Prof. Dr Harry Stroeken, psychoanalyticus

Respons op de presentatie van Prof. Andrew Samuals tijdens het NAAP symposium "Trauma and Tricksters, Post-Jungians Innovations" dat op 19 januari 2008 gehouden werd in Woerden

Freud wanted a successor. He was happy to find a real psychiatrist, a non-Jew, a Swiss, someone almost a son. But he didn’t want to be succeeded - yet. Jung wanted a father figure and it suited his ambitions. He may have thought, “Why not become the successor of Freud, president of the Psychoanalytic Society?” But Jung feared to become dependent. He began by idealising Freud and finished by attacking him. We could say that from the beginning of their relationship there was a clash in the making: what we know is that Jung and Freud separated. The situation after their rupture was more difficult for Jung than for Freud. Freud was the trail blazer – he was the first. Jung came after as second. Jung wanted to underline his autonomy and mark his position, and he wrote and spoke in opposition to Freud, in turn Jung was vilified by Freudians (Dehing 1987). I know one great exception, i.e. Winnicott (1964). In the times ahead to call a Freudian psychoanalyst a Jungian would be the worst insult. Today, the prejudices against and the ignorance among Dutch psychoanalysts concerning Jung are massive. I don’t know, does it happen the other way round, is there ignorance and prejudice of Jungians towards Freud? 

In my presentation I want to say that to see clearly we are not helped by the construction of easy oppositions. There are real differences, but they are found mostly in the wider context of the theory, in the outlook on life in general. I will use the interpretation of dreams as an example to illustrate this thesis. I am saying that easy oppositions, as if Jung and Freud worked very differently with dreams, are off the mark. The wider theory became different, but the factual interpretation was similar at its best. 

Dealing with dreams - how Freud and Jung handled them In the first place Freud and Jung did think similarly here: the dream is a meaningful psychic product. Let us take an example, which Jung gives in The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. (1907 / 1944, CW 3, par. 123-33). 

" ..... I saw horses being hoisted by thick cables to a great height. One of them, a powerful brown horse which was tied up with straps and was hoisted aloft like a package, struck me particularly. Suddenly the cable broke and the horse crashed to the street. I thought it must be dead. But it immediately leapt up again and galloped away. I noticed that the horse was dragging a heavy log with it, and I wondered how it could advance so quickly. It was obviously frightened and might easily have caused an accident. Then a rider came up on a little horse and rode along slowly in front of the frightened horse, which moderated its pace somewhat. I still feared that the horse might run over the rider, when a cab came along and drove in front of the rider at the same pace, thus bringing the frightened horse to a still slower gait. I then thought now all is well, the danger is over...."

Let me give the main associations of the dreamer. Hoisting horses on a skyscraper and lowering them into the mines: Berg-Werk, mountain climber. The dreamer wanted to make a high ascent and to travel. But his wife didn’t like the idea; she could not come along because she was pregnant. For the same reason no journey to America. The dreamer regretted especially the journey to America, because he would benefit there commercially and he had ambitious plans. ‘By labour one gets to the top’ is the summary of this part of the dream. Also by ‘working like a horse’. 

‘The powerful brown horse especially took my fantasy.’ This brown horse is the dreamer. The horse hoisted up is similar to the “flour sack method” (Mehlsacktechnik) which tourists use: no work, no climbing, no personal effort, just an elevator and one is high up. The dreamer doesn’t like those tourists, but now he himself (the brown horse) is hoisted up like them. Before, he never needed somebody’s help! 

The horse dragged along a big trunk of a tree (Baumstamm). The dreamer was called ‘Tree’ (Baum) on account of his stout powerful stature. This confirms: the dreamer is the brown horse. Although encumbered by the heavy tree the horse advanced rapidly – got to the top. But the horse could become skittish, could cause some misfortune. The horse dropped to the street – his career fell flat, but he galloped away. No American career, but he did not get stuck. 

Another horse helped drag the tree. His wife with him ‘in the yoke of matrimony’: together they pull the trunk. Association is the painting of Welti: Ein Mondnacht; there one sees a couple lying in bed. Now the horse becomes the symbol of the passionate impulsive desire. So now we have a second stream of associations, not career, work, ambition anymore, but sexual desire. The word ‘labour’ in English can function as a bridge here: work and giving birth, thus pregnancy (in German niederkommen and in Dutch bevallen). The tree is not a bad symbol for a huge penis: man and wife carry it, although somewhere the dreamer mentions another very indistinct horse, but it disappeared. The fear of the dreamer is that he will be forced into thoughtless acts. 

Then a rider comes on a small horse and helps to bridle his sexual impetuosity: he moderates the rash pace of the horse. Association out of his youth: pregnancy is combined with horse. Now: the pregnancy of his wife imposes restraints on the dreamer. The slowly advancing cab has the same significance as the little horse: children in that cab = the dreamer is forced into still more restraint. 

So the meaning of the second part of the dream reads finally as follows: The pregnancy of the wife and the problem of too many children restrained the husband. This dream fulfils a wish as it presents the self-restraint as accomplished. The dream shows distinctly the aspirations and the disappointments of an upward struggling career. Inwardly, it hides a most personal question which must be accompanied by many painful feelings. The horse doesn’t drop dead and it calms down. 

This dream is mentioned in the Freud-Jung correspondence (9J, 29 December 1906 and 11F). In his letter Jung gives some more information about the dreamer, that he had left out in his publication. The dreamer is Jung himself, what Freud had understood already and that is why Freud had restrained himself in his letter about this dream. This letter is missing and one thinks: is that a hazard? Jung explains in his letter to Freud: his wife Emma is (very) rich. Jung felt some dependence, he got high up by the flour sack method, not by his own work. The little horse stands for his chief Bleuler and especially to the fact that Bleuler has two boys. Jung has two girls and wants a boy/son too. The calming cab is full of children. Jung hadn’t stated the meaning of the dream so clearly in his publication because he had dictated this passage to his wife: hidden is ‘an illegitimate sexual wish that had better not see the light of day’ (9J). 

A colleague psychoanalyst of mine – without knowing who the dreamer was – thought this dream to be about a trauma: somebody was very idealised and then he had a terrible disillusion; and that it had a anal ring. Then possibly Jung’s trauma of the sexual approach by an idealised man could lurk behind the dream. An interesting thought, but how to substantiate it? 

It is an intriguing fact that this dream is on autonomy, independence in relationship to the wealth of his wife. Intriguing, because this is also the point where the relationship between Freud and Jung will go bust. Jung writes to Freud in this letter about the dream: “But you should not imagine that I am frenetically set on differentiating myself from you by the greatest possible divergence of opinion.” (Letter 9J) Is that a denial? That is quite likely! 

I want to underline the fact that Freud and Jung basically were in agreement on this dream. Later disagreements between them on the subject of dreams count less for me, they relate to another level. Let me explain. 

Two sorts of explanation
We can distinguish in psychoanalysis two types of hypotheses, that is, of explanations (van Leeuwen 1973). Type A is using psychological motifs and significances of behaviour and on the other hand type B speaks of causal mechanisms and ‘psychic apparatus’ (Freud). Type A explanations are an extension of common sense understanding: behaviour is understood as an expression of needs, aims, expectations, representations, etc. Psychoanalysts work / act in praxis on this A level. Freud tried to find also B explanations: in terms of determination, mechanistic model, libido, energy etc. Freud himself wrote that those hypotheses are less important than the observation on which the whole thing rests. There are also stories, myths, etc. that are used: Oedipus and King Lear e.g. with Freud. He often used those illustrations, also (Jewish) jokes, sayings and so on. Jung had his own illustrations which he took from everywhere. 

I can illustrate this thesis of fundamental agreement and a context of difference with the articles of Jung (1997) on dreams: two from his time with Freud and three from thereafter (Stroeken 2005, 89 ff). The question is what is really new here? Really new is Jung’s accent on the final meaning of the dream. Freud tried to think in causal terms as long as possible; he was weary of the word ‘final’. Not only causal thinking about dreams, is Jung’s position. That is the reason why some patients look for a very long time, in vain, for a cause in their youth. Perhaps we can mention as new also Jung’s distinction between the object level and the subject level, which offer different possibilities for looking at dreams. 

Continuing on difference and what is new: Freud and Jung have another idea of the unconscious. The theory of compensation is essential for Jung. I agree with Jung’s criticism of the exclusive theory of the wish fulfilment in dreams. Probably this thesis of Freud is too general, too narrow; that is, it is often the case, but not always, and especially not in anxiety dreams. That is why Freud had difficulty with anxiety dreams for a long time. I agree that the dream paints the inner situation of the dreamer as it is. 

There are other points in common between Freud and Jung (or at least between present day psychoanalysts of Freudian and Jungian stamp). One is to not consider the manifest dream as merely a façade. Additionally, that understanding should be developed together with the patient, not unilateral understanding by the doctor. Who wouldn’t agree? 

Misunderstanding: That Freud should be only focused on the uniformity of the symbols is sheer nonsense (the chapter on typical symbols appears only in the second edition of the Traumdeutung, inspired by Stekel). Everybody agrees that endless, so called, ‘free association’ is useless. One can free associate in order to say nothing. 

We can note that it is easy to construct a caricature of the other and then ‘see’ many differences. Freud and Jung differ mainly in the realm of the B hypotheses. One could say that their outlook on life is very different. Jung underlines archaic, super personal, historic and phylogenetic elements. In big, great dreams especially he finds mythological themes, mythologems, archetypes, thus the collective unconscious. Jung states: The dream is not about a personal imbalance, but about an eternally repeating human problem. Fundamental agreement between Freud and Jung is the theory or the hypothesis that the dream has meaning. Jung thought Freud to be too narrow and Freud saw Jung drift away into the mythico-religious. 

Conclusion 
To summarise what I wanted to state: I see in the first place fundamental agreement between Freud and Jung, in the matter of the dream. There is an important difference, but it lies not so much in the basic assumptions, but more in what is built upon them. Some have the need to make the differences as big as possible and to construct easy oppositions, which stems from a threat to the feeling of autonomy and / or from the wish to vilify a renegade. 

Literature 

Dehing, J. (1987) Jung aus der Sicht der anderen. Anlässlich einiger Kritiken von Seiten der Freudianer. Anal. Psychol. 18, 280-287). 
Freud, S. & Jung, C.G. (1974) Briefwechsel. Ed. W. McGuire u. W.Sauerländer. S.Fischer, Frankfurt a.M. English: The Freud-Jung letters. Ed.W.McGuire. Hogarth Press / Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. 
Jung, C.G. (1907) Über die Psychologie der Dementia Praecox: Ein Versuch. Halle 1.S.:
Marhold. G.W.3. Translated by A.A.Brill, The psychology of dementia praecox. (1944)
Jung, C.G. Speaking. Interviews and Encounters. Eds: W. McGuire and Hull, R.F.C. Thames and Hudson / Pinceton University Press, London / Princeton.
Jung, C.G. (1997) Dromen. De aard van dromen – droomanalyse – getallensymboliek – de praktische bruikbaarheid van droomanalyse. Lemniscaat, Rotterdam.
McGuire: see Freud-Jung.
Leeuwen, W.F. van (1973) Het psychoanalytisch minimum. In: Cassee, Boeke, Barendregt, Klinische Psychologie in Nederland. Van Loghum Slaterus, Deventer. Deel I, 56-79.
Samuels, A., Bani Shorter and Fred Plaut (1986) A critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis. Routledge, Kegan & Paul, London / New York. Samuels, A. (1993) De spiegel en de hamer. Dieptepsychologie en de politieke mens. This is a partial translation of The Political Psyche (1993), especially the chapter ‘The Lion and the Fox. Morality, Trickster and political Transformation’.
Stroeken, H. (2005) Dromen Brein en betekenis. Boom, Amsterdam.
Winnicott, D.W. (1964) Book review of Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 45, 450-455. German translation in Luzifer-Amor, nr 30, 2002, 162-170.