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Freud &Jung
A Primer
The Language of Freud
1. Freud says our psyche is divided into 3 parts: the id, the ego and the superego.
2. The superego is a repressive energy that tries to control our impulses, thoughts and behaviours.
It comes to us through socialization, but we internalize it, so it can appear to us as conscience.
It’s our sense of what is right and wrong—of what we should do as responsible and moral
adults. The rules of the superego are enshrined in our laws, but they come to us individually
through school, parents, peers, movies, tv and other sources. The superego is associated with
the reality principle or the work principle. It is also associated with the phylogenetic (see
below). There is some homogeneity but certainly no unanimity to these rules: as a culture we
generally agree that murder and rape are wrong and we generally agrees that it is better to
defer gratification from now to later by spending time in school (the reality or work principle)
now, so we can have a better life later. The superego wants to defer pleasure and gratification
until later. The superego is generally part of our conscious mind (think Johari window here), but
it can also affect us unconsciously. The superego defines and reinforces the laws and ideal
behaviours of our society.
3. The id is largely unconscious. It houses our instincts (the impulses inherent in our species):
these instincts include eros (the life force which includes eating and sex), thanatos (the death
wish), aggression, fear, libido (sex only and as such is a subset of eros). The id is associated with
the pleasure principle and seeks gratification sooner rather than later, and can seek it at all
costs were it not for the balance of the superego.
4. The ego is the self we think we know and it is the battleground for the id and the superego. The
id fights for our energy and is in direct completion with the work principle so the more or harder
we work, the less energy is left for the id and conversely, the more we give way to the id the less
energy we have for work. Given that out energy is finite, the ego is always being pulled into
imbalance one way (id) or the other (superego) and rarely finds equilibrium—and even if it does,
that balance is not long lasting.
5. Taboo refers to those thoughts and behaviours which are forbidden (murder, incest) so the id is
always seeking to explore them and the superego is always seeking to control, limit, or if
possible, eradicate the desire for them.
6. The superego represses the id and its desire for the taboo. To repress means to deny or to try
to limit or control. In cases where the id triumphs the ego feels guilt. Even when the superego
represses our impulses, the ego is anxious (anxiety) that the repression has been unsuccessful.
This anxiety proves to be warranted because of the return of the repressed, which means when
we deny our impulses and resist our impulses they return to us in barely recognizable—or
sometimes unrecognizable—forms. If the return of the repressed is not recognized it is said to
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be sublimated. If it is partially recognized and partially unknown/unrecognizable it is said to be
uncanny.
7. Our hidden (repressed) desires appear to us in disguise they seem ostensibly legitimate
(sublimation) but they are not. Consequently we seek substitute gratifications that are
ostensibly more legitimate than taboos. This is called inhibited aim and can manifest itself (for
example) and smoking a cigar as a substitute for a reversion to the oral stage (see below) of
development.
8. Freud makes a parallel connection between the microcosm of the individual (the ontogenetic)
and our culture at large (the phylogenetic). As individuals, we are increasingly repressed as we
move from childhood to adulthood. We move through 5 stages of psychosexual development:
a. The oral stage: based on nursing at the breast, everything of interest and values comes
to us through our mouths. This is related to intussusception or the taking into the self.
b. The anal stage where we become aware of what comes out of our bodies (as opposed
to the oral stage which is concerned on what come into the body). Here, the id
demands immediate release of bodily waste but the ego (through the influence of the
superego) demands control and restraint over time and place of release.
c. The phallic stage is where the focus shifts away from the mouth and the anus to the
genitalia as a source of curiosity, interest and eventually, pleasure.
d. The latency stage is where the habits learned in the first 3 stages become habituated. It
is here also where the individual resolves (or tries to resolve) the Oedipal or Electra
complex (see below) and consequently it is also here where neurosis (see below) and
defense mechanisms (see below ) begin to develop.
e. The genital stage is where the seeking of genital pleasure focuses on adult partnerships
and is “infantile” and “solitary ” (“onanism”).
f. Sometimes individuals may suffer regression if they have not fully resolved the issues in
earlier stages, but severe trauma can also cause regression.
9. As a society too, we have become increasingly repressive (contrary to whatever impressions we
may have about sexual liberation). For Freud, neurosis and psychosis are in large part, caused
by the overwhelming pressure of the phylogenetic (enforced by the superego).
10. Neurosis is a category of mild anxiety-causing mental dysfunctions involving delusions. The
individual can usually function but is hampered by these. Superstitions about not going to work
on Friday 13th might constitute a neurosis. Other might include withdrawal/introversion,
depression, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), other impulsive behaviours (collecting every
souvenir of Lord of the Rings), and certain milder phobias (acrophobia).
11. Psychosis is a category of severe anxiety-causing disorders where the individual has basically
lost touch with reality (you think you’re Napoleon). Psychosis includes schizophrenia and other
seriously altered mindsets.
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12. The Oedipus complex suggests a retarded or regressive stage of psychosexual development
where an individual son/male does not want to separate from his mother and wants to remain
attached to her (physically and well as emotionally and psychologically) at a time when his own
sense of separateness from her brings him into conflict with his biological father. The father
figure becomes an obstacle to pleasure (comfort and security) provided by the mother and so
must be killed (id impulse) but since both incest and murder are taboo, the Oedipal urges
become sublimated and expressed (safely acted out) through inhibited aim.
13. The Electra complex suggests a retarded or regressive stage of psychosexual development in the
female. Freud abandoned this idea later in his career but Jung was convinced of its legitimacy.
In the Electra complex the daughter/female identifies protectively with the father figure and so
comes into conflict with her mother as she competes for her father’s love and protection. Like
the Oedipus complex, the Electra impulses become sublimated and expressed (safely acted out)
through inhibited aim.
14. Primal Horde theory. In Chapter 4 of Civilization and Its Discontents Freud makes a
phylogenetic argument for the Oedipal complex. Humans are pack animals and so we also
behave like pack animals, with an alpha and beta male, and a clear hierarchy of power among
the other males. The lowest in the pack is the omega. Females too have a hierarchy with an
alpha and beta female. The alpha male enjoys sexual access to the females and because of his
dominance until the other males discover that through cooperation, intelligence and treachery,
they can overthrow the alpha male and thereby enjoy the sexual access to the females that was
hitherto out of their reach.
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The Language of Jung
1. For Jung, our personality is the psyche and the ego is the self. He does not mean each of as as
discrete individuals, but our individuality as it is influenced by (and determined by) how
susceptible we are to the collective unconscious of humankind. The unconscious consists of a
personal unconscious (the shadow or dark side) and a collective unconscious (archetypes). The
shadow is analogous to Freud’s ontogenetic, and archetypes are analogous to Freud’s
phylogenetic because they are inherited by virtue of our humanity and they exist in all of use.
The shadow or our dark side (it hides from the world and lives underneath our persona – which
is the roles we try to adhere to when we obey societal rules). The shadow is the part of our
psyche capable of violence and of following all our destructive primal instincts: it contains the
same kinds of instincts identified in Freud’s id. While the shadow also exists in each one of us, it
is (theoretically at least), configured slightly differently in each of us. The shadow is a repressed
part of our individual selves (our consciousness), and of all the parts of the unconscious, the
shadow is perhaps the least difficult for us to discover. The shadow is always projected (see
below) on to a member of the same sex—for example when we irrationally hate someone.
2. At a deeper level of the self is our collective unconscious which contains archetypes.
Archetypes have been defined as “symbol-producing structures in the collective unconscious”
and Jung himself defined them as “a tendency to form such representations that can vary a
great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern.” He calls them “instinctive trends” but he
means (as the Encyclopedia of Literary Theory says), those “primordial images inherited in the
collective unconscious of the human race, from where they merge into myths, religion,
literature, the visual arts, dreams and private fantasies.” They are a cast of characters contained
in our collective unconscious. They combine in various ways to create archetypal stories or
motifs such as the quest (see below).
3. The animus/anima are gender related inherited images we carry around with us. The animus is
the hidden masculine part of a feminine female and the anima is the hidden part of a masculine
male. I make this (only) apparently redundant distinction because male-female refers to biology
(what’s between our legs), not mindset. Masculine-feminine refers to gender (what’s between
our ears). Moreover, our sexual orientation is completely separate and distinct from all this.
Masculinized males have a repressed feminine side (the anima) and feminized females have a
repressed masculine side (the animus). It is also possible to have masculinized females and
masculinized males and because each individual is not socialized the same way or to the same
extent, the particular configuration of masculine and feminine traits in each of us is very
idiosyncratic. Still, the animus/anima archetypes persist.
4. Our sexual orientation has nothing necessarily, to do with our gender or biology, so you can
have feminized males who are heterosexual or gay just as you can have masculinized females
who can be heterosexual or lesbian. Often our attraction to (or repulsion from) members of the
opposite sex are driven by a projection of our own animus/anima that we see in them.
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5. Other archetypes include the father (power and control), the mother (feeding, nurturing,
soothing), the child (birth and beginnings), the hero, the maiden, the wise old man, the
magician, the earth mother, the witch or sorceress, the trickster, the faithful dog, the enduring
horse and the devious/serf-serving cat.
6. For Jung, we try to deny or repress our unconscious impulses and desires but we cannot n fact
control them and so we project the repressed part of ourselves onto others, thinking that what
we are projecting is outside our selves (ie within the other person) but in fact the origin of what
we “see” in others is our hidden selves.
7. The quest motif is an archetypal story motif where a hero undertakes the task of saving a
community that has come under threat. The hero makes a journey from the comfort of the
community into a wilderness where he is isolated and tested for his integrity. The successful
passing of this test is what saves the community and when he returns home he was a changed
and wiser man. Through the quest, the hero undergoes the process of individuation.
8. Individuation is the process by which we start to uncover our personal and collective
unconsciousness. Sometimes that can happen through therapy and sometimes through life
altering events. Jung believes we want to individuate and so in this sense, the pursuit of
individuation is a kind of thanatos because the self as we know it is always destroyed when we
individuate.
9. Because the unconscious is always changing, individuation is something we can approximate but
never fully achieve.