Destructiveness: A ‘Neglected Child’ in the Theory of Analytical Psychology1

C.G. Jung postulates the child motif as the central symbol of the unfolding self towards wholeness. From the ‘abandoned child’ and the ‘invincibility of the child’, Jung derives the ‘divine child’ as hero. It is about the victory of consciousness over the unconscious, about the ‘overcoming of the darkness monster’. But in this ego-psychological approach, there is no ‘evil’, no destructive child. The author is surprised that there is no concept of destructiveness per se, in the Kantian sense, in either psychoanalysis or analytical psychology. In Jung, ‘evil’ exists as a shadow dynamic that needs to be integrated. This paper is about destructiveness that cannot be integrated. The author's hypothesis is that some patients have the unconscious belief that they are a discarded child and were born as a ‘bad’ destructive child or have acquired this unconscious belief in the course of their development. Both possibilities are explored with regard to their treatability using clinical vignettes from the therapy of a child, an adolescent and an adult patient. With regard to collective destructiveness, an attempt is also made to highlight some characteristic beliefs of increasingly radicalized political and social groups.