اولین سایت نشانه شناسی شوهر آهو خانم

V

SELF AND IDEAL

"This above all: to thine own self be true."

Shakespeare

We return now to the presentation of the inner will conflict, particularly as it is manifested in its effect on the ethical ideal formation^n the analytic situation we see and feel the will of the patient as "resistance" to our will, just as the child breaks his will on the will of the parents and at the same time strengthens it^But the anah'sis of the adult gives us this advantage, tliat we can throw this resistance back upon the individual himself, provided we work constructively ;that is, we can show the patient that he"acTuaIIy~suIfersfrom a purely inner conflict between will and consciousness, but analysis enables him to project it as an outward one. Now the form and manner in which this inner conflict appears and what effects it produces within and without, constitute the actual subject matter of the will psychology, which is to be independent of moral, pedagogic and social viewpoints. The latter we must examine in their turn in judging those situations where we are concerned with the collision of one will with another or with the will of the group. Just now we have to do rather with individual consciousness and particularly with that aspect of it which expresses itself positively and constructively as ideal formation. As we are interested here only in the positive, constructive, creative side of the conflict, and indeed only with a specific form of it, it is necessary to remind ourselves that we must ascribe even to the positive will a negative origin with whose genesis we have busied ourselves elsewhere. Long since, especially in the first part of "Genetische Psychologic," I have pointed out the significance of the mechanism of denial for all thinking and acting. In this denial there is evidenced as I would like to emphasize now, the original negative nature of will power, which, as Goethe puts it "always intends the bad and constantly creates the good." At all events we see man in various situations, but especially in the so-called neurotic reactions, think and act as if he were ruled by two wills which struggle against each other, as formerly the own will struggled against an external, opposing will. These two factors which lie at the root of all duaHstic world views, from the Persian Zarathustrianism to the system of Schopenhauer, were described by Freud in the beginning as the conscious and the unconscious, later with a deepened meaning, as the ego and the id. Accordingly unconsciousness was at first identified with sexuality, consciousness with the ego ;while Freud later desexualized the id somewhat or rather made it more cosmic, on the other hand he ascribed to the ego unconscious elements also. This connecting of new terminology with old contents is more confusing than clarifying, especially as the ego plays a relatively slight role with Freud despite its unconscious elements because it is ruled by the two great powers, the id and the super-ego, which represents the moral code. I have no occasion to go back to this terminology here, because I would like to describe the phenomena just as they present themselves to me, except to make clear where and in how far my conception differs from the former one. I see and understand the two opposing powers in the individual as the same forces that are experienced as a conflict of wills in the clash of two individuals, namely, will forces. The one force is that which we experience in impact with the outside world, namely, our conscious will. But what is the other inner force against which it strives, or rather, which strives against it, for this seems to me to be the real situation. One might say that this is sexuality, as Freud originally assumed, provided one understands it not only in a broader but in the broadest sense of the word. Accordingly we say in biological terms the generic in contrast to the individual in which case the question remains open as to whether or not one should include the collective racial which in Jung's meaning is a social-ethical concept. At all events we need no external sexual prohibition, no castration trauma, as our daily experience with children shows, to explain the struggle of the individual ego, the conscious will, against sexuality, against generic compulsion. The parents or others in authority may represent to the child powerful wills but one can oppose them openly or secretly, one can finally overcome them, perhaps can even free oneself from them or escape them.(Sexuality, however, as it awakens in the indi\-idual about the time of puberty is an incomparablv stronger power than aU the external authorities put toeetheV. Were it not so, the world would have died out long since. This generic sexual compulsion which, as sexual attraction, is the root of the Freudian CEdipus complex, when it is actually completely aroused, naturally goes beyond parental boundaries because generally it goes beyond all bounds. It is so strong and dominates the indi^-idual so extremely that soon he begins to defend himself against its domination, just because it is a domination, something that interferes dictatorially with his own will as individual, appearing as a new, alien and more powerful counterwill just as the ego is strengthened by puberty. The reason the individual defends himself so strongly against it is because the biological sex drive would force him again under the rule of a strange will, of the sexual wiU of the "other," while the ego has only just begun at this time to breathe a little freely out from under the pressure of strange authoritative wills. Accordingly he flees of necessity to a mechanism for the satisfaction of urgent sexuality that enables him to maintain the newly won autonomy at least a little while without subjecting himself to an ahen sexual will. I speak of the tvpical masturbation conflict of this and also of later years which represents nothing but the powerful expression of the conflict between the indi\-idual will and generic will manifesting itself here as sex drive. This struggle alwavs ends with the %-ictory of the indi\-idual. Although he must often pay too dearly for it, nevertheless an ego victory it is, since the very appearance of masturbation registers a successful attempt to put the sexual instinct under the control of the individual wUl. These individuals even when they present themselves as weak willed, falling into \-ice without resistance, are at bottom people of unusually strong wills who have merely concentrated their wills for the moment in the one direction. They often succeed in becoming master of the sexual urge to such an extent that they can suppress it through conscious effort of will, and can also arouse and satisfy it ; that is, when the individual wills it and not when sexuality wills it. Only, as Adler believes, they must continue to prove this will power of theirs and that gives the appearance of not being able to get free of the sex drive. This appearance is correct too, insofar as it is based on a denial of will power which we could here bring into the universal formula I do not want to will at all, but I must. In contrast to Adler, however, I do not believe that the individual must continuously prove his own strength of will because he feels inferior, and therefore is really weak. I believe much more that he could never prove his strength if he were not actually strong, if he did not have just that powerful a will. /here again the problem is why the individual cannot accept his own will, cannot admit it or affirm it, but is compelled to reject and deny it, in other words, to replace it with a "must?! But just this denial tendency brings witMFseconHarilytheguilt and inferiority feeling which really says, "I ought not to have such a strong will, or in general any will at all." In this sense, the powerful compulsion of the biological sexual urge is raised to a representative of the will, whose individual freedom is then justified by the generic compulsion. Herein lies the psychological motive for the tie-up of the conscious individual will with the generic sex drive, as significant as it is fateful, also the origin of the sexual guilt feeling since the guilt for willing falls into the sexual sphere by displacement and at the same time is denied and justified. The explanations that psychoanalysis and also the Adlerian doctrine give for these phenomena of guilt and inferiority seem to me unsatisfactory because they do not meet the real problem at all, that is, the denial of will from which secondarily follow guilt and inferiority. The explanation given formerly is that the will of the child has been so broken by the authority of parents, that it can no longer trust itself to will, in a word, experiences anxiety which was added to it from the outside. Not only does every educational experiment contradict this, but also experiences in the psychology of the neuroses and creative personalities testify that the fact is other and deeper. Our conflicts in general go back to much deeper causes than external social restrictions even if we conceive them psychologically with Freud as internal super-ego formation or with Adler as inner inferiority feeUng, springing from the externally inferior status of the child. Probably in the beginning we were bound to our milieu, which, however, we are able to outgrow, and just so to a great extent we have remained bound by nature in our sexual life. But what characterizes man or is made to by himself, perhaps unfortunately, is just the fact that his conscious will increases to a power equal to the outer environmental influences and the inner instinctual claims, and this we must take into account in order to understand the individual in all his reactions. Our will is not only able to suppress the sex urge, but is just as able to arouse it through conscious effort, to increase it and to satisfy it.

Perhaps our will is able to do this because it, itself, is a descendant, a representative of the biological will-to-live become conscious, creating itself in self maintenance and reproduction, which in the last analysis is nothing more than supra-individual self maintenance.! ^yhg^ ^his tendency to perpetual self maintenance of the species carries over to the individual, there results the powerful will whose manifestations bring with them guilt reactions because they strive for an enrichment of the individual, biologically at the cost of the species, ethically at tlie expense of the fellow man. This brings us to the fundamental thought of my whole viewpoint which I have already expressed in principle in "Der Kiinstler," namely, that instinct and inhibition, will and counterwill do not correspond to any original dualism, but in the last analysis always represent a kind of inner self limitation of one's own power and, therefore, since everything has its roots withm, the outer reflects more than it creates the inner. This conception as was emphasized likewise in "Der Kunstler," relates in particular to all kinds of sexual conflicts which arise not through any kind of outer prohibition but through inner inhibition of the own wiU by the counter-will. It explains also the resistance which Freud's'sexual theory has met and necessarily must meet since it is an expression of the same conflict, the understanding of which leads us out of all the futile discussions which psychoanalysis has occasioned. Freud said: "Sexuality is the strongest" ; the answer was—"No, the will can control it to a great degree."

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1 See on this point and the following, the beginning of the first chapter in "Der KUnstler^'-as well as the material on the development of the md.v.dual in the introductory chapter of "Genetische Psychologic, Part II, Page 14,.

And both sides were right. But each emphasized only one side, instead of recognizing the relationship between them and understanding the conflict in its essential meaning. Freud has gradually yielded and in his castration and super-ego theory recognizes the power of the factors which inhibit sexuality. But they are for him external anxiety factors and remain so even later, when he internalizes them in the super-ego, although they estabhsh themselves as the court of morals which evokes the uncontrollable guilt reactions. But guilt feeling is something other than internahzed anxiety, as it is more than fear of itself, of the claim of instinct, just as the ethical judgments are something more than introjected parental authority. In order to understand what they are and how they arise, we turn back to the struggle of ego will against race will represented in sexuality, which actually represents a struggle of the child against any pressure that continues within him. In the so-called latency period as Freud has it (between early childhood and puberty) the ego of the individual, his own will, is strengthened and has turned, for the most part in revolutionary reactions, against the parents and other authorities that it has not chosen itself. In the struggle against sexuality which breaks in at that point, the ego, as it were, calls to its aid the earlier contested parental inhibitions and takes them as allies against the more powerful sex drive. This introduction of the will motive makes the mysterious process of the introjection of parental authority comprehensible psychologically for the first time. Hitherto it had to be forced upon the child from the outside and this force must obviously be maintained because the child opposes the acceptance with his will, his counter-will. Moreover the child has no occasion to make of these actual outer restrictions an inner censor, and even if it had reasons, its counter-will would resist the acceptance of force. The child obeys because it wins love, avoids punishment and lessens its own inner control. But it does not do these things of its own free will; on the contrary, prohibition strengthens the impulse, as we know, just as permission lessens the desire. In puberty, however, where the individual is awakened on the one side to autonomy of willjindjjnjhe other defends himself against the pressure of the facial sexurge)he has a strong will motive for making his own these early parental prohibitions and all that he has learned to know meantime in moralistic inhibitions, in order to use them in his encounter with sexuahty. Here the individual forms his own super-ego because he needs' these moral norms for his own will victory over the sex impulse. Again it is a victory which many a time is bought at too dear a price and must be paid for by a life long dependency on this moral code. The constructive formation and creative development from what Freud calls super-ego to what I call ideal-formation from the self is a highly complex process which is accomplished in the typical forms of the will conflict and under its pressure. It consists first in the fact that the individual who earlier made his own only externally, hmitations accepted of necessity, now affirms them in the service of his own will interests. This affirmation of a condition already estabhshed earher under pressure, is a very important factor psychologically, yes, is the essential psychological factor ; for the fate of the individual depends on the attitude he takes to the given factors, whether these happen to be a part of environment, or the sexual constitution itself. This "I will, because I must," is, as is easily seen, the positive opposite of the denying attitude which we formulated in the sentence, "I do not "will at all, but I obey a force !" The whole difference lies in the fact that this force as external cannot be borne and causes the will to react negatively as denial. But if this outer force becomes inner, then there arise two possibilities, the one of which leads to neurotic reactions, the other to ethical standards. If the force although inner is still perceived as force, the will conflict manifests itself, as already pointed out, in guilt feeling, which, as it were, represents an inner ethical compulsion resisting the individual's will just like an alien counter-will. But if the own will says "Yes" to this force, this internal "must," then the inner force becomes inner freedom in that will and counterwill both affirm the same willing. The process just described goes beyond the mere affirmation of force, either outer or inner, to its constructive evaluation, that is, positively as ethics in ideal-formation and not merely normatively and regulatively. Therefore the individual only takes over the overcome moral code for a protection, as it were, under the first violence of the sexual impulse. Soon, however, the proud will stirs again and strives to win the battle alone without the help of authoritative morality. Here then begins the ethical ideal-formation in the self although the individual may turn to external models, ideal figures from hfe or history. But these ideals he chooses in terms of his own individuahty which, as we know, has nothing to do with infantile authorities, least of all the parents.^ It does not matter whether the individual succeeds wholly in freeing himself from the traditional moral concepts probably he never does, especially not as long as he must live with other individuals who more or less depend on this traditional morality. It is important, however, that for everything creative, regardless of how it manifests itself, even in the neurosis, we can thank this striving of the individual, of his individual will to free himself from the traditional moral code and to build his own ethical ideals from himself, ideals which are not only normative for his own personality, but also include the assurance of creative activity of any kind and the possibility of happiness. For this whole process of inner ideal formation which begins with the setting up of one's own moral norms inside is a mighty and important attempt to transform compulsion into freedom. The broader fate of the individual depends essentially on the success with which this attempt is undertaken, how it is carried through and conducted further, also how far it goes in a particular case and where and how it ends. Certainly it is no planned and straightforward way, but a continuous struggle against outer forces and a constant conflict with inner ones, in which the individual must live through for himself all stages of his evolution. That cannot be avoided and should not be, for just this living through and fighting through constitute the valuable, the constructive, the creative which does not inhibit the will but strengthens and develops it. /The first step in the Jrseing process is that the individual now wills what he was earlier con^elled to, what externally or internally he was forced to do, and the normal, average man perhaps never gets beyond this level which guarantees a relatively harmonious working together of will and counter-will.\t corresponds to a willed acceptance of the external compulsion of authority, the moral code and the inner compulsion of the sexual instinct.

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1 Certainly not with the parents of the hettj; the man of strong will, as I explained in the "Myth of the Birth of the Hero."

Accordingly it permits fewer possibilities of conflict but also fewer creative possibilities of any kind. The human being to a large extent is one with himself and with the surrounding world and feels himself to be a part of it. He has the consciousness of individuality but at the same time also the feeling of likeness, of unity, which makes the relation to the outer world pleasant. The next stage is characterized by the feeling of division in the personality, through the disunity of will and counter-wiU, which means a struggle (moral) against the compulsion of the outer world as well as an inner conflict between the two wills. The constructive person goes beyond the mere moralistic and instinctual affirmation of the obligatory in his own ideal formation which itself having become a new goal seeking power can work thereafter constructively or inhibitingly. On this level there are possibilities of neurotic or creative development not present on the first level. And again it depends on what position the will takes toward the moral and ethical standards originally called in by it or self created, after they have once been called into life, or have even achieved power. So the will is always compelled to take attitudes anew; first to the given, then to the self created, and finally even to the willed. And this taking an attitude can always turn out to be negative or positive, negative even when it concerns something originally self willed or self created. This negative attitude in turn can always have one of two results; either it leads to improvement, to a higher level, to a new creativity as with the productive, or it creates itself in self criticism, guilt and inferiority feeling, in short, under the neurotic inhibition of will.

The third and highest level of development is characterized by a unified working together of the three fully developed powers, the will, the counter-will and the ideaJ-formation born from the conflict between them which itself has becomeagoal-setting, goal-seeking, force.

"Here the human being, the genius is again at one with himself ; what he does, he does fully and completely in harrnony with all his powers and his ideals.

He knows no hesitation, and no doubt as does the conflicted man of the second level, even though the latter be productive. He is a man of will and deed in accord with himself, although as distinguished from the type of realistic man he is not in accord with the world, because too different from others. I do not mean that the conflicts of this t.ype would be more of an external nature, played out more in the battle with the hostile environment; I merely wish to emphasize here the creative side of their being, which just through its unlikeness to reality gives to genius its peculiar greatness. This type in its ideal formation, in its continuous rebuilding or building anew, has created an autonomous inner world so different and so much its own, that it no longer represents merely a substitute for external reality (original morality) but is something for which reality can offer in every case only a feeble substitute so that the individual must seek satisfaction and release in the creation and projection of a world of his own. In a word, with this type, from all the accepted, the obligatory, from all the wished for, and the willed, from all the aspirations and the commandments is formed neither a compromise, nor merely a summation but a newly created whole, the strong personaUty with its autonomous will, which represents the highest creation of the integration of will and spirit. The first level corresponds to the type of duty-conscious, the second to the type of guilt-conscious and the third level finally to the type of self-conscious individual.

We see at once that in these three types, which represent a line of development, the relation to reality and to the fellow man is different. The first level is oriented to the external world, corresponds to the adaptation of the ego to it ; in this the individual takes over the social and sexual ideals of the majority for his own, and this is not only a passive identification but an effort of will which certainly ends in a submission of will. On the third ethical level there are no longer the external demands or norms, but the own inner ideals, which were not only created by the individual out of himself but which the self also willingly affirms as its own commandments. The second neurotic level represents the failure in going from the first to the third stage; the individual perceives the external commands and norms as compulsion which he must continually oppose, but cannot affirm the ideals which correspond to his own self. Therefore he has guilt feeling toward society (or the various representatives of it) and consciousness of guilt toward himself.In other words, the first type accepts reality with its demands and so adjusts his own individuality that he perceives and can accept himself as part of reality. He removes the painful feeling of difference since he feels himself one with reality. The third type, on the contrary, accepts himself and his inner ideal formation and seeks accordingly to adjust the environment and the fellow man to himself. This can take place violently as with thoughtless men of action or by way of a reformative ideologj', whether it be educational or therapeutic, in the scientific or religious sense of the word. It can, however, also be creative and reaches then its highest level when the individual creates from himself and his own idealized will power, a world for himself as the artist or the philosopher does, with out waiting to force it on others, Certainly this peculiarly creative type also strives for recognition but it cannot, as with the therapeutic reformative personality, be through force or violence, but rather must be the expression of a spontaneous movement of the individual who finds in the creator something related to himself. This creative ty'pe finds recognition in himself as he also finds in himself motivation and its approbation The first adapted type, therefore, needs the external compulsion, the second neurotic type defends itself against every kind of external or internal compulsion, the third creative type has overcome compulsion through freedom.

Thp firsf type is dependent on reality, the second defends itself against the compulsion of reality, the third creates for itself against the compulsion a reality of its own which makes it independent, but at the same time enables it to live in reality without falling into conflict with it.

The second neurotic type is the most interesting psychologically, because it shows that the whole problem at bottom turns on the acceptance of the own individuality on which the attitude toward reality primarily depends. For the neurotic shatters not only on the incapacity to bear external pressure, but he suffers just as much, yes, even more, from the inability to subject himself to any pressure whether it be inside or out, even the pressure of his own ideal formation. The essential therapeutic problem is not, therefore, to adjust him to reality, to teach him to bear external pressure, but to adjust him to himself, that is, to enable him to bear and to accept himself instead of constantly defending himself against himself. If one attains this therapeutic goal, that the individual accepts himself, that is psychologically speaking, that he affirms instead of denies his will, there follows thereupon spontaneously without further effort the necessary adaptation to reality. This, however, cannot form an equally valid scheme for all men, regardless of whether one defines it with the concept of the CEdipus complex like Freud, or again as social feeling like Adler, or as a collective union like Jung. Adaptation ensues with each individual in a different, even in an individual way, from the three possibilities we have described as types. Psychologically speaking, adaptation on the basis of self acceptance may be an acceptance of external norms which finally represents a justification of will, but at least a generally recognized one, or the self acceptance enables the individual to continue his development on the basis of his own ideal formation and its essential difference. In each case, however, the neurotic self denial as it follows from the denial of will must first be overcome constructively in a therapeutic experience. How this happens I am describing simultaneously in another book.' Here I would only like to point out how, as a matter of fact, the various reactions of the individual only correspond to various attitudes to the same fundamental problem. The average man adapted to reality finds the justification of his individual will in the similarly adjusted wills of the majority, but accepts therewith also the universal attempts at justification and unburdening, as society itself apparently uses them in its moral norms and religious projections. The neurotic who in consequence of his stronger individualization feels himself so very different from others, can accept neither the general norms nor the justifications, but neither can he accept his own because they would be an expression of his own will, which he would therewith have to accept. The creative type, on the other hand, accepts as we have said, himself and his ideal, that is, his own individual will, at all events in higher degree than any other type.

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1 See "Will Therapy," Books I and IL Alfred A. Knopf, 1936.

Certainly he also needs all kinds of external justifications but these work destructively only in the field of intellectual production, like philosophy and science, where they lead to theoretical denial of will and justifications which appear under the guise of truth. This leads us back from the problem of will to the problem of consciousness and conscious knowledge. Where ideal formation works constructively and creatively, it is on the basis of acceptance of the self, of the individual will, which is justified in its own ideal, that is ethically, not morally in terms of the average ideal as with the adapted type. In other words, in its own ideal the originally denied will of the individual manifests itself as ethically justified. The neurotic suffers not only from the fact that he cannot accomplish this, but also from insight regarding it which, according to the degree of insight, manifests itself as consciousness of guilt or inferiority feehng. He rejects the self because in him the self is expressed on the whole negatively as counter-will and accordingly cannot justify itself ethically, that is, cannot reform and revalue itself in terms of an ideal formation. Accordingly he strives only this far, to be himself (as so many neurotics express it) instead of striving to live in accordance with his own ideal. Therefore while the ideal of the average is to be as the others are, the ideal of the neurotic is to be himself, that is, what he himself is and not as others want him to be.iThe ideal of the creative personality finally is an actual ideal, which leads him to become that which he himself would like to be.j In the sphere of consciousness we see these various levels of development toward ideal formation comprehended in three formulae which correspond to three difTerent ages, world views and human types. The first is the Apollonian, know thyself; the second the Dionysian, be thyself; the third the Critique of Reason, "determine thyself from thyself" (Kant). The first rests on likeness to others and leads in the sense of the Greek mentality to the acceptance of the universal ideal ; it contains implicitly the morality, consciously worked out by Socrates, which still lies at the basis of psychoanalytic therapy: know thyself, in order to improve thyself (in the terms of universal norms). It is therefore not knowledge for the sake of the self, but knowledge for the goal of adaptation. The second principle in contrast to the first repudiates likeness and the improvement based on it, as it demands the acceptance of what one is anyway. In contrast to the principle of the Delphic ApoUo, I have designated it as Dionysian because, in contrast to adaptation, it leads to ecstatic-orgiastic destruction, as not only Greek mythology but also Ibsen shows in Peer Gynt, who on the basis of the same principle landed in a mad house. The true self, if it is unchained in Dionysian fashion, is not only anti-social, but also unethical and therefore the human being goes to pieces on it. In this sense the longing of the neurotic to be himself is a form of the affirmation of his neurosis, perhaps the only form in which he can affirm himself. He is, as it were, already himself, at any rate far more than the others and has only a step to take in order to become wholly himself, that is, insane. Here comes in the Kantian "Determine thyself from thyself" in the sense of a true self knowledge and simultaneously an actual self creation as the first constructive placing of the problem. Herein lies Kant's historical significance as epistemologist and ethicist. He is indebted to us for the psychology but also a part of his greatness hes therein, for the avoidance of psychologizing has protected him from falling into all the denials, rationalizations and interpretations which form the contents of most psychological theories including the Freudian. An epistemological psychology without flaw, that is, neither moral nor religious as the Freudian system still is, must start at the point where Kant placed the problem. How can the individual determine himself from himself, or better, why does he do this with such difficulty.^ Here we strike the will-guilt problem, the knowledge of which remains the indisputable psychological contribution of Schopenhauer. But he has denied the will, while Nietzsche sought to deny the guilt feeling. Freud, finally has seen the guilt problem, as the neurotic presented it to him it is true, but he has tried to solve it by leading it back to a definite content of willing, namely the sexual, while the other analytic schools (Jung, Adler, etc.) differentiate themselves in this, that they have put another content in place of the sexual, and so have hidden the purely psychological will problem itself. The Freudian content disguises itself under the occidental religious morality from which we still suffer and in its failure to solve his individual problem, the modern man has finally shattered in terms of the neurosis.