In the early stages of his career, from 1900 to 1909, Carl Gustav Jung worked at Burghölzli Psychiatric Hospital in Zurich. At the beginning of the 20th century Burghölzli under Eugen Bleuler’s leadership excelled in neuropsychological research.
In 1903 Jung together with his assistant, Franz Riklin, started experiments with the word association test.
Jung’s Innovative Method in Word Association Test
The word association test was first used as a research instrument in 1879 by Francis Galton, and later by Emil Kreaplin and Wilhelm Wundt. A standard association test involved timing of quickly responses to trigger words. Galton, Kraepelin and Wundt used the test to measure patient’s cognitive fitness. They were primarily interested in the content and the speed of the responses while not being able to find the reason for the delays.
Jung’s innovative idea was to concentrate on the mistakes, delayed or distorted answers. He developed his own version of the Word Association Test (WAT). Jung concluded that words causing disturbances must be related to emotional complexes; he termed them “feeling toned complex.” Jung discovered that these complexes operate in patient’s unconscious blocking his self-expression which increases the reaction time.
Word Association Test and Freud’s Repression
Jung read Freud’s book “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life” published in 1901. In this book Freud described various deviations from the stereotypes, seemingly random errors, slip of the tongue, known to us as “Freudian Slips“. Freud recognized in these malfunctions unconscious inhibition he called “repression.”
Jung’s extensive and elegant research provided an evidenced based prove of Freudian psychoanalytical theory. WAT remains until today one of few statistically validated methods supporting Freud’s psychoanalytical theory. The delays in the test were caused by activated emotional complexes.
Jung Meets Freud
Jung sent the test results to Sigmund Freud who acknowledged them as experimental proof of his theory. In 1907 Jung met Freud in Vienna opening a period of a close cooperation and friendship. Jung became a close associate of Freud. He and Bleuler became later the main supporters of Freud and his theory helping psychoanalysis to get internationally recognized.
The research on Word Association Test was also the reason for Jung’s invitation to the famous Clarck University lecture in 1909.
Supporting Freud’s Theory
In 1903 Bleuler appointed Jung to director of research on the Word Association Test. Between1903-1906 Jung and his collaborator, Franz Riklin conducted numerous word association tests on psychiatric patients as well as on normal subjects.
Later Carl Jung and Frederick Peterson, a neurologist and a professor at Columbia University, added to the Word Association Tests the contemporary “high-tech” methods conducting experiments using pneumograph and galvanic skin response. They found that increases in their subject’s galvanic skin response, and decreased depth of inhalations corresponded directly with increased reaction times.
Word Association Test (WAT): Objectives and Characteristics
Carl Gustav Jung’s Word Association Test (WAT) is a fascinating tool for assessing the human psyche. The test is based on the idea that the unconscious can control the conscious will. A single word can touch past traumas and reveal unresolved inner conflicts.
The technique is remarkably straightforward. The test administrator presents a word to the patient asking him to respond with the first word that comes to his mind. Any disturbance of a straightforward answer is considered as “emotionally loaded” touching the patient’s unsolved “emotional baggage”. The longest silences correspond to the deepest conflicts “where neuroses lay.”
Application of Word Association Test
The Word Association Test is a projective test, which must be examined in context of clinical examination taking in consideration patient’s physical and emotional reactions to draw precise conclusions.
The test involves presenting the patient with 100 words. The patient must speak immediately a single word associated with the stimuli-word. The therapist records the response and notes additional information. He focuses on the time taken by the patient to respond, the level of discomfort it generated, and the patient’s facial expression. After the test is completed, patient’s reactions must be interpreted alongside the 100 words queried.
Word Association Test’s Use in Forensic Investigation
Jung modified the test for forensic investigation. He and his associates applied the Word Association Test to forensic diagnoses, and published some remarkable cases of successful criminal detections.
The contemporary polygraph, called often a “lie detector”, is based on similar principal. It measures physiological functions such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while the subject is asked to answer a series of questions.
The polygraph is still in use in some countries, like the US, for interrogations of criminal suspects or candidates for sensitive public or private positions.
Test Description in Jung’s Own Words
As mentioned before, the word association test was the reason for Jung’s invitation to the Clark University Congress in 1909. In his first lecture Jung described the test as followed:
“Before the experiment begins the test person receives the following instruction: “Answer as quickly as possible the first word that occurs to your mind.” This instruction is so simple that it can easily be followed by anybody. The work itself, moreover, appears extremely easy, so that is might be expected that anyone could accomplish it with the greatest facility and promptitude. But contrary to expectation the behavior is quite different.
The first thing that strikes us is the fact that many test persons show a marked prolongation of the reaction time. This would make us think at first of intellectual difficulties, – wrongly, however, as we are often dealing with very intelligent persons of fluent speech. The explanation lies rather in the emotions. In order to understand the matter comprehensively we must bear in mind that … for any psychic occurrence is never a thing in itself, but is always the resultant of the entire psychological past.”
Jung’s first lecture at Clark University 1909
Evaluation of Word Association Test
WAT evaluation based on standard English version Zurich Institute 100 Word WAT List. Complex indicators (responses considered pathological) include:
1. Any reaction time 0.4 sec greater than the median
2. Incorrect reproductions on repeat WAT
3. Semantic Indicators
a. No reaction
b. Repetition of stimulus word
c. ‘clang’ reactions (e.g., big-pig)
d. Disconnected reactions. E.g., subject gives the name of an object in the room unconnected with the stimulus word
e. Responding with several words
f. Neologisms, colloquialisms, profanities
g. Stereotypies (use of the same response repeatedly)
4. Behavioural indicators.
a. Mimic, movement, laughter
b. Stuttering or mispronunciation
The investigator interviews the subject afer each session, identifying wich were disturbing.
5. Self-reported complexes
The Term “Complex”
Theodor Ziehen, one of Germany’s first child psychiatrists, coined the term “complex” in 1898. Nevertheless, it was Jung’s interpretation that solidified its place in the psychoanalytic vocabulary.
According to Jung complexes are unconscious autonomous structures grouping together clusters of emotions. Jung expanded it in his formulation as “feeling-toned complex of ideas” to refer to the “hot spots” that his Word Association Test elicited.
He formulated that the core of any complex is archetypal. Unless resolved, complexes continue their unconscious, destructive influence, leading to neurosis. Jung didn’t consider neurosis as something entirely negative. He saw it as a cry to draw attention to neglected or repressed side of personality. In his famous statement “thank God that the patient got neurotic,” he emphasized that neurosis is an attempt to compensate patient’s one-sided attitude to life.
Jung “On the Doctrine of Complexes“
In his 1911 paper “On the Doctrine of Complexes,” Carl Jung sheds light on the nature of complexes.
In the Word Association Test complexes disrupt associations. They lead to unexpected responses, fragmentary references, rendering the subject incapable of reacting, while the person remains unaware of their influence.
He defines complexes as collections of entities independent from conscious control and capable of conflicting with an individual’s intentions. In situations where complexes temporarily replace the Ego, they exhibit distinct personalities.
Jung explains also the phenomenon of “demon possession” by the interference of autonomously acting complexes independent from the Ego, imposing on the individual a quasi-foreign will.
Jung in His Own Words on Complexes
…Complexes are psychic entities which are outside the control of the conscious mind … they always contain something like a conflict.
…complexes are the “skeletons in the cupboard” which we do not like to remember but still come back to mind unbidden in the most unwelcome fashion.
…What is less well known, is that complexes can control us. It casts serious doubt on the naive assumption of the unity of the will and its supremacy.
(Jung 1921, paras. 923–27)
…fundamentally there is no difference in principle between a fragmentary personality and a complex.
… Dream psychology shows us as plainly as could be wished how complexes appear in personified form … We observe the same phenomenon in certain psychoses when the complexes get “loud” and appear as “voices” having a thoroughly personal character.
Complexes are in truth the living units of the unconscious psyche … that is why Freud became the real discoverer of the unconscious in psychology. …they are the via regia to the unconscious, however, is not the dream, but the complex, which is the architect of the dreams and symptoms.
(Jung 1934, paras. 196, 202, 203 and 210 respectively)
The Reliability of Word Association Test
Professionals continued to apply WAT for a long time. However, contemporarily the test is only used in Jungian therapy programs or as a supplementary projection technique.
In 2013, Dr. Leon Petchkovsky psychiatrist and Jungian therapists conducted a study on Word Association test using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The experiment was performed at the Wesley Hospital Brisbane using a 4 Tesla Bruker Medspec system.
The primary form of the fMRI process relies on contrasting blood-oxygen-leveldependent (BOLD) signals between 2 conditions. The ‘test’ condition (in this case ‘complexed’ responses) versus the ‘baseline’ condition (‘neutral’ responses) to measure oxygenated blood flow (and hence metabolic activity) in brain regions that get activated in the ‘complexed’ response.
Petchkovsky demonstrated that the words from Jung’s Word Association Test elicited prominent neurological reactions. Such trigger words activated the mirror neurons and increased activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, and insular cortex. These results were more pronounced in individuals with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Word Association Test in Analytical Psychology
The Word Association Test was Jung’s remarkable contribution to analytical psychology. Its result was the first scientific proof supporting Freud‘s psychoanalytical theory. Jung sent his paper on Word Association Experiment to Freud and the meeting soon after in Vienna. This visit initiated few years of friendship and fruitful collaboration between these remarkable men.
In his later career, Jung stopped routine use of the Word Association Test. At that time, his vast experience and highly developed intuition made for him the test obsolete for him. Instead, he concentrated on dream analysis and the use of his own method, called “active imagination“, which allowed him to open the window to his patients unconscious.
C.G. Jung’s Word Association Test. Summary
The Word Association Test was Jung’s remarkable contribution to analytical psychology. Jung was not the first scientist who used the word association test. However, Jung’s approach towards the test was unique; he turned the table not searching for what the test was initially developed, the investigation of the patient’s cognitive fitness, but what was missing in the patients’ answers.
Jung observed that subjects’ long response time or disturbed responses were linked to their emotions. He highlighted the lack of conscious control over such emotional reactions. Jung assumed correctly that the disturbing factors causing the inhibition were the emotionally toned complex.
The word association test was the first and, until today, one of few evidence-based scientific studies supporting Freud’s psychoanalytical theory.
Sources
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2013, 58, 409–431. fMRI responses to Jung’s Word Association
Test: implications for theory, treatment and research. Leon Petchkovsky et al.Collected Works of C.G. Jung”. Princeton University Press. Retrieved 2020-08-22.
Bair, Deirdre (2003). Jung: A Biography. New York: Back Bay Books. pp. 7, 53. ISBN978-0-316-15938-8.
Stevens, Anthony (1994): Jung: A very short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford & N.Y. ISBN 978-0-19-285458-2
Jung, Carl Gustav & Riklin, Franz Beda: Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien. I. Beitrag. Experimentelle Untersuchungen über Assoziationen Gesunder (pp.55–83). 1904, Journ. Psych. Neurol., 3/1-2. – Hrsg. v. August Forel & Oskar Vogt. Red. v. Karl Brodmann. – Leipzig, Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1904, gr.-8°, Jung, Carl (1963).
On The Doctrine Of Complexes. From the book Volume 2 Collected Works of C. G. Jung