Across the depth-psychology corpus, ‘struggle’ occupies a remarkably ambivalent position: it is simultaneously the generative friction through which consciousness develops and the very obstacle that blocks authentic transformation. Jung frames the ego’s existential situation as a war on two fronts — against the outer world and against insurgent instinctual nature — making struggle the constitutive condition of conscious life rather than an aberration to be resolved. Trungpa radicalizes this by arguing that the effort to eliminate struggle through spiritual ambition is itself a further expression of ego; awakening emerges only in the gaps between striving, not through intensified combat. ACT theorists such as Harris operationalize this paradox clinically, measuring suffering through a ‘struggle switch’ metaphor and treating the reduction of experiential avoidance — not the eradication of painful content — as the therapeutic goal. The Bhagavad Gita tradition, as rendered by Easwaran, frames inner struggle as an heroic, necessary contest against self-will and compulsive desire, a battle more demanding than any outer warfare. Orthodox contemplative writers (Coniaris), Jungian analysts (Kalsched, Hollis), and transpersonal voices (Vaughan-Lee, Spiegelman) each locate struggle at the threshold between ego-dissolution and genuine self-knowledge. The corpus thus discloses a central tension: struggle is both indispensable ordeal and, when compulsively maintained, the very mechanism of psychic imprisonment.
that struggle is merely another expression of ego. We go around and around, trying to improve ourselves through struggle, until we realize that the ambition to improve ourselves is itself the problem.
Trungpa argues that spiritual struggle, far from dissolving ego, perpetuates it, and that awakening appears only when striving ceases.
, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, 1973thesis
The individual ego could be conceived as the commander of a small army in the struggle with his environment—a war not infrequently on two fronts, before him the struggle for existence, in the rear the struggle against his own rebellious instinctual nature.
Jung positions struggle as the structural condition of ego-consciousness, waged simultaneously against the outer world and against the unconscious instinctual self.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960thesis
clients usually find it easier to assess their degree of struggle than their degree of acceptance, so I like to use the metaphor that follows.
Harris treats struggle as a measurable, graduated clinical variable — the inverse of acceptance — and introduces the ‘Struggle Switch’ as a tool for reducing experiential avoidance.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009thesis
If we’re not avoiding our unwanted thoughts and feelings, what’s the alternative? In traditional ACT terminology, the alternative is willingness: that is, the willingness to have our thoughts and feelings instead of running away from them or fighting with them.
Harris frames the cessation of struggle not as suppression but as willingness — active acceptance of inner experience as the genuinely different path.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009thesis
A 0 on the struggle scale correlates with maximal acceptance, whereas a 10 means maximal avoidance. A 5 is the halfway point we call tolerance, or putting up with it.
Harris operationalizes struggle as a continuum from full avoidance to full acceptance, offering a concrete clinical gradient for therapeutic intervention.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009supporting
we know only struggle and agony and defeat, and achievement and victory and surrender, too. The work is hard not only because of us and of him, but, says Kaku-an, ‘owing to the overwhelming pressure of the outside world.’
Spiegelman, reading the Ox-herding pictures through a Jungian-Buddhist lens, identifies struggle as doubly sourced — interior and exterior — compounding the difficulty of the spiritual path.
, Buddhism and Jungian Psychology, 1985supporting
Not recognizing that their struggle is internal, they look to the therapist to align with one side or the other of their internal conflict.
Heller argues that developmental trauma produces misattribution of internal struggle to external causes, generating a therapeutic impasse when clinicians take sides rather than holding the ambivalence.
, Healing Developmental Trauma How Early Trauma Affectssupporting
it shows Gotama engaged in a heroic struggle against all those forces within himself which militate against the achievement of Nibbana.
Armstrong reads the Buddha’s enlightenment narrative as an archetypal heroic struggle against inner forces, framing spiritual attainment as requiring courageous engagement rather than passive surrender.
, Buddha, 2000supporting
those who have won this battle, even giants like the Compassionate Buddha, will tell us that nothing on earth is more difficult, more precious, or more exhilarating than this victory. This fight goes on twenty-four hours a day.
Easwaran presents inner struggle against self-will as the supreme human contest, continuous and demanding, valorized by the greatest spiritual exemplars.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
the struggle is more painful than ever, and you need more effort to keep from falling back again. The same can happen with self-will: just when you think you can relax a little, a morning comes when your mind erupts.
Easwaran describes how intermittent surrender to compulsive desires intensifies subsequent struggle, warning that periodic relapse increases the psychic cost of re-establishing self-mastery.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
It is only when we have fully experienced our own effort that we can feel its inadequacy. Then we have no other option but to give up.
Vaughan-Lee argues that complete struggle to the point of exhaustion is a prerequisite for genuine surrender, making effort a necessary prelude to ego-dissolution.
, Catching the Thread: Sufism, Dreamwork, and Jungian Psychology, 1992supporting
even if a woman is fatigued unto death with her miserable struggles, no matter what they might be, even though she be starved of soul, she must yet plan her escape; a woman must force herself forward anyway.
Estés frames struggle as the inescapable condition of the woman at the predatory psyche’s apex of power, insisting that forward movement is obligatory even in extremis.
, Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild, 2017supporting
When you come face to face with the ego in the basement of consciousness, you have to do something about it. Every morning in your meditation for a long, long time you will have to fight this battle with the ego.
Easwaran insists that in the deepest stages of meditation, struggle with the ego becomes unavoidable and must be engaged with endurance rather than avoidance.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
Remember those old movies where the bad guy falls into a pool of quicksand, and the more he strugg—
Harris employs the quicksand metaphor to illustrate how continued struggling against aversive inner states intensifies rather than resolves suffering.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009supporting
Strike the serpent on the head before he enters the cell. If the serpent enters, the struggle will be much more laborious.
The Philokalic tradition teaches that vigilance — meeting temptation at the threshold of consciousness — is far less costly than engagement in protracted interior struggle once passion has taken hold.
, Philokalia: The Bible of Orthodox Spirituality, 1998supporting
‘Every day we fight within our own hearts,’ said St. Augustine referring to this inner warfare.
The Philokalic inheritance frames interior struggle as the unremitting daily warfare of Christian askesis, demanding the full deployment of ‘weapons of righteousness.’
, Philokalia: The Bible of Orthodox Spirituality, 1998supporting
there seemed to be nothing in it but pure energy, no desire except the overwhelming, overriding, exhilarating determination to reach its goal. ‘That is the battle,’ I said to myself.
Easwaran uses the salmon’s upstream journey as a living symbol of purposeful, non-despairing struggle toward one’s spiritual source.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975aside
the dialectic of individuation pivots less upon the ministrations of the regal ego on its throne of hubris than upon the peasant folk within who grumble, have indigestion, and most often do not give a fig for the royal will.
Hollis frames individuation’s struggle as primarily driven by neglected inner figures rather than the heroic ego, inverting conventional assumptions about where the real contest lies.
, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places, 1996aside
we are trying to do away with the ego; we can’t expect it to go quietly. It pulls in one direction; the Self pulls in another.
Easwaran articulates the inner struggle as a tension between ego-will and the deeper Self, urging the aspirant to consciously weight their choices on the side of the Self.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975aside