Opposites

1. Etymology

Opposites names the paired polarities without which psychic life has no tension and no motion—classically, for Jung, ego and unconscious as the primary psychological pair. Related: conflict; compensation; enantiodromia; transcendent function; coniunctio.

2. Plain summary

Opposites are not optional decoration—they are how the psyche runs. Consciousness discriminates by splitting hot from cold, this from that; without that discrimination there is no awareness. Tragedy often grows from the conflict between ego and unconscious. Whatever rules on top, its opposite waits underneath.

In the first half of life the tension may stay quiet; later, one-sidedness can block energy until repressed contents must be faced. Holding the tension—not collapsing into one pole—opens the chance of a third via the transcendent function. Enantiodromia is the hard flip when one side dominates too long; coniunctio images their marriage.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common opposites-related figures and motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
ego and unconscious as primary pair; no consciousness without discrimination of opposites; conflict ego↔unconscious as root of tragedy; conscious attitude / dominant function vs opposite in unconscious; midlife impasse and one-sidedness; blockage of energy; repressed content made conscious to produce tension; high longs for low; forward movement requires tension; first law of thermodynamics analogy (energy needs opposing forces); ineradicable preconditions of psychic life; compensation as balancing; enantiodromia as reversal; transcendent function as mediation; coniunctio as union; typological pairs (thinking/feeling, sensation/intuition, extraversion/introversion); shadow as underside of persona-brightness; Sol/Luna and other symbolic pairs.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology the doctrine of opposites is a foundational dynamism: psychic energy and consciousness itself presuppose polar tension, classically between ego and unconscious. Lexica stress both the early compensatory framing and late statements that opposites are indispensable preconditions of psychic life. Descent Press keeps Sharp and Samuels in §4 so lexicon paraphrase never silently becomes Jung’s voice

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Opposites. Psychologically, the ego and the unconscious. … There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. … Whatever attitude exists in the conscious mind, and whichever psychological function is dominant, the opposite is in the unconscious. … The repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a tension of opposites, without which no forward movement is possible.

(Sharp, 1991)

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986)

Opposites … ‘The opposites are the ineradicable and indispensable preconditions of all psychic life’… An acquaintance with the principle of opposition is essential… energy demands two opposing forces… From the time of his conceptualisation of the role of the unconscious as a counterpole to consciousness… Jung applied the concept of intrinsic duality…

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986, pp. 101–104)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

… the insight that the opposites are the ineradicable and indispensable preconditions of all psychic life, so much so that life itself is guilt.
(Jung, 1955–1956/1970, CW 14, p. 170, ¶206)

There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites.
(Jung, 1954/1968, CW 9i, p. 95, ¶178)

But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind. … The repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a tension of opposites, without which no forward movement is possible. … Life is born only of the spark of opposites.
(Jung, 1917/1966, CW 7, p. 85, ¶78)

There is no form of human tragedy that does not in some measure proceed from this conflict between the ego and the unconscious.
(Jung, 1931/1969, CW 8, pp. 472–473, ¶706)

See also: union-of-opposites; compensation; enantiodromia; transcendent function; coniunctio; ego; shadow; numinous; self; individuation; symbol.

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, p. 85, ¶78). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1917)

Jung, C. G. (1968). Psychological aspects of the mother archetype. 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. 9i, p. 95, ¶178). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1954)

Jung, C. G. (1969). Analytical psychology and Weltanschauung. 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. 472–473, ¶706). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1931)

Jung, C. G. (1970). Mysterium coniunctionis: An inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy. 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. 14, p. 170, ¶206). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1955–1956)

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.