Freud and Jung or Freud, and Jung?

Dear Readers

It seems like I will not go to sleep until I get this all off my chest. I am thinking about Freud and Jung right now and they are very much ‘alive’ in my head. I am comparing how influenced I have been by Freud’s drives theory and how active it has been in my life and relationships, both past and present. Yes it’s an old theory of the expression of libido and yet on reflection there does seem to be some logic in how gratification might be played out in terms of how the pleasure and unpleasure principle may be fuelling this recession! However, I am not here to talk about recession tonight.

What I am thinking about though, is the relationship between Freud and Jung. What it seems, is that they could have both been trying to fulfil  a fantasy in each other, that is, Freud and his ideal son and Jung and his ideal father. We all know what they say about ideals don’t we. That’s right. It’s just and ideal. It would be great if we could all remember this in significant relationships wouldn’t it.

These men remind me of a kind of push and pull relationship, with both trying to sway each other to their way of thinking. If only they could see the future now in terms of how linear their developmental theories are and in some respects they might even complement each other, rather than ending in a breakdown of a relationship.

So Freud postulated the stages of the sexual drives theory and the idea of neurosis is rooted in unresolved conflicts produced by childhood experiences.  Thereafter his idea that the Oedipus Complex being the ‘nucleus’ of neurosis, that is, a fixation to a experience of early childhood in the early family group became the likely cause.  This notion of Freud's of developmental block or of shutting off of the psyche, in my view derserves another page of discussion.   On the other hand Jung for whatever reason focussed away from childhood experiences and attributed neurosis not just down to the sexual drive but probably to being ‘dammed up libido’, that is, energy. I wonder, is that not what Freud was saying when he likened his drives theory to ‘psychodynamics’? It does intrigue me what they had to talk about in their first ever meeting for 13 hours uninterrupted, other than that dreams have meaning!

I am quite delighted that Jung had something major to add to this subject of energy in terms of the unconscious. In my view he raised a very important point of what is beyond the ‘personal unconscious’ (Freud)? I find it quite fascinating how he came up with the answer ‘the collective unconscious’ (Jung), even though there still does not seem to be a definitive description of what it is, other than his explanation of archetypal images from different cultures handed down throughout the generations in the form of stories, images or symbols from my understanding. I suppose when you take one of his client's cases where the patient sees ‘the sun with an image of a shape like a phallic next to it’ and Jung finds a similar story in his research a few years later, one cannot doubt the collective unconscious and agree that these kind of expressions can come out as overwhelming emotions.  All credit due to Jung on creating a new psychology focussing on how a person can be helped psychologically in the context of neurosis perhaps being a blockage in a person's life now, or some kind of obstacle in their current path.

I am rather fascinated on his views on introverts and extroverts and psychological types, but that’s another subject on another day. Good night.

Bibliography
Fordham F., (1956), An Introduction to Jung's Psychology : A Pelican Book

Barrett K., (2011), Freud Museum, Introducing Psychoanalysis, Lectures