Sigmund Freud

Wilber's View

Freud is one of the most heavily cited figures in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (107 mentions), used in two quite different registers. In ch. 6, he's part of the developmental-structural argument alongside Piaget: Freud's account of the ego (properly "the I," Wilber insists, following the correct translation of Freud's das Ich against Strachey's "ego") and the id (Freud's Es, "the it") is read as an early, still-useful account of how repression works — parts of the self split off and return as symptoms, "its" that feel alien and beyond conscious control. On the specific dispute over mythic archetypes staged against Jung, Wilber places Freud (and Piaget) on the side that archetypal motifs are functionally infantile and regressive rather than a repository of spiritual wisdom — while noting, against the standard narrative of Freud and Jung as flatly opposed, that Freud actually agreed with Jung that such motifs are collectively inherited; the dispute was narrower than usually remembered, over their value, not their existence.

The second, larger-scale treatment comes in ch. 9, where Wilber places Freud inside the book's Ascent/Descent framework (see ascent-and-descent) and delivers what amounts to a tragic verdict: Freud saw Eros and Thanatos — the life drive and the death drive — with unmatched clarity, and saw correctly that human suffering is a permanent battle between them. But because Freud, unlike Plotinus or Plato, never carried the path of Ascent through to the unifying One, he had no ground on which Eros and Thanatos could actually be reconciled. Wilber's verdict is sympathetic rather than dismissive: Freud is "one of the many, and certainly one of the greatest, of the fractured footnotes to Plato" — correct as far as he went, but stranded without the non-dual resolution Wilber thinks the contemplative traditions supply.

In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

"Freud was in complete agreement with Jung about the existence of this archaic heritage"

It is not often realized that Freud was in complete agreement with Jung about the existence of this archaic heritage. Freud was struck by the fact that individuals in therapy kept reproducing essentially similar "phantasies"… "I believe that these primal phantasies are a phylogenetic possession. In them the individual stretches out to the experiences of past ages."

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 6

"Freud and Jung bitterly parted ways" over the nature of archetypes

The question then centers—and here Freud and Jung bitterly parted ways—on the nature and function of these mythic motifs, these archetypes. Are they merely infantile and regressive (Freud), or do they also contain a rich source of spiritual wisdom (Jung)? Piaget, needless to say, sided with Freud on this particular issue.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 6

"Freud's great book The Ego and the Id was really called 'The I and the It'"

Ego is simply Latin for "I." Freud, for example, never used the term ego; he used the German pronoun das Ich, or "the I," which Strachey unfortunately translated as the "ego." And contrasted to "the I" was what Freud called the Es, which is German for "it"… Thus Freud's great book The Ego and the Id was really called "The I and the It."

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 6

"Where id was, there ego shall be" — actually "Where it was, there I shall be"

Freud's basic aim in therapy was therefore to reunite the I and the it and thus heal the split between them. His most famous statement of the goal of therapy—"Where id was, there ego shall be"—actually reads, "Where it was, there I shall be." Whether one is a Freudian or not, this is still the most accurate and succinct summary of all forms of uncovering psychotherapy.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 6

"Freud clearly and accurately saw Eros; he clearly and accurately saw Thanatos"

Freud clearly and accurately saw Eros; he clearly and accurately saw Thanatos; and perhaps more clearly than anybody in history, he saw that so much human misery is and always will be a battle between the two, and that the only solution to our suffering is a union of Eros and Thanatos—and yet there is precisely nothing Freud could do about it. There he was stranded, and there he left us stranded.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 9

"One of the many, and certainly one of the greatest, of the fractured footnotes to Plato"

Lacking the unifying Heart, the unspoken One, that joins Ascent and Descent in the everlasting Circle of Redemption and Embrace, Freud simply remained as one of the many, and certainly one of the greatest, of the fractured footnotes to Plato.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 9

See Also

• jung — agreed with Freud that archetypes are collectively inherited, disagreed sharply on whether they carry genuine spiritual wisdom
• piaget — sides with Freud functionally on the developmental origin of myth
• plotinus — the contemplative figure whose completed Ascent gives him the resolution Wilber says Freud never reached
• pre-trans-fallacy — Freud is Wilber's paradigm case of the fallacy's "reductionist" side