Psychological Complexes

In this course, you will learn about Psychological Complexes, the genesis and the works of famous psychologists like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler. The term ‘complex’ was one of Jung’s earliest contributions to depth psychology.

The concept has not only proved useful in psychology, and played a role in bringing Jung and Freud together for a time, but has passed into everyday language.

A complex is a core pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious organized around a common theme, such as power or status. Primarily a psychoanalytic term, it is found extensively in the works of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.

This course discusses aspects of the psychological complex from inferiority complex to superiority complex to situational narcissism.

Psychological complexes are distorted sensory and thought patterns that lead to unnatural behavior and are typically deep-rooted in a person's psyche.

Oedipus/Electra Complex.

Madonna/Whore.

God Complex.

Persecution Complex.

Martyr Complex.

Inferiority Complex.

Superiority Complex.

Guilt Complex.

The term ‘complex’ was one of Jung’s earliest contributions to depth psychology. The concept has not only proved useful in psychology, and played a role in bringing Jung and Freud together for a time, but has passed into everyday language. From his word association experiments, the concept of the complex led Jung on to his understanding of archetypes and thus, together, these concepts have served as a foundation stone for his psychological theories. The concepts of both complexes and archetypes have undergone a good deal of development, sometimes being more and sometimes less taken up within the world of Jungian theory and analysis.

The concept of the complex has come full circle and can now be seen to be vitally relevant to the work with trauma and in particular, early relational trauma, which is coming to be understood, particularly through the work of neuroscientists and specialist trauma researchers, as central to our psychological development and the difficulties and psychopathologies that can develop.

The concept of the archetype has had a long, rich, sometimes conflictual and checkered history, with whole schools of psychology becoming based on its use – for example, the school of Archetypal Psychology founded by James Hillman; whilst in some other schools, or at least for some members of those schools, it has, at times, played a much less significant role. The question of how and whether archetypes, archetypal ideas or archetypal dispositions are transmitted from one individual or one generation to another has been a particular source of conflict, as will be discussed below. A modern view of archetypes, much taken up within the SAP, is to understand archetypes as ’emergent’ principles that come out of experiences that are common to all of us through our natural, early human experiences.

This brief introduction to complexes and archetypes will first explore the origins of the concept of the complex before looking at how the concept of archetypes grew from it.