The psycho-analytic study of the family. J. C. Flugel
with which we have been dealing; and are often difficult to disentangle from them. In the second place, this very question of the distinction of the sexual from the non-sexual aspects of the observed facts of development has recently been, and still is, a subject of keen dispute among certain members of the psycho-analytic and post-psycho-analytic schools. The authors who have dealt more especially with the non-sexual aspects have written largely under the influence of this dispute and from a somewhat different point of view from that of the writers who have laid the principal emphasis upon the sexual side. Hence a comparison of the chief contributions on the two aspects is not always easy. In spite of these difficulties, however, certain conclusions stand out with some degree of clearness from the mists of controversy, and these are of considerable importance for our present purpose.
In the course of his pioneer work, Freud himself had in more than one connection drawn attention to the importance of the family relationships in regard to the general development of character and vital activity of the individual. It is however The work of Jung more especially to C. G. Jung of Zürich that we are indebted for a more explicit, vigorous and extended treatment of the problems of the family from this point of view[21]. The more recent work of Jung is marred by an exaggerated insistence on a single aspect, and by a tendency to mysticism which is apt to confuse and obscure the scientific consideration of the problem. But in spite of these defects it undoubtedly contains many contributions of value and, especially when taken as complementary to, rather than opposed to, the work of Freud, Rank and others of the orthodox psycho-analytic school, it would seem to constitute in some ways an important step forward in our knowledge of the matters with which we are here concerned.
Jung's present position is, in many respects, a reaction against Freud's views as to the extreme importance of the sexual tendencies in mental life. With Freud the term Libido had been used to signify the sum total of these tendencies taken in a sense much wider than that which seems to have been contemplated by any previous writer; so wide indeed that many inferred that there could be but a small field left over for the operation of the other instincts and tendencies. With Jung the reaction against this attitude takes place not by a restriction of the term Libido to its former narrower sense, but by a still further extension of its meaning so as to include all the conative tendencies which manifest themselves in mental life. By so doing Jung is enabled to take up a relatively non-committal attitude as regards the sexuality or non-sexuality of many of the factors which Freud had regarded as definitely sexual in character, while at the same time he succeeds in minimising the importance of certain unmistakably sexual manifestations by ignoring their specific character and regarding them rather exclusively from the point of view of the development and value of the individual as an independent vital unit.
As regards the application of this general attitude to our The family and the development of the individual own immediate problem, Jung appears to look upon the family influences as principally of importance in so far as they afford the necessary conditions and mental environment for the growth of the general life force of the individual personality. The child at birth is entirely dependent on his parents for the satisfaction of his vital needs. His development and education would appear to consist ultimately in the process of learning to satisfy these ever increasing needs himself. Hence if the child remains dependent on his parents for an abnormal length of time or to an abnormal extent, we may infer that an arrest of development has taken place. Such arrests are however liable to occur in a great many cases, since the process of learning to satisfy our own needs by our own efforts is an arduous business which (in virtue, we may suppose, of some aspect of the law of inertia) many of us would fain escape if we could. Undue dependence on the family would therefore appear to indicate a shirking of the "life task," i.e. an unwillingness to make the effort which adult life itself demands, manifesting itself in an exaggerated tendency to remain at the stage of relatively slothful ease and maintenance through the efforts of others which is enjoyed in infancy and early childhood.
In the neuroses the patient suffers, according to Jung, from Attachment to the parents regarded as symbolic of deficient individual development an unconscious tendency to return to this happy state of affairs rather than to face the hard struggle which adult life may entail. This tendency expresses itself in a symbolic way, according to the mechanisms which are characteristic of the neuroses; and what better or more appropriate symbol is possible than some form of exaggerated attachment to, and dependence on, the parents—through whom alone that happy time, to which return is now desired, was possible? Thus it would appear from this point of view that the incestuous fancies and wishes, to which Freud had drawn attention, are not to be taken literally as the expression of ultimate desires, but are only symbols of the wish to escape the hard task which life imposes and to return once more to the irresponsible condition of childhood.
There are probably no experienced psycho-analysts who are prepared to follow Jung to this last extreme position, in which he appears to deny all ultimate significance to the sexual Difficulties presented by this view aspects of the family complexes. Jung's view would seem indeed to involve a number of serious difficulties, amongst which the following are perhaps the most important.
(1) It does not (as does the view expounded in the earlier chapters) cast any light upon the origin and development of, It does not accord with the general importance of sex nor is it altogether consistent with, the very important part which the sexual tendencies play in the conscious and unconscious mind, quite apart from incestuous desires and fancies. If the principal problem of the neurotic lies in the difficulty of bracing himself to face the tasks which life imposes, it is hard to see why sexual feelings, thoughts, phantasies and symbols should appear in his mind so frequently and so persistently as they are now generally admitted to do in a very large number of cases.
(2) Jung's view does not explain why the thought of It does not explain the strong repression of incest incestuous relations should be subject to so much repression as it actually is. If there is in reality no deep-rooted tendency to such relations, there is no need for the formation of any powerful mechanism for preventing the fulfilment of the tendency; whereas if we suppose that the arousal of object love in an incestuous form is a normal stage of libido development—a stage however which is superseded in the course of further normal development—the existence of a strong counter-mechanism, manifesting itself in consciousness as repulsion and disgust, and in social life in the form of sexual taboos and "avoidances" connected with the various prohibited relationships, is precisely what our knowledge of the general conditions of the development of conative tendencies in the human mind would lead us to expect.
(3) Even if we are prepared to grant that this repression Nor the choice of incest as a symbol may have arisen from some other cause, it still remains difficult to account for the fact that the desire to return to infantile conditions should persistently avail itself of such an objectionable symbolic form. We should expect that the path of least resistance would lead to some means of symbolic expression calculated to arouse less opposition on the part of conflicting tendencies than that to which the idea of incestuous relationship is exposed. This leads to a fourth and still more serious objection on general grounds.
(4) Jung's view seems incompatible with all we know as It is not in harmony with the general laws of symbolism to the general relations of Repression and Displacement to conscious and unconscious factors respectively. The general rule, which is exemplified in innumerable dreams, myths, neurotic symptoms and cases of "everday psychopathology" would appear to be that the symbol expresses some tendency or desire in the unconscious which is more opposed to conscious tendencies and desires than is the symbol itself[22]. But in the present case, if Jung's view were correct, this rule would no longer hold. The desire for incestuous relations with one's parents is obviously exposed to much more serious inhibitions at the conscious level than is the desire to escape from the labours and responsibilities of adult life. The latter desire, although it may of course become the object of moral disapproval is generally of a nature to be freely admitted to consciousness. The idea of our own laziness or want of courage in meeting the difficulties of life can be faced by most of us (including the class of neurotics who, according to Jung's hypothesis, must, it would seem, have fallen ill owing to the repression of the desires connected with these ideas) without arousing any overwhelming sense of moral turpitude; whereas the idea of incest, even in the case of others, meets with the greatest abhorrence, and in relation to ourselves usually encounters sufficient