arousal. The perceptual and emotional systems of human beings everywhere are
organized by archetypes around which we form our emotional habit patterns, at first
in adapting to the emotional and interpersonal demands of the conditions we are
born into. Later, in adult life, these complexes are played out with others, in our
families and worklife, as though our emotional meanings were reality. Negative
experiences from our childhood are especially powerful. For example, if a child was
treated aggressively and unfairly by a parent or older sibling, as an adult that child
will have a strong tendency to recreate both the roles of victim and aggressor,
sometimes identifying with one and projecting the other, and other times reversing
that.
Not only the complexes of the unconscious, but also the ego complex of conscious
awareness can throw us off balance through defensive emotional patterning. The ego
complex forms around the core of an archetype of self, the universal human tendency
to form a coherent image of being an individual embodied subject who exists over
time. The experience of individual subjectivity first comes into conscious awareness
between the ages of 18 months and two years in normal development. No wonder
the ‘terrible twos’ are known as the ‘me me me’ period! Once the ego complex is
formed, the self-conscious emotions such as jealousy, shame, pride, self-pity,
embarrassment, envy, and guilt—as well as fears and desires—can trigger defenses of
the ego. Then we experience ourselves as separated and isolated from others and the
world around, the pervasive root of subject-object duality.
Jung believed that modernity engendered a revolutionary self-consciousness in
human development: a new awareness that allowed for self-investigation and
accountability that gave birth to psychoanalysis among other things. He regarded this
development as a mixed blessing because excessive self-consciousness can result in the
alienation of the ego from the rest of the personality. All of the complexes of the
personality—including those that are typically unconscious such as Mother, Father,
and Child—have a certain degree of autonomy or intentions of their own. Excessive
self-consciousness of the ego can lead us to the denial of other complexes and their
motives, believing that our actions are guided only by our conscious intentions.
Because humans all have universal features of emotion and embodiment, Jung
postulated a collective unconscious—a shared common ground of unconscious
experiences—in which individuality is embedded. When someone projects an
unconscious complex into another, it is thus likely that the other has had emotional
and conceptual experiences for receiving and identifying with that projection.
Projection of alien states into others is an unintentional invitation to another to enact
those states. In intimate and hierarchical relationships, people often project and enact
each other’s darker feelings and images, making for a great deal of pain and confusion
in human relationships.
In a successful long-term psychotherapy or analysis, the two people—therapist and
patient—come to witness directly how and why this happens. Investigating the
projections of the patient, the therapist and patient together will see how the patient
has needed to place aspects of her or his motives or feelings or ideals in others. Patient
and therapist need each other to make this kind of study, and through witnessing
THE TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN SUFFERING 71