From Somnambulism to the Archetypes: The French Roots of Jung's Split with Freud

According to the common view of Jung as the rebellious crown prince of psychoanalysis, his doctrine of the archetypes appears, at worst, a lightheaded fascination with occultism or, at best, a way to overcome the historical and personalistic reductionism of the Freudian doctrine of sexual stages. Against the background of German thought and East-of-the-Rhine psychiatric interests, one is inclined to discuss whether the neuroses are bred in a biographical or an archaeological matrix, or whether we have genes or culture to thank for universal patterns. Quite another field of discussion opens up if we begin by noting the geographical fact that Zurich lies West of the Rhine. Jung's connections with Geneva and Paris are far more important than usually assumed; his French heritage is almost suppressed as some kind of secret. Probably the explanation for this is in the overwhelming success of psychoanalysis, as a result of which the earlier French psychologists have been largely forgotten. Now, due to their rediscovery by Ellenberger (1970), Jung's dissent from the doctrines of psychoanalysis appears in a new light. As we gain new appreciation for the psychological investigations being conducted at the turn of the century by the French hypnotists and their English speaking followers, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the doctrine of the archetypes emerged in Jung's thought as a means to wed the best of Freud with the best of Janet.

The story begins in the seventeenth century with Descartes, who set the course for pre-psychological philosophy with his disciplined naiveté in asking what we can really be sure we know. Succeeding philosophers