Carl Jung

Jim Rome on his popular sports talk show once commented on his confusion over the term “sex addiction.”  “C’mon, what guy isn’t a sex addict?  It’s part of being a man.”

Carl Jung didn’t call it sex addiction, but he did talk about the dilemma of sexual obsession back in the 30’s.  He also differentiated himself from Sigmund Freud in how to deal with it.  Here are some excerpts from Modern Man in Search of a Soul:

“Beyond all question, there is a marked disturbance today in the realms of sexual life . . . an over-emphasized sexuality piled up behind a dam; and it shrinks at once to normal proportions as soon as the way to development is opened.  It is being caught in the old resentments against parents and relations and in the boring emotional tangles of the family situation which most often brings about the damming-up of the energies of life . . . (it) shows itself as that kind of sexuality which is called “infantile.”  It is really not sexuality proper, but an unnatural discharge of tensions that belong to quite another province of life.    This being so, what is the use of paddling about in this flooded country?  It is important to open up drainage canals.  We should try to find, in a change of attitude or in new ways of life, that difference of potential which the pent-up energy requires.  Freudian psychology – points no way that leads beyond the inexorable cycle of biological events.  This hopelessness would drive one to exclaim with Paul: “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me . . .” There is nothing that can free us from this bond except that opposite urge of life, the spirit.  It is not the children of the flesh, but the “children of God” who know freedom.”

There are a couple of things that really jump out at me.

First of all the problem is not that his patient is a deviant and needs to be reformed.  Jung frames the problem as the damming up of the energies of life as a result of resentments that haven’t been dealt with.  Once the resentments surface, one can try to find a change of attitude. Then once the energies can find a useful purpose, the patient can be freed.  That is a significantly different spiritual model than the old, pray more, to fix your problem.

Traditional religious practices haven’t emphasized becoming conscious of resentments as a way to enlightenment.  Bill Wilson when he started AA made it the penultimate step to recovery and a spiritual solution to addiction in step 4: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves,” which among other things means making a list of fears and resentments.

Second, I like Jung’s strategy for the big picture – “try to find, in a change of attitude or in new ways of life, that difference of potential which the pent-up energy requires.”  He doesn’t advocate trying to necessarily fix or get even with the resentments.  He also doesn’t think we’re trapped with them or the acting out behavior.  Once the work is underway to make the resentments conscious, one is free to return to “spirit and nature,” as he puts it.

Later in the chapter he writes, “We moderns are faced with the necessity of rediscovering the life of the spirit; we must experience it anew for ourselves.  It is the only way in which we can break the spell that binds us to the cycle of biological events.”

Break the spell . . .  I’m working on it Carl . . . now if only the Dodgers could break the Phillies spell I’d be a happy man.