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Hypnotic

Complexes

Paul Budding

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Key words: hypnotic/hypnotism/hypnosis/hypnotised,

complex/complexes, fixed idea, possession, participation

mystique/projective identification, stimulus/response,

dissociation/dissociated, consciousness/

conscious/unconscious/unconsciousness, power, control, Jung,

Janet, psychology/psychological, neurosis, psychosis.

Introduction

This essay focuses on dissociated conscious mindstates. These

mindstates are not within our conscious control precisely

because consciousness is what has been dissociated. If they are

not within our conscious control then they can all be regarded as

a mindstate that is hypnotised. These mindstates are often (not

always) unhealthy. They seem to be something that we have

failed to overcome. This is no surprise in the area of trauma. But

(as we shall see in this paper) in other areas of psychological life

it is a result of faulty thinking. (e.g., hysteria as a result of

power and control psychology). The psychological pain that

results equates to the loss of psychological freedom and harms

the balance of the conscious mind. It’s a modern day form of

psychological possession. And therefore I propose that we

preface the word ‘Complex’ with the word ‘Hypnotic’.

Clarity can be brought to the confused world of dissociation

simply by prefacing the word ‘complex[es]’ with the familiar

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word ‘hypnotic’. That is what this paper does… and in its

conclusion some useful advice is offered to people who suffer

from hypnotic complexes.

The Hypnotic Complex: Hypnosis and

Neurosis

Jung approvingly quoted Moll’s definition of suggestion as “a

process whereby under inadequate conditions, an effect is

obtained by evoking the idea that such an effect will be

obtained.”

(Jung in a review of a book by Moll, CW 18, 1907, par. 893)

In neurosis it is like you are hypnotised. Indeed when

experiencing neurosis you are partially hypnotised. You have to

fight for consciousness otherwise it would slip away and you

would fall into complete hypnosis/psychosis. In neurosis you

realise that you have no choice but to think, feel and react the

way that you do. Moreover a hypnotic stimulus can

automatically trigger an instant response (the triggering of the

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hypnotic complex that painfully dissociates the conscious

psyche).

Hysteria is an example of Hypnotic Complex Psychology. Often

the hysteric is seeking power and control over others. When this

fails then the hysteric involves others in their neurosis because

hysteria is an extraverted condition. Therefore the hysterics

internal mindstate is projected out onto the external world. And

although the hysteric experiences and re-experiences the

surfacing of the hypnotic complex into their conscious mind (so

clear that others can see it in the hysterics face as it goes blood-

shot red)… there is still nothing that the hysteric can do about

it. That is clearly an hypnotic complex. Hysteria, as a neurosis,

means that there is some conscious fight. But let’s be clear. This

is relative hypnosis because it involves so much psychology that

the individual desperately wants to vanquish but is powerless to

vanquish. The mind is conditioned to explode at the slightest

stimulus hence the hysterics healthy conscious mind only has

wafer thin separation from their unconscious hypnotic

complexes. Outside help is difficult if not impossible because the

projection onto the outer world (involving everyone else in their

problems) ensures that everyone is perceived by the hysteric as

being against him or her. They want love but they want it in an

undeveloped childish and immature way.

Hysteria is a very good example as it fits well with what I have

long regarded as ‘Complex Psychology’ (now prefaced with the

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word ‘Hypnotic’). Hysteria fits with stimulus-response and with

power and control psychology that cannot tolerate opposition.

Indeed the opposition forms hypnotic complexes. Hypnotic

Complex Psychology also includes (as part of its ingredients)

paranoid projection/projective identification whereby what is in

you (but is denied by you as psychological poison) is projected

onto someone else. That someone else is now experienced as

‘poison’ when they link to the poison. Thus they trigger the

hypnotic complex in you. Worse still, if they realise that they can

do this then they could potentially trigger the stimulus on

purpose thus becoming manipulators.

In the book ‘A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis’ the

authors say the following about ‘Possession’: “Because of the

strength and obstinacy of the neurotic or psychotic symptom, a

person is deprived of choice and is powerless to dispose of his

will. A restraining effect is placed on consciousness proportional

to the strength of the invading autonomous psychic content and

an acute one-sidedness results. This imperils not only conscious

freedom but also psychic equilibrium. Individual aims are

falsified in favour of the possessing psychic agent […] In an

article written for the Basle newspaper at the time of the death

of Freud […] Jung gives a concise explication of the development

of Analytical Psychology, linking it historically with Charcot’s

discovery ‘that hysterical symptoms were the consequence of

certain ideas that had taken possession of the person’s brain.”

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(Samuels, Plaut, Shorter, 1986, p110). Note that the authors

said “A restraining effect is placed on consciousness proportional

to the strength of the invading autonomous psychic content” The

stronger the strength of the hypnotic complex = the more that

the individual is hypnotised by the hypnotic complex. The

weaker the strength of the hypnotic complex = the greater the

ability of consciousness to resist and re-establish ego

consciousness.

Jung, Janet… Hypnotic Complex and

Fixed Idea

“Much of Jungian Psychology and Freudian Psychoanalysis

derives from hypnotic psychotherapies that were commonplace

in Europe and America at the end of the 19th century”

(Shamdasani, 2001)

Pierre Janet (1859 -1947) coined the term ‘Idee fixe’ (fixed idea).

And in a paper for the International Journal of Jungian Studies,

Paula Monahan quotes Henri Ellenberger who wrote “What

Jung called ‘Complex’ was originally nothing but the equivalent

of Janet’s subconscious fixed idea”. (2009, p33) Monahan’s paper

is entirely in-tune with what I am writing in this paper. Janet

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realised that the fixed idea and its linked dissociation of the

psyche, was highly common-place in neurosis and psychosis.

Indeed, for Janet this was everything from the psychological and

mental illness perspective. As Monahan writes “Janet’s interest

turned more and more to the ‘economics’ of psychopathology

whereby ‘psychological force’ and ‘psychological tension’ – and

their relative strength or weakness – were to become the

‘Archimedean point’ of the whole of his […] thought. In this

perspective, it is not the content of the ‘idee fixe’ that is crucial

but merely the energic effects upon primary consciousness of

these split-off psychological systems.” (2009, p35)

Janet was well-aware that these fixed ideas equated to hypnotic

psychology. I will quote Monahan at length here as she

articulates this point well. She writes that “Post-hypnotic

suggestion was a particularly fascinating phenomenon and

perhaps the most conclusive ‘proof’ of Janet’s conclusion that, if

truly ‘psychological’ phenomena did not emanate from ordinary

consciousness, there must be some manner of ‘subconscious’

psychological awareness to account for such behaviour. How else

could a person hypnotised and instructed to carry out certain

actions after being woken from the hypnotic state, possibly

‘remember’ to carry out the given instructions? The information

had to be stored somewhere in the person’s psyche and yet Janet

and all the early magnetizers and hypnotists agreed that a

hypnotised person was absolutely unable to recall what had

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happened whilst under hypnosis once roused from that

‘somnambulisitc’ state. Instructions given under hypnosis would

be duly carried out (even days later) without the previously

hypnotised subject having any idea as to why he or she felt

impelled to perform the action in question. Again, where was the

memory of the order lodged until the action could be carried out

at the time prescribed, and why was it absent from normal

consciousness? The answer, Janet reasoned, was that there was

another area of consciousness outside and apart from normal

waking consciousness, and for which waking consciousness was

amnesic. These extraordinary ‘splits’ (scissions) between normal

conscious behaviour and actions of which the person’s normal

consciousness had neither awareness at the time nor any

recollection afterwards, were the sort of clinical phenomena

which led Janet to focus upon the concept of ‘dissociation’: ‘the

exaggerated development of an idea, of a feeling, of a

psychological state, in a word, of a system of thoughts, which

takes place outside of the memory and the normal consciousness’

(Janet in Monahan, 2009, p39). Monahan continues “The

manifestation of ‘dissociated states’ could be fairly rudimentary

and involve only one particular aspect of the person’s life or

behaviour (as for instance some compulsive activity that

interferes with normal life but does not take it over entirely), or

it could develop to such an extent that the person alternated

between completely different personalities” (Monahan, 2009,

p39)

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Monahan quotes two contemporary clinicians who work within

the context of Janetian dissociation psychology. The clinicians

(Van der Hart and Friedman) define the term ‘Fixed Idea’ as

follows:

“Fixed ideas (idees fixes) are thoughts or mental images which

take on exaggerated proportions, have a high emotional charge,

and in, hysterical patients, become isolated from the habitual

personality, or personal consciousness… when dominating

consciousness, they serve as the basis for behaviour. These ideas

also manifest themselves in what we now term flashbacks or

intrusive thoughts. Janet considered them dissociative

phenomena.” (Van der Hart and Friedman in Monahan, 2009,

p40)

In order to demonstrate similarity, Monahan then compares

Janet’s fixed idea to Jung’s complex. She quotes Jung defining

complex as follows:

“What then, scientifically speaking, is a “feeling-toned complex”?

It is the image of a certain psychic situation which is strongly

accentuated emotionally and is, moreover, incompatible with the

habitual attitude of consciousness. This image has a powerful

inner coherence, it has its own wholeness and, in addition, a

relatively high degree of autonomy, so that it is subject to the

control of the conscious mind to only a limited extent, and there

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behaves like an animated foreign body in the sphere of

consciousness.” (Jung in Monahan, 2009, p41)

So, if the unconscious complex impacts on our psychology and

behaviour… and we have little conscious control over it… then

it’s relatively hypnotic in those cases proportional to the

strength of the complex.

So the continuity of consciousness in modern man and woman…

is still fragile. In the neurotic the continuity of consciousness

often has to be fought for. In the psychotic, the hypnotic complex

wins and the continuity of consciousness is completely

destroyed. I will now quote Jung at length. Keep in-mind that

the complexes that Jung refers to are all the more precisely

defined if we label them ‘HYPNOTIC COMPLEXES’… and that

the strength of the hypnosis and/or weakness of consciousness is

determined by the strength of the complex and whether we are

referring to neurotics or psychotics.

Extracted from Jung, 1939b, ‘The Psychogenesis of

Schizophrenia’

Par 510: “The abaissement

(1) Causes the loss of whole regions of normally controlled

contents.

(2) Produces split-off fragments of the personality.

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(3) Hinders normal trains of thought from being consistently

carried through and completed.

(4) Decreases the responsibility and the adequate reaction of the

ego.

(5) Causes incomplete realizations and thus gives rise to

insufficient and inadequate emotional reactions.

(6) Lowers the threshold of consciousness, thereby allowing

normally inhibited contents of the unconscious to enter

consciousness in the form of autonomous invasions”.

Jung explains the difference between neurotic and psychotic

dissociation:

Par 516: “Now there is no doubt that an abaissement which

leads to a neurosis is produced either by exclusively

psychological factors or by these in conjunction with other,

perhaps more physical, conditions. Any abaissement,

particularly one that leads to a neurosis, means in itself that

there is a weakening of the supreme control. A neurosis is a

relative dissociation, [My bolding] a conflict between the ego and

a resistant force based upon unconscious contents. These

contents have more or less lost their connection with the psychic

totality. They form themselves into fragments, and the loss of

them means the depotentiation of the conscious personality. The

intense conflict, on the other hand, expresses an equally intense

desire to re-establish the severed connection. There is no co-

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operation, but at least there is a violent conflict, which functions

instead of a positive connection. Every neurotic fights for the

maintenance and supremacy of his ego-consciousness and for the

subjugation of the resistant unconscious forces. But a patient

who allows himself to be swayed by the intrusion of strange

contents from the unconscious, a patient who does not fight, who

even identifies with the morbid elements, immediately exposes

himself to the suspicion of schizophrenia. His abaissement has

reached a fatal, extreme degree, when the ego loses all power to

resist the onslaught of an apparently more powerful

unconscious.”

Par 579: “whereas, in the normal and neurotic, the acute affect

passes comparatively quickly, and the chronic affect impairs the

general orientation of consciousness and its adaptability in ways

that are barely perceptible, the schizophrenic complex has an

incomparably more powerful effect. Its expressions become fixed,

its relative autonomy becomes absolute, and it takes possession

of the conscious mind so completely that it alienates and

destroys the personality.”

And here is a Jung quote that all but says that complexes are

hypnotic:

Par 200: Jung, 1934/1948: From A Review of the Complex

Theory:

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“Everyone knows nowadays that people "have complexes." What

is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is

that complexes can have us.”

Jung, 1935, extracts from the Tavistock Lectures: On the Theory

and Practice of Analytical Psychology

Par 149: The complex “has a sort of body, a certain amount of its

own physiology. It can upset the stomach. It upsets the

breathing, it disturbs the heart – in short, it behaves like a

partial personality. For instance, when you want to say or do

something and unfortunately a complex interferes with this

intention, then you say or do something different from what you

intended. You are simply interrupted, and your best intention

gets upset by the complex, exactly as if you had been interfered

with by a human being or by circumstances from outside.”

Jung was able to hypnotise patients himself. However, he

preferred people to find their own way to health… with mere

guidance from the analyst. Nevertheless the following extract

from a paper by Sonu Shamdasani demonstrates that Jung did

practice hypnosis on a patient. Shamdasani quotes Jung as

saying: “You can hypnotize suitable subjects to such an extent

that they lose the sensation of the body completely. I made an

experiment once with a young girl at the Polyclinic. She was a

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bit hysterical, and I told one of my assistants to entangle her in

an interesting conversation. He was a nice young man and it

went beautifully, and then I went up behind her and pushed a

needle into her neck about a centimeter deep. It would naturally

be painful and she did not even wince, but her pupils contracted.

The physiological person felt the pain, but her whole libido was

in the man and withdrawn from the surface of the body, so she

felt nothing seriously.” (Jung in Shamdasani, 2001)

Hypnotic Complex Psychology works the same way that Pavlov’s

Stimulus Response works. Pavlov’s dogs with its bells and dogs

is clearly visible to the external observer whereas much Complex

Psychology is invisible relative to Pavlovs stimulus response

psychology. However, in ‘all’ cases of Hypnotic Complex

Psychology the inner world is changed. We can outline some

more examples of the ‘changed’ inner world starting with PTSD.

In PTSD, a person traumatised by the memory of a bus crash

may be watching TV with a friend when (innocently) a bus is

seen on the TV show. The friend may think nothing of it but the

mind of the PTSD sufferer may have been entirely dissociated

due to the traumatic stimulus that is the bus. Even less

predictable is the simple over-emphasis on consciousness that

results in addiction to a mind-set. This gives birth to an hypnotic

opposition complex (or hypnotic opposition complexes) that can

be triggered by various stimulus resulting in an automatic

dissociation of the conscious psyche. (i.e., a dissociation of the

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addictive mindset). If introverted this will result in listlessness,

depression. If extraverted it will result in an hysterical outburst.

In cases of neurosis as opposed to psychosis the dissociation is

temporary and that means that ego consciousness is able to be

re-established.

Dreams

Dreams are another psychological experience that usually lack

conscious control. Thus they are hypnotic. Of course, the deeper

the dream, the more realistic it is, the more hypnotised you are.

People who suffer nightmares following PTSD experience

horrifically realistic flashback dreams… that force the sufferer

to re-live the trauma.

Sonu Shamdasani, the forementioned historian of Jungian

psychology and psychoanalysis writes that “August Forel (1848 –

1931), who played a pivotal role in introducing hypnotic

suggestion into Switzerland claimed that the characteristics of

the dream were the same as those experienced under hypnosis.”

(Shamdasani, 2003, p111)

Projective Identification

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“Jung used the term [participation mystique] from 1912 onwards

to refer to relations between people in which the subject, or part

of him, attains an influence over the other, or vice versa. In more

modern psychoanalytic language, Jung was describing projective

identification in which a part of the personality is projected into

the object, and the object is then experienced as if it were the

projected content.

Participation mystique or projective identification are early

defences which also appear in adult pathology. They enable the

subject to control the external object or ‘colour’ it according to an

inner world-view.” (Samuels, Shorter, Plaut, 1986, p106)

Projective identification is a term accepted by modern

psychoanalysis. It is entirely consistent with the emphasis in

this paper on the ‘hypnotic’ side of psychology. The common-

place psychological tactic of striving for power and control occurs

through projective identification. A tight linkage is made

between one’s internal world and the outer object. The problem

of course, is that due to the value placed on the object, it can be

painfully dissociated by the hypnotic opposition complexes. I

recommend a way of overcoming this problem in the conclusion

to this paper. (see below).

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Conclusion

“The unity and continuity of consciousness are such late

acquisitions that there is still a fear that they might get lost

again”

(Jung, CW 10, 1958a, par 386)

The problem of the discontinuity of consciousness cries out for an

answer… how can we attain continuity of consciousness? I am

(thankfully) not grandiose or delusional so do not claim to be

able to write an answer on the collective side of this. I do not

know how (collectively) humanity will overcome the problem of

the discontinuity of consciousness. Technological innovation will

help with PTSD due to harm to our physical integrity being

reduced or vanquished thanks to technological progress.

However, that is no use to the individual suffering today who

wants an answer today. I do offer a view of how the individual

that strives for more consciousness yet suffers from hypnotic

complexes that dissociate his or her conscious mind can heal.

You see, such a person probably began striving for more

conscious power and control due to a belief that they previously

lacked power and control and had suffered because of it. Little

wonder then that they opted for power and control psychology.

He or she will have unknowingly used ‘projective identification’

in order to attain psychological power and control. However, as

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we have seen this results in hypnotic opposition complexes that

dissociate the conscious psyche. Thus the poor sufferer thinks

that (s)he suffers no matter what (s)he does. Such a person

(given that their psychological approach is still failing) should be

open to what I will recommend here: Conscious freedom yes, but

calmer, less value placed on whatever it is that you originally

attached too for power and control. Be less interested in that

thing so that you can be psychologically balanced and

psychologically free. This will dilute or vanquish the power of

the hypnotic complexes to the degree that you lessen your

interest in whatever it is that you attach too for power and

control. Once you are balanced and psychologically free you will

feel less anxiously vigilant concerning falling back into the

distressing hypnotic-state of mind. Also, recognise others

psychological errors as educative (as opposed to offensive) so

that you do not make those errors yourself. Or so that you

correct those errors in yourself.

Bibliography

Jung, C, G. (1907) Reviews of Psychiatric Literature In Collected

Works, vol. 18, The Symbolic Life. London: Routledge & Kegan

Paul, 1977.

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Jung, C. G. (1934/1948) A Review of the Complex theory. In

Collected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the

Psyche. Pantheon Books: 1960.

Jung, C. G. (1935) The Tavistock Lectures: The Theory and

Practice of Analytical Psychology. In Collected Works, vol. 18,

The Symbolic Life. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977.

Jung, C. G. (1939b) The Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia. In

Collected Works, vol. 3, The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease.

Princeton University Press, 1960.

Jung, C. G., (1958a) A Psychological view of Conscience. In

Collected Works, vol. 10, Civilisation in Transition. New Jersey:

Princeton University Press.

Monahan, P, (2009) C. G. Jung: Freud’s Heir or Janet’s? The

influence upon Jung of Janet’s dissociationism International

Journal of Jungian Studies, p33-49.

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Samuels, A, Shorter, B, & Plaut, F, (1986) A Critical Dictionary

of Jungian Analysis (Routledge& Kegan Paul Ltd)

Shamdasani, S, (2001) The Magical Method that works in the

dark: C. G. Jung, hypnosis and suggestion. Journal of Jungian

Practice and Theory, 3: 5-18.

Shamdasani, S, (2003) Jung and the making of Modern

Psychology: The Dream of a Science (Cambridge University

Press)

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