CHAPTER XV

THE CONCEPT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 445

I. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS.

Development of concepts--Removal of repression does not empty the unconscious--Repression is a special phenomenon--The unconscious contains not only repressed material, but subliminal sense-impressions which have never reached consciousness--It is constantly busied with new phantasy formation--Patients are urged to retain their hold on repressed materials that analysis has brought into consciousness--Prolonged analysis reveals contents other than those of a personal nature--Necessity to differentiate a layer called the "personal" unconscious whose materials originate in the personal past--Their omission from consciousness constitutes a defect or neglect--The moral reaction against this neglect shows they could become conscious if sufficient trouble were taken--The gradual transference of the personal unconscious contents into consciousness extends the periphery of consciousness.

II. THE CONSEQUENCES OF ASSIMILATION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 449

First result is increased self-consciousness--May lead to a sense of God-Almightiness in one type, or to overwhelming self-depreciation in the other--A result of ascribing to oneself qualities or vices that do not belong individually but collectively--The collective pysche divided into collective mind and collective soul--The collective contains the "parties inférieures" of Janet; the conscious and personal unconscious contains the "parties supérieures"--Incorporation of the impersonal unconscious leads to a dissolution of the pairs of opposites--As seen in neurotic, who combines megalomania and sense of inferiority in extreme degree--Primitive man possesses the collective vices and virtues in an undifferentiated way--Mental conflict only begins with conscious personal development--Desire to be good brings about repression of the bad--Collective view-point, though necessary, is dangerous to individuality--Collective psyche is the result of psychological differentiation of the gregarious instincts--Dangers of identification with collective psyche--Recognition of the different psychology of the types a safeguard, promoting a proper respect for individuality of the opposite type--Individuation hampered by man's suggestibility and tendency to imitation.

III. THE INDIVIDUAL AS AN EXCERPT OF THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE 456

The personal unconscious contains repressed materials capable of becoming conscious--By also incorporating the impersonal contents the state of God-Almightiness is brought about--The "persona" a mask for the collective psyche--Development of God-Almightiness, physical concomitants--Dissolution of the persona results in release of phantasy--Analogy with mental derangement--Difference consists in that the unconscious is at first deliberately brought into consciousness by consent, and later that it is recognised as having psychic validity only.

IV. ENDEAVOURS TO FREE THE INDIVIDUALITY FROM THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE 459

(i) _The Regressive Restoration of the Persona_--Three ways open, (_a_) Regressive application of a reductive theory; (_b_) application of God-Almightiness as a "virile protest;" (_c_) recognition of the primitive archaic collective psychology in man--Temptation to solve the difficulty by forgetting one has an unconscious--This does not work--The unconscious cannot be deprived of libido, nor its activity stilled for any length of time.

(ii) _Identification with the Collective Psyche_--God-Almightiness developed into a system--Identification increases feeling for life or sense of power, according to the type--This, mystically understood, is the "yearning for the mother" of the hero-myth, or the "incest-wish" of Freud--It is the collective psyche that has to be overcome--Identification with the collective psyche is a failure because being lost in it, a bearable or satisfactory life is impossible.

V. LEADING PRINCIPLES FOR THE TREATMENT OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHE 468

Neither regressive restoration of the persona, nor identification with collective psyche solves the problem--Psychology will have to admit a plurality of principles--Only the collective part of individual psychology can be the subject of scientific study--What belongs to the psychology of the individual requires its own text-book--The persona must be strictly separated from the concept of the individual--What is individual is the remnant which can never be merged into the collective--Analysis of the persona transfers greater value on to the individuality, increasing its conflict with collectivity--The persona is identical with a one-sided attitude, being a typical attitude in which thought or feeling or intuition dominates, causing relative repression of the other functions--Dissolution of persona indispensable to individuation--The more individual a person is the more he assimilates and develops those attributes that are the basis of a collective concept of human nature--Unifying function between the conscious and unconscious, between the collective and individual is found in the phantasies--Phantasy the creative soil for everything that has brought development to humanity--Phantasy not to be taken literally but hermeneutically--Hermeneutics adds analogies to those already given--Hermeneutical interpretation indicates the means of synthesis of the individual, provided as soon as the symbolic outlines of the path are understood they are followed up--Co-operation and honest endeavour essential to cure--The moral factor determines the cure--"Life-lines" have a short and ephemeral value--Dreams are compensatory to conscious thinking--Watch must be kept for dreams indicative of causes of error--Hence the patient must remain in contact with the unconscious--End of analysis reached when enough psychological insight and mastery of technique is acquired to enable individual to follow his ever-changing life-line, and to retain hold on the libido currents which give conscious support to his individuality.

SUMMARY 472

INDEX 475

ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY