34
HEALTH AND PA THOLOGY
medicine for counteractins a feelins of worthlessness. Which.
of course, brinss up tne obvious conclusion that, if "health and
illness" on the medical model are seen as obsolete, so also must
the medical concepts of "treatment" and "cure" and the au­
thoritative doctor be discarded and replaced.
The Jonah Complex
I would like to tum to one of the many reasons for what
AnlYal (4) called the evasion of srowth. We have, all of us.. ill.
impulse to improve ourselves, an impulse toward actualizilll
more of our potentialities, toward self-actualization, or full hu­
manness or human fulfillment, or whatever term you like.
Granted this. then what holds us up? What blocks us?
One such defense against srowth that I'd like to speak about
specially-because it hasn't been noticed much-I shall call the
Jonah complex.l
In my own notes I had at first labeled this defense the "fear
of one's own sreatness" or the "evasion of one's destiny� or the
"running away from one's own best talents." I had wanted to
stress as blunted and sharply as I could the non-Freudian point
that we fear our best as well as our worst, even though in dif­
ferent ways. It is certainly possible for most of us to be sreater
than we are in actuality. We all have unused potentialities or
not fully developed ones. It is certainly true that many of us
evade our constitutionally sUlICsted vocations (call, destiny,
task in life, mission). So often we run away from the responsi­
bilities dictated (or ratl1er sUlICsted) by nature, by fate, even
sometimes by accident, just as Jonah tried-in vain-to run away
from his fate.
We fear our highest possibilities (as well as 01,1r lowest ones):
We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse
in our most perfect moments, under the most perfect condi­
tions. under conditions of greatest courage. We enjoy and even
thri11 to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such
peak momenls. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weak­
ness. awe. and fear before these v..ery same possibilities.
I have found it easy enough to demonstrate this to my stu­
dents simply by asking, "Which of you in this class hopes to
�
This name was SUBlested by my friend. Professor Frank Manuel. witb
whom I had discussed this puzzle.
Nftlrosis as a Failurl 0/ Plrsonal Growth
JS
write the great American novel, or to be a Senator, or Oover­
nor. or President? Who wants to be Secretary-General of the
United Nations? Or a great composer? Who aspires to be a
saint, like Schweitter, perhaps? Who among you will be a
areat leader?" Generally. everybody starts giuJinl. blushing.
and squirming until I ask. "If not you. then who else?" Which
of course is the truth. And in this same way. as I push my
araduate students toward these hilher levels of aspiration, I'U
say, "What great book are you now secretly 'planninl to
write?" And then they often blush and stammer and push me
off in some way. But why should I not ask that question? Who
else will write the books on psychology except psycholoaim?
So I can ask, "Do you not plan to be a psychologist?" "Well,
yes." "Are you in training to be a mute or an inactive psy­
chologist? What's the advantage of that? That's not a good
path to self-actualiration. No" you must want to be a ftrst-cla..
psychologist. meaning the best. the very best you are capable
of becoming. If you deliberately plan to be less than you are
capable of being. then I warn you that you'll be deeply un­
happy for the rest of your life. You will be evadina your own
capacities. your own possibilities."
Not only are we ambivalent about our own highest possibili­
ties. we are also in a perpetual and I think universal-perhaps
even n,c',ssa'.I'-conftict and ambivalence over these same
highest possibilities in other people. and in human nature in
general. Certainly we love and admire good men. aaints. hon­
est. virtuous. clean men, But could anybody who has looked
into the depths of human nature fail to be aware of our "mixed
and often hostile fcelinas toward saintly men? Or toward very
beautiful women or men? Or toward great creators? Or toward
our intellectual geniuses? It is not necessary to be a psychother­
aplat to see this phenomenon-let us call it "Countervaluina�"
Any readina of history will tum up plent), of examplCl. or per­
haps even I could say that any such historical search miaht fan
to turn up a single exception throughout the whole history of
mankind. We surely love and admire ' all the penons who have
inca mated the true. the good. the beautiful. the just. the perfect,
the ultimately successful. And yet they also make us uneasy.
anxious. confused. perhaps a little jealous or envious. a little
inferior. clumsy, They usually make us lose our aplomb. our
self-possession. and self-regard. (Nietzache is still our belt
teacher here.)
J6
HEALTH AND PA THOLOG Y
Here we have a first clue. My imp�ion so far is that the
arcatat people. simply by thcir presence and by being what
thcy are. make us fccl aware of our lesser worth. whethcr or not
they intend to. If this is an unconscious cff'ect. and we are not
lware of why we fccl stupid or ugly. or inferior whcncver such a
person turns up. we are apt to respond with projection, i.c., we
react as if hc were " ying to make us fccl infcrior, as if we were
thc tarsct (S4). Hostility is then In undcrstandable consequence.
It looks to mc so far as if conscious awareness tends to fend off'
this hostility. That is. if you arc wiliing to attempt self-awareness
Ind self-analysis of your OW" counter-valuing, i.e., of your uncon­
scious fear Ind hatred of truc, good. beautiful. etc people, you
will vcry likcly be less nasty to them. And I am willing also to ex­
trapolatc to the guess that if you can learn to love more purely the
highest valucs in others. this might make you love these qualities
in yourself in a less frightened way.
Allied to this dynamic is the awe before the highest, of which
Rudolf Otto ( 1 25) has given us the classical description. Put­
ting this tOlcther with Eliade's insights (31 ), into sacralization
and desacralization. we becomc more aware of the universal­
ity of the fear of direct confrontation with a god or with the
godlike. In somc religions death is the inevitable consequence.
Most prelitcratc societies also have plac:cs or objects that arc
taboo because they are too sacred and Ih�refor� 100 do"g�rous.
In thc last chaptcr of my Psych% ,,!' of SC';�,,� (8 1 ) I have also
siven cxamples mostly from science and medicine of desacra-'
lizinS and resacralizins and tried to explain thc psychodynam­
ics of thesc proeesses. Mostly it comes down to awe before the
highest and best. ( I want to stress that this awe is intrinsic,
justified. right. suitable, rather than some sickness or failing to
get "cured of.")
But here again my feeling is that this awe and fear need not
be nesalive alone. something to make us flee or cower. These
arc also desirable and enjoyable feelings capable of bringing us
even to thc point of highest ecstasy and rapture. Conscious
awarcness. insight. and "working through." a la Freud. is the
answer herc too i think. This is the best path I know to the ac­
ceptance of our hishest powers. and whatevcr elcments of great­
ness or sooclness or wisdom or talent wc may have concealed or
cvaded.
A helpful sidelight for me has come from tryinS to under­
stand why peak experiences are ordinarily transient and brief
(88). The answer becomes clearer and clearer. W� ore just not
.•
Nftlrosu IU tl Ftlilur� 01 P�rs01Ul1 Growth
J1
strong ,nough to 'ndur� mort! It is just too shakina and wear­
ina. So often people in such ecstatic moments say, "It's too
much," or "I can't stand it," or "I could die." And al I aet de­
scriptions. I sometimes feel, Yes, they COIIld die. Delirious hap­
piness cannot be borne for Ion.. Our orpnisms are just too
weak for any larle doses of lreatnen, just as they would be too
weak to endure hour-long sexual orgasms. for example.
The word "peak experience" is more appropriate than I
realized at fint. The acute emotion must be climactic and mo­
mentary and it musl aive way to noneestatic serenity, calmer
happiness. and the intrinsic pleasures of clear, contemplative
cognition of the highest goods. The climactic emotion cannot
endure. but B-c:ognition ( Being cognition) ('tin (82, 85).
Doesn't this help us to understand our Jonah complex? It is
partly a justified fear of being torn apart. of IOiing control, of
being shattered and disintegrated. even of being killed by the
experience. Great emotions after all can in IlIcl overwhelm us.
The fear of surrendering to such an experience, a fear which re­
minds us of all the parallel fears found in sexual frigidity. can
be undentood beUer I think through familiarity with the litera­
ture of psychodynamics and depth psychology. and of the psy­
chophysiology and medical psychomatics of emotion.
There is still another psycholoaical· process that I have run
across in my explorations of failure to actualize the self. This
evasion of growth can also be set in motion by a fear of pan­
noia. Of course this has been said in more universal way..
Promethean and Faustian leaencls are found in practically any
culture.4 For instance, the Greeks c:.JJed it the fear of hubru.
II hiS been called "sinful pride," which is of course a perma­
nent human problem. The person who says to himself, "Yea. I
will be a great philosopher and I will rewrite Plato and do it
better." must sooner or later be struck dumb by his grandiosity,
his arrogance. And especially in his weaker moments. will say
to himself, "Who? Mer' and think of it as a crazy fantuy or
even fear it as a delusion. He compares his knowledae of hi.
inner private self, with all its weakness. vacillation, and short­
comings. with the bright. shining. perfect, and faultless imaae
he has of Plato. Then. of course. he'll feel presumptuous and
grandiose:. (What he doesn't realize is that Plato, introspectin..
• Sheldon;. excellent book on this lubject ( l 3S) is not quoted often
enoulh on thi. lubject, possibly becaUIC it came befon: we wen: quite
rudy to assimilate it ( 1 936).
38
HEALTH AND PA THOLOGY
mUit have felt just the same way about himself, but went
ahead anyway, overridinl his doubts about himself.)
For some people this evasion of one's own Jr0wth, settinl
low levels of aspiration, the fear of doinl what one is capable
of dOinl, voluntary self-cripplinl, pseudostupidity, mock-hu­
mility are in fact defenses alainst Irandiosity, arropnce, sin­
ful pride, hubris. There are people who cannot manaae that
Iraceful intelration between the humility and the pride which
is absolutely necessary for creative work. To invent or create
you must have the "arrolance of creativeness" which so many
investilators have noticed. But, of course, if you have onl), the
arrolance without the humility, then you are in fact paranoid.
You must be aware not only of the lodlike possibilities within,
but also of the existential human limitations. You must be
able simultaneously to laugh at yourself and at all- human pre­
tensions. If you can be amused by the worm tryinl to be lod
( 162), then in fact you may be able to -10 on tryinl and beina
arrogant without fearinl paranoia or brinlin. down upon your­
IIClf the evil eye. This is a lood technique.
May I mention one more such technique that J saw at its best
in Aldous Huxley, who was certainly a Ireat man in the sense
J've been discussing, one who was able to accept his talents and'
use them to the full. He managed it by perpetually marvelinl at
how interesting and fascinating everything was, by wonderinl
like a youngster at how miraculous thinlS are. by sayinl fre­
quently. "Extraordinaryl Extraordinaryl" He could look out at
the world with wide eyes. with unabashed innocence, awe, and
fascination. which is a kind of admission of smallness, a form
of humility. and then proceed calmly and unafraid to the areat
tasks he set for himself.
Finally. I refer you to a paper of mine (87) relevant in itself.
but also as the first in a possible series. Its title. "The need to
know and the fear of knowinl." illustrates well what I want to
say about tQ('h of the intrinsic or ultimate values that I've
called Values of Beinl (B-Values). J am tryinl to say that
these ultimate values, which I think are also the highest needl.
or metaneeds. as I call them in Chapter 23. fall. like all balic
needs. into the basic Freudian schema of impulle Qnd defense
against the impulse. Thus it is certainly demonstrable that we
need the truth and love it and seek it. And yet it is just al ealY
to demonstrate that we are also simultaneously tl/rQld to know
the truth. For instance, certain truths carry automatic responsi­
bilities which may be anxiety-producing. One way to evade the
Neurosis as a Failure of Personal Growth
39
responsibility and the anxiety is simply to evade consciousness
of the truth.
1 predict that we will find a similar dialectic for each of the
intrinsic Values of Being, and 1 have vaguely thought of doing
a series of papers on, e.g., "The love of beauty and our uneasi­
ncss with it." "Our love of the good man and our irritation with
him." "Our search for excellence and our tendency to destroy
it," etc., etc. Of course, these counter-values are stronger
in neurotic people. but it looks to me as if all of us must make
our peace with these mean impulses within ourselves. And my
impression so far is that the best way to do this is to transmute
envy, jealousy. presentiment. and nastiness into humble ad­
miration, aratitude. appreciation. adoration. and even worship
via conscious insight and working through (see Appendix B).
This is the road to feeling small and weak and unworthy and
accepting these fcelinas instead of needing to protect a spuri­
ously high self-esteem by striking out (49).
And again I think it is obvious that understanding of this basic
existential problem should help us to embrace the B-Values not
only in others. but also in ourselves. thereby helping to resolve
the Jonah complex.