A Criticism of Bleuler's Theory of Schizophrenic Negativism (Unabridged)

In this essay, Carl Jung discusses an aspect of the work of the Swiss psychiatrist Paul Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939). Bleuler’s clinical analysis of "Negativism" in schizophrenia raised the concepts of "ambivalency" and "ambitendency", expressing the axiom that every tendency is balanced by its opposite. Jung argues that there is no such thing as a capricious playing with contrasts, and that the theory of negativism must adapt itself to the systematic character of resistance. Jung holds that both ambivalency and ambitendency are manifestations of the universal inner association of pairs of opposites, and that neither is specific to schizophrenia, but applies equally to the neuroses and the normal. He notes that one of the most remarkable examples of this is the contrary meaning of root-words discussed in Freud’s "Essay on Dreams".