Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Only the individual can heal the individual, and only the individual can be healed

[T]the medical investigator, thanks to his knowledge of archetypal processes, is in the fortunate position of being able to recognize in the abstruse and grotesque-looking symbolisms of alchemy the nearest relatives of those serial fantasies which underlie the delusions of paranoid schizophrenia as well as the healing processes at work in the psychogenic neuroses. The overweening contempt which other departments of science have for the apparently negligible psychic processes of “pathological individuals” should not deter the doctor in his task of helping and healing the sick. But he can help the sick psyche only when he meets it as the unique psyche of that particular individual, and when he knows its early and unearthly darkness. He should also consider it just as important a task to defend the standpoint of consciousness, clarity, “reason,” and an acknowledged and proven good against the raging torrent that flows for all eternity in the darkness of the psyche – a _____ [Greek phrase] that leaves nothing unaltered and ceaselessly creates a past that can never be retrieved. He knows that there is nothing purely good in the realm of human experience, but also that for many people it is better to be convinced of an absolute good and to listen to the voice of those who espouse the superiority of consciousness and unambiguous thinking. He may solace himself with the thought that one who can join the shadow to the light is the possessor of the greater riches. But he will not fall into the temptation of the law-giver, nor will he pretend to be the prophet of truth: for he knows that the sick, suffering, or helpless patient standing before him is not the public but is Mr. or Mrs. X, and that the doctor has to put something tangible and helpful on the table or he is no doctor. His duty is always to the individual, and he is persuaded that nothing has happened if this individual has not been helped. He is answerable to the individual in the first place and to society only in the second. If he therefore prefers individual treatment to collective ameliorations, this accords with the experience that social and collective influences usually produce only a mass intoxication, and that only man’s action upon man can bring about a real transformation.
- Jung, Aspects of Masculinity, p. 103

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