THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Even if the meaning conferred upon the term 'complex' when it is used by
lung in the sense of 'part-personality' is considered in isolation from the other
meanings conferred upon it in his writings at other times, it is still very
different from the meaning attached to my concept of 'dynamic structure';
and ... the part played by dynamic structures in my theoretical system as a
whole is quite different from that played by complexes in lung's general
theory ofmental life (p. 146).
Fairbairn's criticisms of the posited parallels between his concept of internal objects and
dynamic structures, and lung's concept of complexes, may be summarised as follows: (1)
dynamic structures are specific and limited in number, whereas complexes are not; (2)
complexes are not classifiable into the two classes that characterise dynamic structures,
viz. ego-structures and internal objects; (3) complexes are unconscious, whereas one of
Fairbairn's ego-structures (the "central ego") is conscious 2; (4) objects associated with
complexes are manifest as images, whereas internal objects are structures, not images; (5)
internal objects derive only from special introjective processes, rather than being part of
the internal world from the start; (6) defensive splitting is necessary to account for the
multiplicity ofinternal structures, whereas this is not the case with complexes.
Another objection that Fairbairn has to lung deserves mention - the failure to properly
acknowledge the role of aggression in the structuring of the internal world. Fairbairn
(1955) addresses this by criticising lung's incorporation ofaggression into libido:
This term (libido) is employed by lung in a comprehensive sense which
covers all psychical dynamic, and thus includes aggression. By contrast, I
agree with Freud in regarding aggression as incapable of being resolved into
libido; and, although I no longer feel free to accept Freud's dualistic instinct
theory ... I continue to accept Freud's view that libido and aggression
constitute the two primary dynamics in mental life (p. 145).
2 As the Jungian ego is also a complex, and "never more and never less than consciousness as a whole"
(lung, 1959, p. 5), this criticism clearly reveals Fairbairn's misunderstanding ofanalytical psychology.