Dealing with Parental Complexes
“Complexes are in truth the living units of the unconscious psyche, and it is only through them that we are able to deduce its existence and its constitution…. The via regia to the unconscious, however, is not the dream, as he [Freud] thought, but the complex, which is the architect of dreams and of symptoms. Nor is this via so very “royal,” either, since the way pointed out by the complex is more like a rough and uncommonly devious footpath that often loses itself in the undergrowth….”[1]
“The cement that holds the complex together is the feeling-tone common to all the individual ideas, in this case unhappiness.”[2]
“The neurosis itself is of psychic origin, and emanates from ‘special psychic contents,’ which we call a complex…. It is interesting to find that the experiment discloses thought-complexes, which were not mentioned at all in the history of the case. The obvious reason for this is the distressing character of the complexes.”[3]
The “experiment” that Jung refers to in the quote above was his Word Association experiment which he performed on hundreds of people in the early years of his career.[4] Jung and his associates found that some words sparked strong “feeling tones,” suggesting a complex in the person being tested. The words used in the experiment which had such strong feelings related most often to money, power, father and mother.[5] Even now, more than a hundred years later, these areas of life can produce the “distress” that Jung knew accompanies a complex.
In this essay we address the two parental complexes, defining each, identifying some of their features, examining how and why they produce distress, and then how a complex can be “depotentiated.”
Definitions of “Complex,” “Parent,” Father” and “Mother”
For each of these words, I will provide the simple dictionary definition(s), followed by etymology and derivations, and the more technical, Jungian meanings and usages.
Complex. The dictionary notes this word can be an adjective (describing something complicated) and a noun, for which it gives a general meaning–“a complicated whole”–and a meaning in the context of psychology: “a system of related and usually repressed ideas associated with emotional disturbances so as to influence a person’s behavior to an abnormal degree;” the famous Oedipus complex is given as an example, and the compilers note that “complexes are not to be regarded as distinctly abnormal phenomena, since they are a component of every individual’s mental life.”[6]
Our English word comes from a Latin compound: com + plicere, meaning “to fold or twist together.”[7] The derivation implies that what is twisted or folded is not simple or singular, and we will see how this is so when we examine the features of these complexes.
Jung defined the complex as the emanation of “special psychic contents.”[8] Note the plural, reflecting how a complex is not composed of one thing, but multiple feelings, impressions, memories, experiences and images. Jungian analyst Daryl Sharp, in his wonderful C.G. Jung Lexicon, defines the complex as “an emotionally charged group of ideas or images.… ‘feeling-toned ideas’ that over the years accumulate around certain archetypes, for instance ‘mother’ and ‘father’.”[9]
Parent. The general definition of “parent” is the “source, cause or origin;” in biological contexts, it is “an animal or plant that produces offspring,” and in human life, it can mean “father,” “mother” or “a person… who had the legal status of a father or mother, as by adoption.”[10]
As with “complex,” our English word “parent” has its origin in Latin. “Parent” comes from the Latin present participle parens, of the verb pareo-ere, “to bring forth,” “to be present.”[11] The participle suggests ongoing action, so a “parent” is one who is present, and this is certainly true in Jung’s sense of the parent’s imago.
Jung defined “parent” as an archetype (a “primordial image… expressing material primarily derived from the collective unconscious”)[12] and an imago (“the image we form of a human object… subjectively conditioned”)[13] and he made “a rigorous distinction between the image or imago of a man and his real existence.”[14] Daryl Sharp noted that Jung believed that “an archetypal image of the primordial parents [was] resident in every psyche.”[15]
In relation to our focus in this essay, we can perhaps more clearly grasp the difference between “parent” as imago and our actual parent when we note how very differently siblings will “see” their parents: assuming there are no step-parents in the picture, each child of the same parents will have a host of different feelings, impressions and history of interactions that will form the imago for each child. My sister, who was taken up by our father early in her life, has a very different sense and feeling about him (her imago of “father”) than I had, since my father had little to do with me and thwarted my ambitions. It is common in a family for one child to feel closer to one parent than to the other, and thus to have their inner picture (imago) be different.
Father. “A male parent” is the first dictionary definition, while others include: “a person who is like a father,” “a person who is the founder, leader, inventor, author.” A more general meaning is “a thing that is the cause or source” of something.[16]
No Latin root here: our modern English word comes directly from the Anglo-Saxon fæder,[17] which reflects the elemental nature of the word: every society in the world has a term for this essential relationship.
Jung discusses the father and his importance in a lengthy essay in volume 4 of his Collected Works,[18] and the father imago in fifteen places.[19]
Mother. As with “father,” the dictionary has many meanings for “mother,” from the basic “woman who has given birth to a child,” and “female parent,” to “the cause or source of anything.” It is also a transitive verb: “to mother someone.”[20]
The Anglo-Saxon root is modor,[21] which has cognates in all the other languages deriving from primitive Germanic. The original Indo-European root is ma.
Jung has four lengthy essays on the mother in her duality,[22] psychological aspects,[23] symbolism,[24] and on the need for “deliverance from the Mother,”[25] and 26 citations to the mother imago.[26]
Features of Parental Complexes
There are two parts to our discussion of features: the features of archetypes, since both “father” and “mother” are “primordial images” (Jung’s original term for what he later called “archetypes”),[27] and the features of father and mother, in their different expressions as parents. We’ll begin by noting the features of archetypes in general and then relate these to the parental archetypes.
The Features of Archetypes in General. Jung recognized that all archetypes are innate,[28] i.e. they are like our genes: all human beings have these inner patterns. Archetypes also link us to all humanity, past, present and future, because they are eternal, universal, transpersonal and lodge in the collective unconscious,[29] the deepest part of our psychic structure.[30] They have numinosity, i.e. a spiritual quality which gives them the potential to transform us, if we recognize and assimilate them.[31] They are non-local:[32] much like our dreams, they are not bound by geographical distance, which is why a mother can wake up knowing her son has been injured in a war being fought thousands of miles away. Archetypes are non-material[33]–we cannot touch, weigh or measure an archetype: they get actualized through personal experiences.[34] So, for example, the puer is the “child” archetype, but we only see it in reality when we watch children playing, or when we ourselves “play.” Archetypes also have two additional features which are significant for our topic: they have intentionality[35] and generativity,[36] i.e. they initiate, control and mediate behaviors in our lives.
The Archetypal Features of Parents. The “parent” archetype has all the features listed above, with an emphasis on the last two. The intention of the archetype is to beget or bear a child, then to discipline, train and initiate the young person into his/her culture and society.[37] As the Latin root implied, a “parent” is meant to be present. Once a person becomes a parent, ideally certain actions are generated: caring, protecting, nurturing, disciplining, teaching,[38] etc. I say “ideally” because in all too many cases, this does not happen. There is what Jungians call “the frustration of archetypal intent.”[39] In our modern culture, this failure of parenting shows up in absent parents due to drug use, overwork which prevents the parent from being present in the life of his/her child, and in situations where men beget children and show little or no interest in parenting their offspring. Such neglect has serious consequences not only for the children involved, but for society as a whole.[40]
The Features of the Father Archetype. “Neglect” and “absence” are two features of the parental archetype found more frequently with the father than with the mother. These are obvious negative features of this archetype. Less obvious is the father showing up in competitive behaviors (especially demanding sons to measure up and compete, regardless of the son’s temperament, interests and personality),[41] materialistic concerns[42] (disregarding the child’s desires, e.g. to become a musician, an actor, or an author) with the dismissive remark “There’s no money in it,” or “You’ll be destitute and on the streets”–to those children brave enough to live in what Nassim Taleb called “Extremistan.”[43] Other negative father behaviors relate to the patriarchy and its expectations, e.g. telling children that bigger is better,[44] that certain people are “superior” (inculcating racism in children),[45] demanding sons to be strong, tough (no tears), ambitious, rational, logical,[46] and daughters to be content as housewives, secretaries, uneducated.[47] This was certainly what I got from my father, who refused to pay for my college, did not encourage me to aspire to anything more than the 1950’s conventional homemaker/mother role, and ridiculed my goal to be a college professor. It’s no surprise that I developed a strong negative father complex. I shared this complex with Jung. Jung’s interactions with his father led to the formation of a negative father complex, which Jung admitted to bluntly: “I do not want to knuckle under to any ‘fathers’ and never shall.”[48]
Not all fathers actualize the negative side of the father archetype. Jung mentions fathers who had “a ‘spiritual’ character, so to speak, in the sense that the father-image gives rise to statements, actions, tendencies, impulses, opinions, etc., to which one could hardly deny the attribute ‘spiritual’.”[49] As fathers, this type of man could be a protector and caregiver of his children, an active agent introducing them to the transcendental qualities of life, being supportive of the ambitions of both sons and daughters, a teacher of sound values, and a model of living a compassionate, ethical and authentic life. Jung urged men to “remain conscious of the world of the archetypes,”[50] so as to live aligned with Nature, and in touch with their roots (both ancestral and psychic).[51] The positive father figure would also “obey the inexorable law of nature which sets limits to every being,”[52] displaying in his actions for his children the ability to set boundaries, and live within the family’s means. The good father, in essence, is the guide and mediator for his progeny with the world outside the home.[53]
Personal qualities in adult life can reflect a father complex. A negative father complex may show up in acrophobia (fear of heights, ladder-climbing, being up high),[54] agoraphobia (fear of being out in public or in exposed places),[55] insecurity in competitive situations,[56] an attitude critical of the patriarchy,[57] social conventions and standard business practices. Not surprisingly, since this form of the complex fosters in the child a disappointment or questioning of the father and his authority,[58] the negative complex may result in strong independence in both thinking and acting,[59] a reluctance or inability to take direction or sustain the demands of bosses, and a dislike of authoritarian and/or hierarchical institutions.[60] Jung, for example, did not enjoy his annual month of service in the Swiss army, which was required of all Swiss men.[61]
Conversely, children who grow up forming a positive father complex are more likely to find the “world of the fathers” a congenial and welcoming place. Sons may take over the family business, or rise high in corporate ranks, excel in competitive realms like sports and flourish in arenas like politics. They feel comfortable climbing high, both metaphorically and literally.
The positive father complex in daughters can provide girls with the worldly confidence of their brothers. Jung described such women as “filles à papa,”[62] cultured, with “varied interests,”[63] and possessing “a lively turn of mind,”[64] thanks to their developing a solid connection to their animus. They often are sportswomen, confident both on the pitch and in the boardroom. All these are regarded as positive traits, but Jung was aware of the flip side of this version of the positive father complex in daughters: it can take the girl out of the realm of the mother.[65] The daughter can be so closely bonded with the father that marriage becomes impossible for her (she cannot “leave” him to take up with another man), while her relation to her mother is fraught.[66] Jung cited the Greek myth that illustrated the extreme form of the daughter’s positive father complex:
“…the daughter develops a specific liking for the father, with a correspondingly jealous attitude towards the mother. We could call this the Electra complex. As everyone knows, Electra took vengeance on her mother Clytemnestra for murdering her husband Agamemnon and thus robbing her – Electra – of her beloved father.”[67]
Not all women with a positive father connection murder their mothers! More generally, these women sense something lacking in their relation to their mother, that the feminine side of their nature might need more development, or they feel somehow haunted or disturbed in their contacts with mother.[68] Some women admit bluntly that they did not like or understand their mother. In my own experience, I grew up sensing my mother’s unlived life–how she should have become a journalist, had a life out in the world–rather than succumb to the post-war societal push to turn housewife and full-time mother. So, as Jung noted, children often live out the parent’s unlived life,[69] and neither my sister nor I became mothers or housewives. Father identification can foster a negative mother complex,[70] which brings us to consider features of the mother complex.
The Features of the Mother Archetype. Compared with his descriptions of the father complex, Jung had a lot more to say about the mother archetype, which “forms the foundation of the so-called mother complex…”[71] and he felt that, because mothers tend to be more present physically to their children than fathers, mothers are likely to be more influential in the child’s early life.[72] Perhaps this is why there is so much more literature on the forms of the negative mother than the negative father, e.g. we read of the “missing mother,”[73] the “devouring mother,”[74] the “ambivalent mother,”[75] the “collapsed mother,”[76] “the child/unmothered mother,”[77] the “stone mother,”[78] and the “dragon mother”[79]–each of these illustrating a way in which the intention of the mother archetype was “frustrated:” by absence, by too much presence, by emotional, behavioral or psychological inconsistency, by incapacity (physical or mental), by lack of personal experience of having been mothered, by emotional coldness, or by lust for power/control.
In each of these forms, the intention of the mother archetype is “frustrated” in ways that affect the child in a variety of ways. The child who grows up with a “missing mother” may develop body image disorders (e.g. bulimia, anorexia, obesity, slovenliness); an inability to “mother” him/herself (e.g. poor diet, lack of sleep, absence of “nesting instinct”); a lack of ability to deal with the world of matter; abuse of the body in extreme sports. In extreme forms this version of the negative mother can result in prostitution; abuse of women (by men who lacked relationship with mother in early life), and difficulties or wariness around women.[80] What’s going on here? The person is living in the field of missing Earth, disoriented to the material plane.
The child who grows up with a “devouring mother” may develop breathing disorders (e.g. asthma, respiratory problems, or the sensation of being suffocated); third chakra problems (e.g. diaphragmatic hernias, digestive difficulties); anger, rage, frustration; failure to separate from mother (lack of an independent existence, lack of interest in women [by men with this form of bewitchment], strong domesticity [by women caught in this field]). In extreme forms, this can develop into serial killing of women (by men); or a slow deterioration in one’s physical system, leading to being swallowed up by The Mother.[81] What’s going on here: failure by the mother to allow the child a separate existence, sucking the child’s life force, living off the child’s energy.[82]
The child who grows up with an “ambivalent mother” may develop hip, leg, or foot problems (weakness in taking stands in life, standing up for oneself) indecisiveness, vacillation; problems with the voice or throat (fifth chakra), reluctance or an inability to vocalize one’s preferences, or difficulties in having one’s voice heard; fearfulness, holding back from life and from the challenges that life presents.[83] What’s going on here: failure by the mother to stand up for herself, providing the child with no model of adult responsibility and strength.[84]
The child who grows up with a “collapsed mother” may develop heart problems (tachycardia, bradychardia, high blood pressure); personality disorders (e.g. narcissism); ulcers; problems with the third or fourth chakras.[85] What’s going on here: the child grows up facing seemingly impossible emotional conundrums, living constantly in the tension of opposites, muddling through daily life, wallowing in self-pity, or living in an emotionally painful past, with the mother offering the child little by way of positive emotional interaction.[86]
The child who grows up with a “child/unmothered mother” may develop problems related to the first chakra (ungroundedness, lack of realism or practicality), digestive disorders (e.g. intestinal problems, colitis, Crohn’s disease), and/or problems dealing with the physical plane (money problems, being accident prone, obesity, anorexia, bulimia, or poor food choices).[87] What’s going on here? Since “mother” is how we come on to the physical plane, an unmothered mother (herself having no model for how to care for herself) cannot help but offer insufficient modeling of how to mother or how to handle physicality, which leaves the child untaught, uninitiated in this basic task of living on the earth. Physical existence in its most basic forms is fraught, e.g. money management, and food can become difficult to assimilate or digest, or, in an example of compensation, the person becomes a gourmand who lives to eat, or a Midas who succumbs to greed.[88]
The child who grows up with a “stone mother” may develop problems with the second and/or fourth chakras. This can manifest as anhedonia (inability to find pleasure in life), emotional deadness, lack of feelings for others; heart problems, gynecological or sexual problems (dismenhorrhea, frigidity, difficulty getting pregnant); or difficulties in interpersonal relationships.[89] What’s going on here: the mother’s lack of emotional responsiveness left the child feeling cold herself, or believing that emotional withholding was how one should live; or the child grew up with the unconscious belief that enjoyment in life was wrong.[90] This form of the negative mother may be related to type: if the mother has Extraverted Feeling as her inferior function, she may come to seem like “stone” to the child at those times when warm, feeling expression is expected from the mother.[91]
The child who grows up with a “dragon mother” may develop problems with the third or sixth chakras (stomach disorders, upper GI track problems) or with issues around power (either meekness, submissive attitudes toward authority, or revolutionary, rebellious attitudes), or problems with accessing and trusting one’s own intuition and inner guidance.[92] What’s going on here: mother had such a lust for power or control that the child’s own power potential was broken, or frustrated, possibly leading to rebellion later in life,[93] seen today in phrases like the “Tiger Mom” who drives her children to perform excellently. Jung was explicit that the dragon is a common dream symbol in the life of the person with a negative mother-imago.[94]
Common to all forms of this complex is arachnophobia (fear of spiders), suggesting how the years-long experience of a negative mother can create a fear of entrapment in “webs” of frustration, disappointment, rage and impotence. Jungian analyst Mary Briner notes that
“The spider is symbolically associated with the sympathetic nervous system, which reaches far down in reactions beyond our control. The spider symbolizes the mother and can represent the negative aspects of the unconscious mother image. … the female spider eats the male, that it is a predatory, bloodsucking insect.”[95]
If left unaddressed, this powerful complex can lead to obsessive, compulsive behaviors, insomnia, and hypertension, due to the stress of repressing the deeply wounded child’s feelings of rage, grief, despair and hatred.[96]
Since Jung was a psychiatrist, his professional life put him in contact with people who had problems, and these were usually linked with negative complexes, but not always. For example, Jung wrote about how
“a man with a mother-complex may have a finely differentiated Eros instead of, or in addition to, homosexuality. (Something of this sort is suggested by Plato in his Symposium.) This gives him a great capacity for friendship, which often creates ties of astonishing tenderness between men and may even rescue friendship between the sexes from the limbo of the impossible. He may have good taste and anesthetic sense which are fostered by the presence of a feminine streak. Then he may be supremely gifted as a teacher because of his almost feminine insight and tact. He is likely to have a feeling for history, and to be conservative in the best sense and cherish the values of the past. Often he is endowed with a wealth of religious feelings, which help to bring the ecclesia spiritualis into reality; and a spiritual receptivity which makes him responsive to revelation.”[97]
and for an example of the positive mother complex in women, Jung cites
“that well-known image of the mother which has been glorified in all ages and all times. This is the mother-love which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends….”[98]
For centuries, this positive mother imago has been exalted by institutions in Western culture, e.g. the Roman Catholic Church’s adulation of Mary, mother of God.
In my own experience, I have encountered people who have positive mother complexes. They tell me their experience with their mother was good, that they felt much closer to mother than to father, and, as a result, they lacked the goad or provocation that the negative form of the complex can provide to do the inner work to deal with the complex. As a spur to becoming more conscious, it might be more motivating to have problems–negative complexes–than to lack them. Regardless of type, however, complexes come with distress. How and why is this so?
“The Distressing Character of the Complexes”
We noted earlier the features of archetypes–how they are eternal, universal, transpersonal, numinous, non-local, non-material, generative and possess intent. They are also autonomous, that is, they can take over our ego consciousness and outer life against our will. Because all complexes contain one or more archetypes,[99] complexes also are autonomous. What does it mean for a complex to be “autonomous”?
It means that, if or when a complex gets “hit” (the technical term is “constellated”),[100] the ego loses control. Some powerful unconscious force takes over our outer reality and leaves those around us astonished, fearful, amazed or shocked by our words, emotions, and/or behaviors. We can be left embarrassed, horrified and wondering what got into us.
I experienced this often before I worked consciously to whittle down (the technical term is “depotentiate”)[101] my negative father complex. In my life as a college professor, my negative father complex got constellated twice (years before I learned I had it and how/when it might appear). In both cases I was dealing with irresponsible male students who borrowed their classmates’ books and notes, came to class late, failed to return the borrowed materials, and gave clear evidence of being lazy. I put up with this until the generous student came to me to say she couldn’t get her classmate to return her book, and at that moment, he came in the door of the classroom–late again–and something in me snapped. I grabbed him, picked him up (all 200 pounds of him) and threw him out the door. I remembered none of this: the other students and several of my colleagues out in the hall told me what I had done. These days, with all the “trigger warnings” and other coddling of our fragile young people, such behavior would have had me censured, if not arrested, but back in 1972, the result was that I got a reputation as a demanding, fearsome professor, and when the campus riots took over colleges back in those days, no protestors even dreamed of disturbing my classrooms.
The appearance of the complex is not usually this extreme, but it always shows up as loss of conscious ego control.[102] Why? Because you are no longer dealing with the person in your presence, but with your own unconscious projections,[103] and, with a negative complex, this can bring up all sorts of negative feelings–impatience, anger or rage, frustration, fear–which take you over, often in a situation where the complex generates behavior all out of proportion to the situation.
It was when I got into analysis that, for the first time, I got clued into the concept of complexes. From dreams that indicated to my analyst that I had a negative father complex, I finally began the process of consciously handling this complex. How so? In contacts I had with men, in many contexts, not just serious romances.
As is often the case, life presented me with many opportunities to deal with this–always with men who in some way had a “hook”[104] that would grab the (unconscious) projection of my father and the host of feelings I had for him. Years of faithful dream work gave my analyst and me repeated instances of how, when and with whom the complex manifested and the sort of “hooks” that might be involved. So, when I encountered Willis Harman in 1987, I knew I was being presented with so many “hooks” that I could not fail to have chance after chance to work on my complex.
I worked as a research assistant with Willis for three years and as I got to know him I was amazed at the way he reminded me of my father. Willis had the same birth date, appearance, nickname and occupational background as my father. Not one, not two but multiple “hooks” on which I could “hang” the projection of my father imago. The psychological work involved, in part, the “withdrawal”[105] of my projections on to Willis, and the “increase in self-knowledge”[106] that I gained as a result.
What did this look like–“withdrawing” projections? As Jung knew, the process is painful. I would have an interaction with Willis and come away feeling hurt, upset, or dissatisfied. In our first few encounters I would speak of this to him, and (thankfully) Willis was so mature, kind and understanding that he did not take offense. Then I would discuss the instance with my analyst, and come to see that the situation was an example of how the projection process worked. My feelings were real but not really about Willis: In the moment when my feelings got hurt, or I felt dissatisfied with Willis’ response, I had been relating to my father, or the image I had of him in my unconscious. The situation had given me the chance to become aware of how I was working with Willis while simultaneously re-experiencing an interaction with my father. But now, in 1988, I could do this immersed in my analysis, and so could witness what was really going on.
Repetition is an important part of learning,[107] and I had multiple repeats of these situations with Willis, but each time I noticed a change: The “hit” to my father issues would cause less pain; the upset would be more minor; the dissatisfaction would pass quickly–all signs that the issues were slowly being depotentiated, i.e. robbed of their distressing autonomy and power.
Over time, the reward of this work meant I came to perceive Willis without the scrim of unconscious assumptions I had formed from my history with my father. While rewarding, it was not easy. Jung was not exaggerating when he said that “Psychological knowledge through withdrawal of projections seems to have been an extremely difficult affair from the very beginning.”[108] Difficult and distressing because the ego does not like to lose control. We don’t like it when the unconscious takes over, and people regard us as weird, abnormal, unpredictable, even potentially dangerous (as some of my students did).
Obviously it is far easier (and better for our reputations) to work through all this within an analysis, with a trained Jungian analyst who can “hold” the numerous projections in the transference process. The transference is what both Freud and Jung considered “the main thing”[109] in psychological healing: when the analysand (me, or you, if you go into analysis) projects unconscious stuff on to the analyst, then interacts with the analyst as if he or she were the parent, and then gets to become conscious of the deeply buried, often repressed, host of feelings that the little child stuffed while growing up with the parent. These feelings are rarely pleasant, which is another reason why complexes are distressing: we don’t like to face the inner cesspool into which we unconsciously poured all the hate and rage we could not express openly when we were young and vulnerable.
“Depotentiation:” The Healing of Complexes
Because complexes are made up of archetypes and memories of our life experiences lodged in our unconscious, we cannot wipe them out or cancel them: the ego does not have control over the unconscious.[110] So the most we can do is as I described above: become conscious of the complex and its accompanying feelings by listening to the unconscious speak to us (most vividly in dreams, which Jung treasured so much),[111] then set the intention to stay alert to feelings that arise in outer life. These feelings are so much easier to handle when the “outer life” is the safe space of the analytical temenos (that sacred container within which the analysis takes place),[112] because the analyst is savvy, trained to recognize the transference, and thus can help us express and work through the feelings, without the potential distress of embarrassment (or possible arrest by the police) that can accompany the manifestation of the complex in life out in the “real” world.
Repetition over time is the key: numerous dreams bring up the meat of the complex–father, mother–over and over, and each time this stuff gets projected is the chance to spot what’s going on, and take back the projection. As I noted above, each time we do this, the complex’s autonomy is weakened; its power to take us over is lessened, and, in time, we get to the point where we can say, “Years ago, that would really have set me off, but now I can just observe my feelings, know what they are about, where they are coming from, and not be upset.” The complex has been depotentiated, not eliminated, but healed.
Conclusion
Parents die, and you might suppose that we can bury the complexes we have around them with them in the casket. Not so: like the archetypes, the complexes that formed over the years of our youth live on, even when the parental figures are long gone. For example, I can still encounter men who can remind me of my father and stir that old complex, reminding me of how my reality once was so fraught, and how much better my life is now, thanks to analysis.
You also might read this essay and feel so glad you had a “normal” family with no complexes, but Jung would remind us that “It is of course not possible for parents to have no complexes at all. That would be superhuman.”[113] Nobody is perfect and no parent has ever been perfect. So, if you feel fortunate, perhaps your family of origin had modest-sized complexes, or your parents were so well-parented by their parents that they grew up without the woundings that give rise to serious complexes. The old saw notes that “the sins of the fathers are visited unto the children to the third and fourth generation,”[114] and the complexes and neuroses are what the author of Exodus meant by “sins.”
This is why Jung urged people contemplating parenthood to “at least come to terms with them [their own complexes] consciously; …”.[115] If two people are having trouble in their marriage, they
“should make it a duty to work out their inner difficulties for the sake of the children. They should not take the easy road of repressing them in order to avoid painful discussions….. It is a thousand times better in every respect for parents frankly to discuss their problems, instead of leaving their complexes to fester in the unconscious.”[116]
Jung knew that children, even small children, exist in an unconscious bond with their parents, a participation mystique that means they sense things, and often express their distress non-verbally, in physiological problems (e.g. constipation, enuresis, eczemas), in nightmares, or problematic behaviors like clinging and tantrums.[117]
We cannot change the past or who our parents are or were. The only thing we can change is ourselves, and we can be grateful to Jung for giving us a blueprint and the tools to deal with our parental complexes. Life is so much better when we do this!
Bibliography
Bair, Deirdre (2003), Jung: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
Briner, Mary (1990), “Mother and Daughter Relationships,” Mother/Father, ed. Harry Wilmer. Wilmette IL: Chiron Publications.
Carotenuto, Aldo (1981), The Vertical Labyrinth. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Estes, Clarissa Pinkola (1992), Women Who Run with the Wolves. New York: Ballantine Books.
Hall, J.R. Clark (1966), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hollis, James (1994), Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men. Toronto: Inner City Press.
Jackson, Colter (2018), “Motherless, but Growing Toward the Light,” The New York Times, May 13, 2018, ST 5.
Jacobi, Jolande (1968), The Psychology of C.G. Jung, 7th ed. London: Routledge, Kegan, Paul.
Jacoby, Mario (1984), The Analytic Encounter. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Jung, C.G. (1973), “Experimental Researches,” Collected Works, 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1961), “Freud and Psychoanalysis,” Collected Works, 4. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1956) “Symbols of Transformation,” Collected Works, 5, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1971), “Psychological Types,” Collected Works, 6. Princeton: Princeton University Press
________ (1966), “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology,” CW 7. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1960), ”The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,” CW 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1959), ”The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious,” CW 9i. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1959), “Aion,” Collected Works, 9ii. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1970), “Civilization in Transition,” CW 10. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1954), “The Development of Personality,” CW 17. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1976), ”The Symbolic Life,” CW 18. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1975), Letters, ed. Gerhard Adler & Aniela Jaffé. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lewis, Charlton & Charles Short (1969), A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sharp, Daryl (1991), C.G. Jung Lexion. Toronto: Inner City Books.
________ (1996), Living Jung. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Steinberg, Warren (1990), Circle of Care. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Stevens, Anthony (2003), Archetype Revisited. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Taleb, Nassim (2007), The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House.
Van Eenwyk, John (1997), Archetypes and Strange Attractors. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Young-Eisendrath, Polly (1984), Hags and Heroes. Toronto: Inner City Books.
[1] Collected Works 8 ¶210.
[2] Ibid. ¶733.
[3] CW 2 ¶1351.
[4] For Jung’s report of these experiments, see CW 2 ¶s1-1388.
[5] Ibid. ¶s611-615 & 906.
[6] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, I, 407.
[7] Lewis & Short (1969), 391.
[8] CW 2¶1351.
[9] Sharp (1991), 37-38.
[10] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, II, 1410.
[11] Lewis & Short (1969), 1302-1303.
[12] CW 10 ¶746.
[13] Ibid. ¶812.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Sharp (1991), 96.
[16] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, I, 718.
[17] Hall (1966), 109.
[18] CW 4 ¶s693-744.
[19] CW 4 ¶s728,740-2; 5 ¶s62,63,89,93-4,134; 7 ¶s88, 113, 206, 380; 9i ¶122; 10, ¶66; 14 ¶232; & 16 ¶218.
[20] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, II, 1264.
[21] Hall (1966), 239.
[22] CW 5 ¶s464-612.
[23] CW 9i ¶s148-198.
[24] CW 5 ¶s300-418.
[25] Ibid. ¶s419-463.
[26] CW 5 ¶s89, 94, 134, 261, 265, 318, 320, 329-30, 395, 406, 450n, 457, 468, 508, 555, 558, 566n, 569, 606, 608; 7 ¶s88, 113; 9ii ¶s20, 24, 26; 13 ¶147.
[27] CW 6 ¶747.
[28] Stevens (2003), 50.
[29] CW 7 ¶103.
[30] CW 5 ¶474. For illustrations of the structure of the conscious and unconscious à la Jung, see Jacobi (1968), 31-34.
[31] CW 5 ¶225.
[32] “Letter to Hannah Oeri,” 23 December 1950; Letters, I, 568-569.
[33] CW 6 ¶750.
[34] Stevens (2003), 73-75.
[35] Ibid. 119.
[36] Ibid. 140.
[37] Ibid. 139.
[38] CW 17 ¶159.
[39] Stevens(2003), 139-171.
[40] Stevens lists some of these consequences; 170-171.
[41] Hollis (1994), 24.
[42] CW 18 ¶1345.
[43]Taleb defines this as “the Black Swan-generating province” where life is lived at the extremes of wealth and poverty, as opposed to the “tame, quiet, and uneventful province of Mediocristan.” People with regular pay-checks, 401Ks, pensions, a clearly-recognized path up the corporate hierarchy, and a viable plan for retirement at 65 are living in what Taleb considers Mediocristan. Actors, musicians, writers–the “glamour jobs”–live in Extremistan. For more, see Taleb (2007),26.
[44] This common belief drove Jung to distraction: he repeatedly decried bigness and urged his followers to value small groups and avoid crowds; cf. CW 10 ¶s719 &722.
[45] CW 18 ¶94.
[46] Hollis (1994), 101-103.
[47] None of Jung’s daughters were allowed to go to college; Bair (2003), 318.
[48] CW 10 ¶1025.
[49] CW 9i ¶396.
[50] Ibid. ¶174.
[51] CW 17 ¶250.
[52] CW 9i ¶174.
[53] Stevens (2003), 131.
[54] Ibid. 129-132.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Steinberg (1990), 109.
[57] Ibid. 103.
[58] Jung grew up disappointed in his father; Bair (2003), 21, 38.
[59] Intellectual independence gave Jung the courage to break with Freud; ibid. 230.
[60] Bair (2003), 298; Jung retired from his army duty with the rank of colonel, noting that “the only satisfactory role is that of general.”
[61] Ibid.
[62] This French phrase refers to a father’s daughter, a girl who is closer to her father than her mother; our English expression “Daddy’s girl” comes close to the idea.
[63] CW 9i ¶525.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.
[66] CW 17 ¶222.
[67] CW 4 ¶347.
[68] CW 9i ¶525.
[69] CW 17 ¶154.
[70] CW 9i ¶525.
[71] CW 9i ¶161.
[72] CW 17 ¶136.
[73] Jackson, (2018), ST5.
[74] Carotenuto (1981), 12, 26.
[75] Estes (1992), 175-176.
[76] Ibid. 177-178.
[77] Ibid. 179-181.
[78] CW 5 ¶577.
[79] Carotenuto (1981), 86.
[80] Young-Eisendrath (1984), 66
[81] Ibid. 31.
[82] Carotenuto (1981), 21.
[83]Estes (1992), 176.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Ibid. 177.
[86] Ibid. 178.
[87] Ibid, 179.
[88] Ibid. 180.
[89] CW 9i ¶170.
[90] Ibid.
[91]An “inferior function” is so called because it is low (inferior) in the unconscious and thus hard to access. In daily life, if/when a person is expected to display or use his/her inferior function, it can be an awkward moment; the action may be poorly performed, and the person called on to use that function may resent being put in that situation. Unfortunately, little kids live more in their feelings, so mothers who have difficulty summoning warm, effusive feelings in response to a child may appear to the child as a “stone.”
[92] Carotenuto (1981), 36.
[93] Ibid. 55-56
[94] CW 5 ¶395.
[95] Briner (1990), 118.
[96] Sharp (1996), 85, 91-92.
[97] CW 9i ¶164.
[98] Ibid. ¶172.
[99] Sharp (1991), 38.
[100] Ibid. 43.
[101] Ibid. 45.
[102] CW 8 ¶253.
[103] Jacoby (1984), 50.
[104] CW 8 ¶519.
[105] CW 9ii ¶43.
[106] Ibid.
[107] Van Eenwyk (1997),42.
[108] CW 13 ¶117.
[109] CW 16 ¶358.
[110] CW 7 ¶233.
[111] Like Freud, Jung regarded dreams as the via regia to the unconscious; CW 7 ¶437.
[112] CW 12 ¶177.
[113] CW 17 ¶219.
[114] Ex. 20:5 & 34:7; cf. Num. 14:18; Deut. 5:9.
[115] CW 17 ¶219.
[116] Ibid.
[117] Ibid,
