In ordinary everyday conversation, when someone observes that a friend, family member, or colleague “has a hang-up” about something, we generally mean that they seem to have a “sensitive spot” on the subject, or that they seem to have a recognizable pattern of reactions to certain things. situations or topics.
These are observations from a good layman that capture two of the most central qualities of what psychologists call “complexes.”
1. They develop around psychological wounds.
2. They have a repetitive and stereotyped quality.
Carl Jung describes complex
The first psychologist to describe and discuss this psychological phenomenon was Carl Jung. Jung wrote of what he called “feeling-toned complexes of ideas.” The phrase was later shortened to “complex”.
However, his original description adds an important additional detail to our understanding of the complex.
3. Complexes have a particular emotional tone or value.
Complexes can be personal or impersonal.
There are certain situations that are so common and universal in human experience that in all times and places, human beings seem to have developed complexes of ideas and behaviors around them.
complex archetype they are not personal. They arise around essential human experiences such as leadership, romantic love, death, birth, the image of the hero, the trickster, the wise man or woman, the child, and so many others.
- Our organized emotional and behavioral responses to these concepts suggest that they are inherent or instinctive reaction patterns in human beings.
personal complexes they have both a universal and an individual aspect
Sigmund Freud’s famous Oedipus and Electra complexes describe the universal tensions within the parent-child relationship as the child becomes aware of the limits and restrictions regarding his intimate relationship with his parent of the opposite sex. The intensity and problem-producing quality of this universal experience will vary depending on the real-life characteristics of the parents and the family situation.
- Fears of losing the love and support of parents, feeling inferior, feelings of competition with siblings or peers, fears of being rejected or excluded from the group are universally terrifying situations that must be psychologically defended by all human beings.
Because complexes are organized around a particular emotional tone, they can be positive or negative.
For example:
- A positive mother complex expects all older women or “mother” figures to be loving and helpful, but a negative mother complex treats all women who trigger it as mean, demanding, or dangerous.
- An authority complex may automatically treat authority figures positively as saviors or negatively as exploiters.
How does a personal psychological complex develop?
A personal complex is a defense system that we develop after an emotional injury. It is a set of ideas, attitudes, expectations, behaviors… and the feelings that accompany them… that we subconsciously hope will prevent a similar disaster in the future.
Typical behavioral strategies developed within complexes are common human relationship strategies:
Please, appease, avoid, aggressiveness, competition, withdrawal and many others. The same response appears in every triggering situation, whether it is appropriate and helpful or not.
Multiple complexes can be activated at once.
It can function perfectly normal with most people around a conference table at work, but if you have a “sister complex” (about being competitive with your historical sister), that complex functions as a computer application underneath. surface and turns on automatically when you have to talk to a particular colleague.
- He can be competitive with her without realizing it… even while he’s being perfectly reasonable with everyone else.
- At the same time, you may have a parent complex at work that affects your responses to your supervisor and an abandonment complex that kicks in when your ideas are rejected.
- You could also have an inferiority or superiority complex that colors your interactions with others in a self-critical or self-aggrandizing way.
It’s easy to see how having complexes turned on can cause endless interpersonal tension and misery.
“Today everyone knows that people ‘have hang-ups.’ What is less well known, though much more important theoretically, is that hang-ups can have us.” – C. G. Jung (1948, paragraph 200)
Complexes originally have good intentions and are meant to protect us from pain and danger.
But as they become automatic and autonomous, they can cause endless problems because when a complex is activated, we don’t really control it.
Jung said: “An activated complex puts us momentarily in a state of difficulty, of compulsive thought and action.” (Jung CW 8 p96)
A well-developed complex can accumulate enough memories, experiences, and feelings around itself to begin to function as a partial or “splintered” personality. If the triggering situation is strong enough, it can sometimes even temporarily hijack the ego. This state is called “identification with the complex” and in this situation the worldview of the complex temporarily takes precedence. When we get out of one of these states we can say:
“I have no idea what happened to me,” “That was so unlike me,” or “I don’t know what possessed me!”
These reactions capture the feeling that we have responded from a part of ourselves that was not actually under our conscious control. There are even times when we may not fully remember what we said while influenced by a complex, or we may have the feeling that we have been “watching” ourselves say and do outrageous and uncharacteristic things.
When we see another person trapped by a complex we can notice a noticeable change in expression, posture or tone of voice and say: “He was not himself.”
A complex is a distorting lens.
To maintain its integrity as a splintered personality and to carry out the protective mission that is its reason for being, a complex filter will filter out or dismiss as unimportant any new, confusing, or contradictory information, preferring to focus on those situations that support its view of the world. world.
This is why a person who is trapped by a complex is so maddeningly impossible to reason and so rejects contradictory information offered by others.
A woman who is gripped by a men’s infidelity complex will never be reassured by her husband’s affirmations of love and assurances that he will not leave her, no matter how many ways he proves himself.
Identify the characteristic components of your particular complexes.
As you begin to examine the experiences that you observe or that are pointed out to you as strange, you will probably notice that they always seem to occur in particular circumstances, such as…
- When your partner goes on a trip
- When you have been criticized for something
- When experiencing or suspecting rejection
…or with a particular type of person.
- Attempting to please or interest a “fatherly” type of man
- Being jealous or competitive with a certain type of woman.
- Feeling “weak” whenever confronted by an authority figure
As you are able to predict when you can be activated, you will empower yourself to choose to take another type of action or ignore the impulses of your complex.
Two other signs that someone is trapped by a complex:
- The expressed emotions seem too intense for the situation that triggered them.
- The language is peppered with absolutes and extremes: “always”, “never”, “no one ever”, “everyone always”.
Acknowledging the experience “after the fact” is helpful because it allows you to engage in “damage control.”
The more adept you are at identifying your complex-driven behavior, the quicker you’ll be able to say “I did it again” and take steps to repair the situation by apologizing, explaining, or trying again in a different frame of mind.
Because complexes struggle to survive and arouse fear and resistance when we try to examine them, it is often helpful to work with an outsider.
Discovering and dealing with these automatic responses is necessary because a complex can act like an ill-trained attack dog, growling and biting (or inappropriately snuggling) at friends and foes alike, causing terrible disruptions to your relationships with friends and colleagues who are based on outdated fears, feelings and reactions.
A trusted psychologist, counselor, or friend can help you identify response patterns that are difficult to recognize from the inside and help you experiment with alternative ways of dealing with your fears.
NB: If your therapist works on a cognitive behavioral model (CBT), he or she may be more familiar with the term “schema,” which is another way of talking about the same phenomenon.
As you begin to oppose your complexes with conscious understanding and choose effective real-world strategies to deal with the “dangers” complexes were developed to deal with, they lose their power because they lose their need…and you may have the pleasant experience of having your complex-driven long-standing problems come crashing down like a house of cards.
