The neurotic type, which we all represent to a certain extent, suffers from the fact that he cannot accept himself, cannot endure himself and will have it otherwise. The therapy accordingly cannot be corrective but only affirmative; it must transform him from a negative person of suffering and guilt to a positive man of will and action, which he was in the beginning even if his soul life has become ever more complicated and painful with increase of consciousness.
We are, therefore, human beings, who through consciousness, through too much self-knowledge are restricted or hindered in living, a type which Shakespeare pictured psychologically in such a masterly fashion as Hamlet, who in our age for the first time has found complete recognition. We must not forget, however, that knowledge also has a creative side, as for example, Shakespeare himself shows in the creation of the Hamlet figure. Evidently he himself represented the Hamlet type, which did not hinder him, unlike his hero, from using his conflict creatively instead of perceiving it merely as a restriction. Knowing, therefore, when it works creatively, can be a substitute for living, yes, itself a form of experiencing. It becomes then an inner victory of will if one may speak thus, instead of an outer, but it is a victory of will which the individual must pay for in every case with some kind of deficit. The active hero who represents the conscious power of will can act because he knows only his will, not its origins and motives; he comes to grief just in this, that he cannot foresee the consequences of his act. The passive man of suffering cannot act because his self-consciousness restricts his will which manifests itself as guilt feeling in the face of the deed. The spiritually creative type which I have characterized as "artist," lives in constant conflict between these two extreme possibilities. The artist solves it for himself and others since he transposes the will affirmation creatively into knowledge, that is, expresses his will spiritually and changes the unavoidable guilt feeling into ethical ideal formation, which spurs him on and qualifies him for ever higher performance in terms of self-development.