Critique of Psychoanalysis Cg Jung
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CRITIQUE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS from The Collected Works of C. G. Jung VOLUMES 4 and, 18 BOLLINGEN SERIES XX CRITIQUE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS C. G. JUNG TRANSLATED BY R. F. C. HULL BOLLINGEN SERIES PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS COPYRIGHT © 1961 BY BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION, NEW YORK, Ν. Y. NEW MATERIAL COPYRIGHT © 197 5 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS. PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS All Rights Reserved First Princeton JBollingen Paperback Edition, /975 Extracted from Freud and Psychoanalysis, Vol. 4, and The Symbolic Life, Vol. 18, both in the Collected Works of C. G. Jung. All the volumes comprising the Collected Works constitute number XX in Bollingen Series, under the editorship of Herbert Read (d. 1968), Michael Fordham, and Gerhard Adler; executive edi tor, William McGuire. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed of without the publisher's consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUE CARD NUMBER: 74-5639 ISBN 0-691-01801-4 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON, N. J. EDITORIAL NOTE For about six years, from 1907 to 1912, Jung practiced and wrote and presumably thought as a psychoanalyst, in close as sociation with Freud.1 The work that was to be his major state ment, Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido, proved instead to be a declaration of heresy, or at any rate of independence. When its relatively brief Part I appeared in 1911, Freud com plimented it; but the very extensive Part II, published the next year, left no question of Jung's position, though he still pro fessed himself an adherent of the psychoanalytic movement. In autumn 1912, he visited the United States to lecture in various cities. His chief appearance was at the Medical School of Ford- ham University, in the Bronx, New York, where he gave a series of nine lectures as an extension course to doctors—"a critical account of the development of the theory of psychoanalysis," he wrote Freud upon returning. "Naturally I also made room for those of my views which deviate in places from the hitherto existing conceptions, particularly in regard to the libido theory. I found that my version of psychoanalysis won over many people who until now had been put off by the problem of sexuality in neurosis. I shall take pleasure in sending you a copy of my lectures in the hope that you will gradually come to accept certain innovations already hinted at in my libido paper. I hope this letter will make it plain that I feel no need at all to break off personal relations with you."2 The break never theless came, scarcely two months later. Freud's last letter was written on 27 January 1913. The chief content of the present volume is the Fordham Lectures, entitled "The Theory of Psychoanalysis" though ac tually a presentation of Jung's version of psychoanalysis and 1 See The Psychoanalytic Years and (from an earlier phase of Jung's work) The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, both Princeton/Bollingen paperbacks. 2 The Freud/Jung Letters, ed. William McGuire (1974), 323 J of 11 Nov. 1912. EDITORIAL NOTE a criticism of the orthodox view. It is followed by four shorter works that carry forward Jung's critique and the evolution of his own system. In the paper "Psychoanalysis and Neurosis" (actually first read also in New York in 1912, as was recently discovered) and the other two of 1913, Jung's term is still "psy choanalysis"; by 1916, when he published his Collected Papers, the term "analytical psychology" had become current for the doctrines of the Zurich School, and Jung's prefaces to that col lection pursue the reformulation of his theories.3 The volume also contains two later critical papers, of 1930 and 1931, and a statement written to the New York Times in 1953 rehearsing, forty years after the break, Jung's critique of psychoanalysis.4 W.M. 3 For other critiques of the early period, see (1) Psychology of the Unconscious, tr. from Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido by B. M. Hinkle (1916, out of print)—in 1952, Jung brought out a thoroughgoing revision whose tr. is entitled Symbols of Transformation (CW 5); and (2) Two Essays in Analytical Psychology (CW 7), including the early versions in an appendix (Princeton/Bollingen paper back). ι Other critical comments on psychoanalysis occur frequently throughout Jung's later writings. TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL NOTE V The Theory of Psychoanalysis ι Shorter Papers General Aspects of Psychoanalysis 147 Psychoanalysis and Neurosis 161 Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis 170 Prefaces to "Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology" 208 Introduction to Kranefeldt's "Secret Ways of the Mind" 216 Freud and Jung: Contrasts 225 Appendix: Answers to Questions on Freud 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY 239 INDEX 245 THE THEORY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS [Written originally in German under the title Versuch einer Darstellung der psychoanalytischen Theorie and translated (by Dr. and Mrs. M. D. Eder and Miss Mary Moltzer) for delivery as a series of lectures under the present title at the medical school of Fordham University, New York, in September 1912. The Ger man text was published in the Jahrbuch fiir psychoanalytische und psycho· pathologische Forschungen (Vienna and Leipzig), V (1913; reprinted as a book the same year); the English, in five issues of the Psychoanalytic Review (New York): I (1913/14) 1-4 and II (1915) : 1. The latter was then republished in the Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series, No. 19 (New York, 1915). The analysis of a child in the last chapter had been previously presented as "t)ber Psychoanalyse beim Kinde" at the First International Congress of Pedagogy, Brussels, August 1911, and printed in the proceedings of the Congress (Brussels, 1912), II, 332-43. [A second edition of the German text, with no essential alterations, was pub lished in 1955 (Zurich). The present translation is made from this edition in consultation with the previous English version. [The text of the 1913 and 1955 editions in German is uninterrupted by head ings, but at the author's request the original division into nine lectures (ascer tained from an examination of the manuscript) has here been preserved. This arrangement differs from that of the previous English version, which is divided into ten lectures; the chapter and section headings there introduced have in general been retained, with some modifications. A number of critical passages inserted at a later stage into the original manuscript and included in the German editions were omitted from the previous English version, together with the foot notes. In the present version these passages are given in pointed brackets (). —EDITORS.] FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION In these lectures I have attempted to reconcile my practical ex periences in psychoanalysis with the existing theory, or rather, with the approaches to such a theory. It is really an attempt to outline my attitude to the guiding principles which my hon oured teacher Sigmund Freud has evolved from the experience of many decades. Since my name is associated with psychoanal ysis, and for some time I too have been the victim of the whole sale condemnation of this movement, it will perhaps be asked with astonishment how it is that I am now for the first time defining my theoretical position. When, some ten years ago, it came home to me what a vast distance Freud had already trav elled beyond the bounds of contemporary knowledge of psycho- pathological phenomena, especially the psychology of complex mental processes, I did not feel in a position to exercise any real criticism. I did not possess the courage of those pundits who, by reason of their ignorance and incompetence, consider themselves justified in making "critical" refutations. I thought one must first work modestly for years in this field before one might dare to criticize. The unfortunate results of premature and superficial criticism have certainly not been lacking. Yet the great majority of the critics missed the mark as much with their indignation as with their technical ignorance. Psychoanalysis continued to flourish undisturbed and did not trouble itself about the unscientific chatter that buzzed around it. As every one knows, this tree has waxed mightily, and not in one hemi sphere only, but alike in Europe and America. Official critics meet with no better success than the Proktophantasmist in Faust, who laments in the Walpurgisnacht: Preposterous! You still intend to stay? Vanish at oncel You've been explained away. The critics have omitted to take it to heart that everything that exists has sufficient right to its own existence, and that this FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS holds for psychoanalysis as well. We will not fall into the error of our opponents, neither ignoring their existence nor denying their right to exist. But this enjoins upon us the duty of apply ing a just criticism ourselves, based on a proper knowledge of the facts. To me it seems that psychoanalysis stands in need of this weighing-up from inside. It has been wrongly suggested that my attitude signifies a "split" in the psychoanalytic movement. Such schisms can only exist in matters of faith. But psychoanalysis is concerned with knowledge and its ever-changing formulations. I have taken as my guiding principle William James's pragmatic rule: "You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience. It appears less as a solution, then, than as a program for more work, and more par ticularly as an indication of the ways in which existing realities may be changed.