Jungian Therapy, Dream Interpretation, And Biology

Maxson J. McDowell

A version of this articlenwas originally published in Quadrant: Jou al of the C. G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Vol. 29, 1. Copyright: C. G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc., 1999. All rights reserved.

How can it help?

Why Jungiannanalysis?

How does it relate tonbiology?

I address all these questions in the articlenthat follows.

(Matisse: Casbah Gate)

In a previous career I was an experimental scientistnin molecular biology; now I am a Jungian analyst. As annanalyst I sense that there are non-rational forces at work. I encounter numinous images and I find that the psyche hasnits own goals which are independent of mine. But as anbiologist I seek rational explanations. My two points ofnview, that of a biologist and that of an analyst, are innconflict. The conflict has led to this paper. (Medieval, Catalan: "Nativity")

I argue that relatedness is a central goal ofnindividuation. In brief, to relate is to engage consciouslynwith the other. The other is found both in the oute world and in the inner world of the psyche. To relate inndepth we must be open to that part of the other which isnmysterious.

Archetypes and Inheritance

A dream sometimes alludes to a story that is alsontold in mythology. When my patient "Ruth" dreamt that shenwas abducted to a basement by a dark man, her dream seemednto allude to the myth of Persephone:

Persephonenwas a young woman. While she was picking flowers in a field,nshe was seized by Hades and taken to the underworld. Hernmother, Demeter, was grief-stricken and enraged. She madenthe land barren. A deal was struck amongst the gods. For sixnmonths of the year Persephone was Hades' bride, Queen of thenUnderworld. For the other six months she was allowed tonrejoin her mother. Whenever Persephone was with her, Demete made the land fertile again. This is why we have summer andnwinter. (Gaugin: "Breton Landscape")

Ruth's dream only hinted at a story, whilenthe myth elaborates the story and suggests a resolution.

Ruth's dream and the myth are somehow related. Moreover similar myths have arisen independently in othe cultures. For example there is a Polynesian myth thatnretells the story of Persephone:

On a coral island, a young woman, Hina-moe-atu (Hina-sleeping-with-a-god) was bathing in anfresh-water pool beneath a cliff. A huge eel came to hernfrom beneath the rocks, went sliding under her vulva, andngave her pleasure with its tail. The same thing happenednmany times. Then, while Hina was gazing at it, the eelnbecame a handsome young island man. Many times he came withnher to her house and they made love. Then he told her henwould have to leave her forever and instructed her what tondo. There were torrential rains and the water rose to thenthreshold of her house. The eel came and laid its head innher doorway. She cut of its head with the sacred adze of hernancestor and buried it behind her house. Then she visitednthat place every day to see what would happen. In time anfirm green shoot appeared, and from it grew two coconutnpalms. The coconut palm provides food and many raw materialsnfor the economy of the island, and this is how it wasncreated.

There is no summer and winter on a coralnisland.

The myths of Persephone and Hina-moe-atu seem tondescribe a process of maturation. A woman is drawn into herninstinctual life by a phallic power. Then she sacrifices andnthereby transforms some of her instinctuality. The result isnnew psychological growth. This is represented in the mythsnas the renewed fertility of the land.

Over the centuries the myth of Persephone has beennworked out to completion and stripped of extraneous detail. The narrative has been tested and found "true" by manyntellers and many listeners. But Ruth is an individual. Annamplification or an interpretation may be "true" in general,nbut "wrong" for her. Perhaps the timing is wrong, or thenemphasis, or perhaps she and I have misunderstood the dreamnaltogether. We consider our interpretation of her dreamn"true" only if she feels the truth of it, or if it isnconfirmed by some spontaneous visceral reaction in her, likena flush, or tears, or a sudden release of tension.

It seems that Ruth's dream and the two myths mustneach have arisen independently from the same source. Jungncalled that source an archetype, a psychologicalninvariant common to each of us because it is inheritednrather than learned. By analogy there are behavioralninvariants, like blushing, or smiling, or crying, which arencommon to each of us because they are inherited rather thannlea ed. (We modify them by learning.)

The pantheon of Gods in a religion represents, innpsychological terms, a series of archetypes. Demeter, Persephone and Hades are examples. Jung said that archetypesnmake up a great part of the unconscious. This he called thencollective unconscious, to distinguish it from thenpersonal unconscious (Jung 1921). My personalnunconscious is made up of contents which might well benconscious, but which I have forgotten or repressed in mynindividual life. Thus my repressed envy of my friend lies innmy personal unconscious, while the archetype behind Persephone lies in the collective unconscious. Jung arguednthat each archetype gives rise to characteristic images andnmyths.

It seems difficult to account for the inheritance ofnarchetypes in rational terms. To explain what I mea I mustndigress into biology. Although inheritance is based uponngenes, the total number of different genes in my chromosomesnis limited. Recent research has shown that a person has onlynabout twenty times as many genes as a bacterium: I have lessnthan 100,000 and a bacterium has between 3,000 and 5,000n(Alberts et. al., 1994). But my structure is astronomicallynmore complex (Tresan, 1996b). The small number of my genesnmust mean that genetic information cannot function as anblueprint. While the structure of a building is specified inndetail in its blueprint, I do not have enough genes tonspecify my structure in this manner. In fact most genesnspecify processes rather than structures; most genes codenfor enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions within thencell. It follows that these chemical reactions, which arenrelatively few in number, must absorb information in ancontrolled manner from their environment in order to createnmy final structure.

An analogy will help to explain what I mean. A recipenspecifies how to bake bread. But the recipe itself containsnonly a few pieces of explicit information. The recipe maynsay nothing about the final three-dimensional reality of thenloaf, its shape, texture, color, aroma, and taste. Thensuccess of the bread depends upon its ability to absorbninformation in a controlled manner from the environment. Thenbaker's actions, the oven, the pan, the humidity, thenbarometric pressure, and the chemical and physicalnproperties of the ingredients all contribute informationnthat helps to determine the final form of the loaf. In thisnanalogy the recipe corresponds to the genetic information,nwhile the baker's actions and the oven contributenenvironmental information. The point is that while genesncannot function as a blueprint they do function as a recipe. In technical terms, we know that a gene functions as annalogorithm (Elman et. al. 1988). An alogorithm is anrecipe.

My argument is supported by much experimentalnresearch. For example, rats were reared in an environmentnenriched with playthings and opportunities to explore, whilena control group was reared in an impoverished environment. It was found that an "enriched" rat's cerebral cortex wasnthicker, had a higher metabolic rate, and had morenhigher-order dendritic branches. (Greenough, 1976). Recentnexperiments have shown that in vertebrates, while the visualnand somatosensory regions of the cerebral cortex arendeveloping,

central neurons wait forninformation from the periphery [i.e. from the environment]nin order for normal development to go forward. If thenmessages change, a different brain organization resultsn(Gazzaniga, 1992).

From this digression it seems obvious that I couldnnot inherit an archetypal image or story, as such, in myngenes. In computers an image takes up a great deal ofnstorage space. My storage system for genetic information isnmuch too small. Jung himself argued that we do not inheritnan image, but an archetypal tendency to form an image. Hensaid that the tendency was activated by the environment andnthat the specific image was derived from the environmentn(Jung 1936a; 1938/54).

According to Jung:

The archetypes are thenunconscious images of the instincts. ... [An archetype] isnnot meant to denote an inherited idea, but rather anninherited mode of functioning, corresponding to the inbo nway in which the chick emerges from the egg, the bird buildsnits nest, a certain kind of wasp stings the motor ganglionnof the caterpillar, and eels find their way to the Bermudas. In other words it is a "pattern of [instinctual] behavior" (Jung, 1936b; 1933). (Rousseau: "Flamingoes")

n

Both in an animal and in a person, instinct is thensource of drives such as sexuality, hunger, and aggression. In an animal, but to a much lesser degree in a person,ninstinct also specifies complicated behaviors like thosendescribed above by Jung. A person's behavior differs fromnanimal behavior in that it is more influenced by learningnand less specified by instinct. (I use the term "instinct"nin the broad sense to mean any inherited behavioralnpotential.)

The following illustrates how an animal's instinct isnlinked to an image. As soon as a gosling hatches, it isndriven by instinct to follow its mother. But it lacks anninte al image of its mother. If I honk like a goose andncrouch low enough, then the newly-hatched gosling imprintsnan image of me in its brain to represent mother. Henceforward, if I crouch and honk, it will follow me. Itnwill not follow a goose (Lorenz, 1970). The gosling hasninherited the instinct to follow its mother, but it hasntaken the image of mother from its environment.

Similar mechanisms must operate in each of us (Stern, 1977), though at a higher level of complexity. This suggestsnhow the myth of Persephone or of Hina-moe-atu isn"inherited." Every girl in every culture inherits a sexualninstinct. Consequently she is attracted to and perhapsnfearful of a man (if she is lesbian, a woman) who is usuallyna stranger. She in turn attracts him. With him she exploresnher feelings and is drawn away from her family. As shenlea s to discriminate these feelings she developsnpsychologically. Thus the girl's instinctual predicament,nwhich is universal, suggests the story of Persephone. Shenseems to inherit not the story per se but "the factsnof life" which suggest the story.

She must also inherit her imaginative capacity or,nmore accurately, the potential to develop it. It seems thatnher imagination recreates the story of Persephone innresponse to both inherited and environmental directions. AsnI have already explained, her physical body is formed by annanalogous process in response to both inherited andnenvironmental directions.

It seems that any archetypal image could be creatednby the mechanism I have described. I inherit the potentialnto acquire knowledge and insight. I see my potentialnembodied in another man who is older than me. Hence I formnthe archetypal image of the wise old man. I inherit thenpotential to leave my parents, but also the potential tonregress, to go back home. I repress my desire to go back andnproject it onto my mother: it is her desire to take me back. Hence I develop the archetypal image of the battle with andevouring monster. I inherit the potential to be related butnproject this potential onto a young woman. Hence I developnthe archetypal image of the anima. I inherit thenpotential to unify my personality more in the second half ofnmy life, the potential to develop a relationship between mynconscious ego and the archetypes. Hence I form an archetypalnimage of the self. I will say more later about thenanima and the self.

Tresan (1996c) also suggested that each of us mayncreate anew our own archetypal image:

The enormous capacities of ...neach brain are capable of creating de nouveau any knownnarchetypal pattern through self-organization and without thenneed for an invocation of the a priorin[archetype].

But Tresan did not explain how this might benaccomplished. I argue that the inherited instinct is thena priori from which an archetypal image organizesnitself.

If it is simply the instinct which is inherited thennthere is no need to postulate an inherited "archetype asnsuch". This point seems to lie at the heart of Pietikainen'sn(1998b) recent criticism of Jungian theory:

[The]'principle of parsimony'nsupports simplicity in the construction of theories: ...nentities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. ... I donnot doubt that some of the most basic conditions of ournhistorical existence are defined a priori by our biologicalnconstitution. ... What I do question is the totallynspeculative notion of the inheritance of archetypalnstructure.

Ruth's dream of being taken to a basement may helpnher to resolve an objective, i.e. outer-life, problem. Ifnshe is young and struggling to separate from her mother, ornif she is an adult whose passionate feelings are repressed,nthen the dream may guide her towards a deeper relationshipnwith a man.

But the dream might also refer to a subjective,ninner-life problem. Ruth may be blocked in her own creativenwork. Perhaps she feels sterile, or perhaps she lacks thennecessary discrimination and assertion. Discrimination cannbe represented by a sword or a knife and assertion by anclub. Since these are phallic symbols, discrimination andnassertion are phallic powers. Hades would then represent hernown inner phallic potential. Then the dream might help hernto relate more consciously to that potential, so that herncreative work could flourish. Such inner developments arenintangible and difficult to understand. The dream solvesnthis problem by using a familiar outer-life story (a girl'sndeepening connection to a man) as a metaphor. Often, in andream, the outer and inner levels of meaning both apply.n(Picasso: "Jaqueline")

Why are Archetypal Images Numinous?

Demeter, Persephone, and Hades were gods. To thenancient Greeks who worshiped them they were numinous,nwhich means they evoked awe, or fear and wonder (Otto, 1936). Like the Greeks, my patients sometimes dream of anfigure which is highly charged and mysterious. For examplen"George" dreamt:

A bizarre animal, a hawk with anbig wolf's head, flew towards me, landed on my hand, andnlooked at me. It was full of power. It was like a freightntrain rushing towards me.

The Greeks made sacrifices in part to distinguishntheir gods from themselves. This helped them to avoidnhubris. Hubris meant taking upon themselves god-likenpowers, like flying too close to the sun, which would swampntheir personal identity. In modern terms, when I face annarchetype I am in danger of assigning to myself archetypalnpowers, of feeling larger than life. In order to avoid thisninflation, or hubris, I must distinguish between my ownnpersonal qualities and those of the archetype. I must relatento an archetype rather than fuse with it (Jung 1928/35). Inwill come back to this problem when I discussnrelatedness.

What does it mean that a dream figure is numinous? Why, in most dreams, are the figures not numinous? Dreamsnseem to be messages from the unconscious. Usually a figurenin a dream brings me information from the personalnunconscious, that is, knowledge that my conscious mind cannreadily encompass. In that case the figure seems mundane. Often it is someone I know, or reminds me of someone I know. Then the quality which I associate with that person is thenmessage. If I dream of my uncle Bill and I associate Billnwith penny-pinching, then my dream suggests that I amnpenny-pinching somewhere in my present life. A numinousnfigure, however, does not remind me of anyone I knownpersonally. Often I cannot make out its features because itsnface is obscured or strangely illuminated. (This is thenpsychological basis for the halo.) When I analyze such anfigure I find that I cannot fully grasp it. Although Georgencame to understand some of the meaning of his wolf-hawk, itnremained mysterious. By its very design, a chimera (twonanimals in one) is an image of that which isnincomprehensible. (Rousseau: "Sleeping Gypsy")

Why is an archetypal image numinous? Can there be anrational explanation? I argue that the collectivenunconscious is made up of inherited instincts and the imagesnderived from them. As such it is archaic and enduring. Itnmust always have been present in humans and in their hominidnancestors. In fact, since all animals have instincts it isnas old, in some form, as the nervous system itself (Jungn1956). It is not changed by my individual history; in eachnof us it is the same. My conscious personality, however, mynsense of "I", is transitory. It is born in my earlynchildhood and dies when I die. It is unique, being the sumnof my own individual experience. Thus my consciousness isnonly a temporary epiphenomenon of the timeless unconscious. It is like a mushroom which appears only brieflynaboveground. A mushroom is born out of the mycelium, thenmain mass of the fungus, which persists indefinitelynunderground.

It seems to follow that my conscious mind cannotnencompass the unconscious, any more than a hailstone cannencompass the weather. I can speculate about it, or sketchnit in intellectually, but I cannot know it. In terms ofnsubjective experience, an intellectual sketch is not thensame as knowing. I may describe the universe and itsngalaxies mathematically, but it remains an awe-inspiringnmystery to me. Thus when a figure in my dream represents annarchetype it represents something from another realm, likenthe realm of the fairies in Celtic myth. Its numinosity maynbe my subjective experience of the incomprehensibility ofnthe archetype, my way of representing thatnincomprehensibility within consciousness¹.

Certainly a young child, to whom his or her parentsnare incomprehensible, experiences them as numinousn(Whitmont, 1991b). I sometimes say of an extraordinarynperson that he or she "seems larger than life," or "seems tonglow in the dark." Jung (1956) himself suggested that annarchetypal image seems numinous to us because of thenoverwhelming importance of the instinct that itnrepresents.

Behind the mystery I have described there is perhapsnan ultimate mystery. But psychology does not deal with thenultimate:

Psychology can only approach thensubject from the phenomenological angle, for the realitiesnof faith lie outside the realm of psychology (Jungn1940/54).

If I were to use religious language, I would say thatnan archetype is a force of nature and that nature, which is God's creation, is itself a numinous mystery.

The Purposeful Psyche

When I work with dreams the unconscious seems to havena goal in mind. Current dreams address current problems. Dreams are forever correcting a one-sided view andnsuggesting how the dreamer might proceed. Ruth's dream, fornexample, hinted that she was living too intellectually andntrying to suppress instinctual needs; perhaps she needed tongo deeper. Throughout Ruth's analysis she and I assumed thatnher dreams had purpose and that it was our task to deciphe it.

From a rational point of view this poses a problem. Whose purpose? If my dreams are messages to me, then who ornwhat is sending them? Must there be an agent within thenunconscious that has its own point of view, its own plansnwhich are different from mine (Grotstein, 1998)?

Since my conscious personality is born during mynchildhood, it must grow during my lifetime; it mustnassimilate new experiences in order to expand its range. Innthis regard my conscious personality is like a biologicalnsystem. In biology, the principle of self-assembly o self-organization was clarified by research on thenstructure of hemoglobin and the assembly of viruses thatnbegan in the 1940's (Watson et. al., 1987; Wood and Crowther, 1983).

It is now understood that in any biological systemngrowth tends to be self-organized. Growth is self-organized,nfor example, in a beavers' dam, or a living cell, or anfetus. On a different time scale Darwinian evolution itselfnis self-organized. At the psychological level, a therapyngroup matures and becomes productive by a spontaneousnprocess of self-organization (Yalom, 1975). In each casenself-organization leads spontaneously to an emergentnlevel of order, a level of order distinct from, and morencomplex than, the level that preceded it (Holland, 1998). Thus sticks become a dam, molecules become a cell, reptilesnbecome mammals, and individuals become a group.

A self-organized system takes resources from itsnenvironment and integrates them into its own structure. Growth manifests innate potential rather than a plan. It isnlike a new stream finding its way downhill: the stream has angoal but there is no plan.

It has been shown that beavers do not plan their dam. Young beavers were reared in isolation from adults, and werennever exposed to a beavers' dam. Nevertheless they builtndams. In one experiment, the young beavers were exposed tonthe recorded sound of running water. With this stimulus theynbuilt dams even in a still tank of water (Wilson, 1968, 1971). These experiments show that dam building is thenresult not of purposeful action but of instinctive behavior. (The fact that a beaver can perfect a behavior by observingna more experienced beaver does not contradict the argument.) A beaver cuts down trees, digs channels to float the logsntowards the dam, and then places them in a mass, togethe with small branches, mud, and whatever other materials itncan find (Ryden, 1989). The dam assembles itself out ofnthese materials. As it grows, it is guided by its inherentn(a priori) formal or mathematical possibilities. Thisnconcept sounds abstruse but is actually familiar: fornexample, how many different ways can you arrange threenmatch-sticks so that they are contiguous? The dam is alsonguided by the constraints of its environment, such asngravity, water pressure, and the shape of the stream's bank. Thus it becomes an individual unit that is sensitivelynadapted to its environment.

Perhaps it seems eccentric to compare the humannpersonality to a beaver's dam! But the human personality isnan aggregate of ill-matched parts, a grab-bag, patchwork,nshifting kind of thing. Its construction bears witness tonpast injuries and repairs. It is unlike most biologicalnstructures, in that, within a single species, its formnvaries extravagantly from one individual to the next. It isnstructured, however, according to some invariant principles. For example, it must function as a unit and it mustnaccommodate its immediate environment. All of the above isnalso true for a beaver's dam. Thus the dam is a model fornthe personality.

As my future unfolds, if I am fortunate, thingsn"click into place," I "find my way." These words suggestnthat the way was ahead of me, waiting to be found. It wasninnate. In part it was inherited as a recipe in my genes. Innpart it was inherent or implicit in the situation (how manynways can you arrange three sticks so that they arencontiguous?).

I think of the following examples from my practice. Anpainter discovered in middle age that she loved to writenfiction. A woman who had been a pleaser discovered that shenhad a talent for wielding power; she enjoyed her power innher corporation. An engineer whose education had been mostlyntechnical discovered that he loved to paint. A man from annalienated and unhappy family discovered that he lovednchildren and liked to be with his own family. In each ofnthese examples the person grew, not according to any plan,nbut by stumbling upon his or her own potential.

As I grow I assimilate resources from my environment. This may be exte al, the outside world, but it is alsoninte al. The collective unconscious is the internalnenvironment from which my consciousness develops. The stagesnin the evolution of consciousness out of the collectivenunconscious have been described, for example by Whitmontn(1991c). When I am in midlife (somewhere around the age of 40), my conscious personality may be shaken by an encounte with an archetypal force. If this happens I may, with hardnwork, develop a more conscious relationship to thenarchetype.

The Anima

The following vignettes illustrate such an encounter. (These vignettes are chosen for contrast; I do not mean tonimply that they exhaust the possibilities. The predicament Indescribe can have many outcomes.) In middle age "Henry" wasnstruggling to write creatively. He became fascinated with anyounger woman. Since he loved his wife and children, he wasncaught between two opposing desires. He was thrown intonconflict. He could not bear the tension and felt compellednto end it. Perhaps he repressed his fascination, or perhapsnhe abandoned his family. Either way he may have sacrificedntoo much and thereby injured himself. He may have understoodnhis longing for the younger woman in too literal terms.

Or, in the same predicament, Henry did not sacrificeneither side. He continued to suffer both his fascination fornthe young woman and his love for his wife and children. Hensensed that his conflict had meaning. He tried to understandnit, but failed. His talents, his past experience, his egonskills, were not effective. He was at an impasse. Only then,nwhen consciousness had been defeated, did he listen to thenunconscious. (It seemed to have created the wholenpredicament for just that purpose. If there were a viablencourse of action he would have ignored the unconscious.)

A vital and mysterious woman appeared in Henry'sndreams. She took many forms. For example:

I was a man like Picasso. I wasnwith a Spanish woman and there was physical tension betweennus. We drank water together at an old stone fountain. Wenpoured the water from a jug to a cup. It was a ritual withndeep meaning.

Picasso was a highly creative man who wasninspired by a series of mistresses. Water symbolizes thenflow of feeling or creativity. The woman made the wate accessible (the cup) from its impersonal source (thenfountain). Thus the Spanish woman represented thenanima. It was she who made the young woman in Henry'snouter life seem so compelling. Eventually Henry recognizednthat he had been projecting an archetype onto a person.

In our culture a girl is conditioned more than a boynto interact personally. She talks more to other girls. As anboy Henry tended more towards impersonal activities, likensports and cars. Consequently, when he was older, the imagenof a young woman represented his archetypal potential fo relatedness. She was young because the potential wasnnew to him.

What do I mean by "relatedness"? If I am to relate tonyou then I must be with you and not just adjacent to you. Inmust not only talk and not only listen, but both. Dependingnon what is called for in the moment, I may feel joy in you company, or I may oppose you without flinching. Mynstandpoint must be distinct from yours. I must be conscious,nboth of your circumstances and of mine, both of you feelings and of mine.

Buber (1958) used the term "I-Thou" to describe anrelationship in depth, one which encompasses the mysteriousnin self and other. I can relate to you in depth only if Inrelate to my own depth, to that part of myself which isnincomprehensible. To relate consciously to thenincomprehensible, I argue, I need a standpoint in thenrational. Otherwise I am fascinated and absorbed by thenincomprehensible, which is not the same as relating to it. Odysseus had to face Circe with a drawn sword lest he bentu ed into a pig. Circe was the incomprehensible anima. Odysseus's sword represented the discriminating power ofnrationality and consciousness.

In the second vignette, as Henry related more to theninner woman, he began to relate more to others: he becamenmore engaged with people close to him, and also more engagednin his creative work. In order to write successfully he hadnto relate not only to his own inner reality but also to hisnaudience's reality. Both personally and creatively, henincorporated some of his archetypal potential fornrelatedness. His conscious personality was therebynenlarged.

Thor

If I am to relate to an archetypal image, I must benwilling to analyze it not only prospectively, for where itnis leading me, but also reductively, for how it relates tonmy past. I may have been injured in childhood around thatnarchetype. I may have repressed grief and longing, or fea and shame, or perhaps, if the injury was early, archaicnrage. If I fail to analyze the image reductively, then itnbecomes an intellectual defense against painful memories andnfeelings, a "head trip." Such a defense weakens my sense ofnreality and my ability to integrate power and eros (Whitmontn1991d). The following shows how reductive and prospectivenanalyses work together.

"Jack" was fearful in his adult relationships. We hadnanalyzed this. He understood that he had been physicallynabused in his childhood, but he was still fearful. Jack'snfather had not only been abusive; he had also been weak andnabsent. Therefore Jack lacked an internal image of masculinenstrength. Then he made a painting of a huge man with anhammer. The image was numinous. He "held it" innconsciousness and analyzed it. It evoked for him not onlynhis childhood abuse, but also the Norse god Thor whonembodied masculine strength and courage. As he began tonrelate to the archetype behind the image he became morencourageous. He became more conscious of his own masculinenpotential.

The Self

Standing behind each of the archetypes (wise man,nhero, anima, etc) there seems to be a singlenall-encompassing archetype. Jung called it thenself:

the sum total of conscious andnunconscious contents ... the wholeness of the personalitynwhich, if all goes well, is harmonious but which cannotntolerate self-deception (Jung 1938/40; 1961a).

Thus (I argue) the self is the potential fornan emergent, more unified organization of the personality,none in which the ego and the unconscious are more related toneach other. Because every other archetype leads towards thisncentral potential, every other archetype is an aspect of it. In time this potential pushes itself forward, demanding thatnit too be integrated.

I may experience the self as an autonomous agentnwhich confronts me with great authority. The encounte between the ego and the self is represented in the image of Abraham and "a smoking brazier and a flaming torch" (ThenRevised English Bible, Gen. 15:17). Abraham was faced withnan overwhelming central authority. It made demands on him. While its power made him feel small, it also gave him ansense of purpose and value.

My conscious personality is most secure when it feelsnin control. But if it encounters the self it finds that itnis only a small part of a larger whole. It is as though Inhad discovered that the island on which I lived were notnmade of rock, but were the back of a whale.

The whale is the Leviathan. The story of Jobnsymbolized the struggle between the ego and the self. Atnfirst Job was secure in his righteousness and prosperity. Then, with God's permission, Satan attacked him. First hendestroyed his family and his property. Then, when Job wasnunbowed,

... he afflicted Job with runningnsores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head,nand Job took a piece of broken pot to scratch himself as hensat among the ashes (Job 2:7,8).

Job argued bitterly and persistently,nprotesting God's injustice. He rejected his comforters'nconventional wisdom:

No doubt you are intelligentnpeople,
nand when you die, wisdom will perish! (12:2)

Eventually God responded. He reactedndefensively to Job's accusations, describing Himself as anforce of nature. He warned Job that He had the brute forcenof the crocodile. These verses support my argument that annarchetype is a force of nature and that nature itself is annuminous mystery:

Where were you when I laid thenearth's foundations?
Tell me, if you know and understand.
Who fixed its dimensions? ... (38:4,5)
Does the rain have a father?
Who sired the drops of dew? (38:28)
Does your skill teach the hawk to use its pinions
nand spread its wings towards the south? (39:26)
But consider the chief of beasts, the crocodile,
nwho devours cattle as if they were grass (40:15):
His nostrils gush forth steam
nlike a cauldron on a fire fanned to full heat (41:20).
Iron he counts as straw,
And bronze as rotted wood (41:27).
He looks down on all, even the highest;
nover all proud beasts he is king (41:34).

Job realized that God had no conce fornjustice, so he yielded, keeping his reservations tonhimself:

... But I have spoken ofnthings
nwhich I have not understood,
nthings too wonderful for me to know (42:3).
Therefore I yield,
nrepenting in dust and ashes (42:6).

Then God restored his good fortune. nn

Thus God and Job responded to each other. There was anback-and-forth quality which was the beginning ofnrelatedness. Job stood on justice and rationality in thenface of the incomprehensible. Then he recognized God'snlimitation. Jung argued that God in turn was transformed bynthe encounter: His moral defeat at the hands of Job ledneventually to the birth of Christ, through which God becamenmore responsive to mankind (Jung, 1952b). All of thisnsupports my argument that relatedness is a goal ofnindividuation. I do not refer to Job as a statement ofnfaith, but to illustrate a psychological phenomenon that hasna long history.

The story of Job suggests that, when the selfnapproaches, it may injure me until I learn to relate to it. The following example makes this clear. My patient "Paul"nsuffered at times from eczema (like Job), arthritis, andnshortness of breath. When we analyzed them, these proved tonbe expressions of narcissistic rage. Beneath his rage wasnhealthy grandiosity, that is, his need to show and assertnhimself (Kohut, 1978), which had been frustrated sinceninfancy. It seemed that his parents had always withheldnrecognition of his accomplishments. In adult life hisnsymptoms recurred whenever his frustration became acute. When he became more conscious of his rage, and of his neednto assert himself, his symptoms were relieved. Thus hisnsomatic symptoms represented his potential to be whole, thenself, struggling to inca ate (Kradin, 1997, Hubback, 1998).

Purpose and Dreams

I have described encounters with the anima, with Thor, and with the self. My point is that my personality hasnan innate tendency to integrate new resources from thenunconscious. This is the goal towards which my individuationnis directed. My direction, however, is not always onwardsnand upwards. Defeat, loss, decay, and death are alsonarchetypal. If I am to mature, I have to relate to them.

In time I realize that my maturation is beingndirected, but not by me. I cannot choose the goal. Hence Infeel that an independent agent has its own plan for me andnthat my dream is composed by that agent to further itsnplan.

In view of what I have said so far, however, it seemsnmore likely that my dream is simply a representation of annunconscious content which has always had the potential to benintegrated. My dream, then, is an unconscious content movingntowards consciousness as a log floats towards a beaver dam. My emergent "greater personality, the self" (Jung, 1961b),nimposes its agenda, both upon my conscious personality andnupon my dream, as a growing beaver dam imposes its agendanupon its component parts.

What about the timing of my dream? Why does it appea just when it is needed? An image may be pushed forward fromnthe unconscious by an instinctual timetable. Puberty is annexample of such a timetable. Or an image may be evoked fromnthe collective unconscious by one of the day's events,nperhaps an outside-world event or perhaps a new piece ofnself-awareness. That particular image is evoked bynassociation: it may resemble the event in form or innmeaning, or perhaps the image and the event were associatednin my past experience.

How could my explanation account for the structure ofna dream? A dream is precise and conveys subtle messages. Itnmay use dramatic structure (Whitmont and Perera, 1989a),nhumor, and irony. These qualities, however, arencharacteristic of consciousness. It is clear that my dreamnmust, in its construction, employ the knowledge and languagenskills of my ego. After all it may include words in English! This suggests that a dream is akin to a creative productnlike a poem or a painting. Like these, it seems to bencreated by a collaboration between my educated mind, workingnunconsciously, and the unconscious itself.

Before Darwin the "miraculous" design of a speciesnseemed to be proof that it was created directly by God. But Darwin showed that evolution is self-organized. The designnof a species is infinitely more complex than the design of andream. I suggest that a dream organizes itself as follows: Many images are circulating in my sleeping mind, somenpressing forward from the collective unconscious, some leftnover from the day (Freud, 1900). They adhere to each othe by associations of form or meaning, making and breakingnassociations as they meet with other images. Sometimes theyncohere into a nucleus which is compelling because itnsuggests a new insight into my present condition. Thatnnucleus gathers more images as it crosses the stimulusnbarrier and wakes me. Thus it becomes a dream. (Largenmolecules and viruses assemble themselves in a living cellnin just this way.)

I interpret a dream by means of a creative processnwhich must also be self-organized. I collect my patient'snassociations to the dream's images. As I do so I endure thenanxiety of not knowing what the dream means (Whitmont and Perera, 1989b). When I have all the associations, I allownthe meaning to emerge, to cohere spontaneously in mynimagination. If, out of anxiety, I had imposed anpreconceived meaning, then I would have missed some of thenassociations and thus falsified my interpretation. Asnmeanings cohere spontaneously, my intellect eliminates thosenthat are not viable just as, in evolution, natural selectionneliminates non-viable variations.

Earlier I discussed Ruth's dream of being abducted tonthe underworld. I suggested then that she formed thisnarchetypal image (and all other archetypal images) in hernimagination, by a creative process which drew upon bothninherited and environmental suggestions. In view of what Inhave said in the last few paragraphs, it seems clear that Ruth's archetypal image was self-organized.

Conclusion

The principle of self-organization rules everywherenin biology, from the assembly of molecules to all highe levels of order. The same principle may also apply innpsychology. I have explained how an archetypal image maynself-organize. I have also explained how my dream and itsninterpretation may self-organize. Finally, the overallnprocess by which I individuate may self-organize. I havengiven some clinical illustrations.

I have not proven that these three explanations arencorrect. But the component parts from which they arenconstructed, for example the inheritance of instincts, thendependence of development on information from thenenvironment, self-assembly, emergence (as I have definednit), association, and selective awareness during sleep (somennoises wake me and some do not), have all been provennelsewhere. The three explanations satisfy the law ofnparsimony: they are simple and highly economical. Perhapsnthey should serve as working hypotheses until they arenproven incorrect.

Notes

¹I explain when I discuss the selfn(in this paper) that an archetype also implies thenpossibility of an emergent level of order in thenpersonality. Like an instinct, such a possibility is anpriori, or "immortal", and may therefore seem numinous. I develop the idea of a priori possibility in anforthcoming paper.n n
n

nnjungian therapy and dream interpretation in New York nn

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