Leaving the Underworld with Jung on the Blue Note

“I gets [get] up in the morning with the blues three different ways,” Son House (Louise McGhee, 2015) soulfully sang [appendix A] as he further disclosed the temptation to either leave or stay with his woman; thereby, he, quite tactfully, conveyed the message that he opted the third way, namely to sit with the blues and sing it, hence the tune which points to the well-known blues music motto, play/sing the blues to lose the blues. Disregarding the possibility of a third way, some classify music through the dichotomizing lens of form-meaning; indubitably, no genre of music is on one end of the spectrum, rather on the form-meaning spectrum, some lean toward the form end of the spectrum like ragtime while its two-chord or threes-chord counterpart, namely country and western music is closer to the meaning end of the spectrum using limited, at times exhausting the possibilities of utilizing two open chords on the guitar, to convey a meaning, albeit a profound one. Hank Williams Sr. is the artist that comes to mind in consideration of profoundly impactful two- and three-chord songs. Meanwhile, blues as a genre of music provides a uniquely distinctive opportunity for bringing the unconscious and conscious realms together.

Background

It should be iterated not every artist manages to use two chords to demonstrate the purpose, express his meaning nor is every musician on the opposite end of the spectrum capable of expressing subjective experiences merely utilizing convoluted forms. However, the aforementioned dichotomizing perspective impedes the flow of the unconscious. On the other hand, individuals have the predilection, albeit unbeknownst to oneself, to abstain from the encounter with the unconscious; after all, the incessant presence of defense reveals the individual’s efforts to protect himself against that which is agonizing, disquieting, or insufferable (Freud, 1936/1966). Thus, a musician provides ample intellectually refined evidence to defend the choice of adhering to a strict musical structural element to repress the reality of his decades of struggle to find personal meaning in the music he plays and he is fraught with doubts if his audience ever hears the voice of his subjective meaning embedded in the music, while this musician’s counterpart strives to repress his need be able to reach beyond a few open chords on the guitar to convey his personal meaning, a meaning he does not have the required symbolization skills to express. Neither position provides a healing opportunity, possibility of the transcendent function, argumentation of the central ego.

Translation to Depth Psychology

In Jungian parlance, the successful collaboration of the psychoanalyst and the patient leads to the transcendent function. This is when, Jung (1960) asserted, material in the conscious mind and its unconscious counterpart integrate as the result of the analytic treatment; to that end, he further contended, the goal needs to be to close the chasm between the conscious and the unconscious. The material in the unconscious, however, is the sine qua non for the transcendent function and since dreams may, at times, prove to be inadequate one needs to seek other sources like “spontaneous fantasies,” using hands to make craft art, or “bodily movements” among a couple of other ways (Jung, 1960, pp. 78-84). Inherent in the aforementioned formulation is the assumption of a psychic structure for the unconscious, as well as the conscious, with its innate energy. Jung’s perspectives direct the reader to Freud’s shortcoming in his structural formulation as Fairbairn (1944/1994) argued that Freud depicted a model based on the divorce between the psychical energy and its associated psychical structures, structure-less energy, and energy-less structures.

Hell and its Residents through the lens of Depth Psychology

One needs to realize living with the insidious impacts of trauma and psychic splitting is living in the cesspool of the psychological underworld of the internal objects, namely the hell. Thus, it is of utmost importance to define what hell is. Hell, Jung (2009) asserted in the Red book, is wherein circumstances force one to do that which one feels indisposed to and wherein the salubrious and shameful are nothing but one. In other words, in hell the processes of giving and receiving love far from being a pleasant experience foment shame; the unification of shame and pleasure is the traumatizing experience of living in hell. This is the picture of the hell that an adult with developmental deficiency, history of emotional deprivation, trauma, and mis-attuned caregiving has to live in every single day.

The other question would be who dwells in hell as depicted above. When that which is good is bad as well, one is dwelling in hell (Jung, 2009). The residents are both good and bad; they are alternating between being loving and hateful! However, the child internalizes this caregiver who loves and frustrates because of his needs; the child fully depends on his caregivers. In short, individuals do not become residents of hell because hell exists, rather the reverse holds: hell exists because bad objects create hell. One’s experience of living in hell is his experience of being unable to interact fully with the other in his outside world. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, repetition compulsion is a vicious circle since the individual residing in hell, his world of internal object, has no other possibility but to visit and revisit his bad object, hence encountering the shadow (Jung), the return of the repressed (Freud), or the return of the bad object (Fairbairn).

Trauma and dissociation are the ramifications of this situation. Kalsched (2016) observed that which is a complex in Jungian parlance betrays the covert presence of psychic fragments with subjectivity. The fact that each of these fragments has its unique subjectivity is once more a reminder that each of them is charged with energy since, it should be reiterated that, arguing for an energy-less psychic structure is an untenable position. This psychic energy is what constitutes the libido that every clinician relies on and against the objects that have populated the world of internal objects of the patient.

Losing the Blues

Meanwhile, Jung does not include, among the means of unifying the conscious and unconscious material the utilization of music and music improvisation notwithstanding the fact that Jung (1960) underscores the important role of giving shape to the disturbing affect [which means in order to lose the blues, one needs to play the blues]; he further observed the propensity toward creativity results in motifs with an aesthetic value that become stereotyped while an emphasis on comprehending the meaning might obviate the need for aesthetics and even consider it as an impediment. The well-known stereotypical bluesy licks based on hammering on the minor 3rd to create the move between minor and major (for example Em to E) as well as the more sophisticated move from the flat 9 to 9 (for example F9 to Fb9=Cdim) while holding the chord is the manifestation of the former and the meaning-making efforts of Hank Williams in song Jambalaya by moving from I to V7 and back to I chord, which obviates the need for the lush chord progression, is an example of the latter.

It should be iterated that Fairbairn (1938/1994) asserted the moment the beholder emotionally discovers the object initially created for the purpose of discovery, aesthetic experience transpires. This leads to uniquely subjective meaning-making experiences, self-discovery, or emotional insight. This process is subjective and unique to one’s personality (Jung, 1960). Thereby, the subjective experience of Blind Lemon Jefferson singing Matchbox blues is at variance with Carl Perkin’s experience which, in turn, led to his Rockabilly version of the tune. Another example is Carl Perkin’s original song, Blue suede shoes, which Elvis Presley popularized. Each of the aforementioned musicians, as well as every musician, needs his unique level of disguise to discover the object in his music, rather than becoming entangled in over- symbolization manifested in a series of convoluted melodies and chords, or to bore himself by musical under-symbolization. As Jung (1960) underscored, “aesthetic formulation needs [an] understanding of the meaning and understanding needs aesthetic formulation” (p. 85).

The home note or home chord is the I chord; hence, in the key of C, C is the home. In defiance of what pleasant or tumultuous inner experiences one hears through the process, the return to the home note is the resolution of the unrealistic joy or disturbing tension that places the musician, as well as the audience, in the touch with the outside reality. From the musical standpoint, the constant slide from half a tone lower than bVII and V to these two notes with the first and the second (or third) fingers on the guitar to create a tension in the fifth blues box to resolve on the I chord, for example long A in the key of A, as well as the same movement using F shape in the second blues box, for example in the key of E to resolve by playing E, are manifestations of tension. These two create a bluesy atmosphere distinctive from many others and embedded in the style of Lightning Hopkins. Utilizing the bottleneck slide to play the slide guitar in open tunings and sliding from a higher note to the intended one or from the lower one to the intended note evokes the same emotional texture; delta blues players like Son House and Charley Patton played in open G and open D tuning and the former artist has songs in cross-note tuning (open Dm); Skip James, another well-known delta blues player, recorded tens of songs in cross-note tuning. However, playing the bottleneck creates an unlimited number of notes since placing the slid on every millimeter creates its unique microtone which one cannot transcribe using musical notations. Of the unlimited microtones, some are close to the intended note by merely shaking the slide, some prefer calling this a wet note, the slide attaches to the note and cannot leave while still shaking and creating micro notes which beg for a resolution. Obviously, these are only a few examples and the possibilities are inexhaustible.

This is an example of Jung’s transcendent function as the unconscious material and the conscious material coalesce and that which was in the realm of the former comes to being in the latter. What matters the most, from the psychotherapeutic vantage point, is that to live in hell is to live with the sphinx, whether one solves the riddle or not, one is doomed to perish.

Blues and the Third Possibility

In defiance of the gloomy picture above, blues music offers a third possibility: casting the inner sphinx outside of the self through the abreaction-provoking process of blues improvisation. Blues provides a structure, set a clear boundary wherein phantasies through permutation become fantasies. Whether it is the 12-/ 8-/ or 16-bar blues (12-bar is more common) or tin-pan-alley blues which has a structure similar to jazz, namely AABA (eight bars per letter) create a framework for fantasies. This is the balance that Jung refers to in explication of the required equipoise between the aesthetic formulation on the one hand and meaning on the other to achieve the transcendent function. Thus, blues as a genre of music offers a third position, the one that Son House opted for.

References

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1994). Endopsychic Structure Considered in Terms of Object Relationships. Psychoanalytic Study of Personality (pp. 82-132). Brunner-Routledge Publishing (Original work published in 1944). Son House opted for.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1994). The Ultimate Basis of Aesthetic Experience. In E. Fairbairn Britles & D. E. Scharff (Eds.), From Instinct to Self: Selected Papers of W. R. D. Fairbairn, Volume II. Jason Aronson Inc. Publishing. (Original work published 1938).

Freud, A. (1966). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, (C. Baines, Trans.). Karnac Books Publishing (Original work published 1936).

House, S. (2015, January 06). Louise McGhee [Video file]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlgxoHtKivE

Jung, C. G. (1960). The Transcendent Function (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd Edition (pp. 69-91). Princeton University Press Publishing.

Jung, C. G., & Shamdasani, S. (Eds.). (2009). The red book: Liber novus. (M. Kyburz & J. Peck, Trans.). W W Norton & Company Publishing.

Kalsched, D. E. (2016). Jung and Dissociation: Complexes, Dreams, and the Mythopoetic Psyche. In E. F. Howell, & S. Itzkowitz (Eds.), The Dissociative Mind in Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Working with Trauma (pp. 86-96). Routledge Publishing.

Appendix A

I gets up in the morning with the blues three different ways

I had two minds to leave her, I didn’t have but one say stay

I gets up in the morning with the blues three different ways

I had two minds to leave her, I didn’t have but one say stay