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Jung was the first depth psychologist to propose a concept of the purposive dynamic Self, driving the personality towards its individual destiny, and, although psychoanalysts have since made considerable (unacknowledged) use of concepts of the self and of individuation, it is within analytical psychology that we find the most thorough and long-standing exploration and clinical application of these conceptual tools. Donald Kalsched writes to modify what he sees as Jung's over-optimism about the Self. At its most naive, Jungian theory and practice sometimes seem to take the view that the Self can do no wrong, and that the task of the analyst is simply the creation of a facilitating environment within which the Self can drive forward the individuation process. Kalsched's focus is on the defences which arise in response to trauma, and the difficulties that these pose in the analytic process. He asks why these defences should apparently cause further pathology, and why they should be so intractable and resistant to modification in analysis. These questions are not, of course, in any way new, and have been addressed in some way by virtually every clinician, regardless of school, in writing about analysis.
Kalsched's theoretical contribution is twofold. He suggests that defences which arise in response to severe trauma are archetypal in origin and character; and he terms the process of their creation ‘the self-care system’. It is the impersonal and therefore largely non-negotiable nature of these defences, as they appear clinically, that leads Kalsched to posit an archetypal and hence non-personal root for them. He argues his point succinctly. He states that ‘in trauma, the psyche's goal is survival, not individuation’, and that, when archetypal resources are used to override the individuation processes in favour of survival, the cost to the psyche is the sacrifice of the spirit (p. 66). While Kalsched states,