Tracking the Elusive Human, Vol. 2: An Advanced Guide to the Typological Worlds of C.G. Jung, W.H. Sheldon, Their Integration, and the Biochemical Typology of the Future by Arraj James

Author:Arraj, James [Arraj, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inner Growth Books and Videos, LLC
Published: 2011-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

PART III: An Integrated Typology

Chapter 8: An Integrated Typology

The year 1921 saw the modern beginning of typology with the publication of Jung's Psychological Types and Kretschmer's Physique and Character . C.A Meier in his paper on psychological types comments about Kretschmer's book: "...it is a shame that this most genial contribution to psychiatry has never been decently evaluated in respect to its relation to Jungian psychology." (p. 278) And this is even truer in regards to Sheldon's somatotype and temperament index. I can think of no better way to rescue Sheldon's work from the obscurity in which it has fallen than to integrate it into Jungian typology where it can be brought into relation to the process of individuation, and a full complement of therapeutic techniques. And Jung's psychology would gain from this integration as well, by becoming more conscious of the biological foundation implicit in psychological types, finding in somatotypes a gateway by which to bring psychological types in contact with the exciting advances taking place in neurobiology and genetics, and by mounting an attack on the difficult problem of type diagnosis.

Jung makes it clear in the beginning of Chapter X of Psychological Types that his typology has a biological foundation, and this is a position he never changed. More than 25 years later he wrote, "My typology is based exclusively on biological data." (Letters, Vol. I, p. 453) These foundations were the two ways that organisms adapted: "The one consists in a high rate of fertility, with low powers of defense and short duration of life for the single individual; the other consists in equipping the individual with numerous means of self-preservation plus a low fertility rate. This biological difference, it seems to me, is not merely analogous to, but the actual foundation of, our two psychological modes of adaptation." (p. 331-2) He goes on to describe how two children in the same home situation can show very different attitudes, and if they deviate from this disposition they can land in neurosis. As to the basis of this disposition, he states, "Physiological causes of which we have no knowledge play a role in this." (p. 333)

But this was a path that Jung was destined not to follow. He had his hands full upholding the sovereignty of the psyche against the materialism of the 19th century, and its view of the mind as the epiphenomenon of the brain. He wanted to explore the nature of the psyche as psyche, and he was wary of anything that hinted of reductionism. These difficult inner explorations of the psyche were his particular gift and absorbed all his energy. But we should not turn this predisposition into some kind of separation of mind and body on Jung's part. He was keenly aware of the profound unity between the two. "In fact so intimate is the intermingling of body and psychic traits that not only can we draw far-reaching inferences as to the constitution of the psyche from the constitution of the body, but we can also infer from psychic peculiarities the corresponding bodily characteristics.

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