From depth psychology to depth sociology: Freud,Jung, and Lévi-Strauss

Conclusion In conclusion, I would like to consider some of the common themes in the writings of Freud, Jung, and Lévi-Strauss, and to offer some observations on their historical significance. Firstly, all three theorists were historical pessimists. While it may be true that their historical pessimism reflected their class position as bourgeois social theorists in the age of mass society, I think it is equally important to recognize that utilization of the theory of the unconscious itself creates a paradigm with strongly conservative and anti-utopian implications. Their dependence on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer is significant. His work, early in the nineteenth century, lay the foundations both for the theory of the unconscious and for the historical pessimism that went with it. His metaphysical pessimism lies behind not only Freud's Libidolehre and Jung's psychic energy, but also behind the somber prophetic, cataclysmic imagery employed by Claude Lévi-Strauss from Tristes Tropiques to L'Homme Nu.The following passage, which draws to a finale the pessimism of Tristes Tropiques, a very Schopenhauerian book, is typical: The world began without the human race and it will end without it. The institutions, manners, and customs which I shall have spent my life cataloguing and trying to understand are an ephemeral efflorescence of a creative process in relation to which they are meaningless, unless it be that they allow humanity to play its destined role. That role does not, however assign to our race a position of independence. Nor, even if man himself is condemned, are his vain efforts directed towards the arresting of a universal process of decline. Far from it: his role is itself a machine, brought perhaps to a greater point of perfection than any other, whose activity hastens the disintegration of an initial order and precipitates a powerfully organized Matter towards a condition of inertia which grows even greater and will one day prove definitive. From the day when he first learned how to breath and how to keep himself alive through the discovery of fire and right up to the invention of the atomic and thermonuclear devices of the present day, man has never-save only when he reproduces himself-done other than cheerfully dismantle million upon million of structures and reduce their elements to a state in which they can no longer be reintegrated. No doubt he has built cities and brought the soil to fruition; but if we examine these activities closely we shall find that they also are inertia-producing machines, whose scale and speed of action are infinitely greater than the amount of organization implied in them. As for the creations of the human mind, they are meaningful only in relation to that mind, and will disappear into nothingness as soon as it ceases to exist. Taken as a whole, therefore, civilization can be described as a prodigiously complicated mechanism: tempting as it would be to regard it as our universe's best hope of survival, its true function is to produce what physicists call entropy: inertia, that is to say. Every scrap of conversation, every line set up in type, establishes a communication between two interlocutors, levelling what had previously existed on two different planes and had had for that reason, a greater degree of organization. Entropology, not anthropology, should be the word for the discipline that devotes itself to the study of this process of disintegration in its most highly evolved forms.And yet I exist. Not in any way, admittedly, as an individual: for what am I, in that respect, but a constantly renewed stake in the struggle between the society, formed by the several million nerve-cells which take shelter in the anthill of the brain, and my body, which serves that society as a robot?I have quoted this passage at length because it gives a vivid feeling of the profound metaphysical despair that lies at the roots of Lévi-Strauss' work. In his recent writings and interviews his pessimism has become even more pronounced; he seems convinced that the entire civilized world is moving rapidly and inexorably towards its ecological self-destruction.A second theme that runs through the writings of Freud, Jung, and Lévi-Strauss is the concern with polarities and their dialectical reconciliation or transcendence. Freud's theory was shot through with polarities-one thinks of the dualism of instincts, and the polarities of pleasure/unpleasure, active/passive, subject/object, etc. In the eternal struggle between these immortal adversaries, Life and Death, Super-Ego and Id, Mind and Body, Freud placed the Ego as an integrating and synthesizing principle. Freud's proclivity for dualistic ideas was shared by Jung. The interests of Jung and Lévi-Strauss in the dialectical reconciliation of the opposites was already discussed above. Once opposites are seen to be in relationship, as parts of a system, they cease to be opposites and become polarities.Schopenhauer provides a link to another common theme shared by these writers, the belief that everything is inter-related and mutually attuned. Schopenhauer believed that physical causality was only one of the rulers of the world; at a deeper level there was a kind of universal consciousness, compared to which individual consciousness was rather like a dream compared to wakefulness. For all of these thinkers individual consciousness was based on a larger system of intercommunications, but whereas this theme was not stressed by Freud, it became central in the works of Jung and Lévi-Strauss.As we have seen throughout this essay, Freud, Jung, and Lévi-Strauss were committed to the notion that there is a hidden order in the mental and cultural life of mankind, and they were convinced that this hidden order can be discovered by human reason. Behind the diversity of human cultures they believed that they saw an underlying unity, and they explained this unity in terms of what they believed to be a universality of unconscious processes of the human mind. Freud and Jung tried to explain their notions of the unconscious in terms of energy, drawing their models from physics. Freud's libido theory was more physical, Jung's more psychical, but they both remained tied to an energy model. I believe that one of Claude Lévi-Strauss' most important contributions to the social sciences was to liberate the notion of the unconscious from this energy theory. Instead, he spoke of it as being like a language, employing the ideas of system and structure and particularly the concept of the symbolic function drawn from structural linguistics and information theory.In Lévi-Strauss' Structural Anthropology System and Structure are treated as belonging to the realm of Information/Communication rather than as belonging to the realm of matter/energy. Structure is the ensemble of laws which govern the behavior of the system, and the components in the system are largely interchangeable. They do not necessarily derive from the same level of organization as the system which controls their various combinations, permutations and structural transformations. As we saw above, for Lévi-Strauss the unconscious is empty. It is simply a universe of rules similar to the phonological laws that govern languages. In this usage, the unconscious is a term designating a process of the human mind, a process which operates in all human cultures according to the same laws. In fact, the unconscious is nothing but the totality of these laws and relationships. Even the world of symbolism—though it exhibits an infinite variety of contents-is always bound and limited by these structural laws, because all human beings are bound by the same mental constraints. In the Kantian tradition, Lévi-Strauss sees his task as analyzing the operations of the human mind (l'esprit humain) within these contraints, and I think it is fair to say that his work is a kind of critique of sociological and anthropological reason in the same sense that Wilhelm Dilthey's was a critique of historical reason.In this paper I have attempted to show that there was a progressive development in the theory of the unconscious from Freud, through Jung, to Lévi-Strauss. Jung, working in German Switzerland, was more sympathetic to German idealism and historicism than was Freud. In his work Jung blended this German philosophical tradition with French sociological theory. This unique amalgam could have led him to elaborate a depth sociology correlative with his depth psychology, but his search for his own historical predecessors led him to investigate the psycho-historical significance of mysticism, spiritualism and alchemy instead. He was always convinced of the power, importance and significance of the collective representations that guide and shape our perception and experience. Jung wrote: We should never forget that in any psychological discussion, we are not saying anything about the psyche, but that the psyche is always speaking about itself. Modern civilized man's belief in the sole reality of the individual, along with his belief that he is born a tabula rasa, was simply an illusion, a modern myth. At our deepest core level, each of us is united to all mankind and to the history of the human race. Whether we call this deepest level society with Durkheim and George Herbert Mead, the will and its representations with Schopenhauer, the wider self through which saving experiences come with William James, the Unconscious with Freud, or the Psyche with Jung, or the structures of the human mind with Lévi-Strauss, depends on our primary assumptions, metaphysics and temperament. They are but different terms pointing towards the one common transpersonal background structure that makes possible both human experience and communication of that experience.Lévi-Strauss: Tristes Tropiques, p. 397. Compare L'Homme Nu, p. 620.Anthony Wilden: System and Structure. Essays in Communication and Exchange (London, 1972), pp. 242–243.Jung: The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works, Vol. 9, 1. (Princeton, 1969), p. 268. Theory and Society, 3 (1976) 303–338     

Organizational Cultures as Holding Environments: A Psychodynamic Look at Organizational Symbolism

The traditional formulation of symbols asbundles of meaning has supported manyfine-grained analyses of organizational culture.However, it tends to obscure deeper psychodynamicelements that are essential to shaping how culture forms,develops, and dies. This paper adapts the idea ofholding environment from Winnicott, Kegan,and others to sketch the potential contribution of such a psychodynamic perspective. An illustrativecase is presented to support the argument.     

Situational and relational factors associated with coitus during vaginal bleeding among adolescent women

Menstruation is a normal, developmental event anchored in contradictory value systems. Although it demarcates a transition to womanhood, it is often associated with negative sentiments such as shame, camouflage and discomfort. Certain behavioral expectations, including avoiding sexual intercourse, also accompany menstruation. Research has generally suggested that sex does decrease during menstruation. However, not all sexual activity is suppressed during menses; both individual and relationship factors provide influence. Accordingly, this study investigated situational and relational factors associated with the day-to-day likelihood of sex and vaginal bleeding among 387 (aged 14-17 at enrollment) adolescent women. Generalized estimating equation logistic regression, in SUDAAN 9.0, was used; predictors of coitus and bleeding included recent sexual activity, past coitus/bleeding, marijuana use before intercourse and higher partner support, higher sexual interest and lower feelings of being in love. The findings highlight appropriate areas of focus for information, education and STI prevention counseling.     

An eight-year perspective on the relationship between the duration of abstinence and other aspects of recovery

Using data from 1,162 people entering treatment and followed up (> 94%) for 8 years, this article examines the relationship between the duration of abstinence (1 month to 5 or more years) and other aspects of recovery (e.g., health, mental health, coping responses, legal involvement, vocational involvement, housing, peers, social and spiritual support), including the trend and at what point changes occur. It also examines how the duration of abstinence at a given point is related to the odds of sustaining abstinence in the subsequent year. The findings demonstrate the rich patterns of change associated with the course of long-term recovery.     

Evaluation results of a 21st birthday card program targeting high-risk drinking

The B.R.A.D. Birthday Card initiative was started on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU) in April 1999. MSU administrators send the safe-drinking 21st birthday card (B.R.A.D.) and laminated wallet card to students shortly before their 21st birthday. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of the 21st birthday card, MSU and B.R.A.D., Inc, applied for and were awarded a 2-year US Department of Education grant in 2001. PARTICIPANTS: The authors surveyed 1,731 students within 2 weeks of their 21st birthday. METHODS: Of all students turning 21 years old during the study, the authors randomly selected students for each group. A control group received no card. All others received the standard B.R.A.D. card or a gender-tailored message card. RESULTS: Key findings include: 74% of students saved part of the card, 65% shared the card with family or friends, 22% reported thinking about the card during their celebration, 12% reported drinking less because of the card, 15% reported learning something new about alcohol poisoning, and 98% believed that MSU and B.R.A.D. should continue sending cards to students. CONCLUSIONS: Receiving, reading, and recalling the content of the B.R.A.D. card appears to reduce the total number of drinks a celebrant consumes.     

The development of personal space in primary school children

Personal space in school cafeteria queues was observed for 1,047 children in kindergarten through sixth grade in seven public schools. It was found that children segregate themselves both racially and sexually in the queues. In three of the schools that were racially mixed, the children stood closer in the lower grades than in the higher grades, they stood closer to same-sex children than to other-sex children, but there was no racial difference. In three of the schools where all of the children were white, there was an increase in personal space across grades for all sex combinations except male to male. In two of the schools where all of the children were black, there was no significant increase in personal space across grades. The children in the white schools had greater queue distances than children in the black schools throughout the upper grades. In general, the results were similar to those obtained in other studies involving observation in natural settings and different from results obtained using simulated interaction.     

Review article: Norbert Elias – established or outsider?

The Civilizing Process: Volume 2, State Formation and Civilization Norbert Elias, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1982, £19.50. 376 pp. The Court Society Norbert Elias, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1983, £15.00. 301 pp.