The enemy within

Facing our complexes brings them into the light so we can reclaim the energy they'd been draining.

“If there is no enemy within, then no enemy from without can harm you.”

-Kwame Scruggs

Frida Kahlo, Without Hope, 1945

I woke up at 6:30 am last week, rolled over, and picked up my phone. I had ten missed texts, and as I opened “Messages,” I saw another one pop onto the screen. Each was identical.. “You have received a new message from Susan Johnson¹,” it said, cheerily. “The message is in your Cantata Health Solutions Inbox.”

Walking into the kitchen to start the dogs’ breakfast routine, I found myself smiling, even as I shook my head. Susan— my internship supervisor— who’d been on family leave, was apparently back to work, and catching up on a month of my documentation. Each of these messages meant a separate error for me to address in a client file— often something as simple as a typo or an extra space. Still, the corrections were sure to be time-consuming, on a day when I had countless other things to do.

What a way to start the day, I thought. But at the same time, I noticed something different. My stress level hadn’t spiked at the incoming texts. I wasn’t feeling a rush of cortisol, paranoia or fear about what exactly the messages might be. In fact, I found it kind of funny— and typical— that my supervisor was up at 6 am taking a metaphorical red pen to all of my work.

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Things looked quite different nine months ago, when I sat in my supervisor’s office, reviewing these same client files. She pointed out error after error, as I scrambled to write notes quickly enough to keep up. I finally gave up trying to write down what she was saying and just let her words wash over me. I felt, in turns, hopelessly ashamed, furiously angry, and completely numb. It was not a high point in my career.

Because we are a community mental health agency who receives funding from Medicaid, our documentation must be bulletproof. Client statements must be included, and worded in a particular way; a minimum of three sentences in each of the (many, many) sections; everything pointing back to the treatment plan, and diagnosis, so that it was always clear that what we were doing was “medically necessary.” This is critical both so that the agency continues to receive funding, and so that the clients can continue to receive care.

Yet for me— a Jungian-oriented practitioner— it felt like the world’s most massive waste of time. Not only do I prefer not to diagnose, my notes are more likely to include client dreams, images of their drawings, and my own shorthand— none of which was Medicaid-approved. Worse, I hate details. I’m terrible at them, and filling out all of these fields in a precise way is exactly the kind of work that I will always mess up. In short, I was terrible at this part of the job.

But there was something else going on, too. As my supervisor, Susan’s job was to make sure that I learned how to do this, and do it well. She was relentless in pointing out every error (“You should have said ‘stated,’ not ‘reported’”). I chafed under this scrutiny; I was in a near-constant state of stress around it. Any email, text, or even the thought of her, spiked my blood pressure and sent my pulse racing.

I asked myself again and again, ‘Why am I letting this stress me out so much? Why can’t I just let it go?’ Glenn, my partner, said (correctly), ‘I think it feels like time is passing more slowly because you’re thinking about it even when you’re not there.’ My peers suggested I just ‘play along’ and not let it bother me. I just couldn’t do it.

My “good girl” complex

Long before Internal Family Systems popularized the concept of “parts,” Jung recognized that each of us contains a variety of inner figures or personalities, which he called “complexes.” These complexes operate like automatic programs that step in as needed to help (or hinder) us. When we’re triggered by a thought or a signal in our environment, the complex comes online, making us behave in ways that are often quite contrary to our usual way of being.

I have long known that I have what some people might call a “perfectionist” complex. I actually think of it as my “good girl” complex— one that dates back to kindergarten, when I learned that it was desperately important for me to “do a good job” in school; to (literally) color in the lines; to follow the rules. This strategy served me well— I struggled with fitting in, being part of the group, and conforming to school rules. My complex helped “keep me in line,” making sure that I was always working hard, doing my best, earning good grades, getting approval.

Complexes aren’t a bad thing, actually. A little bit of a “good girl” complex is healthy. But mine had grown so outsized that even at almost fifty years old, the idea that I was not doing a good job, making mistakes, not being a good girl — this was enough to send me into a near-panic.

Finding the enemy

For some of us, it’s easier to rail against the “enemy without.” We see injustice at every turn; we blame others, rather than ourselves. Often, this takes the form of projection, where we see in others the qualities that we don’t want to face in ourselves.

For others— especially for those of us who were raised to be “good girls and boys”— we are far more likely to blame and shame ourselves. In these cases, it can be an important developmental step to recognize that there actually is an enemy out there, in the form of racism, misogyny, ableism, classism, etc.

For the first few months of the internship, I clearly felt that Susan, or at least the Western mental health industrial complex, was “the enemy.” I was resentful that I had to participate in this system that often felt like it was doing more harm than good. I was angry that I had to waste my time with repetitive, banal documentation rather than doing “real work.”

But on the inner level, more than anything, I was defending myself from my own shadow; from my own fear of inadequacy. Every meeting I had with my supervisor forced me to recognize that I was just not that good at some of these things: diagnosing, making treatment plans, writing notes for managed care. And while I really didn’t care about these skills at all, what I was responding to was an ancient— or very young, actually— fear. Because the fear of not being a “good girl,” is really a fear of not being loved, accepted, as I am.

Terrifying, actually.

“If there is no enemy within, then no enemy from without can harm you.”

For an integral part of the work is the… “black shadow” which everybody carries with him, the inferior and therefor hidden aspect of the personality, the weakness that goes with every strength, the night that follows every day, the evil in the good. The realization of this fact is naturally coupled with the danger of falling victim to the shadow. But the danger also brings with it the possibility of deciding not to be the victim. A visible enemy is always better than an invisible one.

—CG Jung, An Account of the Transference Phenomena Based on the Illustrations to the ‘Rosarium Philosophorum’

My year of internship, then, served as exposure therapy. The constant discomfort of the situation forced me to face this complex head on. In it, I found the enemy— a scared little five year-old, who was afraid she’d never fit in, never be “good enough.” I brought her into the light of consciousness, and found that together we could make mistakes, and still be loved.

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Mythologist Kwame Scruggs, who uses myth and storytelling to assist in human development, frequently shares the following quote:

“If there is no enemy within, then no enemy from without can harm you.”

I return to this quote frequently, and share it with so many people, because it so perfectly encapsulates the concept of the complex, and the choice that we have to work with it.

Our complexes often form at early ages, as we learn to split off the parts of ourselves that are unwelcome, or untenable in our lives. These can stem from personal or family dynamics (expected roles in the family, etc.), or larger cultural ones (racism, homophobia). In many cases, they may originate from “an enemy without”— something potentially harmful in the environment or family system that poses a real threat.

As we mature, we carry these complexes with us. Sometimes they are integrated easily; others, like the one I’ve shared here, operate largely in the shadow until they become a problem that can no longer be ignored.

The “enemy without” often still exists. There was, in my case, a real threat and consequence to not adhering to the internship guidelines. Similarly, a failure to comply with documentation rules carries a penalty for the agency itself. Yet it was “the enemy within” that was the real problem.

One of the hallmarks of a complex, Jung wrote, is that it is "the image of a certain psychic situation which is strongly accentuated emotionally and is, moreover, incompatible with the habitual attitude of consciousness." The "good girl" complex, when it takes over, feels like a fight-or-flight situation.

Returning to last week— and the eleven texts notifying me of my mistakes— it is remarkable to notice how much more energy, space, and life force is available to me now that there’s no “enemy within.” Correcting the errors took some time, but it wasn’t a big deal. On the other hand, living with an activated complex, as I had been earlier in the year, is exhausting. The enemy without is far less burdensome when we’ve befriended the inner one.

1. Not her real name!