Once quoted as Freud’s ‘spiritual heir’, Carl Jung was primed to become one of the leading men within the Psychoanalytical movement. After working extensively with Freud, Jung decided he could no longer support Freud’s sexual theories regarding the unconscious. Carl Jung would take his own path and form his own theories regarding the unconscious. Taking elements from religion, history and mythology, Carl Jung was able to form the basis for Analytical Psychology.
Carl Jung
Carl Jung was born in 1875 in Switzerland. Jung father, a priest, worked in the Swiss Reformed Church, while his mom was from a wealthy family. Jung was estranged from his mother, who was eccentric and spent much of her time alone. As a young child, Jung felt he has two distinct personalities; one as a young child of his era, the other as a personality from the 18th century. Jung started to study psychiatry, where he decided he wanted to focus his life. He became friends in Freud and worked with him, but fell out of favor for not embracing Freud’s sexual components in his theories. Jung Analytical Psychology would include components not otherwise seem from the other theorists of his time.
Collective Unconscious
As a child, Jung felt humans were a part of a larger unconscious which gave each person knowledge not otherwise gathered through learning. This unconscious was a collective network all people are a part of. Jung coined the term Collective Unconscious, where future and past events influence a person’s present. As humans, we are always learning and growing, thus we must look towards the past as well as future to fully develop our potential. Jung stated the collective unconscious as, “the deepest level of the psyche containing the accumulation of inherited experiences of human and prehuman species”.
While it is important to focus on the positive aspects of personality, Jung felt the dark side of the personality must also be explored. This dark side, known as the shadow, includes all the negative and self centered portions of our personality. By understanding the shadow, and realizing the impact it has, one can understand all aspects of their personality to come to a complete whole. One must not embrace the shadow, but understand it.
Archetypes
The collective unconscious is divided into different parts called archetypes. These archetypes include the persona, animus, anima and the shadow. The persona is the mask worn in public situations. This is the person we present to the world. The animus and the anima represent the male and female aspects of personality and occur in both sexes. The shadow, as discussed earlier, is all the negative aspects of the personality, and is also the strongest.
Dreams
Jung believed, like Freud, dreams are methods of viewing the unconscious. However, Jung felt dreams had two functions, to prepare people for future possibilities and to balance the opposite forces within a person. By looking at one’s dreams, a person can see where they wish to go in the future. Dreams also help people come to terms with darker aspects of their personality.
In Conclusion
Carl Jung offered a different take on classical psychoanalysis which included spiritual and historic components. Jung allowed psychologists to look at greater aspects of a person besides impulses, drives, and past events. Jung’s Analytical Psychology is still in use today.
Source: Theory and Practice of Counseling & Psychotherapy by Gerald Corey
About the author: Psychcomp is owned and maintained by Nathan Driskell, a Licensed Professional Counselor - Intern and Internet Addiction Specialist. Nathan has worked for the past five years creating and maintaining websites, and has experience managing small business networks.
Contact Nathan at the following locations:
ndri...@psychcomp.com">E-Mail
Twitter
Related Posts
- Alfred Adler: Adlerian Therapy
- Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Psychoanalysis
- Psychoanalytic Theory and Freud: Main Points
- The Psychology of Farmville
- NCE: Review and Impression
- Jean Piaget: Cognitive Stage Theory
- Hypnagogia: The Tale of the Dancing Plant
- The Epidemic of Internet Hate
- The Trappings of Addiction
- US Court Rules Against Vaccine-Autism Link
Tags: analytical, jung
Loading ...
