect 
even on the hitherto reliable functions e.g., his intellect and 
gives rise to the kind of ideas and opinions we rightly find so 
objectionable in animus-possessed women. 29 

28 A good example of this is to be found in Angelus Silesius, 13, Book III, no. 238: 

"God is made man and now is born rejoice! 
Where then? In me, the mother of his choice. 
How should that be? My soul that Virgin Maid, 
My heart the manger and my limbs the shed. . . ." 

29 in woman the animus produces very similar illusions, the only difference being 
that they consist of dogmatic opinions and prejudices which are taken over at 
random from somebody else and are never the product of her own reflection. 

293 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



505 Here I must point out that very different rules apply in 
feminine psychology, since in this case we are not dealing with 
a function of relationship but, on the contrary, with a discrim- 
inative function, namely the animus. Alchemy was, as a philos- 
ophy, mainly a masculine preoccupation and in consequence 
of this its formulations are for the most part masculine in char- 
acter. But we should not overlook the fact that the feminine 
element in alchemy is not so inconsiderable since, even at the 
time of its beginnings in Alexandria, we have authentic proof 
of female philosophers like Theosebeia, 30 the soror mystica of 
Zosimos, and Paphnutia and Maria Prophetissa. From later times 
we know of the pair of alchemists, Nicolas Flamel and his wife 
Peronelle. The Mutus liber of 1677 gives an account of a man 
and wife performing the opus together, 31 and finally in the nine- 
teenth century we have the pair of English alchemists, Thomas 
South and his daughter, who later became Mrs. Atwood. After 
busying themselves for many years with the study of alchemy, 
they decided to set down their ideas and experiences in book 
form. To this end they separated, the father working in one 
part of the house and his daughter in another. She wrote a 
thick, erudite tome while he versified. She was the first to finish 
and promptly sent the book to the printer. Scarcely had it ap- 
peared when her father was overcome with scruples, fearing 
lest they had betrayed the great secret. He succeeded in per- 
suading his daughter to withdraw the book and destroy it. In 
the same spirit, he sacrificed his own poetic labours. Only a 
few lines are preserved in her book, of which it was too late to 
withdraw all the copies. A reprint, 32 prepared after her death 
in 1910, appeared in 1918. I have read the book: no secrets are 
betrayed. It is a thoroughly medieval production garnished 
with would-be theosophical explanations as a sop to the syncre- 
tism of the new age. 

5 6 A remarkable contribution to the role of feminine psy- 
chology in alchemy is furnished by the letter which the English 

30 She is the Euthicia of the treatise by Zosimos, 2, iv. 

' i 119. The Mutus liber is reproduced as an appendix to Vol. I of the Biblio- 
theca chemica curiosa, 1702 (3, iii; for illustrations from the Mutus liber, see figs. 
11-13 of the present volume, and Psychology and Alchemy, 85, index). We might 
mention John Pordage and Jane Leade (iyth century) as another pair of alchemists. 
32 A. Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery f 14. 

294 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



theologian and alchemist, John Pordage, 33 wrote to his soror 
mystica Jane Leade. In it 34 he gives her spiritual instruction 
concerning the opus: 

507 This sacred furnace, this Balneum Mariae, this glass phial, this 
secret furnace, is the place, the matrix or womb, and the centre from 
which the divine Tincture flows forth from its source and origin. 
Of the place or abode where the Tincture has its home and dwelling 
I need not remind you, nor name its name, but I exhort you only 
to knock at the foundation. Solomon tells us in his Song that its 
inner dwelling is not far from the navel, which resembles a round 
goblet filled with the sacred liquor of the pure Tincture. 35 You 
know the fire of the philosophers, it was the key they kept con- 
cealed. . . . The fire is the love-fire, the life that flows forth from 
the Divine Venus, or the Love of God; the fire of Mars is too chol- 
eric, too sharp, and too fierce, so that it would dry up and burn the 
materia: wherefore the love-fire of Venus alone has the qualities of 
the right true fire. 

508 This true philosophy will teach you how you should know 
yourself, and if you know yourself rightly, you will also know 
the pure nature; for the pure nature is in yourself. And when 
you know the pure nature which is your true selfhood, freed from 
all wicked, sinful selfishness, then also you will know God, for the 
Godhead is concealed and wrapped in the pure nature like a kernel 
in the nutshell. . . . The true philosophy will teach you who is 
the father and who is the mother of this magical child. . . . The 
father of this child is Mars, he is the fiery life which proceeds from 
Mars as the father's quality. His mother is Venus, who is the gentle 

33 John Pordage (1607-1681) studied theology and medicine in Oxford. He was a 
disciple of Jakob Bohme and a follower of his alchemical theosophy. He became an 
accomplished alchemist and astrologer. One of the chief figures in his mystical phi- 
losophy is Sophia. ("She is my divine, eternal, essential self-sufficiency. She is my 
wheel within my wheel," etc. Pordage's Sophia, 135, p. 21.) 

34 The letter is printed in Roth-Scholz, Deutsches Theatrum chemicum, 148, I, 
pp. 557-97. The first German edition of this "Philosophisches Send-Schreiben vom 
Stein der Weissheit" seems to have been published in Amsterdam in 1698. [The let- 
ter was evidently written in English, since the German version in Roth-Scholz, 
1728-32, is stated to be "aus dem Englischen iibersetzet." But no English edition or 
MS. can be traced at the British Museum, the Library of Congress, or any of the 
other important British and American libraries. Pordage's name does not occur 
among the alumni at Oxford. EDITORS.] 

35 One of the favourite allusions to the Song of Solomon 7:2: "Thy navel is like 
a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor." Cf. also "Aurora consurgens" I, 19, 
Ch. XIL 

295 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



love-fire proceeding from the son's quality. Here then, in the quali- 
ties and forms of nature, you see male and female, man and wife, 
bride and bridegroom, the first marriage or wedding of Galilee, 
which is celebrated between Mars and Venus when they return 
from their fallen state. Mars, or the husband, must become a godly 
man, otherwise the pure Venus will take him neither into the con- 
jugal nor into the sacred marriage bed. Venus must become a pure 
virgin, a virginal wife, otherwise the wrathful jealous Mars in his 
wrath-fire will not wed with her nor live with her in union; but 
instead of agreement and harmony, there will be naught but strife, 
jealousy, discord, and enmity among the qualities of nature. . . . 

59 Accordingly, if you think to become a learned artist, look with 
earnestness to the union of your own Mars and Venus, that the 
nuptial knot be rightly tied and the marriage between them well 
and truly consummated. You must see to it that they lie together 
in the bed of their union and live in sweet harmony; then the vir- 
gin Venus will bring forth her pearl, her water-spirit, in you, to 
soften the fiery spirit of Mars, and the wrathful fire of Mars will 
sink quite willingly, in mildness and love, into the love-fire of 
Venus, and thus both qualities, as fire and water, will mingle to- 
gether, agree, and flow into one another; and from their agreement 
and union there will proceed the first conception of the magical 
birth which we call Tincture, the love-fire Tincture. Now although 
the Tincture is conceived in the womb of your humanity and is 
awakened to life, yet there is still a great danger, and it is to be 
feared that, because it is still in the body or womb, it may yet be 
spoiled by neglect before it be brought in due season into the light. 
On this account you must look round for a good nurse, who will 
watch it in its childhood and will tend it properly: and such must 
be your own pure heart and your own virginal will. . . . 

5 10 This child, this tincturing life, must be assayed, proved, and 
tried in the qualities of nature; and here again great anxiety and 
danger will arise, seeing that it must suffer the damage of tempta- 
tion in the body and womb, and you may thus lose the birth. For the 
delicate Tincture, this tender child of life, must descend into the 
forms and qualities of nature, that it may suffer and endure tempta- 
tion and overcome it; it must needs descend into the Divine Darkness, 
into the darkness of Saturn, wherein no light of life is to be seen: 
there it must be held captive, and be bound with the chains of 
darkness, and must live from the food which the prickly Mercurius 
will give it to eat, which to the Divine Tincture of life is naught 
but dust and ashes, poison and gall, fire and brimstone. It must 
enter into the fierce wrathful Mars, by whom (as happened to 
Jonah in the belly of hell) it is swallowed, and must experience the 

296 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



curse of God's wrath; also it must be tempted by Lucifer and the 
million devils who dwell in the quality of the wrathful fire. And 
here the divine artist in this philosophical work will see the first 
colour, where the Tincture appears in its blackness, and it is the 
blackest black; the learned philosophers call it their black crow, or 
their black raven, or again their blessed and blissful black; for in 
the darkness of this black is hidden the light of lights in the quality 
of Saturn; and in this poison and gall there is hidden in Mercurius 
the most precious medicament against the poison, namely the life 
of life. And the blessed Tincture is hidden in the fury or wrath and 
curse of Mars. 

511 Now it seems to the artist that all his work is lost. What has 
become of the Tincture? Here is nothing that is apparent, that can 
be perceived, recognized, or tasted, but darkness, most painful 
death, a hellish fearful fire, nothing but the wrath and curse of God; 
yet he does not see that the Tincture of Life is in this putrefaction 
or dissolution and destruction, that there is light in this darkness, 
life in this death, love in this fury and wrath, and in this poison 
the highest and most precious Tincture and medicament against all 
poison and sickness. 

5 12 The old philosophers named this work or labour their descen- 
sion, their cineration, their pulverization, their death, their putre- 
faction of the materia of the stone, their corruption, their caput 
mortuum. You must not despise this blackness, or black colour, but 
persevere in it in patience, in suffering, and in silence, until its 
forty days of temptation are over, until the days of its tribulations 
are completed, when the seed of life shall waken to life, shall rise 
up, sublimate or glorify itself, transform itself into whiteness, purify 
and sanctify itself, give itself the redness, in other words, transfigure 
and fix its shape. When the work is brought thus far, it is an easy 
work: for the learned philosophers have said that the making of the 
stone is then woman's work and child's play. Therefore, if the hu- 
man will is given over and left, and becomes patient and still and 
as a dead nothing, the Tincture will do and effect everything in 
us and for us, if we can keep our thoughts, movements, and imag- 
inations still, or can leave off and rest. But how difficult, hard, and 
bitter this work appears to the human will, before it can be brought 
to this shape, so that it remains still and calm even though all the 
fire be let loose in its sight, and all manner of temptations assail it! 

513 Here, as you see, there is great danger, and the Tincture of 
life can easily be spoiled and the fruit wasted in the womb, when 
it is thus surrounded on all sides and assailed by so many devils and 
so many tempting essences. But if it can withstand and overcome 
this fiery trial and sore temptation, and win the victory; then you 

297 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



will see the beginning of its resurrection from hell, death, and the 
mortal grave, appearing first in the quality of Venus; and then the 
Tincture of life will itself burst forth mightily from the prison of 
the dark Saturn, through the hell of the poisonous Mercurius, and 
through the curse and direful death of God's wrath that burns and 
flames in Mars, and the gentle love-fire of the Venus quality will 
gain the upper hand, and the love-fire Tincture will be preferred 
in the government and have supreme command. And then the gen- 
tleness and love-fire of Divine Venus will reign as lord and king 
in and over all qualities. 

5H Nevertheless there is still another danger that the work of the 
stone may yet miscarry. Therefore the artist must wait until he sees 
the Tincture covered over with its other colour, as with the whitest 
white, which he may expect to see after long patience and stillness, 
and which truly appears when the Tincture rises up in the lunar 
quality: illustrious Luna imparts a beautiful white to the Tinc- 
ture, the most perfect white hue and a brilliant splendour. And thus 
is the darkness transformed into light, and death into life. And this 
brilliant whiteness awakens joy and hope in the heart of the artist, 
that the work has gone so well and fallen out so happily. For now 
the white colour reveals to the enlightened eye of the soul cleanli- 
ness, innocence, holiness, simplicity, heavenly-mindedness, and 
righteousness, and with these the Tincture is henceforth clothed 
over and over as with a garment. She is radiant as the moon, beau- 
tiful as the dawn. Now the divine virginity of the tincturing life 
shines forth, and no spot or wrinkle nor any other blemish is to be 
seen. 

515 The old masters were wont to call this work their white swan, 
their albification, or making white, their sublimation, their distilla- 
tion, their circulation, their purification, their separation, their 
sanctification, and their resurrection, because the Tincture is made 
white like a shining silver. It is sublimed or exalted and transfig- 
ured by reason of its many descents into Saturn, Mercurius, and 
Mars, and by its many ascents into Venus and Luna. This is the 
distillation, the Balneum Mariae: because the Tincture is purified 
in the qualities of nature through the many distillations of the 
water, blood, and heavenly dew of the Divine Virgin Sophia, and, 
through the manifold circulation in and out of the forms and quali- 
ties of nature, is made white and pure, like brilliantly polished silver. 
And all uncleanliness of the blackness, all death, hell, curse, wrath, 
and all poison which rise up out of the qualities of Saturn, Mer- 
cury, and Mars are separated and depart, wherefore they call it 
their 'separation, and when the Tincture attains its whiteness and 
brilliance in Venus and Luna they call it their sanctification, their 

298 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



purification and making white. They call it their resurrection, be- 
cause the white rises up out of the black, and the divine virginity 
and purity out of the poison of Mercurius and out of the red fiery 
rage and wrath of Mars. . . . 

516 Now is the stone shaped, the elixir of life prepared, the love- 
child or the child of love born, the new birth completed, and the 
work made whole and perfect. Farewell! fall, hell, curse, death, 
dragon, beast, and serpent! Good night! mortality, fear, sorrow, 
and misery! For now redemption, salvation, and recovery of every- 
thing that was lost will again come to pass within and without, for 
now you have the great secret and mystery of the whole world; you 
have the Pearl of Love; you have the unchangeable eternal essence 
of Divine Joy from which all healing virtue and all multiplying 
power come, from which there actively proceeds the active power 
of the Holy Ghost. You have the seed of the woman who has tram- 
pled on the head of the serpent. You have the seed of the virgin 
and the blood of the virgin in one essence and quality. 

5*7 O wonder of wonders! You have the tincturing Tincture, the 
pearl of the virgin, which has three essences or qualities in one; it 
has body, soul, and spirit, it has fire, light, and joy, it has the 
Father's quality, it has the Son's quality, and has also the Holy 
Ghost's quality, even all these three, in one fixed and eternal es- 
sence and being. This is the Son of the Virgin, this is her first-born, 
this is the noble hero, the trampler of the serpent, and he who 
casts the dragon under his feet and tramples upon him. . . . For 
now the Man of Paradise is become clear as a transparent glass, 
in which the Divine Sun shines through and through, like gold that 
is wholly bright, pure, and clear, without blemish or spot. The soul 
is henceforth a most substantial seraphic angel, she can make her- 
self doctor, theologian, astrologer, divine magician, she can make 
herself whatsoever she will, and do and have whatsoever she will: 
for all qualities have but one will in agreement and harmony. And 
this same one will is God's eternal infallible will; and from hence- 
forth the Divine Man is in his own nature become one with God. 36 

5 l8 This hymn-like myth of love, virgin, mother, and child 
sounds extremely feminine, but in reality it is an archetypal 
conception sprung from the masculine unconscious, where the 
Virgin Sophia corresponds to the anima (in the psychological 

36 The concluding passages are very reminiscent of the teachings of the "secta 
liberi spiritus," which were propagated as early as the i$th century by the B6- 
guines and Beghards. 

299 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



sense). 37 As is shown by the symbolism and by the not very 
clear distinction between her and the son, she is also the 
"paradisal" or "divine" being, i.e., the self. The fact that these 
ideas and figures were still mystical for Pordage and more or less 
undifferentiated is explained by the emotional nature of the 
experiences which he himself describes. 38 Experiences of this 
kind leave little room for critical understanding. They do, 
however, throw light on the processes hidden behind the al- 
chemical symbolism and pave the way for the discoveries of 
modern medical psychology. Unfortunately we possess no origi- 
nal treatises that can with any certainty be ascribed to a woman 
author. Consequently we do not know what kind of alchemical 
symbolism a woman's view would have produced. Nevertheless, 
modern medical practice tells us that the feminine unconscious 
produces a symbolism which, by and large, is compensatory to 
the masculine. In that case, to use Pordage's terms, the leitmotiv 
would not be gentle Venus but fiery Mars, not Sophia but 
Hecate, Demeter, and Persephone, or the matriarchal Kali of 
southern India in her brighter and darker aspects. 38 * 
519 In this connection I would like to draw attention to the 
curious pictures of the arbor philosophica in the fourteenth- 
century Codex Ashburnham. 89 One picture shows Adam struck 
by an arrow, 40 and the tree growing out of his genitals; in the 
other picture the tree grows out of Eve's head. Her right hand 
covers her genitals, her left points to a skull. Plainly this is a 
hint that the man's opus is concerned with the erotic aspect of 
the anima, while the woman's is concerned with the animus, 

37 Hence Pordage's view is more or less in agreement with woman's conscious psy- 
chology, but not with her unconscious psychology, 

38 Pordage, Sophia, 135, Ch. I. 

38a There is a modern work that gives an excellent account of the feminine world 
of symbols: Esther Harding's Woman's Mysteries (64). 

3935, i. They are reproduced as figs. 131 and 135 in Psychology and Alchemy, 85. 
40 The arrow refers to the telum passionis of Mercurius (cf. "Cantilena Riplaei" 
in 143, p. 423). Cf. also my "Spirit Mercurius," 89, pars. ngf. (Swiss edn., pp. i2of.), 
and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 26, XXX, 8: "Est et sagitta sermo Dei vivus et efficax 
et penetrabilior omni gladio ancipiti. ... Est etiam sagitta electa amor Christi, 
quae Mariae animam non modo confixit, sed etiam pertransivit, ut nullam in 
pectore virginali particulam vacuam amore relinqueret." (God's word is an arrow; 
it is lively and effective and more penetrating than a double-edged sword. . . . 
And the love of Christ is a choice arrow too, which not only entered, but transfixed, 
the soul of Mary, so that it left no particle of her virgin heart free of love.)Trans. 
from 27, 1, p. 346. 

gOO 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



which is a "function of the head." 41 The prima materia^ i.e., 
the unconscious, is represented in man by the "unconscious" 
anima, and in woman by the "unconscious" animus. Out of the 
prima materia grows the philosophical tree, the unfolding opus. 
In their symbolical sense, too, the pictures are in accord with 
the findings of psychology, since Adam would then stand for 
the woman's animus who generates "philosophical" ideas with 
his member Uoyoi orcgQiiaTixoi), and Eve for the man's anima 
who, as Sapientia or Sophia, produces out of her head the intel- 
lectual content of the work. 

520 Finally, I must point out that a certain concession to femi- 
nine psychology is also to be found in the Rosarium, in so far 
as the first series of pictures is followed by a second less com- 
plete, but otherwise analogous series, at the end of which there 
appears a masculine figure, the "emperor," and not, as in the 
first, an "empress," the "daughter of the philosophers." The ac- 
centuation of the feminine element in the Rebis (fig. 10) is 
consistent with a predominantly male psychology, whereas the 
addition of an "emperor" in the second version is a concession 
to woman (or possibly to the male consciousness). 

5* 1 In its primary "unconscious" form the animus is a com- 
pound of spontaneous, unpremeditated opinions which exer- 
cise a powerful influence on the woman's emotional life, while 
the anima is similarly compounded of feelings which thereafter 
influence or distort the man's understanding ("she has turned 
his head"). Consequently the animus likes to project itself upon 
"intellectuals" and all kinds of "heroes," including tenors, ar- 
tists, sporting celebrities, etc. The anima has a predilection for 
everything that is unconscious, dark, equivocal, and at a loose 
end in woman, and also for her vanity, frigidity, helplessness, 
and so forth. In both cases the incest element plays an im- 
portant part: there is a relation between the young woman 
and her father, the older woman and her son, the young man 
and his mother, the older man and his daughter, 

522 It will be clear from all this that the "soul" which accrues 
to ego-consciousness during the opus has a feminine character 
in the man and a masculine character in the woman. His anima 

41 Cf. the Alaskan Eskimo tale "The Woman Who Became a Spider/* in Ras- 
mussen, 141, pp. isiff., and the Siberian tale "The Girl and the Skull," in 44, ii, 
No. 31, where a woman marries a skulL 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



wants to reconcile and unite; her animus tries to discern and 
discriminate. This strict antithesis is depicted in the alchemists' 
Rebis, the symbol of transcendental unity, as a coincidence of 
opposites; but in conscious reality once the conscious mind 
has been cleansed of unconscious impurities by the preceding 
mundificatioit represents a conflict even though the conscious 
relations between the two individuals may be quite harmoni- 
ous. Even when the conscious mind does not identify itself with 
the inclinations of the unconscious, it still has to face them and 
somehow take account of them in order that they may play 
their part in the life of the individual, however difficult this 
may be. For if the unconscious is not allowed to express itself 
through word and deed, through worry and suffering, through 
our consideration of its claims and resistance to them, then the 
earlier, divided state will return with all the incalculable con- 
sequences which disregard of the unconscious may entail. If, 
on the other hand, we give in to the unconscious too much, it 
leads to a positive or negative inflation of the personality. Turn 
and twist this situation as we may, it always remains an inner 
and outer conflict: one of the birds is fledged and the other not. 
We are always in doubt: there is a pro to be rejected and a con- 
tra to be accepted. All of us would like to escape from this ad- 
mittedly uncomfortable situation, but we do so only to discover 
that what we left behind us was ourselves. To live in perpetual 
flight from ourselves is a bitter thing, and to live with ourselves 
demands a number of Christian virtues which we then have to 
apply to our own case, such as patience, love, faith, hope, and 
humility. It is all very fine to make our neighbour happy by 
applying them to him, but the demon of self-admiration so 
easily claps us on the back and says, "Well done!" And because 
this is a great psychological truth, it must be stood on its head 
for an equal number of people so as to give the devil something 
to carp at. But does it make us happy when we have to apply 
these virtues to ourselves? when I am the recipient of my own 
gifts, the least among my brothers whom I must take to my 
bosom? when I must admit that I need all my patience, my love, 
my faith, and even my humility, and that I myself am my 
own devil, the antagonist who always wants the opposite in 
everything? Can we ever really endure ourselves? "Do unto 
others . . /'this is as true of evil as of good. 

302 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



523 In John Gower's Confessio amantis (57) there is a saying 
which I have used as a motto to the Introduction of this book: 
"Bellica pax, vulnus dulce, suave malum" (a warring peace, a 
sweet wound, an agreeable evil). 42 Into these words the old al- 
chemist put the quintessence of his experience. I can add noth- 
ing to their incomparable simplicity and conciseness. They con- 
tain all that the ego can reasonably demand of the opus, and 
illuminate for it the paradoxical darkness of human life. Sub- 
mission to the fundamental contrariety of human nature 
amounts to an acceptance of the fact that the psyche is at cross 
purposes with itself. Alchemy teaches that the tension is four- 
fold, forming a cross which stands for the four warring elements. 
The quaternity is the minimal aspect under which such a state 
of total opposition can be regarded. The "cross" as a form of 
suffering expresses psychic reality, and carrying the cross is 
therefore an apt symbol for the wholeness and the passion which 
the alchemist saw in his work. Hence the Rosarium ends, not 
unfittingly, with the picture of the risen Christ and the verses: 

After my many sufferings and great martyry 
I rise again transfigured, of all blemish free. 

5 2 4 An exclusively rational analysis and interpretation of al- 
chemy, and of the unconscious contents projected into it, must 
necessarily stop short at the above parallels and antinomies, 
for in a total opposition there is no third tertium non daturl 
Science comes to a stop at the frontiers of logic, but nature 
does not she thrives on ground as yet untrodden by theory. 
Venerabilis natura does not halt at the opposites; she uses them 
to create, out of opposition, a new birth. 

42 72, II, p. 35: motto of Book I. Cf. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 26, XXIX, 8 (of 
Mary): "Et ilia quidem in tota se grande et suave amoris vulnus accepit . . ." (And 
she indeed received a great and sweet wound of love in all her being). 



33 



10 



THE NEW BIRTH 

Here is born the Empress of all honour/ 

The philosophers name her their daughter. 

She multiplies/ bears children ever again/ 

They are incorruptibly pure and without any stain. 

[Figure 10] 

5 2 5 Our last picture is the tenth in the series, and this is cer- 
tainly no accident, for the denarius is supposed to be the perfect 
number. 1 We have shown that the axiom of Maria consists of 
4, 3, 2, i; the sum of these numbers is 10, which stands for 
unity on a higher level. The unarius represents unity in the 
form of the res simplex, i.e., God as auctor rerum? while 

1 "Numerus perfectus est denarius" (the perfect number is ten). Mylius, 120, p. 
134. The Pythagoreans regarded the 5sxdg as the TsXsioe doifyi6g. Hippolytus, 
67, I, 2, 8. Cf. Joannes Lydus, 110, 3, 4, and Proclus, 137, 21 AB. This view was 
transmitted to alchemy through the Turba (pp. gooff., "Sermo Pythagorae"). 
Born (5, iv, p. 622) says: "Quando quidem ubi Quaternarius et Ternarius ad 
Benarium ascendunt, eorum fit ad umtatem regressus. In isto concluditur arcano 
omnis occulta rerum sapientia." (When the number four and the number three 
ascend to the number ten, they return to the One. In this secret all the hidden 
wisdom of things is contained.) But he denies (ibid., p. 545) that 1+2+3+4 
r=: 10, since i is not a number, maintaining that the denarius comes from 

2 + 3+4 = 9 + 1- He insists on the elimination of the devilish binarius (ibid., 
PP- 542ff.) John Bee (5, viii, p. 220) derives the denarius in the usual way: 
the antiquissimi Latini philosophi assumed that the crux rectilinea meant the 
denarius. The old author Artefius (probably an Arab) also derives the denarius 
by adding together the four first numbers (5, xi, p. 222). But later he says 
that 2 is the first number, and he proceeds to make the following operation: 

3 + 1 = 3, 2 + 2= 4, 4+i=5> 4 + 3 = 7 7 + != 8, 8 + 1= 9, 8 + 2 = 10, 
and says that "eodem modo centenarii ex denariis, millenarii vero ex centenariis 
procreantur" (in the same way the hundreds are produced out of the tens, and 
the thousands out of the hundreds). This operation can be regarded as either enig- 
matic or childish. 

2 According to Hippolytus (67, IV, 43, 4), the Egyptians said that God was a 
jtovdg dfitcuQETOg (an indivisible unity), and that 10 was a monad, the beginning 
and end of all number. 

304 



PHILOSOPHORVM, 




Figure 10 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



the denarius is the result of the completed work. Hence the 
real meaning of the denarius is the Son of God. 3 Although the 
alchemists call it the filius philosophorumf they use it as a 
Christ-symbol and at the same time employ the symbolic quali- 
ties of the ecclesiastical Christ-figure to characterize their 
Rebis. 5 It is probably correct to say that the medieval Rebis had 
these Christian characteristics, but for the Hermaphroditus of 
Arabic and Greek sources we must conjecture a partly pagan 
tradition. The Church symbolism of sponsus and sponsa leads 
to the mystic union of the two, i.e., to the anima Christi which 
lives in the corpus mysticum of the Church. This unity under- 
lies the idea of Christ's androgyny, which medieval alchemy ex- 
ploited for its own ends. The much older figure of the Her- 
maphroditus, whose outward aspect probably derives from a 
Cyprian Venus barbata, encountered in the Eastern Church 
the already extant idea of an androgynous Christ, which is no 
doubt connected with the Platonic conception of the bisexual 
First Man, for Christ is ultimately the Anthropos. 
526 The denarius forms>the totius operis summa, the culmi- 
nating point of the work beyond which it is impossible to 
go except by means of the multiplicatio. For, although the 
denarius represents a higher stage of unity, it is also a multiple 
of i and can therefore be multiplied to infinity in the ratio 
of 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, etc., just as the mystical body of the 
Church is composed of an indefinitely large number of be- 
lievers and is capable of multiplying that number without 
limit. Hence the Rebis is described as the cibus sempiternus 
(everlasting food), lumen indeficiens, and so forth; hence also 
the assumption that the tincture replenishes itself and that the 

3 The denarius as an allegoria Christi is to be found in Rabanus Maurus, 139. 

4 "Audi atque attende: Sal antiquissimum Mysterium! Cuius nucleum in Denario, 
Harpocratice, sile." (Listen and pay heed: Salt is the oldest mystery. Hide its 
nucleus in the number ten, after the manner of Harpocrates.) Khunrath, Amphi- 
theatrum, 96, p. 194. The salt is the salt of wisdom. Harpocrates is the genius of the 
secret mysteries. 

& There is a parallel to this in the system of Monoi'mos (Hippolytus, 67, VIII, 12, 
2ff.). The son of Oceanus (the Anthropos) is an undivisible monad and yet di- 
visible: he is mother and father, a monad that is also a decad. "Ex denario divino 
statues unitatem" (Out of the divine number ten you will constitute unity). 
Quotation from Joh. Daustin in Aegidius de Vadis, 5, vi, p. 115. Dausten, or 
Dastyne, was probably an Englishman; certain authorities date him at the be- 
ginning; of the i4th century, others much later. See Ferguson, 41, s.v. "Dausten." 

306 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



work need only be completed once and for all time, 6 But, since 
the multiplicatio is only an attribute of the denarius, 100 is no 
different from and no better than io. 7 

527 The lapis, understood as the cosmogonic First Man, is the 
radix ipsius, according to the Rosarium: everything has grown 
from this One and through this One. 8 It is the Uroboros, the 
serpent that fertilizes and gives birth to itself, by definition an 
increatum, despite a quotation from Rosarius to the effect that 
"Mercurius noster nobilissimus" was created by God as a "res 
nobilis." This creatum increatum can only be listed as another 
paradox. It is useless to rack our brains over this extraordinary 
attitude of mind. Indeed we shall only continue to do so while 
we assume that the alchemists were not being consciously and 
intentionally paradoxical. It seems to me that theirs was a per- 
fectly natural view: anything unknowable could best be de- 
scribed in terms of opposites. 9 A long German poem, evidently 
written about the time of its printing in the 1550 Rosarium, 
explains the nature of the Hermaphroditus as follows: 

528 j^ ere i s b orn 1^ Empress of all honour/ 
The philosophers name her their daughter. 
She multiplies/ bears children ever again/ 

They are incorruptibly pure and without any stain. 

The Queen hates death and poverty 
She surpasses gold silver and jewellery/ 
All medicaments great and small. 
Nothing upon earth is her equal/ 
Wherefore we say thanks to God in heaven. 

O force constrains me naked woman that I am/ 
For unblest was my body when I first began. 

6 Norton's "Ordinall" 6, i, p. 48; Philalethes (4, v, p. 802) says: "Qui semel adeptus 
est, ad Autumnum sui laboris pervenit" (He who has once found it has reached 
the harvest time of his work). This is a quotation from Johannes Pontanus, who 
lived about 1550 and was a physician and professor of philosophy at Konigs- 
berg. Cf. Ferguson, 41, II, p. 212. 

7 It is worth noting that St. John of the Cross pictures the ascent of the soul in ten 
stages. 

8 "Ipsa omnia sunt ex uno et de uno et cum uno, quod est radix ipsius" (They 
are all from the One, and of the One, and with the One, which is the root 
of itself) .-2, xiii, p. 369. 

9 Nicholas of Cusa, in his De Docta ignorantia (62), regarded antinomial thought 
as the highest form of reasoning. 

307 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



And never did I become a mother/ 
Until the time when I was born another. 
Then the power o roots and herbs did I possess/ 
And I triumphed over all sickness. 
Then it was that I first knew my son/ 
And we two came together as one. 
There I was made pregnant by him and gave birth 
Upon a barren stretch of earth. 
I became a mother yet remained a maid/ 
And in my nature was established. 
Therefore my son was also my father/ 
As God ordained in accordance with nature. 
I bore the mother who gave me birth/ 
Through me she was born again upon earth. 
To regard as one what nature hath wed/ 
Is in our mountain most masterfully hid. 
Four come together in one/ 
In this our magisterial Stone. 
And six when seen as a trinity/ 
Is brought to essential unity. 
To him who thinks on these things aright/ 
God giveth the power to put to flight 
All such sicknesses as pertain 
To metals and the bodies of men. 
None can do that without God's help/ 
And then only if he see through himself. 
Out of my earth a fountain flows/ 
And into two streams it branching goes. 
One of them runs to the Orient/ 
The other towards the Occident. 
Two eagles fly up with feathers aflame/ 
Naked they fall to earth again. 
Yet in full feather they rise up soon/ 
That fountain is Lord of sun and moon. 
O Lord Jesu Christ who bestow'st 
The gift through the grace of thy Holy Ghost: 
He unto whom it is given truly/ 
Understands the masters' sayings entirely. 
That his thoughts on the future life may dwell/ 
Body and soul are joined so well. 
And to raise them up to their father's kingdom/ 
Such is the way of the art among men. 

308 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



529 This poem is of considerable psychological interest. I have 
already stressed the anima nature of the androgyne. The "un- 
blessedness" of the "first body" has its equivalent in the dis- 
agreeable, daemonic, ' 'unconscious" anima which we considered 
in the last chapter. At its second birth, that is, as a result of 
the opus, this anima becomes fruitful and is born together with 
her son, in the shape of the Hermaphroditus, the product of 
mother-son incest. Neither fecundation nor birth impairs her 
virginity. 10 This essentially Christian paradox is connected with 
the extraordinary timeless quality of the unconscious: every- 
thing has already happened and is yet unhappened, is already 
dead and yet unborn. 11 Such paradoxical statements illustrate 
the potentiality of unconscious contents. In so far as compari- 
sons are possible at all, they are objects of memory and knowl- 
edge, and in this sense belong to the remote past; we therefore 
speak of "vestiges of primordial mythological ideas." But, in so 
far as the unconscious manifests itself in a sudden incompre- 
hensible invasion, it is something that was never there before, 
something altogether strange, new, and belonging to the future. 
The unconscious is thus the mother as well as the daughter, and 
the mother has given birth to her own mother (increatum), and 
her son was her father. lla It seems to have dawned on the alche- 
mists that this most monstrous of paradoxes was somehow con- 
nected with the self, for no man can practise such an art unless 
it be with God's help, and unless "he sees through himself." The 
old masters were aware of this, as we can see from the dialogue 
between Morienus and King Kallid. Morienus relates how Her- 
cules (the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius) told his pupils: "O 
sons of wisdom, know that God, the supreme and glorious 

10 Cf. Zosimos, 2 } iv, p. 309: "Cuius papidis] mater virgo est, et pater non concu- 
buit" (Its [the stone's] mother is a virgin, and the father lay not with her). 

11 Gf. Petrus Bonus, 5, xv, p. 649: "Cuius mater virgo est, cuius pater foeminam 
nescit. Adhuc etiam noverunt, quod Deus fieri debet homo, quia in die novissima 
huius artis, in qua est operis complementum, generans et generattim fiunt 
omnino unum: et senex et puer et pater et filius fiunt omnino unum. Ita quod 
omnia vetera fiunt nova." (Whose mother is a virgin and whose father did not 
know his wife. They also know that God must become man because, on the last 
day of this work, when the completion of this work takes place, the begetter and 
the begotten become altogether one. Old man and youth, father and son, be- 
come altogether one. So that all things old become new.) 

ila Cf. Dante, Paradiso, XXXIII, i: "O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy son. 

39 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



Creator, has made the world out of four unequal elements and 
set man as an ornament between them," When the King begged 
for further explanation, Morienus answered: "Why should I 
tell you many things? For this substance [i.e., the arcanum] is 
extracted from you, and you are its mineral; in you the philoso- 
phers find it, and, that I may speak more plainly, from you they 
take it. And when you have tested it, its love will increase in 
you. And know that this will remain true and indubitable. . . . 
For in this stone the four elements are bound together, and 
men liken it to the world and its structure." 12 

53 One gathers from this discourse that, owing to his posi- 
tion between the four world-principles, man contains within 
himself a replica of the world in which the unequal elements 
are united. This is the microcosm in man, corresponding to the 
"firmament" or "Olympus" of Paracelsus: that unknown quan- 
tity in man which is as universal and wide as the world itself, 
which is in him by nature and cannot be acquired. Psycho- 
logically, this corresponds to the collective unconscious, whose 
projections are to be found everywhere in alchemy. I must re- 
frain from adducing more proofs of the psychological insight of 
the alchemists, since this has already been done elsewhere. 13 

53 1 The end of the poem hints at immortalityat the great hope 
of the alchemists, the elixir vitae. As a transcendental idea, im- 
mortality cannot be the object of experience, hence there is no 
argument either for or against. But immortality as an experi- 
ence of feeling is rather different. A feeling is as indisputable a 
reality as the existence of an idea, and can be experienced to 
exactly the same degree. On many occasions I have observed 
that the spontaneous manifestations of the self, i.e., the ap- 
pearance of certain symbols relating thereto, bring with them 
something of the timelessness of the unconscious which ex- 
presses itself in a feeling of eternity or immortality. Such ex- 
periences can be extraordinarily impressive. The idea of the 
aqua permanens, the incorruptibilitas lapidis, the elixir vitae, 
the cibus immortalis, etc., is not so very strange, since it fits 

I22,xii,p.3 7 . 

13 Cf. my Psychology and Religion, 86, pars. 955., 1536:. (1938 edn., pp. 69!?., other 
lacking); my Paracelsus study, 83, pars. 214$. (Swiss edn., pp. Sgff.); and my Psy- 
chology and Alchemy, 85, pars. 3428:. 

310 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



in with the phenomenology of the collective unconscious. 14 It 
might seem a monstrous presumption on the part of the alchem- 
ist to imagine himself capable, even with God's help, of pro- 
ducing an everlasting substance. This claim gives many trea- 
tises an air of boastfulness and humbug on account of which 
they have deservedly fallen into disrepute and oblivion. All the 
same, we should beware of emptying out the baby with the 
bath water. There are treatises that look deep into the nature 
of the opus and put another complexion on alchemy. Thus the 
anonymous author of the Rosarium says: "Patet ergo quod 
Philosophorum Magister lapis est, quasi diceret, quod naturali- 
ter etiam per se facit quod tenetur facere: et sic Philosophus 
non est Magister lapidis, sed potius minister. Ergo qui quaerit 
per artem extra naturam per artificium inducere aliquid in 
rem, quod in ea naturaliter non est, errat et err or em suum 
deflebit/' (It is therefore clear that the stone is the master of 
the philosophers, as if [the philosopher] were to say that he does 
of his own nature that which he is compelled to do. Therefore 
the philosopher is not the master of the stone but rather its 
minister. Consequently, whoever tries, by means of the art and 
by unnatural artifice, to introduce into it anything which does 
not by nature exist in the arcanum, he will fall into error and 
repent of his error.) 15 This tells us plainly enough that the 
artist does not act from his own creative whim, but is driven to 
act by the stone. This almighty taskmaster is none other than the 
self. The self wants to be made manifest in the work, and for 
this reason the opus is a process of individuation, of becoming a 
self. The self is the total, timeless man and as such corresponds 
to the original, spherical, 16 bisexual being who stands for the 
mutual integration of conscious and unconscious. 
532 From the foregoing we can see how the opus ends with the 
idea of a highly paradoxical being that defies rational analysis. 
The work could hardly end in any other way, since the com- 
plexio oppositorum cannot possibly lead to anything but a baf- 

14 It goes without saying that these concepts offer no solution of any metaphysical 
problem. They neither prove nor disprove the immortality of the soul. 

15 2, xiii, pp. 356! Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, 85, par. 142. 

16 The Persian Gayomart is as broad as he is long, hence spherical in shape like 
the world-soul in Plato's Timaeus. He is supposed to dwell in each individual 
soul and in it to return to God. See Reitzenstein and Schaeder, 142, p. 25. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



fling paradox. Psychologically, this means that human whole- 
ness can only be described in antinomies, which is always the 
case when dealing with a transcendental idea. By way of com- 
parison, we might mention the equally paradoxical corpuscular 
theory and wave theory of light, although these do at least 
hold out the possibility of a mathematical synthesis, which the 
psychological idea naturally lacks. Our paradox, however, offers 
the possibility of an intuitive and emotional experience, be- 
cause the unity of the self, unknowable and incomprehensible, 
irradiates even the sphere of our discriminating, and hence 
divided, consciousness, and, like all unconscious contents, does 
so with very powerful effects. This inner unity, or experience of 
unity, is expressed most forcibly by the mystics in the idea 
of the unio mystica, and above all in the philosophy and re- 
ligion of India, in Chinese Taoism, and in the Zen Buddhism of 
Japan. From the point of view of psychology, the names we 
give to the self are quite irrelevant, and so is the question of 
whether or not it is "real." Its psychological reality is enough 
for all practical purposes. The intellect is incapable of knowing 
anything beyond that anyway, and therefore its Pilate-like 
questionings are devoid of meaning. 

533 To come back to our picture: it shows an apotheosis of 
the Rebis, the right side of the body being male, the left fe- 
male. The figure stands on the moon, which in this case cor- 
responds to the feminine lunar vessel, the vas Hermeticum. Its 
wings betoken volatility, i.e., spirituality. In one hand it 
holds a chalice with three snakes in it, or possibly one snake 
with three heads; in the other, a single snake. This is an obvi- 
ous allusion to the axiom of Maria and the old dilemma of 3 
and 4, and also to the mystery of the Trinity. The three snakes 
in the chalice are the chthonic equivalent of the Trinity, and 
the single snake represents, firstly, the unity of the three as ex- 
pressed by Maria and, secondly, the "sinister" serpens Mer- 
curialis with all its subsidiary meanings. 17 Whether pictures of 
this kind are in any way related to the Baphomet 18 of the 
Templars is an open question, but the snake symbolism 19 cer- 

1T Cf. "The Spirit Mercurius," 89. 

IS From pacpTi (tinctura) and ^fJTig (skill, sagacity), roughly corresponding to 
the Krater of Hermes filled with <vo$. Cf. Nicolai, 123, p. 120; Hammer, Mys- 
tenum Baphometis, 63, pp. gff. 

19 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, 85, fig. 70, showing a snake ritual. There is no cer- 
tain connection with the Templars (Hammer, Memoire sur coffrets gnostiques, 62). 

312 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



tainly points to the problem of evil, which, although outside 
the Trinity, is yet somehow connected with the work of re- 
demption. Moreover to the left of the Rebis we also find the 
raven, a synonym for the devil. 20 The unfledged bird has dis- 
appeared: its place is taken by the winged Rebis. To the right, 
there stands the "sun and moon tree," the arbor philosophic^ 
which is the conscious equivalent of the unconscious process 
of development suggested on the opposite side. The correspond- 
ing picture of the Rebis in the second version 21 has, instead 
of the raven, a pelican plucking its breast for its young, a well- 
known allegory of Christ. In the same picture a lion is prowl- 
ing about behind the Rebis and, at the bottom of the hill on 
which the Rebis stands, there is the three-headed snake. 22 The 
alchemical hermaphrodite is a problem in itself and really 
needs special elucidation. Here I will say only a few words 
about the remarkable fact that the fervently desired goal of the 
alchemist's endeavours should be conceived under so mon- 
strous and horrific an image. We have proved to our satisfac- 
tion that the antithetical nature of the goal largely accounts 
for the monstrosity of the corresponding symbol. But this ra- 
tional explanation does not alter the fact that the monster 
is a hideous abortion and a perversion of nature. Nor is this a 
mere accident undeserving of further scrutiny; it is on the con- 
trary highly significant and the outcome of certain psycho- 
logical facts fundamental to alchemy. The symbol of the 
hermaphrodite, it must be remembered, is one of the many 
synonyms for the goal of the art. In order to avoid unnecessary 
repetition I would refer the reader to the material collected in 
Psychology and Alchemy,, and particularly to the lapis-Christus 
parallel, to which we must add the rarer and, for obvious rea- 

20 Anastasius Sinaita, 12, Lib. XII: "Et cum vel suffocatus esset et periisset tene- 
brosus corvus Satan . . ." (And when the dark raven Satan [or "of Satan"] was 
either suffocated or had perished . . .). St. Ambrose, 11, Lib. I, Cap. VIII: "Siqui- 
dem omnis impudentia atque culpa tenebrosa est et mortuis pascitur sicut corvus 
. . ." (If indeed all shamelessness and guilt is dark and feeds on the dead like a 
raven . . .). Again, the raven signifies the peccatores: St. Augustine, Annotationes 
in Job, 15, Lib. I, Cap. XXXVIII, v. 41: "Significantur ergo nigri [scl. corvi] hoc est 
peccatores nondum dealbati remissione peccatorum" (They signify the black 
[raven], i.e., the sinners not yet whitened by remission of their sins). Paulinus of 
Aquileia, 130: "anima peccatoris . . . quae nigrior corvo est" (The soul of a sin- 
ner . . . which is blacker than a raven). 

21 Rosarium, 2, xiii, p. 359. See Psychology and Alchemy, 85, fig. 54. 

22 For further pictures of the Rebis see ibid., Index, s.v. "hermaphrodite." 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



sons, generally avoided comparison of the prima materia with 
God. 23 Despite the closeness of the analogy, the lapis is not to 
be understood simply as the risen Christ and the prima materia 
as God; the Tabula smaragdina hints, rather, that the alchemi- 
cal mystery is a "lower" equivalent of the higher mysteries, a 
sacrament not of the paternal "mind" but of maternal "mat- 
ter." The disappearance of theriomorphic symbols in Christi- 
anity is here compensated by a wealth of allegorical animal 
forms which tally quite well with mater natura. Whereas the 
Christian figures are the product of spirit, light, and good, the 
alchemical figures are creatures of night, darkness, poison, and 
evil. These dark origins do much to explain the misshapen 
hermaphrodite, but they do not explain everything. The crude, 
embryonic features of this symbol express the immaturity of the 
alchemist's mind, which was not sufficiently developed to equip 
him for the difficulties of his task. He was underdeveloped in 
two senses: firstly he did not understand the real nature of 
chemical combinations, and secondly he knew nothing about 
the psychological problem of projection and the unconscious. 
All this lay as yet hidden in the womb of the future. The 
growth of natural science has filled the first gap, and the psy- 
chology of the unconscious is endeavouring to fill the second. 
Had the alchemists understood the psychological aspects of 
their work, they would have been in a position to free their 
"uniting symbol" from the grip of instinctive sexuality where, 
for better or worse, mere nature, unsupported by the critical 
intellect, was bound to leave it. Nature could say no more than 
that the combination of supreme opposites was a hybrid thing. 
And there the statement stuck, in sexuality, as always when the 

23 The identification of the prima materia with God occurs not only in alchemy 
but in other branches of medieval philosophy as well. It derives from Aristotle 
and its first appearance in alchemy is in the "Harranite Treatise of Platonic 
Tetralogies" (5, xiii). Mennens (5, xiv, p. 334) says: "Nomen itaque quadriliterum 
Dei sanctissimam Trinitatem designare videtur et materiam, quae et umbra eius 
dicitur et a Moyse Dei posterior a vocatur" (Therefore the four-letter name seems 
to signify the Most Holy Trinity and the Materia, which is also called His Shadow, 
and which Moses called Dei posteriora). Subsequently this idea crops up in the phi- 
losophy of David of Dinant, who was attacked by Albertus Magnus: "Sunt quidam 
haeretici dicentes Deum et materiam primam et vovv sive mentem idem esse" 
(There are some heretics who say that God and the prima materia and the Nous 
or mind are the same thing). Summa Theologica, I, 6, quaest. 39. Further de- 
tails in Kronlein, 104, pp. 3035. 

314 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



potentialities of consciousness do not come to the assistance of 
naturewhich could hardly have been otherwise in the Middle 
Ages owing to the complete absence of psychology. 24 So things 
remained until, at the end of the nineteenth century, Freud 
dug up this problem again. There now ensued what usually 
happens when the conscious mind collides with the uncon- 
scious: the former is influenced and prejudiced in the highest 
degree by the latter, if not actually overpowered by it. The 
problem of the union of opposites had been lying there for 
centuries in its sexual form, yet it had to wait until scientific 
enlightenment and objectivity had advanced far enough for 
people to mention "sexuality" in scientific conversation. The 
sexuality of the unconscious was instantly taken with great 
seriousness and elevated to a sort of religious dogma, which 
has been fanatically defended right down to the present time: 
such was the fascination emanating from those contents which 
had last been nurtured by the alchemists! The natural arche- 
types that underlie the mythologems of incest, the hieros gamos, 
the divine child, etc., blossomed forth in the age of science 
into the theory of infantile sexuality, perversions, and incest, 
while the coniunctio was rediscovered in the transference neu- 
rosis. 25 

534 The sexualism of the hermaphrodite-symbol completely 
overpowered consciousness and gave rise to an attitude of mind 
which is just as unsavoury as the old hybrid symbolism. The 
task that defeated the alchemists presented itself anew: how is 
the profound cleavage in man and the world to be understood, 
how are we to respond to it and, if possible, abolish it? So runs 
the question when stripped of its natural sexual symbolism, 
in which it had got stuck only because the problem could 
not push its way over the threshold of the unconscious. The 
sexualism of these contents always denotes an unconscious iden- 
tity of the ego with some unconscious figure (either anima 
or animus), and because of this the ego is obliged, willing and 

24 The idea of the hermaphrodite is seemingly to be met with in later Christian 
mysticism. Thus Pierre Poiret (1646-1719), the friend of Mme Guyon, was 
accused of believing that, in the millennium, propagation would take place her- 
maphroditically. The accusation was refuted by Cramer (writing in Hauck, 66, XV, 
p. 496), who showed that there was nothing of this in Poiret's writings. 

25 It is interesting to see how this theory once more joined forces with alchemy 
in Herbert Silberer's book, Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism, 151. 

315 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



reluctant at once, to be a party to the hieros gamos, or at least 
to believe that it is simply and solely a matter of an erotic con- 
summation. And sure enough it increasingly becomes so the 
more one believes itthe more exclusively, that is to say, one 
concentrates on the sexual aspect and the less attention one 
pays to the archetypal patterns. As we have seen, the whole 
question invites fanaticism because it is so painfully obvious 
that we are in the wrong. If, on the other hand, we decline to 
accept the argument that because a thing is fascinating it is the 
absolute truth, then we give ourselves a chance to see that the 
alluring sexual aspect is but one among many the very one 
that deludes our judgment. This aspect is always trying to de- 
liver us into the power of a partner who seems compounded of 
all the qualities we have failed to realize in ourselves. Hence, 
unless we prefer to be made fools of by our illusions, we shall, 
by carefully analysing every fascination, extract from it a por- 
tion of our own personality, like a quintessence, and slowly 
come to recognize that we meet ourselves time and again in a 
thousand disguises on the path of life. This, however, is a truth 
which only profits the man who is temperamentally convinced 
of the individual and irreducible reality of his fellow men. 

535 We know that in the course of the dialectical process the 
unconscious produces certain images of the goal. In Psychology 
and Alchemy I have described a long series of dreams which 
contain such images (including even a shooting target). They 
are mostly concerned with ideas of the mandala type, that is, the 
circle and the quaternity. The latter are the plainest and most 
characteristic representations of the goal. Such images unite the 
opposites under the sign of the quaternio, i.e., by combining 
them in the form of a cross, or else they express the idea of 
wholeness through the circle or sphere. The superior type of 
personality may also figure as a goal-image, though more rarely. 
Occasionally special stress is laid on the luminous character 
of the centre. I have never come across the hermaphrodite as 
a personification of the goal, but more as a symbol of the initial 
state, expressing an identity with anima or animus. 

536 These images are naturally only anticipations of a whole- 
ness which is, in principle, always just beyond our reach. Also, 
they do not invariably indicate a subliminal readiness on the 
part of the patient to realize that wholeness consciously, at a 

316 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



later stage; often they mean no more than a temporary com- 
pensation for chaotic confusion and lack of orientation. Funda- 
mentally, of course, they always point to the self, the container 
and organizer of all opposites. But at the moment of their ap- 
pearance they merely wish to indicate the possibility of order 
in wholeness. 

537 What the alchemist tried to express with his Rebis and 
his squaring of the circle, and what the modern man also tries to 
express when he draws patterns of circles and quaternities, is 
wholeness a wholeness that resolves all opposition and puts an 
end to conflict, or at least draws its sting. The symbol of this 
is a coincidentia oppositorum which, as we know, Nicholas of 
Cusa identified with God. It is far from my intention to cross 
swords with this great man. My business is merely the natural 
science of the psyche, and my main concern to establish the 
facts. How these facts are named and what further interpre- 
tation is then placed upon them is of secondary importance. 
Natural science is not a science of words and ideas, but of facts. 
I am no terminological rigorist call the existing symbols 
"wholeness," "self," "consciousness," "higher ego," or what 
you will, it makes little difference. I for my part only try not 
to give any false or misleading names. All these terms are sim- 
ply names for the facts that alone carry weight. The names 
I give do not imply a philosophy, although I cannot prevent 
people from barking at these terminological phantoms as if they 
were scientific postulates. The facts are sufficient in themselves, 
and it is well to know about them. But their interpretation 
should be left to the individual's discretion. "Maximum autem 
est, cui nihil opponitur, ubi et Minimum est Maximum" (The 
maximum is that to which nothing is opposed, and in which the 
minimum is also the maximum), 26 says Nicholas of Cusa. Yet 
God is also above the opposites: "Ultra hanc coincidentiam 
creare cum creari es tu Deus" (Beyond this coincidence of creat- 
ing and being created art Thou God). 2T Man is an analogy of 
God: "Homo enim Deus est, sed non absolute, quoniam homo. 
Humane igitur est Deus. Homo etiam mundus est, sed non 
contracte omnia, quoniam homo. Est igitur homo |n%e6%oa|Aog." 
(Man is God, but not in an absolute sense, since he is man. He is 
therefore in a human way God. Man is also a world, but he is not 

26 De docta ignorantia, 122, II, 3. 27 Ibid., XII. 

517 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



all things at once in contracted form, since he is man. He is 
therefore a microcosm.) 28 Hence the complexio oppositorum be- 
comes a possibility as well as an ethical duty: "Debet autem in 
his profundis omnis nostri humani ingenii conatus esse, ut ad 
illam se elevet simplicitatem, ubi contradictoria coincidunt" 
(All the endeavour of our human intellect must be concerned 
with these deep problems, that it may rise to that simplicity 
where the opposites coincide). 29 The alchemists are as it were 
the empiricists of the great problem of the union of opposites, 
whereas Nicholas of Cusa is its philosopher. 

2S > e conjectures, 121, II, 14. 

29 122, 1, Ch. X. (Cited in Vansteenberghe, 158, pp. 310, 346, 283.) 



318 



EPILOGUE 

53 8 To give any description of the transference phenomenon 
is a very difficult and delicate task, and I did not know how to 
set about it except by drawing upon the symbolism of the al- 
chemical opus. The theoria of alchemy, as I think I have shown, 
is for the most part a projection of unconscious contents, of 
those archetypal forms which are the characteristic features of 
all pure fantasy-products, such as are to be met with in myths 
and fairytales, or in the dreams, visions, and the manias of indi- 
vidual men and women. The important part played in the his- 
tory of alchemy by the hieros gamos and the mystical marriage, 
and also by the coniunctiOj, corresponds to the central signifi- 
cance of the transference in psychotherapy on the one hand 
and in the field of normal human relationships on the other. 
For this reason, it did not seem to me too rash an undertaking 
to use an historical document, whose substance derives from 
centuries of intellectual effort, as the basis and guiding thread 
of my argument. The gradual unfolding of the symbolic drama 
presented me with a welcome opportunity to bring together 
the countless individual experiences I have had in the course 
of many years* study of this theme experiences which, I read- 
ily admit, I did not know how to arrange in any other way. This 
venture, therefore, must be regarded as a mere experiment; I 
have no desire to attribute any conclusive significance to it. 
The problems connected with the transference are so compli- 
cated and so various that I lack the categories necessary for a 
systematic account. There is in such cases always an urge to 
simplify things, but this is dangerous because it so easily violates 
the facts by seeking to reduce incompatibles to a common de- 
nominator. I have resisted this temptation as much as possible 
and allow myself to hope that the reader will not run away 
with the idea that the process I have described here is a work- 
ing model of the average course of events. Experience shows, in 
fact, that not only were the alchemists exceedingly vague as to 
the sequence of the various stages, but that in our observation 

319 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 



of individual cases there is a bewildering number of variations 
as well as the greatest arbitrariness in the sequence of states, 
despite all agreement in principle as to the basic facts. A logical 
order, as we understand it, or even the possibility of such an 
order, seems to lie outside the bounds of our subject at present. 
We are moving here in a region of individual and unique hap- 
penings that have no parallel. A process of this kind can, if our 
categories are wide enough, be reduced to an order of sorts and 
described, or at least adumbrated, with the help of analogies; 
but its inmost essence is the uniqueness of a life individually 
lived and this nobody can grasp from outside, rather, the in- 
dividual concerned is grasped by it. The series of pictures that 
served as our "Ariadne thread" is one of many, 1 so that we 
could easily set up several other working models which would 
display the process of transference each in a different light. But 
no single model would be capable of fully expressing the end- 
less wealth of individual variations which all have their raison 
d'etre. Such being the case, it is clear to me that even this at- 
tempt to give a comprehensive account of the phenomenon is a 
bold undertaking. Yet its practical importance is so great that 
the attempt surely justifies itself, even if its defects give rise 
to misunderstandings. 

639 We live today in a time of confusion and disintegration. 
Everything is in the melting pot. As is usual in such circum- 
stances, unconscious contents thrust forward to the very borders 
of consciousness for the purpose of compensating the crisis in 
which it finds itself. It is therefore well worth our while to 
examine all such borderline phenomena with the greatest care, 
however obscure they seem, with a view to discovering the seeds of 

1 Of these I would only draw attention to the series contained in the Mutus 
liber, 119, where the adept and his soror mystica are shown performing the opus. 
The first picture (fig. u) shows an angel waking the sleeper with a trumpet; in 
the second picture (fig. 12), the pair of alchemists kneel on either side of the 
Athanor (furnace) with the sealed phial inside it, and above them are two angels 
holding the same phial, which now contains Sol and Luna, the spiritual equiva- 
lents of the two adepts. The third picture (fig. 13) shows, among other things, the 
soror catching birds in a net and the adept hooking a nixie with rod and 
line: birds, being volatile creatures, stand for thoughts or the pluralistic animus, 
and the nixie corresponds to the anima. The undisguisedly psychic character of this 
portrayal of the opus is probably due to the fact that the book was written 
comparatively late 1677. 

320 




Fiffure i i 





Figure 1 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE 



new and potential orders. The transference phenomenon is with- 
out doubt one of the most important syndromes in the process of 
individuation; its wealth of meanings goes far beyond mere per- 
sonal likes and dislikes. By virtue of its collective contents and 
symbols it transcends the individual personality and extends 
into the social sphere, reminding us of those higher human re- 
lationships which are so painfully absent in our present social 
order, or rather disorder. The symbols of the circle and the 
quaternity, the hallmarks of the individuation process, point 
back, on the one hand, to the original and primitive order of 
human society, and forward on the other to an inner order of 
the psyche. It is as though the psyche were the indispensable 
instrument in the reorganization of a civilized community as 
opposed to the collectivities which are so much in favour today, 
with their aggregations of half-baked mass-men. This type of 
organization has a meaning only if the human material it pur- 
ports to organize is good for something. But the mass-man is 
good for nothing he is a mere particle that has forgotten what 
it is to be human and has lost its soul. What our world lacks 
is the psychic connection; and no clique, no community of in- 
terests, no political party, and no State will ever be able to re- 
place this. It is therefore small wonder that it was the doctors 
and not the sociologists who were the first to feel more clearly 
than anybody else the true needs of man, for, as psychother- 
apists, they have the most direct dealings with the sufferings of 
the soul. If my general conclusions sometimes coincide almost 
word for word with the thoughts of Pestalozzi, the deeper reason 
for this does not lie in any special knowledge I might possess of 
this great educator's writings but in the nature of the subject 
itself, that is, in insight into the reality of man. 



32* 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The items of the bibliography are arranged alphabetically under two 
headings: A. Ancient volumes containing collections of alchemical 
tracts by various authors; I*. General bibliography, including cross- 
references to the material in section A. Short titles of the ancient 
volumes are printed in capital letters. 



A. ANCIENT VOLUMES CONTAINING 

COLLECTIONS OF ALCHEMICAL TRACTS 

BY VARIOUS AUTHORS 

1 ARS GHEMICA, quod sit licita recte exercentibus, probationes 

doctissimorum iurisconsultorum. . . . Argentorati [Stras- 
bourg], 1566. 

Contents quoted in this volume: 

i Septem tractatus seu capitula Hermetis Trismegisti 
aurei [pp. 7-31; usually referred to as "Tractatus 
aureus"] 

ii Studium Consilii coniugii de massa solis et lunae 
[pp. 48-263; usually referred to as "Consilium coni- 
ugii"] 

2 ARTIS AURIFERAE quam chemiam vacant. . . . Basileae 

[Basel], [1593]. 2 vols. 

Contents quoted in this volume: 

VOLUME I 

i Aenigmata ex visione Arislei philosophi et allegoriis 
sapientum [pp. 14654; usually referred to as "Visio 
Arislei"] 

ii In Turbam philosophorum exercitationes [pp. 154-82] 
iii Aurora consurgens, quae dicitur Aurea hora [pp. 185- 

246] 
iv [Zosimus:] Rosinus ad Sarratantam episcopum [pp. 

277-319] 

325 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

v Maria Prophetissa: Fractica . . . in artem alchemicam 

[pp. 3 1 9-24] 
vi [Kallid:] Liber secretorum alchemiae compositus per 

Calid filium lazichi [pp. 325-51 > see also 21 ( Bacon )l 
vil Liber trium verborum Kallid [pp. 352-61; authorship 

doubtful] 
viii Tractatulus Aristotelis de practica lapidis philosophic! 

[pp. 36i-73] 
ix Merlinus: Allegoria de arcano lapidis [pp. 392-90] 

x Tractatulus Avicennae [pp. 45~37] 
xi Liber de arte chymica [pp. 575-63 1 ] 

VOLUME II 

xii Morienus Romanus: Sermo de transmutatione metal- 

lica [pp. 7-54] 
xiii Rosarium philosophorum [pp. 204-384] 

MANGETUS, JOANNES JACOBUS (ed.). BIBLIOTHECA CHEM- 
ICA CURIOS A, sen Rerum ad alchemiam pertinentium 
thesauraus instructissimus. . . . Geneva [Colonia Allobro- 
gum], 1702. 2 vols. 

Contents quoted in this volume: 
i Hermes Trismegistus: Tractatus aureus de lapidis 

physici secreto [pp. 400-445] 
ii Lully: Testamentum novissimum, Carolo regi dicatum 

[pp. 790-806] 

iii Mutus Liber in quo tamen tota Philosophia Hermetica 
figuris hieroglyphicis depingitur [unpaged, follow- 
ing p. 93 g ] 

MUSAEUM HERMETICUM reformatum et amplificatum 
. . continens tractatus chimicos XXI praestantissimos, . . . 
Francofurti [Frankfort], 1678. For translation, see 158 
(Waite). 

Contents quoted in this volume: 

i [Hermes Trismegistus:] Tractatus aureus de philoso- 
phorum lapide [pp. 8-52] 
ii [Barcius (F. von Sternberg):] Gloria mundi, alias Para- 

dysi tabula [pp. 203-304] 

iii Lambspringk: De lapide philosophico figurae et em- 
blemata [pp. 337-71] 
326 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Iv Fhilalethes: Introitus apertus ad occlusum regis pala- 

tium [pp. 647-700] 
v Philalethes: Fons chemicae philosophiae [pp. 799-814] 

T HEAT RUM CHEMICUM, praedpuos selectorum auctorum 
tractatus . . . continent. Ursellis [Ursel], 1602. 3 vols. (Vol. 
IV, Argentorati [Strasbourg], 1613; Vol. V, Argentorati, 1622.) 
Contents quoted in this volume: 

VOLUME I 

i Hoghelande: Liber de alchemlae difficultatibus [pp. 

121-215] 
ii Dorn: Speculativae philosophiae, gradus septem vel 

decem continens [pp. 255-310] 
iii Dorn: Physica Trismegisti [pp. 405-37] 
iv Dorn: Congeries Paracelsicae chemicae de transmuta- 

tionibus metallorum [pp. 557-646] 

v Zacharias: Opusculum philosophiae naturalis metal- 
lorum [pp. 804-48] 

VOLUME II 

vi Aegidius de Vadis: Dialogus inter naturam et filmm 

philosophiae [pp. 95-123] 
vii Penotus: Quinquaginta septem canones de opere 

physico [pp. 150-54] 

viii Dee: Monas hieroglyphica [pp. 218-43] 
ix Ventura: De ratione conficiendi lapidis [pp. 244-356] 

VOLUME III 

x [Melchior:] Addam et processum sub forma missae, a 
Nicolao [Melchiori] Cibiensi, Transilvano, ad Ladis- 
laum Ungariae et Bohemiae regem olim missum 
[pp. 853-60] 

VOLUME IV 

xi Artefius: Clavis majoris sapientiae [pp. 221-40] 
xii Avicenna: Declaratio lapidis physici filio suo Aboali 
[pp. 986-94] 

VOLUME V 

xiii Liber Platonis quartorum . . . [pp. 114-208] 
xiv Mennens: Aurei velleris . . . libri tres [pp. 267-470] 
xv Bonus: Preciosa margarita novella [pp. 589-794] 
327 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

xvi Tractatus Aristotelis alchymistae ad Alexandrum Mag- 
num, de lapide philosophico [pp. 880-92] 

6 THEATRUM CHEMICUM BRITANNICUM. Containing 

Several! Poeticall Pieces of Our Famous English Philosophers, 
Who Have Written the Hermetique Mysteries in Their Owne 
Ancient Language. Collected with annotations by Elias Ash- 
mole. London, 1652. 

Contents quoted in this volume: 
i Norton: The Ordinall of Alchimy [pp. 13-106; for a 

facsimile reproduction see: 

i-a THOMAS NORTON OF BRISTOLL. The Ordinall of Al- 
chimy. With an introduction by E. J. Holmyard. 
London, 1928; Baltimore, 1929.] 

B. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ABUL KASIM. See 69 (Holmyard). 

7 Acta Joannis. In: A eta apostolorum apocrypha. Edited by Rich- 

ard Adalbert Lipsius and Maximilian Bonnet after Constan- 
tine Tischendorf. Leipzig, 1891, 1903. 2 vols. (Vol. II.) For 
translation, see: 

8 Acts of John. In: MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES (trans.). The 

Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford, 1924. (Pp. 228ft.) 

9 Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae. Frankfort on the Main, 

1684. 
AEGIDIUS DE VADIS. See 5 (Theatrum chemicum), vi. 

10 AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM, HEINRICH CORNELIUS. De incertitu- 

dine et vanitate omnium scientiarum. The Hague, 1653. 

11 AMBROSE, SAINT, De Noe et Area. See 117 (Migne, Pi.), vol. 14, 

col. 391. 

12 ANASTASIUS SINAITA. Anagogicae contemplationes in hexae- 

meron ad Theophilum. See 117 (Migne, P.G.), vol. 89, cols. 
851-1078. 

ANDREAE, JOHANN VALENTIN. See 145 (Rosencreutz). 

13 ANGELUS SILESIUS (Johannes Scheffler). Cherubinischer Wan- 

dersmann. In: Sdmtliche poetische Werke. Edited by H. L. 
Held. Munich, 1924. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ARISTOTLE, pseud. See 2 (Artis auriferae), viii; 5 (Theatrum 

chemicurri), xvi. 

ARTEFIUS. See 5 (Theatrum chemicurri), xi. 
ASHMOLE, ELIAS. See 6 (Theatrum chemicum Britannicum). 

14 ATWOOD, MARY ANNE. A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic 

Mystery. Belfast, 1918. 

15 AUGUSTINE, SAINT, Annotationes in Job. See 117 (Migne, P.L.), 

vol. 34, col. 880. 

15 . Confessiones. See 117 (Migne, P.L.), vol. 32, col. 784. 

For translation, see: 

17 [ ,] The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Translated by 

Francis Joseph Sheed. London, 1943. 

18 . Epistula LV. See 117 (Migne, P.L.), vol. 33, cols. 208-209. 

19 "Aurora consurgens." 

Part I. See 35, iii (Codex Rhenovacensis 172)* 
Part II. See 2 (Artis auriferae), iii. 

20 AVALON, ARTHUR, pseud. (Sir John Woodroffe) (ed. and trans.). 

The Serpent Power. Translated from the Sanskrit. 3rd revised 
edition, Madras and London, 1931. 
AVICENNA. See 5 (Theatrum chemicum), xii. 

21 BACON, ROGER. The Mirror of Alchimy . . . with Certaine 

Other Worthie Treatises of the Like Argument. (The Smarag- 
dine Table of Hermes Trismegistus, a Commentarie ofHortu- 
lanus, The Booke of the Secrets of Alchemie by Calid the Son 
of Jazich.) London, 1597. 

22 Baruch, Apocalypse of. In: ROBERT HENRY CHARLES (ed.). The 

Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in 
English. Oxford, 1933. 2 vols. (Vol. II, pp. 47ofL) 

23 BAYNES, CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA. A Coptic Gnostic Treatise Con- 

tained in the Codex Brucianus Bruce MS. 96., Bodleian 
Library, Oxford. Cambridge, 1933. 

24 BENOIT, PIERRE. L'Atlantide. Paris, 1920. For translation, see: 

25 . Atlantida. Translated by Mary C. Tongue and Mary 

Ross. New York, 1920. 

26 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, SAINT. Sermo in Cantica canticorum. 

See 117 (Migne, PX.), vol. 183, cols. 932-33. For translation, 
see: 

329 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



27 . Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles. Translated by a 

Priest of Mount Melleray. Dublin, 1920. 2 vols. 

BJSROALDE DE VERVILLE, FRANCOIS. See 37. 

28 BERTHELOT, MARCELLIN. La Chimie au moyen dge. (Histoire des 

sciences.) Paris, 1893. 3 vols. 

29 . Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs. Paris, 1887-88. 

3 vols.: Introduction, Textes, Traductions. 

BONUS, PETRUS. See 5 (Theatrum chemicum), xv. 

30 BOUSSET, WILHELM. Hauptprobleme der Gnosis. (Forschungen 

zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, 
X.) Gottingen, 1907. 

31 BROWN, WILLIAM. "The Revival of Emotional Memories and 

Its Therapeutic Value," British Journal of Psychology (Lon- 
don), Medical Section, I (1920-31), 16-18. 

32 CARDAN, JEROME (Hieronymus Cardanus). Somniorum synesio- 

rum omnis generis insomnia explicantes libri IV. Basel, 1652. 

2 VOls. 

33 CHRISTENSEN, ARTHUR. Les Types du premier homme et du 

premier roi dans I'histoire legendaire des iraniens. (Archives 
d'Studes orientales, XIV, Parts 1-2.) Stockholm, 1917; 
Leiden, 1934. 

34 CHWOLSOHN, DANIEL ABRAMOVICH. Die Ssabier und der Ssabis- 

mus. St. Petersburg, 1856. 2 vols. 

35 Codices and manuscripts: 

i Florence. Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana. MS. (Ash- 

burnham 1166). "Miscellanea d'alchimia." i4th cent. 

ii Paris. Bibliotheque nationale. MS, (Latin 919). "Grandes 

heures du due de Berry." 1413. 

iii Zurich, Zentralbibliothek. Codex Rhenovacensis 172. 
i5th cent. Abh. i: "Aurora consurgens." (Note: Muti- 
lated manuscript beginning at the fourth parable.) 

36 COLONNA, FRANCESCO. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. . . . Venice, 

1499. For French translation, see 37; for paraphrase, see 38. 

37 .] Le Songe de Poliphile. Translated by Francois B&oalde 

de Verville. Paris, 1600. 

38 [ .] The Dream of Poliphilo. Related and interpreted by 

Linda Fierz-David. Translated by Mary Hottinger. (Bollingen 
Series XXV.) New York, 1950. 

330 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Consilium coniugii." See 1 (Ars chemica), li. 
DEE, JOHN. See 5 (Theatrum chemicum), viii. 

39 DEMOCRITUS, pseudo. Physica et mystica. See "Questions natu- 

relles et rnysterieuses" in 29 (Berthelot), II, i (Textes: pp. 41- 
53; Traductions: pp. 43-57). 
DORN, GERHARD. See 5 (Theatrum chemicum), ii~iv. 

40 Du CANGE, CHARLES DU FRESNE, SIEUR. Glossarium ad scriptores 

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41 FERGUSON, JOHN. Bibliotheca Chemica. Glasgow, 1906, 2 vols. 

42 FIERZ-DAVID, HANS EDUARD. Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der 

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ii Marchen aus Sibirien. Edited by Hugo Kunike. (Die 
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iii Russian Fairy Tales. Translated by Norbert Guterman. 
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See also 141 (Rasmussen). 

45 FRAZER, SIR JAMES GEORGE. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul. 

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47 FREUD, SIGMUND. "Further Recommendations in the Technique 

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48 . "Further Recommendations in the Technique of Psycho- 
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- 377-9 1 -) 



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* For details of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung, see announcement at end of 
this volume. 

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. (Zosirnus). See 2 (Art is auri ferae), iv. 



340 



INDEX 



INDEX 
Bold type is used for references to items of the bibliography. 



abaissement du niveau mental, 173, 
180, 266 

dblutio, 259 

abreaction, 19, 23, 74, 132, 133; at- 
tempt to reintegrate autonomous 
complex, 132; carthartic method 
of, 133; curative effect of, 132; 
harmful, 131; of original affective 
situations, 23; and war neurosis, 
130 

Abul Kasim=Abu'l Qasim (al-Iraqi), 
69, 2o6n^ 286n 

accidents, 57 

Acts of John, 78, 2oon 

Adam, 24872., 25871; and animus, 301; 
sin of, symbolized by black water, 
26372; struck by arrow, 300; tree 
growing from genitals of, 300 

adaptation, 39, 65, 70, 134; and neu- 
rosis, 7; normal, 68; social, 66/ 

adept, 2i9/, 221, 227, 259, 32on; see 
also alchemist(s); artifex 

Adler, Alfred, i9/, 24, 25, 37, $Sf, 53, 
88, 113, 118, 119, 173; as educator, 
4, 67, 111; and incest, 178; power- 
drive, 19; and socio-political trend, 
26; his theory and method, 66^ 

Adonai, 28571 

Adonis, 259 

advice, 21, 117, 252; "good advice," 
17371 

Aegidius de Vadis, 5/vi, $o6n 

aesthetici sm, 277/ 

aetiology, 31; of neuroses, 143 

affect(s) : autoerotic, 266; explosion 
of, 131; traumatic, in dreams, 132 



afflictio animaej 2 ion 

Agrippa von Nettesheim, Cornelius, 
10, 2i5^n 

aims: autoerotic, in science, 42; of 
psychotherapy, 81, 83; social use- 
fulness, 50; therapeutic, 41, 52 

al-, see under main element of name 

albedo, 271, 279; see also white(ness) 

Albertus Magnus, 103, 3i4n 

alchemist(s): contradictions of, 285; 
as doctors and analysts of dreams, 
200; as empiricists of psyche, 28871; 
empiricists of union of opposites, 
318; fables and parables of, 286n; 
failed to distinguish corpus and 
spiritus, 288; and images, 287; 
inner experiences of, 287; intellec- 
tual responsibility of, 285; mental 
backwardness / immaturity, 287, 
314; obscurity of, 286n; pairs of, 
294, 32072; psychological state of, 
198; and schoolmen, 288; work- 
room of, igS/; see also adept; arti- 
fex 

alchemy: and ecclesiastical symbol- 
ism, 262; female philosophers in, 
294; a form of mysticism, 269; a 
masculine preoccupation, 294; self 
in, 102; theoria of, 319; in un- 
conscious process, 198; and yoga, 
102 

Alfidius, 248, 274 

Alkia, 27 in 

alter ego, 223 

amalgam, mysterious, 198 

ambivalence, 188 

Ambrose, St., 11, 



343 



INDEX 



analogy (-ies), 168; and associations, 

45 

analysis: of analyst, 72, 137; demands 
of, on doctor, 138; dream-, 139^7 
reductive, 19, 135, I36/; training, 
115, 116, 177; see also psycho- 
analysis 

analyst: ethical attitude of, 74; per- 
sonality of, 8, 74, 88; reasons for 
analysis of, 72, 137; see also doctor; 
psychotherapist 

analytical psychology, 53, 54; achieve- 
ments of, 55 

anamnesis, 84, 85/, 87, 122, 142 
Anastasius Sinaita, 12, 313^ 
Andreae, Johann Valentin (Christian 
Rosencreutz), 145, 209^ 216, 286n, 
289 

androgyne, anima nature of, 309; see 
also hermaphrodite / hermaphro- 
ditus 

angel, 32on; soul as, 299 
Angelus Silesius, 13, 270*1, 293n 
anima: anima and spiritus, 276; and 
animus, see below; as autoerotic 
being, 293; as autonomous /pro- 
jected part of personality, 220, 228 
(latent) , 244n, 293; derivation 
from numen of goddess, 229; effect 
on man's understanding, 301; ego 
vs., 226; as function of relation- 
ship, 293; Helen as figure of, 174; 
and/ as hermaphrodite, 243, 309, 
316; magical aspect of, 225; man's 
opus concerned with, 300; mar- 
riage with, 224/; and marriage 
quaternity, 225; matrix of divine 
figures, 293; as nixie, 32071; recon- 
ciles and unites, 301^7 representa- 
tive of collective unconscious, 293; 
and Shakti, 293; as soul, 259; un- 
conscious personified as, 264; as 
unknown woman, i4/; as "vin- 
culum," 243; within, 229; -figure, 
four stages of, 174; see also animus; 
prima materia; Sophia 
anima and animus, 259^ 261; ex- 



pressed by dogma, 230; projec- 
tions, 230; Rex and Regina, 227; 
in transference, 221 
anima mundi, see world-soul 

ANIMALS: 

birds, 250, 281; as animus, 32on; 
see also crow, dove, peacock, 
pelican, raven, swan, vulture 
crow, black, 297 

dog/ bitch, 167, 246, 248&*n,, 284 
dove, 236, 245; Mercurius as, 240; 

Noah's, 185, 212 

horse; as animal life, 160; = 
"mother," 159; as symbol/arche- 
type, 158;; Trojan, 159 
lion, 313; green, 240, 24271 
peacock, see cauda pavonis 
pelican, 313 
raven, 28 in, 297, 313 
salamander, 198 

serpent /snake, 184, 312; Mercurius 
as, 206, 210; path, 185; ritual, 
3i2n; serpens mercurialis, 312; 
symbolism of, 312; three, in chal- 
ice, 312; three-headed, 206, 210, 
313; trampler of the, 299; tri- 
plex nomine, 2o6n; two-headed, 
206 

swan, white, 298 
vulture, 28 in 
whale, 244 

animal magnetism, 7, 1 1 1 
animus: discriminative function, 294, 
302; illusions produced by, 293n; 
influence on woman's emotional 
life, 301; see also anima and ani- 
mus 

Anthony (of Egypt), St., 188 
Anthropophyteia, 37 
An thropos/ First, original, Primor- 
dial Man: bisexual /hermaphro- 
ditic, 216, 262, 270, 306; in Chinese 
alchemy, 217; and Christ vision, 
217; as filius philosophorum, 263; 
Gnostic doctrine of, 216; lapis as, 
307; Mercurius as, 204; as Nous, 
245; son of Oceanus, 3o6n 



344 



INDEX 



antinomies: body /psyche, 4; individ- 
ual/universal, 5, 6, 7; society/indi- 
vidual, 104; see also opposite^ 

antithesis, endopsychic, 226 

Aphrodite, 23671; Aphrodite-Venus, 
258; see also Venus 

Apocalypse of Baruch, 22, 26371 

Apollo and Diana, 211 

aqua: divina, 285; doctrinae, 268, 
276; permanertS; 203, 207, 242, 266, 
271, 280, 284, 310; sapientiaej 272, 
275, 276, 280; vitae, 205; see also 
water 

Arabs, 304*1; see also Abul Kasim 

arbor philosophies , 300 

arcanum, 214, 310, 311; transforma- 
tion of, 197 

archaic ideas, in patients' drawings, 
201 

archetype(s), 20, 34, 80, 124, 169, 178, 
315, 316; absorptive power of, 290; 
as essence of non-individual 
psyche, 169; forced into projection, 
207; incest, 179; indefimteness of, 
287; and instinct, 81; invasion by, 
82; manifestations of, 290; multi- 
tude of meanings, 287; parent, 96; 
as precondition of individual 
psyche, 169; and symbol, 157; 
trans-subjective union of, 260; see 
also Anthropos; child; hieros 
gamos; horse; marriage; mother; 
psyche (collective); sapientia 
(Dei); symbol (s) 

Archimedean point, 124 

Aristotle, 31471 

Aristotle (pseud.), 2,viii, 5,xvi, 235, 
26971, 29271 

"Armenian bitch," 16671, 24671., 24871 

"Arnolde the great Clerke" (in Nor- 
ton), 28671 

arrangement, 66 

Ars chemica, 1, 16871, 18971, 20371, 
23571, 28171, 28271 

art (of alchemy): nature its basis, 214; 
secret nature of, 288; see also al- 
chemy; opus 



art, produced by patients, 48^ 

Artefius, 30471 

artifex, servant of work, 262; see also 

adept; alchemist(s) 
Artis auriferae, 2, 16771, 17071, 18971, 

19071, 20471, 20671, 20971, 21271, 

24271, 24371, 24472, 24671, 24871, 
25071, 25171,, 25671, 25871, 26371, 
26671, 268n, 26971, 27171, 27271, 
27471, 27671, 28171, 28271, 28671, 
29271, 29471, 30771, 30971, 31071, 
31171 

Artus, 2637-1 

Ashburnham Codex, 35,i, 300 

ashes: and diadem, 285; signifying 
dead body, 281 

assimilation, 156; of unconscious con- 
tents, 152, 160 

association (s): and analogies, 45; 
free, 47, 148; , and complexes, 

H9 

association experiments, 29, 90 

astrology: man and woman in, 211; 
sun and moon in, 211 

Athanasius, St., 188 

Athanor (furnace), 32071 

atman, 264 

attitude (s): ambiguity of, 40; apo- 
tropaic, 176; conscious, 20, 178; , 
and resistance, 185; , support of, 
186; conventional, 217; doctor's, to 
patient, 133; eight possible, 114; 
extraverted and introverted, 40, 
117; negative, to Church, 194; to 
object, 114; patient's, and conflicts, 
12 if; , to doctor, 144; personal, 
and neurosis, 31; , and supra-per- 
sonal, 46; religious, 46, 101; repres- 
sive, 186; spiritual, 40, 173; trans- 
ference as, 135; youthful, 39 

attitude-type, 119 

Atwood, Mary Ann (nee South), 14, 

294 
Augustine, St., 15-18, 19, 196, 214, 



aura, numinous, transferred to spirit- 
ual power, 229 



345 



INDEX 



"Aurora consurgens," 19, i68n., 
iSSn, 18972, 199, 20677, 21471, 217, 
219*1, 242*1, 24371, 25671, 27471, 284, 

295 

aurum potabile, 209 
authority: dialectics and, 5; political 

/religious, io8/; and psychothera- 
pist, 5, 18 

autogenic training, 4, in 
autonomy: psychic, 131; of traumatic 

affect, 132 
Avalon, Arthur (pseud, of Sir John 

George Woodroffe with others), 

20, 18472 

Avicenna, 2,x, 5,xii, 21471, 256/1 
axiom of Maria, see under Maria the 

Jewess 
azoth, 271 



B 



Babinski, J., 3 

Bacon, Roger, 103 

Balneum Mariae, 295, 298 

Baphomet, 312 

baptism, 56, 97; of Jesus, 263 

Baruch, Apocalypse of, 22, 26371 

Basilides, 270 

Bastian, Adolf, 91 

bath (alchemical), 240-45 

Baynes, Charlotte A., 23, 18371 

beds, dream of, anticipating mar- 
riage, 144 

Beghards and B^guines, 29971 

behaviour (biological) pattern of, 
12471 

belief, therapist's, 7 

Benoit, Pierre, 24, 22071 

benzene ring (Kekule"'s) as coniunc- 
tio, 168 

Bernard of Clairvaux, St., 26, 30071, 

33 n 

Bernardus a Portu, see Penotus 
Bernays, Jakob, 2o6n 
Bernheim, Hippolyte, 3, 9, 112 
Broalde de Verville, Francois, see 

Songe de Poliphile, Le 



Berry, due de, 242 

Berthelot, Pierre, 28-29, 16771, 2o6n, 
21071, 26171, 26371, 286rz 

Beya, 240, 246 

Bible, see Ezekiel; John, St.; Song of 
Solomon 

Bibliotheca chemica curwsa^ 3, 18771, 
23572, 29471 

binarius, 30471; see also two s.v, num- 
bers 

biology, "pattern of behaviour" in, 
12471 

birds, see s.v. animals 

birth, 242; divine, 271; magical, tinc- 
ture as, 296; new, 299, 303 

bitch, see dog/bitch s.v. animals 

black: blackness, 298; light hidden 
in, 297; see also dark s.v. motifs; 
nigredo 

blocking, of associations, 149 

body: bounds personality, 292; 
"breath body," 276; as conscious 
existence, 290; and heart, 282; 
mystical, see Church(es), corpus 
mysticum of; the purified, 282; 
quintessential form of, 288; right 
and left sides of, 312; and soul, 83; 
and spirit, 258; , alchemists' fail- 
ure to distinguish, 288; subtle, 276 

Bohme, Jakob, 29571 

Bonus, Petrus (Pietro Antonio Boni), 
5,xv, 309 n 

Bousset, Wilhelm, 30, 16971, 18371 

Breuer, Josef, 63, 112, 129, 130 

bride and bridegroom, 211, 296; 
atomization of, 197 

Brother Klaus, see Nicholas of Flue 

brother-sister relationship, 211, 222$, 
227 

Brown, William, 31, 129 

Buddhism, 67; Z&n/dhyanctj 102, 266, 
312 



346 



calcinatio, 197 

"Cantilena Riplaei," 143, goon 



INDEX 



Cardan, Jerome, 32, soon, 276 

Cams, C. G., 90, 139 

catharsis, 59-63, 68, 69, in 

Catholic(s), 16, 99; ritual; and sec- 
tarianism, 193; treatment of, 100; 
see also Church(es) 

cauda pavonis, 269 

causality, psychic, 140 

censor, 32; censorship, moral, 112, 
119 

centre, luminous character of, 316 

centring process, and ego, 51 

cervus jugitivus, 268 

chaos, 181, 182, 187, 203; primeval, 
and schizophrenia, 175 

Charcot, Jean Martin, 112 

child: divine, 183, 184, 251, 270, 315; 
as dream-symbol, i83/; hero, 183; 
magical, 295; representing interest 
in psyche, 44; soul's, 254; tincture 
as, 296 

childhood, 27, gf; neuroses in, 2i8n; 
psychological, state of, 47/; see also 
regressive tendency 

China: alchemy in, 21 on., 217; mar- 
riage classes in, 228n 

Christ, 261, 274, 275, 303; androgyny 
of, 306; denarius as allegory of, 
3o6n; Christ-figure, 306; as foun- 
tain, 275; Gnostic, 263; life in 
corpus mysticum, 194; passion of, 
194; Christ-symbol, 306; triadic 
nature of, 2o6n 

christening, see baptism 

Christensen, Arthur, 33, 248n 

Christian Science, 6 

Christianity, 191; "joyful," 200; soul 
in, 105; split in, 193; and State, 
106; theriomorphic symbols and, 
314; view of world in, 117 

Church(es): authority of, 109; corpus 
mysticum of, 306; Mother, 99; out- 
ward community of, 197; as pro- 
tecting authority, 291; and psychic 
change, 195; spiritual values of, 
193; and State, 104; weakening of, 



103; see also Catholics; Christian- 
ity; ecclesia; Protestants 

Chwolsohn, D. A., 34, 263?? 

Chymical Wedding (Rosencreutz/ 
Andreae), 209 

cibus sempiternus, 306, 310 

circle, 226, 316, 322; squaring the, 
317; symbol of completeness, 208 

civilization: Christian, and political 
aim, 107; and culture, 107??,; mar- 
riage in, 227; Pestalozzi on, io8n/ 

classes, marriage, 227^ 231 

Codex Ashburnham, 35,i, 300 

Codex Rhenovocencis 172, 35,iil, 200 

coetaneum, 167?^, 246 

coincidentia oppositorum, 291, 302, 
317 

Coleridge, S. T., 37; 

collective man, 6, 10, 15, 233; men- 
tality of, 7 

"collective representations" (Le"vy- 
Bruhl) , 13 

collectivism, 108 

Colonna, Francesco, see Songe de 
Poliphile, Le 

colours: the many, 269; see also 
black; cauda pavonis; red; white- 
(ness) 

combination, chemical, 167 

commixtio, 242 

communion, 98; see also Mass, the 

compensation, 155, 156; theory of, 
153; in unconscious, 180 

completeness, see wholeness 

complex(es), 59; autonomous, 133, 
229; content of, 87; diagnosis of, 
87; and fantasy, 56; free associa- 
tion and, 149; inferiority, 99, 165; 
in Jews/Protestants/Catholics, 99; 
and neurosis, *j$f; and prejudices, 
8; as repressed impulses, 53; re- 
pressed unconscious, 56; traumatic, 
131, 132 

complex psychology, 53 

complexio oppositorum, 318 

conception 256 

concupiscentia, 173 



347 



INDEX 



confession (al), 16, 19, 55^ 66, 98; 
attachment produced by, 60; cura- 
tive results, 59f; limits of, 68; to 
one's secret self, 292; as prototype 
of analytical treatment, 55 

confirmation, 97 

conflict (s), 194, 197, 261; mental, 31; 
moral, 18; and patient's attitude, 
121 

coniunctio,, 167$, 200, 211, 214, 22072, 
238, 242, 248, 250, 251, 254, 256, 
259/> ^88, 290, 319; of animus and 
anima, 260; as archetype, 169; 
benzene ring as, 168; and chemical 
combination, 169; in Christianity 
and paganism, 169; a hieros gamos, 
289; incestuous, 215; and trans- 
ference neurosis, 315; see also 
hieros games; marriage 

conscience, 192 

conscious mind, 30, 34, 42, 43, 51; 
of alchemist, 229; articulation of 
unconscious with, 20; character- 
istics of, 148; collision with uncon- 
scious, 315; compensatory relation 
with unconscious, 123; and ego, 
50; impotent by itself, 208; in- 
hibitive action of, 56; integra- 
tive powers of, 132; and loss 
of energy, 180; over-valuation 
of, 291; perception through pro- 
jection, 290; rational concepts of, 
52; relation to dream, 154; to 
unconscious, 302; secrets and, 56; 
unconscious as corrective of, 11; 
and unconscious, mutual integra- 
tion, 311; see also consciousness 

consciousness: and cure of neurosis, 
31; depotentiated, 198; height- 
ened, and transference, 219; higher 
level of 191, 262; innate will to, 
105; knowledge as extension of, 
194; modern, 196; most individual 
part of man, 124; personal and 
supra-personal, 46; psyche as, 89, 
90; rootless condition of, 98; su- 



348 



periority of, 292; and unconscious, 

177 
"Consilium coniugii," l,ii, i68n, 

20372, 24271, 28271 
consultations /interviews, analytic, 

frequency of, 20, 26f 
contemplation, 59 
contradictions, in psychology, 4 
corascenum, 16771, 24871 
coronation, in alchemy, 282 
corpse: purified, resuscitation of, 

282; in sarcophagus, 284 
corpus, 276; mysticum, 194, 306 
cosmos, 196 

counter-transference, 72, i7in 
Cramer, Samuel, 31571 
creative possibilities, 41 
creative work, 181 
cross, 199, 208, 226, 261, 303, 316; 

"rosie," 216; St. Andrew's, 226; 

symbol of wholeness, 303 
crow, black, 297 
crown, 284, 28571 
crucifixion, 261 

cults, mystery, 56; confession in, 59 
culture: Pestalozzi on, io8n/; and re- 

pression theory, 112 
Cusanus, see Nicholas of Cusa 



D 



dancing couples, Kekule^s vision of, 
168 

Dante, 206, 30977 

dark, see s.v. motifs 

datura, in primitive rites, 29071 

Daustin, Joh., 30671 

David of Dinant, 31477 

death: dream anticipating, 150; fol- 
lowed by new life, 256, 298; mean- 
ing of, 259; punishment for incest, 
258; and rebirth, 261; state of, 279; 
as symbol, 263 

decad, $o6n;see also ten s.v. numbers 

Dee, John, 5,viii, 30471 



INDEX 



delirious states, induced by intoxi- 
cants, sgon 

Demeter, 300 

Democritus (pseud.) ,261 

denarius, 304-7; as allegory of Christ, 
3o6ra; culmination o the work, 
306; higher stage of unity, 306; 
means Son of God, 306 

Deo coricedente, 190 

depression, 18 in, 253 

descent, s>44/, 259, 279 

desire, negation of, 173 

Deus terrenus, 269 

development, conscious, possible ex- 
tent of, 191 

devil, 195, 279; as chthonic deity, 
191; Dante's three-headed, 206; 
lapis as (Satan), 2o6n; two-headed 
serpent as, 206 

dew, 272, 279/7 see also Gideon's dew 

dhyana (Zen Buddhism), 102, 266; 
see also Buddhism 

diadem: compared with a "foul de- 
posit," 287; and corona, 28571; "of 
the heart," 285; heavenly origin of, 
287; purpureum, 28571; royal, 284 

dialectic: and authority, 5; psycho- 
therapy as, $ff; dialectical pro- 
cedure, 8/, 10, 16, 18, 20, 116, 117, 
316; , and suggestion methods, 9; 
see also discussion, philosophical 

diagnosis, 84, 85$, 158; clinical, 87; 
of complexes, 87; irrelevance, in 
psychotherapy, 86; of neuroses, 86; 
between organic and psychic, 87; 
and prognosis, 86; psychological, 
87 

Diana and Apollo, 211 

dictatorship, see totalitarianism 

differentiation: individual, and sin, 
55; instinct for, 56; psychological, 
needs tenacity and patience, 292 
Dionysus, 191 
discussion, philosophical, 78; see also 

dialectic 

disintegration, 101 
dismemberment, 197 



dissociation, 265; of conscious and 
unconscious, 195; neurotic, 20, 
i3*/, 238 

distillation, 292, 298; sevenfold to 
thousandfold, 199 

doctor: as replacing father or 
brother, 170; subjective possibili- 
ties of, 199; see also analysis; an- 
alyst; physician (s); psychotherapist 

doctor-patient relationship, 3, 9, 7 if, 
116, 133; mutual unconsciousness 
of, 176; unconscious identity of, 
182; see also analyst; personality; 
psychotherapist; transference 

dog, see s.v. animals 

dogma(s): anima and animus ex- 
pressed by, 230; and psychic ex- 
perience, 193; psycho therapeutic, 

87f, 89 

donum Spiritus Sancti, 212, 214, 276 

Dorn, Gerhard, 5,ii-iv, 206, 240, 
288n, 304?! 

dove, see s.v. animals 

dragon, 167, 250, 281 

drawings, by patients, 2oof; see also 
paintings; picture(s) 

dream(s), tfff, 140, 141, 153; in a f ti- 
ology of neurosis, 143; announcing 
appearance of transference, 183; 
associations to, 44; containing an- 
ticipations- of fctture, 43; contain- 
ing "unconscious metaphysics/' 
43/; context of, 148, 149; describe 
dreamer's inner situation, 142; 
diagnostically valuable, 143; as fa- 
gade, 32, 149; fantasy and, 56; 
Freud and, 26, 32, "63; as fulfilling 
repressed wishes, 147; gives prog- ^ 
nosis, 143, 144; heuristic rule of" 
interpretation, 154; -image, con- 
text of, 150; infantile impulses in, 
2S/; initial, 43>/45> l b%> ~ * show- 
ing aetiological factor, 140; inter- 
pretation^^ 

, by alchemists, 200; , uncer- 
tainty of, 42; manifest, 149; myth- 
ological, 17; recording of, by pa- 



349 



INDEX 



dream(s) (cont.): 

tients, 150; replacing collective 
controls, 11; series, 12, 13; , inter- 
pretation of, 150; sexual inter-'" 
pretation, 134; symbolical knowl- 
edge in treatment of, 27; -theory, 
42; varying concepts of, 139; see 
also fantasy(-ies); image 

droits de I'homme, 291 

dropsy, in A enigma Merlini, 263 

dualism, implied, of Paracelsists, 244 

duality, of alchemical end-product, 
199; see also dual s.v. motifs; num- 
bers 

Dubois, Paul, 21; "rational psychic 
orthopedics/' 3 

Du Cange, Charles du Fresne, Sieur, 
40, 271?! 

dyad, feminine, 208; see also two s.v. 
numbers 



ecclesia mater, 97; see also Church(es) 
ecstasy, religious, archetypes in, 290 
education, 55, 65^ 68, 69; Adlerian, 
m; and self-education, 73; social, 
Adler and, 67; educational meth- 
od, 4 

ego, 49, 102, 112, 173, 194, 233, 244, 
259, 264, 289; vs. anima, 226; and 
centring process, 51; complex as 
shadow-government of, 87; and 
conscious mind, 50; -consciousness, 
195, 265; dissolution of, 290; and 
God's will, 194; isolation within, 
100; lesion of, 263; "objective," 
199; -personality, 262; , differ- 
entiation of, and mundiftcatio, 
292; relation to unconscious, 290^; 
and self, 264; and shadow, 198, 
238/; space/time and, 291; + un- 
conscious-psyche, 90; union with 
unconscious, 264 

Egypt, ancient, incest in, 218, 229 
Einstein, Alfred, 65 



Elbo Interfector, 
elements: bound together in the 
stone, 310; chemical, transmuta- 
bility of, 168; decomposition of, 
265; the four, 203, 211, 265; , 
masculine and feminine manifesta- 
tions of, 212; -, warring, 303; par- 
tial union of, 238; traumatic, 23; 
world made of four, 310 
elixir: as integration of unconscious 
contents, 209; synonyms of, 209; 
vitae, 299, 310 
Ellis, Havelock, 37 
elucidation, 55, 60, 63$, 68; in Adler- 
ian method, 67; limits of, in psy- 
chotherapy, 66 
emotions, repressed, 58 
emperor and empress, 301; see also 

king and queen 
enantiodromia, 96, 279 
endogamous tendency, 228, 231, 232; 

in recent times, 232 
energy: instinctive, and symbolical 
activity, 250; loss of, 180; psychic, 
17971., 228; of unconscious contents, 
180 

environment, 85 
equilibrium: of ego and non-ego, 

195; of psyche, 153 
Eros, cult of, 174 

E.S.P., see extra-sensory perception 
essence(s), 276; three, of tincture, 299 
ethical sense, 147 
ethics, standards of, 278 
Europe: neo-paganism and anti^ 
Christianity in, 196; and patri- 
archal order, 104; plight of, 94; 
European possessed by a devil, 191 
Euthicia, 29471 
Eve, 174; and anima, 301; tree grow< 

ing from her head, 300 
evil: good and, 192; principle, 191; 

problem of, 313 

exogamy, 23i/; and class marriage* 
228; and culture, 228; and en* 
dogamy, 228, 231, 233 



35 



INDEX 



explanation (s), 69, 117; limits of, 68; 

reductive, 64, 66; shadow, 64 
external and internal, the, 28671 
extr -actio animae, 276 
extra-sensory perception, 125 
extraversion, 33, 40, 117, 118; and 

fear of subjective determinancy, 

118 
Ezekiel, 18371 



factor(s): biological, 89; effective 
therapeutic, 173; hereditary, 85; 
physiological and spiritual, 83; re- 
ligious, 122; subjective, 117, 118; 
theorematic, 119 

fairy, motif of, 14 

fairytales: Eskimo, 30171; Icelandic, 
222, 224; Russian, 222f; Siberian, 



faith, 172 

faith-healer, 38 

fantasy(-ies),45; active, 49; autoerotic, 
266; chaotic or morbid, 15; and 
complex, 56; creative, 34, 45, 134, 
168; dream and, 56; effective mean- 
ing of, 46; infantile, 134; , re- 
ligion and, 119; , sexual, 134; , 
in transference, 218; sexual, 245; 
, interpretation, 134; transfer- 
ence as, 68; , sexual aspect of, 
173; unconscious, as cause of trans- 
ference, 62; unprofitable, 45; visu- 
al, i if; see also dream (s); incest 
(-fantasy) 

fatalism, Islamic, 81 

fate, human, 177 

father: in heaven, 99; memory-image 
of, 61 

Faust (Goethe), 174, 19771, 208, 209, 
261, 278/, 289 

feeling, 4on, 277^; and idea, 310; 
realization through, 278/ 

Ferguson, John, 41, 30671, 3O7n 

fictions: conscious, 4; guiding, 39 



Fierz-David, H. E., 42, i68n 

filius: macrocosmi, 103; philoso- 
phorum, 197, 207, 248, 263, 264, 
306; regis, 209, 284 

fils a papa, 86 

finality, sense of, 68/ 

fire: of the philosophers, 295; and 
water, 296 

Firmicus Maternus, Julius, 43, 243*2 

First Man, see Anthropos 

fixation, 61, 65; infantile, 8; as neu- 
rotic formation, 61 

Flamel, Nicolas and Peronelle, 294 

Flournoy, Theodore, 139 

Flue, Nicholas of, see Nicholas of 
Flue 

Forel, August, 37, 112 

fount(ain), 209; maternal, 282; 
mother of God and, 284; threefold, 
Brother Klaus's vision of, 18371,, 

2O 4 n 

four, see s.v. numbers 
Franz, Marie-Louise von, 166 
Frazer, Sir J. G., 45, 46, i8on, 225*2 
Freud, Sigmund, 3, 8, 9, 19^ 21, 22, 
24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 
38/, 46A 53> 61, 63, 72, 83, 88, 112, 
113,114,115,118,119,123,129,130, 
139, 140, 149, 152, 170, 17271, 178, 
i86(2m, 215, 2i8n, 315; and Adler, 
66ff, 119; and aetiology, 31; and 
archaic images, 120; and archaic 
vestiges in unconscious, 90; on 
dreams, 63; his interpretative 
method, 64; as investigator, 67; op- 
position to, 64; pleasure-principle, 
19; and regressive tendency, 32; 
and religion, 121; and scientific ra- 
tionalism, 26; and sexuality, see 
< under sexuality; on spontaneity of 
transference, 17271; theories of, 30; 
and transference, 6 if, 164, 18577; 
on "transference neurosis," 171 $m; 
WORKS: Case Histories, 49, 17271; 
Clinical Pap err, 47 48, 171^ 17271; 
Introductory Lectures, 51, 17 in, 
17271; Leonardo da Vinci, 52, 120 



351 



INOEX 



Frobenius, Leo, 53, 24471 

frontier, motif of crossing the, 144 

functions: differentiation of, 278; 
psychic, 33, 40, 207; see also feel- 
ing; intuition(s); sensation; think- 
ing 

funeral ceremonies, 97 

furnace, 32071; sacred, 295 



Gabricus and Beya, 240, 244, 246, 256 

Galen, 17 

Galilee, wedding of, 296 

Gayomart, 204, 24871, 31 in 

Gestalt psychology, 119 

"getting stuck," 42, 101 

ghosts, land of, 245 

Gideon's dew, 271, 277 

Gillen, Francis James, 152, 227 

"Gloria mundi," 4,ii, 28477 

Gnosticism, 18371, 216, 248, 263 

goal, 208; antithetical nature of, 313; 
hermaphroditus a synonym for, 
313; as an idea, 200; images of, 316; 
spiritual, 276 

God: above the opposites, 317; three- 
fold fountain of, 18377, 20471; true 
philosophy a knowledge of, 295 

Goethe, 174, 190, 197, 208, 209, 251, 
289; see also Faust 

gold: -making, art of, 168; non vulgi, 

197 

good and evil, 192 
Gower, John, 57, 167, 303 
"Grandes heures du due de Berry," 

35,ii, 242 

Gregory the Great, 58, 59, 25871, 28471 
guilt: secrets and, 55^; see also sin 
Guyon, Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la 

Motte, 



H 



Habib, al-, 19771 

Hades, 61, 217, 259; descent into, 245 



Haggard, Sir H. Rider, 60, 61, 22071 

Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, 62, 63, 
31271 

Harding, Esther, 64, 30071 

Harpocrates, 30671 

Hastings, James, 65, agon 

Hauck, Albert, 66, 3157* 

Hawwah, 174; see also Eve 

heart, diadem/crown of, 281, 284, 
285 

Hecate, 300 

Helen: of Simon Magus, 17471; of 
Troy, 174 

hell, 259; see also Hades 

Heraclitus, 245 

Hercules (emperor Heraclius), $ogf 

herd: instinct, 26, 104; psychology, 6; 
see also mass-men 

heredity, 85 

heresy, 217 

hermaphrodite/ hermaphroditus, 
258, 259, 281, 306, 307, 309, 313, 
314, 315, 316; synonym for goal of 
the opus, 313; and union of oppo- 
sites, 243; see also First Man; rebis 

Hermes, 188, 24872, 266, 271, 27271, 
285; birds of, 28 in; Hermes-Mer- 
curius, 258 

hero, see s.v. motifs 

Hesperus, 23671 

hierosgamosj 200, 22071, 228, 229, 246, 
256, 315, 316, 319; coniunctlo as, 
289; see also coniunctio; marriage 
(divine /mystic) 

Hippocrates, 17 

Hippolytus, 67, 20677, 270, 30471, 30671 

Hocart, A. M., 68, 225, 226n, 22871 

Hoghelande, Theobald de, 5,i, 16771, 
19971, 286n 

Holmyard, E. J., 6,i-a, 69, 20671, 286n 
(i.e., on al-Iraqi) 

Holy Ghost, 212, 216, 217, 245, 271, 
288, 299; a psychological necessity, 
214 

Holy Grail, 293 

homosexuality, 17071, 2i8n 



352 



INDEX 



homunculus, 197, 204; soul depicted 
as, 270 

horse, see s.v. animals 

Hortulanus, 70, 20471,, 25671, 288 

Horus, 26371 

Howitt, A. W., 71, 225 

Hubert, Henry, 13 

Hussain, H. H., see Stapleton, H. E. 

hyle, 23671 

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili } see 
Songe de Poliphile, Le 

hypnosis/hypnotism, 22, 88, 111; and 
catharsis, 59; as cure, 133; early use 
of, 6; and fixation, 61; recapitula- 
tion under, 131 

hysteria, 112; hysteric, the, and se- 
crets, 58 



ideas: collective, 120; inherited, 34, 
91, 12472; primordial, 91, 309 

identification, 24472; results of, 262; 
non-identification, 260 

identity: -relationship to parents, 63; 
unconscious, 182 

illusion, 5 1/, 65; as life-factor, 5 1 ; and 
reality, 52 

image (s), 254; of alchemy, 165; 
anticipating wholeness, 316; ar- 
chaic, 120; archetypal, 255; of 
child as interest in psyche, 44; con- 
ceptual, 261; in dreams, 42, 44; 
memory, 112; , in transference, 
136; parental, 262; , and the 
State, 104; primordial, 13, 122, 195, 
208, 245; psychic, 89; self as, 264; 
see also imagination; representa- 
tions 

imagination, 22; active, 199; a priori:, 
categories of the, 13; creative, 45/; 
moral, 65 

imago: father, 100; parental, 8, 96, 
98, 99, 100; , in religion, 98; see 
also projection(s) 

immortality, 311; belief in, 81, 82; as 



experience of feeling, 310; a tran- 
scendental idea, 310 

impulses, repressed, 53 

incarnatio Dei, 185 

incest, 35, 175, 211, 317;, 238, 261; 
in ancient Egypt, 218, 229; and 
anima/ animus, 301; archetype, 
179, 315; as arrangement, 178; as 
by-product, 33; craving for, 32; 
death punishment for, 258; an en- 
dogamous relationship, 224; an 
evil fate, 224; in fairy tales, 223$; 
fantasy(-ies) of, 62, 63; , cause of 
transference, 62; , as symbolical, 
179; fear of, 215; Freudian theory 
of, 178; Greek myths and, 64; hor- 
ror of, 32; as individuation, 218; 
as instinct, 179, 228; mother-son, 
309; -relationship, 39; royal or di- 
vine prerogative, 218, 263; symbol 
of union with one's own being, 
218; symbolism of, 262; taboo, 179, 
228, 231; union of like with like, 
218 

increatum, 20471 

indicia, 40; age, 39; extra verted and 
introverted attitudes, 40; resist- 
ance, 39; spiritual and material- 
istic attitudes, 40 

individual, 10, 48, 169; antinomy of 
universal, 5, 6, 7; , of society, 104; 
inner consolidation of, 233; and 
society, 104, 106, 120; sole carrier 
of life, 106 

individual psychology (Adler's), 24, 
*5> 26, 53 

individual treatment, 6, 24 

individualism, 26, 108 

individuality, 9; concentrated in 
king, 105; conscious achievement 
of, 108; and family, 105; infinite 
variability of, 4, 7; and lawless- 
ness, 7; overestimation of, 7; rela- 
tivity of, 5 

individuation, 10, 11, 15, 20, 102, 108, 
160, 24471, 260, 264; incest as, 218; 
spiritual marriage as goal of, 231; 



353 



INDEX 



individuation (cont.): 

stages of, 25972; transference and, 

322; two aspects of, 234 
infant, world of man as, 95 
infections, psychic, 177 
inferiority: cause of, 135; complex, 

165; feelings of, 35, 37, 111; moral, 

114 
inflation, 289; positive and negative, 

262, 302 
initiation, 105; rites of, 56, 97; , 

confession in, 59; self-restraint in, 

57 

insight, 115; academic, 292; limits 
of, 66 

instinct(s), 30, 34, 41, 46, 8o/, 100, 
175, 238, 250, 261, 262; and arche- 
type, 81; and collective psyche, 35, 
37; both concrete and symbolical, 
175; expressed in traditional 
usages, 98; herd, 26; incestuous, 
178^ 228; inherited, and uncon- 
scious, 34; mass, 104; and mind, 81; 
natural, 248; paradoxical character 
of, 175; and philosophy of life, 81; 
reduction to, 25; repression and, 
77; symbolical character of, 174; 
theory of, 91; for wholeness, 262 

integration, 16, 170, 190, 262; of 
parental images, 101; of self, 264; 
see also self; wholeness 

intellect, 277; limits of, 312 

internalization through sacrifice, 229 

interprets tion(s): anagogic, 8, 9; 
analytical-reductive, 8; psychoan- 
alytic, 8; regressive and progres- 
sive, 9; rules of, 155^7 sexual, 134; 
synthetic, of pictures, 51; synthetic- 
hermeneutic, 8, 9; variety of, 3 

interviews /consultations, frequency 
of, 20, 26/ 

introspection, 35 

introversion, 33, 117, 118; and sub- 
jective factor, 118; see also atti- 
tude^) 

intuition(s), 40^ 85, 276, 277, 279 

Ion, 26371 



Iranian Primordial Man, 216 

Iraqi, -al (Abul Kasim), 69, 20672, 
s86n 

Irenaeus, St., 72, 18377 

irrationalization, of aims of treat- 
ment, 26 

Isidore of Seville, St., 74, 284 

isms, 6 



Jabir ibn Hayyan, s86n 

Jacobi, Jolande, 75, 208 

Jacob's well, 274/ 

Janet, Pierre, 112, 139 

Jerome, St., 76, 24472 

Jesus, 263 

Jews, complexes in, 99 

Jimson weed, in primitive rites, 29071 

Joannes de Garlandia, 70, 288n; see 

also Hortulanus 
Joannes Lydus, 110, 23672, 25877, 



Johannes Pontanus, 30771 

John, St., Gospel of, 247 

John of the Cross, St., 78, 269, 30771 

Jonah, 296 

Jung, Carl Gustav: 

CASES IN SUMMARY (in order of pre- 
sentation , numbered for refer- 
ence): 

[i] Man, who experienced a dream 
series showing the water-motif 
26 times, followed by the motif 
of the "unknown woman" 51 
times, and other themes. Case 
illustrates the continuity of un- 
conscious themes and the meth- 
od of evaluating them statisti- 
cally. 12 ff 

[2] "Normal" man, whose initial 
dream criticised his interest in 
occult subjects. 44$ 
[3] Prominent man, peasant's son, 
who showed symptoms resem- 
bling mountain sickness. Arche- 
typal dreams indicated the need 



354 



INDEX 



for a check on his ambitious 
plans. 104^ 

[4] Woman, whose anticipatory 
dreams of crossing the frontier 
indicated the course her three 
analytical attempts would take. 

*44 

[5] Man, a mountain-climber, 
whose dreams presaged a fatal 
climbing expedition.! O5/ 

[6] Young man, living the "pro- 
visional life/* whose derogatory 
dreams of his father compensate 
the son's too "good" relation- 
ship with his parent. Case illus- 
trates the principle of compen- 
sation. i54/ 

[7] Girl, aged 17, whose dreams, 
studied to establish the diag- 
nosis between hysteria and pro- 
gressive muscular atrophy, 
pointed to grave organic dis- 
ease and death. 158^ 

[8] Woman, over sixty, whose 
dreams and pictures (notably, of 
the divine child) illustrate the 
onset of the transference. 18 3jff 

[9] Woman, whose phobia of Paris 
remained after overcoming her 
depressions. An attempt to over- 
come the phobia by going to 
Paris resulted in her death. Case 
illustrates the vital importance 
of symptoms. -253 

[10] Man, with phobia of flights 
of steps, who dies in accident 
on steps. 253 

WORKS: "Analytical Psychology 
and Education/' 79, 15 in, 2i8n; 
"Bruder Klaus/' 80, 20 in; Mys- 
terium Coniunctionis, i66n; 
"On Psychic Energy/' 82, 179^; 
"Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phe- 
nomenon/ 1 83, s82n, 3 ion; Psy- 
chological Types, 84, 33, 264^ 
27771; Psychology and Alchemy, 
85, i02n, 165, 166, 187, 19772, 



20477, , *>o6n, 20877, 
242n, 24471, 250, 263^ 
28471, 29472, 3oon, 3iorc, 31 in, 
3i2n, 313, 3137-1, 316; Psychol- 
ogy and Religion, 86, io2n, 
i93n, 2317?., 31077; "The Spirit 
Mercurius," 89, i88n, i92n, 209, 
27 in, goon, 3127?,; "A Study in 
the Process of Individuation," 
90, 183; Symbols of Transforma- 
tion, 91, 222n; "The Theory of 
Psychoanalysis," 92, 17971; Two 
Essays on Analytical Psychology, 
88, 11372, 20971, 22on, 292W 



K 



Kabbala denudata, 93, 

Kali, 300 

Kallid (or Khalid; Prince or King 
K. ibn-Yazid ibn-Muawiyah), 2,vi 
vii, 18971, 246, 248, 25172; dialogue 
with Morienus, 309 

Kant, Immanuel, 139 

Kekul< von Stradonitz, F. A., 94, 
168 

Kerner, Justinus, 90 

Kether, 28571; and Malchuth, 287n 

Khunrath, H. C., 96, 97, iO3n, 286n, 
30672 

king: individuality concentrated in, 
105; patria potestas of, 109 

king and queen (in alchemy), 2 1 iff, 
240, 256; as body and spirit, 243; 
rex and regina, 227; as transfer- 
ence relationship, 219; trans- 
formed into new birth, 264; see 
also emperor and empress 

kingdom: of God, 106, 196; of 
heaven, 191 

kingship, dual, 226 

kinship libido, 224, 233, 261 

Kirch er, Athanasius, 98, i89n 

kitchen, as symbol of unconscious, 



Klaus, Brother, see Nicholas of Flue 



355 



INBEX 



Klinz, Albert, 99, 16971 
Koch, Joseph, 100, 275*1 
Kohut, Alexander, 101, 24871 
Kranefeldt, W. M., 102, 157 
Krater of Hermes, 31 zn 
"Krates, the Book of/' 103, s86n 
Kretschmer, Ernst, 118 
Kronlein, J. H., 104, 31472 
Kundalini, 184; see also yoga 



Lambspringk, 4,iii 25071, 28 in 
lapis philosophorum, 187, 197, 20671, 
207, 242, 248, 258, 314; charged 
with intuitions, 279; as corpus/ 
animajspiritus, 243; as cosmo- 
gonic First Man, 307; as creatum 
increatum, 307; as radix ipsius, 
307; spirit and body, 197; as Uro- 
boros, 307; lapis-Christus parallel, 
313; see also stone, philosophers' 
Last Supper, S. Reinach on, 64 
Lavaud, M. B., 105, 18371, 2om, 20471 
lawlessness, see individuality 
Layard, John, 106-7, 225, 22671, 227, 

228, 229 

Leade, Jane, 29471, 295 
left: as the unconscious, 281; left- 

hand path, 211, 214 
Lehmann, F. R., 6, 157 
Leibniz, G. W. von, 139 
Leisegang, Hans, 108, 16971 
Leonardo da Vinci, 120 
levitation, subjective, 266 
L^vy-Bruhl, Lucien, 109, 13, 120, 



libido, 8, i7in; endogamous and 
exogamous, 244; kinship, 224; , 
an instinct, 233, 261; , in the 
transference, 233; loss of, 43; mean- 
ing of, i79n; regression of, 179; 
sexual, 245 

Li^beault, A.-A., 3, 112 

life: provisional, 155; second half of, 
41, 50, 264 



light: hidden in the black, 297; two 

theories of, 4, 312; unconscious as 

nocturnal, 259 
Linus, 259 
lion, see s.v. animals 
Logos, 18371, 248 
love: binding the opposites, 198; of 

God, 295 

Lu-ch'iang Wu, see Wei Po-yang 
Lucifer, 19271, 297 
Lully, Raymund, 3,ii, 18771 
lumen naturae, 82 
Luna, 24371, 246; imparts whiteness 

to tincture, 298; see also moon; 

Selene; Sol and Luna 
Luther, Martin, 21671 
Lydus, see Joannes Lydus 

M 

Maack, Ferdinand, 145, 21671 
McDougall, William, 111, 129, 131, 

133 
madness: fear of, 180; moon-plant 

and, 2 ion 

magic, 181; -by-analogy, 198 
Maier, Michael, 112-14, 18771, 19671, 

21O7Z, 26971, 28171 

Malchuth, 28571; and Kether, 28771 
man: an analogy of God, 317; 
divine, 299; inner, 270; modern, 
279; natural and supernatural, 
263; rational and eternal, distin- 
guished, 291 

mana, 6, 157; equivalents of, 157 
mandala, 316; compensation for con- 
fusion, 317; dream symbols as, 
264; flowers as, 184; spiritual mar- 
riage as, 231; symbols, 199 
Maqrizi, al-, 26371 
mare: nostrum, 203; tenebrosum/ 

tenebrositatis, 203, 248 
Maria the Jewess (or Copt)/M. 
Prophetissa, 2,v, 206, 25071, 27171, 
28571, 294, 312; axiom of, 207, 209, 
251, 304, 312 



356 



INDEX 



marriage: ceremonies, 97; classes, 
227; cross-cousin, 225, 226, 230, 231 ; 
divine/mystic, 167, 168, 319; 
dream anticipating, 144; group, 
226, 227, 250; infantile projections 
in, 219; of Mars and Venus, 296; 
quaternity, 22225; royal, 185, 198; 
, Rosencreutz and, 289; spiritual, 
an inner experience, 231; see also 
coniunctio; hieros gamos; unio 
my stic a 

Mars, 298; curse of, 297; father of 
the child, 295; fire of, 295; and 
Venus, 296, 300; wrathful, 296, 

299 

Mary, the Virgin, 174, 28471, 293, 
30371; crowning of, 282^7 as sapi- 
entia, 174; soul of, goon; water 
symbolism of, 284 

masculine protest, 67, 113 

Mass, the, 98, 242 

mass-degeneration, from without 
and xvithin, 291 

mass-men, 48, 232, 322; see also herd; 
totalitarianism 

massa con I us a, 191, 246, 268 

materia, 295; putrefaction of, 297 

materialism, 40, 117 

matter: myth of, 168; unconscious 
projected into, 275 

maturity, psychological, 49 

Mauss, Marcel, 13 

Maya, veil of, 293 

medicina catholica, 182 

medicine: primitive, 6; psychoso- 
matic, 113; relation to psycho- 
therapy, 84 

medicine-man, 7, 38 

meditation, 59 

megalomania, 262 

Melchior Cibinensis, 5,x, 242 

Meier, C. A., 115-16, 25971, 266n 

memories: infantile, 31; repressed, 
112; traumatic, abreaction of, 23 

Mennens, Gulielmus, 5,xiv, 3i4n 

Merculinus, 246, 263n 

Mercurius, 188, 190, 197, 204, 207, 



240, 243, 245, 248n, 26377, 268, 269, 
271, 292, 297, 298; chthonic and 
pneumatic, 281; as dove, 240; dual 
nature of /duplex, 192, 206, 242, 
281; food of, 296; fugax, 196; as 
hermaphrodite, 243; mother of 
the seven, 204; poison of, 298/7 as 
serpent, 210; as the single stone, 
20471; telum passionis of, 289, 
300^; as three-headed serpent, 
206; three manifestations of, 204; 
triplex nomine, 212, 216; as un- 
conscious psyche, 240; unity and 
trinity of, 206; as water, 240 

mercury (element), as "water" of the 
art, rr the unconscious, 209 

Merlinus, 26371 

Mesmer, Franz or Friedrich Anton, 
111 

Messiah, 26371 

metals: seven, 204; transformation 
of, 2897? 

metaphysics, 124; projected into 
nature, 229; unconscious, see 
dream (s) 

method (s), 138; abreactive, 133; Ad- 
ler's, 67; analytical, 133; , and 
incest-fantasies, 62; analytical-re- 
ductive, 20; cathartic, 23, 59-62, 
133; explanatory, 66; individuali- 
zation of, 26; interpretative, 
Freud's, 63/7 rational, 16; tech- 
nical, 6; variety of, in psycho- 
therapy, 3/, 9; see also psycho- 
therapy; therapy; treatment 

microcosm, 90; as interior world, 
196; man as, 196, 318; psyche as, 

9* 

Middle Ages, 103; absence o psy- 
chology in, 315 

mind: human, supra-personal, 69; 
and nature, 55; problem of, 17; 
see also conscious mind 

missionaries, Christian, influence of, 

97 
Mithras, 244*1 

moieties, social, 225, 226 



357 



INDEX 



monad, 30472; ocean as, 306/2 Murray, H. A., 119, 99 

Monoi'mos, 30672 Musaeum hermeticum, 4, 25011, 

moon, i67n; Mother of God and, 26372, 26577, 28172, 28472, 30771 

284; son of the, 282; tincture com- mutilation, as symbol, 263 

pared to, 298; -plant, 210; see also mutual ministration, 226 

Luna; Selene; Sol and Luna; sun Mutus liber, 119, 294^, 32072; see 

(and moon) also figs. 1 1-13, following 320 

Morienus Romanus, 2,xii, 20672, Mylius, Johann Daniel, 120, 18272, 

sxiott, 230, 27272, 27472, 281; dla- 19271,24372,25072,30472 

logue with Kallid, $o$f mysterium paschale, 196 

mortificatio 3 288 mystery: alchemical, lower nature 

mother: dual, motif of, 120; and of, 314; idea of, 270 

son-lover, 284; as symbol/arche- mysticism, Christian, 31572 

type, 158;; virgin, 30972; Mother mythologems, 91, 92, 122, 169, 264, 

of God, connection with moon/ 315; and release of instinct, 92 

water/fountains, 284; Mother-god- mythology, 45, 268; primordial mo- 

dess, Asiatic, 256 tifs ^of, _ 120; mythological ideas, 

MOTIFS, 12-15; investigation of, 124; fascination of, 15 
repetition of, 12; statistical 
evaluation of, 12 

dark: dark Indian sister, 14; dark N 
initial state, 240; darkness, 266, 

275, 298; , as death/fire, 297; name, four-letter, 31471 

, divine, 296; see also black; nature: as guide in psychotherapy, 

nigredo 4U human, fundamental contrari- 

dual, 13; mother, 120; see also ety of, 303; qualities of, 296, 298; 

duality see a ^ so n^nd 
fairy, 14 m/cos icotl 4>i\ia> 182 
frontier, crossing the, 144 neologisms, Paracelsian, 111 
getting stuck, 42, 101 neurosis (-es), 29, 59> 121; aetiological 
hero, 299; loss of hair, 244; myths processes unconscious in, 22; ae- 
of, 244; withdrawal of projec- tiologyof, 139, 143; ambition lead- 
tion into, 209 ing to, 142; cause of, 20, 135; in 
mountain-climbing, 150; see also childhood, 21872; and complexes, 
mountain 7 8 * compulsion, 180; diagnosis of, 
sea, 209; symbolizing collective 86; and infantile history, 31; as 
unconscious, i2/ instinctual disturbances, 92; ma- 
water, 12, 13; see also water jority not traumatic, 23; one-sided 
whale, 244 development of personality, 129; 
woman, i$f; see also woman of our age, 41; psychic nature of, 
mountain: motif of climbing, 150; 30; and religious promptings, 46; 
sickness, 140^; as symbolical repre- seriousness of, 24; sexual causa- 
sentation, 142 tion of, 36; as spiritual form of 
mukti, 102 suffering, 16; structure of, 36; 
multiplicatio, 306; attribute of the transference, 171, 172^2, 262; trau- 
denarius, 307 matic, 22/, 129, 130; as warning, 
mundificatio, 291, 292, 302 142; in younger and older patients, 

358 



INDEX 



39; see also psychoneuroses; trans- 
ference; trauma 
New Guinea, 226 
Nicholas [Khrypffs] o Cusa, 121-22, 

210, 274, 30772, 317, 318 
Nicholas of Flue (Brother Klaus), 

i8^w, 20477 

Nicolai, G. F., 123, 31272 
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 54 
night sea journey, 244 
nigredo, i82<im, 197, 25877, 259, 269, 
271, 279; see also black; dark s.v. 
motifs 
nixie, 32071 
Noah, 26377 
non-ego, psychic, 261, 265; source of 

alchemical projections, 288 
non-identification, 260; see also 

identification 
normality, 70 
Norton, Thomas, of Bristol!, 6,i, 

28572, 30772 

"nothing but/' 46, 173 
Notker Balbulus, 124, 19972 
no us, 245; identified with prima ma- 
term , 31472 

NUMBERS, 207f, 212, 23672, 304^; even 
and uneven, 20772; feminine, 207; 
masculine, 207 
one, 30472; born of the two, 292; 

ocean as monad, 20677 
two, 207, 30472; dream of two beds, 
144; feminine dyad, 208, mystic 
union of the, 306; one born of 
the, 292 
three, 18372, 204?, 207, 236, 312; 

see also triad; trinity 
four, 208, 211, 212, 223, 30471, 312; 
corners, 223; dolls, 223; ele- 
ments, 203, 211, 212, 265, 303, 
310; four-letter name, 28572; see 
also quaternio/quatermty 
five, 18372, 184, 211, 212; see also 

quint a essentia 
six, 2366*11 
seven, 204 



ten, 304672, 30672; see also denar- 
ius 

numen: of goddess, and anima, 229; 
transference of, 230 

H 

nuptiae chymicae, 



"obfuscation of the light/' 198 
"obscurity," subjective nature of, 

occultism, 44 

ocean, see sea 

Oceanus, 30677 

Old Testament, 121 

Olympiodorus, 2 ion 

one, see s.v. numbers 

one-sidedness, 33 

opposites, 182, 189, 236, 303, 314; 
coincidence of, 291, 302, 317; de- 
scribe the unknowable, 307; fu- 
sion of, 290; pairs of, 199, 250, 
281; , alchymical, 22272; problem 
of, in psychotherapy, 77; synthesis 
of, i6572;unintegrated, 281; union 
of, 185, 211, 250, 256, 264, 279, 280, 
315, 318; united by hermaphro- 
ditic being, 243; EXAMPLES: chaos/ 
blackness, 185; ego /anima, 226; 
evil/good, 64; matter/psyche, 289; 
shadow/ego, 198; shadow/light, 
64; Sol/Luna, 200, 211; see also 
antinomies 

OpUS, 200, 2O3, 212, 235, 250, 25872, 
26l, 272, 278, 294, 295, 301, 311, 

319, 3 2 on; contra naturam, 261; 
demands of the, 235; end of, para- 
doxical, 311; magnum, 234; man's 
and woman's, concerned with ani- 
ma and animus, 300; as period 
of gestation, 251; a process of in- 
dividuation, 311; psychologicum, 
aim of, 262; as rose or wheel, 260 
Origen, 126-27, 196, 197 
original man, see Anthropos 
Oxford Group movement, 16 



359 



INDEX , 



painting: by patients, 47/; see .also 

drawings; picture(s) 
pair(s): alchemical, 296, 297, 32071; 

of angels, 32071; royal, 284; see also 

antinomies; opposites 
Paphnutia, 294 
Paracelsus, 128-29, 17, 111, 200; 

4 'firmament" of, 310; motto of, 

103; on "theorizing," 100 
Paradise, Man of, 299 
paradox, Christian: of unconscious, 

34; of unimpaired virginity, 309 
paranoia, induced, i72n 
parapsychology, 124; parapsychic 

levitation, 266 
parent(s): archetype, 96; disposition 

of, as cause of neurosis, 130 
participation mystique, 18272,, 251, 

*93 

pater patrum, Pope as, 97 

patient(s): of alchemists, 200; and 
catharsis, 62; "normal," 44; older 
and younger, differences in han- 
dling, 38; paintings and drawings 
by, 47/, soo/; see also cases s,v. 
Jung, C. G. 

patria potestas> 109 

patriarchal order, 97, 98, 103; in 
European civilization, 99, 104 

Paul, St., see Saul 

Paulinus of Aquileia, 130, 313^ 

peacock, see cauda pavonis (i.e., pea- 
cock's tail) 

Peirithous, 61 

pelican, 313 

penis, see phallus 

Penotus, Bernardus Georgius (Ber- 
nardus d Portu), 5,vii, 2697* 

peril of the soul, 212 

Persephone, 300 

persona, of doctor, 176 

personality, 262; of analyst, 8, 74, 88; 
dissociation of, 173, 228; doctor's, 
importance in therapy, 88; ~, 
moral differentiation of, 18; in- 



tegration of, 20; new centre of 
the, 102; re-education and re- 
generation of, 27; schizoid, 120; 
synthesis of, 199, 233; united, 199 
persuasion, method of, 3, 111 
Pestalozzi, J. H., 131, io6n, io8n, 

322 

Petrarch, 214 

peyotl, in primitive rites, 29071 
phallus, contrasted with penis, 157 
phantoms, terminological, 317 
Pharaohs, incestuous marriages of, 

218; see also 229 
Philalethes, 4,iv v, 28471, 307/1 
philosophy: and instinct, 81; of life, 
41, 77, 99; and psyche, 79; and 
psychotherapy, 79; and religion, 

79/ 

phobia, 253 

physician (s): medieval, 82; wounded, 
Greek myth of, 116 

physics: and psychology, 65, 25971; 
and psychotherapy, 4 

physiology, and psyche, 77 

physis, 216, 245, 246, 270 

picture(s): primitive symbolism in, 
50, 2oo/; symbolical, ^.gff 

planets, seven, 204 

Plato, 132-33, 3 lira 

Plato (pseud.), 5,xiii, 27171 

pleasure: infantile, 36; principle, 19, 
66, 113 

pneumatikos, 263 

Poiret, Pierre, 31572 

poisoning, as symbol, 263 

Poliphile, see Songe de Poliphile 3 Le 

politics: political creed and my- 
thology, 16; political movements, 
6, 322; psychotherapy as instru- 
ment of, 104; see also State 

Pope: as pater patrum, 97; transfer- 
ence of imagos to, 99 

Pordage, John, 134-35, 294^ 295^71, 
300 

possession, 87, 179 

power: craving for, 66; urge to, 113; 
see also will to power; power- 
360 



INDEX 



drive(s), 4, 19; power fictions, 19 
practica, 261, 277 
"Practica Mariae/' 2,v, 25071 
pregnancy, psychological, 255, 254 
Preisendanz, Karl, 136, 167*1 
prejudice, subjective, of Freud and 

Adler, 114, 118 

priest, predecessor of doctor, 116 
prima materia, 187, 189, 2i2^n, 218, 

244, 250; comparison with God, 

%i4&n; equated with anima and 

animus, 301 
primitive cultures, ceremonies in, 

97. ^ 

primitive man, 120, 123; and impor- 
tance of conscious mind, 181 

primitive mind, universal percep- 
tions of, 13 

Primordial Man, see Anthropos 

principles, moral, 65 

process: autonomous, 11; "the," 209 

Proclus, Diadochus, 137, 30471 

prognosis, 86, 158; and diagnosis, 86; 
given by dream, 143, 144 

projection(s), 116, 170, 177, 178, 187; 
alchemical, 229; compulsion of, 
105; its descent into matter, 230; 
dissolution by reduction, 136; in- 
ductive effect of, 176; infantile, in 
marriages, 219; influence on car- 
rier, 28971; integration of, 262; in- 
tegration through, 187; in modern 
days, 230; object of, 289; of pa- 
rental imagos, 96, 101; reduction 
to their origin, 135; in transfer- 
ence, 63, 136^ 172; to doctor, 
170; withdrawal of, 96, 100, 218; 
, into hero, 209 

Protestants /Protestantism, 16, 97, 99, 
JOG/, 193 

psychasthenic, 58 

psyche, 38, 90; ambiguity of, 40; 
ancestral, 34; and body, 190; child- 
hood, gSff; collective, 35, 37; and 
consciousness, 89, 90; dissociation 
of, 131; as ego-consciousness and 
unconscious, 90; as ens per se f 89; 



361 



as epiphenomenon, 89; evolution- 
ary stratification of, 160; instru- 
ment in reorganizing civilized 
community, 322; living pattern of, 
322; as microcosm, 91; natural 
science of the, 317; patriarchal or- 
ganization of the, 99; pre-con- 
scious structure of, 96 n; primary 
splitting of, 226; a self-regulating 
system, 153; totality of, 138; as 
unique phenomenon, 17; a whole, 
95; in youth and age, 39; see also 
archetype(s); instinct(s) 

psychoanalysis, 3, 24, 25, 31, 53, 88, 
95, 1 1 1; and catharsis, 59; and con- 
fessional, 55; as medical psychol- 
ogy, 54; see also analysis 

psychologic a compartiments, 279 

psychology (-ies): empirical, 76, 92; 
experimental, 76, 89; feminine, 
294, 301; medical nature of, 31; 
multiplicity of, 53; personalistic, 
95, i8$ff; primitive, 45; see also 
analytical psychology; psychoan- 
alysis 

psychoneuroses: as states of posses- 
sion, 87; two main groups, 7; see 
also neuroses 

psychosis(-es), 181; latent, 15, 186, 
265; as states of possession, 87; 
totalitarian, 231 

psychotherapist: authority of, 5, 18; 
position of, in analysis, 72;* and 
psychic infections, 19; self-criti- 
cism by, 115; therapeutic demand 
of, 72; see also analyst; doctor 

psychotherapy: aims of, j8Lx*-Jl3^ ex 
cathedra^ 116; as instrument *bf 
politics, 104; intellectual founda- 
tions, 76; meaning of, in; pre- 
analytical, 177; relation to medi- 
cine, 84; asTscfehce, 95; scientific 
basis of, 104; and the State, 107; 
subject of, 89; task of, 78; "treat- 
ment of the soul," 94; ultimate 
questions of,_24; see also meth- 
od (s); therapy; treatment 



INDEX 



puberty, see initiation 

Purgatory, 182*1 

purification, 275, 291, 298 

purple, 285n 

putrefactio / putrefaction, 18271, 

24071, 256, 265, 269, 297 
Pythagoras, 191; Pythagoreans, 304*1 



<7waterm"0/quaternity, 207, 208, 227, 
236, 238, 303, 316, 317, 322; 
flowers as, 184; marriage, 222-25; 
quadratic, 203; symbolized by 
table, 183; see also four s.v. num- 
bers 

queen: regina austri, 284; see also 
king and queen 

quinta essential quintessence, 203, 

207, 211, 244, 277, 316 



R 



Rabanus Maurus, 139, 30672 

Rahner, Hugo, 140, 16971 

rapport, 116, 135; and transference, 

*34> i37> *77 

Rasmussen, Knud, 141, 3oin 

raven, see s.v. animals 

realists, French, 37 

reality: psyche and, 51; psychic and 
conscious, 52; see also illusion 

realization, incomplete, 278 

reason, and instinct, 78 

rebirth, 244 

rebis, 197, 301, 306, 313, 317; apoth- 
eosis of, 312; as cibus sempiternus/ 
lumen indeficiens, 306; symbol of 
transcendental unity, 302; see also 
hermaphrodite; lapis 

red, 282, 297 

redeemer-figure, 124 

redemption, complete, an illusion, 

199 
reduction/reductive explanations, 



64, 66; see also instinct(s); inter- 

pretation^) 
regina austri, 284 
regression(s), 81, 230; alchemical pro- 

jection as, 229; to primitive order 

of society, 233; as reculer pour 

mieux sauter, 15; from scholasti- 

cism to materialism, 231 
regressive tendency, 32, 33, 35; and 

childhood memories, 33 
Reinach, Salomon, 64 
Reitzenstein, Richard, 142, 216, 



362 



relationship: human, and transfer- 
ence, i36/; infantile, in transfer- 
ence, 170; symbolical, 260; see also 
transference 

relativism, philosophical, 65 
religiO; 195; etymology of the word, 

195 

religion (s), 98; comparative, 45; and 
"creed," 193; forms of psycho- 
therapy, 16; Freud and, 121; and 
infantile phantasies, 119; and phi- 
losophy, 79/; a system of psychic 
healing, 121; as therapeutic sys- 
tems, 192; see also Catholic(s); 
Church (es); Protestants; etc. 

representations, collective, 13, 120, 
121; as bridge to unconscious, 123; 
see also image(s) 

repression, 29, 39, 77, 112, 238; and 
instinct, 77; and sin, 55, 56; sub- 
limation and, 77; theory of, 23 

res simplex, 197, 304 

resistance, 115; and abreaction, 113; 
and fear of unconscious, 185; justi- 
fied, 115; meaning of, in age 
groups, 39; and negative transfer- 
ence, 15671 

results, suggestive method and, 6 

resurrection, opus as, zg$f 

rex and regina, 227; see also king 
and queen 

rex marinuS; 244 

Rhazes, 20471 

Ripley, George, 143, 26371 



INDEX 



rites: marriage/birth/death, 97; see 
also birth; death; initiation; mar- 
riage 

ritual, Catholic/ Protestant, 97 

Robert of Chartres, 272/2 

Romantic Age, 90, 112 

roots: instinctive, 122; loss of, 98 

Rorschach test, 90, 119 

ros Gedeonis, 271, 277 

Rosarium phihsophorum, 144, 
i82n, 18471, 18972, igon, 200, 20471, 
212, 217, 235, 242^72, 243, 244, 
24571,, 246, 25672, 258, 266, 269, 271, 
27272, 274/2, 2767-1, 281, 282, 28672, 
288, 301, 303, 307, 311, 31372; see 
also figs, i 10 

Rosarius, 307 

rose, opus as, 260 

Rosencreutz, Christian (Johann Val- 
entin Andreae), 145-47, 209, 
2i6n, 289; enters bedchamber of 
Venus, 289; wounded by Cupid, 
289 

Rosi crucians, 215, 290 

Rosinus, 2O4n 

Roth-Scholz, Friedrich, 148, 2957* 

rotundum, 244; see also sphere; 
wheel 

Ruska, J. F., 149-50, 18971, 19771, 
, 2i4n, 258/7, 27272, 28272 



Sabians, 26372 

sacraments, Christian, 56 

sacrifices, animal, 197 

saint, 293 

salamander, 198 

salt: the oldest mystery, 30671; of 

wisdom, 30671 
Samaritan woman, 274 
sanctification, opus as, 298 
sanguis spiritualis, 197 
sapientia, 174, 276, 284; anima as, 

301; Dei, 214, 269, 270, 274; Mary 

as, 174 



363 



Satan: lapis as, so6n; as raven, 31372; 
see also devil 

Saturn, 210, 297, 298; darkness of, 
296 

Saul (St. Paul), 187 

Schaeder, H. H., 142, 216, 31 in 

Schiller, 46 

schizophrenia: induced, 120, 17277; 
paranoid forms of, 15; primeval 
chaos and, 175; types of, 121 

Schoolmen, alchemists and, 288 

Schultz, J. H., 4 

science: limits of, 303; natural, of 
the psyche, 317 

scientific era, 111 

Scylla and Charybdis, 217, 234, 292 

sea/ocean, 209; as decad/monad/ 
mother and father, 30671; symbol- 
izing collective unconscious, i2/ 

Second Coming, 270 

secret, significance of, $$ff 

Selene, 167, 17472; see also Helen; 
Luna; moon 

self, 102, 103, 183, 231, 233, 24472, 
26372, 264; container of all oppo- 
sites, 317; divine, 184; and ego, 49, 
199; ego and non-ego, 264; incor- 
ruptible, 102; paradox connected 
with, 309; question of its reality, 
312; as taskmaster, 311; timeless, 
184; and timeless unconscious, 310; 
the total, timeless man, 311; unity 
of, 312; see also integration 

self-assertion, 37, 113; passion for, 67 

self-destruction, 173 

self-education, 73, 74, 75 

self-fertilization, 218 

self-restraint, 57/ 

Senior, Zadith, see Zadith Senior 

sensation, 4072, 277 

separatio elementorum, 197 

Sephira, 2857^ 

sepulchre, red, 282 

serpent, see serpent/snake s.v. ani- 
mals 

seven planets, 204 



INBEX 



sex: Anglo-Saxon attitude to, 37; B^roalde de Verville), 36-38, 20671, 
crossing of sexes, 220 25071 

sexual impulses, infantile, 23 sophia, 174, 295^ 298; as anima, 

fcexualism, denotes unconscious Iden- 299, 301; as the self, 300 
tity of ego with unconscious figure, soror-animus relationship, 225 
oje soror mystica, 219^ 227, 294, 295, 

sexuality, 11, 134; in aetiology of 32071 

neuroses, 29; Freud and, 3, 23, 25, soul, 27, 107, 256; ascent of, 279; 
53, 117, 156; function of compen- 
sation, 134; infantile, 315 

shadow, 59, 114, 124, 259, 261; as- 
similation of, 238; and ego, 198, 
238/7 Freudian school and, Ggf, 
74; integration of, 251; in trans- 
ference analysis, 2i8/ 

Shakti, 184, 211; anima and, 293 

Shekhina, 28571 

shell-shock, 57 

Shiva, 184, 211 

Shulamite, 174 

signs, see symbols 

Silberer, Herbert, 151, 8, 

Simon Magus, 17471 

simplification, urge to, 319 ~ r , ~ 

sin: original, 8 if; and repression, 55 sphere, 316; see also rotundum 

sinner, soul of, and raven, 31371 spirit, 13, 276; Christian symbols 

slave State, 291 product of, 314 

snake, see serpent/snake s.v. animals sponsusjsponsa, 169, 228, 265, 306 

society: and individual, 104, 106, spring, as allegory of God, 210 
120; natural organization of, 233; square, 226; and circle, 204; an mi- 
State and, 108; temptation to un- perfect form, 204; see also qua- 
consciousness, 107 ternio 

socio-political trends, and Adler's - stability, inner, and social existence, 
psychology, 26 50 

Sol and Luna, 200, 207, 235/, 242, standards, ethical, 278 

246, 248, 251, 258, 32071; as arche- standpoint(s), analytical-reductive, 
types, 220; see also coniunctio 11; multiplicity of, in psychology, 



birthplace of action, 94; body and, 
83; in Christianity, 105, 106; a 
function of relationship, 265; as 
homunculus, 270; an idea of unity, 
265; immortality of, see immor- 
tality; loss of, in primitives, 180, 
266; as reconciler, 281; return of 
the, 277, 292; as substantial angel, 
299; suffering of the, 16; symbols 
of, 20871; union with purified 
body, 292; world-soul, 31 in; see 
also anima; animus 

South, Thomas, 294 

space and time, psychic relativity of, 
124 

Spencer, Sir Baldwin, 152, 227 



54; social, and the individual, 48; 
see also viewpoints 
Stapleton, H. E., 153, 27171 
star: five-pointed golden, 184; quin- 
tessential, 206, 212 



Solomon, 272; see also Song of Solo- 
mon 

solutio, 197, 240 

somnambulism, 112 

son: and crown of victory, 284; of 

God, denarius as, 306; ruler over State, the, 104-7, 2 3J?V 322; an ag- 
earth, 282; of the Virgin, 299 glomeration of nonentities, 106; in 

Song of Solomon, 174, 228, 250, Christianity, 106; and mass-men, 
28471, 295^71 232; and parental imagos, 104; 

Songe de Poliphile, Le (Colonna, tr. slave, 291; totalitarian, io7f 

3% 



INDEX 



Stekel, Wilhelm, 24 

Steinach, Eugen, 279 

Stockli, Alban, 154, 18371 

stone, philosophers', 21571., 272, 27671, 
288, 299; making of, child's play, 
297; "stone that is no stone," 279; 
virgin mother of, 309*1; see also 
lapis philosophorum 

Strindberg, August, 35 

subjective: factor, 117, 118; level, 74 

sublimation, 77, 119, 152, 164, 206, 
277, 298; sublimatio 3 288 

substitution, 29 

suffering, 8i/ 

suggestion, 44, 88, 111, 112, 117, 133, 
138, 147, 17372; inadeqtiacy of, 116; 
in interpretation, 146; limitations 
of, 146; theory of, 21; suggestion 
therapy, 3, 6, 9, si/, 23 

suicide, unconscious urge to, 57 

sun, 240; and moon, 206; 211; see 
also Sol and Luna 

sunrise, albedo and, 271 

super-ego, 119, 120 

superman, 105; and sub-man, 195; 
in Faust, 209 

Sushumna, 185 

swan, white, 298 

swastika, 16 

symbol(s), 47, 156, 244, 248, 251, 
263; alchemical, compensating 
Christian, 314; analogical, 97; and 
centring process, 101; compensat- 
ing, 123; danger of fixed meaning, 
157; derivation from archaic func- 
tioning, 123; feminine, 30072; of 
the goal, 197; mana, 157; multi- 
plicity of, 197; natural, self as, 264; 
need for, 159; positive and nega- 
tive, 284; relatively fixed, 156, 158, 
160; sexual, 156; and signs, 156, 
175; theriom orphic, and Chris- 
tianity, 314; uniting, 236, 251, 264, 
314; an unknown quantity, 156; 
see also animals; archetype(s); 
ashes; baptism; bath; beds; child; 
circle; colours; cross; death; dew; 



365 



diadem; dismemberment; dragon; 
enantiodromia; fountain; her- 
maphrodite; king and queen; 
kitchen; mandala; moon; mother; 
motifs; mountain; mutilation; 
night sea journey; numbers; phal- 
lus; poisoning; quaternio; rebis; 
sea; swastika; table; tree; water; 
woman 

symbolic contents, multiple signifi- 
cance of, 8 

symbolism, 199; alchemical, 102, 165; 
, darkness of, 288; archaic, 82; 
Christian, 248; ecclesiastical, and 
alchemy, 262; Gnostic, 248; knowl- 
edge of, required in dream treat- 
ment, 27; mythological, 15; nat- 
ural, 262; of numbers, see num- 
bers; in pictures, 50 

symbolization, 29 

symptom(s), 130; acceptance of, 10; 
"imaginary/' 22; neurotic, gener- 
ally psychogenic, 57; as signpost, 
21; suppression of, 21 

synchronicity, 25971; see also space 
and time 

synthesis, 135 

system(s), psychic: individuality of, 
4; person as, 3; psychic influence 
as reciprocal reaction of two, 4; 
reaction to conscious mind, 208; 
relationship between two, 8 



table, as symbol of self, 183 

taboo: incest, 179, 228, 231; in nor- 
mal person, 181 

"Tabula smaragdina," 156, 18971, 
242, 270, 272^, 287, 314 

Tammuz, 259^ 

Tantra, 211; see also Shakti 

Tao(ism), s86n, 312 

technique(s): Freudian, and thera- 
peutic effect, 171; medical, 6; 
principles of, 46; in psycho- 



INDEX 



technique(s) (cont.): 

therapy, 94; religious, 6; use of, in 
painting, 47 

temperament(s): types of physio- 
logical, 118; varieties, 40 

Templars, 312 

temptation, forty days of, 297 

tetragrammaton, 28472 

tetrameria, 207 

Theatrum chemicum> 5, 1677?., 16872, 
19972, 21472, 24072, 24372, 26972, 
27172, 28872, 30472, 30972, 31472 

Theatrum chemicum Britannicum, 
6, 28572, 30772 

theoria, 261, 277 

theory: meaning of, 11972; modifica- 
tions of, necessary in psycho- 
therapy, 40; place in dream an- 
alysis, 148 

Theosebeia, 294 

therapy: aims of, 41, 268; principles 
of, 36; psycho therapeutic view of, 
84, SSff; rational, 16, 17; see also 
method(s); psychotherapy; treat- 
ment 

Theseus, 61 

thinking, 4072, 276; compulsive, 81 

three, see s.v. numbers 

Thucydides, 21572 

Timaeus (Plato), 133, 31 in 

tincture, 197, 286; 296-99; appear in 
blackness, 297; complete, found 
only in the Internal, 28672; cov- 
ered with white, 298; divine, 295; 
easily spoiled, 297; hidden in curse 
of Mars, 297; inner dwelling of, 
295; Luna imparts white to, 298; 
in poison, 297; radiant as the 
moon, 298; resurrection of the, 
298; white, 282 

Tiph'ereth, 28572 

totalitarianism, 104, io7/; Slave state, 
291; totalitarian psychoses, 231; 
see also mass-men 

totality, man's, 216; see also whole- 
ness 

totemism, primitive, 64 



Tractatus Aristotelis, see Aristotle 
(pseud.) 

"Tractatus aureus," l,i, 18972, 235, 
26372, 265 

tradition, breakdown of, 98 

trance, witch's, 266 

transference, 133, 137, 138, 164$; 
according to Adler, 67; alpha and 
omega of analysis, 134; archetypal 
aspect in, 18512, 186; artificially 
acquired, 17172; as attitude to life, 
135; core of, 233; and cure, 172; 
dissolution of, 164; diversity of 
possible descriptions, 320; and 
early conflicts, 17172; erotic, 134; 
Freud and, 171, 18572; Freud on 
spontaneity of, 17271; and height- 
ened consciousness, 219; and indi- 
viduation, 322; infantile fantasies 
in, 218; irrational foundations of, 
255; made up of projections, 135; 
meaning of, 136; a natural phe- 
nomenon, 17172, 218; negative, 
164, 16572; positive, 16572; projec- 
tion in, 63, i$Gf, 172; as "rap- 
port," 177; resistance to termina- 
tion of, i86n; severance of, 136, 
252; sexual, 134; social meaning 
of, 322; transference-disorder, 
17172; transference neurosis, 25, 
17272, 315 

transformation, 55, 69^7 child > par- 
ent, 97; dark>light, 298; death> 
life, 298; mutual, 55, 69^ 

trapeza, 18377 

trauma(-ta), 22, 23; as complex, 130; 
sexual, 23; theory, 23, 129, 130, 
133, 143; war neurosis as, 130; see 
also neurosis (-es) 

treatment: aim of, 138; four stages 
t 55^ 59j0V hypnotic, 61; indi- 
vidual, 6, 24; limits of rational, 
41; of non-Catholics, 100; see also 
method(s); psychotherapy; ther- 
apy 

tree: birth motif, 184; Christmas, 
184; growing from Eve's head and 



INDEX 



Adam's genitals, 300; of life, 274; 
philosophical, 301 

tremendum, 215 

triad, 238; double, 236; masculine, 
208; Mercurius as, 206 

trinity, 14, 312, 314^; chthomc 
equivalent of, 312; evil and, 313; 
and Mercurius triplex nomine, 
216 

Trojan horse, 159 

Turba philosophorum, 150, 243^, 
244n, 272, 304n 

two, see s.v. numbers 

types, 114; asthenic, 121; of schizo- 
phrenes, 121; spastic, 121; see also 
attitude-type; extraversion; feel- 
ing; introversion; intuition(s); sen- 
sation; thinking 



U 



Umail, Muhammad bin, 153, 271*1 
(Stapleton); see also Zadith Senior 

unarms, 304; see also one s.v. num- 
bers 

unconscious, 15, 32, 74, 139, 191, 192, 
259, 299, 300, 309; aetiological/ 
causal significance of, 140; aims of, 
42; ancestral/instinctual, 34; bene- 
ficial effects of, 291; chaos of, 193; 
collective, see unconscious, col- 
lective, below; and consciousness/ 
conscious mind, n, 34, 123, 177, 
2C|2; continuity of, 12; as creative 
factor, 34; depreciation of, 67; 
early conceptions of, 90; effects of, 
on therapist, 177; fear of, 181; 
feeling relationship to, 277; Freud 
and, 3, 34, 35; inductive action of, 
176; as "infantile-perverse-crimi- 
nal," 152; invasion by, 269; as 
matrix of human mind, 188; mo- 
tives, and free choice, 177; per- 
sonal, 35; phenomenology of, in 
alchemy, 287; process, in alchemy, 
198; as real psyche, 91; repressed, 



34; scientific theories and, 268; 
sexuality of, 315, 316; as "somatic," 
112; timeless quality of, 259, 309, 
310 

unconscious, collective, 101, 124, 
265, 291, 311; in alchemy, 310; sea 
as symbol of, is/; as source of 
symbolical pictures, 50; see also 
imagination; representations 

unconscious, contents of: assimila- 
tion, 20, 152; energy /potency of, 
17, 180; projected, 170, 252, 275; 
alchemical synonyms for integra- 
tion of, 209; see also archetype(s); 
image(s); symbol(s) 

unconsciousness: mutual, of doctor 
and patient, 176, 178; way of, 105 

understanding, 146; a subjective 
process, 146 

unio mystica, 218, 251, 306, 312; as 
archetype, 169; see also marriage 
(divine /mystic) 

union: of conscious mind with un- 
conscious, 264; of God with ma~ 
teria, 185; inner nature of, in al- 
chemy, 296; of opposites, 185; par- 
tial, of elements, 238 

unity: and diversity, 199; inner, 232; 
transcendent, 244 

universal: antimony of individual, 
5, 6, 7; universal man, 6 

Upanishads, 184 

urges, instinctive, 173 

urine, boys'/ dogs', 210 

uroboros, 242, 307 

uterus, 203, 296 



V 



Valhalla, 159 

Valkyries, 159 

values, 33; ethical, 189; loss of, 135; 

relativization of, 291; spiritual, of 

Church, 19.5} 
Vansteensberghe, Edmond, 158, 

2ion 



387 



INDEX 



vas Hermeticum ) 203, 240$, 256, 
284; feminine lunar vessel, 312 

velleities, i97&n, 198 

Ventura, Lauren tius, 5,ix, 26gn 

Venus, 243, 295; barbata 3 306; love- 
fire of, 295, 298; and Mars, 296, 
300; mother of the child, 295; 
pearl of, 296; a pure virgin, 296; 
tincture in quality of, 298; see 
also Aphrodite 

viewpoints: Freudian and Adlerian, 
relativity of, 37, 39 

vinculum, of soul and body, 292 

Virgin: Son of the, 299; see also 
Mary 

virtues, Christian, 189; application 
to ourselves, 302 

"Visio Arislei," 2,i i7on, 2i8n, 244 

vulture, 28 in 



W 

Waite, A. E., 159-61, 216, zgon 

water, 242, 268; black, 26372; dream- 
motif, 12, 13; as energy-potential, 
13; metaphysical, 275; Mother of 
God and, 284; of salvation, 275; 
symbol of wisdom, 274; see also 
aqua 

Wei Po-yang, 162, 2 ion,, 217, 286n 

Weltanschauung, ngn 

whale, 244 

wheat, grain of, 25672 

wheel, opus as, 260 

white(ness): as cleanliness and inno- 
cence, 298; tincture and, 297$; 
see also albedo 

whole man, treatment of, 89, 90 

wholeness, 59, 190, 238, 243, 244^ 
261, 262, 279, 317; circle as symbol 
of, 208, combines I and You, 243/7 
cross as symbol of, 303; describable 



only in antinomies, 312; idea of, 
265, 316; initial state of, 207; royal 
pair in, 262; transcendent, 245; see 
also integration 

will: in second half of life, 50; the 
soul's and God's, 299; in young 
person, 50; see also ego; power 

will to power, 67, 173, 179 

Winthuis, Josef, 163, 24371 

wisdom, fountain of, 275 

woman /women: and alchemy, 294, 
300; animus-possessed, 293; un- 
known, contradictory character of, 
14; , dream-motif, i$ff; , per- 
sonifies unconscious, 14 

womb, 203; of temptation, 296 

Word of God, 275; see also Logos 

work: danger of the, 277; goal of 
the, 276; metaphors of the, 298; 
see also opus 

world: Christian view of, 117; ma- 
terialistic view of, 117 

world-principles, four, 30 

world-soul, 31 in 

wrath, God's, 297, 298 



Yin, 159 

yoga, 59, 102, 184, 266 



Zacharias, Dionysus, 5,v, i68n, 
Zadith Senior (Muhammad bin 

Umail), 153, 164, 16771, 20477, 21571, 

217, 242??, 248, 258??, 27iJra, 28in, 

282, 284, 28571, s86n 
Zeitgeist, 18 

Zen Buddhism, see Buddhism 
Zosimos, 165-67, 16771, so6n, 216, 

263^ 272n, 282n, 294^, 30971 



The Collected Works of G. G. Jung 

1. Psychiatric Studies 

2. Experimental Researches (bound in two parts) 

3. Psychogenesis in Mental Disease 

4. Freud and Psychoanalysis 

5. Symbols of Transformation (bound in two parts) 

6. Psychological Types (bound in two parts') 

7. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology 

8. The Dynamics of the Unconscious 

9. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (bound in two 

parts) 

10. Civilization in Transition 

11. Psychology and Religion 

12. Psychology and Alchemy 

13. Alchemical Studies 

14. Mysterium Coniunctionis 

15. The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature 

16. The Practice of Psychotherapy 

17. The Development of Personality 

Final Volume: Miscellaneous Works, Bibliography, and General 
Index 



369 



THE COLLECTED WORKS OF 

C. G. JUNG 



JLHE PUBLICATION of the first complete collected edition, in 
English, of the works of C. G. Jung has been undertaken by Rout- 
ledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., in England and by the Bollingen 
Foundation, Inc., through Pantheon Books, Inc., in the United 
States. The edition contains revised versions of works previ- 
ously published, such as The Psychology of the Unconscious, 
now entitled Symbols of Transformation; works originally 
written in English, such as Psychology and Religion; works not 
previously translated, such as the Mysterium Coniunctionis; 
and, in general, new translations of the major body of Professor 
Jung's writings. The author has supervised the textual revision, 
which in some cases is extensive. Sir Herbert Read, Dr. Michael 
Fordham, and Dr. Gerhard Adler compose the Editorial Com- 
mittee; the translator is R. F. C. Hull. 

Every volume of the Collected Works contains material that 
either has not previously been published in English or is being 
newly published in revised form. In addition to the Mysterium 
Coniunctionis -, the following volumes will in large part be new 
to English readers: Psychiatric Studies; Archetypes and the Col* 
lective Unconscious; Alchemical Studies; T he Spirit in Man ^Art^ 
and Literature; and The Practice of Psychotherapy. 

The volumes are not necessarily being published in consecu- 
tive order, but, generally speaking, new works of which transla- 
tions are lacking are being given precedence. The price of 
volumes varies according to size; they are sold separately, and 
may also be ordered as a set. In the following pages the volumes 
of the Collected Works are listed together with their contents, 
as now arranged. Each volume will also contain an index and, 



in most cases, a bibliography; the final volume will contain a 
complete bibliography of Professor Jung's writings and a general 
index of the entire edition. Subsequent works o the author's 
will be added in due course. 

1. PSYCHIATRIC STUDIES 

On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenome- 

na: A Psychiatric Study 

A Case of Hysterical Stupor in a Prisoner Awaiting Trial 
On Manic Alteration 
On Simulated Insanity 

A Medical Opinion on a Case of Simulated Insanity 
On Hysterical Parapraxes in Reading 
Cryptomnesia 
A Third and Conclusive Opinion on Two Contradictory Psychi- 

atric Diagnoses 
On the Psychological Determination of Facts 

2. EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES (BOUND IN TWO PARTS) 

PART I 

STUDIES IN WORD ASSOCIATION 

The Association of Normal Subjects (by Jung and Riklin) 
Experimental Observations on Memory 
On the Determination of Facts by Psychological Means 
Analysis of the Associations of an Epileptic 

PART II 

STUDIES IN WORD ASSOCIATION (continued) 
The Association Method 
Reaction-Time in Association Experiments 
On Disturbances in Reproduction in Association Experiments 
The Significance of Association Experiments for Psychopathol- 



Psychoanalysis and Association Experiments 
Association, Dream, and Hysterical Symptoms 

PSYCHOPHYSICAL RESEARCHES 

On Psychophysical Relations of the Association Experiment 
Psychophysical Investigations with the Galvanometer and Pneu- 

mograph in Normal and Insane Individuals (by Peterson 

and Jung) 

(continued) 

371 



2. (continued) 

Further Investigations on the Galvanic Phenomenon and Respi- 
rations in Normal and Insane Individuals (by Ricksher and 
J un S) 

3. PSYGHOGENESIS IN MENTAL DISEASE 

The Psychology of Dementia Praecox 

The Content of the Psychoses 

Complexes and the Cause of Illness in Dementia Praecox (by 

Bleuler and Jung) 

A Criticism of Bleuler's "Theory of Schizophrenic Negativism" 
On Psychological Understanding 

On the Importance of the Unconscious in Psychopathology 
On the Problem of Psychogenesis in Mental Disease 
Mental Disease and the Psyche 
On the Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia 

4. FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Freud's Theory of Hysteria 

The Analysis of Dreams 

The Significance of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual 

A Contribution to the Psychology of Rumour 

On the Significance of Number Dreams 

On Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis: A Correspondence 
between Dr. Jung and Dr. Loy 

The Theory of Psychoanalysis 

On Psychoanalysis 

Psychoanalysis 

Freud and Jung: Contrasts 

Appendix: Freud's Theory of Hysteria; Critical Remarks on 
Morton Prince's "Mechanism and Interpretation of 
Dreams"; Introduction to Kranefeldt's "Psychoanalysis" 

5. SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION * 
(BOUND IN TWO PARTS) 

PART I 

Introduction 

Concerning Two Kinds of Thinking 
Anamnesis 
Hymn of Creation 
The Song of the Moth 
* A revision of The Psychology of the Unconscious. 



PART II 

Introduction 

On the Conception of Libido 

Transformation of the Libido 

The Origin of the Hero 

The Symbolism of the Mother and of Rebirth 

The Battle for Deliverance from the Mother 

The Sacrifice 

Conclusion 

6. PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES (BOUND IN TWO PARTS) 

PART I 

Introduction 

The Problem of Types in the History of Classical and Medieval 

Thought 

Schiller's Ideas upon the Type Problem 
The Apollonian and the Dionysian 

The Type Problem in the Discernment of Human Character 
The Problem of Types in Poetry 
The Type Problem in Psychiatry 
The Problem of Typical Attitudes in Aesthetics 
The Problem of Types in Modern Philosophy 
The Type Problem in Biography 

PART II 

General Description of the Types 

Definitions 

Conclusion 

Four Papers on Psychological Typology 

7. TWO ESSAYS ON ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY * 

The Psychology of the Unconscious 
The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious 
Appendix: New Ways in Psychology; The Structure of the Un- 
conscious 

8. THE DYNAMICS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS f 

On Psychic Energy 

A Review of the Complex Theory 

General Aspects of Dream Psychology 

* Published 1953. 

f Originally announced as On Psychic Energy. (continued) 

373 



8. (continued) 

The Nature of Dreams 

Instinct and Unconscious 

The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits 

The Structure of the Psyche 

Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology 

The Real and the Surreal 

The Soul and Death 

Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung 

The Stages of Life 

Spirit and Life 

The Essence of Psychology 

Synchronicity: A Principle of Acausal Connection 

The Significance of Heredity and Constitution in Psychology 

Psychological Factors Determining Human Behaviour 

9. ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE 
UNCONSCIOUS (BOUND IN TWO PARTS) 

PART I 

The Concept of the Collective Unconscious 

Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious 

Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima 

Concept 

Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype 
Concerning Rebirth 
The Psychology of the Child Archetype 
The Psychological Aspects of the Kore 
Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy Tales 
The Conscious Mind, the Unconscious, and Individuation 
A Study in the Process of Individuation 
Concerning Mandala Symbolism 

PART II 

A. Aion: Contributions to the Symbolism of the Self 
The Ego 
The Shadow 

The Syzygy: Anima and Animus 
The Self 

Christ, a Symbol of the Self 
The Sign of the Fishes 
The Prophecies of Nostradamus 
The Historical Significance of the Fish 

374 



The Ambivalence of the Symbol of the Fish 

The Fish in Alchemy 

The Alchemistic Interpretation of the Fish 

General Considerations on the Psychology of Christian-Alchem- 

istic Symbolism 
Gnostic Symbols of the Self 
Structure and Dynamics of the Self 
Epilogue 
B. Answer to Job 

10. CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 

The Role of the Unconscious 

Archaic Man 

The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man 

Mind and Earth 

The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man 

THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 

The Fight with the Shadow 

Woman in Europe 

The Love Problem of the Student 

The Swiss Line in the European Spectrum 

Wotan 

The State of Psychotherapy Today 

After the Catastrophe 

Epilogue to "Essays on Contemporary Events'* 

REVIEWS AND SHORT ARTICLES 

Complications of American Psychology 

The Rise of a New World: Review of Keyserling's "America Set 

Free" 

The Dreamlike World of India 
What India Can Teach Us 

Review of Keyserling's "La Revolution Mondiale" 
Contemporary Events (A Rejoinder to Dr. Bally's Article) 

11. PSYCHOLOGY AND RELIGION 

WESTERN RELIGION 

Psychology and Religion 

A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity 

Transformation Symbolism in the Mass 

(continued) 

375 



11. (continued) 
Bruder Klaus 

Psychoanalysis and the Cure of Souls 

Psychotherapists or the Clergy 

Foreword to White's "God and the Unconscious" 

EASTERN RELIGION 

Psychological Commentary on "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" 

Yoga and the West 

Foreword to Suzuki's 'Introduction to Zen Buddhism" 

The Psychology of Eastern Meditation 

The Holy Men of India: Introduction to Zimmer's "Der Weg 

zum Selbst" 
Foreword to the "I Ching" 

12. PSYCHOLOGY AND ALCHEMY* 

Introduction to the Religious and Psychological Problems of 

Alchemy 

Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy 
Religious Ideas in Alchemy 
Epilogue 

13. ALCHEMICAL STUDIES 

Commentary on "The Secret of the Golden Flower" 

The Spirit Mercurius 

The "Arbor philosophica" 

Some Observations on the Visions of Zosimos 

Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon 

14. MYSTERIUM CONIUNCTIONIS 

The Components of the Coniunctio 

The Paradox 

The Personification of Opposites: 

Introduction; Sol; Sulphur; Luna; Sal; Rex; Regina; Adam 

and Eve 
The Conjunction 

15. THE SPIRIT IN MAN, ART, AND LITERATURE 
Paracelsus 

Paracelsus the Physician 
Sigmund Freud: A Cultural Phenomenon 
Sigmund Freud: An Obituary 
* Published 1953. 

376 



Richard Wilhelm: An Obituary 

Psychology and Literature 

On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to the Poetic Art 

Picasso 

"Ulysses" 

16. THE PRACTICE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY* 

ESSAYS ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 
TRANSFERENCE AND OTHER SUBJECTS 

GENERAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

Principles of Practical Psychotherapy 

What Is Psychotherapy? 

Some Aspects of Modern Psychotherapy 

Aims of Modern Psychotherapy 

Problems of Modern Psychotherapy 

Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life 

Medicine and Psychotherapy 

Psychotherapy Today 

Fundamental Questions of Psychotherapy 

SPECIFIC PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 

The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction 
The Practical Use of Dream Analysis 
Psychology of the Transference 

17. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY 

Psychic Conflicts in a Child 

Introduction to Wickes's "Analyse der Kinderseele" 

Child Development and Education 

Analytical Psychology and Education: Three Lectures 

The Gifted Child 

The Significance of the Unconscious in Individual Education 

The Development of Personality 

Marriage as a Psychological Relationship 

FINAL VOLUME: MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND GENERAL INDEX 

REVIEWS, SHORT ARTICLES, ETC., OF THE PSYCHOANALYTICAL 

PERIOD 

LATER INTRODUCTIONS, ETC. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF C. G. JUNG'S WRITINGS 
GENERAL INDEX OF THE COLLECTED WORKS 
* Published 1954. 

377 






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