Conflict occupies a central and irreducible position across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as pathology, catalyst, and ontological necessity. The literature refuses any simple negative valuation: Yalom insists that conflict's absence in therapeutic groups signals developmental impairment, not health, while Nichols, drawing on Jung, names conflict 'the essence of life and the necessary prerequisite for all spiritual growth.' The Jungian lineage — Hoeller, Nichols, Ulanov, von Franz — understands psychic conflict as the tension of opposites that generates libido and, when held rather than resolved by elimination of one pole, becomes the prima materia of individuation. This stands in sharp contrast to approaches that treat conflict primarily as a behavioral or relational problem to be managed: Levine and Heller's attachment-science framework, Scott's DBT protocols, and Brown's recovery model all address conflict as something to be navigated skillfully, if not dissolved. The I Ching tradition, represented by Wilhelm, Anthony, Huang, and Wang Bi, offers a third position: conflict (Sung/Contention) is cosmologically inevitable but ethically dangerous when pursued to exhaustion, demanding prudential withdrawal rather than either suppression or triumph. Across these traditions the recurring question is not whether conflict will arise but how it is held — whether it collapses into acting-out, escalates into destruction, or is suffered through to transformation.
In the library
20 passages
conflict is the essence of life and the necessary prerequisite for all spiritual growth. Life cannot be lived in the abstract. It is only through facing each individual conflict and suffering it through to its resolution or transcendence that we reach into our deepest selves.
Nichols articulates the Jungian axiom that unresolved conflict, held and suffered rather than bypassed, is the indispensable engine of individuation and spiritual development.
Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980thesis
No psychological conflict is ever truly resolved when one opposite wins out over the other. Only when the opposites are reconciled on a plane or in a dimension superior to themselves can we say that there has been a real solution.
Hoeller identifies Jung's signature contribution: authentic conflict resolution requires transcendence of both poles, not victory of one — distinguishing Jungian practice from any psychology of simple suppression or identification.
Hoeller, Stephan A., The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, 1982thesis
Conflict cannot be eliminated from human groups, whether dyads, small groups, macrogroups, or such megagroups as nations and blocs of nations. If overt conflict is denied or suppressed, invariably it will manifest itself in oblique, corrosive, and often ugly ways.
Yalom establishes conflict as structurally ineliminable in groups and argues that suppression merely displaces it into destructive indirect forms, making skillful engagement therapeutically essential.
Yalom, Irvin D., The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Fifth Edition, 2008thesis
They think they have to overcome conflict instead of accepting it as normal. Feeling conflict causes tension and anxiety. The impulse is to take control, to try to make it go away. Ironically, it is only when the conflict is not acknowledged or accepted that it causes more trouble.
Brown, in a recovery context, reframes conflict as normative rather than pathological, arguing that the attempt to control or eliminate inner conflict paradoxically intensifies its destructive force.
Brown, Stephanie, A Place Called Self: Women, Sobriety, and Radical Transformation, 2004thesis
A major misconception about conflict in romantic relationships is that people in good relationships should fight very little... What does differentiate between couples and affect their satisfaction levels in their relationships is not how much they disagree, but how they disagree and what they disagree about.
Levine and Heller's attachment-science perspective reframes conflict as universal in secure relationships, shifting evaluative focus from frequency to quality and style of disagreement.
Levine, Amir; Heller, Rachel, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love, 2010thesis
a significant portion of the conflict is symbolic in nature, and descriptive of the psyche as a whole. In other words, when a dreamer's mind is in turmoil, inner conflict, or feels pulled in a hundred directions, there will be all sorts of violent conflict, storms, natural disasters, and plagues of insects in their dreams.
Goodwyn demonstrates that dream-conflict symbolically maps the dreamer's psychic state, providing a diagnostic index of inner integration that diminishes in range of extremity as the person becomes more whole.
Goodwyn, Erik D., Understanding Dreams and Other Spontaneous Images: The Invisible Storyteller, 2018supporting
Resolving Conflict Mindfully is a fundamental skill within Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) that promotes emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, coping skills, and the preservation of relationships.
The DBT framework treats conflict resolution as a learnable skill linked to emotion regulation, positioning mindfulness as the operative discipline for navigating interpersonal friction without relational damage.
Scott, Anthony, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021supporting
The conflict is essentially between a pluralistic world view and a singular, freemarket world view... the inner conflict is more important because there will always be another public confrontation, and the same people may appear on opposite sides in the next confrontation.
Alexander extends conflict from the intrapsychic to the sociopolitical register, arguing that inner conflict of values is the deeper determinant of outer social confrontation and the ground on which dislocation and addiction are rooted.
Alexander, Bruce K., The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit, 2008supporting
To attain distinction through conflict is, after all, nothing to command respect. A strong line at the high point of CONFLICT seeks to win distinction through conflict. But this does not last.
The I Ching commentary on Hexagram 6 cautions that pursuing conflict to complete victory yields only transient and ungainly gains, counselling withdrawal before the contest exhausts itself.
Richard Wilhelm, Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
Conflict with others can generally be avoided at the beginning if we carefully determine fair and just terms. In business relationships the written contract serves this purpose, but contracts are reliable only if they correspond with what everyone, in his heart, would consider to be just.
Anthony's I Ching commentary reframes conflict prevention as a matter of inner fairness and just agreement rather than mere tactical cunning, grounding outer peace in alignment with inner truth.
Carol K. Anthony, A Guide to the I Ching, 1988supporting
Once the anger had been directed away from the oblique target of the letter's contents onto the appropriate targets — the therapist and Maria — steps toward conflict resolution could begin.
Yalom illustrates through clinical narrative that productive conflict resolution in groups requires redirecting displaced aggression onto its genuine objects before repair can commence.
Yalom, Irvin D., The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Fifth Edition, 2008supporting
In Contention, there should be sincerity. Exercise prudence in handling obstruction. To halt halfway means good fortune... To persist to the end means misfortune.
Wang Bi's commentary on Hexagram 6 presents conflict as requiring sincere self-examination and prudential restraint, with the counsel that knowing when to stop is itself the path to good outcome.
Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
secures are better able to understand their partner's perspective and maintain focus on the problem. By responding to Kelly's fears, and addressing them quickly and effectively, George prevented further conflict.
Attachment research cited by Levine and Heller links secure attachment to superior conflict de-escalation capacity, locating conflict management ability within the broader structure of the attachment system.
Levine, Amir; Heller, Rachel, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love, 2010supporting
By forgoing closeness with our partners, we are also missing our oxytocin boost — making us less agreeable to the world around us and more vulnerable to conflict.
Levine and Heller introduce a neurobiological dimension, showing that reduced physical intimacy diminishes oxytocin and thereby heightens susceptibility to interpersonal conflict.
Levine, Amir; Heller, Rachel, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love, 2010supporting
These two pairings display the anthropological risks at play in the movement from neurotic conflict to depressive inadequacy in the field of psychiatry.
Han traces a historical-diagnostic shift from the nineteenth-century subject of neurotic conflict, organized around repression and prohibition, to the contemporary depressive subject structured by achievement imperatives rather than inner opposition.
Han, Byung-Chul, The Burnout Society, 2010supporting
This dance of daggers intensifies his defensiveness and seething anger. Locked in mortal combat, neither partner can hear the other's underlying need.
Peter Levine's somatic perspective illustrates how physiologically driven activation in one partner generates a conflict spiral that neither party can exit through cognitive effort alone.
Levine, Peter A., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010supporting
Before dinner, around five o'clock everyone would assemble for 'conflict hour.' ... 'I am convinced that the greatest form of respect is forthright and open challenge.'
Russell documents Hillman's ritual institutionalization of conflict in men's retreats as a practice of mutual respect and initiation, positioning direct confrontation as spiritually serious rather than socially destructive.
Russell, Dick, Life and Ideas of James Hillman, 2023supporting
the bipolarity of archetypes leads not only to the emergence of consciousness, but to its development as well, for by creating an 'otherness' pole in contradistinction to our conscious standpoint, archetypes create tensions between what is and what could be that command our attention.
Ulanov locates the root of psychic conflict in the inherent bipolarity of archetypes, which structurally ensure that consciousness is always pulled toward what it has not yet incorporated.
Ulanov, Ann Belford, The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology, 1971supporting
He cannot carry on the fight, because, since right is not on his side, he cannot justify the conflict to his conscience. One turns back and submits to fate, Changes one's attitude, and finds peace in perseverance.
The I Ching's fourth-line commentary insists that conscientious self-examination — not tactical calculation — is the ground for disengaging from conflict, finding peace through inner reorientation rather than external victory.
Wilhelm, Richard, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950aside
spirit can oppose, and conflict with, a desire of appetite... the fact that spirit can oppose, and conflict with, a desire of appetite is used by Plato to show that spirit and appetite are distinct parts of the soul.
Lorenz reconstructs Plato's tripartite soul argument, in which intra-psychic conflict between spirit and appetite serves as the logical proof of the soul's structural plurality — an early philosophical grounding for the depth-psychological view of conflict as structurally necessary.
Hendrik Lorenz, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006aside