For alternate usage, see complexity.
A complex is a core pattern of emotions, memories,
perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious
organized around a common theme, such as power
or status.
Primarily a psychoanalytic term, it is found
extensively in the works of Carl Jung and
Sigmund Freud.
An example of a complex would be as follows:
if you had a leg amputated when you were a
child, this would influence your life in profound
ways, even if you were wonderfully successful
in overcoming the handicap.
You might have many thoughts, emotions, memories,
feelings of inferiority, triumphs, bitterness
and determinations centering on that one aspect
of your life.
If these thoughts troubled you, Jung would
say you had a complex about the leg.
Complex existence is widely agreed upon in
the area of depth psychology.
It assumes the most important factors influencing
your personality are deep in the unconscious.
They are generally a way of mapping the psyche,
and are crucial theoretical items of common
reference to be found in therapy.
Complexes are believed by Carl Jung and Sigmund
Freud to influence the individual's attitude
and behavior.
History and development of the idea
Carl Jung distinguished between two types
of unconscious mind: the personal unconscious
and collective unconscious.
The personal unconscious was the accumulation
of experiences from a person's lifetime that
could not be consciously recalled.
The collective unconscious, on the other hand,
was a sort of universal inheritance of human
beings, a "species memory" passed on to each
of us, not unlike the motor programs and instincts
of other animals.
Jung believed the personal unconscious was
dominated by complexes.
The term "complex", "emotionally charged complexes"
or "feeling-toned complex of ideas", was adopted
by Carl Jung when he was still a close associate
of Sigmund Freud.
Complexes were so central to Jung's ideas
that he originally called his body of theories
"Complex psychology".
Historically the term originated with Theodor
Ziehen, a German psychiatrist who experimented
with reaction time in word association test
responses.
Jung described a "complex" as a 'node' in
the unconscious; it may be imagined as a knot
of unconscious feelings and beliefs, detectable
indirectly, through behavior that is puzzling
or hard to account for.
Jung found evidence for complexes very early
in his career in the word association tests
conducted at the Burghölzli, the psychiatric
clinic of Zurich University, where Jung worked
from 1900–1908.
Jung developed the theory out of his work
on Word Association Test.
In the word association tests, a researcher
read a list of 100 words to each subject,
who was asked to say, as quickly as possible,
the first thing that came to mind in response
to each word, and the subject's reaction time
was measured in fifths of a second.
Researchers noted any unusual reactions—hesitations,
slips of the tongue, signs of emotion.
Jung was interested in patterns he detected
in subjects' responses, hinting at unconscious
feelings and beliefs.
In Jung's theory, complexes may be conscious,
partly conscious, or unconscious.[2] Complexes
can be positive or negative, resulting in
good or bad consequences.
There are many kinds of complex, but at the
core of any complex is a universal pattern
of experience, or archetype.
Two of the major complexes Jung wrote about
were the anima and animus.
Other major complexes include the mother,
father, hero, and more recently, the brother
and sister.
Jung believed it was perfectly normal to have
complexes because everyone has emotional experiences
that affect the psyche.
Although they are normal, negative complexes
can cause us pain and suffering.
One of the key differences between Jungian
and Freudian theory is that Jung's thought
posits several different kinds of complex.
Freud only focused on the Oedipus complex
which reflected developmental challenges that
face every young boy.
He did not take other complexes into account
except for the Electra complex, which he briefly
spoke of.
After years of working together, Jung broke
from Freud, due to disagreements in their
ideas, and they each developed their own theories.
Jung wanted to distinguish between his and
Freud's findings, so he named his theory "analytical
psychology".
Jung's theory of complexes with key citations
Early in Jung's career, he developed the concept
of the "complex", A "complex" meaning a personal
unconscious, core pattern of emotions, memories,
perceptions, and wishes organized around a
common theme.
According to Jung's personality theory, complexes
are building blocks of the psyche and the
source of all human emotions.
Complexes are thought to operate "autonomously
and interfere with the intentions of the will,
disturbing the memory and conscious performance".
Jung included the ego in a broadly comprehensive
theory of complexes, often referring to it
as the ego-complex as illustrated when he
said "by ego I understand a complex of ideas
which constitutes the center of my field of
consciousness and appears to possess a high
degree of continuity and identity.
Hence I also speak of an ego-complex".
Jung often used the term "complex" to describe
a usually unconscious, repressed, yet highly
influential symbolic material that is incompatible
with the consciousness.
Daniels described complexes as "'stuck-together'
agglomerations of thoughts, feelings, behavior
patterns, and somatic forms of expression".
Jung spoke of one specific type of complex,
an autonomous feeling-toned complex, when
he said "what then, scientifically speaking,
is a 'feeling-toned complex'?
It is the image of a certain psychic situation
which is strongly accentuated emotionally
and is, moreover, incompatible with the habitual
attitude of consciousness.
This image has a powerful inner coherence,
it has its own wholeness and, in addition,
a relatively high degree of autonomy, so that
it is subject to the control of the conscious
mind to only a limited extent, and therefore
behaves like an animated foreign body in the
sphere of consciousness."
Some complexes usurp power from the ego and
can cause constant psychological disturbances
and symptoms of neurosis.
With intervention, it may become conscious
and greatly reduced in their impact.
Jung described the power complexes can hold
when he said "what is not so well known, but
far more important theoretically, is that
complexes can have us.
The existence of complexes throws serious
doubt on the naive assumption of the unity
of consciousness, which is equated with 'psyche,'
and on the supremacy of the will.
Every constellation of a complex postulates
a disturbed state of consciousness.
The unity of consciousness is disrupted and
the intentions of the will are impeded or
made impossible.
Even memory is often noticeably affected,
as we have seen.
The complex must therefore be a psychic factor
which, in terms of energy, possesses a value
that sometimes exceeds that of our conscious
intentions, otherwise such disruptions of
the conscious order would not be possible
at all.
And in fact, an active complex puts us momentarily
under a state of duress, of compulsive thinking
and acting, for which under certain conditions
the only appropriate term would be the judicial
concept of diminished responsibility".
On the other hand, Jung identified the development
of the differentiating functions as essentially
the development of useful complexes.
However, even here there are often undesirable
side effects.
It is true that we do not refer to this [training
and development of functions] as obsession
by a complex, but as one-sidedness.
Still, the actual state is approximately the
same, with this difference, that the one-sidedness
is intended by the individual and is fostered
by all the means in his power, whereas the
complex is felt to be injurious and disturbing.
People often fail to see that consciously
willed one-sidedness is one of the most important
causes of an undesirable complex, and that,
conversely, certain complexes cause a one-sided
differentiation of doubtful value.
In Psychological Types, Jung describes in
detail the effects of tensions between the
complexes associated with the dominant and
inferior differentiating functions in highly
and even extremely one-sided types.
In the foregoing descriptions I have no desire
to give my readers the impression that these
types occur at all frequently in such pure
form in actual life.
They are, as it were, only Galtonesque family
portraits, which single out the common and
therefore typical features, stressing them
disproportionately, while the individual features
are just as disproportionately effaced.
See also
Anima and animus
Brother complex
Condensation
Freudian psychology
Jungian psychology
Cinderella complex
Electra complex
Father complex
God complex
Hero complex
Inferiority complex
Madonna-whore complex
Martyr complex
Oedipus complex
Napoleon complex
Sister complex
Superman complex
Superiority complex
References
Jung, C.G..
Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume
6, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
ISBN 0-691-01813-8.
Jung, C.G..
The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,
Collected Works, Volume 8, Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press.
ISBN 0-691-09774-7.
Shultz, D. and Shultz, S..
Theories of Personality..
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Daniels, Victor..
Handout on Carl Gustav Jung.
Retrieved from http:www.sonoma.edudjungsum.html
.
Carlini, C..
Understanding Freud's Oedipus complex.
Retrieved from http:www.articledashboard.comUnderstanding-Freud-s-Oedipus-Complex/695228
Cowgil, C..
Carl Jung.
Retrieved from http:www.muskingum.edupsycwebjung.htm
Mattoon, M..
Jungian psychology in perspective.
Retrieved from http:www.voidspace.org.ukcomplex2.shtml
Wishard, WVD..
What is the archetype of the apocalypse all
about?.
Retrieved from http:www.cgjungpage.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=617&Itemid=40
Bernardini, R., Jung a Eranos.
Il progetto della psicologia complessa [Jung
at Eranos.
The Complex Psychology Project].
Milano: FrancoAngeli.
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