www.rubedo.psc.br | Interview | © Wolfgang Giegerich

The empirical person is not the
subject of the individuation process

Interview with Wolfgang Giegerich

Wolfgang’s Giegerich Interview with Rubedo’s Group

1. What is the importance of Hegel&s thought in your work?

The first thing to be said here is that I am strictly against any applying of the thought of any person, be it philosopher or psychologist, to the psyche. My primary commitment is to the phenomena in their eachness themselves. But if one wants to approach phenomena depth-psychologically, one needs a certain method or style of thinking to go behind the surface of things to their depth and their soul. Here Hegel&s thought is of greatest help to me. I do not know of any other way of thinking that would come closer to what we need in psychology. The point is to get into the phenomena that show themselves, into their interiority, rather than substituting a so-called depth for their surface. In our move into the soul of the phenomena, the phenomena as it originally appears must be ‘saved.’ The depth must be the appearing phenomenon&s own depth. This tension between appearance and depth requires an understanding of the dialectic of the real. The depth and soul of the phenomena can neither be reached with an empirical approach nor dogmatically with the application of a given theory (e.g., about a positive “depth,” such as the construct of “the unconscious”) to the real.

Hegel helps me to train the mind to be able on my own to better understand the phenomena, which means here: to better follow the phenomena&s self-movement into their own depth, their own negativity.

2. Would it be two different ways to think individuation: in a Hegelian matrix and in a Nietzschean matrix? Which one makes more sense to you?

‘Individuation’ can mean different things. In many psychoanalytical circles it means the counterpart to the ‘socialization’ of the individual, both as part of ego-development. But I assume that you have ‘individuation’ in the specific Jungian sense in mind, which is closely related to Jung&s view of the Self. The great problem I see with this concept of individuation is that both by Jung and those who follow him individuation is usually taken literally as the individual&s process of becoming Self. I think this is a mistake. Individuation in Jung&s sense is not the individual&s process and experience, the empirical person is not the subject of the individuation process. Rather it is a background process that takes place on the “archetypal” level and ipso facto happens to what is called symbolically the anthropos, the homo maximus, the purusha, the adam kadmon and not to us or in us; or we could say it is something that happens to the logical constitution of man. Even empirically I find it hard to find examples of real people of whom one could say that they have undergone the process of individuation. Even those Jungians who were analyzed by Jung himself do or did not seem all that different from all the other people, not a bit more “whole” or “complete.” The fact that there is not a trace of noticeable difference between the ones and the others may serve as a small support for my psychological view that individuation does not belong to the sphere of personal, individual experience and development from the outset.

But as a psychological background process affecting the “archetypal anthropos” or the logical constitution of man rather than the empirical human individual, I believe that the process of individuation is historically a thing of the past by almost two centuries and not a task to be striven for. Logically, psychologically, we have the individuation behind ourselves. The process of individuation has been part of the alchemical opus of history. It is “to preach to the converted” if one, as Jung did, presents individuation as something that was to be achieved in the future. Now we are psychologically even moving beyond individuation. Not wholeness, but dissemination, multiplicity, ambiguity, difference and différance seem to be the new necessities.

Because I believe that individuation is a phenomenon, and long accomplished fact, of the past, I do not need to chose between a Hegelian or a Nietzschean matrix to understand individuation.

3. What is the main purpose of analysis nowadays considering the urban, neurotic population that fills our offices?

Precisely because I do not think in big, high-falutin terms of “individuation” about analysis, I have much more modest goals for the work with individuals (the “opus parvum”). Each person has to find his or her place in the modern world, which is a world so radically different from the traditional ways of the world and so full of tensions and contradictions. To come down to earth (“from cloud-cuckooland”), to overcome one&s neurotic structure, to learn to live life in such a way that it can be experienced as a fulfilled life and perhaps – if possible – even to become a little more consciously aware of the psychology of what is going on in the world around us (the “opus magnum”) – this would be what could be aimed for in individual analysis.

4. Can you develop the thought of a “consciousness of consciousness”?

I cannot fully develop this notion here; too much would need to be discussed. But I can say this much. In archaic times, there was consciousness, but it reflected itself in its other, in nature, in the cosmos – in other words “out there” and objectified. As such, consciousness, to be sure, indeed existed, it was conscious – but not conscious of itself (of itself as consciousness and subjectivity). Myth (the mythically experienced outer reality) was early man&s consciousness. In the course of history, this projection out onto nature could be withdrawn, and to the extent that it was withdrawn, consciousness became conscious of itself, of itself as consciousness (or the other way around: to the extent that consciousness became conscious of itself, it was no longer possible to experience the natural world out there mythically).

5. In 1977 you said that psychology denied the negative and that is why it remained in a neurotic state. Does psychology still deny the negative?

“Negative” in 1977 did probably not mean the same thing to me as what it means to me today. Today I understand it above all as a logical term, in contrast to “positivity” and “positivism.” If one takes this sense as a basis, one can safely say that psychology generally is not sufficiently open to negativity, to thinking negatively.

6. How can we understand “consciousness” and “the unconscious” in dialectical terms?

The undialectical understanding of consciousness and the unconscious conceives them as two separate entities (realms, layers, parts of the total personality). Dialectically understood, there is only consciousness which is logically negative and as such in itself the unity of itself and its other, i.e., the unity of consciousness and unconsciousness (unconsciousness, not reified, ontologized, positivized: the unconscious!). Already in the late Jung there is a move towards a dialectical understanding of the two, when in CW 8 § 385 he speaks, e.g., of a “consciousness in which unconsciousness predominates, as well as a consciousness in which consciousness [the English translation has “self-consciousness”, which makes no sense] predominates”. The so-called unconscious is always consciousness&s own unconsciousness. Animals, plants, stones, because they have no consciousness, do not have an unconsciousness either.

7. Rubedo – our Jungian study-group, has been questioning very often what is the place for Jungian thought in the contemporary intellectual debate. In your point of view, is it possible to be considered Jungian nowadays?

I would not want to be considered a Jungian in the sense of a dogmatic Jungian orthodoxy. But despite my often severe criticism of some of Jung&s theses and moves, I still consider myself as being grounded in the Jungian tradition. However: amicus Plato, magis amica veritas. My real commitment is not to Jung as the founder of a school, but to “psychological reality”. There are a number of essential stances that one finds more or less only in Jung and that are most precious, e.g., his notion of “soul” in contrast to personalistic conceptions of the psyche, and that I feel we need to carry forward.

But as to the contemporary intellectual debate, I am very skeptical. The particular Jungian way of thinking can, it seems to me at present, not hope to partake in it. It can only have a niche existence. And this is probably not bad for a depth psychology.

8. Why do you consider Jung a premodern?

Actually, I think Jung is thoroughly modern, and like all moderns he, too, is unhappy with modernity and wants to overcome it by restoring or bringing back (in a new way) what he feels has been lost. Inherent in his modernity is his deep commitment to the premodern situation of life (a life supported by mythic meaning), which is why he invented the “collective unconscious” and the abstract, unhistorical “archetypes.” In this sense he is, as a modern, premodern, if not reactionary.

But in another sense and another area, Jung can be said to be truly premodern, that is, as not having entered modernity. This is the area of thought, its basic stance or logic. Here Jung remains premodern in my estimation because his whole style of thinking is pre-Kantian (similarly to how, according to I. Prigogine the philosopher Whitehead is decidedly a pre-Kantian). Despite his study of Kant and his praise of Kant, he did not go through, and allow his own thinking be restructured by, the Kantian revolution, but interpreted even Kant in a pre-Kantian, naive empiristic way.

9. Christopher Hauke in his book Jung and the Postmodern says that Jung is a modern age critic and that Jung would have anticipated some questions of the so-called post-modern of our times. Do you agree with this thought?

No. To be a critic of the modern age is inherent in modernity; there is nothing post-modern about such critique. We find it in all great minds of modernity, in Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, to mention only a few. Apart from the fact that the idea of the post-modern is in my view in itself a misunderstanding (what is referred to as post-modern is in actuality the advanced form of modernity itself, the age of the media, beyond its earlier and immature form, that of “industrial modernity” which lasted through the first half of the 20th century and even a bit beyond), everything that Jung stood for was counter to the so-called post-modern, to “medial” modernity. Jung insisted on center, substance, truth, meaning ...

Rather than trying to re-tailor Jung so that he might fit to our present-day needs and fashions, it seems to me to be better to clearly and honestly discriminate what was Jung&s own from what is ours. It would be sign of respect for the integrity of his work.

10. In some of your essays you mention Berkeley&s phrase, “the soul always thinks.” What is the main issue of the thinking in the perspective of the soul&s logic? Does it have a connection with the thought function or not?

It is vital for understanding the idea of the soul&s thinking to completely forget about the thinking function in the sense of Jung&s typology. Real thought is not the execution of a function. The talk about functions amounts to a terrible reduction and to an ego-psychological, personalistic interpretation of what thought in this highest sense is.

As a bridge to understanding what is meant by the soul&s thought we may use the alchemical conception of the spirit Mercurius as the soul in matter, in all reality. There is a thinking going on within what may appear as natural event. E.g., hidden within an impulse or within an outbreak of an emotion there is a thinking that brings forth this impulse or emotion and is its heart and soul, but cannot, for whatever reason, appear in its pure form of thought, but clothes itself in the occluded form of ‘impulse’ or ‘emotion’ (or, in other cases, ‘image,’ etc.).

The main issue of the soul is how in concrete life, in concrete situations, the union of the separation and the union of the psychic opposites (i.e., the mysterium coniunctionis) can in fact be thought. This intrinsically abstract, strictly logical concern is, in my view, ultimately the underlying theme (stirring from within) in all soul reactions or soul moves, in all ordinary life situations, in all small events – and not merely in the special grand program of an “individuation process,” as Jung tried to see it, literalizing the mysterium coniunctionis.

11 Among your critiques towards the Archetypal Psychology of James Hillman you mention the imaginal approach and the misuse of mythology as a confirmation of the imaginal itself. What do you want to say about this critique?

12. In your point of view what is the real contradiction of Archetypal Psychology?

Let me answer these two questions very briefly together (I said more about my relation to Archetypal Psychology in the interview in Cadernos Junguianos vol. 1, no. 1, 2005, pp. 59–67). Archetypal Psychology did not go far enough, not beyond itself. It stayed an anima-only psychology, despite the fact that it clearly caught sight of the fact that the soul is the syzygy of anima and animus. So it remained stuck in its infatuation with images without being willing and able to distinguish itself from its own imaginal stance. The anima and the imaginal are only the first immediacy of the psychological. We must never forget: Anima nostra non est anima vulgi!

13. David Miller in the preface of you last book mentions that if James Hillman has set a second moment within the history of Analytical psychology it seems you have established a third moment after your book The Soul&s Logical Life. What do you think about this Miller&s saying? What is this historical moment?

I would like to think that Miller’s assessment is right. Just as Hillman went beyond Jung in some regards, so I went beyond Hillman in some regards. But of course, others may not think that my move is a third moment (i.e., step, move, stage) in the historical development of the thought of Analytical Psychology beyond the one Hillman performed, but rather an alternative side by side with Hillman&s move. This is not how I see it. At any rate, my move has to do with transcending the imaginal approach in the direction of a thinking in terms of the soul&s logical life.

14. Is there a future or are we condemned to become the pale, rigid and poor copies “worn out” with the risk of a stereotyped appropriation of the new age speech?

I do not feel like a prophet. But it is probably safe to say both that life will go on and on and that we are poor copies in any case. I am not concerned about the future. Let the future take care of itself. What I am concerned with is to “do my thing” and to live life here and now as best I can.