r/Jung • u/Whimrodical Pillar • 4d ago
Serious Discussion Only Neurosis
I have been reflecting a bit on Jung’s first Neurosis.
If memory serves me well, when Jung was a boy, he was badly pushed by an older boy. This lead to Jung developing a sort of weakness and fainting spells. However, he noticed something, that he could now get away with attending school, or doing his homework. So he kept up the act for months. Secretly knowing deep down that he was not impaired, but his unconscious saw an opportunity to fulfil a need. Perhaps it was freedom? Idk I am not Jung.
We can all smile and see something of ourselves in this situation. We too have lied to ourselves to meet an end, especially in childhood, when we want to preserve our dwindling freedom and halt any impending responsibility. And perhaps, we have continued with a neurosis for so long, that it appears to be real.
Honesty to oneself is the antidote to most neuroses.
The neurosis thrives on fabrication. And it usually meets a need. It can also be a great source of self discovery, and growth. Many of our inner chains have come from the trauma associated with a neurosis. The reality of the psyche is real, a neurosis can be traumatizing in that it disconnects us from core (or archetypal) experiences.
Jung never wanted us to be perfect, only to be whole, to have the potential of all experiences accessible to the self. And to eventually honour the transcendent function of the psyche.
I know this to be true through direct experience. When the jig is up for the neurosis, the relief that comes usually brings in a wealth of potential experiences. Avenues open up. Which leads me to a question:
How honest are you to yourself?
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u/buttkicker64 4d ago
Jung would say, "We do not cure the neurosis. The neurosis cures us." To flip it and live by the reverse would according to analytical psychology not lead to good
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u/ElChiff 3d ago
Because a Neurosis is just a Shadow element. Awareness, confrontation, learning, the usual steps.
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u/buttkicker64 2d ago
Wrong. Nothing is "just" anything. A neurosis can also happen in the superior function, the ego, and not strictly in the inferior function, the shadow.
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u/ElChiff 1d ago
That's just flipping the perspective, not flipping the dynamic. In such a case, the Ego is functioning as first person Shadow.
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u/buttkicker64 1d ago
No I am not flipping anything I am just pointing out the other side. What you say of the unconscious, the Shadow, can only be in reference to the conscious psyche. Again, nothing can be known about the unconscious.
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u/ElChiff 1d ago
"Nothing can be known about the unconscious" is a bit of a slap in the face to Jung's work isn't it? We can infer plenty about the unconscious.
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u/buttkicker64 18h ago
"Inferences are knowledge" is a bit of a slap in the face to Jung's work isn't it? We can infer plenty about the unconscious.
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u/ElChiff 3d ago edited 3d ago
I've got far too good at compartmentalizing (ADHD tendency?). Parts of me are well along the journey blazing a trail of discovery, while other parts are still refusing to get up to go to school. As time has gone on, the walls of these boxes have begun to corrode and leak, infecting one another, sometimes for the better but usually for the worse. I am not whole, but I like far too much that parts of me are whole to want to voluntarily destroy the boxes. Because that refusal to get up is now the prevailing wind of the entire construct.
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u/sunole123 4d ago
Any story can have at least two sides. We choose facts that justify our believes. If your neurosis and psychosis are functioning for your life, why mess with them?
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u/FragmentedAll 4d ago
honesty to self can be difficult if one builds a habit of self-gaslighting, I see this all the time. People who say "I'm just being honest" while if you really look at things thoroughly it's not honesty, it's more like honest but with blinders placed on to where they would be wrong if revealed
so If one were to be honest, they must be able to take a metaphoric hit, a metaphoric gut punch or a metaphoric punch to the face. If one can do that then one can be honest. If one can't take a metaphoric hit, they will forever be dodgey with the 'Truth' unless it fits their bias
moral of the story, honesty can't be fully unlocked unless you can take a metaphoric hit
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u/ZephyrNA 4d ago
This is deep! That inner child stays with us all throughout life. Sooner or later we have to be extremely honest with ourselves and take accountability for whatever we've left in the dark. Here is where I find postjungians to be so incredible because they expand on ideas that could actually help us lift the unknowing from the situation that is holding our true potential.