Power complex

1. Etymology

Power complex names a group of emotionally toned ideas associated with an attitude that seeks to subordinate all influences and experience to the supremacy of the personal ego.

2. Plain summary

Sharp: supremacy of personal ego over all influences. Samuels: Jung dialogue with Adler (will to power) and Freud; eventually finds pure will-to-succeed incomplete beside urge for fulfilment / instinct for wholeness. Will to power is an instinct—not purely negative; builds culture and a strong enough ego to meet outer life and confrontations with the self. Power as psychic energy / mana; archetypes as autonomous centres of power. Power complex = sum of energies aimed at personal power; when it dominates, all else subordinates to ego. One may have power without being power-driven; increase of conscious ability to use power is a psychotherapy goal (CW 8 ¶590).

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common power-complex motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
ego supremacy; Adler will-to-power dialogue; vs wholeness instinct; cultural / ego-strength utility; mana / energy; complex dominating personality; power without power-drive; CW 8 ¶590 goal.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology power complex is ego-supremacy constellation—Sharp short; Samuels pp. 110–111. Prefer CW 8 ¶590; CW 16 ¶234 (Samuels).

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Power complex. A group of emotionally toned ideas associated with an attitude that seeks to subordinate all influences and experience to the supremacy of the personal ego.

(Sharp, 1991) — no CW pointer

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — power pp. 110–111

Jung defined the power COMPLEX as the sum of all those energies, strivings and ideas aimed at the acquisition of personal power. When it dominates the personality, all other influences are subordinated to the ego… An increase in the conscious ability to use power is a goal of psychotherapy (CW 8, para. 590).

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013, pp. 110–111)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

The personal unconscious, then, contains complexes that belong to the individual and form an intrinsic part of his psychic life. When any complex which ought to be associated with the ego becomes unconscious, either by being repressed or by sinking below the threshold, the individual experiences a sense of loss. Conversely, when a lost complex is made conscious again, for instance through psychotherapeutic treatment, he experiences an increase of power.
(Jung, 1919/1969, CW 8, p. 402, ¶590)

Adler remained as one-sided as Freud, and both agree that not only the neurosis, but the man himself, can be explained from the shadow side, in terms of his moral inferiority.
(Jung, 1946/1966, CW 16, p. 114, ¶234) Samuels cites for Adler will-to-power critique.

See also: ego; complex; self; wholeness; inflation; mana-personality.

References

Jung, C. G. (1969). Instinct and the unconscious. 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. 402, ¶590). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1919)

Jung, C. G. (1966). Fundamental questions of psychotherapy. 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. 16, p. 114, ¶234). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1946)

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.