Quotation
Last reviewed:
“What you resist persists.”
Carl Jung · Thinkers beyond philosophy · Modern · late 20th century slogan
What does it mean?
The slogan says that resistance itself keeps a thing going, which is sharper and thinner than anything Jung argues in the paragraph people mean. He says suppression does not alter an impulse, and that the impulse returns elsewhere, changed by resentment. A competing reading of the slogan treats it as his clinical advice to stop all restraint. He did not write the four words, and paragraph 51 is not a ban on governing oneself. The line circulates because it sounds like the shadow. It does not survive a check against the volume and paragraph. The badge is Misattributed for that reason.
Did Carl Jung really say this?
The library’s label is Misattributed. This line is not in the Collected Works, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, or in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. It is a later pop-psychology compression. The nearest sentence of his is Collected Works volume 9 part ii, paragraph 51: what is suppressed comes up again in another place, in altered form, loaded with resentment. That is a different claim, and it is filed under its own id.
Where it comes from
Later pop-psychology slogan; not a sentence in the Collected Works
Approximate date: late 20th century slogan.
How to use it
If a poster in a clinic waiting room in Bristol offers the four words as Jung, ask for the volume and the paragraph. There is not one. The honest substitute is the suppression sentence, read in full, including the resentment.
A mindset reading
A short line can be useful and still be the wrong citation. Do not repair a fake by deciding the fake was 'what he meant'.
Understand the philosophy
The real text is paragraph 51 of volume 9 part ii, on the card before the individuation pair. The key difference is suppress and return, not the proverb that resistance feeds its object. Memorise the absence. It is the point of keeping the fake in the library.
- self
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The slogan says that resistance itself keeps a thing going, which is sharper and thinner than anything Jung argues in the paragraph people mean. He says suppression does not alter an impulse, and that the impulse returns elsewhere, changed by resentment. A competing reading of the slogan treats it as his clinical advice to stop all restraint. He did not write the four words, and paragraph 51 is not a ban on governing oneself. The line circulates because it sounds like the shadow. It does not survive a check against the volume and paragraph. The badge is Misattributed for that reason.
Did Carl Jung really say this?
Misattributed. This line is not in the Collected Works, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, or in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. It is a later pop-psychology compression. The nearest sentence of his is Collected Works volume 9 part ii, paragraph 51: what is suppressed comes up again in another place, in altered form, loaded with resentment. That is a different claim, and it is filed under its own id.
Which work is it in?
Later pop-psychology slogan; not a sentence in the Collected Works Approximate date: late 20th century slogan.