Panel Discussion on Psychological Authority at the October 26-30, 1994, conference of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts at Asheville, North Carolina

Presented by Jan Bauer, M.A., Dipl. Jungian Analyst (Montréal, Canada)

The Question is: what do you wear to talk about authority? Especially when you have to be dressed before eight in the morning? Now, I don't usually wear black so early in the day, it's a bit hard on the complexion, but, as you will see there is a reason greater than vanity for such a choice. Black is the color of authority - priests, judges, bankers, nuns and Hell's Angels all know that. It is also the color of depression, and for me the two have gone together for the past month, until, in fact, I arrived here in Asheville and began to connect to the Eros of the group....

At home, every time I sat down to work on this paper on authority I got incredibly depressed and did not know why. It wasn't just Tom Kelly's fault for asking me to present here, although It would have been nice to find someone to blame. No, the torpor, heaviness, lack of enthusiasm seemed to stem from something much deeper. It was all the more surprising that I had been reading and musing about the subject for quite a while, intending one day to do something serious with my research. I found it interesting to read about, and yet when I wanted to write, boom, the heaviness descended once again and I had to force myself to put some words together.

Then, one day, as I was sitting in penitence at my desk I looked out the window and couldn't take my eyes off the sight of my dog playing happily at tug-of-war and who's-got-the-ball-now? with another dog, and as I contemplated this engaging and beautiful sight, I realized what was wrong: there's no fun in the subject of authority. No Mercurius, no Aphrodite to bring life and passion into it. This Is senex, not puer, territory; Zeus, not Hermes, rules. Not that Hermes or Aphrodite don't have their own authority. They do. But they don't tend to discourse on it in public. They Just act it out and let others do the explaining. So, I understood what was missing but it didn't help (familiar litany in analysis...). Still, I had to get the paper done and so the dogs went on playing while I dutifully wrote on.

Then I took a plane and arrived Asheville, looking forward to seeing people but not to giving my paper. And then, as they tend to do, both Hermes and Aphrodite began to make unexpected appearances. First, in subtle quiet ways and then more and more openly until last night when I sat down to make the finishing touches and I positively couldn't wait to get up and talk. What happened? Let me tell you about the workings of Aphrodite and Hermes in the approach of this dreaded event.

First, there were the candidate review committees in which I watched and connected with people trying to find their own personal authority in order to write a thesis that would reflect their vision and not just other peoples' knowledge. I felt too the importance of the authority we on the committees were invested with, not just in theory but in hands-on practice—there is no longer anyone to pass the buck to.

Then, I listened to three superb papers on authority and was moved, provoked, inspired by the insight and originality of the presenters. Then I went to the group discussion, not very enthusiastic about presenting but eager to hear what others were thinking and feeling around this August subject. Again, both Hermes and Aphrodite were there; the discussion was surprising and interesting, the Eros present from beginning to end. Then, to top it all off, I had a dream. I dreamt that I spent the whole night doing you-know-what with a young man dressed in a black suit. I did not take the dream to mean I was flirting with death, I took it to mean that authority could be fun.

Now, to get back to the subject, authority is indeed an unloved archetype today. As a culture and as individuals we are suspicious of it. We have been anti-authority for more than 100 years. Senex is not high on the popularity polls. Yet, the guidance, stability and security that authority provides are necessary to our lives and to the world. And though we my not like it, authority is still with us in myriad forms both outer and inner.

Who exactly has authority and what is it anyway? floes it mean knowing or simply looking like you know? Where does it come from and how do you recognize it when it's there? A lot of questions to cover in 20 min., so I decided to narrow in on our particular field, using some research I had already done on the general subject of authority to see how it could explain or at least elucidate our ideas and experience of authority as Jungian analysts.

Reading around I find that there are two main manifestations of authority: authority of power and authority of influence. (Bennett, p.21) Authority of power is when you have the right to require or receive submission. It comes from a superiority of status that carries the right to command and to impose decisions, from the status, for example, of a parent, king, general. This is the kind Jung was referring to when, towards the end of his life, he was asked if he would like to have lived any other life but his own. After due reflection, he said, "Well, not really, except well maybe, the Pope." With these words he expressed, only half mockingly, the frustration of 60 years of authority with lots of influence but no power. As much as he resisted being seen as a parent to his patients and guru to his admirers, sometimes he longed for the this pure extraverted kind of authority, the kind incarnated by church, military, and hierarchy . The kind in which power is the influence. Do it because I said so, because I'm big and you're small, because I have the might and therefore the right.

The kind of authority Jung did have, however, was mainly authority of influence, the kind that convinces by credibility more than sheer power. It is conferred on an individual or an organization whose opinion on a given subject is considered deserving of acceptance. It is, of course, the kind we as analysts are invested with by our patients and that we need to own, no matter how neutral or unauthoritarian we would like to remain.

Now, of course, authority of any kind is open to abuse, but we can't avoid the fact that human beings seek and need the guidance, security and stability that authority represents, even though it doesn't always fulfill its own mandate. Ideally, we all need to both acknowledge and own authority, for as Bennet so well expresses, "Adults fulfill an essential part of themselves in being authorities. It is one way of expressing care for others." (Bennett, p.25) As caring analysts, we carry authority in the hope of awakening it in our analysands but in accepting it, we also accept the inevitable pitfalls and shadows of our influence. Pitfalls so well charted by Guggenbuhl Craig in his book Power and the Helping Professions. Behind our ego idealistic attempts at being benevolent helpers who know that the most important authority must come from the psyche of the analysand lie the myriad shadow figures in our own psyches, figures who have little patience with the often incoherent knowledge in the other person's unconscious. Guggenbuhl identifies some of these shadows as the charlatan, the false prophet, the hypocrite. (Guggenbuhl, p.20-36) One could add the over-zealous social worker, the intrusive for-your-own-good mother, the withholding critical father, all of them dying to have submissive subjects, not analysands, people who will admire and follow, not disagree or make their own silly mistakes. At certain moments we all would like be Pope, I suspect, to make decrees and edicts rather than interpretations or mirroring reflections.

But where are we coming from when we feel these urges or even when we don't? Where does our authority come from, and how do we justify the power and/or influence that comes with it? People who have studied the subject, should I say authorities in the area, identify three main sources of authority: traditional, legal/rational, and charismatic. (Bennet, p.21 ) In our field, as in the world at large, people who claim authority from one source tend to be at odds with people who claim it from another. As Jungians, we, in fact, partake of all three, with an emphasis on the first and last. Let us take a closer look.

Traditional authority has its roots in myth, custom, precedent, heredity, legend. It is what makes the British government work in spite of the lack of a written constitution. This authority is about the custom, elders, lore and ritual of any organically developed society. As Jungians, whether we look to Zurich, London, or North America for our analytical roots, we benefit from the knowledge and explorations of those who went before us. Furthermore, no matter how objective we would like to be, we cannot escape being involved in the legends passed down to us from our elders around our common past or in the myths that we as Jungians have devolved around our image of the world of the psyche.

Legal/rational authority, on the other had, is based on non-hereditary, non- historical function. It is the world of law, circumscribed expertise, science, bureaucracy of any kind. In our analytical world, we meet with or don this kind of authority when we are dealing with codes of ethics, training requirements, diagnosis, diplomas, certification, licensing, and clinical proof of progress required by insurance companies. For the most part, this is authority we have been late in coming to. We still resist or feel ill at ease in it and tend to get defensive, depressive or excessive when trying to respond to it or carry it, which we have to do more than we might like and certainly more in North America than elsewhere in the Jungian world.

Finally, there is charismatic authority, probably the hardest to understand or ground. According to official definition, charisma includes personal appeal and magnetism, but charismatic authority is much more than that. Lots of people have charisma, some more than others. Politicians, rock stars, anchor women and men depend on their charisma to garner votes and popularity. As an analyst it is probably important to have some personal charisma. Of course, too much would mean that it would be impossible to get rid of the constant projections, but none at all would mean no projections at all and therefore no practice... Personal charisma aside, however, the power of charismatic authority depends on much more than popularity. It "points to the exemplariness of an individual regarded as having special gifts or talents that are considered divinely granted." (Webster p. 378) In Jungian terms, it is the authority that emanates from the "manna" personality, whether politician, religious leader, genius or analyst. For us it means Jung of course and other analysts who have inspired us far beyond the pure content of their contribution or the charm of their personalities. A certain charismatic authority that the early Jungians claimed through the genius of their leader and their involvement with the numinosity of the unconscious has been recently greatly reinforced by the phenomenon of so many recent best sellers written by modern Jungians who have their own share of charisma: Clarissa P. Estes, Thomas Moore, and Guy Corneau, all in their particular way, not only have charisma but incarnate charismatic authority about a particular aspect of psychic reality. They, like Jung, may claim empirical observation and even statistical studies as their sources besides the traditional Jungian references to archetypes and the unconscious. The fact is, however, that their books don't sell because they inform and speak to people seeking rational authority and guidance, nor because they carry on a respected tradition of reflective traditional depth psychology. They sell because they enchant and speak with the gift of tongues to people seeking life-giving images and meaning, something more than just the facts and more than traditional psychology, whether it be Jungian, academic or pop.

Today the main clash of kinds of authority is taking place between rational and charismatic authority. Between reason and inspiration or, if you like, their respective shadows of blind technocracy and irresponsible guruship. Let me give you a couple of extreme examples of supposed authority in these areas, examples that come from outside of the Jungian world but within the helping or healing professions. In juxtaposing them, I'd like to suggest that the increasingly noisy conflict between these extremes has repercussions on our own practices and our credibility.

The Voice of Rational Authority

Mr. L., for literal, is a well known therapist and psychiatrist. He is also an analyst (of the other school) but he doesn't speak like an analyst, at least not if you assume as I do, that no matter what the training—Jungian or Freudian—the individual will generally impart a sense of humility or at least a bit of perplexity before the endless mystery of the human psyche. Such, however, is not the case for Mr. L. He has for the most part cut himself off from the traditions of his own analytical training and espoused instead the legal/rational authority of science, expertise and function. "I know because I do it," he says in essence and has done it for 20 years. (Langs, p.5) His only reference to higher authority other than his own is in the expression"human knowledge," but as we read on we realize it is his human knowledge and no other that he refers to. As for his predecessors, Breuer and Freud are mentioned as founders of the field who experimented with "crudely adumbrate" methods but "were unable to unravel the intricacies of the psyche because of being trapped in their own fallacies." (Langs, p.19) He, Mr. L, however, promises in his book to unravel the said mysteries. The unconscious for him is charted territory and we can all see clearly in it if we will read carefully and follow his instructions. It is important to learn to decode the unconscious, according to Mr. L, in order to choose a therapist. For, he says, "psychotherapy is a business service, an industry. Yet the mystique of psychotherapy endures beyond all reason. As a profit making service industry psychotherapy warrants an informed consumer." He concludes the introduction to his book, Rating your Psychotherapist, with the passage that follows: "In the matter of psychotherapy, think of me as the mechanic who will look under the hood of your car and give you a sense of what you're getting and paying for." (Langs, p.5-6)

The rest of the book is infuriating and enlightening. There are points to think about, especially around the question of boundaries that many of us have discussed and wrestled with in the years when Langs came in and positive mothers went out. Yet, the book is repetitive, arrogant, judgmental, sometimes even hysterical in its one-sidedness. Ultimately, I got fed up and put it down for good before I even finished. But, to be honest, I was impressed, at least literally. Something happened and I am forced to admit that the man does have a voice of authority. But why? Where does his authority come from in spite of the fact that I find him so hard to take? Reading around on different sources of authority, I find a definition that certainly suits his book: "authority is a display of assurance, superior judgement, the ability to impose discipline and the capacity to inspire fear." (Bennett, p.16-17) This of course is the traditional kind of authority and Mr. L. draws heavily upon. With his paternalistic attitude, his absolute self- assurance and super-ego stance, he puts the reader in the inferior position of being an innocent, stupid child who must heed the voice of the father who knows best—the very father Alice Miller writes about in her book, For Your Own Good, the paternalistic male who ran the factories in loco parentis in the 19th Century and medicine in the same way until very recently. The voice of this father may be insulting and old fashioned but it still resonates in our psyche, at least that part of it that wasn't present when the patriarchy was brought down and that still longs for someone, preferably male, to know. When someone as self-confident as Langs tells us not to worry, that he has the answers, it isn't easy to read without getting into a complex, for or against authority—he does have some.

But Mr. L is not just benefitting from the archaic parts of our psyches that are caught in the tradition of paternalistic power. He is also donning the more modern garb of our culture's most loved authority today—the expert. The expert has little tradition behind him because he does not take his authority from sources or attitudes passed down through the generations. Nor does he find it or even look for it in divine sources. No, the expert is perfectly happy to incarnate the rational in and of itself and to go about his erudite way answering to no one. In his field he emulates the computer, in his style he evokes a modern version of the cowboy. Our love affair with the image of the expert comes surely from our love affair with these two other symbols: The computer, symbol of omniscient knowledge, and the cowboy, symbol of self reliance and non-attachment.

It has been said by one writer, "increasingly large chunks of the social and physical world that we live in can only be understood by experts and we are dependent upon these experts because we know that our own senses and judgement can deceive us." (Mixon, p.35) The expert is not only valued for his knowledge, however, but for his or her autonomy. Cowboys and girls of the information overload highway, they ride their own expertise and sell their skills according to demand. If paternalism has been called authority of false love, experts are called authority without love, (Bennett, p.85) for experts don't care and have no contract to care, unlike most traditional authorities who at least theoretically had a responsibility to those who bowed to their authority. The frightening thing is that experts are admired exactly because of this. They don't have a mandate to care, they don't answer to a superior, they are self-possessed and own themselves and are little swayed by the approval or disapproval of those outside of their field. In a bureaucratic world where few individuals count for much and more depend on someone else for their professional value and livelihood, such autonomous status carries enormous power and authority.

Mr. L. then fulfills most of the criteria for such status. He shrugs off any debt to his predecessors, denigrates the work of most his peers and appears totally assured of his own knowledge and independence. This is heady stuff in the world of therapy where we would all like to be so sure....

The Voice of charismatic Authority

Another one who claims to know but not at all for the same reasons is a woman I'll call Marie. Marie is a channeler and a friend of the angels. She is beautiful, rich and gifted. In Quebec she has founded a school for channeling, and she spends several months a year as well in the Dominican Republic where she owns an estate and does residential workshops. Her students, or rather disciples, are not interested in consumer value as described by Mr. L. or in the technical workings of psychotherapy. They don't want someone who calls himself a mechanic; they want to go to the top and speak directly with the angels and Marie assures them they can if they will pay her several thousand dollars a year and follow her directions. Many have sold their worldly goods to be near her year round. Many have taken to wearing the same kind of hat she wears when in public places in order to avoid being invaded by the negative vibrations of other human beings. When a TV crew that did a program on her and her school asked how she could validate what she was doing, Marie simply answered, "I don't have to, the angels say it is true." Typical sect guru, you would think. And in a way, you'd be right. But like many such leaders, Marie does have authority. In person she is quite irresistible, intelligent and cultured as well as beautiful and inspired. One can criticize her power trip and refusal to acknowledge any manipulation. For example, when questioned about some students' complaints that she promised they would share in her power and teachings only to find themselves relegated to menial tasks of ticket taker and administrator, she blithely pointed out that they were responsible for their own projections and that she is not their mother. Still, in spite of some undercurrent of dissatisfaction, she continues to gain followers, to earn big money and to spread the message that you too can speak with the angels. Her authority is charismatic indeed, and no protest from the experts on sects or from the more conservative schools of therapy will make a dent in her popularity.

So far none of the angels addressed by Marie seem to have spoken of suicide pacts or illegal activities and in general Marie herself is a fairly balanced individual. She did heal herself from the crippling consequences of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis by devising special exercises, both physical and spiritual, to deal with it. She may well be a shamanic personality. Still, how she is carrying the authority that attends such appeal lends itself to questions about serious abuse of power, intentional or not. And like Lang's, Marie's authority is not open to debate, at least not by her.

Where do we as Jungians stand on this? And how does it affect us? The experts and the angels are vying for peoples' attention and souls these days and whether we like it or not, the public sees both in Jungian analysts. Some see us as a sect, one that they either want to join or want to wipe out. Others see us as experts who have the answers to life's most troublesome questions. Woe to us if we identify totally with any of these projections or any one source of authority.

If we bow only to traditional authority, we risk becoming Zurich fundamentalists ignoring the last 40 years of human history and psychological research. Things have been discovered and things have changed since Jung's time. Although in the 1950s towards the end of his life Jung could write to a friend, "People no longer just want to believe. They want to understand," I am not sure we could still say that. Who really wants to understand today? Sometimes it seems that people just want answers, not understanding and they want to believe in something or someone. The sects and the experts reflect reality as much they influence. it.

On the other hand, if we would line up with the experts alone, we lose soul and become peons for insurance companies, for licensing offices and media flattery. But again, if we rely purely on charismatic authority, saying that our particular understanding of psychology emanates directly from the unconscious and messages from the archetypes, we would deserve being accused of being a sect, and we might as well call ourselves new age analysts instead of Jungian analysts.

In fact, we need to heed all three and one more besides. This one is not mentioned in the official categorization of authority, but it is essential to an understanding of the essence of authority. This fourth and last type is personal authority. The one that makes each individual an author to his or her life. Personal authority arises from a combination of knowledge and experience. My own sense of inner authority at fifty is different than at 40 or 30. The people or works I used to give authority to I may no longer admire as much. Unlike other kinds of authority, personal authority evolves with the person and becomes a central part of any real individuation. Whether you put its source in the Self or the ego or halfway in between, it allows you to discern in the face of other authorities, inner or outer. Personal authority doesn't have wings and it doesn't have a sex. It is neither expert, nor archetype. neither legend nor law. It is simply human and unlike both archetype or expert, it does care. It is authority that cares deeply about human dilemmas and about values that make life worth living. It is authority that acknowledges the law, tradition and charisma but knows too that daily personal decisions must be taken, choices made, authority owned as one human being. And, most of all, this authority knows that nobody really knows.

Copyright 1994 Jan Bauer. All rights reserved.

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