Symbiosis

1. Etymology

Symbiosis names a psychological state where contents of one’s personal unconscious are experienced in another person. Related: projection; soul-image; introversion / extraversion.

2. Plain summary

Unconscious interpersonal bonds—easy to form, hard to break. Sharp’s type example: introvert and extravert often marry as unconscious complements—one reflects, the other initiates—fitting well while outer necessity presses. When pressure lifts, they face each other and discover they never understood one another; conflict turns envenomed because each’s value negates the other’s. Ending the bond can precipitate neurosis as the psyche demands assimilation of what was projected onto the partner. Kinship with projected soul-image relationships that begin thriving and end badly.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common symbiosis motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
personal-unconscious contents in another; easy/hard bonds; type-opposite marriage; back-to-back vs face-to-face; mutual depreciation; neurosis on ending; kinship with projection / soul-image.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology symbiosis is unconscious complementary bonding via projection—clinically and typologically illustrated. Lexica (Sharp; Samuels no dedicated head) supply paraphrase Do not invent loci.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Symbiosis. A psychological state where contents of one’s personal unconscious are experienced in another person. (See also projection and soul-image.) … Either type has a predilection to marry its opposite… The ending of a symbiotic relationship often precipitates an outbreak of neurosis…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 7 ¶80.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — no dedicated symbiosis head:

(no head) — may note “none.”

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986) — provisional.

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

…either type has a predilection to marry its opposite, each being unconsciously complementary to the other… The two types therefore seem created for a symbiosis. The one takes care of reflection and the other sees to the initiative and practical action. When the two types marry they may effect an ideal union… But when… external necessity no longer presses… they turn face to face and look for understanding—only to discover that they have never understood one another… This struggle is envenomed, brutal, full of mutual depreciation…
(Jung, 1917/1966, CW 7, pp. 86–87, ¶80) Dual introversion / extraversion / projection untouched.

See also: projection; soul-image; introversion; extraversion; neurosis; superior-function; supraordinate-personality.

References

Jung, C. G. (1966). On the psychology of 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. 7, pp. 86–87, ¶80). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1917)

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.