Tag: psychology

As with everything else, the Jungian approach to dream interpretation is much more interesting than what is generally done in psychoanalysis. Starting from the same necessary principle that one must find meaning in them, but not restricting himself to an exclusively causal interpretation, Jung opens himself to an infinite horizon of possibilities. An attentive analyst is quickly impressed by the disparity between the dreams of the same individual, from the lucidity of manifestation to the almost always discrepant content, sometimes based in the present, sometimes in the past, sometimes in fantasies, and so on. There are dreams in which the linearity makes understanding easier, while in others there is a strange superposition of disconnected scenes, if not abstract images and a complete absence of a logical link. It is not rare to have the sensorial certainty that such and such event occurred in a dream, without having retained pictorial elements; as well as the memory of loose dialogues and speeches, in manifestations that defy reasoning. Not to mention dreams that are amazingly connected to events that take place in the future. Jung, noting all this complexity, is right in approaching each dream individually and repudiating the attempt to box them all into a “manual of interpretations”. It is true that the psychologist, acting in this way, most often finds himself in the dark; but such humility, not to say courage, can occasionally pay off.

The difference between the works of Jung and Frankl and almost all of what has been written in psychology is that both have designed a psychology for healthy minds, while the bulk of the rest applies only to sick mental states, emphasizing, always and only, the morbidity from which man can suffer. A person who is even remotely experienced and sane and chooses a work by Freud or Adler to enter the science of the mind will come out amazed and disgusted, overcome by a mixture of strangeness and repulsion because, obviously, the man painted in such works has little or nothing in common with himself. And then he will see, on every page, endless classifications of disorders, complexes, and the like, often associated with natural behaviors, but justified by reasons that seem like direct insults to him who reads. In Jung, in Frankl, how different everything is! In these great psychiatrists, who were also great men, although one can find Freud and Adler, the high spirit can finally recognize itself.

It is curious how modern psychology, by taking away man’s autonomy, painting him as submissive to this monster created by Freud,—the “unconscious,”—has ended up devaluing his own mind, the opposite of what one might expect. Even Jung, who so distinctly perceived the individual character of human psychology, seems to slip into some false notions of modern psychology. He claims, with some prudent caveats, that nothing influences our conduct so little as ideas. And here we return, once again, to the insulting comparison of this “our”. What “our”? Unquestionably, different men make different uses of the minds they possess. One does not have to be a philosopher to have a “philosophy of life”; and what is this but the practical result of the individual’s ideas, concepts and judgments? How can the practical consequences of reasoning be denied to the man of value? How can we continue with this infamous contention that all morality is a strictly collective construction? If ideas really influence man so little, one can only conclude that this man, specifically, is inferior.