Jung questioned the operation of
causality and determinism in human psychology.
The psychology of an individual can never be exhaustively explained
from himself alone … No psychological fact can ever be
explained in terms of causality alone; as a living phenomenon, it
is always indissolubly bound up with the continuity of the vital
process, so that it is not only something evolved but also continually
evolving and creative (CW 6, para. 717).
Jung used the word ‘reductive’ to describe the central feature of
Freud’s method of attempting to reveal the primitive, instinctual,
infantile bases or roots of psychological motivation. Jung is critical
of the reductive method because the full MEANING of the unconscious
product (symptom, DREAM, IMAGE, slip of the tongue) is not disclosed.
By connecting an unconscious product to the past, its present
value to the individual may be lost. A further objection is the tendency
to over-simplify by reduction, bypassing what he saw as deeper
implications. In particular, reductive interpretations may be couched
in excessively personalistic terms, linked far too closely with the
supposed ‘facts of the case’.
Jung was more interested in where a person’s life was leading him,
rather than the supposed causes of his situation. His was a TELEOLOGICAL
POINT OF VIEW. Jung described this orientation as ‘synthetic’,
with the implication that it was what emerged from the starting
point that was of primary significance. Developing this idea, he argued
that what a patient might tell the analyst should not be regarded
as historically true but as subjectively so (see PSYCHIC REALITY).
Thus, accounts of sexual molestation or of events claimed to have
been witnessed were quite possibly fantasies but nevertheless psychologically
‘true’ for the persons involved (see FANTASY).
Jung pointed out that the synthetic method is taken for granted in
everyday life where we tend to disregard the strictly causal factor. For
example, if a man has an opinion and expresses it, we want to know
what he means, what he is getting at. Use of the synthetic method involves
considering psychological phenomena as if they had intention
and purpose – i.e. in terms of goal-orientedness or teleology. To the
UNCONSCIOUS is granted the possession of a kind of knowledge or, even,
foreknowledge (CW 8, para. 175). Such methodology was consistent
with Jung’s basic view of the OPPOSITES which, however widely
separated, constantly tend toward or seek synthesis (see CONIUNCTlO).

It must be emphasised that lung never eschewed the analysis of
infancy and childhood as such – he regarded this as essential in some
cases though limited in scope (CW 16, paras 140-8). Reductive and
synthetic approaches can also co-exist. For example, fantasy can be
reductively interpreted as an encapsulation of a personal situation,
the outcome of antecedent events. It can also be interpreted from a
symbolic, synthetic viewpoint as tracing out a line of future psychological
development (CW 6, para. 720). See SYMBOL.
lung is less than fair to the reductive standpoint which requires
something more than the mentality of an archivist. It is not simply
a question of reconstructing the events of infancy but of using imagination
to reflect 0,1 the import of such events. Occasionally, analytical
psychologists themselves are guilty of using archetypes and complexes
in a crudely reductive manner.
lung’s critique is shared by several contemporary psychoanalysts
(Rycroft, 1968; Schafer, 1976). Causality, as a principle of explanation
in psychology, is now open to question.