Jung on Family Constellations and the Alchemy of Colors
“Patients constantly illustrate for me the determining influence of the family background on their destiny. In every neurosis we can see how the emotional environment constellated during infancy influences not only the character of the neurosis, but also the patient’s destiny even down to its details. Many an unhappy choice of profession and disastrous marriage can be traced to such a constellation.”[1]
“… color is a wave of light of such and such a length.”[2]
“… colors are feeling-values”[3]
“The darkness and blackness can be interpreted psychologically as man’s confusion and lostness;…”[4]
“I also advised her not to be afraid of bright colors, for I knew from experience that vivid colors seem to attract the unconscious.”[5]
Over the course of his many decades of work with patients, as well as his own self-analysis, Jung came to recognize the reality of family constellations–how long-ago interactions in one’s family can leave lasting imprints (usually quite unconscious) on us–and how working with colors can help to make conscious, and then transform such situations. In this essay, I will first discuss the meaning of key terms, then consider Jung’s sense of constellations in family history and thirdly, take up how Jung valued and used color in his practice.
The Meaning of Key Terms
Constellation. The dictionary offers five meanings for “constellation:” “a group of stars; a division of the heavens occupied by such a group; a brilliant gathering; the grouping or relative position of the stars, thought to influence events, especially their position at the time of one’s birth;” and, in psychology, “a complex group of related feelings and ideas.”[6] This last is relevant to our essay.
Jung provides more detail, especially in volume 2 of his Collected Works, where he defines “constellation” in the context of a complex:
Our “recollection… is composed of a large number of component ideas,… called a complex of ideas. The cement that holds the complex together is the feeling-tone common to all the individual ideas,…We are therefore speaking of a feeling-toned complex of ideas, or simply of a complex….the complex has the effect that the subject does not react by the arbitrary or random connections of words but derives most of his reactions from the complex. The influence of the complex on thinking and behavior is called a constellation.[7]
We must remember that, in people who have not been through a thorough analysis, or have not done diligent work in constellation therapy, all this–the ideas, the words, and often the root feelings–are unconscious.
Color. To my astonishment, the dictionary lists 13 usages we have in English for “color,” from the physical “sensation produced by the different effect of waves of light striking the retina of the eye,” to the “appearance of a thing, distinct from form; hue;” a particular hue or tint; paint; the hue of the face, complexion; the pigmentation of skin, as in “a person of color;” a distinguishing quality, vividness” (e.g. how a skilled writer can add “color” to a story);; “an outward appearance, show” (e.g. “lies having some color of truth”); character, tone (e.g. in our aphorism “a horse of another color”). Some definitions relate to specific fields; for example, in Fine Arts, “color” means “the general effect produced by the paints or tints of a picture; coloration;” in Music, tone color, timbre; in mining and mineralogy, “a trace or particle of gold;” and in Heraldry, color is “one of three kinds of tincture (the other two being fur and metal).”[8]
Jung allows us to add another field to this lengthy definition–the field of psychology. Jung recognized the physics involved (“color is a wave of light of such and such a length.”) but also drew on his own experience, to define “colors” psychologically, e.g. as “feeling values,”[9] and as “a means of expressing moral qualities and situations.”[10] A familiar example of this we use often, when we speak of being in a “black mood” or of being “green with jealousy.”
Alchemy. The first of two dictionary definitions speaks to both its elements and historical period:
“a combination of chemistry and magic, studied in the Middle Ages, especially the search for a process by which cheaper metals could be turned into gold and silver. Alchemy tried to find, or prepare, a liquid which would work this change on any metal, also cure any ailment and prolong life…”[11]
The second definition is both broader and not bound by time period: “a magic power or process for changing one thing into another, the lovely alchemy of spring.”[12] Common to both these is the feature of change–transformation–and this is what the combination of family constellation/color therapy can foster.
How so? Because our family history holds multiple complexes, which can be brought to awareness (i.e. they can get “constellated”) and the work with colors seem to make an impact on the unconscious layers of our being. Jung witnessed the powerful influence of color in his work with patients, and so he would have those working with him paint or draw, and he gave them specific advice: “I also advised her not to be afraid of bright colors, for I knew from experience that vivid colors seem to attract the unconscious.”[13]
Jung’s Sense of Constellations in Family History
No area of life is a richer source for complexes and their constellations than the family. This is so because the adult’s family of origin is the source for his/her complexes and constellations. Our complexes get formed when we are little children, absorbing all the “Hidden conflicts between the parents, secret worries, repressed wishes,…” that are as much a part of the domestic environment as the wallpaper or house plants.
From 50+ years as a psychiatrist, Jung knew that all these conflicts, repressions and other emotions
“…produce in the child an emotional state, with clearly recognizable signs, that slowly but surely, though unconsciously, seeps into his mind, leading to the same attitudes and hence the same reactions to the environment…..Fathers and mothers deeply impress their children’s minds with the stamp of their personalities; the more sensitive and impressionable the child the deeper the impression. Everything is unconsciously reflected, even those things that have never been mentioned at all. A child imitates gestures and, just as the parents’ gestures are the expression of their emotional states, so in turn the gesture gradually produces an emotional state in the child, as he makes the gesture his own.”
About this Jung was explicit. He notes in The Development of Personality
“the undeniable fact of the identity of the psychic state of the child with the unconscious of the parents….the essential fact behind all this is that the things which have the most powerful effect upon children do not come from the conscious state of the parents but from their unconscious background.”[14]
and this leads Jung to state bluntly that “Parents should always be conscious of the fact that they themselves are the principal cause of neurosis in their children.”[15] And not only did the parents cause neurosis: their long-term influence could sabotage both professional and personal happiness:
Patients constantly illustrate for me the determining influence of the family background on their destiny. In every neurosis we can see how the emotional environment constellated during infancy influences not only the character of the neurosis, but also the patient’s destiny even down to its details. Many an unhappy choice of profession and disastrous marriage can be traced to such a constellation.[16]
Such suffering Jung would work to relieve, relying on the support of the psyche, via dreamwork, and outer life, via synchronicities, and via assignments he would give to his patients: draw, paint, sketch your dreams, feelings, whatever comes up. And then he would attend to the results, including the colors that showed up in these activities.
How Jung Valued and Used Color in His Practice
There were five ways Jung found color helpful in his work with patients. One common way is familiar to us in daily life: colors can reveal our feelings.[17] We say we’re feeling “blue” when sad, or “in the pink” when we’re healthy. Similarly, when a patient came in with a week’s dreams full of black, gray or dull colors, yet insisting all was well, Jung would probe more deeply, knowing the psyche does not lie.
For patients who reported no dream recall over several weeks, Jung would recommend drawing or painting with bright, vivid colors, so as to stir up the psyche, as if arousing it from sleep.
Conversely, when a patient came in with dreams full of one of the primary colors running through the recent collection, Jung would know a function was “up” for their discussion and, perhaps, application at that time. From experience, Jung related blue to the Thinking function, red/pink to the Feeling function, Green or brown to Sensation, and Yellow/gold/white to Intuition.[18]
A fourth way color played a role in Jung’s work was how four of the colors related to the phases of alchemy. The first phase (where we all start in the opus) is the nigredo, the Latin root of which is niger, “black.” This phase is black because it is like night, that time when we cannot see, cannot get our bearings, feel disoriented, and confused. It is the hardest of the phases to endure, and then, of course, the phase that seems endless. The second phase is the albedo, the Latin root being albus, “white.” This is a much lighter, easier phase, when the work is more about relating to the anima/animus, the inner partner, so as to integrate more of the unconscious into ego awareness. Stick with analysis long enough and we encounter the rubedo, the red phase, when the ego begins to confront the Self. As Jung noted in his magisterial Mysterium Coniunctionis, “The experience of the Self is a defeat for the ego.”[19] Why? Because the ego is forced, in such an encounter, to recognize how puny and out-classed it is, compared to the wisdom of the Self. In my own interpretation of the color association here, I see the red as akin to blushing, from the embarrassment the ego feels in being shown its limitations. The final phase (not mentioned by all the alchemists) is the citrinitas, well-named, as it is the color of the gemstone citrine (yellow/green).
When working with a patient over time, Jung noted a fifth way that color could prove useful: it helped him notice change. He cites one example of this in the dreams of a woman who had been very rational, logical, a strong Thinking type, whose dreams had been full of blues and greens, but now there was a shift:
” The new situation is characterized by red – feeling – and yellow or gold – intuition. There is thus a shifting of the center of personality into the warmer region of heart and feeling, while the inclusion of intuition suggests a groping, irrational apprehension of wholeness.”[20]
Such a shift of the center suggested a significant step toward integrating the shadow, and a major piece of work fostering individuation.
Conclusion
Depotentiating complexes is no easy task. Even becoming aware of complexes is hard, resisted by the ego at every turn, so Jung developed multiple ways to help his patients endure, grapple with the challenges and become more self/Self aware.
Never one to shrink from a challenge, Jung would face complexes and their constellations, and, in so doing, he provided his patients with models of courage and perseverance. He also gave them assignments which required their handling of colors, in their dreams and drawings, as he knew the multiple ways color could lure the psyche out of hiding, and reflect the feelings, phases and transformations that the client was experiencing.
Joining family constellation work with color work explains why this healing method is so powerful and effective, and I say this from personal experience working with Hemla Makan-Dullabh.
Bibliography
Jung, C.G. (1973), Experimental Researches. Collected Works, 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1960), The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Collected Works, 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1959), Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works, 9i. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1959), Aion. Collected Works, 9ii. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1963), Mysterium Coniunctionis. Collected Works, 14. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1966), The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature. Collected Works, 15. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[1] Collected Works 2, ¶1009. Hereafter Collected Works will be abbreviated CW.
[2] CW 8 ¶680.
[3] CW 14 ¶333.
[4] Ibid., ¶306.
[5] CW 9i ¶530.
[6] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, I, 427.
[7] CW 2¶733.
[8] Ibid., 391.
[9] CW 14 ¶333.
[10] Ibid. ¶394.
[11] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, I, 49.
[12] Ibid.
[13] CW 9i ¶530.
[14] CW 15 ¶s83 & 84.
[15] Ibid., ¶84.
[16] CW 2 ¶1009.
[17] CW 15 ¶213.
[18] CW 9i ¶588
[19] CW 14 ¶778.
[20] CW 9i ¶697.
