The History of Mind Multiplicity
and why Freud did not want you to know about this
“In each of us there is another whom we do not know”
Carl C. Jung
We are currently experiencing a game changing paradigm shift of how we understand our mental, physical and spiritual health as a union of different facets of -what we call- our mind.
Today I would love to shed some light on the multiplicity of the mind approach, which has been in the dark underground belly of psychology for the past century or so. Very much like psychedelics, it is rising to the surface after a long time of suffocation.
If the term ‘spiritual’ does not agree with you, please understand that I am not referring to our relationship to a certain God or religion or faith of any sorts. All I mean by spirituality is our innate human capacity to relate deeply to ourselves, other beings, and to the Earth that we live on.
It is our spirited nature -that feeling of gumption- in its full essence that gives us the feeling of confidence in our health that can be sustainable beyond a workout or a meditation. It is that feeling of spiritedness that offers us a blueprint towards achieving our goals, having meaningful relationships and saying No to those who try to abuse us for their own spirited existence.
Also - if you are looking for someone to help you get through a stressful transition in your life and want to get a taste for how this multiplicity of the mind approach can help you reconnect with your creativity, get your physical health back on track, and connect with community reply to this email with ‘Interested’ or leave a comment. I am offering an end of year discount to those ready to work 1-on-1.
All hail Freud Almighty
The quandary into what our brains are, how they work, and what can be done to tend to their problems is an age old one. After the prophet Abraham spoke to the God Yahweh 4000 years ago, the Western world started rejecting the ancient pagan concept of multiple Gods as a belief.
Instead, we moved to a singular all-encompassing God that is omnipotent and capable of the death and destruction of all those who disbelieve him or favor the polytheistic tradition. That was despite the fact that some of humanity’s most prolific societies (the Egyptians, the Mayans, the Hindus, the Babylonians and the Sumerians to name a few) had thrived under the concept of multiple Gods for a long period of history.
4000 years later, a similar shift happened in our understanding of the human psyche. In a similar way, we outlawed the idea of multiple human minds at the end of the 19th century. This time it was the teachings of an Austrian prophet, who would become the most influential figure of Psychology.
The prophet whom we blindly followed this time was Sigmund Freud, who famously rejected the idea that a healthy mind can be multiple. Before that, there was a long historical debate between scientific philosophers and clinical psychiatrists.
On the one hand, scientists and philosophers argued that our minds and existence are naturally multiple (lead by Founder of British Society for Psychic research Frederic W. H. Myers and ‘The Father of American Psychology’ William James). On the other side of the intellectual heavy-weight boxing ring, were the top clinical psychologists and psychiatrists of the 18th century who argued that multiple selves can only exists in the pathological patients they saw (under the leadership of Jean-Martin Charcot—Europe’s most famous neurologist and his disciple Pierre Janet). Charcot pressed that otherwise “normal” human beings had a healthy singular existence of the mind.
That brings us to our now (in)famous Freud, who was heavily influenced and taught by Charcot. He had become such a pivotal figure in Vienna at the turn of the 19th century, that his word was revered as the word of the God in modern psychology. He famously and openly rejected the theory that the healthy person can have multiple identities, leading his followers to stifle the fire of mind multiplicity that others (such as Myers and James) were stoking for about two centuries. This was welcomed by the upper class Viennese society, that found relief to know that trauma and abuse did not impact them in similar ways as the “mentally ill”. It was a socially acceptable idea that separated the healthy from the unhealthy, the wealthy from the poor, and the sane from the insane.
🧠 One concept of a normal mind = 🤕 More diseased minds = 🤑 More prescriptions
The rising popularity of the diagnostic term “Schizophrenia” then cemented Freud’s position, and halted any further clinical or experimental research into the theory of the multiplicity of the brain. In the same way that Narcissism blocks us from experiencing self-compassion, Schizophrenia is a hangup that stops us from experiencing the transformational and healing impact of adopting the multiplicity of the mind approach.
Thankfully, that would soon change.
Little did Freud know, one of his young Swiss disciples by the name of Carl Gustav Jung, would lay the foundations that would revive this crucial aspect of cultural psychology, albeit underground for many decades.
Carl Jung is now nothing short of a cultural revolutionary icon, similar to Che Guevara and Martin Luther King. Like them, he had to fight against the system for what he believed in, and unlike most others, he found a way to survive doing that. We are indebted to him for both our sanity, and the best Hollywood movies ever made.
In 2015, while trying to understand my masculinity and an internal tug of war between what I learned growing up and what modern society was telling me, a friend gave me a book titled A Hero with A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.
Campbell famously covers how there are certain developmental milestones for every hero’s journey that they have to conquer for a healthy progression of life. This includes both external setbacks and internal hangups that result in the hero entering a world unknown to them. One of such key moments - perhaps the most sensationalized by the climax of every Hollywood movie- is when the hero has to slay the proverbial dragon.
The idea here, as Campbell describes it, is not that the hero has to face ‘the bad evil villain’ as is often portrayed, but that “The ultimate dragon is within you” as he puts it. It is really a part of the hero himself that he has been avoiding facing. Joseph Campbell did not just study Carl Jung, but he studied all the religions and historical cultural myths that brought humanity to this moment. As he outlines in The Power of Myth lectures:
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
Joseph Cambell
👉 For instance, a part of me that was feeling jealous about a certain situation with my girlfriend, would be overshadowed by a more “politically correct” version of me that thought that jealousy was petty or immature.
👉 A part of me that just wanted to sit and smoke pot all day, was overshadowed by another that was more driven and wanted to achieve a lot in life.
👉 A third example for good measure is that a part of me that was angry at my parents, was overshadowed by another that valued family above anything else and was therefore willing to accept their behavior in anyway as beyond questioning because of everything they have provided me with.
Self-Leadership as a path towards Liberation
The idea, as my previous therapist and IFS teacher
would say, is that all these parts were like advisors who all wanted what was best for me in their own ways. The process of therapy then, aimed to put me into my highest Self, which was able to listen to and negotiate with all these advisors to put me at the head of the table, rather than have me spiral into a single part’s agenda. The way we did that was by using Carl Jung’s method of Active Imagination, where I would imagine a part of me in a situation and , I know this sounds crazy, start talking to it. After a series of these sessions, I started to feel a lightness to my existence.It is no hyperbole to say that the healing process transformed the way I operated completely. It gave me a liberating blueprint of my mind that helped me navigate painful moments in my relationships, maneuver tough conversations at work, deal more effectively with depression episodes, bounce back into healthy behaviors and relate to myself in a profoundly new way.
This is critical to one of the main tenants of Carl Jung’s work which is the concept of Individuation, a fundamental psychological process that allows a heroine to own and face all the different parts of her existence, especially the parts of her which she is most afraid to see.
These parts of our psyche that we would rather disown, find distasteful, and would rather live our whole life avoiding are what Jung collectively calls “The Shadow”. This shadow is what the bourgeois Viennese creme de la creme tried to avoid via their control of psychological literature in the time of Freud.
That shadow is the cave that Campbell describes as holding ‘the treasures’ that we seek, and the hero is frequently forced to face it due to a crisis that demands him to face their inner dragons for the first time. Carl Jung did not merely prescribe theories about this, but he had to go through his own manic depressive episodes which he openly describes in his (sometimes overly complex) writing.
There is a library of characters within each of us
The treasures that he came back to us with were the theories of individuation, the concept of the shadow, the concepts of introvert and extrovert, the methods of psychoanalysis and dream analysis, art therapy, and perhaps most controversially, the idea of archetypes or “Collective Unconscious” which has inspired the last few decades of underground and now modern psychology.
The Collective Unconscious, put simply, is a library of memories, experiences, and instincts shared by all of us in a layer that exists beyond the grasp of our conscious awareness. The power of this idea comes two fold: We are all part of a larger entity that we are bound to, but secondly we have access to a large database of human instinctual wisdom all the time. We have a live connection wired into that large human supercomputer of humanity’s best and worst ideas.
The question then becomes how can we access these records of wisdom, and use them to treat modern ailments? The answer comes in so many methods, shapes and forms varying from highly scientific rigorous techniques such as Psychosynthesis, Gestalt theory, Voice Dialogue, Transactional Theory, Compassionate Inquiry and Internal Family Systems all the way to wildly esoteric methods such Akashik records, Soul Retrieval and Tarot card readings.
I personally need science to be grounded in my belief that something will work, but all of the methods mentioned above are legitimate forms and pathways towards the same outcome of accessing our inner wisdom. It is really a matter of taste, although this idea will annoy many of the contemporary Viennese science dictators out there that will argue one method is better than others. The “treasures that you seek” are on the other end of many deep conversations. Whatever method helps you have these conversations and gives you insights, is the one you should use.
Dick Schwarz, founder of Internal Family Systems, has also founded the IFS institute which is a huge reason of why my medically trained and clinically minded brain loves this method. The institute has published several peer-reviewed papers showing the effectiveness of IFS on PTSD1 , child maltreatment and particularly females with depression 2 .
Deepening with the Archetypes
All of these methods, revived from the underground and making their way back into the mainstream, are rooted in Carl Jung’s theory that we can access our inner wisdom and bring unity to warring factions of ourselves, by understanding the Archetypes that drive our collective unconscious.
These archetypes are representative “perfect forms” of the different parts of our minds that exist deep beneath our projected versions of ourselves. Such archetypes as Warrior, Queen, Wizard, Hero, Lover, Trickster, Overachiever, Party Animal, Gold Digger, Renaissance Man, Mystic Poet, and Tough Cookie are all universal images that exist within each one of us.
This was also described by Plato and his idea of the cave where perfect forms of ‘horse’, ‘dog’ and ‘elephant’ exist, and then there are the actual multitude of variants of these forms in every horse, dog and elephant we see in real life. Each one of them is an iteration of the “ultimate form”, and similarly each one of us has an iterative version of these psychological archetypes within us. That is the only reason why I can say Tyrant King, and you would know exactly what I am talking about.
The more aware we are of our internal parts, the less we feel the need to project them onto others, like that high brow, upper class Viennese society desperately did to defend the delusions of its collective ego.
What would Carl Jung Think of Today’s Culture?
All of this is critical to our understanding of why in today’s culture, we all feel bad about feeling bad. Our media projects a certain form of perfection that we try to reconcile with parts of us that are weak, insecure or depressed. Because of Freud’s impact, when we feel any of these parts come online in our conscious, we blame ourselves for them or feel ashamed that we are any of those things. Thereby, we isolate ourselves from our shadows in order to please others and maintain their false narratives about us.
We regard ourselves as inadequate, a feeling that is very convenient to the consumer world of advertisements that sells us cars, machines, gadgets, clothes, plastic surgeries and vacations that speak directly to this inadequacy.
The point of the multiplicity of the mind then, is to allow us the space and vulnerability to experience failure, depression, pettiness, anger, jealousy or any other ‘undesirable’ without us over identifying with any of these parts as the totality of who we are. Remember the shame gremlins that fester in the dark and die as soon as we speak of them? These are the parts of us that live in our shadow, and may never see the light without a major life event such as crippling anxiety, insomnia, depression, burnout or a suicide attempt.
Luckily, we no longer live in the 19th century, and we now have a multitude of evidence-based therapies and treatments (or esoteric methods if that is what you prefer) to approach the shadow, recollect our different parts and live a life that is authentic, meaningful, and whole.
Sadly, most people will choose to live a life in the superficial ideas handed to them by their peers, because this work is quite difficult.
Not you though. You have not come this far to live in the shadows of someone else’s psyche. You are a seeker who has accepted the call to adventure and you’re a few steps away from slaying your dragon, and returning home from your cave with your newfound ‘treasures’, and hopefully will inspire others to do that same.
Enter the cave, brave warrior, and prepare to shed light on the darkest parts of your psyche that have been screaming for your attention for so long. May you find the magic and treasures that you seek.
If you want to explore how this multiplicity of the mind approach can help you become more productive and creative in today’s world, just reply to this email or leave a comment saying ‘Interested’ and I’ll set you up with a free demo session.
As Freud’s inherited burden on society is lifted, it is expected that we see more and more studies that showcase how this model can help regular people who just need a few nudges towards better health and habits.
Hodgdon HB, Anderson FG, Southwell E, et al. Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among Survivors of Childhood Trauma: A Pilot Effectiveness Study. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, & Trauma. 2020;31(1):22-43.
Haddock SA, Weiler LM, Trump LJ, et al. The Efficacy of Internal Family Systems Therapy in the Treatment of Depression Among Female College Students: A Pilot Study. The Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy. 2017;43(1):131-144.
Well written, with depth and personal relatedness.
Interested