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MODERN AGE

A QUARTERLY REVIEW

Intrusion into the Soul of a Child


M A X P I C A R D

Translated by Henry Regnery

I of the abnormal also affects the observer:


one perceives only the fragmented, the dis-
IT IS CHARACTERISTIC of our time that edu- turbed aspect, one creates what one looks
cational problems as a rule are considered for. To take an example from classical
only in relation to the ungifted or ab- psychiatry: it is well known that Charcot
normal child; one has the impression that first described hysteria, and also that many
everything starts with the abnormal and neurotics then formed their neuroses to fit
that the normal child is considered a spe- his description. Or take a pupil who is dis-
cial case. This fits the contemporary preoc- turbed; under the disruptive eye of the ob-
cupation with the exceptional, the out of the server he becomes still more disrupted. He
ordinary. Almost all phenomena have be- may, perhaps, have been only slightly dis-
come formless, so blurred that only the ab- turbed; then his difficulty is diagnosed, the
normal makes itself evident; it is the ab- presence of the observer is sensed, the child
normal alone that catches the eye. unconsciously accommodates the observer
Only those things seem to matter which by behaving as he is expected to behave.
are in a state of crisis, are conspicuous; It is, of course, also true that the dis-
only then do we believe them worthy of dis- turbed child, because of his difficulty, feels
cussion. Marriage, for example, is regarded himself isolated, and therefore craves atten-
not in its integrity, as something valid in tion; he needs and wishes the company of
itself which is only secondarily dependent others, of that one person who searches him
on what happens within it, but as an oc- out. Mere observation, therefore, can be
casion for crises; marriage is seen solely helpful to him. The experience of being
from the standpoint of crisis. We have de- brought out of isolation by the attention of
veloped a special language of crisis, and it the observer can of itself bring about a
is only in this terminology that discussion cure. Sympathy alone can heal without any
takes place. special therapy.
The fact, however: that one considers It should be mentioned also that many
phenomena purely from the point of view pupils today are not themselves disturbed,

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but merely reflect the disturbance around violent individual experience is dissolved
them. This has its reasons in the structure in the wholeness of the psyche, it disap-
of our time: a phenomenon is not only frag- pears in the whole, and if it cannot be com-
mented in itself, it spreads disintegration pensated for, it changes the whole; the
around it, there is no barrier to halt the dis- whole then has a different orientation than
integration of its surroundings. before. In this way a single calamitous
event might become the center, and could
I1 as a consequence result in a disturbance in
the child. But this center then dominates
HOWDOES analytical psychology function? the psyche, becomes the whole, so that the
( I include under this term the psycho- psyche of the child is always, even under
analysis of Freud, Jung's depth psychol- such circumstances, a whole.
ogy, Adler's individual psychology, existen- Obviously psychoses occur in children
tial analysis, etc.) which are similar in form to the psychoses
Analytical psychology attempts to put the of adults. In their nature, however, they are
child's disorder into relationship with some- entirely different, because their locus is the
thing, with his family surroundings or with soul of a child. The child lives from his
some early impression; it sets up a causal wholeness out to the elements which come
relationship between some specific event to him. It is not so with adults: here the in-
and the defect in question. Perhaps a pupil fluence of the whole is constantly less. The
has stolen something. The analytical adult lives from part to part, he connects
psychologist discovers through his analysis a new experience to the chain of existing
that the pupil has a stepmother who has experiences, and the wholeness of his
mistreated him and concludes that the sup- psyche is hardly more than something
pressed ego wanted, in compensation, to which encloses this chain of experiences
prove to itself by a daring theft that it and gives them a definite quality.
could indeed be free. The whole, closed ex- When the analytical psychologist extracts
perience which existed in the pupil before a single experience from the soul of a
the analysis is taken apart, one experience child's psyche, he takes his own adult
is explained in terms of another, until psyche as his starting point. But such a
finally the theft is explained as the end of procedure is alien to the psyche of a child,
this long causal relationship. The pupil from which no single thing can be sepa-
comes to understand that it is not necessary rated.
for him to steal and is, perhaps, freed of the I do not say that a child cannot be helped
disturbance. by such methods; I do say that such
This breaking down of a unified experi- methods are a trauma for the childish
ence into its many successive elements is psyche, even if by the use of them the
destructive of the psyche of a child. The psyche is freed of a defect. The child is
psyche of a child lives from its wholeness, forced into the adult state; he is ta!cen out
it absorbs an experience out of its own of his own world and brought perhaps into
wholeness and what it absorbs i t retains as a better one, but in so doing something is
a whole. No matter how intense an in- lost: the unique world of the child. Con-
dividual experience may be, it does not re- sider the psyche of the child in its unity-
main isolated. It has been observed how because of it the child is a child, because
little the shock of a bombardment i n the of this unity the children of all races be-
war affected the pysches of children. A long to each other, because of this unity the

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soul of the child believes, and because it al- bilities of an external situation. A dishonest
ways has this unity as a whole it can turn act, an error, that which one used to call
itself into a piece of wood, into a doll, a a sin, through a purely psychological ex-
character in a fairy story and yet always planation is no longer an act of an in-
remain itself, independent of time and dividual exercising his freedom. Through
place; a closed, whole world is always such a psychological explanation the indi-
present. And it is necessary that man in his vidual stands before his act as though in
childhood should have such a closed, front of something for which he has no re-
formed, inner world as a pattern for a sponsibility; he stands before it as a
closed and formed world later on. The stranger. The fact of his being a man has
world of the child is a distinct, primary been taken from him together with his free-
phenomenon, a given, that is to say, dom to do what he had, indeed, wanted to
beyond all human experience, a priori, do. His freedom and his humanity have
transcendent; man cannot deprive himself been thrown into an imaginary room be-
of that which was pre-given for him. hind him.
The analytical psychologist, by his Often, to be sure, a psychic or physical
method, takes the child away from the cause can be given for a wrong act and
world of the child into the world of the further wrong acts prevented by making
adult. That is also the danger in present the wrongdoer aware of the cause, but con-
day education, that the educator draws the sider what the individual looses thereby!
child too much to himself, that he breaks Where the individual chooses between good
off the world of youth for the sake of that and evil or at least stands as one who can
of the adult. The educator should bring the choose even if he cannot bring himself to
new to the child in such a way that he pro- do so, he is in the same situation as the
tects the psyche of the child. The whole- figures of the great tragedies. He does not
ness of the psyche ought not to be broken, himself partake of great tragedy, but he is
it should only be broadened; the new must at least in the place where greatness occurs.
be sensed as an increase of the whole- This place in a great world is taken from
of the whole, not of the individual. him by psychology. Richard 111, for the
psychologist, did not become a murderer
111 because he had decided to become and re-
main a king, but because he was a hunch-
I HAVE SPOKEN of the child whose act of back. But murder and a crooked back are
stealing the psychologist explained by his obviously not equivalent. What a man
family circumstances. What happens as a loses by analytical psychology one can see
result of such an explanation? A distinct by observing Richard 111 psychologically:
act against morals, a theft, is represented he is deprived of the connection with great-
to be the result of accidental family circum- ness and the world of values.
stances, almost as though the family cir-
cumstances could be exchanged for the IV
theft. The individual is no longer the cause
of a situation, but merely a result; he no LET us RETURN to the pupil who was
longer causes something, he is merely psychoanalyzed because of a theft. The im-
caused. The immediate connection of a per- pulse to steal is taken from him by the
son to a given situation is eliminated; the treatment; he is not punished either rnoral-
individual is only one of the many possi- ly or by imprisonment, but he is reduced

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as a person, because, again, his connection known. A contemporary of Hegels, Pro-
to greatness and the world of values has fessor Leo, reported that Hegel, through
been severed. Such a pupil has not been this turn of events suffered deeply, and
healed; all that has happened is that he has what he had done, even though convinced
been made operational again, he has been of its necessity, was a source of bitter strug-
repaired. In saying that, however, I do not gle and constant reproach.
wish to say that merely to retain his whole In the case of the boy who was treated
human character with its quota of blame psychoanalytically, suffering was driven out
and repentance I would not subject a pupil as a defect: suffering, which belongs to the
who had gotten into trouble to psychologi- highest category of human phenomena-
cal analysis-to leave him in his state of ill- for love, goodness, death is there where
ness to preserve the whole person would be suffering is-suffering was analyzed away;
tile most inhumane course of all. This just as a growth is removed by an opera-
would have been the aesthetic approach. I tion so was suffering reduced to a manage-
myself, iE I knew of no other therapy, able degree. The boy was freed of his dis-
would choose psychological analysis, but turbance, but at the same time lost sonie-
in so doing I would, I hope, suffer greatly, thing of the highest category; he gained
because I had been able to heal an in- something, but probably lost more. In the
dividual only by making him into a lesser case of Hegels son suffering was not taken
person. And through my suffering, through away. His burden was shared by the father,
the recognition of my own insufficiency and not only out of love for the son, but also for
my responsibility the suffering and the re- the sake of the order of the world, to which
sponsibility which the other could not feel suffering belongs. Hegel, who understood
would be replaced-but I would always be the human spirit and human history only
certain that m y suffering would be in- as idealistic abstractions, here realized con-
sufficient. I do not mean, therefore, that it cretely and on his own person that the fact
is better not to free a person from a djs- of immediate suffering and the remote ab-
order than to psychoanalyze him, I mean stractions of idealistic observation belong
that one must always be aware of the together.
danger in this form of therapy. The suffering which has been artificially
A contrast to the psychoanalytical treat- removed perhaps gathers somewhere in
ment of the erring pupil: In the recently secret and then, separated from love, good-
published third volume of Hegels letters ness: God, isolated and therefore boundless,
the following is reported: Hegel had an il- breaks loose over humanity in some
legitinlate son, Ludwig. whom he took into monstrous way, as in a war more terrible
his faniily when he Iater married. The il- than ever or in some horrible form of
legitimate son, however, felt ill at ease in cruelty.
the faniily, arid became self-centered and Another danger of psychological-analyti-
crafty. He was sent as a merchants ap- cal therapy must be mentioned. Gecause it
prentice to Stuttgart, where he embezzled fragments the whole of the psyche of the
eight groschen and was no longer per- child and destroys its unity in order to
mitted to use the name Hegel. This ini- reach the cause of the disturbance, what is
bittered hini intensely and he reacted by the limit to which one may go i n penetrat-
going as a niercenary to the Dutch East ing the psyche of another? Individual
Indies, whether sent by his father or by his means indivisible: at what point does the
own decision to escape his troubles is not investigator reach the idivisible, where he

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must stop? In all men, behind all con- also because one person, by such boring in,
sciousness and all unconsciousness, there can dominate another. One can turn the
is an area of silence into which no one is inner life of another person not only in a
permitted to speak, into which one can direction with which that person agrees,
penetrate only with silence, from whence but also in a way in which that person does
only silence comes, and into which even not wish to go at all. The method of
that One higher than mere man enters with analytical psychology penetrates into the
silence. This area is untouchable, it is so by other person before any therapy begins;
virtue of itself, it is so an sich. It is un- it goes deeper than any other form of
touchable without reason, but also with therapy, and its effect depends on such
reason, because from this area of silence in penetration. There is something totalitarian
man emanates the power of healing and about such a method: boring into the life
salvation unto man. This area of silence, of a person belongs to the totalitarian
however, can be disturbed, destroyed, by system, it is akin to the totalitarianism of
the mere fact of analysis. It is probable politics. Just as in the totalitarian system
that many cases of disturbance, without its a man is no longer secure in his own house
having been noticed, have been healed by from invasion by the almighty state, SO the
this area of silence. Perhaps we should en- inviolability of the psyche is no longer safe
trust more to this area of silence and to the either.
wholeness of the psyche than we do. We It is true that the therapist must himself
should trust to their power more than to go through analysis before he is permitted
psychotherapy, but who has the neces- to psychoanalyze others. It is assumed that
sary courage? Our time respects activity he thereby receives the authorization to en-
above all else, and believes only in living ter the psyche of another. But this is not a
actively; it is not waiting that counts,. but genuine authorization. Only he who is
immediate action. Only what is done visibly aware that at every moment he must prove
seems real. Quiet, invisible activity, the ac- himself before One who stands higher than
tivity of non-activity, which is equivalent man really has such authority. The analysis
to the area of silence, counts no longer. which the psychotherapist goes through is
A UNESCO official told me that his or- nothing more than the secularization of the
ganization had sent questionnaires to vari- religious act by which man test himself
ous schools. They wished to know how six- before God.
teen to eighteen year old students felt about One enters the inner life of another-
death, what they were prepared to die for. that is merely a continuation of the general
One single answer, he thought, was signifi- expansion of our time. In the external
cant. It came from a class of girls: they world there is nothing left to conquer, so
didnt want to think about death, and what now one takes on the inner world. External-
they were prepared to die for was a private ly, everything is too bright, one is blinded
matter, and should remain so. I was by the brightness of the innumerable ob-
touched by this, still more by the fact that jects; in the darkness and emptiness of the
the gentleman from UNESCO told me that inner life one is exposed to no such harsh-
he felt ashamed of himself after receiving ness. Emptiness and darkness place no
this letter, ashamed that he had tried to vio- limits on expansion.
late the inner privacy of these girls. Psychoanalysis takes place in time, that
The psyche is endangered when one tries is to say, a certain measure of time passes
to bore into it by analysis. It is endangered until the state of thc psyche has been in-

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vestigated, but that is not time in which one self, existing in itself, depending on itself.
person shares the fullness of his life with A psyche so organized cannot react at
another. Here he lives only in a part of time once; it is much too much complete in it-
with another, in that part which involves self. It is nowhere so incomplete, as is the
the symptoms of the disturbance. It can case with adults, that it can take to itself
take a long time before the meaning of something coming from outside. The
these symptoms has been determined, but psyche of a child doesnt add, but as-
such a time is still only a prolonged similates; it doesnt adapt itself to a new
moment, for this time has no depth, it is not experience, but encompasses the experi-
filled with the fullness of shared life. Time ence. If it encounters a new experience,
is merely touched on the surface by some- however, which it cannot assimilate at
thing with a purpose, and only that is ad- once, then it must first go out of itself, leave
mitted which belongs to the diagnosis. The itself. It must leave much behind before it
analyst is with the other only because of the can approach something new. A whole
demands of his method. Thus the soul is world is risked in order to take the new ex-
cheated of time, it is offered only purpose- perience to itself, so that the movement
ful, clock time. Analytical psychology is a away from this world is clumsy, slow. The
reduction of mutuality to a methodological child holds fast to itself.
process without love. It may perhaps hap- It is not as with adults, where nothing
pen now and then that an analyst over- is risked, where the most recent new ex-
comes his method through love, but what perience meets another hardly less recent
person who professionally analyzes one dis- experience. With a child, as I have said, a
turbed person after another can trust him- world is risked, which is much: a whole
self to offer love to each? The analytical world in which every part is really not a
method serves as a substitute for love. part, but represents the whole, so much is
everything tied together. The adult later
v tries consciously to regain this closed world
of the child, which is a divine natural gift.
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY concerns itself not But without once having had this world of
only with the disturbed pupil, but with the the child, the adult would not even have the
healthy pupil as well. It subjects him to desire to form his inner and outer life as
tests to determine whether, how and to a world to himself. The longing of the hu-
what extent he is gifted. Such tests, how- man spirit for a world created by itself
ever, cannot really determine whether a comes from the memory of the world of the
child is gifted, since the psyche of a child child. This world of the child undergirds
is treated in such testing as nothing more the world of the adult, it is necessary to the
than a psychological apparatus, which adult. Only when infinite variety has been
registers whatever is brought to it. This experienced can grace find its way in once
psychology proceeds from the entireIy false more. (Kleist)
assumption that the psyche of a child sim- A child, enclosed in its round world, can-
ply waits for an opportunity to react, that not react quickly and with clever combina-
it exists only when it reacts. The psyche tions. Its shyness makes it hesitate to go out
of a child, however, is not at all prepared of its closed world, and it is essential that
to register impressions. It is closed in it- a child have such shyness, for shyness i s
self; round, so to speak, turned into itself, among the most valuable attributes a per-
not in an egoistical sense, but fulfilling it- son can have. In the psychological tests

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that we have been discussing, however, the Psychoanalysis belongs in its intellectuar
child does best that is least shy, the child structure to the positivistic psychologistics
that is most prepared to react quickly to of the nineties, as does the individuaI
everything. The world of the child on the psychology of Adler and the depth
one hand, the psychological testing ap- psychology of Jung, the latter being a
paratus on the other-these are not equiva- pseudo-romantic psychologistic. This psy-
lent. The testing apparatus has little regard chologistic has long been superseded, above
for shyness, it proceeds as though such shy- all by the phenomenonology of Husserr.
ness did not exist, it deprives the adult al- But it is always true that when a philo-
ready present in the child of its shyness. sophic doctrine has been superseded its
The shyness, however, which a man has practical influence continues. This does not
from his childhood is an essential part of mean that a new pedagogy should be based
the man. on Husserl's phenomenonology alone ; what
One cannot say that the reactions to I mean is that it must again begin with the
psychological testing are not true. They are whole phenomenon, with the whole being
indeed true, but not of the whole person, of the child, primarily with that, and only
only of that part of the person that is noth- secondarily with the reactions of this being.
ing more than the object of the psychologi-
cal apparatus. If one wishes through the VI
process of education to obtain not the whole
person, but a partial person, then one can MAN HAS INDEED a psychological struc-
indeed operate in accordance with the test- ture, but he is not thereby characterized as
ing apparatus of psychology. Consider for a man; he is characterized by the act of
example how many pathological or neurotic freedom by which he chooses to live above
symptoms could have been found in Goethe this structure, A man can be as his struc-
or Bismarck. They could all have been de- ture determines, but he does not have to be.
termined by the testing apparatus of An animal must be as it has been created,
psychology, but that would not have been a man need not be ; man can live above his
the whole Goethe or the whole Bismarck. structure, can live beyond it. A person first
The apparatus of psychology can experi- begins to be a person when he lives beyond
ence something only in part. this structure. Perhaps he was given such
a structure only as a challenge to live
It is indeed a most disturbing thing, beyond it. I can believe that the psy-
one of the many frightening examples chological structure wishes its owner to live
of the fact that the knowledge and un- beyond it, presses him to live beyond it. For
derstanding that have been gained by this reason one can never say that on the
human association are replaced by basis of his psychological structure a per-
quantitative observation, and responsi- son in a certain situation will react in a pre-
ble choice by the counting of points. determined way. When a person is faced
What a great transformation the mean- with a certain situation he may make a de-
ing of the word test has gone through,
cision which he would never have believed
from having to do with personal
achievement, with accomplishment, himself capable of, to say nothing of what
therefore with risk and life, to rational- the apparatus of psychology might have
ized testing, which measures a person predicted. There is the moment of the
like a robot. (Wilhelm Stahlin in psychological reaction, which is a moment
Quatember. ) of the apparatus of psychology, and there

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is the moment of eternity, when a person, when the actual paternal, fatherly role has
through the act of free choice confronts a relationship to the Father who is father
eternity. of all. In the same way the mother must ap-
It is difficult today to complete the act pear as the symbol of care and protective-
of freedom, since our whole existence is no ness before there is any occasion for actual
longer one of action so much as reaction. care and protection. The fact of the exis-
No one any longer does anything of his own tence of the mother is what makes care and
accord, everyone waits until the other does protection possible-that is a fact which
something so that he can react to it. The corresponds to the psyche of a child. For
whole productive process is based on psy- the teacher it is exactly the same: he exists
chological tests, and the miserable part of not merely as one who knows more than
it is that the productive apparatus can his pupils, but as one who is a teacher
make use of a person only as a function of beyond the mere fact of teaching, as one
a psychological process. The school, how- from whom teaching emanates before he
ever, should help the individual to be a actually begins to teach. The true physician
whole person irrespective of the demands is one for whom the process of healing be-
of the productive process, which can only gins the moment he enters the sick room,
use the reduced person delivered by the ap- before he examines or prescribes, and just
paratus of psychological evaluation. To be as healing emanates from the true physi-
a whole person means not to be as deter- cian so must teaching emanate from the
mined by the apparatus of psychology, but teacher as soon as he opens the door of the
to live beyond and above it. If this were schooI room, before he has explained any-
done, the productive process will change thing. The concrete act of teaching only
of itself. catches up to what, through the manner of
The point, then, is to live beyond the the teacher, was accomplished in advance.
psychological structure. The completeness, The teacher-pupil relationship cannot be
the closedness, therefore, of the psyche of created through subject matter, it can only
the child must be protected against the ag- be strengthened, confirmed by it.
gressiveness of psychology. The psyche of This is how the psyche of the child, this
the child is something original, primary, a primary given, exists in connection with
given, but it is so only when close to other the other primary, given phenomena with
primary, given phenomena. which it is related. These primary, given
Such a primary phenomenon, such a phenomena are not pure factualities
given, is represented above all by the (Holderlin), they go beyond the factual,
parents. It is not enough that the father even beyond the personal, they are an ob-
appears to the child merely as the provider jective quality, and so long as the child
of food and shelter, the primary element of stands in a relationship to this objective
the paterna1 must become evident to him. quality he is safe. The all too subjective
(Both Joachim Bodamer and Gabriel Mar- is absorbed by the objectivity of these phe-
cel have pointed this out). The paternal as nomena, the dislocations and anormalities
the symbol of the provider existed before of the subjective can be neutralized.
the providing father, as did the paternal as From the following example one will rec-
the symbol of authority before paternal au- ognize the difference between analytical
thority was exercised ; the father must exist psychology and a conception which arises
as more than merely the older, the more ex- from the whole being. A boy rebelled
perienced. That, however, is only possible against any task given him by his father or

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his teacher. Analysis made the boy aware a sense of mutuality in this broad world of
that his father was tyrannical and, in his primary phenomena. His psyche is ab-
tyrannical fashion, gave the boy orders un- sorbed into the wholeness of this world; he
reasonably. As a result of the analysis the is now really healed. Analytical psychology
boy became more tractable, resistance merely repairs, which is often much, but
stopped, and he was able to get along in healing is something quite different from
school. That was much, but soon after he repairing.
relapsed into a much more serious state- One should not remove a psychic defect
he had not been healed by analysis, only from a person by analysis, one must help
temporarily repaired. him so that he can live with his psychosis,
Healing came about when the boy later or so that his life and it are shared, with-
discovered that his father was more than out his being aware of it, by others.
someone who gave orders, that he was
It is strange, that the inner life of man
father first of all, and through the discovery
has been observed in such a paltry
of this primary phenomenon the boy on fashion and treated with so little
his own found his way to other primary imagination. What we call psychology
phenomena, to goodness, loyalty, to God. is one of those masks which have as-
The son no longer stood before his father sumed the places in the sanctuary where
on the narrow basis of the factual, but in real images of the gods should stand.
the broad relationship of many primary (Novalis)
phenomena which transcend the factual.
Father and son now encounter one another
from this broad base, no longer in narrow Originally published under the title Einbruch
in die Kinderseele, Eugen Rentsch Verlag, Erlen-
opposition. The boy is given substance and bach-Zurich, Switzerland.

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