An experimental method for the identification
of personal complexes by the investigation of associations or chance
psychological linkages (see ASSOCIATION). Jung concentrated upon
research with the word association test for several years during the
first decade of this century when he was a young psychiatrist working
at the Burgholzli Clinic (a mental hospital in Zurich) where the test
had been introduced by Bleuler and was used for the clinical assessment
of patients (see PSYCHOANALYSIS).
The test had been invented by Galton and taken over and changed
by Wundt, who wanted to discover and establish the laws governing
the association of ideas. Aschaffenburg and Kraepelin introduced
distinctions between verbal or ‘clang’ (sound) associations and those
related to meaning and they observed the effect of fatigue upon responses. Fever patients, alcoholics and mental patients were tested.
Next, Ziehan discovered that reaction times were longer if the stimulus
words related to something that the patient felt was unpleasant.
Delayed responses were found to be related to a ‘common underlying
representation’ or ’emotionally charged complex of representations’.
It was at this point that the test was taken up for use at the Burgholzli
and Jung was entrusted with the research which, in the first instance,
was concerned with the loosening or release of tension surrounding
associations at the onset of SCHIZOPHRENIA.
Jung perfected the test, his main purpose being the detection and
analysis of complexes. During these investigations, he became convinced
that the patient might be cured if he could be helped to
conquer and overcome his COMPLEX. Among his first findings (published
in 1907 as The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, CW 3) Jung
distinguished different kinds of complexes, depending upon whether
they were related to single, ongoing or repeated events; whether they
were conscious, partly conscious or unconscious and whether they
revealed strong charges of AFFECT. Jung’s investigations caused a
divergence with Bleuler regarding hypotheses concerning the genesis
of schizophrenia and Jung also enunciated his seminal supposition
that the delusional ideas of the psychotic were attempts to create a
new vision of the world (CW 3, paras 153-178).
Throughout his work on the word association test, Jung regarded
Freud as an authority. Freud himself was not unawkre of research
on association and he used a number of terms such a~ chain, thread,
train or line of association to describe the pathways of so-called ‘free
association’. Jung felt his own researches upon complexes and complex
indicators confirmed constellations of unconscious repressed
contents and gave support to Freud’s discoveries of traumatic reminiscences.
But, whereas Freud continued to apply his method of free
association largely to contents of the patient’s personal unconscious
(Jung’s term), Jung’s interest in complexes carried him further to
investigation of archetypes residing in the collective unconscious
(again Jung’s term). See ARCHETYPE; COLLECTIVE; UNCONSCIOUS.
For a brief time, Jung speculated that the word association test
might be a tool of social value for use in crime detection as well as
in therapy. But after several years of intense work on the problems
involved, he ceased to use the word association test altogether and
abandoned any further attempts at experimental psychology.
A test devised by Jung to show the reality and autonomy of unconscious complexes.
Our conscious intentions and actions are often frustrated by unconscious processes whose very existence is a continual surprise to us. We make slips of the tongue and slips in writing and unconsciously do things that betray our most closely guarded secrets-which are sometimes unknown even to ourselves. . . . These phenomena can . . . be demonstrated experimentally by the association tests, which are very useful for finding out things that people cannot or will not speak about.[The Structure of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 296.]
The Word Association Experiment consists of a list of one hundred words, to which one is asked to give an immediate association. The person conducting the experiment measures the delay in response with a stop watch. This is repeated a second time, noting any different responses. Finally the subject is asked for comments on those words to which there were a longer-than-average response time, a merely mechanical response, or a different association on the second run-through; all these are marked by the questioner as “complex indicators” and then discussed with the subject.
The result is a “map” of the personal complexes, valuable both for self-understanding and in recognizing disruptive factors that commonly bedevil relationships.
What happens in the association test also happens in every discussion between two people. . . . The discussion loses its objective character and its real purpose, since the constellated complexes frustrate the intentions of the speakers and may even put answers into their mouths which they can no longer remember afterwards.[A Review of the Complex Theory,” ibid., par. 199.]
