Symptom or Symbol?

Apr 14 / Stephen Farah
Carl Gustav Jung makes a clear distinction between a symptom and a symbol.[1]

In this post, I explore the distinction, how we might distinguish between symptoms and symbols, and what the implications of this are for the daily practice of individuation.
I am currently leading a group of students on a one-hundred-day practice of the Microcosmic Orbit meditation as given in the mystical Taoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower.[2] The text, specifically the Richard Wilhelm translation, occupies an interesting and somewhat undefined status, with its convergence of Taoist alchemy and Jungian psychoanalysis.
I have had an interesting personal journey with this text, that has led to the development of a synthesised method, utilising elements of both meditation and psychodynamic reflection, and the locus of my focus is on individuation as a daily practice.[3] Thinking about individuation as a daily practice helps to sharpen and narrow one’s focus on the individuation imperative as a guiding and central ethic.
One of the issues I am currently thinking about and focusing on in our group process is repetition compulsion. The idea of repetition compulsion, “Wiederholungszwang”, comes to us from Sigmund Freud. Freud describes this repetition compulsion as occurring in a few different, but psychologically intersecting, ways. [4]
  • Dreams and fantasy material, particularly of a traumatic nature.
  • An infant at play, relatedly re-enacting the experience of loss and recovery, i.e., with a favourite toy throwing it out of the cot and reeling it back in.
  • The phenomenon of transference being the recapitulation with the analyst of developmental/childhood relational dynamics.
  • “Destiny neurosis”, “the life-histories of men and women … an essential character-trait which remains always the same and which is compelled to find expression in a repetition of the same experience”[5]
Whilst all these repetition compulsions are of interest, I want to focus here on the repetition of “the symptom”, present in the examples Freud provides, as a daily experience.  To flesh this out a little, the repeated daily re-enactment and recapitulation of symptomatic behaviours, thoughts, fantasy material et al. And to contrast this symptomatic way of being against an engagement with “living symbols”, as Jung characterises them. Let us look at the passage in question where Jung deals with the contrast between a symptom and a symbol:  
But precisely because the new symbol is born of man’s highest spiritual aspirations and must at the same time spring from the deepest roots of his being, it cannot be a one-sided product of the most highly differentiated mental functions but must derive equally from the lowest and most primitive levels of the psyche. For this collaboration of opposing states to be possible at all, they must face each other in the fullest possible conscious opposition. This necessarily entails a violent disunion with oneself, to the point where thesis and antithesis negate each other, while the ego is forced to acknowledge its absolute participation in both.
If there is a subordination of one part, the symbol will be predominantly the product of the other part, and, to that extent, less a symbol than a symptom – a symptom of the suppressed antithesis. To the extent, however, that a symbol is merely a symptom, it also lacks a redeeming effect, since it fails to express the full right of all parts of the psyche to exist, being a constant reminder of the suppressed antithesis even though consciousness may not take this into account.
However, when there is full parity of the opposites, attested by the ego’s absolute participation in both, this necessarily leads to a suspension of the will, for the will can no longer operate when every motive has an equally strong counter motive. Since life cannot tolerate a standstill, a damming up of vital energy results, and this would lead to an insupportable condition did not the tension of opposites produce a new uniting function that transcends them. This function arises quite naturally from the regression of the libido caused by the blockage. All progress has been rendered temporarily impossible by the total division of the will; the libido streams backwards as it were, to its source. In other words, the neutralisation and inactivity of consciousness brings about an activity of the unconscious, where all the differentiated functions have their common archaic root, and where all contents exist in a state of promiscuity of which the private mentality still shows numerous vestiges.
G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 6, par 824
Jung offers a seemingly simple and clear binary distinction between these two distinct psychological phenomena.
  • A “living symbol” is the expression of the full parity and conscious participation in a union of opposites, thesis and antithesis. To put this another way, a living symbol is the simultaneous expression of violently opposed perspectives, ideologies, desires, beliefs, etc. The most obvious and easiest example to get a hold of is the frequent violent disunion and opposition between a desire and a moral injunction denying the fulfilment of that desire.
  • A symptom, by contrast, is a consequence and artefact of a one-sided conscious perspective that fails to take into account its repressed unconscious antithesis.
I do qualify it, though, with “seemingly” simple because as a contemplative lens and an analytical tool it is almost certainly simpler in theory than application. Once we start looking at actual psychic content, asking the question: symptom or symbol, it is almost certainly neither simple nor quite as clear-cut a binary.
We see an analogy of this idea of the tension of opposites and the constellation of libido required for individuation in Zen doctrine as well, suggesting its archetypal nature.
In the seminal text by Hubert Benoit, ‘Zen and the Psychology of Transformation: The Supreme Doctrine’, Benoit articulates a similar, if not identical, idea. Benoit develops the idea that whenever we obey an instinct and say “yes” to it, our ego deceives itself by imagining this was a conscious act of mastery. Yet when we resist an instinct and say “no,” the same illusion arises: the ego believes it has proven its power by opposing the animal. In truth, both “yes” and “no” arise from forces beyond the ego’s control — the outcome depends on the shifting balance of inner tendencies, not on the will of a supposed master-self.
The ego, however, clings to this imagined role of the master. It is invested in the belief that it commands the beast, and so each consent or refusal reinforces the fiction. This duality between the beast and the master is not real, Benoit argues; it is a construction that maintains our anxiety. The ego is forever tense, trying to secure its supremacy while secretly dependent on the very forces it claims to control.
Out of this false struggle, anxiety is born. And yet, paradoxically, it is precisely this tension — the exhausting effort of the ego to be master over what it cannot master — that prepares the ground for satori. At the breaking point, when the ego sees its own impotence clearly, there is a collapse of the illusion. One recognises that there is no “master” separate from the “beast” — they are not two.
This recognition is liberation: the duality dissolves, the strain vanishes, and one falls into a direct experience of reality as it is. This is the essence of satori — the release that comes when the illusion of mastery collapses under the weight of its own contradiction.
Returning to Jung, the classification of either symptom or symbol is a useful way to reflect on daily activity and consider whether and where one may be engaged in repetition compulsion. What I am suggesting, as uncontroversial I would think, is that Freud’s repetition compulsion is the acting out of what Jung is characterising as a symptom and this is juxtaposed against a symbol.
Armed with these descriptive and classificatory tools, let us attempt to characterise repetition compulsions and symptomatic consciousness as a daily experience. Or, to put it another way, let us consider what daily activity might be so classified.
Activity that is:
  • Repetitive and compulsive. And re-enacts or re-constellates a historical mode-of-being, particularly one that contains, and in its re-enactment expresses, unassimilated traumatic content.
  • A consequence of a one-sided conscious perspective and expressing a repressed unconscious perspective, disposition or desire. Jung elsewhere also characterises symptomatic consciousness as “narrow…[a] stiffness of attitude, and a spiritual or emotional horizon bounded by childish naivete or pedantic prejudice”[6].
How might we use this and the contrast to engaging with a living symbol (and a degree of inference and intuition) to ferret out symptomatic repetition compulsions? I believe the following criteria might be said, in the case of these symptomatic repetitions, to apply:
  • To start with the lowest hanging fruit, obviously any repetitive compulsion.
  • Behaviour and psychic life that runs autonomously and has lost its animating spirit, i.e., has become dead and meaningless.
  • Repetitions that fail to instil in the subject a sense of purpose, life, animation, meaning or joie de vivre.
And (this is an important qualifier) are not essential! Obviously, it is utopian and idealistic not to recognise the daily re-enactment of necessary activity. Here, though, is probably precisely where the rub is. This signifier “necessary” can obfuscate a lot of bullshit. It is a most convenient strategy to blame necessity for all the ills I enact both on the world and myself. Here is where I guess psychoanalysis or Socratic irony come into their own, as a method of ruthless interrogation of the truth claims of necessity. It is precisely here where one is often obliged to “give up what thou hast, then thou shalt receive”.[7]
The above qualification (and qualification of the qualification 😊) made, armed with your current level of self-awareness, I imagine you are more than able to identify a few areas where you are involved in repetition-compulsion or symptomatic consciousness on a daily basis.
A living symbol, and being engaged with it, by contrast, is an enlivening experience that imbues meaning and channels libido. That said, if we follow Jung’s characterisation, it is no walk in the park, and can radically test our psychological fortitude: “when there is full parity of the opposites, attested by the ego’s absolute participation in both, this necessarily leads to a suspension of the will, for the will can no longer operate when every motive has an equally strong counter motive.”[8]
An interesting example of a possible repetition compulsion was offered on our last webinar by a few students on the SGF programme. It is one which has a definite cultural and collective dimension, such that I imagine will resonate for many reading this post. Although framed slightly differently by various students, the underlying dynamic was the same. The issue being one of the (arguably) compulsive need to be continually busy and productive.
This need to be constantly busy also struck a chord with me personally, as it is very much a condition and state-of-being I participate in. The idea of inactivity is a special kind of hell for me. I am someone who likes a challenge and consider myself quite psychologically robust. That said, I would far rather walk over a bed of hot coals than do something like a silent stimulus-free meditative retreat, for any length of time. [9] As a young man not unsympathetically disposed toward Dionysian pleasures, on more than one occasion I would flee the nightclub I was at to return home, in the middle of the night, to resume work on whatever project I was engaged with. On many occasions I would awake from a deep slumber in the early hours of the morning in the grip of existential terror as to the direction and productive value of my current existence. I trust you get the idea.
Now the question we can ask is, is this daily ‘busyness/productivity’, always or necessarily a form of repetition compulsion or symptomatic? I would think to answer in the affirmative would be too strong a claim. We cannot, or at least should not, strike through all productive activity, not even if it is done daily. To do so would be to claim that all the greatest human cultural endeavours, which typically demand a lifetime of single-minded dedication and productivity, are artefacts of a neurotic mindset. That feels wrong. Intuitively, we recognise that certain productive activity is not only healthy but to be acknowledged and admired for its virtue.
Simultaneously, we also recognise that being busy/productive for its own sake as a defensive mechanism against a pure state of being, which inevitably leads one to painful existential reflections/contemplations, may be legitimately classified as compulsive, symptomatic and a form of repetition compulsion. This state of affairs has been exponentially amplified naturally with the ubiquitous dissemination and use of mobile technology devices and the World Wide Web, such that it is increasingly difficult to endure even a moment's silence and inactivity. The technology in question, such as it is, has greatly amplified our need for constant stimulation.
We can see in this need for constant productivity a form of escapism from the reality and experience of simply being. My late analyst, the wonderful Fernand Schaub, once told me how he would frequently see male analysands, of older age who had spent their entire lives constantly busy achieving, and who now wondered what the purpose of all their activity was.
In thinking about this, I am reminded of the idea of Jung’s that unconscious one-sidedness is the height of barbarism, and conscious one-sidedness is the height of culture. One can see busyness and productivity through this lens and evaluate its virtue based on its unconscious or conscious nature. To put it simply,
Why exactly are you busy?
What are you busy with?
And, what is the lasting virtue of this activity?
That said, though, in the final analysis, busy is still busy and must be contrasted with the presence, sacredness and virtue of non-activity and silence.
What I’m driving at here is the binary nature of busyness-productivity vs. non-activity and suggesting that we cannot conclusively pin our flag to either mast. A conscious and considered existence must tip its hat to both alternate juxtaposed ways of being. I also challenge the claim of balance, which, in my own view, is psychically elusive, an idealisation designed primarily to tyrannise us and encourage self-flagellation. More accurately and realistically, we are in a dance with these two modes of being and should be careful not to be swept off our feet by our dance partner, or not to be swept off our feet again!
What I suggest is that this dynamic itself is a living symbol and should be approached with the requisite respect. It is precisely what constitutes a living symbol, thesis and antithesis where we cannot conclusively side with one perspective over the other and with which dynamic and form we are deeply engaged. Finally then, from the aforementioned we can see that possibly the evaluation: symptom or symbol (?), is less a distinction in the phenomenon itself than a distinction in our apperception and understanding of it.
I’ll leave it there for now, having made sufficient demands on your time and will allow you to return to the normal busy and productive activities of your daily life.
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[1] CW, vol. 6, par. 824
[2] Translated by Richard Wilhelm, with commentary by C. G. Jung
[3] For more on my journey with the text:  https://appliedjung.com/blog/the-secret-of-the-golden-flower-post
For more on individuation as a daily practice:  https://appliedjung.com/blog/individuation-as-a-daily-practice
[4] Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through, (1914); Beyond the Pleasure Principle, (1920)
[6] Collected Works, vol. 5, par. 681
[7] Collected Works, vol. 7, par 26.
[8] Collected Works, vol. 6, par. 824
[9] I am thinking here of the 10-day Vipassanā as an exemplar of this.