Research into psychosomatic symptoms has almost entirely limited itself to investigating the relationship between body and mind in terms of cause and effect.

Paulo S. Ruby, clinical psychologist, São Paulo, Brazil

Research into psychosomatic symptoms has almost entirely limited itself to investigating the relationship between body and mind in terms of cause and effect. In contrast to this model the ancient teurgic medical teaching considered the individual as a whole in relation to the cosmos. Thus illness was understood to be a direct result of the rupture between an individual and the greater organism or the divine.

The premise underlying teurgic medicine was the belief that the same divinity who caused the illness also cured it. The objective therefore of the treatment was not to overcome the illness which is the customary procedure in modern allopathic medicine but rather the establishment of links with the sacred powers.

The question of psychosomatic symptoms in Jungian psychology cannot be separated from the paradigm which informs analytical psychology and its belief in two related centers of the psyche. One is the center of consciousness known as the ego complex and the other is the Self, the center of the unconscious. Between the two exists a compensatory bipolar relationship referred to as the ego-self axis. Consciousness receives the life giving flow from the unconscious and thus instinct becomes image. The whole process of civilization depends on this movement which is the humanization of instinct.

It is the symbol itself which gives rise creatively to a dynamic life force. However this does not happen simply or easily. The remaining structural components of the personality join together to form other pairs of opposites, thus creating a complex web of inter-relationships.

Consciousness, which may be defined as a sequence of images, required the giving up of a purely natural and instinctual portion of the psyche. When instinct is sacrificed, shadowy, unknown areas develop as a consequence of the animal being suppressed in favor of the human. Thus inferior functions, the unconscious and the shadow, are formed in contrast to the superior consciousness, and the persona, and so there is tension between these opposites.

Such separation is desirable until such a time that the union of opposites demands once again to take place. This occurs normally in the second half of life. Should this not happen a split results and the inferior functions as well as the shadows (elements previously rejected by consciousness) are drawn to affective complexes which then attack the ego and the persona (the superior functions).

From a Jungian point of view the Self (which is the whole of the personality) gives rise to consciousness. Once the ego is firmly established the movement towards the self must be sought so that wholeness may be once again found. Nevertheless this movement must be understood not only as a return but also as a way and as a process where the birth of consciousness and the experience of life are the final aim.

Should this not take place, inner strife results between the conscious and unconscious contents (inner split). If the unconscious contents wish to become known but are prevented from doing so, a conflict may present itself and the symbol may be expressed under the guise of a symptom. A symbol results from the union of opposites and is psychic energy "par excellence", which when unable to express itself consciously, does so in form of a bodily manifestation. Therefore the breakdown of the symbol into a symptom may point to a need for a more subtle expression at the psychic level. This may explain why when the symbol is reflected upon either in dreams and images or when it becomes a bodily symptom and therefore reaches consciousness, the dysfunction is transformed and experienced in the form of psychic suffering rather than bodily. Symptom cry out to be understood and point to disharmony in the instinct/image (body/mind) interaction.

Our ancestors believed that it was the gods who sent the illness so that we might recognize its reality. The archetypal human condition has not changed. As human beings we must be in harmony with nature and be part of the greater organism. We must recognize both the micro and the macrocosms and abide by their rules.

Today symptoms are symbols which need to be deciphered since "The divine within us manifests as stomach, colon or bladder neuroses, mere disturbances of the lower regions. Our gods have fallen asleep and stir only in the bowels of the earth". Today, expressed in psychological terms, we would say that the gods are imaginative representations, i.e. arquetypal contents in the unconscious and that an understanding of them as well as their freedom of expression is an urgent task if we are to take our place in the world.

The relationship between ego-self must be permanently alive if life is to have meaning. This occurs in the metaphorical relationship of the ego with the images of the unconscious as an inner dialogue whose aim in the long run is unity and wholeness of being.

These images are dissociated i.e. when they manifest as complexes rather than the auxiliar function, conflict arises and the split may generate the necessary tension for the symptom to appear. Thus "The symbol perceives the mind-body phenomena manifested in physical alterations as well as from suitable images, which occur synchronistically. A complex makes its presence known symbolically in the body and provides us with the key to understanding the ailment. In such cases the symbol points to a dysfunction which must be corrected since the ego-self axis has been affected".

A Jungian psychosomatic approach aims at placing the individual in his totality in an global context, in the meeting of the mind with the body, in totality and in individuation. A sign, a symptom or an illness are always seen as attempts by the self to make itself known. They are purposeful and have a clear objective which is to unite that which is divided.

The aim here is not to return purely and simply to archaic thought processes but to discern a world vision in which the old and the new play a part beyond Cartesian reductionism with its emphases on reason and ego consciousness. It also recognizes the primitive and the inferior parts of ourselves (the shadows) which together with the knowledge which we acquire when consciousness forms (ego and persona) leads towards wholeness where human achievements i.e. consciousness, technology, reason thought, together with nature i.e. instinct, the unconscious, feelings, and perceptions share the same symbolic nature.

Copyright 1997 Paulo S. Ruby. All rights reserved.

Paulo Sergio Ruby is a clinical psychologist and Jungian psychotherapist with a Master in Clinical Psychology. He is a teacher of Jungian Psychology and Psychosomatic Psychology.
Rua Kansas, 306 - Tel/fax: 543-3455 - 04558-000 - São Paulo - Brazil.
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