In order to solve the problem how practical treatment can overcome the assimilation of the collective psyche, we must first of all make quite clear to ourselves what was the error of the two ways already described. We saw that neither the one way nor the other led to any appropriate result. The first way simply leads the patient back to the point of departure, having lost the vital values contained in the collective psyche. The second way leads him straight into the collective psyche, having lost that detached human existence which alone renders possible a bearable and satisfying life. There are on both sides values that should not be lost to the individual.
The mistake is, therefore, neither in the collective psyche nor in the individual psyche, _but in allowing the one to exclude the other_. The monistic tendency assists this propensity, for it always suspects and looks for _one_ principle everywhere. As a general psychological tendency, monism is a peculiarity of differentiated feeling and thought, corresponding to the keen desire to make the one or the other function the supreme psychological principle. The introversion type only knows the thought principle, and the extroversion type only that of feeling. This psychological monism--or it would be better to say monotheism--has the advantage of simplicity, and the disadvantage of one-sidedness. On the one hand, it signifies the exclusion of the variety and true riches of life; whilst on the other, it means the practicability of realizing the ideals of the present day and of the near past. But it does not in itself signify any actual possibility of human progress.
In the same way _rationalism_ tends towards exclusiveness. Its essence is to exclude instantly whatever is opposed to its standpoint, whether it be intellectually logical or emotionally so. In regard to reason it is both monistic and autocratic. Special thanks are due to Bergson for having broken a lance for the right of the irrational to exist. Psychology will probably be obliged to acknowledge and to submit to a plurality of principles, in spite of the fact that this does not suit the scientific mind. Only so can psychology be saved from ship-wreck.
But with regard to individual psychology science must waive its claims. For to speak of a scientific individual psychology is in itself a _contradictio in adjecto_. It is necessarily always only the collective part of an individual psychology that can be the subject of scientific study, for the individual is--according to definition--something unique and incomparable. A "scientific" individual psychology is a denial of individual psychology. It may justly be suspected that individual psychology is indeed a projection of the psychology of him who defines it. Every individual psychology must have its own text-book, for the universal text-book only contains collective psychology.
These remarks are intended to prepare for what has to be said about the treatment of the aforesaid problem. The fundamental error of both the afore-mentioned ways is simply that the subject is collectively identified with the one or the other part of his psychology. His psychology is individual as well as collective, but not in such a manner as to merge the individual with what is collective, or the collective with what is individual. The persona must be strictly separated from the concept of the individual, in so far as the persona can be absolutely merged with the collective. But what is individual is just that which can never be absorbed in the collective, and is, too, never identical with the collective. Therefore, an identification with the collective or an arbitrary cutting-off from the collective is equivalent to illness; it is pathological.
As has already been indicated, what is individual appears at first as the particular selection of those elements of the collective psyche that contribute to the composition of the persona. As I said before, the components are not individual but collective. It is only their combination, or the selection as a model of particular groups that had already been combined, which is individual. That would be the individual nucleus which is concealed by the personal mask. By the particular differentiation of the persona, the resistance is shown of the individuality to the collective psyche. By analysing the persona, we transfer a greater value to the individuality, increasing thereby its conflict with collectivity. This conflict obviously is a psychological conflict in the individual. The dissolution of the compromise between the two halves of a pair of opposites increases the effectiveness of the contrast. This conflict does not exist within the sphere of purely unconscious natural life, although the purely physiological life of the individual also has to comply with collective demands.
The natural unconscious attitude is harmonious; the body, with its capacities and needs, providing immediately indications and limitations, that prevent intemperance and lack of proportion. A differentiated psychological function, however, always inclines towards disproportion, on account of the one-sidedness which is cultivated by the conscious rationality of intention. What is called mental individuality, is, also, an expression of the individual corporeity, being, so to speak, identical with it. This sentence might obviously also be reversed, a fact that does not materially alter the real psychological data concerning the intimate relation of the individuality to the body. At the same time, the body is also that which makes the subject resemble all others to a great extent, although it is the individual body that is differentiated from all others.
Similarly the mental or moral individuality differs from all others, although in every respect it is so constituted as to place one person on an equality with all others. Every living creature that is able freely to develop itself individually without any coercion at all, will, through the perfecting of its individuality, soonest realize the ideal type of its species, and therefore, figuratively speaking, will have collective validity.
The persona is always identical with a _typical_ attitude, in which _one_ pyschological function dominates, _e.g._ feeling, or thought, or intuition. This one-sidedness always causes the relative repression of the other functions. In consequence of this circumstance, the persona is hindering to the development of the individual. The dissolution of the persona is, therefore, an indispensable condition of individuation. It is, therefore, to some extent impossible to achieve individuation by means of conscious intention; for conscious intention leads to a conscious attitude, which excludes everything that "does not suit." But the assimilation of the unconscious contents leads, on the contrary, to a condition in which conscious intention is excluded, being replaced by a process of development that appears to us irrational. This process alone signifies individuation, its _product_ being individuality as defined above, viz. as something individual that is at the same time universal. So long as the persona exists individuality is repressed, betraying itself at most by the particular selection of personal requisites, of what might be called the actor's costumes. Only when the unconscious is assimilated does the individuality become more prominent, and with it also that uniting psychological phenomenon between the ego and non-ego, expressed by the word _attitude_, is now no longer a typical attitude but an individual one.
What is paradoxical in these formulations arises from the same cause from which the conflict about the "universalia" formerly arose. The phrase "animal nullumque animal genus est" makes the fundamental paradox clearly comprehensible. What exists "really" is individual: that which is universal is existing psychologically, but being caused by the real-existing similarities of individual things. The individual is, therefore, the individual thing that has, to a greater or less extent, those attributes upon which the collective conception of "collectivity" rests; and the more individual he is, the more he develops those attributes that are the basis of a collective concept of human nature.
If a grotesque figure, suggested by the initial situation of our problem be permitted, it is Buridan's ass between the two bundles of hay. His questioning is obviously wrong: the question is not whether the hay-bundle on the right or the left be the better one, or whether he should begin to eat on the right or the left hand, _but what he himself would like to do, what he is eager for_--that is the point. He is thinking of the hay and not of himself, and therefore he does not know what he really wants.
The question is: what at this moment is the natural direction of the growth of this individual?
This question cannot be settled by any philosophy, religion or good advice, but solely by an unprejudiced review of the psychological germs of life which have resulted from the natural co-operation of the conscious and unconscious on the one hand, and of the individual and the collective on the other. One person looks for them in the conscious, and another in the unconscious. But the conscious is only one side, and the unconscious is only the other. For it should never be forgotten that dreams are compensatory or complementary to consciousness. Were this not the case, we should be obliged to regard dreams as a source of knowledge superior to the conscious. This view would undoubtedly carry us back to the mentality of the augur, and we should have to accept all the consequences of such a superstitious attitude, unless, indeed, we look upon dreams as valueless, as does the vulgar mind.
We find the _unifying function_ that we are seeking, _in the phantasies_ in which everything that has any effectual determination is present. But phantasies have a bad reputation among psychologists. The psychoanalytical theories hitherto obtaining have treated them accordingly. For both Freud and Adler the phantasy is nothing but a so-called "symbolic" disguise of what both investigators suppose to be the primary propensities and aims. But in opposition to these views it should be emphasised--not for theoretical but for essentially practical reasons--that the phantasy may indeed be thus causally explained and depreciated, but that it nevertheless is the creative soil for everything that has ever brought development to humanity. The phantasy as a psychological function has a peculiar non-reducible value of its own, whose roots are in both the conscious and the unconscious contents, and in what is collective as well as in what is individual.
But whence comes the bad reputation of the phantasy? It owes that reputation chiefly to the circumstance that it ought not to be taken literally. It is worthless if understood concretistically. If we understand semiotically, as Freud does, it is interesting from the scientific standpoint. But if it be understood _hermeneutically, as an actual symbol_, it provides us with the cue that we need in order to develop our life in harmony with ourselves.
For the significance of a symbol is not that it is a disguised indication of something that is generally known,[255] but that it is an endeavour to elucidate by analogy what is as yet completely unknown and only in process of formation.[256] The phantasy represents to us that which is just developing under the form of a more or less apposite analogy. By analytical reduction to something universally known, we destroy the actual value of the symbol; but it is appropriate to its value and meaning to give it an hermeneutical interpretation.
The essence of hermeneutics--an art that was formerly much practised--consists in adding more analogies to that already given by the symbol: in the first place, subjective analogies given by the patient as they occur to him; and in the second place, objective analogies provided by the analyst out of his general knowledge. The initial symbol is much enlarged and enriched by this procedure, the result being a highly complex and many-sided picture, which may now be reduced to _tertia comparationis_. Thence result certain psychological lines of development of an individual as well as collective nature. No science upon earth could prove the accuracy of these lines; on the contrary, rationalism could very easily prove that they are wrong. But these lines vindicate their validity by their _value for life_. The chief thing in practical treatment is that people should get a hold of their own life, not that the principle of their life should be provable or "right."
Of course, true to the spirit of scientific superstition _suggestion_ will be mooted. But it should long ago have been realised that a suggestion is only accepted by one it suits. Beyond that there is no suggestion, otherwise the treatment of neurosis would be extremely simple, for we should only need to suggest health. This pseudo-scientific talk about suggestion is based upon the unconscious superstition that suggestion actually possesses some real magic power. No one succumbs to suggestion unless from the very bottom of his heart he be willing to co-operate.
By means of the hermeneutical treatment of the phantasies we arrive at the synthesis of the individual with the collective psyche, put theoretically, that is, but practically, one indispensable condition is yet lacking. For it belongs to the regressive disposition of the neurotic--a disposition in which he has been confirmed in the course of his illness--to take neither himself nor the world seriously, but always to rely on this or that method or circumstance to effect a cure, quite apart from his own serious co-operation. "But you can't wash the dog without getting his skin wet." No cure can be effected without unlimited willingness and absolute seriousness on the part of the patient. There are no magical cures for neurosis. Just as soon as we begin to elaborate the symbolic outlines of the path, the patient must begin to walk thereon. If he delude himself and shirk it, no cure can result. He must really work and live according to what he has seen and recognised as the direction for the time being of his individual life-line, and must continue thereon until a distinct reaction of his unconscious shows him that he is beginning in good faith to go a wrong way.
He who does not possess this moral function of faithfulness to himself will never get rid of his neurosis; but he who has this faithfulness can find the way out.
Neither physician nor patient must yield to the delusion that "being analysed" is in itself sufficient to remove a neurosis. That would be deception and self-delusion. Ultimately it is infallibly the moral factor that decides between health and illness.
By the construction of the individual's life-line the ever-varying trends and tendencies of his libido are made conscious. These life-lines are not identical with the "directing fictions" discovered by Adler, which are none other than arbitrary attempts to cut the persona off from the collective psyche, and to give it independence. It might rather be said that the "directing fiction" is an unsuccessful attempt to construct a life-line. The unsuitability of the "directing fiction" is also proved by the fact that the lines are tenaciously retained for much too long a time. The hermeneutically constructed life-line is short, for life follows no straight lines that indicate the future long beforehand, for, as Nietzsche says, "All truth is crooked." Life-lines are therefore neither principles nor ideals of universal validity, but points of view and adaptations of ephemeral validity. An abatement of vital intensity, a perceptible loss of libido, or an excessive passion or ecstasy--all show that one such line is left, and that a new line begins, or rather should begin. Sometimes it is enough to leave the revealing of the new line to the unconscious; but this course should indeed not be recommended to the neurotic under all circumstances, though there are cases where what is needed is to learn to trust to so-called chance. However, it is not advisable to let one's self drift for any length of time; a watchful eye should at least be kept upon the reactions of the unconscious, that is to say, upon the dreams: these indicate like a barometer the one-sidedness of our attitude.[257] Therefore, I consider it necessary, in contrast to some other analysts, for the patient after analysis to remain in contact with the unconscious, if he would avoid a relapse. That is why I am convinced that the real end of analysis is reached when the patient has acquired adequate knowledge of the method to remain in contact with the unconscious, and sufficient psychological knowledge to be able to understand approximately his ever-changing life-line; otherwise he is not in a position to follow the direction of the libido currents in the unconscious, and thereby to gain conscious support in the development of his individuality. Every serious case of neurosis needs this weapon in order to maintain the cure.
In this sense analysis is not a method that is a medical monopoly, but rather an art or technique or science of psychological life, which he who has been cured must continue to foster, for the sake of his own welfare and that of his environment. If he understands this aright he will not pose as a psychoanalytical prophet nor as a public reformer, but truly understanding the common weal, he will first himself reap the benefit of the self-knowledge acquired in his treatment, and then he will let the example of his life work what good it can, rather than indulge in aggressive talk and missionary propaganda.
