Freud vs. Jung

Or, perhaps more accurately, Freudians vs. Jungians.

About a week ago I stumbled on a post about the the general unsexiness of Jungian women compared to the sexiness of Freudians and it's been rolling and rolling around my head ever since. I mean, I consider myself relatively sexy and I'm a Jungian. Well, not "sexy" per se but certainly not a "hippy-dippy-granola-town-goat’s-milk" AARP escapee. If I had to describe myself I'd say I was funky and playful with a dash of sexy. Too much "va-va-voom" and I feel uncomfortable and fake, like I'm dressed up in a Halloween costume. Personally, I feel the most comfortable when sexy is used as condiment - and with a fairly light hand - rather than drowning myself with the hot sauce. But then that's just me.

So, I know that I'm not particularly unsexy, and I never felt like sexiness of lack thereof had anything to do with being a Jungian, but this seems to have been an issue for the writer:

When I was working on my graduate thesis “The genesis of shame: The fig leaf of fashion and its place in psychotherapy” and I would tell women analysts in the Jungian community in which I trained that I was writing on the topic of clothing I received some pretty harsh judgements.  Clothing was looked at as immaterial to the field of psychology and judged as a surface interest and not one that should be given serious academic consideration. It’s interesting to note that five years after completing my thesis that the very same institute offered the course, “Clothes in the Analytic Relationship: Not For Women Only”. It was bittersweet to see that the topic was finally being considered. I attended the nearly sold out event and was somewhat pleased to see that the women who did the presentation had not approached the topic with the depth of analysis that I had. I was also amused and somewhat irritated by the participants cooing question to the presenters, “This is such a rich therapeutic topic. Why hasn’t anyone written on it before?” Grrr!!!!

Are Jungians less sexy? Are less sexy people drawn to Jungianism or does Jung make you unsexy (and vice versa with Freudianism)? Or is it just the issue of this particular writer? From the little I read of her blog it seems that she's very concerned with sexiness, and of expressing her sexiness - is there a general attitude in Jungian circles that focusing on such "earthy" topics is shallow and unworthy?

I've been reading a lot about Freud lately. I had prematurely dismissed him because his theories seemed so silly (and patently wrong - "penis envy"?? give me a break *rollseyes*), and because of his many well-known failures but had the feeling that there was something there that I was missing. So far, I have learned that I have to give him credit for basically laying the foundations for the entire field of depth psychology. It seems that his fault wasn't so much in coming up with the wrong ideas as stubbornly clinging to them, even in the face of all kinds of evidence to the contrary, but that doesn't negate what he did manage to accomplish.

But is Freud (or are Freudians) sexier? Mmmmmmaybe. My tentative conclusion is that it's very possible that they are. If I had to put the difference between Freud and Jung in a nutshell, I'd have to say that where for Freud everything, including religion, has to do with sex, for Jung everything, including sex, has to do with religion. So maybe Freudians are sexier than Jungians. Certainly it's likely that they're more interested in sex. And it's indisputible that anyone uncomfortable in their sexuality would have a hard time remaining a Freudian for very long!


Edit 4/4/12:

I just had another brainwave as I was re-reading this post - maybe Freudian's are "sexier" because they're more focused on "first half of life" issues, i.e. on building up the ego, making it stronger. First half of life stuff includes success in the social realm of which sexual attractiveness is an important part, obviously. Jungianism, on the other hand, is more focused on "second half of life" issues and often calls for a breaking down - or, at the very least, a dethronement - of the ego.

I always felt that Jungianism could be profitably applied to first half of life problems despite the fact the Jung himself would often refer his patients to others when he felt that their issues fell outside his purview. I still do (although who knows, that may change) but there is no denying the fact that there is an "other worldly" aspect to Jungianism, and this doubtless contributes to people feeling that earthly matters don't fit with what we're doing. I can't think of anything further from the truth - anyone who's followed this blog for any length of time will know that I deal with the most earthy, embodied problems we can encounter; love in particular but also family and work.

The way I see it, Jung just went deeper than Freud. Freud focused on what Jung called the "personal unconscious" (all of the things of our personal lives that have dropped into the unconscious) but Jung felt there was something of vital importance that lay beyond the personal unconscious. We need to work on and pass through the Freudian problems of childhood, not just for their own sake but in order to contact this thing "beyond," and from which exerience we come back to humanity with the understanding of our special mission in this life.

Jungianism encompasses Freudianism. If the thing you need to work on right now is being sexy and wearing high heels, then you're doing exactly what you need to be doing. And if that's not what you need to be doing, then do whatever it is that you should be doing. The hardest thing about Jung - and the thing that keeps it so honest and true - is that there are no rules. There is only you, and your god or daimon, and whether or not you are living the life you should be living.

   

Nausicaa and the young, wild, free feminine

It just occurred to me what the dream about the tiny animal is about; my femininity!

I was re-reading it again, trying to figure it out - words like wild, free, young, innocent, gentle, playful, perfect, feminine, fertile kept coming up. The young girl I'm with, the field of violets, the little girl's room, the big jackelope and the tiny animal, all are my wild, free, young feminine self. I've kept it caged because I was afraid it would get hurt, but all that did was to hurt it more than being free and risking pain would have.

I'm on my journey, the independent girl who knows what she wants and goes for it with me. I feel like I don't belong here but, like in Snow White or many other fairy tales, I've stumbled upon a magical little house in a magical, flower covered field. Whose house is it? In the dream, I worry that the owners will come back, just like Snow White. How do I know they won't welcome us? Or even that this is my own house, that I forgot about?

The girl reminds me of M showing up in my dreams as a guide - she's probably the same figure; independent, able to express her feelings and say "no." This is a part of me that I don't see in myself, that I've supressed. This figure reminds me of Nausicaa; what initially made me think of her was the little creature. I was trying to imagine what the little creature was like and kept imaging small, playful, energetic little deermouse like creature when I thought of Teto. And then I thought of Nausicaa, and she's the perfect image: she has the King of Cups in her, as well as travelling with the little wild creature on her shoulder. She's natural and expresses her feelings fully. The only thing is, she doesn't relate to others on a one to one level - she's still a prepubescent girl and too young to think about boys. But the young, Artemis/Kore like girl is in me. Does she need to be expressed?

And it seems like my animus is in the process of changing. Yes, the "you can't do that!" cop is still there, but he's changing; he wants to be supportive now. And, at the end, he's the one I follow - is that a good idea?? I think it might be - I suppose the zombies might be a part of myself that I need to get in touch with but he is there, guiding me when I'm in danger (possibly). Perhaps the zombies are this part of myself that I've kept locked away - perhaps the animus is guiding me through this experience (?) The reading I did about the dreams suggests so; when I asked about this dream, it told me about my animus. Is it that there's some relationship between healing my relationship with my animus and freeing the little animal?

My animus was both a way for me to protect my inner Persephone/Kore (the fragile, wild, innocent feminine) and the cage that was killing it. In healing my relationship with the animus, the Kore can be freed; it wasn't until the cops came and the young girl stood up to them - and the other cop helped us - that the house appeared. Does this mean that the inner young, wilful girl has to stand up to the inner cop to find my inner home?

More to think on...

Musings: von Franz's "Alchemy"... and further on the pin

The stories of Eve and of Isis getting secret knowledge from angels, is a man's view of growth. Eve is the Anima who steals knowledge from God (the Self). As a result, a man's unconscious paradise is lost and now he has to do all the hard, painful work of psychological growth. Or the story of Isis who, as his Anima, coerces the secret from the Angels and gives it to her Son (the man.) But what is a woman's story? Where are the stories of an Animus, the woman's mediator between her and God/Self? How do women gain secret knowledge? Or is it even knowledge that she gains? Prometheus steals fire from the Gods and therefore must suffer every day while his liver is eaten... and every night it heals. Is this the image of a woman's Animus? But it's not knowledge her Animus steals. Rather it's fire; power, energy and vitality; the light which illuminates the darkness and reveals what was hidden. As a result a woman's Animus is wounded during the day but is healed at night, when dreams come.

Another is the story of Inanna going into the Underworld, the land of her dark sister, Ereshkigal. Enki (the god of mischief, water, intelligence and creation) sends two little people he makes from the dirt under his fingernails to mourn her as she hangs on the meat hook. When she returns to her world above she has to choose someone to take her place. She picks her consort, Dumuzi, who was the only person who didn't mourn her death, but his sister loved him so much that she offered to take his place so half the year she's in the Underworld and the other half Dumuzi is.  What is the woman's Animus providing here? Sympathy, from Enki? A sacrifice, from Dumuzi, to suffer in her place (which calls to mind Prometheus' suffering during the light half of a day.)

Persephone was abducted by Hades, also of the Underworld. She doesn't want to go but she must if she's to find her power as a Queen. Here the Animus is the Demon Lover who kidnaps the woman to Death (in other words, he kills her old self.) Unlike Inanna here the woman is dragged kicking and screaming to her death, her transformation, in which she must give up her old self in order to be reborn to a greater, more whole and more powerful self. Here the Animus is the abductor, or Death himself. The woman resists her transformation initially. It is only by choosing Hades/her Animus/her transformation, giving up her old self, that she grows (because I made the choice, my Hades abduction is psychological rather than literal - my growth is through us *not* having a relationship.)

"[Y]ou wonder whether you should stick a pin in him and a drop of the poison of knowledge and give him an idea as to what it really means..." (von Franz, writing about whether an increase in consciousness is good or not in "Alchemy" p. 54.)

My dream of the dark man sticking a pin into my "other self" - the "dark man" is obviously my Animus in his role as the destroyer, the demon lover, Hades, Death. He sticks a pin in her and brushes the powder of knowledge - that is, of his own essence (the essence of the Self?) and that destroys the old me, the "other me," the one who must die in order for the new me to be born. He wants to unite sexually with me; he brushes his consciousness onto me to do so. By being covered with his essence does he unite with the me that's being born?