Psicologia Analítica
Accredited Jungian Analyst by Carl Gustav Jung Institute Zurich, Kusnacht
IAAP Member
CRP 06/16655
The Story of the hydraulic jack - a family tale
The Story of the Hydraulic Jack
Once upon a time, there was a man driving down an unfamiliar street when,
suddenly, his car tire went flat. The man gets out of the car intending to change the tire but realizes that the hydraulic jack is not there. He becomes to feel uncomfortable with the situation; after all, it was already enough to have a flat tire at night, after a long day of work, on an unfamiliar street, and on top of that, not find the hydraulic jack!
The street was deserted, no cars were passing, and the man began to feel anxious, with no prospect of resolving the situation, when he saw a light on in the distance and decided to go seek help. Perhaps there he would find someone willing to lend him a hydraulic jack?
He walked toward that house, hoping to find the help he needed.
He walks and begins to reflect:- It will be great, they must have a car, they can lend me the hydraulic jack, I can change my tire, return the hydraulic jack, thank them, and leave. But as he keeps walking, his thoughts evolve: what if they do not have a car, will they let me use the phone? And if they have a car but still do not want to lend me the hydraulic jack? What if they think I am a thief and don't even open the door for me to say what I want? What if they treat me badly, saying this is not the time to knock on someone else's house? What if they have a dog, or maybe a gun, and make me run away?
As he walked toward the house, his thoughts ran wild, anticipating all the difficulties, suspicions, and unwillingness of the residents of that house. Suddenly, what was once a hope for help, upon arriving in front of the house, is filled with doubts and uncertainties.
Finally, he musters the courage and rings the doorbell, when someone opens the door and he says: You take your hydraulic jack and make a good use of it, I don't need your help, you are a petty, insensitive, selfish person, incapable of a gesture of solidarity, and many other things that good manners do not allow me to repeat here and now.
After pouring out all this verbiage on the astonished homeowners, he turns his back and leaves, huffing, and without the hydrulic jack. The homeowners look at each other, stunned, not understanding what had happened, watching that stranger walk away briskly, trying to imagine why they were treated that way by that stranger.
I have no idea about the origin of this story, I only know that it became a warning code that my family used every time someone acted driven by autonomous thoughts and fantasies, rather than according to the facts, and it worked like a magical antidote, which removed the person from the power of the curse of autonomous thoughts and fantasies, making the individual reflect on the reality of the situation again.
I particularly remember an aunt who, when telling a story about conflicts and misunderstandings, would say: - Well, of course that was going to go wrong, so-and-so had the hydraulic jack story!
Popular wisdom develops very creative ways to deal with neurotic behaviors, in just one warning: - So-and-so, you have the hydraulic jack story! The person would snap out of the anxious trance, sometimes even slightly paranoid, and the emotionally charged autonomous complexes had a chance of being neutralized!
After many years in the healthy profession, I was able to recognize the wisdom of people who did not even really know what psychology was at the time yet were so efficient in putting their knowledge into practice.
We often hear versions of the story of the hydraulic jack, both in patients' narratives and from people around us, and if we do not have the full picture of the situation, we feel like the residents of the house who were insulted without reason.
Personal relationships are full of communication noise, which creates and feeds unnecessary conflicts.
In the case of our story, the residents of the house, at least as far as we know, were not overtaken by any complex. They did not retaliate, did not go after the man to ask for explanations or anything like that, but they were left without understanding what had happened, and they probably never will, because complexes operate autonomously, being unconscious even to the man who was in need of the hydraulic jack, let alone to those who had to listen to his absurd phrases.
We often find ourselves in this situation; we are hit by a psychic stray bullet and are left not knowing exactly what struck us, but we usually know who, and this person then comes under observation, sometimes suspicion, or even gets canceled, as is commonly done lately.
Greater danger occurs when one person's activated complex encounters or activates another person's complex. Then we cease to have people communicating and relating, but rather autonomous unconscious forces, full of emotion and energy, taking control of the situation.
Jung says that when an autonmous complex is activated, we do not have a complex; the complex has us. That is, our ego, the representative of our will, education, and values, loses control, in an event close to psychic dissociation, where we are overtaken by something we do not recognize as ourselves.
However, the problem can be solved.
We do not need to be at the mercy of our autonomous complexes; that is, we can turn off autonomous thoughts, trying to focus on the here and now. Of course, this depends on our life history and the difficult or traumatic situations we have been through, but many conflicts and unpleasant but necessary situations can be avoided.
Many times, people tell me they would like to ask so-and-so for something, invite so-and-so to an event, or apply for a course or job but are afraid of being rejected. My quickest response is to say, try it; the worst that can happen is that they say no or that you do not get the position. Of course, a person needs to be prepared to accept a no, but if persecutory thoughts are present, the way the person presents themselves can be ineffective. After all, if we want to be heard, we need an appropriate posture and coherent arguments.
Hearing a 'no' from anyone is always a possibility to be considered, for the other person has the right to decide, both for receiving a 'yes’ or a 'no' for the answer to our request, but the fantasy of rejection does not consider the other's freedom of decision.
We would never know if the owners of that house even had a car, much less a hydraulic jack, if this hydraulic jack would be suitable for our poor man's car, whether they would have lent it to him, or even if they would have given him a ride so he could get to his car faster which was far away, or if they would offer to make a phone call so his family would not worry, since only the usual mishap of a flat tire had occurred.
When we do not give the other person the opportunity to express themselves, we will never know their availability, motives, and reasons; we choose to relate to ourselves, and this 'other' within us can be much harder to deal with than the mere resident at whose door we knock on.
And you? Would you lend the hydraulic jack ? Would you ask for help in any situation? Would you give the other person a chance, and yourself as well?
The story of the hydraulic jack was a tale, discomfort, joke, warning, judgment, in short, a way that my family found to try to understand the influence of the autonomous complexes, at a time when Psychology was not as popular as it is today, nor did we have Google to ask, and yet, it still had a great therapeutic effect.
this article is a tribute to the wisdom of my grandmother Zahya and my aunt Marlene, great storytellers, and bearers of great wisdom.
References
Jung, Carl Gustav – The Ego and the Unconscious, CW VII/2
- The Nature of the Psyche, CW VIII/2
- The Development of Personality, CW XVII
To continue to read about the autonomous complexes and how they influence our lives, read the article: Do you have a short fuse?
