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article.
Originality and Psychological illness
Henri Ellenberger, in his book The Discovery of the
Sub-headings
Unconscious , gives a history of modern psychology.
He shows that many of the major ideas of Freud and
Loneliness
Jung were already known to hypnotists and
psychologists of the nineteenth century. These ideas
Pain of insight
were scattered round several experimentalists, till
collected together by the French psychologist Pierre
Handling the ego
Janet, whom Freud and Jung met at the Salpetriere
in Paris.
Reference
What Freud and Jung did was to reformulate (and re-discover where necessary)
this knowledge, add their own insights, and then originate acceptable models of
consciousness for the twentieth century.
Ellenberger refers to the creative illness of Freud and of Jung, the way that
each one s interior journey gave rise to his particular theory. Their explorations
of the subconscious and unconscious minds meant the exploration of the dark
side of the mind, the realm of negative beliefs and attitudes.
Negative beliefs and attitudes cannot be analysed until they are brought into
normal consciousness. This process does indeed create psychological illness.
Whether it is creative or crippling depends upon the capacity of the explorer to
withstand psychological shock, the shock of facing the unpleasant aspects of
oneself. He has to use his will to prevent hasty retreat from this encounter.
Ultimately everything depends on the strength of will of the explorer and on the
way that the explorer uses that will.
The use of will requires meaning. There has to be a reason why the will should
be used, why the person should face unpleasantness. He has to have an ideal.
Where the desire for meaning accepts traditional values, then the person will
only skim the surface of his internal darkness. Where the desire for meaning
goes against traditional values, where the person is prepared to investigate
revered values of tradition, then the person s interior journey may generate
severe psychological shock. This will occur if age-old values are discovered to
originate from 'immoral' sources.
In my view, Nietzsche went deeper into the mind's darkness than either Freud
or Jung. I went deeper than Nietzsche. I survived my journey but Nietzsche did
not survive his. I had greater will power and greater idealism than he had.
Where the desire for meaning is weak then the explorer s will is also likely to be
weak in this situation, ability to explore oneself in depth should not be
expected.
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Loneliness
During most of my self-analysis I worked at a local hospital as a porter. My only
companion was my mother, with whom I lived. I no longer had any local
friends. My problems were my own and I never discussed them with anyone,
not even with my mother. Effectively I was in intellectual isolation for many
years. Freud and Jung also worked much of their self-analyses in isolation too.
Isolation is necessary in order to prevent premature criticism by other people
from interrupting, or even destroying, the internal evolution of self-
consciousness. The first fruits of developing self-consciousness bring immature
aspects of the mind into awareness. The explorer has to work his way through
this immaturity; he has to be allowed to indulge in naïve phantasies that have
sexual and violent themes, so that he can analyse them. He must not be stopped
by the criticisms of other well-meaning but misguided people. So isolation
cannot be avoided.
Unfortunately, this isolation brings loneliness as an automatic corollary to it.
The isolation can be adapted to, but the loneliness is killing. This loneliness is
inevitable because the explorer on his interior journey is going into regions of
consciousness never previously explored at a cognitive level of awareness. By
this statement I mean that there have been countless numbers of neurotic and
psychotic persons in the past, but none of them understood what was
happening to them. Hence there is no one who can help the explorer or even
understand what he is attempting to do. All he can do is believe in
himself. [Strange as it may seem, there were times during my interior journey
when even my soul and my spirit guides did not understand what I was trying to
do].
When the need for social approval is abreacted then loneliness dies down to a
minimal level. Then the person can develop a mature attitude to society, which
he neither rejects nor is dependent upon. Aloneness becomes the state of the
unique individuality of the person. Loneliness arises from social identity and
jealousy (mode of self-pity); aloneness is the burden of individual identity and is
based on pride (mode of hate) controlled by idealism.
My attitude to society has gone through several phases. For the past few years I
defined myself as being friendly but not social. Now I am beginning to orientate
more towards being social.
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Pain of Insight
An intense psycho-analysis produces long periods of resentment and bitterness.
An intense psycho-analysis is a painful process. In my interior journey I
travelled through states of madness. My pain was intense because the processes
of madness needed to be understood, so I had to repeatedly experience these
states of mind till I did understand them. That was my destiny. Before insight
can occur, the relevant experience has to become familiar to the person. Strange
experiences cannot be understood whilst they are still strange. Insight and
understanding require familiarity. Hence insight required me to keep in the
wilderness of pain. Psychological insight is painful.
The pain of insight arises because abreaction is dialectical. Even when I try to
do good my efforts produce bad effects on me (as well as good ones). The
spiritual journey is a meander through life, now two steps forward and one step
back, then one step forward and two steps back. In the world of the idealist, the
shortest distance between two points is a zig-zag.
The pain of insight arises because my phantasies of abreaction reveal my
own degradation. This degradation smashes my self-image and I have to rebuild
my integrity anew each time. Only my idealism enables me to do this. Hence
idealism is needed to enable a person to withstand abreaction. Will power needs
to be complemented by idealism.
The distinction between will and idealism is that will enables me to
persevere, despite my distress, whilst idealism enables me to
assimilate my distressful experiences.
The pain of insight arises because the violence in a person is a product of all
the sorrow that he has experienced. Abreaction brings this sorrow into
consciousness. Only by living through this sorrow can the person finally achieve
the state of non-violence. The necessity of ascetic self-control is that it enables
this violence to be lived in phantasy instead of expressing itself in social
relations.
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Handling the Ego
There are two components to a person: his present state of mind and his past
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