Jungian Complexes II: The Pleasures and Dangers of being a Scholar

“…he became so consumed by the elusive craving for higher wisdom that he forgot about the family.” - ETA Hoffman, “The Sandman”

"The Unexamined Life..is not worth living." - Socrates

I had previously written about how Martial Arts practice aided my negotiation and sublimation of a Berzerker Complex. (https://juliantoh.wixsite.com/website/single-post/2017/04/09/Martial-Arts-and-Jungian-Complexes)

This process prompted further reflection on my other intensive interest and activity I spend a significant amount of time engaging in, and that is the Seeking of new knowledge. However, it has now been spotlighted in my awareness that this internal ‘Seeker’, this Scholar Archetype, certainly carries compulsive qualities to it that possibly qualifies it as another Complex within.

While far more subtle and less primal than the Berzerker complex proper, these very qualities may make this Complex far more dangerous if un-recognised, particularly as it is very easy to ‘explain away’ its being by a filtered focus on its benefits.

And there certainly are benefits.

These include but are not restriced to: the inherent pleasure in new learning (supported by evidence for new words activating our brains’ salience/reward network), utility of this learning in every day life (‘phronesis’), the framing of me-time, the facilitation of enjoyable self-sabbaticals, and the enabling of losing oneself in immersion of knowledge acquisition.

As an Archetype, The Scholar has enabled me to function highly in my various roles as supervisor, therapist, doctor, lecturer and the values within are consistent with the circle of compassion and the sword of knowledge.

These are the benefits, but we are here less to discuss the Archetype than to describe and reveal the Complex.

How is the Seeker complex manifest in me? In several forms, if I am brutally honest with myself. I still possess a compulsive drive to constantly acquire and assimilate new knowledge. There are books in the toilet. Journal articles in my car (!!). More in my backpack. In fact, I have books and articles and e-books on my physical being everywhere I go. And I actually read them. In all settings imaginable, from the sanctity of the loo to the formal space of the office to the sacred grounds encircling forest streams. Everywhere. Even my engagement in the Peaceful Warrior archetype through martial art practice in the recent past was coloured and intruded upon by this Complex. It can be thoroughly consuming and clearly extends beyond the bounds of the transitional object. More on this Winnicottian concept later.

I have been pondering: is this Seeker complex in fact partially a weapon of the Berzerker? Does it have a shared or similar telos? To be more concise, are there more disguised and diluted aspects of its telos being related to the seeking again of triumph over perceived enemies, and is it an instrument to humiliate those who dare to try and challenge it? ‘Knowledge is Power’, as the traditional maxim first expressed by Sir Francis Bacon apparently dictates.

So once again, is this complex a means to identify with past aggressors, in order to bully and intimidate? I am aware of his potentiality particularly within the workplace, when the Berzerker proper episodically pierces through my civilized and reflective self at an intensity level where rationalization and thinking can still be retained. During these times, does the Seeker complex then search selfishly for claiming the last word, in a display of blatant one up-manship?

A clue to this for me is regular feedback from my directors that a weakness they have observed is my ‘inability to tolerate fools’. Again, the price may be related to, and I am borrowing terminology from ACT here, experiential and vulnerability recognition avoidance , and an ‘over-introversion’ in avoiding social connections.

I can only guess at the origins of both identified complexes thus far. Were they born from a primal bed of felt shame and humiliation, and thus act as avenues for projection and ‘sophisticated’ acting out? I believe here that there may be value in external supervision and feedback, perhaps even insight oriented psychotherapy- precisely because of the Seeker complex’s more subtle shadings, its sophistication and inherent capability to wear various disguises.

Is this entire reflective piece a manifestation of the Seeker Complex? Can we generalise and say convincingly that ‘thinking too much’ is not useful?

I would say no, we cannot. For awareness is a very treasured and unique human trait, and can be used to recognise and divert infinite potentialities toward creative and compassionate intra/interpersonal adaptation that fosters growth and not destruction.

And self-consciousness, borrowing from the psychologist-philosopher Alain Morin, can be orientated toward self-rumination or self-reflection. The former is characterised by negative evaluations, judgmentalism and rigidity while the latter embraces mindful non-judgmental ponderings and an open-ness to novelty and new experience. The contemporary psychologist Robert Vallerand also makes a distinction between two types of Passion: the Obsessive and the Harmonious. The former correlates more with this Jungian concept of Complex, while the latter, more integrated version is more Archetypal in nature.

I believe exercises like this foster reflective practice, and with guidance can contribute to said growth. The philosopher and psychoanalyst Donna Orange also tends to agree, with her opinion that reflective thinking keeps shame regulated; loosens the grips of automaticity; fuels creativity and helps us notice.

Thus we come back to Donald Winnicott, who wisely discovered that the ‘transitional space’ is vital to creative wellsprings and thus human/cultural evolution. It is with awareness and self-reflective practice that we/I can alter the Complex qualities to an Archetype that then can serve as a vehicle for my-self to play within transitional space to weave cycles of differentiation in the service of integration.