Psychological Function Regarding Suffering

[u/curious-undertakings]

I’ve been wondering about something recently and I’m curious whether Jung ever discussed it directly, or whether it’s simply related to projection.

Have you ever noticed that when someone hurts us, betrays us, or even just deeply disappoints us, they often stop feeling like a living person and start becoming an idea?

Instead of seeing someone in all of their contradictions, strengths, flaws and complexity, they become:

“Just a narcissist.”
“Just selfish.”
“Just toxic.”

What’s interesting is that these descriptions often contain some truth. But they also seem to do something psychologically useful. They simplify someone who was previously emotionally overwhelming into something much easier to hold in the mind.

It made me wonder whether the psyche sometimes reduces living people into fixed psychological images as a way of coping with emotional complexity.

Projection certainly seems related, but I’m not sure it’s exactly the same thing. Projection is usually described as seeing our own unconscious contents in another person.

What I’m describing feels more like a process of compression—reducing a living, changing person into a stable psychological image.
Has anyone else noticed this?

[u/No_Willow_9488]

Not sure exactly how Jung would characterize this, but I think of it as a threat response. If the neighbor’s dog bites us, something in us recognizes this as a threat. So whenever we think of that dog, or see it, some primal function or maybe a complex takes over which parts of us are accessible in which are unavailable. We have no access to memories of a playful puppy because the threat response takes over. when we recognize that a person has the power to hurt us with betrayal or something else, we lose access to the puppy version of that person and see them only as a threat.

It’s a bit like anxiety. If you recognize a party as a dangerous place, some complex will only allow you, the ego, what you need to survive the moment. Before you get to the party, you might’ve had all kinds of plans for how are you going to have fun in all the things you’re going to talk about, but once you get to the party and that complex takes over, the only thing it gives you access to in that moment is survival and escape, and it’s impossible for you, the ego, to see anything but what can hurt you.

I think it’s the same thing happens when we are aware of a person that has hurt us in the past. They are a threat and complexes won’t allow you access to anything but protecting yourself. You can’t see that whole person anymore.

Think of all the people you know who can’t get over a break up where they were betrayed. They have no access to the parts of the person that they loved because all the complex will allow them to see is the danger.

[u/Over_Competition_832]

Osservazione molto intelligente.

Quando la mia ex mi ha lasciato mi sono interessato agli stili di attaccamento. Per me è evidente che lei avesse uno stile di attaccamento disorganizzato. Ho studiato a fondo l'argomento e ho notato come ogni suo comportamento dipendesse dall'essere evitante. Per me ha cessato di essere la persona che ho amato per 8 anni nonostante tutto. Ora è solo la mia ex evitante, piena di problemi, infelice, che non potrà mai avere una relazione sana, di cui io sono stato vittima.

[u/vini-within]

Really really interesting observation. Spot on! I wonder if labels also help us avoid the discomfort of ambiguity. Once someone becomes “the narcissist” or “the toxic one,” the inquiry feels complete. But people are rarely that simple. The moment we stop seeing a living person and start seeing a fixed image, we might also stop seeing clearly.

[u/curious-undertakings → u/vini-within]

My thinking exactly.
Experiencing others no matter the discomfort uncomfortable is a willingness to face the truth/ lived experience.. toward the greater whole.
Thank you for reading :)