Janet’s not so invisible seam in the fabric of Depth Psychology

At times I felt like I had to pinch myself because I wasn’t sure if I was reading about Janet or about C.G. Jung. It is clear the influence of Janet’s thinking on Jung. Much like how Jung said the ego was born out of the unconscious, it seems as though Jung and his thought appeared to have been born out of the unconscious history of Depth Psychology, mainly, Janet’s thinking. This is especially in regards to the idea of the complex. He not only influenced Jung but also Freud, who ripped off a number of Janet’s ideas. Most notably, Janet’s term for Depth Psychology which he called “Psychological Analysis,” that Freud just shortened to “Psychoanalysis” without ever giving credit or citing Janet for the name inspiration or any other idea that was akin to Janet’s. (Discovery of the Unconscious pg.344).

Getting back to C.G. Jung, Janet contributed much to the Jungian framework. As I stated earlier, the idea of the complex was key in Jung’s development of the concept, which derived from Janet’s “fixed ideas.” These ideas were “subconscious” or just below consciousness. The term “subconscious” was named by Janet himself (Discovery of the unconscious pg.406) and it corresponds to Jung’s personal unconscious.

There were sparks of an idea of the collective unconscious in Janet (of which Jung would later elaborate the concept in greater detail) when he says, “ in the human mind, nothing ever gets lost,” (Discovery of the unconscious pg.366) or that the subconscious fixed idea symptoms had a “symbolic character.” (Discovery of the unconscious pg.373). With the archetypes having a symbolic or mythic nature, I take this symptomatic symbolic character to be alluding to what Jung would later say that, at the core of each complex (a fixed idea) was an archetype.

The complexes or fixed ideas were a result of “mental weakness” (Discovery of the unconscious pg.373), that took over the ego and the will. To which, Jung would call “subpersonalities” (Discovery of the unconscious pg.406) and that we don’t have complexes, but sometimes, they have us. Meaning that we the ego, is one complex or fixed idea, amongst many other fixed ideas that can run the show.

I hardly can attribute Jung to complexes now as his own idea. It seems like all the originality is tied up with Janet. It’s almost like history of ideas is also the history of marketing. Each great author and thinker tries to put his patent on the idea, but it just gets re-named and re-imagined by the next guy. Who I might add, makes money off of it. So how is Jung’s complex theory different than Janet’s fixed ideas? I don’t think it’s different as it is deeper.

I really see why Jung was thought of as a metaphysician in relation to these hard-nosed scientists now. He took the idea of the complex to new levels by using religious ideas and symbol systems. But the first elaboration is at the structural level, where fixed ideas are functional and dysfunctional. The main functional fixed idea is the ego, the fixed idea of who you are as an “I” and as a collection of experiences, that are conscious and unconscious. Other functional complexes would be the four functions, which have a set of associations attached to them, and also the Shadow. These fixed ideas have that emotional or archetypal core, the second elaboration. This core Jung would say is mythic or symbolic as Janet barely but did notice through the symptom. But the core for Jung is past the subconscious in a deeper well, the collective unconscious.

The third elaboration is perhaps the word association method that involves a physiological component. Jung brought out more of the psychosomatic aspects of the complex or the fixed idea that disrupted consciousness when he was able to empirically tie the word stimulus to a galvanic skin response with the machine that would later become the lie detector. Perhaps the disruption of consciousness is what Janet meant by the narrowing the field of consciousness.

Other concepts worth honorable mentions are mental force or Jung’s concept of Libido and mental tension, which is the energic concept that Jung referred to as the tension of the opposites in the psyche that created a dynamism in the psyche. No opposites means no life in the psyche.

Janet also contributed to Jung’s early typological classifications of extraversion and introversion in relation to pathology. Ellenberger says “Janet’s distinction of two main neuroses, hysteria and psychasthenia, was taken over by C. G. Jung, who made them the prototypes of the extroverted and introverted personalities (the latter being also linked with Bleuler’s theory of schizophrenia). (Discovery of the unconscious pg.377). Jung says that Hysteria is the neurosis most commonly found in the exaggeration of the attitude of an extraverted type, which is shows, a tendency to have a high rapport and suggestibility (which is to say a vulnerability to hypnotism) with or to other people (Psychological Types pg.421). Jung says the form of neurosis that develops in the Introvert is neurasthenic rather than hysterical (Psychological Types pg.421) to which Janet actually stopped using the word and instead called it “psychasthenia” of which was “a group of neuroses in which he incorporated the obsessions, phobias, and various other neurotic manifestations. “(Discovery of the unconscious pg.375).

Ellenberger throughout, re-iterates Janet’s “deep religious feelings” in childhood (Discovery of the unconscious pg.348). Although he had these deep religious feelings (of which he likely never shared because according to Ellenberger, he was a private and non-emotional person), it seems that Janet’s typology and the spirit of the times helped repress these feelings. Originally, Janet, struck me as an Introverted Thinking type with his career and the original names and classifications of concepts, but as I read the biography it changed to possibly as an Introverted Sensation type with his detailed notes and catalogs, the stress he put on reality with his concept of “La function du reel” to which Jung is quoted saying “the fonction du réel, i.e., sensation, the sensible perception of reality. (The Psychology of the Transference,” pg.117). Not to mention his need to have verifiable facts, and of course his emphasis on the conservation and budgeting of mental energy (Discovery of the unconscious pg.396).

I was listening to an astrology lecture one time that is similar to this notion, that it is first an idea and action within before it manifests outside. The lecture was talking about health complications in the sign of Gemini or the third house in astrology, which has to do with the neck, shoulders, and arms. Gemini is the most flexible sign in the zodiac and he said that this section shows the flexibility to turn your head from side to side and move your arms but that it first starts in your mind.  He said if you see people with neck problems, there is a good chance that they are not being flexible enough with the ideas in their mind. So it just reminded me of this outgrowth of the archetypal idea of “budgeting” which moves content into to different rooms in your psyche, in order to have a good “Feng Shui” of mind let’s call it, or Vaastu, for energy to flow harmoniously. So that you aren’t leaking unnecessary energy out or giving it more energy than it needs. It’s like happens already in our minds first (knowingly or unknowingly) before we act on it. Some other theorists I’m sure would quarrel with this notion. I imagine John B. Watson and the behaviorist school would be opposed to Janet’s proposal that the material economy is derived from our psychic economy. No way to really find out or know, but perhaps there are some natural behaviorists still around, (scientists?) who would give some pushback on this idea.

I’d like to take this idea of him being a sensation-thinking type and I’d like to reverse the theme and bring light to what Jung contributed to Janet, which was (in a sense) completing the book that Janet never finished on the Psychology of Religion (Discovery of the unconscious pg.400). Ellenberger says…

“The question “Do the gods exist?” is approached by Janet from the point of view of the psychological analysis of belief. The gods are neither “things” nor “facts,” but in Janet’s terminology “beings,” that is, religious entities. Facts are on the level of experimental verification, but religious entities are on the assertive and reflective levels. Belief in a fact of science and belief in a religious reality are two entirely different matters. In the former, belief comes step-by-step through hypothesis and experimentation. Religious belief comes all at once, and no amount of experience can discredit it. It can also go all at once, and the loss of belief is often accompanied by nervous collapse. Scientific or philosophical truths never engage our loyalties as does religious belief, for which one may die as one does for one’s country.” (Discovery of the unconscious pg.398-399).

One can see here that Jung could have verily picked up on the idea of “religious entities” being entities “in the psyche” that are most commonly found in dreams. Jung eventually had a whole volume of the collected works devoted to this topic called “Psychology and Religion: West and East.” So I will leave with the question, did Jung write the book that Janet wanted to write? Or did Jung just never betray his deep religious feelings like Janet, which in turn was yet another way he influenced and contributed to the future depth psychology?

Resources:

Ellenberger, H. (2006). The discovery of the unconscious: The history and evolution of dynamic psychiatry. New York: Basic Books.

Jung, C. G. (2014). The psychology of the transference. London: Routledge.

Jung, C. G. (2017). Psychological types. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.