The Theory of PsychoanalysisJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Science
The Theory of Psychoanalysis
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Neuroses; Psychoanalysis; Psychology, Pathological; Sex
I think here is the place to say something about the indispensable
conditions of the psychology of the psychoanalyst himself.
Psychoanalysis is by no means an instrument applied to the patient only;
it is self-evident that it must be applied to the psychoanalyst first. I
believe that it is not only a moral, but a professional duty also, for
the physician to submit himself to the psychoanalytic process, in order
to clean his mind from his own unconscious interferences. Even if he is
entitled to trust to his own personal honesty, that will not suffice to
save him from the misleading influences of his own unconscious. _The
unconscious is unknown, even to the most frank and honest person._
Without analysis the physician will inevitably be blindfolded in all
those places where he meets his own complexes; this is a situation of
dangerous importance in the analysis of transference. Do not forget that
the complexes of a neurotic are only the complexes of all human beings,
the psychoanalyst included. Through the interference of your own hidden
wishes you will do the greatest harm to your patients. The psychoanalyst
must never forget that _the final aim of psychoanalysis is the personal
freedom and moral independence of the patient_.
The Analysis of Dreams
Here, as everywhere in analysis, we have to follow the patient along the
line of his own impulses, even if the path seems to be a wrong one.
Error is just as important a condition of mental progress as truth. In
this second step of analysis, with all its hidden precipices and
sand-banks, we owe a great deal to _dreams_. At the beginning of
analysis dreams chiefly helped in discovering phantasies; here they
guide us, in a most valuable way, to the application of the libido.
Freud’s work laid the foundation of an immense increase in our knowledge
in regard to the interpretation of the dream’s content, through its
historical material and its tendency to express wishes. He showed us how
dreams open the way to the acquisition of unconscious material. In
accordance with his genius for the purely historical method, he apprises
us chiefly of the analytical relations. Although this method is
incontestably of the greatest importance, we ought not to take up this
standpoint exclusively, as such an historical conception does not
sufficiently take account of the _teleological meaning of dreams_.
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