Energic

1. Etymology

Energic names the final / purposive point of view on psychic events—contrasted with mechanistic or reductive cause-and-effect. Related: final; constructive; libido / psychic energy; causal.

2. Plain summary

Sharp’s lexicon sends energic to final: a view based on potential result or purpose of psychic activity, complementary to causal. Jung also called the final point of view energic. The mechanistic view traces effect to fixed causal law; the energic view assumes some energy underlies change, maintains itself as constant, and follows a gradient of potential toward equilibrium—direction that cannot simply be reversed.

Psychologically, conservation applies: overabundance in one place means deprivation elsewhere; when libido seems to “disappear” in depression, it must appear in another form. Samuels’s energy head (interchangeable with libido) supplies the quantitative metaphor—limited, indestructible, not exclusively sexual.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common energic motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
final / purposive stance; vs mechanistic / reductive; energy underlies change; conservation / constant; gradient of potential; irreversible direction; complementary to causal; kinship with constructive; libido redistribution; depression as relocation not annihilation; Samuels energy ↔ libido.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology energic is final viewpoint under energy metaphor—On Psychic Energy / Dream Psychology territory. Descent Press keeps Sharp (Energic → Final) and Samuels (energy) in §4. §5 holds sample CW stamps at CW 8 ¶¶2f; CW 8 ¶456.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Energic. See final.

Final. A point of view based on the potential result or purpose of psychic activity, complementary to a causal approach. … Jung also called the final point of view energic, contrasting it with mechanistic or reductive. … The energic point of view on the other hand is in essence final…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 8 ¶456; CW 8 ¶¶2f in Sharp’s Final lemma.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — no dedicated energic head; energy pp. 53–54

energy Jung used this term and ‘libido’ interchangeably (CW 6, para. 778). It should be noted that psychic energy is said to be limited in quantity and indestructible… What is disputed is the exclusively sexual character which Freud assigned to libido or psychic energy. Jung’s conception is closer to that of a form of life-energy, neutral in character…

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986, pp. 53–54)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

It is a generally recognized truth that physical events can be looked at in two ways: from the mechanistic and from the energic standpoint. The mechanistic view is purely causal… The energic point of view on the other hand is in essence final; the event is traced back from effect to cause on the assumption that some kind of energy underlies the changes in phenomena, that it maintains itself as a constant throughout these changes and finally leads to entropy, a condition of general equilibrium. The flow of energy has a definite direction (goal) in that it follows the gradient of potential in a way that cannot be reversed.
(Jung, 1928/1969, CW 8, pp. 17–18, ¶¶2–3)

When a psychological fact has to be explained, it must be remembered that psychological data necessitate a twofold point of view, namely that of causality and that of finality. … By finality I mean merely the immanent psychological striving for a goal. … All psychological phenomena have some such sense of purpose inherent in them…
(Jung, 1916/1969, CW 8, p. 311, ¶456)

See also: causal; constructive; libido; depression; synchronicity; dreams.

References

Jung, C. G. (1969). General aspects of dream psychology. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, p. 311, ¶456). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1916)

Jung, C. G. (1969). On psychic energy. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, pp. 17–18, ¶¶2–3). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.