definitions

• "'Ego' is a technical term whose origin is the Latin word meaning 'I.' Consciousness is the state of awakeness, and at its center there is an 'I.'" (13)
• "Complexes are what remain in the psyche after it has digested experience and reconstructed it into inner objects. In human beings, complexes function as the equivalent of instincts in other mammals. Imagoes, or complexes, are, in a manner of speaking, constructed human instincts. Mostly they are products of experience—trauma, family interactions and patterns, cultural conditioning. These are combined with some innate elements, which Jung called archetypal images, to make up the total package of the complex." (49)
• Archetype
  • "a primary source of psychic energy and patterning" (85)
• Collective unconscious (80)
  • emerge in times of need (Demian and war at the end?)
  • deepest layer of psyche (87)
  • "general structures of the human mind, structures that belong to everyone and not only to himself or to the individual patient before him" (88).
  • everybody is the same, same archetypes and instincts
• Individualization process
  • engagement with psyche over time

notes

• formation of complexes
• ego / subconscious
• flow of energy between ego and subconscious, psyche and environment
• regression / progression of ego, libido (77)
  • regression caused by trauma or something that shakes someone up (Demian: Franz Kromer, stealing, keeping secrets, falling into the dark world)
    • "warring opposites" (78)
    • "The person is torn by inner conflict and becomes paralyzed" (78).
    • energy in the unconscious activates complexes
  • law of conservation of energy
  • regression: conscious —> unconscious
  • progression: adaptation to world, regression: new possibilities for development (78)
    • inner-world activated
• "... so a human being living purely in the state of nature would live by physical instinct and desire alone" (80) (Educated?)
• energy as a gradient, but human beings changed it and have the "ability to channel energy out of the natural gradients into other, seemingly artificial pathways" (80)
• energy captured by different objects (80)
  • powerful symbols
    • e.g. alcoholic, needs something more interesting than drinking a bottle of vodka every night
  • natural energy to cultural and spiritual forms
  • But when the libido finds a spiritual analogue, an idea or image, it will go there because that is its goal, not because this is a substitute for sexual fulfillment. (84)
• psychic energy subcategory of life energy (76)
  • intricate and complex interaction between body and mind, physical and psychological
  • psyche-soma unity not absolutely closed system

highlights

Consciousness is like a room that surrounds the psychic contents that temporarily fill it. And consciousness precedes the ego, which becomes its eventual center. — location: 342

The ego is a focal point within consciousness, its most central and perhaps most permanent feature. — location: 344

the ego can “repress” contents it does not like or finds intolerably painful or incompatible with other contents. — location: 351

It is like a mirror or magnet that holds contents in a focal point of awareness. — location: 356

The ego clearly exists before one can refer to it consciously and reflectively, and the process of coming to know it is gradual and continues throughout a lifetime. — location: 411

In Kantian philosophy, which Jung followed, — location: 479

What makes the ego grow, according to Jung, is what he calls “collisions.” In other words, conflict, trouble, anguish, sorrow, suffering. These are what lead the ego to develop. — location: 528

As the ego tries to apply its will, it meets a certain measure of resistance from the environment, and if this collision is handled well the result will be the ego’s growth. — location: 552

If the differences of type can be recognized as a positive value and appreciated, there can be a great enrichment in family life and group politics. What one person can contribute, others will find to be beneficial precisely because they are not tuned into the same wavelength. — location: 585

The ego is simply an agent, a focus of consciousness, a center of awareness. — location: 598

Closer reflection reveals that one is as enslaved to one’s own character structure and inner demons as to external authority. — location: 605

Fate is spun from within as well as dictated from without. — location: 607

Humans are driven by psychic forces, motivated by thoughts that are not based on rational processes, and subject to images and influences beyond those that can be measured in the observable environment. — location: 648

We dream as much as we cogitate, and we feel probably a lot more than we think. — location: 650

When we speak of the ego’s energy, we call it “free will.” If we wish to refer to the amount of energy tied up in a complex, we can speak of the power of our inner demons. — location: 796

The trauma creates an emotionally charged memory image that becomes associated with an archetypal image, and together these freeze into a more or less permanent structure. — location: 954

For whatever reason—whether pushed from the behind or drawn forward to a goal in the future—energy moves. — location: 1234

one’s interest in one thing diminishes or vanishes, that same amount of energy often appears somewhere else. — location: 1331

Much that passes for knowledge among human beings is actually, upon closer and more critical inspection, merely prejudice or belief based on distortion, bias, hearsay, speculation, or pure fantasy. — location: 277