CARL JUNG
by Rosalyn M. King, Professor
of Psychology and Chair, Center for Teaching Excellence Northern Virginia
Community College-Loudoun Campus.
Background
Born in 1875. Grew up in Switzerland.
Background in religion. Father and uncles were ministers.
He studied science and medicine at Basel University. Later decided to
specialize in psychiatry. Became the assistant at Burgholzli psychiatric
clinic in Zurich under Professor Eugen Blueler, an expert on schizophrenia.
Jung studied word association and schizophrenia.
Met Sigmund Freud in 1907.
Taught at the University of Zurich.
Had private patients. Decided to practice therapy and write.
Wrote extensively, all of which can be found in The Collected Works of
Carl Jung. These include individual books on:
-Analytical Psychology
-The Development of Personality
-Psychiatric Studies
-Freud & Psychoanalysis
-The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease
-Symbols of Transformation
-Psychological Types
-Experimental Researches
-The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche
-Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self
-The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature
-Psychology and Religion
-Psychology and Alchemy
-Alchemical Studies
-Mysterium Conunctions
-The Symbolic Life
Jung was well traveled. He traveled to North America, Africa, Tibet,
China, Japan, Egypt. His travels helped him confirm his theories about
the collective unconscious and dreams. He believed that all men, worldwide,
are one.
Jung was considered a mystic.
Jung had conflicts with the church although he was a very spiritual man.
He believed that the church seemed to be dead. That man must experience
religion and then question. And, that the church did not express the wholeness
of God.
Jung was considered an exceptional child, writing very complex essays
and treatises at a very young age.
Jung also believed that there was a conflict between the urban and rural
mind.
Humankind has lost much by neglecting their inner world. This leads to
the conflicts in humans.
Life is a mystery. We don’t know much about life. We understand
very little about life.
Jung believed that a pattern of God exists in every man.
Jung asked questions like: Where does man stand in the scheme of things?
What is man’s responsibility - especially to live in the present
time?
Jung believed that it was the task of man to live the unique individual
self he had been born to live, as truly as Christ had lived the end to
which he had been born.
Man needs to become more conscious.
The Origins of Personality
Personality has racial or phylogenetic origins. (Refers to the evolution
of a genetically related group of organisms). These origins stem from
the individual’s inheritance - through memory traces of past experiences
of the human race.
The foundations of personality are archaic, primitive, innate, unconscious,
and universal.
Archetypes like the persona, the earth mother, the child, the wise old
man, and the anima - are universal images or thoughtforms inherited from
past generations that predispose people to perceive and respond to the
world in particular ways.
Jung raised the question: What constitutes the whole man and the constitution
of personality. What is the secret of the whole personality?
Definition of Personality - The Psyche
Personality is the psyche. It embraces all thought, feeling and behavior,
conscious and unconscious. The psyche guides us in adapting to our social
and physical environment. The psyche is the great objective to the world
within. This needs to be explored to find the wholeness.
The psyche represents a unified whole. We are born with this wholeness
or at least with the potential to become whole based on our experiences
and learning. Thus, the purpose of life is the optimal development of
this wholeness.
The psyche is a mystery. One does not know what the psyche is. Just as
physicists don’t know matter.
A definition of personality provided by Jung is “the supreme realization
of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being, it is an act of high courage
flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes
the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions
of existence coupled with the greatest possible freedom for self-determination.
Structure of Personality
A combination of systems operating on 3 levels of consciousness:
1. Conscious: The ego operates on the conscious level.
2. Unconscious: The complexes and archetypes operate on the level of
the personal unconscious
and the unconscious.
3. All levels: Attitudes and functions.
Over time, the conscious and unconscious should synthesize within the
person through the self.
The Conscious Level - The Ego
Consciousness appears early in life, perhaps before birth.
Jung believed that the great danger in becoming conscious is to be one-sided.
He strove to see both sides.
The discriminating processes that develop in infants is the first evolvement
of the ego.
The ego acts as gatekeeper - it determines what perceptions, thoughts,
feelings and memories will enter consciousness.
By screening experiences, the ego attempts to maintain a coherence within
the personality and give the person a sense of continuity and identity.
The Personal Unconscious
Nothing that has been experienced disappears; such experiences are stored
in the personal unconscious (similar to Freud’s preconscious and
can be equated with the biopsychological perspective on engrams in the
brain).
Suppressed and forgotten experiences are also a part of the personal
unconscious.
The personal unconscious must contain groups of associated feelings,
thoughts, and memories that have strong emotional content - and that form
a complex.
A complex means that a person is so preoccupied with something that it
influences almost all of his or her behavior. Mild complexes guide and
color all of our lives. Complexes are unconscious - although related elements
may become conscious from time to time. Some complexes may lead to outstanding
achievements.
The Collective Unconscious
Our evolutionary past provides a blueprint not only of our bodies but
of our personalities, a blueprint carried in a so-called collective unconscious.
The collective unconscious seems to transcend time. It is the idea of
mind - the experience of life outside of space and time.
The collective unconscious is composed of primordial images - thought
forms or memory traces from our ancestral past (including our prehuman
and animal ancestry) these images are a record of common experiences that
have been repeated over countless generations.
In Jung’s own words, from his collected works, he indicates that
the collective unconscious “is an image of the world which has taken
aeons to form. In this image certain features, the archetypes or dominant,
have crystallized out in the course of time. They are the ruling powers,
the gods, images of the dominant laws and principles, and of typical,
regularly occurring events in the soul’s cycle of experience.
A deposit of all human experiences. The mind of the universe. This collective
unconscious has to be related to the individual mind. Individual conscious
mind and the collective unconscious is where the two meet.
The unlimited sum of cumulative psychic conditions.
We inherit a predisposition or potentiality for certain ideas. We are
born with the potential to perceive, think and feel in many particular
ways. And, this potential is fulfilled by our personal experiences.
The unconscious (personal & collective) can be of great help. According
to Jung, it has at its disposal all subliminal contents, all those things
which have been forgotten or overlooked as well as the wisdom and experience
of uncounted centuries.
Neglected contents of the collective unconscious may find expression
in such disorders as phobias, delusions, and other serious psychological
disturbances.
In his book on Analytical Psychology, Carl Jung says that the psychology
of the individual is reflected in the psychology of the nation. What the
nation does is done also by each individual, and so long as the individual
continues to do it, the nation will do likewise. Only a change in the
attitude of the individual can initiate a change in the psychology of
the nation.
The collective unconscious is detached from anything personal. Is common
to all men. Its contents can be found everywhere. This is not the case
with personal unconsciousness - which contains lost memories, painful
ideas that are repressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose). Subliminal perceptions
(sense perceptions not strong enough to reach consciousness and contents
not ripe enough yet for consciousness).
Some dreams belong to the whole of manking - the collective unconscious.
This collective unconscious is evident in normal and abnormal individuals.
Archetypes
Archetypes are universal themes that affect our behavior. It is a universal
thought form or predisposition to perceive the world in certain ways.
The archetype represents different potential ways in which we may express
our humanness.
Archetypes appear to us in personified or symbolized pictorial form and
may penetrate into consciousness by means of myths, dreams, art, ritual,
and symptoms.
Examples of archetypes include: birth, rebirth, death, power, magic,
unity, the hero, the child, God, the demon, the wise old man, the earth
mother, the animal, etc.
The archetypes that are most important in shaping behavior are: the persona,
the anima and animus, the shadow and the self --the most important archetype
to the development and functioning of the personality. The self is considered
to be the ultimate unifying system of the personality that powers the
important processes of individuation and transcendence by which the person
strives for self-realization.
When an archetype appears in a dream, in a fantasy, or in life, it always
brings with it a certain influence or power by virtue of which it either
exercises a numinous or a fascinating effect, or impels to action.
The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of
an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question
of God’s existence. The human intellect can never answer this question,
still
less give any proof of God.
The idea of an all powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously,
if not consciously, because it is an archetype.
Archetypes Crucial To Personality
The Persona
The mask or facade that we exhibit publicly to function adequately in
our relationships with others.
The persona is necessary for survival . It helps us control our feelings,
thoughts and behavior.
Your persona represents a compromise between your true self and the expectations
of society.
The Anima and Animus
The Anima is the feminine side of the male psyche - feelings and emotions.
It is one of the greatest of the archetypes. The feminine is so essential
to man to be his full creaive self. The anima is crucial to man.
The Animus is the masculine side of the female psyche - logic and rationality.
The animus allows women to extend their talents beyond being a mother.
It is the creative self in woman.
The anima and animus can help men and women understand and respond to
one another, but they can also cause misunderstanding if people project
them without regard for others’ real qualities.
Jung believed that it was important for individuals to express these
aspects of their personality. Otherwise, these traits would remain unconscious
and undeveloped and leave the unconscious weak and immature.
Jung’s comments about the anima and animus led to the concept of
an androgynous ideal. Androgyny refers to the presence of both masculine
and feminen qualities in an indivudal and the ability to realize both
potentialities.
The Shadow
This archetype reflects the animal instincts that human beings have inherited
in their evolution from lower forms of life.
The shadow is the dark, simister side of our personalities. It represents
the evil, unadapted, unconscious and inferior part of our psyches. Jung
believed that the shadow incorporates both Freud’s sexual instinct
and Adler’s will to power.
The shadow encompasses those unsocial thoughts, feelings and behaviors
that we potentially possess. It is the opposite side of the persona, in
that it refers to those desires and emotions that are incompatible with
our social standards and ideal personality.
Jung’s choice of the word “shadow” is deliberate and
designed to emphasize its necessity. There can be no sun that does not
leave a shadow. The shadow cannot be avoided and one is incomplete without
it.
Jung agreed with Freud that such base and unsocial impulses may be sublimated
and channeled to good ends.
The shadow can also be projected onto others, with important interpersonal
and social consequences such as prejudice.
Mental Illness
According to Jung, what passed for normality in life was perhaps the
force that shattered the personality of mental patients in institutions.
He asked some of the following questions about mental patients:
-What actually takes place in the minds of the mentally ill?
-Why was the psychiatrist not much interested in what the mentally ill
had to say?
-Why was the human personality, their individuality ignored?
-How are psychiatrist ever going to establish contact with them?
By analyzing the dreams of mental patients he discovered that mental
patients had injured and rejected areas of the human spirit. This led
to the conflicts in their psyche.
He believed that every human being or human personality has a story to
tell. That derangement comes when individuals are denied the chance to
tell their story or the story is rejected.
He believed that therapy must enable the mentally disturbed person to
discover their personal story. This is the only way the person could be
healed.
Jung also believed that some men were even more sick in their normality.
The Self
Man has to get into the depths of the unknown self.
The self represents the striving for unity of all parts of the personality.
It is the organizing principle of the psyche that draws unto itself and
harmonizes all the archetypes and their expressions in complexes and consciousness.
The self directs an orderly allotment of psychic energy so that different
parts of the personality are expressed appropriately.
Depending upon the occasion and our personal needs, the self allows us
to be socially acceptable at work (persona), outrageous at a Halloween
party (shadow), etc.
The self, rather than the ego, is the true midpoint of personality. The
center of one’s personality is not to be
found in rational ego consciousness. [According to some, Freud had already
begun to discover this truth, but he wanted to rescue human beings from
irrationality and so he made ego consciousness central.]
For Jung, the true self lay on the boundary between conscious and unconscious,
reason and unreason.
The development of the self is life’s goal, but the self archetype
cannot begin to emerge until the other personality systems have been fully
developed. Thus, it usually does not become evident until one has reached
middle age.
Self-realization should be the goal of every individual. However, it
is rarely completely achieved.
Jung believed that man has to get into the depths of the unknown self.
Questions to be asked: Where does man stand in the scheme of things? What
is his responsibility to live in the present time?
Individuation
Each human being has a specific nature and a calling uniquely his own.
Unless he fulfills this calling in a non-one-sided way. Unless he fulfills
this calling in such a way that the specialized superior functions could
be joined by the repressed unconscious forces at some point in life, man
would become sick.
Becoming a self-actualized person involves individuation and transcendence.
In individuation, the systems of the individual psyche achieve their fullest
degree of differentiation, expression and development. Transcendence refers
to the integration of the diverse systems of the self toward the goal
of wholeness and identify with all of humanity.
Jung believes that the aspect of individuation is a lower level of total
personality development. He believes that following individuation, we
need to experience transcendence. In the process of transcendence, a deeper
self or essence emerges that unites a person with all of humanity and
the universe at large.
The first half of life, then, is concerned with individuation, the cultivation
of consciousness and gender-specific behavior. The second half of life
presents us with a different task, transcendence, which permits us to
come into closer contact with and express our collective unconscious and
our oneness with humanity as a whole.
Self-Actualization
Jung suggests that the self is in the process of self-actualization.
“Psychic Birth” of an individual does not really occur until
adolescence, when the psyche starts to show a definite form and content.
Personality development continues throughout life and the middle years
(35-40) mark the beginning of major changes.
Each one of us has the potential to develop into a self, that is to actualize,
fulfill and enhance our maximum human potentialities. (Abraham Maslow
began to outline to explicit characteristics).
Jung’s viewpoint is considered teleological or purposeful. It explains
the present in terms of the future with reference to a goal that guides
and directs our destiny. [In contrast, Freud’s view was causal --lookingt
at personality from an antecedent condition of the past. Jung believed
that causality and teleology were important to a full understanding of
personality.]
While personality development is largely progressive (or forward moving)
regression may occur under frustrating conditions. Jung says this regression
may be necessary and in the end may facilitate the forward movement of
progression. That by exploring the unconscious, both personal and collective,
the ego may learn from past experiences and resolve the problem that led
to the regression.
Self-actualization involves individuation and transcendence. In individuation,
the systems of the individual
psyche achieve their fullest degree of differentiation, expression and
development.
Transcendence refers to integration of the diverse systems of the self
toward the goal of wholeness and identity with all of humanity.
Jung suggests that the aspect of individuation is a lower level of total
personality development. He believes
that following individuation, we need to experience transcendence. In
the process of transcendence, a deeper self or essence emerges that unites
a person with all oif humanity and the universe at large.
The first half of life, then, is concerned with individuation, the cultivation
of consciousness and gender-specific behavior. The second half of life
presents us with a different task, transcendence, which permits us to
come into closer contact with and express our collective unconscious and
our oneness with humanity as a whole.
The true person (or self) is a combination of all of the conscious and
unconscious factors. Neurosis results from a one-sided personality development.
For Jung - the coincidence of opposites is the ultimate goal of personality
development.
Although both Freud and Jung emphasize the dynamic opposition of portions
of the personality, they differ in the implications of this conflict.
For Freud, the person is inescapably in conflict; for Jung, the person
ultimately seeks harmony.
The Conscious
(Attitudes: Introversion and Extroversion) (Functions: Thinking, Feeling,
Sensation and Intuition)
Two Major Attitudes: The Personality of Type
1. Introversion - oriented toward subjective experience - person tends
to focus on the inner, private world where reality is represented as it
is perceived by the person. Is introspective and preoccupied with own
internal affairs. Example, Alfred Adler.
2. Extroversion - Oriented toward objective experience - person tends
to spend more time perceiving the external world of things and other people
than thinking about his perceptions. Appear active and outgoing and take
an ingerest in the external world. Example, Sigmund Freud.
These 2 attitudes oppose each other and one tends to rule the personality
while the other is repressed and unconscious. The unconscious of the introvert
is extraverted; the conscious of the extravert is introverted.
There are 4 psychological functions. One of these functions always is
primary with another supporting the main one.
1. Thinking - an intellectual function, seeks to connect ideas with each
other so as to understand
the nature of the world and to solve problems.
2. Feeling - an evaluative function, accepts or rejects ideas and objects
on the basis of whether
they arouse positive or negative feelings.
3. Sensing - the operation of the sense organs.
4. Intuiting - a perception that is usually unconscious.
Tests constructed as a result of definitions of introversion and extro
version include: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator; the Personality Inventory
by Eysenck.
Personality contains polar or conflicting tendencies. The personality
strives constantly for the union or synthesis of opposites. This enables
the formation of a balanced, integrative personality.
Symbolization
A symbol is a visible sign of something invisible: it is something that
stands for or suggests something else. We are symbols of the people we
represent. Man makes symbols.
Sy mbols are the outward expressions of archetypes.
These symbols appear in dreams, fantasies, visions, myths, art, etc.
Symbols may represent an impulse that cannot be satisfied or express
stored-up wisdom.
A person’s destiny, the highest evolution of his or her psyche
is marked out by symbols.
The round table is a symbol of wholeness.
In his last book, Man and His Symbols, Jung indicates that “the
symbol-producing function of our dreams is thus an attempt to bring the
original mind of man into “advanced” or differentiated consciousness,
where it has never been subjected to critical self-reflection. For in
ages long past, that original mind was the whole of man’s personality.
As he developed consciousness, so his conscious mind lost contact with
some of that primitive psychic energy. And the conscious mind has never
known that original mind.
Dreams
Dreams and their symbols are not stupid and meaningless. Dreams provide
the most interesting information for those who take the trouble to understand
their symbols. Jung worked through 67,000 dreams with his own patients.
Jung believes that very little attention is paid to the essence of man,
which is his psyche. And that the really complex and unfamiliar part of
the mind from which symbols are produced, is still virtually unexplored.
He says “it seems almost incredible that though we receive signals
from it every night, deciphering these comminications seems too tedious
for any but a very few people to be bothered with it. Man’s greatest
instrument, his psyche, is little thought of, and it is often directly
mistrusted and despised. “It’s only psychological” too
often means: It is nothing “ (Man and His Symbols, p.93).
Psychic Energy
The life energy of the personality. It is manifested consciously as many
sorts of striving, desiring, and willing; and, by such processes as perceiving,
thinking and attending.
The purpose of this energy is to seek a balance - a steady state of equilibrium.
If the personality system was a totally open system and continually took
in new energy, it would be chaotic. If it were totally closed and took
in no new energy, it would soon stagnate.
Psychic energy originates in the experiences a person has. There is a
reciprocal action between physical and psychic energy.
Our psychic energy depends on what we value.
Psychic energy operates according to the principles of equivalence and
entrophy: it seeks balance and moves a person toward in a process of self-actualization.
On Death
Jung was not certain that death was an end. He said that the psyche is
not dependent on the limitations of death.
He believed there was a psychical existence beyond time and space. Death
should be our goal.
Toward the end of his life Jung believed that the psyche should remain
the major focal point of study:
“We need more understanding of human nature. The only real danger
that exists is
man himself. He is the great danger and we are pitifully unaware of it.
We know nothing
of man. Far too little. His psyche should be studied. Because we are the
origin of all
coming evil.”
Freud and Jung: Contrasts
(From the Collected Works of C,G. Jung, Volume 4. Freud and Psychoanalysis.
New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, 1961, 333-340.)
Jung met Freud in 1907. They lectured together. Their relationship came
to an end in 1914 at Freud’s request.
“What Freud has to say about sexuality, infantile pleasure, and
their conflict with the “reality principle,” as well as what
he says about incest and the like, can be taken as the truest expression
of his personal psychology...”
“By his own subjective confession, Freud has assisted at the birth
of a great truth about man. He has devoted his life and strength to the
construction of a psychology which is a formulation of his own being.”
“I prefer to look at man in the light of what in him is healthy
and sound, and to free th sick man from just that kind of psychology which
colours every page Freud has written. I can not see how Freud can ever
get beyond his own psychology and relieve the patient of a suffering from
which the doctor himself still suffers. It is the psychology of neurotic
states of mind, definitely one-sided, and its validity is really confined
to those states.”
“Within these limits, it is true and valid even when it is in error,
for error also belongs to the picture and carries the truth of a confession.
But it is not a psychology of the healthy mind - and this is a symptom
of its morbidity.”
“It is based on an uncriticized, even an unconscious view of the
world which is apt to narrow the horizon of experience and limit one’s
vision.”
“It was a great mistake on Freud’s part to turn his back
on philosophy. Not once does he criticize his assumptions or even his
personal psychic premises.” (Jung, 1961, p.335.)
Another difference is that “I try to free myself from all unconscious
and therefore uncriticized assumptions about the world in general. I am
therefore disposed to recognize all manner of Gods provided only that
they are active in the human psyche. I do not doubt that the natural instincts
or drives are forces of propulsion in psychic life, whether we call them
sexuality or the will to power; but neither do I doubt that these instincts
come into collision with the spirit.
I see in all that happens a play of opposites and derive from this conception
my idea of psychic energy. I
believe that psychic energy involves the play of opposites in much the
same way as physical energy
involves a difference of potential.
Freud began by taking sexuality as the only psychic driving force and
only after my break with him did he take other factors into account.
“...I do not mean to deny the importance of sexuality in psychic
life... What I seek is to
set bounds to the rampant terminology of sex which vitiates all discussion
of the human
psyche and put sexuality in its proper place” (p.338).
Jung says that “sexuality is only one of the biological instincts,
only one of the psychophysiological functions, though one that is without
doubt very far-reaching and important.” But he asks, what happens
when we can no longer satisfy our hunger? There is, quite obviously, a
marked disturbance today in the psychic sphere of sex, just as, when a
tooth really hurts, the whole psyche seems to consist of nothing but toothache.
Jung says the kind of sexuality described by Freud is that unmistakable
sexual obsession which shows itself whenever a patient has reached the
point where he needs to be forced or tempted out of a wrong attitude or
situation. It is an overemphasized sexuality piled up behind a dam, and
it shrinks at once to normal proportions as soon as the way to development
is opened.
Jung says that this level of sexuality is pent-up energy. Freudian psychology
sets up this scenario.
It points no way out of the cycle of biological events.
As a result, and in despair, man would have to cry out the words of St.Paul:
“Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this
death?”
And, the spiritual man in us comes forward, shaking his head, and says
in Fausts’ words: “Thou art conscious only of the single urge,”
namely of the fleshly bond leading back to father and mother or
forward to the children that have sprung from our flesh - “incest”
with the past and “incest” with the future,
the original sin of perpetuation of the “family romance.”
Jung believed that there is nothing that can free man from this bond
except the opposite urge of life - the spirit. It is “children of
God,” who know this freedom - not children of the flesh.”
“Man will not learn that God is his father.”
Jung says that Freud would never learn this and all those who shared
his outlook also forbid themselves to learn this.
Jung believes that man has always and everywhere spontaneously developed
a religious function and that the human psyche from time immemorial has
been permeated with religious feelings and ideas. Jung says Freud’s
concept of the superego is an attempt to disguise this concept in the
dress of psychological theory.
The human psyche is a whole which embraces consciousness. It is the mother
of consciousness. Scientific thought, being only one of the psyche’s
functions can never exhaust its potentialities.
Jung believes that the psychotherapist must not allow his vision to be
coloured by pathology. He must never
forget that the ailing mind is a human mind and that, for all its ailments,
it unconsciously shares the
whole psychic life of man.
He must even be willing to admit that the ego is sick for the very reason
that it is cut off from the whole,
and has lost its connection not only with manking but with the spirit.
The ego is indeed the “place of fears,” as Freud says, but
only as long as it is not connected to its core or
source which Jung calls its “father” and “mother.”
Jung concludes that the contrast between Freud and himself goes back
to the fundamental differences in
their basic assumptions.
Summary
Jung wanted to develop a psychology that dealth with human aspirations
and spiritual needs. In this respect, he was an important forerunner of
the humanist movement. He also believed that the way to self-realization
was through the rediscovery of the spiritual self.
Jung called the total personality the psyche. It is a nonphysical space
that has its own special reality. Through the psyche, energy flows continuously
in various directions from consciousness to unconsciousness and back and
from inner to outer reality and back.
He considered the terms psychic energy and libido to be interchangeable.
He considered libido to signify a general life-process energy, of which
sexual urges are only one aspect.
Many of Jung’s discoveries, like Freud’s took place in the
clinical setting, based on empirical observations during therapy and research.
Jung also made observations of other cultures and studies of comparative
religion and mythology, symbolism, alchemy, and the occult. Jung considered
these sources secondary but legitimate ones to psycholgists seeking to
uncover the mysteries of the human psyche. However, Jung’s ionterest
in the occult led many critics to dismiss him as a mystic.
He believed that a comparative method of study, often used in history
and anthropology, was a valuable approach in science as well.
Jung also did not believe that psychologists should be bound to an experimental
scientific approach.
He did believe, however, that conclusions should be based on empirical
data.
Jung has influenced developments in psychology and other disciplines.
The concept of self-actualization, which is considered teleological,
reappears in the theories of Carl
Rogers, Gordon Allport, and Abraham Maslow.
Because his concepts were based on empirical data (broadly) one could
conclude that he operated as a scientist. However, his theory falls short
of rigorous standards of compatibility, predictive power and simplicity.
Jung’s work also can be considered philosophical or religious,
because he explicityly raised philosophical questions and suggested philosophical
answers. Theologians have found his work very fruitful. His concept of
God’s revealing himself through the collective unconscious is particularly
attractive to theologians.
As an art, Jungian therapy emphasizes a scholarly goal. There is now
training in Jungian analysis and new books.
Jung’s emphasis on inborn qualities, the duality of human nature,
symbolism, androgyny, and the importance of inner experiences - are seen
as important, if not indispensable for understanding personality.
Jung’s interest in the developmental process with his attention
to the 2nd half of the human life span has proved valuable to social scientists
who are concerned about the needs and growth of our older population.
________
Sources:
BBC Film Series, The Story of Carl Gustav Jung as told by Laurens Van
Der Post: In Search of Soul; 67.000 Dreams; and, Mystery That Heals.
Engler, Barbara. (2003). Personality Theories. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
Jung, Carl G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York: Random
House.
_____. (1964). Man and his symbols. New York: Doubleday.
_____. (1967) The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. (H.Read, M. Fordham,
& G. Adler, Eds.) Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
All Rights Reserverd. Rosalyn M. King, Ed.D., 2003
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