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The Psychology of Personal Growth
by Ira Progoff, Ph.D.*
In his article, Dr. Progoff explains how his theories of depth
psychology can lead to personal growth, and demonstrates their
implications for therapy. He then implemented these theories through
the development of his Intensive Journal method, which is offered through a nationwide network of workshops under the auspices of Dialogue House Associates.
Although modern psychology began as a medical attempt to heal the sick
personality, it is increasingly involved in developing techniques for
drawing forth the creative capacity of man. One of the trends in
psychology for the past decade has been to explore and emphasize the
potentialities of human growth. There are some who now believe that
this new perspective is more conducive to mental health than theories
derived from the study of pathology. The resources latent in man's
unconscious depths seem to have the capacity to heal as well as to
create, and they open an inner awareness that brings with it a
meaningful connection to life.
The new orientation in psychology has two main sources. One is
the dissatisfaction of certain practitioners with the results of
psychotherapy. The other is the great need of our time for guidance in
the conduct of life and the hope that one day a science of psychology
will be able to meet this need.
Though it has been stimulated from time to time by encouraging
achievements, the task of helping the growth of personality seems to
get bogged down at critical points. The essence of the difficulty is
suggested in Freud's remark, in his study of Leonardo da Vinci, that
the dynamics of creative activity are "psychoanalytically inaccessible
to us." Some thinkers for whom Freud's insights were the starting point
have concluded that, if psychoanalysis cannot gain access to man's
creative depths, a different approach should be attempted; and it is
the persistent probings of these men that have built the new
orientation.
Within the field of psychology, the special branch that
concerns itself with the relation between mental illness and the
creative development of personality is depth psychology. That there is
more to man than shows on the surface of his behavior has been known
for centuries; it is recognized in the psychological disciplines of the
ancient Chinese and the Hindus, as well as in the works of philosophers
and novelists. Freud, however, interpreted the phenomena taking place
below the surface of consciousness in terms of systemic concepts, which
suggested definite methods of treatment. It was this structured
approach that made it possible for depth psychology to become more than
philosophy, the beginning of a promising science of man.
Whereas, for example, many cultures had recognized that there
is a message in dreams -- had even maintained that "a dream not
understood is like a letter unopened" -- Freud developed a full
framework of analysis for dreams and other phenomena of the
unconscious. It so happens that evidence has accumulated that other
hypotheses may be more valid than Freud's where the study of dreams is
concerned. But disagreement with this and other theories of his does
not invalidate the foundation he built for a science of depth
psychology, his demonstration that unconscious processes in the psyche
are as real and as subject to law and to scientific principles of
understanding as the processes of the body and other invisible
processes in nature.
The Freudian system provided a primary set of working tools
with which others could break new ground and carry depth psychology
forward. Alfred Adler, C. G. Jung, and Otto Rank were the most creative
investigators who proceeded from Freud's work, and, like him, each of
them founded a special school of thought. Adler's was called individual
psychology; Jung's, analytical psychology; and Rank's, relationship
psychology. During the first decades of the century, each of these
schools went its own way, diverging ever further from the others, but
as their experience accumulated they seemed to have reached certain
very similar conclusions.
The key conclusion which Adler, Jung, and Rank formed
independently, on the basis of years of therapeutic practice, was the
recognition that the majority of their neurotic patients had become
emotionally ill because a potentiality for growth of one kind or
another had been blocked and unable to express itself.
Each interpreted this observation in his characteristic way.
Adler saw it in terms of the individual's need to experience a meaning
in life; and he sought to replace the competitiveness of inferiority
and superiority feelings with a sense of social connection. Jung saw it
as a psychic imbalance created by the fact that traditional symbols
have lost their authority, and he turned to the integrative power of
deep dreams to provide new meanings for the individual. Otto Rank saw
it as the failure of the creative will in man to break through the
impediments of culture; to him, the neurotic part of modern man is, in
principle, a frustrated artist.
This convergence of diverse approaches suggests that something
fundamental in man has been observed; something so basic, in fact, that
it leads to a reversal of the view with which depth psychology began.
Freud's original theory was that the unconscious was composed primarily
of wishes or memories which were so painful or undesirable that they
were repressed from consciousness. The effect of such a conception was
necessarily to emphasize the negative factors in personality -- what
man cannot bear, what he cannot face. But the experience of Adler,
Jung, Rank, and others indicated that neurosis occurs in the modern
world not because of repressed fears but because something creative and
meaningful is seeking unsuccessfully to express itself in the life of
the individual. The frustration of potentiality is the root of
neurosis. The implications of this view are large. Man is not a bundle
of repressions but a bundle of possibilities, and the key to therapy
lies in reactivating the process of growth.
One of the common ways in which modern persons subjectively
experience neurosis is that their life energies are blocked; a useful
metaphor is to compare the situation of the neurotic to a weak stream
with a boulder in it, the flow of life energy being the equivalent of
the stream. The traditional approach in psychoanalysis is to try to get
rid of the boulder by breaking it up, "analyzing it out." Sometimes it
is feasible to do this, although most psychoanalysts admit it is
exceedingly difficult. But even if the analytical process is
successful, even if the boulder is chipped into pebbles, the weak
stream remains weak. Thus, it would seem that the crucial task is to
gain access to the sources of the stream and find a means of enlarging
it, of drawing enough water into it so that it becomes a river deep
enough to rise over the boulder.
Modern civilization, with its emphasis on rationality and
conformity has separated man from the dimension of depth in himself and
has weakened his intuitive capacities. It is contact with these
resources that needs now to be redeveloped. At the Institute for
Research in Depth Psychology at Drew University, we are testing several
approaches -- in the face-to-face dialogue relationship, in small
groups, and in disciplines which the individual can follow when he is
alone. We are working with ministers seeking a more dynamic religious
awareness, with artists, and with persons engaged in other creative
activities. I will try to indicate briefly the principles that are
involved.
The reactivation of the natural process of growth is
accomplished primarily by learning to participate more fully and
harmoniously in the continuing flow of imagery which is the main
content of the psychic processes. The term "imagery" as used here
refers not only to visual imagery but to the flow of all kinds of
nonconscious phenomena -- words, intimations perceived within dreams,
and so on. From this perspective, the job of the psychologist is to
draw the flow of the psyche onward, to generate an ever greater
momentum of psychic activity and sensitivity. The feeling of an
interior momentum is a feeling of meaningful life welling up within the
individual. When the experience of it becomes concrete, so that the
individual begins to experience the reality of this interior flow, he
has achieved the essential contact and has gained access to the larger
sources of the stream of life energy.
This is the context in which dreams become significant,
especially those dreams that express the deeper-than-repressed level of
the organic psyche. What is important, however, is not the analytical
meaning of the dreams but the way in which the dreams are flowing, the
rhythms in which they are moving, and the larger integrative process
which they are carrying forward. My experience has often been that
moments of crisis in the life of an individual stimulate the psyche to
bring forth its important imagery and insights. It seems as though the
whole person has been forced to engage in profound rethinking
concerning his entire being. This is not a rational but an elemental,
nonconscious process, which brings the past together in terms that are
meaningful for the present situation, sets forth the problems and
possibilities of the immediate moment of conflict, and depicts the
tendencies of the future as these are inherent in the seed of the
present. It becomes essential, then, that the individual learn to live
in harmony with the cyclic rhythms of tension, deepening anxiety,
break-through, and insight.
The insights come to consciousness in dreams and images which
have the quality of the depths of the psyche from which they are drawn
-- they are not literal, but symbolic. It becomes necessary, then, for
this symbolism to be deciphered. Moreover, the new meaning is usually
not to be found in a single dream, but in a series. A single dream may
have considerable impact, but taken alone it could be misleading.
For the modern person brought up in a world of tangibles -- of
machines, money, and matter-of-fact common sense -- the realm of the
psyche is likely at first to appear insubstantial. But when that major
hurdle has been overcome, a doorway to a new world opens. Then it
becomes possible to involve oneself deeply in the inner life -- not
only through dreams, but through imagery of many kinds. Religious
experiences and heightened awareness of people and of art become vital
components of life and give new meaning to it. At this stage, it is
extremely helpful to keep a psychological journal, a record of
significant inner experience, of the struggles of spiritual growth in
the direction of wholeness.
An excellent example of a psychological journal is Leo
Tolstoy's "My Confession." Here, Tolstoy recorded how, after achieving
great fame, he asked himself, "What if I became more famous than Gogol
and Pushkin and Shakespeare, what then? What would the meaning of it
be?" He felt himself to be an "orphan in the universe," went through a
succession of crises, and had frequent impulses to commit suicide. He
tried orthodox religion, but to no avail; the traditional symbols had
no meaning for him.
At this point, the process of psychic growth within Tolstoy
moved to another level. He ceased to be concerned with religious dogmas
and turned his attention to experiences of inner reality. Finally there
came the dream with which Tolstoy concluded his confessions. Its
symbolism recapitulated the story of his life, telling how in seeking a
new credo he had gone from bad to worse until he found himself balanced
by a single thread at a point high above the highest mountain. If he
looked downward, there was only the darkness of an abyss. He did not
dare to look. He said to himself, "It is only a dream; I'll get out of
it." But he could not get out of the dream, just as we cannot escape
from our basic human condition. Then, in the dream, a voice spoke to
him and pointed out that if he would look upward steadfastly, all would
be well. He did so, and though he continued to be balanced on only a
single cord, there was a feeling of sureness and security and
relationship. The voice in the dream said, "See that you remember," and
the implication is that Tolstoy did remember and that this experience
was a turning point which gave a new dimension to the later years of
his life.
Tolstoy found himself in the situation that has become
characteristic of modern man. Traditional symbols were no longer
capable of giving meaning to his life. He therefore experienced the
anxiety and the emptiness that are so prevalent today. But Tolstoy made
a resolute search for meaning, and the intensity with which he did this
enabled the natural processes of the psyche to function more deeply
within him.
The answer that came to Tolstoy, the new religious awareness,
was not deliberately contrived; it was a natural expression of the
depths of his own being. Here the connection with life that gives
meaning to existence is validated in terms which the person cannot
deny. I would call this the psychological dimension of religion, for it
is the dimension of lived individual experience in which religious
feeling is discovered. This kind of religious awareness is something
one can work at, discipline oneself in, and remain dedicated to
throughout one's life. For it gives not one meaning, but a continuity
of unfolding meanings. As we accept the psychological reality of the
spirit and work with it, we develop an ever greater sensitivity to the
natural capacities of knowing that are inherent in the seed of our
humanity.
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* Reprinted from "The Psychology of Personal Growth," Atlantic Monthly, July 1961 (Vol. 108, No. 1), pp. 102-104.
"Intensive Journal" and "Journal Feedback" are trademarks of Ira Progoff and used under license by Dialogue House.
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