Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of ThoughtJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Philosophy
Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Libido (Psychology); Mother and child; Psychoanalysis; Subconsciousness; Symbolism (Psychology)
Certainly
the difficulties of the conditions of life and the adversities of the
struggle for existence may oppress us, yet even adverse external
situations would not hinder the giving out of the libido; on the
contrary, they may spur us on to the greatest exertions, whereby we
bring our whole libido into reality. Real difficulties alone will never
be able to force the libido back permanently to such a degree as to give
rise, for example, to a neurosis. _The conflict, which is the condition
of every neurosis, is lacking._ The resistance, which opposes its
unwillingness to the will, alone has the power to produce that
pathogenic introversion which is the starting point of every psychogenic
disturbance. The resistance against loving produces the inability to
love. Just as the normal libido is comparable to a steady stream which
pours its waters broadly into the world of reality, so the resistance,
dynamically considered, is comparable, not so much to a rock rearing up
in the river bed which is flooded over or surrounded by the stream, as
to a backward flow towards the source. A part of the soul desires the
outer object; another part, however, harks back to the subjective world,
where the airy and fragile palaces of phantasy beckon. One can assume
the dualism of the human will for which Bleuler, from the psychiatric
point of view, has coined the word “ambitendency”[343] as something
generally present, bearing in mind that even the most primitive motor
impulse is in opposition; as, for example, in the act of extension, the
flexor muscles also become innervated. This normal ambitendency,
however, never leads to an inhibition or prevention of the intended act,
but is the indispensable preliminary requirement for its perfection and
coördination. For a resistance disturbing to this act to arise from this
harmony of finely attuned opposition an abnormal plus or minus would be
needed on one or the other side. The resistance originates from this
added third.[344] This applies also to the duality of the will, from
which so many difficulties arise for mankind. The abnormal third frees
the pair of opposites, which are normally most intimately united, and
causes their manifestation in the form of separate tendencies; it is
only thus that they become willingness and unwillingness, which
interfere with each other. The Bhagavad-Gîtâ says, “Be thou free of the
pairs of opposites.”[345] The harmony thus becomes disharmony. It cannot
be my task here to investigate whence the unknown third arises, and what
it is. Taken at the roots in the case of our patients, the “nuclear
complex” (Freud) reveals itself as the _incest problem_. The sexual
libido regressing to the parents appears as the incest tendency. The
reason this path is so easily travelled is due to the enormous indolence
of mankind, which will relinquish no object of the past, but will hold
it fast forever. The “sacrilegious backward grasp” of which Nietzsche
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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