December 2005/January 2006

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Intimations of Jung in Integrative Psychology
and in Ken Wilber's Quadrants

John Giannini

As a Jungian analyst and a member of the Association for Humanistic Psychology for many years, I have always felt attuned to the substance and goals of AHP. After reading your June/July 2005 issue of AHP Perspective on'Integrative Psychologies' and the influence of Ken Wilber's four quadrants, I feel impelled to write a supportive article in which I hope to give some added context to your discussions. I have been aware of the possibilities of Jung's typological theory for years and have found using this tool invaluable in therapy. I first became aware of typology in a negative way when my first analyst, Victor White, advised me that I had been living the wrong type for most of my adult years which had resulted in much turmoil in my life. My subsequent research into type solidified for me the value of type consciousness. Certainly, there is a type connection in the Integrative Psychology's mission statement which includes Jung's four functions:'the empirical [or sensate] and the intuitive' and'thinking and feeling' (AHP Perspective June/July 2005, 7). The implications of this connect to any archetypal system, including Wilber's four quadrants, as I will explain. I need to give more context.

In my training and professional work, I pursued many other areas of Jung's thought and practice, until fate led me back to typology. In the early 1980s, I was certified as an MBTI typologist. My subsequent research in the l990s led to my publishing a book in June of last year called The Compass of the Soul: Archetypal Guides to a Fuller Life. One particular impetus for this work was an article,'Typology Revisited,' which appeared in the Fall l977 issue of Psychological Perspectives. The authors, Humphrey Osmond and others, were unknown to me in either analytical or type circles, until, via a synchronistic event, I learned they were Princeton University scholars who called themselves'Experiential Psychologists.' They argued that Jung had focused too much on the individual functions' intrapsychic developments. Instead, this group turned to his perceptive/judging couplings which they called'Umvelts' or'Self-worlds,' and pushed for their inter-personal value. The names they gave each coupling seriously caught my attention (Figure 1, outer designations): the ST Structurals, the NF Oceanics, the NT Ethereals, and the SF Experials, an invented word meaning Parental Moralists (Giannini, The Compass of the Soul: Archetypal Guides to a Fuller Life, The Center for the Applications of Psychological Types, 2004, 204).

I recognized that to treat the couplings in this way was to recognize types as archetypes. I also read anew Isabel Briggs Myers' archetype-like phenomenology of the couplings in her famous little'Brown Book,' called Introduction to Type (Consulting Psychologists Press, l962, 28). She had bracketed out introversion and extraversion as well as perceiving and judging orientations which, with the couplings, make up her sixteen types (MBTI). My research led back to Jung's Psychological Types, in which I discovered a surprising statement, which we analysts ignored and which Myers did not, that Jung's entire type system was based on the four couplings. Jung wrote:

In the foregoing description [of his individual types] I have no desire to give my readers the impression that these types occur at all frequently in such pure form in actual life. . . . Closer investigation shows with great regularity that, besides the most differentiated [principal] function, another, less differentiated [auxiliary] function of secondary importance is invariably present in consciousness and exerts a co-determining influence [bold, mine].
(Carl Jung, Psychological Types, Princeton University Press, 1923, CW6, Paragraph 666).

Figure 2, created by Jung in l925 (Carl Jung, Analytical Psychology: Notes from the 1925 Seminar Year, Princeton University Press, 1989, 128) shows how the couplings form the circumference of his type mandala which he called a compass.

My book's goals, then, were twofold: To demonstrate that types are archetypes, and that the type couplings, ST, SF, NF, and NT, are the central core of both Jung's theory and the MBTI. Many intimations of the types as archetypes appear in Jung, in addition to his interactive compass. He wrote that every type has a'numinal [or sacred] accent,' which in Jung's overall system is a characteristic of archetypes (Jung, Psychological Types, Paragraphs 982-985). Moreover, Jung says that any person who lives the wrong type in what he calls'the Falsification of Types,' can become psychologically and physically ill (Paragraphs 560-|561). I had personally learned, painfully, that ignoring your inborn type violates your archetypal identity. Further, Jung characterized our Western culture as EST and then in his Epilogue argued that every theory in the sciences (and I would add in the arts) is based on the typology of its creator (Jung, Psychological Types, l923, Paragraphs 846-849).

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Here we see how the types operate like Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields. For example, just as we learn in genetics that the original cell's field potentially contains all the structures as well as the dynamic energies of the trillions of cells that constitute the adult body, so does the inborn type function in a similar way in informing a whole personality. Further, in many ways, Jung's type theory informs his whole psychology. Also, Jung's definition of archetypes was initially expressed in a type's terms, that is, that they are'the a priori inborn forms of'intuition' and as universal perceptions and apprehensions.' Jung continued, noting that archetypes are'the necessary a priori determinants of all psychic processes' (Carl Jung, CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Princeton University Press, 1960, Paragraph 270). Jung also pointed out that only intuition embraces the other three functions (Jung, Psychological Types, Paragraph 770). Finally, Jung defined Intuition as the'perception from the unconscious.' But the unconscious, he wrote, is'more like an atmosphere in which we live than something that is found in us,' so as a'universal substratum present in the environment,' it makes possible synchronistic events (C. G. Jung Letters . . . , 433). Therefore, intuition is co-extensive with all synchronistic or strangely meaningful events that connect an inner consciousness with an outside incident.

After I had recognized the archetypal nature of the type theory, I realized that the four couplings, as the central archetypes of typology, appeared in many places: in Robert Moore and Douglass Gillette,'s King (SF), Warrior (ST), Magician (NT), Lover (NF), in discussions of the creative process, and as constituents of children's four levels of development, according to Walter Lowen. I recognized that all of these theoretical constructs also correlate with Erik Erikson's eight ages of life. I also found that the four couplings agreed perfectly with the four metaphorical brain quadrants of Ned Herrmann's Whole Brain research and instrument. Finally, concerned with what I called'Our ESTJ National [not individual] Pathology,' I found another appearance of these four archetypal couplings and a possible remedy for our addictive warrior culture in the organizational philosophy of William Edwards Deming, the quality-control genius. His system is made up of four disciplines: Theory, System, Psychology, and Variations. More specifically, they are his Theory of any organization as an organism (NT), his Systems, based on teams and feedback (ST), his Psychology, that is, that each of us is born with intrinsic motivation, instead of the extrinsic motivations based on fear (NF), and finally, his top-management responsibility for correcting all Variations that limit the quality of both materials and human worth (SF). When I discovered the work of Ken Wilber, I realized that if I had not already completed my book, my culminating chapter would have been about his work.

REFLECTIONS ON INTEGRATIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Jung's commitment to a personal and universal spirituality was central to his psychology. He held that the psyche included a religious/ spiritual instinct. He described the Self, his name for Soul, as the equivalent of a cosmic psychic stem cell. He writes that'this something is . . . a virtual center of so mysterious a constitution that it can claim anything'kinship with beasts and with gods, with crystals and with stars, . . . . It might equally well be called the'God within us'' (Carl Jung, CW 7, Two Essays, Princeton University Press, 1953, Paragraphs 398-399). So the Self is the archetype of wholeness. As such, it is the source of a developmental life process and the integrating center of any four quadrants (Figure 3).

Wilber calls this source and center'the creative spirit' as well as'emptiness' out of which'new holons emerge' (Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, Shambhala, 1996, 25-26). Holons are Wilber's equivalent name for archetypes, though he adds meanings that would deepen a Jungian approach. This'creative spirit' as a uniting spiritual instinct that is both personal and cosmic seems certainly to be allied with Integrative Psychology, because the very word integrative is based on Integral, which means, per Webster's, wholeness. So just as all archetypes, including the types, flow, for Jung, from the Self's wholeness, so do Integrative Psychology's'behavior codes' flow from some kind of center as well as an inclusive circumference.

Kirk Schneider speaks of a'fulcrum' or a center of support that facilitates moving something, in this case evolving psychic and cyclical energies (AHP Perspective, June, 8). Jung speaks of the Self as the'complex oppositorium.' An integrative view also presents a'Spiral Dynamics' which includes a multi-leveled view of the psyche, especially as developed by Don Beck (AHP Perspective June, 9-l3). Beck's work goes beyond Jung's more limited understanding of these levels. Wilber's work goes even further. Beck believes that Wilber's multileveled and evolutionary view of each of the four holons adds significantly to his Spiral Dynamics.

This brings me to the construction of Wilber's quadrants. We see in both Don Eulert's article (AHP Perspective June, 7) and Daryl Paulson's review of Wilber's 200l book A Theory of Everything (AHP Perspective, June, 23) that Wilber's formulations emerge as Interior Individual (UL or Upper Left, etc.), and Exterior Individual (UR), Interior Collective (LL or Lower Left), and Exterior Collective (LR) (also in Wilber, A Theory of Everything, 2001, 74). Wilber gives no indication in his book A Brief History of Everything that he knows the types as a system. He does, however, discuss what he calls a'moral intuition'; and he describes its task as to'protect and promote the greatest depth for the greatest span' (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 1996, 335). This agrees with Jung's Intuitive function which he described as a'perception from the unconscious.' In line with Jung, Wilber then proceeds to call the UL the'I' quadrant, with an interior self-awareness that produces'self expression' and'art and aesthetics.' Following Plato, he describes this holon as'the Beautiful' (Wilber, A Theory of Everything, 2001, l34). In the Jungian formulation, this is the NF Oceanic, Moore's Lover/Artist, and in my designation, the'creative artist' (Figure l). This is also the place of dreams in the dark night, nature's spontaneous creativity (Figure 3).

Wilber designates the pronoun'We' for the LL as a shared cultural interiority, a cumulative kind of inner'I' awarenesses. Because two of its qualities are'ethics and morality,' he ascribes Plato's'the Good' to this quadrant. Other key qualities here for Wilber are'world views, common context, and culture' (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, l996, l22). These characteristics resonate with the Osmond group's attribute for the NT coupling as'ethereal,' which connotes an eagle-like'big picture.' Moore's archetype of'Magician' also fits here, as the inner knower and as King Arthur's wise man, Merlin, who develops the strategies of both war and peace. This is also the place in the cyclical life and even daily journey in which, after plunging into NF darkness at night or in a life crisis, one can enlarge one's life views in the LL psychic place (Figure 3).

When Wilber turns from these two quadrants, which he calls'The Left Hand Path,' to the two quadrants in the'Right Hand Path,' he writes succinctly of them that'all the aspects' of these extraverted holons'are objects or exteriors that can be seen empirically. . . .' (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, l996, p. 88). For this reason the SF Exterior Individual or UR holon carries the pronoun of'It.' and the ST Exterior Collective or LR quadrant, the pronoun'Its' (Paulson, AHP Perspective June, 23). He also gives the Platonic designation of'The True' to these two quadrants. At this point, I believe that Wilber blundered in using these Platonic ideas, because these designations, which are attributes of the philosophical concept of Being, transcend the quadrants. Wilber is implicitly acknowledging this problem when he writes that'the point of depth psychology and therapy [Left Hand Path work] is to help people interpret themselves more truthfully (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, l996, l09).

Be that as it may, his descriptions of the two Right Hand quadrants are also in harmony with Jung's typology. Both are in the realms of'science and technology.' Specifically, we see that the Exterior Individual or UR holon is associated with the brain and the body together, beginning with atoms and molecules and emerging as such brain levels as the reptilian, limbic and the neocortex (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, l996, p. 74). The SF archetype is in total agreement with this formulation, since both the Sensate and Feeling functions are considered'concrete,' respectively to things and people. Most people in massage work are SFs. Such people love hands-on work, such as the crafts, in contrast to the inclination of the NF Lover's toward the fine arts.

The Exterior Collective quadrant, as RL, is in line with the ST Warrior/Structural archetype, as when Wilber writes that here'the empirical social sciences mostly want to study the behavior of societies in a detached fashion.' True to the extraverted makeup of this holon, its adherents study'all exterior behavior, no interior intentions' (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 1996, 95). This Warrior archetype is important also as the doer, as the disciplines aspect of us that finishes the job.

Please note that the Wilber quadrants are perfectly aligned in place and dynamics with the Jung/MBTI couplings: with the UP/NF quadrant opposite the LR/ST and the UR/SF quadrant opposite the LL/NT. Why the different orientation? Jung unconsciously was depicting the left and right brain, whereas Wilber pictures the behaviors of these brain halves: that is the left brain is manifest in the Right Hand Path and the right brain in the Left Hand Path. Wilber also calls these'The Two Hands of God,' so we are again in a divine milieu (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 1996, 84ff).

The upshot of all of this is that when I read in Sonu Shamdasani's book Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology that Jung had not only the positive identity of the individual in mind but also the creation of a psychology that would unite all of the sciences and the arts, which he called Jung's'Encyclopedic Project,' I realized that the types are the basis of this expansive project (Sonu Shamdasani, Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 18-l9). Then when I began to read of Integrative Psychology, I felt the same breadth and depth that I have found in Jung, which led me to the same conclusion about the types, expanded now to Wilber's work. Ken Wilber's four quadrants, both as to substance and interconnected dynamics, are not only in harmony with the archetypal nature of the couplings but also enhance their cultural and personal meaning and so significantly add to Jung's'encyclopedic project.'

JOHN GIANNINI has been a Jungian analyst and involved in training since l980 in the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has a BS in Engineering and an MBA in Industrial Relations from Stanford University, and a MDiv from St. Albert's College, Oakland (Dominican Order), an MA in Religion and Psychology from the Divinity School, University of Chicago. He is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and author of The Compass of the Soul: Archetypal Guides to a Fuller Life.

First Cover Story

A CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Don Eulart