Dynamic Psychology And Psychosynthesis

DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOSYNTHESIS
ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI, M.D.
When we observe the most obvious characteristics of contemporary civilization, we are
struck by its extreme extraversion, its desire to know and master the forces of nature in
order to satisfy its ever-growing needs and demands. This is indeed the dominating trend
of our age, but it is by no means the only one, as a closer studywill reveal.
As is well known, in the course of the last seventy years a group of inquirers, which was
at first small but which gradually grew more active, turned its attention to the
investigation of the phenomena and mysteries of the human psyche. The most important
results have not been achieved by academic psychologists, but by independent
investigators. Nearly all of them wereclinicians, driven by the practical needs of their
patients and aided by the greater evidence that certain psychological phenomena acquire
when they are accentuated by a morbid condition.
The first scientist to contribute original discoveries in this field was Pierre Janet (27).
Starting with the phenomena of "psychological automatism" he found that there are many
mental activities taking placeindependently of the patient's consciousness, and even real
"secondary personalities" living behind, or alternating with, the everyday personality.
Soon after Janet a Viennese doctor, Sigmund Freud (15), began his investigations of the
unconscious psychological processes. His starting point was Breuer's cathartic method,
which consisted in recalling to the consciousness of the patient the forgottentrauma or
impressions which had produced the symptoms and releasing by means of an adequate
outlet, the strong emotions associated with them. Breuer used hypnosis for this purpose,
but Freud soon found out that the same result could be reached by the use of free
association and by the interpretation of dreams, which became the specific techniques of
psychoanalysis.
Freud demonstrated thatvarious physical symptoms and psychological disturbances are
due to instincts, drives, phantasies, buried in the unconscious and retained there by
resistances and defense mechanisms of various kinds. He also found that many
manifestations of our normal life, such as dreams, fancies, forgetting, mistakes and lapses
of behavior, and even some kinds of artistic and literary production, are due tothe same
psychological mechanisms which determine morbid symptoms in the sick. For instance,
the curious forgetting of well-known things or words is due, according to Freud, to some
connection existing between the forgotten word or fact and some painful emotion or
disagreeable event. He gives an amusing illustration of this: one day he could not
remember the name of a well-known resort on theItalian Riviera, namely, Nervi.
"Indeed," he writes, 'nerves' (in Italian nervi) give me a great deal of trouble."
On this basis Freud developed a wealth of conceptions on the genetic processes and on
the structure of the human personality which it is impossible to summarize, the more so
because they underwent considerable changes during the many years of Freud's copious
production. But hispsychoanalytic doctrines are at present well-known and have been

expounded or summarized by various writers. (A comprehensive and objective exposition
of Freudian psychoanalysis is that by Ruth L Munroe in her book Schools of
Psychoanalytic Thought (41) which also contains a clear exposition and critical
comments on the other main exponents of psychoanalytic thought.)
Freud had many pupilsand followers, some of whom contributed various developments
and modifications, while remaining in the main stream of the psychoanalytic movement;
such were Karl Abraham (1), Sandor Ferenczi (13), Wilhelm Stekel (55), Melanie Klein
(30), etc. On the other hand, some of Freud's original pupils and co-workers took
independent and even antagonistic positions and developed conceptions, methods...