The Transcendent Function and the Possibility of Reconciliation Between Men and Women
“Please stand if you have ever been emotionally or psychologically abused by the opposite gender,” the facilitator says. I look around. All participants in both the men’s group and women’s group rise. I do not feel surprised. “Please stand if you have ever been afraid for your life when walking the streets because of your gender.” I notice that I feel nervous to confront this. Every single woman stands. Not one man stands. This was the moment that I sunk deeper into the importance of this work. How is it that we are so similar, yet the way the world treats us is so starkly opposite? I write this paper for the possibility of turning the heartbreak I felt in that workshop into collective hope.
*****
How do we be together? Looking around at the world, it seems we have forgotten the answer to this very necessary human question, and this is extremely evident in relations between women and men. It is undeniable that dominant western culture is riddled with many tensions, extremes, and battles. It is ill, experiencing crisis after crisis, and the results are heartbreaking. The crises are not isolated, they are systemic. At the root of most of these crises is a common theme: divisiveness and separation. Whether it is the split between humans with other humans, humans and nature, humans and particular beliefs — the story is always the same. There is a victim, and there is a perpetrator. War mentality is at the heart of many of our crises. “How do we get rid of the bad guys?” we ask. More often than not, humans end up fighting power with power and enacting the same thing that they are fighting against. Singer and Kimbles (2004) said that “much of what tears us apart can be understood as the manifestation of autonomous processes in the collective and individual psyche that organize themselves as cultural complexes” (p. 1). In this paper, I will propose that this very archetypal phenomenon is playing out in the collective battle between women and men. Through the lens of Jungian theory and Cultural Complexes, the work of bell hooks, and an organization called Gender Equity and Reconciliation International, I will explore the current gender-related events playing out in the world at large with movements that are dedicated to healing the feminine.
Men and women have been longing for one another and also battling one another for centuries. More specifically, we’ve been struggling to understand one another and how to relate to one another. There’s a lot to explore about what happened, and how we got here, and I will get to that later. More often than not, patriarchy and the rise of a patriarchal worldview are blamed for this and while I do agree, I believe that there is something missing. In this paper, I will take a risk as a woman (and a woman who has devoted a lot of her life to healing the feminine) to posit that women are not the only victims of patriarchy. Men too have been drastically hurt by the history of patriarchal culture. Furthermore, I will take another risk to say that the current attempt to bring down the patriarchy is indeed an extreme flip to the opposite pole and creating copious amounts of harm. Luckily, we have some theories to explain this.
But First, What is a Cultural Complex?
Jung popularized the psychological theory of complexes. Although it seems like he often alluded to cultural complexes and was fascinated by the collective, his theory of complexes is focused on the personal/individual. Personal complexes are a big part of Jung’s work on individuation, the path of wholeness, and it takes understanding complexes to walk that path with integrity. Personal complexes can be explained as heavily charged nodal points in the unconscious that are feeling-toned and generally have an archetypal core. So, in simple terms, a lot of emotion and energy clustered around a particular trigger or experience. It is not uncommon for these complexes to splinter off and become autonomous. Here, Kimbles & Singer (2004) explained the similarities between how personal and cultural complexes form:
As personal complexes emerge out of the level of the personal unconscious in their interaction with deeper levels of the psyche and early parental/familial relationships, cultural complexes can be thought of arising out of the cultural unconscious as it interacts with both the archetypal and personal realms of the psyche and the broader outer world arena of schools, communities, media, and all the other forms of cultural and group life. (p. 4)
Several more recent Jungians have coined the term cultural complex and have created a theory to follow. Andrew Samuels (2010) said “I believe we are now in the middle of developing Jung’s radical intuition, floated in the 1930s, of the need to create a culturally sensitive psychology. A culturally sensitive psychology does not level out all differences in the psyche that stem from politics, ethnicity, religion, nation, social class, gender, and sexual orientation” (p. 241). The cultural complex was born from a combination of Jung’s theories as well as Joseph Henderson’s theory of the cultural unconscious, “the theoretical space between the personal and archetypal levels of the psyche… existing both in the conscious and the unconscious” (Singer, 2004, p. 13). The most direct definition of a cultural complex is:
An emotionally charged aggregate of ideas and images that tend to cluster around an archetypal core and are shared by individuals within an identified collective. They accumulate experiences that validate their point of view and create a storehouse of self-affirming, ancestral memories which are based on historical experiences that have taken root in the collective psyche of a group and in the psyches of the individual members of a group. (Singer, 2010, p. 23)
It can also be described that groups of people enacting cultural complexes, through their stories of identity and projection, are asking other groups to hold their shadow. Just as intense emotion is a hallmark of personal complexes, the same is true for cultural complexes when they are activated. “Like individual complexes, cultural complexes tend to be repetitive, autonomous, resist consciousness, and collect experience that conforms to their historical point of view” (Kimbles & Singer, 2004, p. 6). As well, just like individual complexes, cultural complexes are very bipolar which lends itself to much unconscious action and projection. Cultural complexes show up in the bodies, language, and stories of individuals. Perhaps most importantly, cultural complexes are indicative of group identity and “can provide those caught in their potent web of stories and emotions a simplistic certainty about the group’s place in the world in the face of otherwise conflicting and ambiguous uncertainties” (Kimbles & Singer, 2004, p. 7).
Trauma: How Did We Get Here?
“When such opposites have gone to war with each other, we can be sure that there is a battle going on in the collective psyche to find a resolution to the cultural complex that underlies both positions” (Samuels, 2010, p. 240).
Singer and Kimbles (2004) said that group complexes are related to “trauma, discrimination, feelings of oppression and inferiority at the hands of another offending group” (p. 7). They also point out the most ironic part of this, which is related to my thesis, that “the “offending groups” are just as frequently feeling discriminated against and treated unfairly” (Kimbles & Singer, 2004, p. 7). Because of this back and forth triggering and activation, group complexes exist everywhere, between many groups, and can erupt at any point.
Singer, bringing in the work of Donald Kalsched, weaves together cultural complex theory with an understanding of group trauma. Focusing specifically on the element of intense emotionality, Singer asks what is the purpose of this powerful collective emotion which is often considered irrational, and what is the result of it. Using Kalsched’s theories, Singer (2004) proposes the work of the daimon is at play in cultural complexes and quotes Kalsched who describes daimones as the “archetypal defenses of the personal spirit” (Kalsched, 1996, as cited in Singer, 2004, p. 1). Singer (2004) extends this same notion as it relates to groups: “I am suggesting that these same Daimones also have the function of protecting the “collective spirit” of the group when it is endangered” (p. 17). He goes on to suggest that “the Diamones can serve both a vital self-protective function and can raise havoc with the fury of their attacks directed inwardly in self-torture and outwardly in impenetrability” (Singer, 2004, p.17). This speaks to how cultural complexes can form as a protective defense system, and yet become so autonomous and unconscious that they turn destructive.
Historically, we know how much trauma has been inflicted upon women as a result of patriarchal culture, and this theory helps us see that a lot of protection of the group spirit has been necessary! There is not enough space in this paper to explore all of that history, but simply by just naming the trauma of the witch burnings, the sexist societal gender roles, the objectification, and the repression of female autonomy and sexuality have all created a devastating and lasting impact on the collective woman. As well, it is now clear that the oppression of women and the feminine has had drastic ecological consequences. We see the consequences all over the place, from self-hatred and self-mutilation of the body beginning earlier and earlier in girls, to the rise of domestic and sexual abuse, internalized oppression, and ultimately with the many feminist movements demanding equality and an end to this crisis. What is often overlooked is the question of what happened for us to get here? As well, what happened to boys and men which contributed to this mess? I witness that these questions very often remain unasked. Meador (2004) paints a picture of the long term consequences of such unquestioned assumptions:
A cultural complex consists of unquestioned assumptions, underlying beliefs held to be true by most of the members of the group, certainly by the group’s power elite. These beliefs are long lived, lasting for many generations. Unquestioned assumptions create an unconscious anchoring of the present to the past, so that “what has always been true” in a particular culture carries an almost indomitable weight. (p. 172)
When we consider the many generations of unquestioned assumptions piled on top of one another, it is no wonder we ended up in a messy situation. This is the very heart of intergenerational and inherited trauma.
#MeToo and Enantiodromia
In recent years we have seen an uprising of female voices speaking out and speaking up as victims of sexual abuse and/or harassment after a heartbreakingly long silence. This has been known as the #MeToo movement. This is good, right? This is part of healing and transformation, right? Well, yes, this is crucial, but it is only one side of the process. And because of this one-sidedness, we are witnessing something very striking occurring as a result. This something is not often spoken about these days (which is a big part of the problem), and it seems to be the shadow side of the #metoo movement. In many instances, we are seeing the roles reversed, and the oppressed (women) are inhabiting the role of oppressor. There is a new phenomenon in the media that is called cancel culture and this means that someone who is accused of sexual harassment or abuse loses their career and any place in the public sphere other than that of abuse. I can see how this type of response is compelling, but I also find it very dangerous to the collective, and again, missing something important that might be necessary for true healing.
The well-known feminist author and thinker, bell hooks wrote about the shadow side of feminism in her book The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. She speaks of her experience in these circles and the hatred of men she has observed. She noted how many women she has seen caught in the toxic stories about who men are, believing what patriarchal conditioning has done is the truth of the male experience. In this sense, she has witnessed women perpetuating the very beliefs they are fighting against by validating them and refusing to see another way.
We did not have to talk about the ways our fear of men distorted our perspectives and blocked our understanding. Hating men was just another way to not take men and masculinity seriously. It was simply easier for feminist women to talk about challenging and changing patriarchy than it was for us to talk about men — what we knew and did not know, about the ways we wanted men to change. Better to just express our desire to have men disappear, to see them dead and gone. (hooks, 2005, p. Xiv)
The male conditioning is all about being tough and not expressing their feelings in the name of manliness. hooks pointed out that women have begun to believe that very conditioning, while fighting what has collectively come as a result. A common hardcore feminist belief says “if they dared to love us, in patriarchal culture they would cease to be real men” (hooks, 2005, p. 3). hooks shares a personal experience she had with her partner where she realized this:
It was hard for me to face that I did not want to hear about his feelings when they were painful or negative, that I did not want my imagine of the strong man truly challenged by learning of his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Here I was, an enlightened feminist woman who did not want to hear my man speak his pain because it revealed his emotional vulnerability… Many women cannot hear male pain about love because it sounds like an indictment of female failure. (hooks, 2005, p. 7)
We can see here how apparent and dangerous the back and forth shadow projections really are.
The rising feminist movements as well as spiritual outlooks on the need to bring back the feminine are huge, needed, and powerful! But, again, it is half of the work and also creating a shadow. Many men now feel that their voice does not matter, that they cannot take up any space in the world, disempowered, and living in fear of being canceled. Is this the way to heal the culture and to make space for the feminine? I am not certain it is. I do believe that we must do away with patriarchy, but I do not believe that matriarchy is the answer. We must find another way. A middle way. A mutual way. A reconciliatory way.
There is a theory that Jung was very fond of called enantiodromia. Enantiodromia is what happens when something turns into its opposite over time. Jung believed in the inevitability of this in our polarized world, especially on the path of transformation.
An aspect of the [this] transformation of consciousness is the recognition that everything nature eventually flows to its opposite, which he referred to as enantiodromia. (Jacobi, 1980); a term that reflects the potential natural shift in consciousness. However enantiodromia as a transformative process is not without its own perils, as it involves encountering the shadow, which Jung was adamant, is always involved in the deep processes of change. (Collins, Hughes, & Samuels, 2012, pp. 165–166)
Jung was obsessed with opposites and paradox, so he studied this phenomenon closely. What I have mentioned above in regards to the #MeToo and feminist movements seems to me an enactment of this enantiodromia as it is reflective of a transformation in collective consciousness. So, what is the solution to find the balance?
The Transcendent Function in Cultural Complexes
If we can successfully develop the function which I have called transcendent, the disharmony ceases and we can then enjoy the favorable side of the unconscious. The unconscious then gives us all the encouragement and help that a bountiful nature can shower upon man. It holds possibilities which are locked away from the conscious mind, for it has at its disposal all subliminal psychic contents, all those things which have been forgotten or overlooked, as well as the wisdom and experience of uncounted centuries which are laid down in its archetypal organs. (Jung as cited in Singer, 2010, p. 236)
Jungian theory is situated around his notion of the transcendent function. This is the symbol that emerges as a result of the integration of a tension of opposites. It is something like a middle way or a new way that is not possible to see from either end of a binary but births from the space between them. It comes as a result of the conversation between opposites, rather than further separation. Meador, Singer, and Samuels proposed that the transcendent function can exist at the level of the collective psyche and that it plays a major role in the healing of cultural complexes. Singer (2010) said that the ‘bountiful nature’ Jung refers to “includes the possibility that any number of cultural complexes that divide groups and nations… can be resolved or at least mitigated in their negative impact” (p. 236). The transcendent function shows up in cultural complexes when something or someone appears that “seems able to identify the opposites, make them conscious in a clear, direct language and identify with the powerful feelings on both sides of the conflict that allows one to imagine a new way in which to resolve them” (Singer, 2010, p. 238). The birth of a transcendent function generally involves a great deal of shadow-work. As in the path of individuation, it is necessary to address parts of one’s psyche that have been repressed, suppressed, or thrown away into the dark. This same process goes for cultural work. We must integrate back into consciousness that which has been rejected either by us or by culture. These rejections can happen as a result of trauma or a defense mechanism to keep us safe. Ultimately, both personal and collective wholeness requires the integration of all parts of ourselves and/or culture. When something is pushed out of consciousness, one feels that they do not and cannot identify with it. Therefore, it becomes the opposition to whatever it is we do identify with.
Now, to translate this into cultural complexes… Singer (2010) used Barack Obama as an example of a transcendent function and his attempt to “point to reconciliation rather than filling ‘us vs. them’ reactions’” in his 2008 speech (p. 239). In pointing out a few specific examples of individuals, Singer (2010) said:
They actually carry the transcendent function for the group with its potential for healing at the level of the collective psyche. In the meantime, most of us muddle along with the reality that many of these cultural conflicts are well beyond our individual efforts as individuals to find our way to healing at the collective level of these profound wounds. (p. 235)
I would like to propose a process that carries the possibility of a transcendent function in the reparations between men and women.
Reconciliation
We know from Jung that the pathway to wholeness is not without confrontation with the unconscious and the shadow. We’ve learned that groups in the grips of cultural complexes are asking other groups to hold their shadow, and cultivating identities based on historical experiences which have in turn also created a great shadow. We’ve heard above that the antidote to the inevitable enantiodromian shift during deep transformation is an encounter with the shadow. As well, we’ve understood that wholeness is an integration of opposites — often the case that one of the poles is latent in the shadow. So, is it safe to conclude that a reckoning and confrontation with the shadow are what’s at hand in the gender wars? I would like to propose that it is, and that there is a beautiful way to do this. I have seen and felt it firsthand.
Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI) is an organization whose mission is to bring “transformational healing and reconciliation between women, men, and people of all genders and sexual orientations” (GERI website). I have trained with them as a facilitator of this work. One of their main programs is titled From MeToo to WeTogether. Part of their mission, written on their webpage, is as follows:
Gender Equity and Reconciliation builds upon yet goes well beyond the work of the women’s and men’s movements — both of which are crucial social movements in their own right that have made essential contributions. Gender equity and reconciliation takes another bold step — or leap! — to bring women and men together to begin an unprecedented collaborative work of facing the disastrous reality of gender injustice in its many forms, and embarking upon the integral work of mutual transformation to create a new, unprecedented harmony between the sexes. Working through the challenges of gender disharmony with integrity, compassion, and non-judgment, men and women discover a liberating awakening and unprecedented relational intimacy.
As stated above, GERI goes a step beyond men’s work and women’s work by bringing these two groups, in both of their complexes, together to discover what they may learn and hear from one another in order to heal. As someone who has organized many women’s groups since adolescence, I came to realize that the work cannot only be done in isolation. There is an element that is missing, yet necessary. I posit that the forums and spaces that GERI creates are an example of the transcendent function in the healing of cultural complexes. I (and others) have sat in these circles and experienced, for the first time, hope in the possibility of a new story together. I have myself (and witnessed others), let my guard down to consider the deeper stories of the men and their lives. I have also spoken and witnessed stories from women which indicate how women’s healing work/feminism has a shadow and a big role to play in current events. I have felt and witnessed the heartbreak between both men and women when they hear how much pain and suffering the others have carried and continue to carry. And most strikingly, I have experienced and witnessed the grief and outrage in the realization of how entirely similar men and women are and yet, how different our experience is in the world — especially as it relates to safety.
In the book, Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation Between Women and Men, William Keepin, founder of GERI along with co-founder Cynthia Brix, laid out the foundation and essence of this work. The following is a description of the work which feels to be an equally accurate description of the cultivation of a transcendent function.
In essence, the process is simple: women and men gather together — on equal terms, in integrity, dropping the usual conditioned denials, taboos, and excuses — and jointly explore the truth of their experiences, vulnerabilities, insights, and aspirations. Through this process they make discoveries together and allow new awareness to dawn. They allow these new revelations to change them, embracing whatever healing is required and taking full responsibility for the consequences of whatever is jointly discovered and experienced… The resulting benefits are not for them alone but filter backs into the community to benefit the larger society. (Keepin, 2018, p. 4)
Keepin, who is deeply woven into the Jungian lineage, often likens this process to an alchemical one because it involves a greater spiritual transformation. He stated that during this process “the “lead” of the human psyche — the inner darkness and repressed “poisons” lodged in the mind and heart (called “prima materia”) — are confronted directly and transmuted into the golden light of love” (Keepin, 2018, p. 16). This work involves integrating the “lead”, the poisons, the shadow into conscious awareness in order to alchemize it into something new.
Keepin (2018) pointed out that a key theme in the reconciliation work is that there exist “large and crucial gaps in women’s awareness of men and in men’s awareness of women. These gaps in mutual awareness are kept in place by all manner of taboos and forbidden topics in society” (p. 14). We can see how this relates to repressed content in the psyche (both personal and collective) turning into a complex. As well, complexes become autonomous and gather information that will validate themselves. In this case, if anything that disproves the complex is deeply repressed in a mass amount of individuals, then it is no surprise that a collective group complex will come to life. As the GERI work proceeds, men and women continue to find the threads that bind them together and the experiences they’ve shared. They gain awareness about one another’s suffering and particularly, how their gender conditioning is to blame for much of their experience. “The gender conditioning we have all experienced cuts across these categories and unites us in a common work to be done together as human beings. From this foundation, gender healing work proceeds naturally” (Keepin, 2018, p. 31). They begin to see that it is not due to their own fault. Men aren’t terrible, women aren’t terrible — so how did we get here? There is a bigger issue at hand. What do little girls learn? What do little boys learn? What happened to women over the last centuries? What happened to men?
Engaging in the reconciliation work involves uncovering many contradictions. Individuals are asked to hold their experience while hearing another’s, which may entirely contradict what they have believed as a result of their own traumas or stories. Keepin (2018) goes as far as to propose a Jungian coniunctio oppositorum by saying: “As the community stays with the uncomfortable tension of contradiction, individuals begin to perceive the truth of “the other” as their own experience, and the polarities of conflicting positions often dissolve into an unexpected emergence of a deeper underlying unity: a profound recognition that, ultimately, there is no “other” (p. 31). I feel a profound hope in this process and I feel that it is an incredible model for many cultural complexes, not just between men and women. Singer (2010) said that “a collective experience of transcendent function can rekindle one’s faith in humanity” (p. 236). I am honored and privileged that I get to witness, facilitate, and experience this work.
What is Patriarchy, Actually?
In the heat of this social and political conflict, the mainstream portrays that we know what the problem is and how to get rid of it. Personally, I believe we are quite confused as a culture and enact a very adolescent approach to conflicts and solutions. One example of this is that, as a culture, we are confused about what patriarchy really is, and what it means. We have misunderstandings nested on top of other misunderstandings, and the only result of this can be a very messy predicament! I have been particularly struck by the definition of patriarchy as told by author, musician, ceremonialist, and wisdom teacher, Stephen Jenkinson, who shared the exact etymology of the word.
Patros means father. Arche is the fundament that upholds everything that rests upon it. Foundational. Requiring. It is the ability to stand under in order to be understood. It is that which is willing to stand under and sustain everything that comes subsequent to it. So, patriarchy is the willingness to engage in a kind of primordial spirit-laboring called fathering. Father doesn’t say anything about children per se. You can father a culture, you can father an idea. Fathering is a function. It goes without saying that if that’s what patriarchy is, we need way more of it than we have, and women should understand themselves as not excluded from the fathering function. The psychic repertoire included in ‘fathering’ is not exclusive to men. The instinct in women to abandon it at all costs is costly and not only to the patriarchy but to the women who are leaving it to the men. (Jenkinson, 2020)
Jenkinson (2020) went on to say that the lamentable circumstances in the world are a result of the “under-functioning of men in the patriarchal role. The culture needs its fathering at least as much as it needs its fathers.” He ends this piece with the statement “It’s not clear to me that there’s an achievement to be had that a particular gender or gendered function is asked to bear the responsibility and the shame and the guilt that goes with it and its history” (Jenkinson, 2020). This is perhaps one of the most potent breakdowns of the word I have learned. It surely paints a picture of the copious amount of confusion present in the culture and the destruction that comes as a result of this flavor of ignorance.
Conclusion
“…we must realize that this change will not come about by way of a large overturning of existing beliefs. Its creation depends on individual women (and men) being consciously committed on a daily basis to affirmations of womanliness, of women’s bodies, of the harmony of their bleeding with the moon, of their ardent desire. This change will not take place with fanfare and militancy. Rather, it will happen in the inner crevices of a woman’s soul, in the soft thrill of her rediscovery of the power of her own will and the validity of her desire. This new woman-centeredness will not quickly, if ever, replace the existing world view, but will live side-by-side with respect for manliness and male-oriented values. We, women and men, will be thrown back on ourselves; we will affirm our uniqueness and difference and thereby clear the air between us in order finally to admire and love one another for the individuals that we are.” (Meador, 2004, p. 183–184)
In a world full of binaries, extremes, and battles, we are caught in an epistemological crisis and a humanitarian crisis. The ways of knowing we have relied on no longer seem to create solutions. We do not know how to be with one another anymore, and that is at the heart of many of our collective conflicts. The cultural complex has been a profound theory to help us understand the underworkings of many of the world’s issues. It has validated my intuitions, especially as it relates to this issue on gender relations that is so near and dear to me. The commonly quoted statement from Albert Einstein that says we cannot solve problems with the same mode of thinking that created them holds very true in this circumstance. We must find a new way, a way that comes from a place we least expect it: discomfort, opposition, tension, paradox. May humanity learn this skill of paradox.
References
Collins, M., Hughes, W., & Samuels, A. (2012). The politics of transformation in the global crisis. In Vital signs: Psychological responses to ecological crisis (pp. 163174). Karnac.
hooks, b. (2005). The will to change: Men, masculinity, and love. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Keepin, W., Brix, C., & Dwyer, M. (2018). Divine duality: The power of reconciliation between women and men. Prescot: Hohm Press.
MacKenzie, Ian. (Host). (2020, December 8). Patriarchy In A Time With No Father — Stephen Jenkinson (№28). [Audio Podcast Episode]. In The Mythic Masculine. https://www.themythicmasculine.com/episodes/stephen-jenkinson
Meador, B. (2004). Light the seven fires — seize the seven desires. In The cultural complex: Contemporary Jungian perspectives on psyche and society (pp. 171–184). New York: Brunner-Routledge.3
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.genderreconciliationinternational.org/about-us/what-is-gender-equity-and-reconciliation/
Samuels, A. (2010). The transcendent function and politics: NO! Journal of Analytical Psychology, 55(2), 241–253. doi:10.1111/j.1468–5922.2010.01838_3.x
Singer, T. (2010). The transcendent function and cultural complexes: A working hypothesis. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 55(2), 228-253. doi:10.1111/j.1468–5922.2010.01838_2.x
Singer, T., & Kimbles, S. (Eds.) (2004). The cultural complex: Contemporary Jungian perspectives on psyche and society. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Singer, T. (2006). The cultural complex: A statement of the theory and its application. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 4(3), 197–212.
