“The general picture of an association test of a schizophrenic may be very
similar to that of a
neurotic, but closer examination shows that in a
schizophrenic patient the connection between the
ego and some of the
complexes
is more or less completely lost.
The split is not relative, it is absolute.
An hysterical patient might suffer from a persecution-mania very similar
to real paranoia, but the difference is that in the former case one can bring
the delusion back under the control of
consciousness, whereas it is virtually
impossible to do this in paranoia.
A neurosis, if
is true, is characterized by the relative autonomy of its
complexes, but in schizophrenia the
complexes have become disconnected and
autonomous fragments, which either do not reintegrate back to the
psychic
totality, or, in the case of a remission, are unexpectedly joined together again
as if nothing had happened.
The dissociation in schizophrenia is not only far more serious, but very often it is irreversible. The dissociation is no longer fluid and changeable as it is in a neurosis, it is more like a mirror broken up into splinters.”[8]
“[In schizophrenia] the split-off figures assume banal, grotesque, or highly exaggerated names and characters, and are often objectionable in many other ways. They do not, moreover, co-operate with the patient’s consciousness. They are not tactful and they have no respect for sentimental values. On the contrary, they break in and make a disturbance at any time, they torment the ego in a hundred ways; all are objectionable and shocking, either in their noisy and impertinent behaviour or in their grotesque cruelty and obscenity. There is an apparent chaos of incoherent visions, voices, and characters, all of an overwhelmingly strange and incomprehensible nature.” (“On the Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia,” CW 3, par. 508) {Jung Lexicon – page 109])
Because complexes have a certain will-power, a sort of ego, we find that
in a schizophrenic condition they emancipate themselves from conscious control
to such an extent that they become visible and audible. AP 81
We speak of schizophrenia, a condition
in which people are split in half; we even call this crisis a crack-up.
These divided souls plunge into the night-sea of the realities that are
down there, about which they had never known, and they are terrified by demons.
You can take this precept as a basic theological formula:
a deity is the personification of a spiritual power, and deities who are
not recognized become demonic and are really dangerous.
One has been out of communication with them: their messages have not been
heard, or, if heard, not heeded.
And when they do break through, in the end, there is literally hell to pay.
TAT 23
It
is a question of words whether in such cases you call the person a great
religious mystic or a schizophrenic, for that is the closeness of the two.
You
know that when some people go off their heads, they say that they are Christ, while others say
that they caused the First World War. There is not much
difference between the two! It is a megalomania, this way or
that. Sometimes it switches, and one minute they will say
that they caused the First World War and two minutes later that they are
the
savior of the world. Once they have crossed the threshold,
those two inflations are one and the same thing, and that is only the extreme
case of something you always find on a minor scale when people have committed
some sin. Either they pooh-pooh it intellectually or they
bathe, in an emotional childish way, in their sin – in order not to see
their guilt – bathing with hysterical pleasure in one’s sins and feeling so
awful that everyone has to give comfort! That is a
pathological reaction which is just an escape from the realization of the real
guilt. TPoPA 234
In
(schizophrenic cases whether with or without
pharmaceutical drugs prescribed) two things are lacking: first, the
possibility of realizing the reality of the
psyche, for the
schizophrenic when he is in this state takes the
archetypes and the
inner world as being completely real, which is why he thinks he is
Jesus Christ.
But he does not say that with the nuance of the mystic; he means it quite
literally, for he will say that he is Jesus
Christ and therefore is not
going to his office tomorrow. This shows that he does
understand it on the level of the soul, on the inner plane, but takes it
literally and concretely. In my experience, the greatest
fight one has in getting a schizophrenic out is to make him understand the
symbolic level of
interpretation, for he insists on the thing being concrete, and in that way
introduces a strange rationalism and materialism into his madness.
He does not see that there is a reality of the
psyche.
He cannot accept the hypothesis of psychic reality as opposed to outer
reality. He mixes the two up, which accounts for the
nonsense. TPoPA 267
The
other thing which is lacking is the
feeling function, that is, the possibility of assessing values correctly.
Jung tells the story of a schizophrenic patient of his who from time to
time stopped to listen to something. He had great difficulty
in finding out what she was doing when she broke off like that, but after a long
time she confessed that at such times she was telephoning to the
Virgin Mary – just quickly
getting her opinion! At such times the patient was
inaccessible because there was someone else on the line, so to speak!
Now if you had a mystical experience of the
Virgin Mary, you would be
completely overwhelmed. People who have had such inner
experiences remain shaken for days afterward. This is a usual
reaction to an overwhelming religious experience, but it is typical for a
schizophrenic to say, “Hullo! Oh yes! The Virgin Mary? Okay,” so that either you
believe nothing of it, or you are horribly shocked. In that
case the values are lacking. If people are raving, everything
is said in the same tone, whether they are Jesus Christ or delivering macaroni.
The cheapest banalities and the deepest religious material are
interspersed without evaluation.
That
is why the story of Amor and Psyche is very meaningful.
Psyche, like Cinderalla, must
discriminate
between the different grains, separating the good from the bad; it is a function
of the psyche to
discriminate values. If the
anima is lost,
feeling is lost, and that happens often in schizophrenia.
As soon as feeling has gone and contact with the anima in a man has gone, then
there is this picture. When many people get into such a
state, there is a mass
psychosis as we have already had and may possibly have again.
TPoPA 267
As you know, in his theory of schizophrenia, Jung makes a difference between what he calls the asthenic type and the strong type. In the strong type the problem is that there is an overwhelming wealth of strength and fantasy in the unconscious, confronted with a relatively weak ego, and because of that the person can split. But you can say that in the strong type really it is a plus which makes them ill. In the asthenic type the minus makes the person ill. Somewhere neither the ego nor the unconscious has quite enough impetus. People in such a situation have no dreams. Where, in the greatest conflict, you would expect a vital reaction from the unconscious, the dreams are small and petty, or there are none. It is as though Nature does not react.
It is very important to know that, because naturally, in the strong type one can risk a kind of reckless therapy and, for instance, just confront the person with the problem and risk a terrific crisis, a healing crisis, and then they come through. With the asthenic type you can never do that. There one must adopt a nursing attitude, making constant blood transfusions, so to speak, never forcing the problem or pushing the person up against the wall because that would break them. One does not have to decide that oneself; in general, the unconscious decides. In the asthenic type the dreams themselves do not push the problem. I have often been amazed when people of this type who have the most urgent problem have dreams which only talk about this or that detail and do not poke into the main problem. Then I say to myself, “Well, it is not meant; the confrontation would not be possible. The unconscious knows better than I do and says that this problem cannot be touched. It is too hot; it would explode the person.” One has to go along with the seemingly little dreams there are and take the advice contained in them. With the strong type you generally see that the dream hits directly at the core of the problem, with great dramatic structure, and then you see that the whole thing is driving to a climax and a healing crisis. After a situation of terrific conflict, the thing decides itself either for good or ill. TPoPA 56