ABSTRACT
Conflict lies at the centre of all dynamic concepts about the psychology of man and, in consequence, lies at the centre of the theories of all schools of analytical psychology. Moreover, the primordial act that brought about man’s expulsion from Paradise was itself a consequence of conflict, a conflict between curiosity and obedience or, in more modern terms, between adventure and dependence. Sigmund Freud, as is well known, explained the basis of conflict in terms of three different principles: the pleasure principle against the reality principle; the impulses of self-preservation against the sexual impulses; and the impulse to live against the impulse to die. For the creative person, for the artist, conflict is dance. Conflict always presumes the existence of a schism and the absence of unity. Man must be available to the experience of both the unity and diversity of the world that exists around him, to his own psychic functioning, and to the state of his own soul.
