The Royal Road: Complex as Corridors

Artist: Jake Baddeley

A complex is a complicated psychological function, apprehended as “the feeling-toned groups of representation in the unconscious” (p. 6). Considering its dual nature as both a developmental and environmental response to an archetypal image "projected onto an external object or person” (p. 16), and its “positive and negative” attributes (p. 25), it presents a paradox (Jacobi, 1959).

     When I recall witnessing an injustice, a call to action in an emergency, or a trigger in conflict with a loved one, it sometimes evokes an overwhelming state change, including increased heart rate and temperature, as if gripped by an autonomous force seizing or overtaking my mind and body. These “invasions” may “become stereotyped behavior” as “uncontrollable affect-reactions” (p. 64). Yet, for Jung, complexes are not inherently pathological. “Everyone has complexes” (p. 69), and “the fact that they are painful is not an indication of pathological disturbance.” “Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpoise to happiness. A complex only becomes pathological when we think we have not got one” (Jacobi, p. 20; Whitmont, 1969).

     Whitmont notes Jacobi’s reflection on Jung’s view that “complexes belong to the basic structure of the psyche” and “are a healthy component of the psyche” (p. 70). To distinguish is to confront, but “understanding merely in terms of past environmental factors does not prevent the complex from operating” (Whitmont, 1969, p. 67). If they are indeed structural, one may not easily differentiate an emotional response from a complex. 

     Since complexes contain both “negative” and “positive,” “shell” and “core,” and suffering is not pathology, I risk mistaking them as problems to distinguish rather than corridors toward individuation. Thus, the question is not whether to distinguish between a complex or an emotion, but rather: what image lies at its center? What archetype constellates its core? Only then can one mobilize its unconscious contents, depotentiate its perturbations, and move its “energy center … to enhance psychic life” (Whitmont, p. 71). 

References

Jacobi, J. (1959). Complex, archetype, symbol in the psychology of C. G. Jung. Princeton University Press.

Whitmont, E. C. (1969). The symbolic quest: Basic concepts of analytical psychology. Princeton University Press.