Big Feelings: The Royal Road To The Unconscious
Freud famously noted that “dreams are the royal road to the unconscious,” but one of Freud’s predecessors, C.G. Jung, looked somewhere else. Jung looked at what he called feeling-toned complexes. Feeling-toned complexes appear in the heat of the moment, raw and unfiltered, and they often don’t wait for you to decode them.
So what is a feeling-toned complex, exactly? Think of it as a cluster of emotions, memories, and beliefs that’s been marinating in your unconscious mind. It’s got weight, history, and, most importantly, a charge. Jung thought these complexes were like little autonomous subpersonalities running the show behind the scenes (“parts” and “parts work” are more commonly known today). You’re not consciously aware of them until, suddenly, you are—because they’re the reason your voice rises three octaves in a disagreement or why your stomach churns when someone gives you a certain look. If you ever thought to yourself, “I don’t know why I’m so angry,” “I can’t believe I said that,” or “I don’t want to act this way but I can’t stop”…ya got a complex.
“Complexes interfere with the intentions of the will and disturb the conscious performance; they produce disturbances of memory ...and they can temporarily obsess consciousness, or influence speech and action in an unconscious way. In a word, complexes behave like independent beings.”
For therapists, paying attention to those big feelings—the ones that feel out of proportion to the situation—is like catching the scent of a trail leading straight to the unconscious. Someone’s partner is five minutes late, and they feel abandoned. Their boss gives them constructive feedback, and they’re suddenly worthless. Those sharp, overwhelming reactions are signposts, pointing to deeper layers of meaning and old stories that have yet to be unpacked.
And why does any of this matter? Because bringing unconscious material into consciousness is one of the most transformative things we can do in therapy. When we’re unaware of our feeling-toned complexes, they own us. We react instead of responding. We project our fears and insecurities onto the people around us. We replay old patterns that don’t serve us anymore. But when we’re able to identify a complex and hold it up to the light, we start to see it for what it is: a relic from our past that doesn’t have to control our future.
As therapists, this process often starts with curiosity. Where are the emotional hotspots? What topics seem to trigger an outsized reaction? And, just as importantly, what’s the story that goes with those feelings? The goal isn’t to pathologize—we’re not trying to “fix” these complexes or make them disappear. Instead, we’re aiming for integration. It’s about helping clients make space for these parts of themselves, even the messy, uncomfortable parts, and finding new ways to relate to them.
“The possession of complexes does not in itself signify neurosis … and the fact that they are painful is no proof of pathological disturbance. Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness. A complex becomes pathological only when we think we have not got it.”
Here’s where it gets exciting: once a complex is named, it becomes something we can work with. We can trace its origins. We can explore the unmet needs that fuel it. And we can give clients tools to pause, reflect, and choose a different response when the complex is activated. This is where the healing happens—when we’re no longer living on autopilot, letting those old unconscious forces run the show. There are various ways to do this, through the insight itself, or modalities like EMDR and Parts Work, and even experiential couples/relationship therapy!
So, the next time you’re sitting in session and you notice someone’s big feelings bubble to the surface, don’t be afraid to lean in. Those feelings are the royal road to the unconscious—or, at the very least, a really compelling side street. Jung knew it, and now you do, too.
