I discovered in a morning show of France inter in November, how much I was influenced by Jung’s thought, without having read a single one of his books. This influence was exerted indirectly by various philosophers, sociologists and psychotherapist disciples. I will try to describe some salient features of the difference between Freud and Jung.
Jung is the father of positive psychology and also of personal development. This current has strongly oriented my personal life path (self-discipline, spirituality, the ability to take charge of one’s life) as well as my support skill (coaching).
Before starting this succinct presentation of Jung, it is necessary to recall my reluctance, which is better and better defined and explained to Freudian psychoanalysis and especially to the practices of the disciples who refer to it. I reported this in two articles from the “Memories of the Future” community.
The Freudian unconscious contains traumatic repressions and particularly traumatic repressions of a sexual nature experienced in infancy. The sexual issue of traumas linked to early childhood is a dogma for Freud. Jung’s perspective is quite different. The “Self” encompasses the conscious “I”, the personal unconscious and also the collective unconscious. “The personal unconscious” for him is not limited to traumatic repressions but integrates the positive and driving side of personal development. For him, libido is not just about sexual urges.
Different concepts are brought by Jung to the understanding of the psyche. “The collective unconscious” integrates the founding myths of societies and, like DNA, it carries within it all the psychic evolution of humanity. The concept of “synchronicity” highlights the effects of simultaneity of events without any possible justification today (beyond the reach of scientific knowledge – creativity, telepathy, magnetism etc.). I will come back to this later.
The concepts of archetypes, inner child, and individuation also had great significance. I discovered ” psychic and collective individuation processes In Gilbert Simondon’s major work. This concept is essential to take into account the creative capacities and breakthrough innovations, personal development and change management, which have permeated my professional life.
Jung’s spiritual and philosophical dimension, in “the inner child” as well as his in-depth knowledge of Buddhist culture have transpired in me through Lama Denis, Fabrice Midal, Matthieu Ricard and especially Tich Nhat Hanh.
Finally, through his quantitative approach to “personality” traits, he contributed to the realization of the MBTI Test which maps our habitual, spontaneous psychic postures. Four bipoles characterize the posture in a continuum of psychic positioning for each of the bipoles:
– between Introversion and Extraversion
– between Sensations (felt) and Intuition
– between Thinking and Doing
– between Judgment and Perception of what is
This individual positioning is not fixed but on the contrary can evolve either in a development plan or by the effects of mimicry and interaction, in the life of a couple and in social life.
De-coincide and coincide, desynchronize and synchronize:
voltage between two extreme poles.
The thought of Heraclitus is close to Chinese or Japanese thought. Heraclitus cultivates the notions of impermanence as of a non-beginning of everything. Among the Chinese who have dispensed with the term “time” as well as the verb “to be”, language puts extremes in tension. The notion of “Western time” was translated in the 9th century by the tension between “beginning” and “end”. But as for them there can be no beginning without being preceded by an end, they translated it as “End-Beginning”.
Jung unlike Freud was not content to think through energy and the principles of thermodynamics. He frequented the culture of the Far East and also the advances in quantum mechanics. He derived the concept of synchronization from it. Our external mother tongue through which our brains communicate outward and learn, unlike Chinese, is essentially assigning: “to be or not to be”, “to be” or “to be”, “to the subject” etc.
What we designate by energy is, perhaps, an “information energy” or control energy? The one that circulates in neurons? The stepwise synchronization of multiple neural networks would bring about our states of consciousness (cf. Stanislas Dehaene). Perhaps it is the same between brains according to Jung. Love, emotional and relationship love at first sight may be of the same nature.
Even at the cell level, DNA located in the nucleus has a virtual presence at the heart of chromatin. It only realizes itself as a detectable double helix when it is going to be split into two to give birth to two cells, then “will virtualize itself again in each of them.” The butterfly has only a virtual presence in the caterpillar.
And as François Jullien puts it, living “really” requires “de-coinciding with oneself, with one’s self-image.” Living involves disorder and order, de-coinciding and coinciding, desynchronizing and synchronizing, this tension between two extreme poles.
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