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Research in Analytical Psychology and Jungian
Studies Series
Series Advisor: Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology,
Essex University, UK

The Research in Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies series features scholarly
works that are, broadly speaking, of an empirical nature. The series comprises
research-focused volumes involving qualitative and quantitative research,
historical/archival research, theoretical developments, heuristic research,
grounded theory, narrative approaches, collaborative research, practitioner-
led research, and self-study. The series also includes focused works by clinical
practitioners, and provides new research informed explorations of the work of
C.G. Jung that will appeal to researchers, academics, and scholars alike.

Books in this series:

Time and Timelessness

Temporality in the theory of Carl Jung
Angeliki Yiassemides

Apophatic Elements in the Theory and Practice of Psychoanalysis

Pseudo-Dionysius and C.G. Jung
David Henderson

C.G. Jung and Hans Urs von Balthasar

God and evil – A critical comparison
Les Oglesby

Bridges to Consciousness
Complexes and complexity
Nancy M. Krieger
Bridges to Consciousness
Complexes and complexity

Nancy M. Krieger
First published 2014
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 N. M. Krieger
The right of N. M. Krieger to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Krieger, Nancy M.
Bridges to consciousness : complexes and complexity / Nancy M. Krieger.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-415-82875-8 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-0-203-58147-6 (ebook) 1.
Consciousness. 2. Jungian psychology. I. Title.
BF311.K6975 2013
153--dc23
2013024066
ISBN: 978-0-415-82875-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-58147-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by GreenGate Publishing Services, Tonbridge, Kent
Contents

List of figures vii

List of tables viii
Preface ix
Foreword by Joseph Cambray xi
Acknowledgements xiv

1 A Jungian neuroscience of consciousness 1

PART I
Introductory material 7
2 Investigation of consciousness 9

3 A theory of complexes 18

4 Dynamic systems theory (DST) 38

5 Constellation of a complex 54

PART II
Application to analytical psychology 71
6 Neural correlates of the constellated complex 73

7 A theory of archetypes 95

8 Constellation of an archetype 123

vi Contents

9 Development of the ego-complex 136

10 The psychic landscape 160

11 Three bridges and consciousness 170

References 177
Index 198
Figures

3.1 Structure of a complex 21

4.1 Complex as a point attractor 51
4.2 Archetype as emergent property 52
4.3 Complex in relation to the body 52
4.4 The emergence of consciousness 53
5.1 Constellation of a complex 61
5.2 Possible ways the archetype may manifest 62
5.3 Attractors in state space 63
5.4 First level of emergence 64
5.5 Second level of emergence 66
5.6 Third level of emergence 67
5.7 Enslavement of the dynamical hierarchy 67
6.1 The flow of information during the constellation of a complex 91
7.1 The psychoid or archetype-as-such 97
7.2 The archetype positioned within MacLean’s triune brain 98
7.3 The generic archetype, from instinct to image 100
7.4 Representation of the archetype as viewed by Anthony Stevens 103
7.5 Representation of the archetype as viewed by Saunders and Skar 104
7.6 Representation of the archetype as viewed by Hogenson 105
7.7 Representation of the archetype as viewed by Maxson McDowell 106
7.8 Representation of the archetype as viewed by Jean Knox 107
8.1 Normal consciousness 126
8.2 Consciousness during the constellation of an archetype 126
10.1 The psychic landscape in a threatening situation 163
10.2 The psychic landscape in a situation of need 165
10.3 The psychic landscape of a narcissistic person 166
Tables

3.1 Affect and the life situation 24

3.2 Comparison of psychological theories 29
3.3 The dual memory system 30
5.1 Instinct, affect and the life situation 59
5.2 Examples of specific complexes 68
6.1 Summary of research findings with regard to emotion 80
6.2 Sequence of events leading to the establishment of meaning 89
7.1 Instinct, affect and the life situation 109
11.1 Levels of consciousness 174
Preface

My first encounter with dynamical systems was as an undergraduate physics

student in the late 1960s. The physics building at the University of Michigan
at that time was a modern, rectangular eyesore amidst the otherwise beauti-
ful gothic architecture of the campus, but its long, straight hallways were an
excellent place to calibrate the then new lasers. It is the work of Herman
Haken, who was then developing much of the mathematical explanation
behind the working of lasers, which forms the theoretical basis for my inves-
tigation of the psyche as a dynamical system. For over 40 years since then
I worked in IT. I spent many of the later years designing message flows in
distributed systems, determining which system had what information at what
time and how it could get to where it was needed using, for the most part,
standardised messages.
In 1999 I started my training at the C.G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht. The
research for this paper started with my diploma thesis (completed in 2006)
for the newly founded International School of Analytic Psychology (ISAP) in
Zurich. The principle orientation of that paper, ‘The Experience of the Self in
the Analytic Relationship’, was clinical, although it did address the topic of the
neurological underpinnings of consciousness. I made no specific reference to
complexity theory at that time.
My interest in complexity theory developed quickly with my reading dur-
ing the first months of research for my PhD, principally from my readings in
consciousness studies around the theories of Bernard Baars and the Global
Workspace (2005). By 2008, one and a half years into the thesis, the idea of
including the complex as an attractor in a dynamical system had become a cen-
tral element in my research. That Autumn I visited Dr Harald Atmanspacher
at the Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene (IGPP)
in Freiburg. Dr Atmanspacher works in theoretical neuroscience. His back-
ground in the physical sciences gives him a different perspective from others
coming from a medical, psychological, or philosophical discipline. He encour-
aged me to orient my research to track the correlation between the micro- and
macro-levels of the emerging brain-psyche system.
x Preface

After working on this for a while I realised that I needed to investigate in

depth the ego-complex, its formation and the role it plays within the normal
functioning of the psyche.
At this point the structure and content of the thesis was fixed. Although
the range of topics covered is unusually broad, this thesis begins with a single
premise: that a feeling-toned complex, as defined by Jung, is an attractor in a
dynamical system. It attempts to substantiate this (although physical proof is
beyond the practical limits of this research) and then investigates the resulting
implications for the major concepts of Analytical Psychology.
Since my natural way of thinking is principally mathematical, I think more
in images than in words. In struggling to understand a concept it helps me
more to form an image than to formulate the concept in words. Throughout
this thesis, I have inserted images of several Jungian concepts, which I have
created and which I hope add to the reader’s understanding.
Foreword

Approximately 100 years ago, C.G. Jung underwent a series of experiences that
transformed his view of himself, the world and the psyche. Just prior to this in 1912
he delivered nine lectures at Fordham Medical College (present day Fordham
University) in New York City on ‘The Theory of Psychoanalysis’. These lectures
mark the acme of Jung’s early objective writing style; the lectures were presented
in the positivistic scientific idiom of the day and very well received by the physi-
cians in the audience. However, an alternative mode of observation and writing
was already beginning to emerge for him this year as can be seen in the second part
of Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (1912, later translated as The Psychology of the
Unconscious) in which he gave voice to his inner experiences. The following year
(1913), Jung embarked on a life-altering voyage into the interior, as he plunged
into his own unconscious material, wrestling with it until he gradually produced
his Red Book (2009), only recently available to the general public. This was the
definitive self-exploration that made Jung into the Jung we now identify with his
name; and he claims to have stopped his work on it as he needed to return to the
world and to science. In the process he drew upon old, seemingly outdated modes
of discovery while also pioneering new ways to conceive, examine and engage
the fullness of the psyche. He was crafting a new vision of the world, a cosmol-
ogy, with a science that included subjective meaning. The intuitive leaps in Jung’s
formulations left him anticipating the paradigm shifts that are only now beginning
to emerge in cosmology and the neurosciences.
It is against this backdrop that we may be best able to appreciate Dr Nancy
Krieger’s accomplishments in her exciting, rich book. First educated in con-
temporary science but then feeling the pull of the psyche, she trained as a
Jungian analyst. The combination she sought to craft out of her diverse interests
led her to seek a PhD in a new, burgeoning area of study – complex systems
applied to analytical psychology – and ultimately has produced this book. I had
the privilege and pleasure of being a reader of Dr Krieger’s dissertation as the
dual background of science and analytical psychology is something we share,
though with different formal fields of initial scientific study. I too have found
a synthesis of interests in the study of complex systems. Dr Krieger’s unique
approach has brought her to apply complexity to Jung’s theory of complexes,
xii Foreword

a contribution which will benefit various disciplines as it helps modernise and

provide a neuroscientific base for many of Jung’s hypotheses, while correcting
and amending others.
The line of inquiry followed in this book is one I feel certain would have
been close to Jung’s own interests. From explorations in the history of ideas
associated with analytical psychology, we have learned that Jung was strongly
influenced by the strands of emergentism available during his lifetime; this field
did not find fuller scientific footing until some 20 years after Jung’s death with
the advent of Complexity Theory, especially as articulated by the scientists of
the Santa Fe Institute. Modern complexity theory includes the study of self-
organizing systems with emergent properties, ideas Jung intuited but could
only ground phenomenologically. In the process he did draw upon the work
of others interested in similar perspectives. For example, Jung turned to the
British philosopher, psychologist and ethologist Conway Lloyd Morgan for the
biological aspects of his theories of archetypes, as from Morgan’s book Habit
and Instinct (1896)—in particular Morgan’s portrayals of the yucca moth and
leaf-cutting ant’s behavioral patterns. This in turn links with both Morgan’s
later publication from his Gifford lectures, Emergent Evolution (1927), and with
the work of his friend and colleague James Mark Baldwin, whose ideas have
been experiencing a renaissance in complexity studies, especially ‘the Baldwin
Effect’ linking culture and evolution; the mind is thus always embedded in its
environment. These ideas have ably been shown to stand behind Jung’s own
thinking on archetypes by George Hogenson (2001).
Similarly, study of Jung’s methodology for observing and engaging uncon-
scious material can now be straightforwardly revisioned as offering the means
for exploring emergent processes (Cambray and Carter 2004, Chapter 5). In
this book Dr Krieger further extends the use of complexity theory to Jung’s
early discoveries and refinements of ‘the feeling-toned complex’, a concept
that he retained throughout his entire career and which remains a keystone of
modern analytical psychology. At one point Jung even thought of calling his
approach ‘Complex Psychology’. By making manifest the link between the
formulation of complexes and complexity, Dr Krieger helps to ground, clarify
and reshape where needed, Jung’s intuitive insights, moving various ideas of his
from hypotheses to proto-theories capable of being more fully and rigorously
tested; she has made a major contribution to advancing Jung’s original ideas.
In the past decade there has been a growing body of university based
researchers and academics in addition to analysts studying the postulates of
analytical psychology. While the clinical dimension of this discipline is vital, it
is equally important to the health of the field for there to be in-depth explo-
ration, evaluation and reformulation of its main tenets as well as articulating
the limits of present knowledge as applied to the underlying concepts. With
experience and training in multiple areas, Dr Krieger serves as a valued guide
into the frontiers of complex psychology.
Joseph Cambray
 Foreword xiii

References
Jung, Carl, G. (1912). Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (The Psychology of the Unconscious).
Leipzig & Vienna: Franz Deuticke.
Jung, Carl, G. (2009).The Red Book: Liber Novus. New York and London: W.W. Norton
and Co.
Cambray, Joseph and Linda Carter (2004). Analytical Psychology: Contemporary perspectives in
Jungian analysis. Hove and New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Hogenson, George B. (2001). ‘The Baldwin effect: A neglected influence on C.G. Jung’s
evolutionary thinking’. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 46(4), 591–611.
Morgan, C. Lloyd (1896). Habit and instinct. London: Arnold.
—— (1927). Emergent evolution. New York: Henry Holt.
Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Anne Blonstein for the long hours of conversation before
she took ill, Andrew Fellows for his careful reading and helpful suggestions,
Roderick Main and Renos Papadopoulos for their guidance over the many
years it took for this project to mature, and most of all my doctoral supervisor
Andrew Samuels, without whom it never would have existed, and who gave
me the benefit of his vast experience as a Jungian, an academic and an author.
I am especially indebted to Dr Christian Hess, Professor Emeritus of
Neurology at the University of Bern for his reading of and advice on the medi-
cal arguments in my manuscript. Also to Dr Johannes Bircher for his assistance.
Chapter 1

A Jungian neuroscience
of consciousness

This book is based on an investigation of consciousness as an emergent phe-

nomenon of the brain and body. My starting point is what Jung described as
the constellation of an autonomous complex because in this process conscious-
ness is noticeably affected. I am not trying to validate Jungian theory with
regard to neuroscience. Since both are describing the same physical responses,
albeit from different perspectives, they must overlap. Instead, I start with a
phenomenological investigation of the autonomous complex. Based on an
analysis of the times of the various physical reactions, I consider them as a
hierarchy of dynamical systems culminating in the emergence of conscious-
ness. I believe this analysis is reasonable. Interaction of the subject with his or
her environment and society is also a factor. I approach this only indirectly,
first as perception during the constellation of the complex and second as inter-
subjectivity in the formation of the ego-complex.
Although some of my work may be applied to therapy, my background is in
the physical sciences and information technology. Consequently, my approach
is different from that of Jungian authors whose principal interest is clinical.
In my opinion, the theory of complexes has been left too much in the
background of Jungian thinking. I would hope that this work reawakens
interest in complexes in both the Jungian and wider neuroscientific research
communities.
By applying Dynamical Systems Theory and modelling of the neural cor-
relates of psychological states, the feeling-toned complex can be seen as an
attractor state in the psychic landscape. I conclude that three concepts or pro-
cesses are of primary importance to the emergence of consciousness:

● symbolisation and the emergence of meaning,

● the concept of self,1
● coordination/synchronisation over many psychological and physical levels
forming a global workspace.

Our need to understand, to find meaning within the context of one’s self
and the current situation is, I believe, our most distinguishing characteristic as
2 A Jungian neuroscience of consciousness

human beings. This process goes on continually in our everyday lives, during
the functioning of the ego-complex, but is more visible in the sudden eruption
into consciousness of an autonomous complex. It can also be experienced in
the insight brought by the constellation of an archetype.
One of the principal findings of this research reinforces Jung’s intuitive
understanding of the central role played in the manifestation of consciousness
by the coalescing of lower-level processes into a symbolic image and the sud-
den realisation of the meaning of that image for the subject.
A complex system is made up of a large number of individual elements that
interact amongst themselves and with the environment, so there is an exchange
of energy and information. The fact that it changes over time gives it a dynami-
cal nature. Nonlinear means that the changes are not regular and may be quite
radical. Complexity theory is the study of such systems. Dynamical systems
theory is the area of study within applied mathematics which is used to describe
the behaviour of such systems. I use the terms ‘complexity’ and ‘dynamical
systems’ interchangeably. In popular literature such systems are often referred
to as ‘chaotic’ and the area of study as ‘chaos theory’. This is technically incor-
rect and I avoid the term. Chaos is a more restrictive term than complexity as
chaotic systems have specific mathematical properties. It is not my intention to
investigate chaos per se, only the broader properties of complexity. Complexity
is closely related to emergence. As a system changes it may enter a state where
a property or behaviour develops which appears foreign to its original con-
figuration. I investigate the psyche as an emergent state arising from the global
functioning of the brain and the body. In this research I apply these concepts
to Analytical Psychology, particularly to the constellation of the complex and
of the archetype. Global brain functioning is considered as a complex system
whose macroscopic, emergent patterns (i.e. thoughts and behaviour) are deter-
mined by physical parameters (i.e. emotion, memory, perception).
The concept of the feeling-toned complex was among the first of the the-
ories to be developed by Jung. The theories of complexity and dynamical
systems subsequently developed in the physical sciences did not exist at the
time. I take a new look at the feeling-toned complex as a basin of attrac-
tion which competes for consciousness against other complexes to determine
behaviour. This is a view Jung might have taken if the theories had been avail-
able to him.
The importance of the link between emotion and the complex in both
the establishment of consciousness and the determination of self-esteem is also
investigated, making the work relevant to therapeutic practice, albeit without
specifically developing these ideas.
An area in Jung’s original theory which I think needs reinforcing and to be
more explicitly emphasised, is the role played by future goals in the context of
the constellation of the complex.
Since most complexes can be classified into certain distinct categories it has
been proposed that they result from universal human conditions. These could
 A Jungian neuroscience of consciousness 3

be evolutionary, in the sense that human brains function in certain ways (Jung
1909/1949 para. 728), and/or they could result from basic needs, such as the
need for food, protection and love that a new-born expects its parents to meet.
Archetypes, which are associated with each of these categories, can be viewed
as self-organising elements of the psyche according to the definition of self-
organisation in complexity theory and dynamical systems modelling.
The constellation of an archetype is a second way in which ideas can become
conscious. This is also looked at in terms of emergence, and the macro- and
micro-levels of the phenomenon are investigated in terms of their neuroscien-
tific components.
The interactions between the archetype and the complex, both at the times
of the formation and the constellation of the complex, are examined, and their
theoretical implications are looked at in detail.
Several researchers in the neurosciences have produced remarkable works
explaining their areas of expertise, while in other areas the scientific justifica-
tion of theories of mind is still scattered in scientific papers that are difficult for
non-specialists in those disciplines to understand and interpret. Some of the
models being used to understand brain functioning are highly mathematical
and thus not readily accessible.
For this valuable research to benefit people in their everyday lives, it has to
be placed in the context of its relevance to behaviour and the meaning of one’s
life. Jungian psychology is not limited to the treatment of the mentally ill. It
is applicable to the behaviour of people in all life situations because it offers
a generalised model for the functioning of the psyche. By drawing parallels
between current ideas in neuroscience and Jung’s theories, I place modern
research in a context which shows its relevance for both psychotherapy and
everyday life. I extend systems theory and apply it to the continual flux of
complexes in their competition for control of the conscious psyche.
The interplay between science and philosophy inherent in Jung’s writings
has not been adequately maintained in post-Jungian and modern Jungian writ-
ing. Although there are a handful of Jungians interested in the relation of his
work to empirical findings and to the recent findings in the neurosciences, the
majority of work done by Jungian authors has been in the philosophical, sym-
bolic and spiritual domains. This work is important, but it is also important that
the plausibility of Jung’s theories with regard to current neurological findings,
cognitive sciences and philosophies of mind be investigated.
One definition of science is the systematic acquisition of knowledge based
on experimentation and/or observation. The generally accepted scientific
method stipulates that one’s research is designed around a hypothesis, which
is either proven or disproven. The findings are to be universally reproducible
under identical conditions. Science was originally used for the study of natural
phenomena. It has been extended to the social sciences, which includes such
areas as education, history, sociology and psychology. Experimental psychol-
ogy, which was just beginning when Jung started working as a psychiatrist and