Complexes

Everyone knows nowadays that people “have complexes.”  What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.”  Carl Jung, “A Review of the Complex Theory”, par.200

We know when someone pushes our buttons.  They have a certain power to “play” us so that regardless of our best intentions, our response tends to be emotionally exaggerated.  Complexes are simply the emotionally charged images or ideas that form the building blocks of the psyche.

Thinking about complexes is another way to approach an understanding of the archetypes.

“Complexes interfere with the intentions of the will and disturb the conscious performance; they produce disturbances of memory and blockages in the flow of associations; they appear and disappear according to their own laws; they can temporarily obsess consciousness, or influence speech and action in an unconscious way.  In a word, complexes behave like independent beings.” Jung, “Psychological Factors in Human Behavior”, par 253

An experience of an archetype, not the idea of one, is an experience of a complex.  It’s a difficult but essential distinction.  The intellectual understanding of archetypal categories is pretty common today.  We even see archetypal marketing being touted in many corners.   But all that doesn’t bring us one step closer to the living reality of the archetypes within the psyche.