Carl Gustav Jung developed his own distinctive approach to the study of the human
mind. In his early years, when working in a Swiss hospital with schizophrenic patients
and interacting with Sigmund Freud and the burgeoning Psychoanalytic community, he
took a closer look at the mysterious depths of the human Unconscious. Fascinated
by what he saw (and spurred on with even more passion by the experiences and questions
of his personal life), he devoted his life to the exploration of the Unconscious.
Unlike many before him, Jung did not feel that experimenting using natural science
was the best means to understand the soul. For him, an empirical investigation of
the world of dream, myth, and soul represented the most promising road to deeper
understanding.
The overarching goal of Jungian (Analytical) Psychology is the reconciliation
of the life of the individual with the world of the supra-
In order to undergo the individuation
process, the individual must be open to the parts of oneself beyond one's own ego.
In order to do this, the modern individual must pay attention to dreams, explore
the world of religion and spirituality, and question the assumptions of the operant
societal worldview (rather than just blindly living life in accordance with dominant
The Unconscious
The basic assumption is that the Personal Unconscious is a potent part -
Also crucial is the belief that dreams show ideas, beliefs, and feelings of which
individuals are not readily aware, but need to be, and that such material is expressed
in a personalised vocabulary of visual metaphors. Things 'known but unknown' are
contained in the Unconscious, and dreams are one of the main vehicles for the unconscious
to express them.
Analytical Psychology distinguishes between a personal and a Collective
Unconscious.
The Collective Unconscious contains archetypes common to all human beings.
That is, individuation may bring to surface symbols that do not relate to the life
experiences of a single person. This content is more easily viewed as answers to
the more fundamental questions of humanity: life, death, meaning, happiness, fear.
Among these more spiritual concepts may arise and be integrated into the personality.
The Collective Unconscious
Jung's concept of the Collective Unconscious has often been misunderstood. In order
to understand this concept, it is essential to understand Jungian archetypes.
The
Collective Unconscious could be thought of as the DNA of the human psyche. Just as
all humans share a common physical heritage and predisposition towards specific physical
forms (like having two legs, a heart, etc.) so do all humans have a common psychological
predisposition. However, unlike the quantifiable information that composes DNA (in
the form of coded sequences of nucleotides), the Collective Unconscious is composed
of archetypes.
In contrast to the objective material world, the subjective realm of
archetypes cannot be fully plumbed through quantitative modes of research. Instead
it can be revealed more fully through an examination of the symbolic communications
of the human psyche -
The Archetypes
Jung described: archetypal events: birth, death, separation from parents, initiation, marriage, the union of opposites etc, archetypal figures: mother, father, child, God. trickster, hero, wise old man, etc, and archetypal motifs: the Apocalypse, the Deluge, the Creation, etc.
The use of psychological archetypes was advanced by Jung in 1919 and generally adopted
in the social sciences. In Jung's psychological framework, archetypes are innate,
universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. A group
of memories and interpretations associated with an archetype is a complex, eg: a
mother complex associated with the mother archetype. Jung treated the archetypes
as psychological organs, analogous to physical ones in that both are morphological
givens that arose through evolution.
The Shadow
The Shadow is an unconscious complex that is defined as the repressed and suppressed aspects of the conscious self.
There are constructive and destructive types of Shadow.
On the destructive side, it
often represents everything that the conscious person does not wish to acknowledge
within themselves. For instance, someone who identifies as being kind has a shadow
that is harsh or unkind. Conversely, an individual who is brutal has a kind shadow.
The shadow of persons who are convinced that they are ugly appears to be beautiful.
On
the constructive side, the Dhadow may represent hidden positive influences. This
has been referred to as 'the gold in the shadow'. Jung points to the story of Moses
and Al-
Jung emphasised
the importance of being aware of shadow material and incorporating it into conscious
awareness, lest one project these attributes on others.
The Shadow in dreams is often
represented by dark figures of the same gender as the dreamer.
According to Jung the
human being deals with the reality of the Shadow in four ways: denial, projection,
integration and/or transmutation.
Anima & Animus
Jung identified the anima as being the unconscious feminine component of men and
the animus as the unconscious masculine component in women. However, this is rarely
taken as a literal definition; many modern day Jungian practitioners believe that
every person has both an anima and an animus. Jung stated that the anima and animus
act as guides to the unconscious unified self and that forming an awareness and a
connection with the anima or animus is one of the most difficult and rewarding steps
in psychological growth. Jung reported that he identified his anima as she spoke
to him, as an inner voice, unexpectedly one day.
Often, when people ignore the anima
or animus complexes, the anima or animus vies for attention by projecting itself
on others. This explains, according to Jung, why we are sometimes immediately attracted
to certain strangers: we see our anima or animus in them. Love at first sight is
an example of anima and animus projection. Moreover, people who strongly identify
with their gender role (eg: a man who acts aggressively and never cries) have not
actively recognized or engaged their anima or animus.
Jung attributes human rational
thought to be the male nature, while the irrational aspect is considered to be natural
female. Consequently, irrationality is the male anima shadow and rationality is the
female animus shadow.
The Complex
Early in Jung's career he coined the term and described the concept of the complex.
Jung claims to have discovered the concept during his free association and galvanic
skin response experiments. Freud obviously took up this concept in his Oedipus Complex
amongst others. Jung seemed to see complexes as quite autonomous parts of psychological
life. It is almost as if Jung were describing separate personalities within what
is considered a single individual; but to equate Jung's use of complexes with something
along the lines of Multiple Personality Disorder would be a step out of bounds.
Jung
saw an archetype as always being the central organising structure of a complex. For
instance, in a negative mother complex, the archetype of the 'negative mother' would
be seen to be central to the identity of that complex. This is to say, our psychological
lives are patterned on common human experiences. Interestingly, Jung saw the Ego
(which Freud wrote about in German literally as the 'I', one's conscious experience
of oneself) as a complex. If the 'I' is a complex, what might be the archetype that
structures it? Jung, and many Jungians, might say 'the hero', one who separates from
the community to ultimately carry the community further.
Self-
An innate need for Self-
According to Jung, Self-
In the second half of our lives, humans reunite with the human race. They become
part of the collective once again. This is when adults start to contribute to humanity
(volunteer time, build, garden, create art, etc) rather than destroy. They are also
more likely to pay attention to their unconscious and conscious feelings. According
to Jung, young men rarely say "I feel angry" or "I feel sad”. This is because they
have not yet rejoined the human collective experience, commonly re-
Jung proposes that the ultimate goal of the Collective Unconscious and Self-
If a person does not proceed toward self-
Psychological Types
Analytical Psychology distinguishes several psychological types or temperaments.
The central two types are:-
- Extravert
- Introvert
The attitude type could be thought of as the flow of libido (psychic energy). The
introvert's flow is directed inward toward concepts and ideas and the extravert's
is directed outward towards people and objects. There are several contrasting characteristics
between extraverts and introverts: Extraverts desire breadth and are action-
Research has shown that there may be a positive correlation between the Introversion/Extraversion
types and health deterioration. Introverts may be more inclined to catatonic type
Schizophrenia and extraverts towards Manic-
The often misunderstood terms extravert and introvert derive from this work. In Jung's
original usage, the extraversion "is an outward-
According to Jung, the conscious psyche is an apparatus for adaptation and orientation,
and consists of a number of different psychic functions. Among these he distinguishes
four basic functions:-
- sensing -
perception by means of the sense organs - intuiting -
perceiving in unconscious way or perception of unconscious contents - thinking -
function of intellectual cognition; the forming of logical conclusions - feeling -
function of subjective estimation
Thinking and feeling functions are rational, while sensing and intuition are non-
In any person, the degree of introversion/extraversion of
one function can be quite different from that of another function.
Generally, we tend to favour our most developed, superior function, while we can
broaden our personality by developing the others. Related to this, Jung noted that
the Unconscious often tends to reveal itself most easily through a person's least
developed, inferior function. The encounter with the Unconscious and development
of the underdeveloped function(s) thus tend to progress together.
Jung’s Influence
Jung's writings have been of much interest to people of many backgrounds and interests, including theologians, people from the humanities, and mythologists. Jung often seemed to seek to make contributions to various fields but he was mostly a practicing psychiatrist, involved during his whole career in treating patients.
Jung started his career working with hospitalised patients with major mental illnesses,
most notably Schizophrenia . He was interested in the possibilities of an unknown
‘brain toxin’ that could be the cause of Schizophrenia. But the majority and the
heart of Jung's clinical career was taken up with what we might call today individual
‘Psychodynamic Psychotherapy’ -
It is important to state that Jung seemed to often see his work as not a complete psychology in itself but as his unique contribution to the field of Psychology. Jung claimed late in his career that only for about a third of his patients did he use Jungian Analysis. For another third, Freudian Psychology seemed to best suit the patient's needs and for the final third Adlerian Psychology was most appropriate.
Analysis, according to Jung, is a way to experience and integrate the unknown material.
It is a search for the meaning of behaviours, symptoms, events. Many are the channels
to reach this greater self-
While Freudian Psychoanalysis assumes that the repressed material hidden in the Unconscious
is produced by repressed sexual instincts, Analytical Psychology has a more general
approach. There is no preconceived assumption about the unconscious material. The
Unconscious, for Jungian analysts, may contain repressed sexual drives -
The ‘I’ or Ego is tremendously important to Jung's clinical work. Jung's theory of etiology of Psychopathology could almost be simplified to be stated as a too rigid conscious attitude towards the whole of the psyche. That is, a psychotic episode can be seen from a Jungian perspective as the ‘rest’ of the psyche overwhelming the conscious psyche because the conscious psyche effectively was locking out and repressing the psyche as a whole.
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