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| neurocare home < papers written by Dr. Winer < "On two kinds of thinking" | |||||
"On Two Kinds of Thinking"
(2002)
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Neurocare president is Philadelphia and Delaware valley neurologist, psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, neuropsychiatrist, and psychotherapist Robert I. Winer, M.D., a medical doctor specialist in neurology, psychiatry, psychopharmacology, psychotherapy. Dr. Winer's psychotherapy is Jungian-oriented (using the approach of psychiatrist Carl Jung ) making use of dreams (dream interpretation) to work with the unconscious. In his psychotherapy practice he performs therapy, psychotherapy, analysis, and psychoanalysis. Dr. Winer is the president of the C.G. Center of Philadelphia. He is also the president of the Winer Foundation which has been doing humanitarian and medical education in Ethiopia since 1994.
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Introduction In the first chapter of "Symbols of Transformation" Jung begins with a discussion of dream symbolism culminating in a question, "how is it that dreams are symbolical at all?" (ST, ¶12). Jung notes that the language of dreams (symbolic representation) is quite different from the language of conscious thinking which he later asserts is "thinking in words." Noting this clear difference and similarity to dreaming, he names this other type of thinking, "dreaming or fantasy thinking" (ST, ¶ 20). From the language used by Jung in "Symbols of Transformation" it seems to me that the fantasy material from Miss Miller's journals was extremely interesting to him, at first based upon his recognition of a link between its mythological themes and the delusional material he had noticed in his work with schizophrenics. I believe that Jung began this work with a chapter on thinking so as to supply some basis, already somewhat accepted in the medical literature of his time, for understanding the "fantasy thinking" seen in Ms. Miller. Also one cannot help but notice that Ms. Miller's thoughts about her fantasies were written in a somewhat intellectual or scholarly fashion in which she tried to understand them from a thinking perspective. I suspect this also had an impact on Jung's choice on how to begin the work. In addition, the fantasies came to him through Flournoy, a psychiatrist both he and the medical community greatly respected which undoubtedly lent a certain air of respectability to the investigation of such otherwise "unscientific" material. I have chosen to discuss topically some thoughts of interest triggered by Jung's discussion in this chapter. Directed Thinking and the Outside World Jung asserts that conscious thinking, what he calls "directed thinking" moves along a path, as "a train of thought" and that this skill was not part of life in Greek times. It seems to me that his line of reasoning here reflected a bias, namely that conscious thought was an evolutionary advancement of adaptation to a world of objects external to the ego. Jung writes that the purpose of directed thinking is to express, teach, or convince someone in the outside world (ST ¶ 11) and "so long as we think directedly, we think for others and speak to others" (ST, ¶ 12). One cannot help but consider the influence that the extraverted temperament of Freud had upon him at this time. Directed Thinking and Fatigue While Jung's point that directed thinking causes fatigue is no doubt true in many cases, it seems to me to have little relevance to an investigation into the nature of thinking. The concept he has identified is broader and, in my opinion, not related to thinking per se, but rather will. For the sake of this paper, I'll suggest that will be defined as the motive force behind word or deed. The element that causes the fatigue is not specific to thinking the exertion of concentrated application of attention and one's superior function. It seems to me that for Jung, as he later points out about himself (APS, p. 28), intuition, or more specifically intuitive thinking, was an inferior function which according to depth psychology must lay below in the unconsciousness. Jung noted just in "fantasy thinking" just the opposite. To him it seemed "effortless, working as it were spontaneously, with the contents ready to hand, and guided by unconscious motives (ST, ¶ 20). I've found that prolonged periods of intense intuitive thinking can be quite fatiguing for me. I attribute this to being of a different temperament than Jung. I am an intuitive thinker (dominant and first auxiliary function). Here, Jung rightly points out the empirical distinctives between directed and fantasy thinking. However these differences do not necessarily indicate a functional distinctive as his later work on inferior function so aptly pointed out. Also I believe that Jung must have been looking for structural distinctives in thinking. At this time, this was the state-of-the-art in psychiatry and neurology. Particularly in his peer group of German language-speaking physicians, neuro-anatomical localization based upon pathological material was the standard. Will and Thinking The idea of will or directing attention played a crucial role in Jung's thoughts in this chapter. It seems to me that Jung is saying there are two types of thinking, willed and unwilled. The unwilled arises spontaneously from the unconscious and occurs whenever consciousness wanes, whether that be voluntary or involuntary. Empirically this is a very valuable observation which applies to any of the four function and not specifically to thinking. To my knowledge, its validity is still quite applicable to the human condition. Of course, this idea of Jung's is based upon Janet's concept of abaissement du niveau mental. Directed Thinking and Evolutionary Biology It also seems to me that Jung was unduly influenced by the nineteenth century concept that man, as an organism, was evolving. This seems to me to be one of the factors underlying his assertion that directed thinking was a modern phenomena. Though it is a fact that until the industrial revolution, mankind had little progress in material development, this seems to be his sole "proof" that the ancients lacked directed thinking. It is an argument that cannot be refuted from a logic basis, but one I find not very compelling. Directed Thinking and Language Jung's identifies directed thinking as the thinking of words and language to be distinguished from the thinking in images of fantasy thinking. I'd like to point out that at present there is no neuroanatomical support for making such a structural distinction, nor is there evidence that a functional distinction exists. To think about any content it must be made representable in some form. Descriptively, the idea that we make thoughts representable as analogies to sense experiences is as good as any other schema. The nature of thought itself still remains a mystery. Is thought an energy form? Does it have material substance? These are unanswered questions. Since thought's actual nature is unknown, we naturally grasp for ways to express it. Analogy to sense experience is both convenient and empirically accurate. The psychic principle of projecting meaning upon every content whose nature is unknown applies here. So naturally, it seems to any observer that thought is always expressed along sensational lines, such as "feeling a thought or hearing a thought," or the focus in Jungian work, "seeing a thought," that is, in image. It seems to me that one's specific assignment of a particular sense analogy to thought is based upon their temperament and projections. Departure from Freud I suggest that prior to writing this book Jung came to believe that mythological contents were based upon inborn predispositions. This position was a clear departure from the Freudian tradition he had previously embraced. In this work, Jung points out three grouping of mythological thinking: ancient man, children, primitives, and their parallel in dreams. He asserts that psyche, like the physical changes one can see in the development of an embryo to an infant, shows characteristics suggesting evolutionary or developmental stages. Along these lines of thought, he says of fantasy thinking that it and "infantile thinking ... are simply a recapitulation of earlier evolutionary stages" (ST, ¶ 26). Jung also points out that the vestiges of ancient or primitive mythological thinking are manifested in current day animal carvings, such as the "dove, the lamb, and cock adorning our church towers ..." (ST, ¶ 36). These serve as the basis for Jung making an important departure from Freudian theory: "the unconscious basis of dreams and fantasies are only apparently infantile reminiscences. In reality we are concerned with primitive or archaic thought-forms, based on instinct, which naturally emerge more clearly in childhood then they do later. But they are not in themselves infantile, much less pathological." (ST, ¶ 38). He also makes a pivotal observation that "... any introversion occurring in later life regresses back to infantile reminiscences which, though derived from the individual's past, generally have a slight archaic tinge. With stronger introversion and regression the archaic features become more pronounced" (ST, ¶ 40). A Work in Progress Jung wrote his first paper on type, "A Contribution to the Study of Psychological Types," in 1913 not long after "Symbols of Transformation." Though in this paper, he proposes the terms, extraversion and introversion to "describe the "two opposite movements of libido" (PT, ¶ 859) he did as yet not combine this concept with his ideas about thinking. It wasn't until approximately 1920, that Jung's ideas on thinking matured stimulated by William James' writings on temperament and Flournoy's interpretation of James' ideas. In "Psychological Types" he wrote: "active thinking, accordingly, would correspond to my concept of directed thinking. Passive thinking was inadequately described in my previous work [Symbols of Transformation] as fantasy thinking. Today I would call it intuitive thinking" (PT, ¶ 830). Thinking and Judgment Conscious life constantly involves thinking, if we think of thinking as the function of ordering. If our attention if drawn to something or we direct our attention toward a content (sense perception either from the inside or outside or an idea / perception from within) then we cannot help but think about it (order that content). If we are conscious of a content then it either must be ordered or repressed. The ordering may simply be to discard the content as in forgetting or to allow it to remain in the field of conscious or near its threshold. On the other hand, if we are unconscious of a content, then thinking need not take place as occurs with subliminal contents. Also it follows that if thinking is ordering, then on some level a judgment must take place once a content is thought about. Judgment, though proceeding along temperamental lines by preferentially applying the principles of utility (thinking) and /or value (feeling), must be part of or involve thinking. Jung noted this inclusion of judgment in his definition, writing that "the term thinking should, in my view, be confined to the linking up of ideas by means of a concept, in other words, to an act of judgment, no matter whether this act is intentional or not" (PT, para 831). He also made the distinction between ideation, a "mere stringing together of ideas," (PT, ¶ 831) and thinking, whether it be of the directed or passive / fantasy type. Key ST = "Symbols of Transformation" APS = "Analytical Psychology Seminar" PT = "Psychological Types" copyright 2002, Robert I. Winer, M.D. |
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