“The Ego-Self Paradox”1: A Discussion between Marianne Jacoby and the Author

The way in which Dr. Edinger states his ideas presupposes their general acceptance. Three concepts: ego-self identity, ego-self separation, and ego-self unity, are brought into a schema which is posited rather than explained. This is the more to be regretted because analytical psychology needs more theory with which to perceive and bridge the gap between the ego and the archetypes, whether the two are in a reciprocal relation with, or whether the ego is defending itself against, the archetypes. The author is trying to fulfil this need, but instead of discussing the complex processes involved, he has only put forward conclusions (for instance on the topic of ego-self identity). This is simply stated to “occur regularly in the analyses of all individuals” (p. 3), without any evidence being supplied to support his conclusion. Further he is not altogether consistent: the central archetype, we are told, “sub-ordinates all other archetypal dominants to it” (p. 9), in spite of stating earlier on that “in the unconscious there is no separation of different things”, so how can one dominate another?

Before I come to my main theme I should like to draw attention to one further matter: a sentence in the author's introduction where he says that he will make an effort “to give equal consideration … to the phylogenetic, archetypal, timeless determinants on the one hand, and, on the other, the ontogenetic, individual factors deriving from one's personal life history”. Fordham discusses this in the New Developments in Analytical Psychology (1957), a book from which the author quotes. Fordham explains that psychologists had taken over a biological hypothesis which could not be substantiated and had therefore to be discarded. Also Portmann (1956, p. 78), the Jungian biologist, if I may call him so, delegates the popular scientific truth that ontogenetic development repeats phylogenetic development to the realm of a creed!