Psychosynthesis, incorporates psychoanalysis as its initial stage and go further by emphasizing the importance of integrating all aspects of the psyche, including instincts and passions, to achieve health and balance.
By Roberto Assagioli, (Assagioli Archives-Florence)[i]. Original Title: La Psicosintesi. Translated and Edited with Notes by Jan Kuniholm[ii]
Abstract: Psychosynthesis, a psychological approach developed by Roberto Assagioli, incorporates psychoanalysis as its initial stage. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing and integrating all aspects of the psyche, including instincts and passions, to achieve health and balance. However, psychoanalysis alone may not fully address psychological and spiritual problems. Psychosynthesis also acknowledges the existence of higher qualities and energies in individuals, referred to as the superconscious. These higher energies are often repressed and need to be consciously integrated and directed. Psychosynthesis extends beyond individual growth to include inter-individual psychosynthesis, such as in couples, families, groups and nations. The study of a nation as a living entity reveals that nations are still in an early stage of development, corresponding to the subconscious life of individuals. The study of the psychology of peoples requires caution and objectivity, as biases and preconceptions can distort perceptions. Additionally, the study of religious communities requires an understanding of the “vertical relationship” between believers and God, as well as the various “horizontal relationships” within the community. Ultimately, the recognition of human unity and the implementation of integral synthesis among all individuals and groups can lead to a new era of human and spiritual civilization.
Psychosynthesis presupposes psychoanalysis;[iii] or rather it includes psychoanalysis as its first and necessary stage. There is here a close analogy with chemistry, both laboratory chemistry and the even more wonderful chemistry that takes place within the human body. For example, the complex molecules of protein bodies ingested with food are broken down by biochemical hydrolysis into simpler groups: peptones. These are then brought together by a process of synthesis into new, larger molecules forming the specific proteins suitable for our bodies.
This is how it happens in the human psyche. Processes of dissolution and recomposition of psychic contents, both those consisting of congenital elements and those coming from outside, take place continuously in it. Sometimes these processes of psychic assimilation and organization — I would say almost of ingestion and digestion — take place easily and spontaneously, but not infrequently they encounter difficulties (especially at the present time [in our culture]) and give rise to morbid formations. To continue the analogy, indigestions and psychic intoxications are produced, abscesses and psychopathological “tumors” develop.
The need to study and treat such diseases led to the use of new methods of investigation and treatment and the formulation of particular doctrines and interpretations, brought together under the name of psychoanalysis.
The fate of psychoanalysis has been singular. An aspect of its development has occurred which we must deplore, because it is the cause of many errors and disadvantages, but precisely on the basis of a psychoanalytic knowledge of human nature this development should not surprise us. Its more questionable, excessive and dangerous methods and aspects have been more widespread and widely applied, while its safer, elevated and fruitful ones have been relatively neglected.
In fact, pansexualist conceptions — that is, the sexual interpretation of a great many manifestations of human life and an often arbitrary and far-fetched hermeneutics of dreams — have been in great vogue, arousing an unhealthy curiosity, and fostering the uncontrolled unleashing of instincts.[iv] At the same time the most beautiful flowerings, the most precious fruits of the human soul, have generally been devalued with evident misunderstanding. Thus it has happened that these deviations and excesses have put the important elements of truth found in psychoanalysis on the back burner, indeed they have induced many people to neglect or reject them.
Its most fruitful contribution can be said to be the demonstration that there can be no health, harmony and balance without the sincere and courageous recognition of all the lower and detrimental elements [that may be present in a person]. These include all the instincts, impulses and passions, with all their deviations and complexities, which manifest and stir in our unconscious and which, without our realizing it, delude, limit and enslave us. Psychoanalysis, in its best aspects, validly helps us to overcome our reluctance (out of ignorance, fear, vanity and hypocrisies) [to investigate these things] and thus constitutes the necessary prerequisite for any valid work of [healing or] construction.
As Freud put it well, psychoanalysis helps people to move from the Lust-Unlust-Prinzip[v] — from struggling between the poles of pleasure and pain, in fitful vain attempts to enjoy the one while avoiding the other — to the Realität-Prinzip[vi] — to the recognition and conscious acceptance of reality, with its laws and necessities. Thus psychoanalysis, well understood and implemented, helps people to move from the sphere of passions, emotions, vain dreams and illusions to that of sound reason, and an objective and truly scientific view of ourselves and others.
However, even this contribution of psychoanalysis is often insufficient for the solution of people’s serious psychological and spiritual problems. Practice shows that bringing the various and conflicting elements stirring within us to the clear light of consciousness is not enough to settle conflicts, even if it can eliminate many morbid symptoms. Not infrequently, certain psychopathological manifestations constitute useful defensive reactions and attempts at self-healing — analogous to what is increasingly being recognized about fever, eruptions and abscesses in the body.
Therefore, the revealing action of psychoanalysis requires much caution and moderation, and above all it must be integrated with active psychosynthetic work. That is, it is necessary to actively help the patients, or the young people who are being educated with these new methods, to discharge their exuberant and tumultuous energies in a suitable and harmless manner, or rather to use them appropriately — to transmute and sublimate them.
There are precise psychological laws, analogous to those of hydrodynamics,[vii] and based on them practical and effective methods that have been found for directing and harnessing those energies — methods that are being continually developed and refined. A true “psychodynamics” is developing. All this makes it possible to encourage, indeed to deliberately promote and direct, the formation of a complete, well-coordinated and organized and thus healthy, harmonious and efficient human personality. This is true psychosynthesis in the strict sense, as a result of the use of psychosynthetic methods.
But there is another fact of paramount importance that has been discovered, or rather, scientifically ascertained, recognized and taken into account in psychotherapeutic practice, mainly due to Jung. That fact is the existence in human beings of qualities, energies, impulses and needs of a higher nature than those present in the consciousness of the average normal man. These tendencies and energies, which therefore may be called superconscious, have a similar relationship to the conscious personality, that is curiously analogous — at a higher octave — to that mentioned above for the subconscious instinctive and imaginative forces.
In fact, it has been found that even those higher energies are often repressed and driven out of consciousness for similar reasons: misunderstanding, fear, self-love, preconceptions, devaluation, resistance to being disturbed, or to comply with new inner needs, or renouncing attachments and selfish gratifications. But again, repression and rejection provoke reactions and conflicts, and these in turn produce restlessness, neuro-psychic disorders and sometimes even serious illnesses.
As Jung put it decisively,
“To be ‘normal’ is a splendid ideal for the unsuccessful, for all those who have not yet found an adaptation. But for people who have far more ability than the average, for whom it was never hard to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world’s work — for them restriction to the normal signifies the bed of Procrustes, unbearable boredom, infernal sterility and hopelessness. Consequently there are therefore as many neurotics who become ill because they are only normal as those who become ill because they are not able to become normal.”[viii]
The human superconscious is that psychospiritual sphere where we find genius inspirations, scientific and philosophical insights, religious visions and illuminations. It is also the realm where telepathic and premonitory phenomena, exceptional powers over matter of the healing and shaping kind, and impulses to heroic actions originate and are worked out, and from which they burst into consciousness. Therefore, the scientific study of the superconscious has been recognized as necessary, and has been initiated.
Indeed, it is well past time for science to recognize the existence and value of those higher inner realities. On the other hand, those who have experiences of that kind should not refuse a respectful and sympathetically objective investigation of them; and institutions that are based on revelations from those transcendent levels should not suspiciously reject the light that may be cast upon them by greater psychological knowledge. What is true and real is like a diamond and cannot be scratched by any instrument of the human mind: it resists, like pure gold, every dissolving action.
The time has come for science and religion to resolve their longstanding artificial conflict, the result of mutual misunderstanding and the illegitimate pretensions of both. Instead, each must enlighten and complement the other in a broader synthesis, in which TRUTH shines out more vividly and purely, and GOOD is corroborated by a more conscious, clear understanding.
In this way the often sudden and violent irruption of those higher forces will no longer produce imbalances, oppositions, exaltations, fanatical impulses, misinterpretations and evaluations, and strange mixtures of truth and illusion, as sometimes happens when they descend into the middle and lower levels of the psyche. Instead, we will learn better and better to contain the momentum of those currents, to channel them, to assimilate them, to transform their potential, as it were, adapting it to the resistance of our mind and nervous system[ix] — so that we can receive all the benefits of their regenerative action on ourselves and on those on whom they radiate and into whom they transfuse. In other words, we can and must arrive at an integration and cooperation between normal psychological and spiritual energies: that is, at spiritual psychosynthesis.
Another important fact also follows from all this; namely, that psychosynthesis is not something that has an end, that leads to something final and static, as would be the construction of a building. Psychosynthesis is a vital and dynamic process that always leads to new internal achievements, to ever-expanding integrations.
As it is for each of us as an individual, it is equally so, indeed even more so, in its applications and extensions to relationships among people. For the isolated person is an abstraction: in reality people are woven into a dense network of relationships and exchanges, of mutual influences with other people; they are intimately embedded in various human groups, or clusters of groups, no less than a cell is in a living organism.
Therefore, individual psychosynthesis is only the first step, the basis for inter-individual psychosynthesis. According to this, just as an organ — for example, the liver, and a system of organs, for example, the digestive apparatus — form functional units that are larger and more significant, and thus of a higher order than a single liver cell; so each human grouping constitutes a true psychological and psychospiritual entity that can take on its own autonomous functionality and thus have its own peculiar reality.
The first of such human groupings, starting with the individual, is the couple. It is the smallest and simplest group quantitatively; i.e., in terms of the number of elements that compose it. But qualitatively it is among the most complex, because of the multiplicity and intimacy, not only of mutual influences and exchanges, but of the true physical-psycho-spiritual interpenetrations that take place in couples formed by a man and a woman. This explains why their spontaneous and, so to speak, automatic and unconscious psychosynthesis is difficult. And this is confirmed by the almost ubiquitous disagreements and frequent dramas that plague, and not infrequently even break, the union of the human couple. Here again, greater psychological knowledge and understanding and the conscious use of the principles and methods of psychosynthesis could eliminate an incalculable amount of suffering and complications.
The second group, or psychological entity, we find is the family, which in the past had a close cohesion among its members, but also often exerted coercive and limiting action on them. The family is now in serious crisis because of the accentuated differences and acute conflicts between generations.
Then there are broader groupings — of different natures and of greater or lesser consistency and degree of unification — represented by the various social communities. These groups include those who practice the same trade or profession and those employed in the same organization. It is enough to recall the typical mentality of the aristocratic class of the past, or the esprit de corps of the military caste; the psychological commonality formed in a sports team or among those who, even physically distant, perform similar and very specific work, such as astronomers. But let us pass over all these groups in order to consider more carefully the one that concerns our theme most directly and whose problems are so clearly relevant today: a people and a nation.
To clearly understand the nature of these, it is of great help to examine the close analogy (which many have pointed out) between a nation and an individual. Thus we come to recognize that a nation is not only comparable to an organism, but is actually a living entity similar to a human being in all its aspects.[x] This has often been intuited, more or less clearly, so much so that it is customary to speak of the soul of a people and its defects, its development and education. Well, these expressions correspond to a precise psycho-spiritual reality.
The study of a nation as a living entity is very enlightening and fertile with important practical deductions and norms for action. The first observation — which should not be shocking, but rather explains and justifies many things and is a source of reasonable and well-founded optimism — is that the personalities of nations are still at an early, primitive stage, corresponding generally to what has been called “the ungrateful age” of the 12-14 year old boy. It is a stage in which he begins to acquire an early degree of individual consciousness, which is expressed in an incomplete way as separative and aggressive self-assertion.
It might be objected that various peoples, such as the Italians, have had a glorious past, have given high cultural manifestations. To this it might be answered that here we mean to speak not so much of peoples in general, but of real, well-defined nations, and these are a relatively recent formation. Moreover, a people can display brilliant achievements through the work of a few individuals or groups, without having yet acquired a “national personality,” just as certain men can produce valuable artistic creations at a very young age and yet remain lifelong “eternal children,” without true personality, like not a few artists (e.g., Mozart).
The evolution of peoples, then, does not take place in a linear fashion, but in “cycles,” as Vico pointed out — however this occurs in more varied, complex and irregular ways than he set forth in his theory of historical recurrances.[xi] But it can be said that even in individuals the psychological and spiritual ages do not rigidly follow that of the body; even in individuals there are alternating periods of activity and stagnation, of dejection and recovery, of maturity and rejuvenation. A typical example of this was Wolfgang Goethe[xii] whose life had a distinctly cyclical course, and who at the age of 75 fell in love with a young girl, experiencing adolescent feelings and expressing them in one of his most inspired poems.
Finally, at this time the particular cycles of each nation are overwhelmed by the influence of a larger cycle, of a world character: the end of an Era and the beginning of a new one. And this beginning cannot fail to exhibit elemental, primitive, in a certain sense barbaric characters. [xiii]
A second observation, connected with the first, is that the life of a nation still corresponds for the most part to the subconscious life of the individual. Recent studies of subconscious psychic life have shown that it is predominantly instinctive, emotional, imaginative, irrational; easily influenced by suggestions, dominated by the collective unconscious and ancestral “images” or “archetypes.” [xiv] Well then, anyone who observes dispassionately and with a mind free from illusions easily recognize that these are precisely the characteristics that predominate in the collective psychic life of every people.
The conscious part of the personality of the individual is represented in the peoples by the minority of thinkers (philosophers, historians, critics and politicians) who seek to develop national self-consciousness, to interpret its past, to evaluate its present conditions, and to indicate the ways for its future. But such a minority is in general still more in the period of study and research rather than at the period of firm conclusions; those who compose it often disagree, and their influence on national life is meager and unsteady. The Soul, the true Spiritual Center, in individuals as in nations, is superconscious. That is, it exists, but in an inner sphere or level which personal consciousness does not ordinarily reach. The real existence of the Soul is revealed by its manifestations, [which are] almost always on exceptional occasions, but in such a luminous and powerful way as to leave no doubt [about its presence].
In the individual this occurs above all in geniuses, saints, mystics and heroes, but the greatest among these are sometimes not only enlightened and inspired by their own Soul but also by the Soul of the nation, which makes them its instruments, or rather organs of expression, manifesting in themselves all that they are capable of grasping and transmitting.
The psychological examination of a people is difficult and complex, and this may explain, at least in part, the curious fact that, despite the vital importance of the subject, the studies done on the psychology of peoples are still relatively scarce and not very satisfactory, and almost none have been done in a truly scientific and objective way. Moreover, if passions, attachments and pride are so strong as to distort perception and skew the evaluation of precisely calculable material data (a convincing proof of this was given to us in Italy, unfortunately, by the frivolous illusions with which it was dragged into participating in the World War[xv]), all the more can they mislead investigations and cause serious errors to be made in the appreciation of less objective and less surely graspable data, such as psychological data.
Therefore, the study of the psychology of peoples should be done with special preparation and with appropriate cautions that should consist first of all in a serious and sincere psychoanalysis of the researcher himself, in order to eliminate as much as possible the subconscious “complexes,” emotional reactions, preconceptions and illusions that may undermine the objectivity of his investigations. Moreover, given the difficulty of being dispassionate and impartial, it would be appropriate for such investigation to be carried out by groups of researchers, and for each group to include some members of different people from the one being examined. Sometimes those on the outside, those with a certain psychological distance, can notice more clearly and assess more justly certain sides and characters of those who are involved. Even a harsh critic and even an enemy can — in this respect — as in others, be more helpful than a blind admirer. Hindus have gone so far as to say, “An enemy is just as useful as a Buddha!”
Then there is another kind of vast human grouping that is of particular importance to us: those constituted by a religion, or more precisely, by a community of believers and worshippers. Here there is a substantial difference from all other kinds of collective psychological entities: here the emphasis is placed on the “vertical” relationship, so to speak, between the community of believers and a transcendent principle or Reality: God.
Here, the recognition and appreciation of the spiritual elements and relationships belonging to what we have called the superconscious are required, and with special emphasis. Special psychosynthetic problems also arise from this. For example: [there is the issue of] the respective intensity and steadfastness of the “vertical” relationship — that is, of each believer with God. There are also the “horizontal,” or social, relationships linking the members of the same religion with each other; also the various relationships between spiritual life and external life. [There are relationships] between spirit and ritual, between inspiration and conceptual formulation, between freedom and law, between originality and conformity, between evolution and tradition, between dynamism and stability. Here the psychosynthetic task is to create the difficult reconciliation between these opposing tendencies, each of which has its own justification and use. Each of these opposing tendencies has a necessary function that — paradoxically — is all the more fruitful and constructive the more it is properly counterbalanced and complemented by the one seemingly opposed and contrasting to it. Finally, all individuals and all human groups, of every extent and kind, and particularly nations, must be considered as elements, organs, living parts of a larger unitary organism, consisting of the whole of humanity.
The essential unity of origin, nature and purpose; that is, the irrepressible interdependence and solidarity among all people and all human groups is an undeniable spiritual and metaphysical reality — however much this may be mentally discussed, disavowed and practically violated in the innumerable conflicts in which men miserably squander their precious energies and jettison the sacred gift of life.
But in spite of the contrasts and negative appearances, the principle of synthesis, the recognition of fundamental human fraternity, and the will to implement it (even in reaction to the evils produced by their misrecognition) are rapidly spreading and intensifying among people, as is evident from many signs of the times. If this tendency toward integral synthesis prevails in such a way as to be decisively implemented, it will lay the foundations, indeed constitute the beginning of a New Era, of a new civilization that is truly human and spiritual.
PSYCHOSYNTHESIS
Roberto Assagioli. (Doc. #24191 – Assagioli Archives – Florence)[xvi] Original Title: La Psicosintesi. Translated and Edited With Notes by Jan Kuniholm
Abstract: Psychosynthesis is a psychological approach that goes beyond the limitations of psychoanalysis. It recognizes the existence of higher aspects of the human soul and aims to integrate and harmonize various psychological forces. It offers methods for self-formation, healing psychological disorders, and integral education. Psychosynthesis sees itself as part of a larger principle of inter-individual and universal synthesis, connecting individuals to society, history, and transcendent reality.
Psychosynthesis, while acknowledging and including the real contributions brought by psychoanalysis, decisively transcends its positivistic limitations, and holds that the higher manifestations of the human soul cannot be “explained” or interpreted by considering them merely as the product of lower instinctive or imaginative tendencies.
Psychosynthesis does not take this position on the basis of preconceptions or doctrinal assumptions, but on the basis of a well-understood realism, impartially using the canons of the scientific method in the psychological and spiritual fields. That is, it takes into account all inner experiences and all human manifestations, including those of a higher character (inspiration, intuition, ingenious creation, religious and mystical experiences), seeking to grasp their true nature and specific functions.
Thus psychosynthesis comes to acknowledge the existence of superconscious energies and psychic activities in addition to subconscious ones.[xvii]
Psychosynthesis is a dynamic conception of psychic life as a struggle between a multiplicity of disparate, often conflicting forces, and a unifying Center that aims to master and harmoniously organize them.
It is an organic, hierarchical and aristocratic conception of the inner constitution of human beings. It recognizes necessary relationships of subordination and discipline of the various psychic forces and activities, on the basis of undeniable differences in function, quality and value (while avoiding the “repressions” that are rightly deprecated by psychoanalysis).
On the practical side, psychosynthesis is a set of methods of psychological action, aimed at promoting the integration, harmony, and efficacy of the human personality. Thus, depending on its fields of action, psychosynthesis is, or can become:
1) A method of self-development and self-mastery for those who refuse to remain slaves to their inner “phantoms” and external influences, or to passively submit to the instincts, impulses, desires and ideas stirring within them, but instead want to become the masters of their inner realm;
2) A method of curing certain neuropsychic diseases and disorders. This method includes all known psychotherapeutic procedures (suggestion and auto-suggestion; persuasion; analytical techniques for the exploration of the subconscious; active reeducation; work therapy) associated with special exercises and trainings, variously combined and alternated on a case-by-case basis, according to a curative plan aimed at the widest possible physical-psycho-spiritual integration of the patient;
3) A method of integral education, which not only aims at fostering the development of the various physical and psychic functions of the child and adolescent, but also helps him or her to discover his or her own true nature and under its direction to form a firm, harmonious and productive personality.
Psychosynthesis, however, is not intended to make the individual an isolated, self-sufficient being; rather, it sees itself as the expression of a vast principle of inter-individual and universal synthesis. It therefore tends to include the individual (freed from his own inner deficiencies and bondages):
1) In society and history, through the successive syntheses of the family unit, the various social groups, the nation (conceived as a living soul and organism) and humanity;
2) In transcendent Reality, in God, through the development of spiritual experience and life in its most intimate and essential aspects.
In conclusion it can be said that psychosynthesis has a scientific, and therefore in a sense universal, character, and also has notes of realism, balance, breadth and constructiveness that belong to the most genuine Roman and Italian tradition.[xviii]
[i] This essay has been taken from www.psicoenergetica.com which gives its source as the Assagioli Archives in Florence. The source document, whose date is unknown, is not readily availably to online search. This essay appears to be an expansion and elaboration of Doc. #24191, which has been translated as a separate document. Sections of this article also appear in Assagioli’s essays Psychosynthesis, Psychology and Religion, Politics and Psychology. —Ed.
[ii] Editor’s interpolations are indicated in [brackets]. —Ed.
[iii] Assagioli has explained elsewhere that he uses the term “psychoanalysis” in its generic sense, apart from the specific ideas or doctrines developed by Freud and others. —Ed.
[iv] Assagioli seems to be referring to some fundamental teachings of Sigmund Freud and others, which posited a sexual etiology for a wide range of psychopathological phenomena. —Ed.
[v] German: “Pleasure-Pain Principle” —Tr.
[vi] German: “Reality Principle” —Tr.
[vii] Hydrodynamics: a branch of physics dealing with the properties of movement in water. —Ed.
[viii] C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1933. Taken directly from the version published in English — Ed.
[ix] Note that Assagioli is using a metaphor from electrical engineering, here adapting the “potential” of “currents” of electric power to fit the “resistance” of a receiving component. Failure to do this in electricity results in short circuits, blown components, or other unfortunate effects, and he says analogous results can happen in a person. —Ed.
[x] This conception has been illustrated by, among others, the brilliant Polish thinker W. Lutoslawski, who presented a paper entitled “The Nations as Metaphysical Entities” at the International Congress of Philosophy in Bologna in 1911; by Rudolf Steiner; and recently by A.A. Bailey in The Destiny of the Nations (New York, Lucis Publishing Co). —Author’s Note. Lutoslawski’s thesis was also presented in his book The Knowledge of Reality (1930) which is available in current editions. —Ed.
[xi] Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) was an Italian philosopher and historian, whose book Scienza Nuova, or New Science (1725) attempted a systematic organization of the humanities as a single science that recorded and explained the historical cycles by which societies rise and fall. —Ed.
[xii] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German polymath and writer, author of Faust and other works, botanist, diplomat, poet, engineer, etc. —Ed.
[xiii] This has been highlighted by various scholars of contemporary life, and in a particularly comprehensive and acute way by Keyserling (see La Revolution mondiale et la responsibilite de l’esprit, [The Global Revolution and the Responsibility of the Spirit], (1934), Milan, Hoepli). —Author’s Note.
[xiv] See C.G. Jung, The problem of the unconscious in modern psychology; (Turin, Einaudi, 1942).—Author’s Note. This was an Italian translation of Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart, (1931, translated into English in 1933 as Modern Man in Search of a Soul). —Ed.
[xv] This may be a reference to Italy’s entry into World War I on the side of France and the UK, which was the result of promises of territorial gains offered by those allies, who partly reneged on the promises at the end of the war. —Ed.
[xvi] The original is an undated typed manuscript with pencil corrections. —Ed.
[xvii] In later writings Assagioli dropped the word “subconscious” in favor of “unconscious.” —Ed.
[xviii] See Roberto Assagioli, “Psychoanalysis and Psychosynthesis,” Rome, Institute of Culture and Psychic Therapy, 1931; and “Spiritual Development and Nervous Diseases,” ibid. 1933. —Author’s Note. The first title was republished in The Beacon and The Hibbert Journal in 1934. A later version of this was found in the archives of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, and eventually formed part of Chapter 1 of his 1965 book Psychosynthesis. The second title was a lecture at the Third Summer Session of the International Centre of Spiritual Research at Ascona, Switzerland. A transcript was published in The Beacon in 1932. A different version of that essay became Chapter 10 of the book Transpersonal Development (2007). —Ed.
Leave a Reply