Jung and Kierkegaard

Researching a Kindred Spirit in the Shadows

Amy Cook

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317191155
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología junguiana

Jung and Kierkegaard identifies authenticity, suffering and self-deception as the three key themes that connect the work of Carl Jung and Søren Kierkegaard. There is, in the thinking of these pioneering psychologists of the human condition, a fundamental belief in the healing potential of a religious outlook. This engaging and erudite text explores the significance of the similarities of thinking between Kierkegaard and Jung, bridging the gap between the former's particular brand of existential Christian psychology and the latter's own unique philosophy.

Given the similarity of their work and experiences that were common to both of their personal biographies, particularly the relationship that each had with his father, one might expect Jung to have found in Kierkegaard a kindred spirit. Yet this was not the case, and Jung viewed Kierkegaard with great scorn. That there exists such a strong comparison and extensive overlap in the life and thought of these towering figures of psychology and philosophy leads us to question why it is that Jung so strongly rejected Kierkegaard. Such hostility is particularly fascinating given the striking similarity that Jung's own analytical psychology bears to the Christian psychology upheld by Kierkegaard.

Cook's thought-provoking book fills a very real gap in Jungian scholarship and is the first attempt to undertake a direct comparison between Jung and Kierkegaard's models of development. It is therefore essential reading for academics and postgraduate students with an interest in Jungian and Kierkegaard scholarship, as well as psychology, philosophy and religion more generally.

Part 1

Introduction

Søren Kierkegaard is widely acknowledged today as one of the most insightful philosophical and religious thinkers of Western history. Until very recently psychologists have been more interested in him as a subject of analysis, rather than as a psychologist in his own right. Jon Stewart (2011) notes that many scholars, perhaps inspired by Georg Brandes’s 1877 famous study of Kierkegaard (Søren Kierkegaard, a literary character),¹ have treated him not as a psychologist or even a source of inspiration for psychological insight but rather as a case study². Fortunately, the tide has now turned and Kierkegaard’s particular brand of Christian psychology has been documented in dedicated monographs; however, these monographs certainly do possess a particular leaning towards Freudian psychology (see Nordentoft 1978; Ferguson 1995; Cole 1971). It is notable then that whilst Kierkegaard has been exhaustingly investigated from a Freudian perspective, with the exception of a few very brief comparisons by Jungian scholars, it remains that an extensive Jungian-orientated study has yet to be completed.

Carl Jung, like Kierkegaard, is another complex and controversial figure in the world of psychology: there are those who worship him with a fierce loyalty, whilst others are more interested in discrediting and pathologising the mystically inclined old man of analytical psychology. At the heart of this book is the psychological theories of these two revolutionary thinkers and the relation that their own individual psyches and life experiences have upon the formulation of such theories. When confronted with a psychology that is primarily conceived through self-analysis and which claims to bring to light and lay bare the human condition, it is absolutely necessary to study that individual as deeply as possible and to pose questions that others might find questionable. And yet it is all too easy to lapse into the pathologising of deficiencies. I do not intend, nor am I qualified, to diagnose either Kierkegaard or Jung. Instead I have striven to balance their extraordinary brilliance with the demons that they faced, without reducing their achievements to mere pathology. It is my hope that through the course of this book it will become readily apparent to the reader that Kierkegaard’s rightful place is amongst psychologists, not as an object of psychological investigation but as an incredibly gifted and insightful psychologist. Indeed, a psychologist whose insights bear comparison with Jung’s own.

This inquiry will seek to provide an in-depth commentary of the many striking similarities between Jung and Kierkegaard, both in terms of their work and their personalities. In Jung’s psychology we see the continuation of Kierkegaard’s project of selfhood as a divine call to become a self before God. There are aspects of these thinkers’ insights that so easily converge with one another and this points towards a significant conceptual parity and complementarity in their thought. We might summarise the most important points of commonalities as: the creation of meaningful existence through inward deepening; the overcoming of self-deception through self-creation/recovery; and self-determination through the creative exercise of freedom in conjunction with a reference (guiding) point outside of one’s own. Such complementarity between these two significant figures illustrates the possibility for philosophy and psychology to complement each other in their respective visions of authentic selfhood.

In addition to exploring the inherent and exciting similarities between these thinkers, what makes this a particularly fruitful discussion to be had is the fact that whilst there are works that associate the thought of Jung and Kierkegaard, very few have attempted to directly compare the convergence of their models of development. Though such a comparison seems really very compelling and perhaps obvious to scholars of Jungian and Kierkegaardian thought, it is one that has largely escaped attention. The extensive overlap in their thinking reveal both an intellectual and spiritual correspondence that serves to illuminate just how surprising and odd it is that Jung was not able to find in Kierkegaard a kindred spirit. In written correspondence with Kunzli, Jung refers to Kierkegaard as ‘that Grizzler’ whose ‘problems and his grizzling’ served to allow him to settle ‘everything in the study’ so he ‘need not do it in life. Out there things are apt to get unpleasant’ (16th March, 1943). Writing to Rudolf Pannwitz, he confides, ‘That you find Kierkegaard “frightful” has warmed the cockles of my heart’ (March 27, 1937). Such comments are unfair, unwarranted and undoubtedly illuminate and reflect Jung’s own psychological vulnerabilities more so than they address the failings of Kierkegaard’s ‘insupportable’ philosophy. It is clear that the affinity in the thought of Kierkegaard and Jung is much greater than Jung himself, at least consciously, realised. It is to Jung’s Library that we shall later turn in order to establish the extent of Jung’s knowledge of Kierkegaard. Tackling the question as to why Jung rejects Kierkegaard is a primary concern, the reason behind which we shall try to discover in the following pages.

Not only is there no single Jungian-orientated monograph devoted to Kierkegaard’s psychology or its possible bearing on Jung’s own psychology, there are no Jungian studies of Kierkegaard, the man. This alone strikes me as surprising, but when we combine this Kierkegaardian absence with the very emotive and negative comments Jung makes of Kierkegaard in regards to both his philosophy and character, then such absence seems remarkable. This is not to say that these negative comments or the similarity between the respective psychological projects of Jung and Kierkegaard has gone unnoticed. Prominent Jungian analyst Ann Casement (1998) very briefly explores the ‘striking affinity’ between these two deeply spiritual men, both of whom ‘were antipathetic to conventional Christianity’. However, she merely alludes to, rather than analyses, what she insightfully perceives to be a shared psychological inheritance between Kierkegaard and Jung. John Dourley (1990) in his ‘Jung, Tillich, and Aspects of Western Christianity’ notes Jung’s rejection of Kierkegaard and interprets its origins to Kierkegaard’s distancing of the realities between man and God³.⁴ This interpretation, as we will later discover, readily enforces Jung’s own distorted view of Kierkegaard, and as a consequence, Dourley unquestionably reinforces the idea that what Kierkegaard lacks and needs is the corrective of the immanent presence of God.

The most substantial exploration of Jung’s relation to Kierkegaard’s psychology is to be found in Anthony Rudd’s essay ‘C.G. Jung: A missed connection’ which forms part of Kierkegaard’s Influence on the Social Sciences (Stewart, 2011). Notably Rudd draws together Kierkegaard and Jung’s view of the self and argues that the achievement of selfhood for both men requires that the various aspects of the self are consciously taken up as parts of who one is. The failure to integrate and balance the various aspects of the personality leads, according to Kierkegaard, to despair in its various forms. Whereas, for Jung, these aspects of unintegrated self can potentially become pushed into the unconscious where they assume crude and undeveloped forms (becoming what Jung calls ‘the shadow’). Rudd draws attention to Jung’s apparent unawareness that Kierkegaard was involved in the same cultural and religious problem situation as himself; namely, the banalisation of Christian concepts that arises in modern misappropriations of ‘Christian’ society and ‘Christian’ culture. However, he downplays Jung’s hostile response to Kierkegaard by pointing towards Kierkegaard’s relative anonymity outside of Scandinavia during Jung’s student days. Furthermore, Rudd reflects that whilst the work of Kierkegaard had begun gathering a momentum amongst the intelligentsia following World War I, Jung’s main ideas were already formed, and, though ‘he considerably elaborated on them, he showed little interest in considering new perspectives from philosophy or theology’. Rudd makes no mention of Arnold Kunzli, a frequent correspondent of Jung and whose dissertation thesis on Kierkegaard Jung possessed two copies of in his library. This PhD thesis is crucial in revealing what Jung could have known of Kierkegaard’s personality and religious philosophy. Moreover, whilst Jung may well have been uninterested in new perspectives as Rudd claims, he does make use of philosophy that reinforces his own views and this would not preclude Kierkegaard. This book seeks to rectify these issues and proposes to attempt to bridge the gap in Jungian scholarship regarding the figure of Kierkegaard, particularly in regards to addressing Jung’s outright and venomous rejection of him. It will thereby be the most thorough study to date to explore the extensive overlap and affinity between their models of psychological development and illness. It will also be the first, albeit tentative, attempt at a Jungian analysis of the melancholy Dane.

Part One of this book outlines some striking similarities between the works of Jung and Kierkegaard, whilst drawing together Jung’s conception of the unconscious and Kierkegaard’s notion of spirit. The ideas here are presented abstractly and generally are given a more intensive treatment in Part Two. These chapters therefore seek to trace and concretise the essential similarities in their respective works through a thorough exploration of three key themes of overlap: authenticity, suffering and self-deception. Everything in this exposition is carefully interconnected, and consequently this means that in a certain sense new aspects of the same parallels between the life and works of Jung and Kierkegaard are continually being developed. Having worked towards establishing a strong comparison between Jung and Kierkegaard, Part Three is devoted solely to a Jungian analysis of Kierkegaard, setting the scene for Part Four, ‘In the Shadow of Jung’. This concluding segment will revisit these scathing comments of Jung with a view of ascertaining why – given the otherwise strong affinities between his work and Kierkegaard’s – he made these very odd and curious remarks.

Notes

1

2 Stewart, J. (Editor) Kierkegaards Influence on the Social Sciences (Ashgate, 2011).

3 Dourley, John. ‘Jung, Tillich, and Aspects of Western Christianity,’ Thought: Fordham University Quarterly, Vol 52, Issue 1, March 1977.

4

Chapter 1

A holy kind of healing

For many, Jung’s appeal lies in the optimistic tone of his thought for there is no sense in his writing that psychological characteristics are inborn and without the potential of development or change. There is a distinct absence of the ridding of symptoms that we find in Freud’s therapeutic model and a rather abundant concern that the analyst help his or her patients to engage with their symptoms in an attitude of acceptance. The essence of Jungian therapy lies not in asking what is missing or repressed but in focusing upon that which is available within the therapeutic alliance and the potential this gives the individual. In fact, it appears that Jung wanted to dispel the Freudian perception that analysis simply alleviates and removes troublesome symptoms. He writes, ‘[T]here is a widespread prejudice that analysis is something like a “cure” to which one submits for a time and is then discharged healed. That is a layman’s error left over from the early days of psychoanalysis’ (1916/1957: par.142). For Jung, the analytic task is altogether more comprehensive and focused on the ‘whole man’, not just his missing or repressed parts. For,

The object of therapy is not the neurosis, but the man who has the neurosis…. Nor does it [neurosis] come from an obscure corner of the unconscious, as many psychotherapists still believe: it comes from the totality of a man’s life and from all the experiences that have accumulated over the years and decades.

(1934: par.337)

It seems apparent to me that such an insight, contrary to Freud’s psychoanalysis, stems from a realisation that one’s personality and symptoms are intimately interwoven and entwined. He expresses this much more directly when he states outright that ‘psychotherapy knows first and foremost – or rather should know – that itsproper concern is not the fiction of neurosis, but the distorted totality of the human being’ (1945: par.199). Since it is likely that symptoms are deeply embedded within the patient’s personality, this distorted totality requires the healing of the psyche through a process that Jung terms ‘individuation’, which concerns the evolution of the whole personality towards the attainment of greater wholeness. This process of evolution is brought about through the integration of unconscious complexes, which demands that the individual increasingly accept the self that he or she is:

Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as ‘in-dividuality’ embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as ‘come to selfhood’ or ‘self-realisation’.

(1929a: par.266)

Rosemary Gordon (1979), an influential member of the ‘London School’ of analytical psychology, draws out the very useful distinction between cure and healing: ‘to cure’ means to ‘take care of’, ‘to take charge of’; it also denotes ‘successful medical treatment’. Whilst, on the other hand, ‘to heal’, which means basically ‘to make whole’, is a very ancient word in the English language, and is closely related to the word ‘holy’. Interestingly, Gordon goes on to explain that both ‘healing’ and ‘the holy’ derive from the same roots, haelen, or helag, in Old Friesians, or haelen in Old Teutonic, or haeloz and halig in Old English. Such a process is a spontaneous and natural occurrence within the psyche, even if the vast majority of us are unaware of it, it exists as something potentially present in all human beings.

In 1958 Jung wrote, ‘my raison d’être consists in coming to terms with that indefinable being we call “God” ’ (1951–1961). To do this, he wrote,

the knowledge I was concerned with, or was seeking, still could not be found in the science of those days. I myself had to undergo the original experience, and, moreover, try to plant the results of my experience in the soil of [modern] reality.

(1963)

In many respects we might view the recently published Red Book as a product of this very endeavor, in the sense that it is a visual and written record of a six-year encounter with ‘God’, culminating in his own self-revelation and enlightenment. Jung considered The Red Book his most important work; ‘everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life,’ wrote Jung, ‘but the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then’ (Jung 2009). His position as we shall see in detail, though simply stated now, is that all neurotic problems are generally speaking religious problems. Consequently the basic process of development and maturation that Jung terms individuation becomes a religious process.

The Terry Lectures (1938/1940) represent Jung’s most powerful and forceful insight into religion as a psychological experience. It is here that he highlights the similarity between the development of ‘a religious attitude’ that facilitates self-acceptance with that which we try to capture when we say of someone that they have made their peace with God. He claims,

If you sum up what people tell you about their experiences, you can formulate it this way: They came to themselves, they could accept themselves, and thus were reconciled to adverse circumstances and events. This is almost like what used to be expressed by saying: He has made his peace with God, he has sacrificed his own will, he has submitted himself to the will of God.

(1938/1940: par.138)

Given that psychological healing is expressed, albeit indirectly, in terms of the religious, we might then view the analytical process of individuation as equivalent to one’s personal search for a relationship with God. At the very least we can certainly conclude that healing consists in finding what can best be described as a religious attitude. Especially if we remind ourselves that individuation shares with religion its goal of union, wholeness and completeness.¹ Given that individuation has ‘for its goal the development of the individual personality’ (Jung 1921), it can be construed as the natural birth process of the personality. It is both the goal and natural outcome of life, fundamentally a process of becoming in which we become more truly ourselves. Essentially by separating one’s conscious self from the unconscious images that lead us to blind illusions and ultimately self-deception, we are able to facilitate a metamorphosis of the personality that encourages self-acceptance. Whilst individuation should occur naturally, it must be understood that it can all too readily be thwarted by any number of factors – by heredity, the adverse influences of one’s parents’ education and environment. Clinical analysis therefore catalyses a natural development process. If a patient is able to commit himself to a dialectical relationship with his unconscious then not only is there resolution of conflict between ego and unconscious but also the energy-laden symbols that foster individuation are given space to emerge. Perhaps we might say that the principle task of analytical psychology is to remove those elements that obscure the process of individuation and thus free the personality to pursue its particular path. Jung’s psychology is fundamentally philosophical in the classical sense, a dialectic whose dynamics bring to consciousness not only a more complete understanding of the problem involved, but also the emergence of a new insight. Jung quotes a letter from a former patient that evocatively ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Bibliography
• Index