Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology.
Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe. He emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, much of his life's work was spent exploring other areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable ideas include the concept of psychological archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity.
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Easton Press Carl Jung books
Psychology of the Unconscious - Books That Changed The World - 1995
Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern people rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of unconscious realms.
Psychiatrist Carl G. Jung
Carl Jung was born Karle Gustav II Jung in Kesswil, in the Swiss canton (or county) of Thurgau, as the fourth but only surviving child of Paul Achilles Jung and Emilie Preiswerk. His father, Paul Jung, was a poor rural pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church while his mother, Emilie, came from a wealthy, established Swiss family.
When Carl was six months old, Paul Jung acquired a position at a better parish in Laufen and the family moved there. Meanwhile, the tension between Paul and Emilie was growing. An eccentric and depressed woman, Emilie spent much of the time in her own separate bedroom, enthralled by the spirits that she said visited her at night. Emilie left Laufen for several months of hospitalization near Basel for an unknown physical ailment. Young Carl was taken by his father to live with Emilie's unmarried sister in Basel, but was later brought back to the pastor's residence. Emilie's continuing bouts of absence and often depressed mood influenced her son's attitude towards women — one of "innate unreliability", a view that he later called the "handicap I started off with". After three years of living in Laufen, Paul Jung requested a transfer and was called to Kleinhüningen in 1879. The relocation brought Emilie in closer contact to her family and lifted her melancholy and despondent mood.
A solitary and introverted child, Jung was convinced from childhood that he had two personalities — a modern Swiss citizen and a personality more at home in the eighteenth century. "Personality No. 1", as he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time, while No. 2 was a dignified, authoritative and influential man from the past. Although Jung was close to both parents, he was rather disappointed in his father's academic approach to faith.
A number of childhood memories had made a life-long impression on him. As a boy he carved a tiny mannequin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pupil's pencil case and placed it inside the case. He then added a stone which he had painted into upper and lower halves and hid the case in the attic. Periodically he would come back to the mannequin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with messages inscribed on them in his own secret language. This ceremonial act, he later reflected, brought him a feeling of inner peace and security. In later years he discovered that similarities existed in this memory and the totems of native peoples like the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim, or the tjurungas of Australia. This, he concluded, was an unconscious ritual that he did not question or understand at the time, but which was practiced in a strikingly similar way in faraway locations that he as a young boy had no way of consciously knowing about. His findings on psychological archetypes and the collective unconscious were inspired in part by this experience.
Shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, at age 12, he was pushed to the ground by another boy so hard that he was for a moment unconscious. The thought then came to him that "now you won't have to go to school any more." From then on, whenever he started off to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at home for the next six months until he overheard his father speaking worriedly to a visitor of his future ability to support himself, as they suspected he had epilepsy. With little money in the family, this brought the boy to reality and he realized the need for academic excellence. He immediately went into his father's study and began poring over Latin grammar. He fainted three times, but eventually he overcame the urge and did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, "was when I learned what a neurosis is."
Towards the end of his studies, a reading of Krafft-Ebing persuaded him to specialize in psychiatric medicine. He later worked in the Burghölzli, a psychiatric hospital in Zürich.
In 1906, he published Studies in Word Association and later sent a copy of this book to Sigmund Freud, after which a close friendship between these two men followed for some 6 years (see section on Relationship with Freud). In 1912 Jung published Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (known in English as The Psychology of the Unconscious) resulting in a theoretical divergence between Jung and Freud and consequently a break in their friendship, both stating that the other was unable to admit he could possibly be wrong. After this falling-out, Jung went through a pivotal and difficult psychological transformation, which was exacerbated by news of the First World War. Henri Ellenberger called Jung's experience a "creative illness" and compared it to Freud's period of what he called neurasthenia and hysteria.
Later life
Following World War I, Jung became a worldwide traveler, facilitated by his wife's inherited fortune as well as the funds he received through psychiatric fees, book sales, and honoraria. He visited Northern Africa shortly after, and New Mexico and Kenya in the mid-1920s. In 1938, he delivered the Terry Lectures, Psychology and Religion, at Yale University. It was at about this stage in his life that Jung visited India. His experience in India led him to become fascinated and deeply involved with Hindu philosophy, helping him form key concepts, including integrating spirituality into daily life and appreciation of the unconscious.
In 1903, Jung had married Emma Rauschenbach, who came from one of the richest families in Switzerland. They had five children: Agathe, Gret, Franz, Marianne, and Helene. The marriage lasted until Emma's death in 1955, but he had more or less open relationships with other women. The most well-known women with whom Jung is believed to have had extramarital affairs were patient and friend Sabina Spielrein and Toni Wolff. Jung continued to publish books until the end of his life, including a work showing his late interest in flying saucers. He also enjoyed a friendship with an English Catholic priest, Father Victor White, who corresponded with Jung after he had published his controversial Answer to Job.
Jung's work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals. Our main task, he believed, is to discover and fulfill our deep innate potential, much as the acorn contains the potential to become the oak, or the caterpillar to become the butterfly. Based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions, Jung perceived that this journey of transformation is at the mystical heart of all religions. It is a journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. Unlike Sigmund Freud, Jung thought spiritual experience was essential to our well-being.
Death
Jung died in 1961 in Küsnacht, after a short illness.
Psychology of the Unconscious - a Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido
Jung's
journey into the Psychology of the Unconscious began as a deviation
from the dominant psychoanalytic theories of his contemporary, Sigmund
Freud.
Jung's fascination with the unconscious mind led him to
break new ground in understanding the intricacies of human
consciousness. He introduced the concept of the collective unconscious,
positing that there exists a shared reservoir of universal experiences,
symbols, and archetypes common to all human beings. This collective
layer of the unconscious, according to Jung, influences behavior, shapes
myths, and contributes to the formation of cultural patterns.
Central
to Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious is the notion of
archetypes—fundamental symbols or themes that recur across various
cultures and time periods. Archetypes, such as the hero, the shadow, and
the anima/animus, represent universal elements of the human experience
and serve as a framework for understanding the symbolic language of the
unconscious. Jung's exploration of the personal unconscious complemented
his concept of the collective unconscious. He proposed that, in
addition to shared experiences, individuals have their unique reservoir
of memories, emotions, and experiences shaping their personal
unconscious. The integration of these personal and collective elements
forms the basis of Jung's concept of individuation—a lifelong process of
self-discovery and achieving psychological wholeness.
Symbols
and dreams played a crucial role in Jung's Psychology of the
Unconscious. He considered dreams as significant gateways to the
unconscious, utilizing dream analysis as a tool to unearth hidden
aspects of an individual's psyche. Jung's emphasis on the symbolic
language of dreams and the exploration of the unconscious has influenced
not only clinical psychology but also fields such as literature, art,
and mythology.
Throughout his career, Jung's innovative ideas
challenged prevailing notions and expanded the horizons of psychology.
His work paved the way for the development of psychological types, which
formed the basis for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a widely
used personality assessment tool. Carl Gustav Jung's dedication to
understanding the Psychology of the Unconscious has left an indelible
mark on the field of psychology. His legacy continues to inspire
scholars, clinicians, and individuals on a quest for self-discovery,
fostering a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between the
conscious and unconscious aspects of the human mind.
Jung and Freud
Jung was thirty when he sent his Studies in Word Association to Sigmund Freud in Vienna. The first conversation between Jung and Freud lasted over 13 hours. Six months later, the then 50 year-old Freud reciprocated by sending a collection of his latest published essays to Jung in Zürich, which marked the beginning of an intense correspondence and collaboration that lasted more than six years and ended in May 1910. At this time Jung resigned as the chairman of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Today Jung's and Freud's theories influence different schools of psychiatry, but, more importantly, they influenced each other during intellectually formative years of their lives. In 1906 psychoanalysis as an institution was still in its early developmental stages. Jung, who had become interested in psychiatry as a student by reading Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, professor in Vienna, now worked as a doctor under the psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in the Burghölzli and became familiar with Freud's idea of the unconscious through Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and was a proponent of the new "psycho-analysis". At the time, Freud needed collaborators and pupils to validate and spread his ideas. The Burghölzli was a renowned psychiatric clinic in Zürich at which Jung was an up-and-coming young doctor whose researches had already given him a worldwide reputation.
In 1908, Jung became editor of the newly founded Yearbook for Psychoanalytical and Psychopathological Research. The following year, Jung traveled with Freud and Sandor Ferenczi to the U.S. to spread the news of psychoanalysis and in 1910, Jung became Chairman for Life of the International Psychoanalytical Association. While Jung worked on his Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (Psychology of the Unconscious), tensions grew between Freud and Jung, due in a large part to their disagreements over the nature of libido and religion. In 1912 these tensions came to a peak because Jung felt severely slighted after Freud visited his colleague Ludwig Binswanger in Kreuzlingen without paying him a visit in nearby Zürich, an incident Jung referred to as the Kreuzlingen gesture. Shortly thereafter, Jung again traveled to the U.S.A. and gave the Fordham lectures, which were published as The Theory of Psychoanalysis, and while they contain some remarks on Jung's dissenting view on the nature of libido, they represent largely a "psychoanalytical Jung" and not the theory Jung became famous for in the following decades.
In November 1912, Jung and Freud met in Munich for a meeting among prominent colleagues to discuss psychoanalytical journals.[11]. At a talk about a new psychoanalytic essay on Amenhotep IV, Jung expressed his views on how it related to actual conflicts in the psychoanalytic movement. While Jung spoke, Freud suddenly fainted and Jung carried him to a couch.
Jung and Freud personally met for the last time in September 1913 for the Fourth International Psychoanalytical Congress, also in Munich. Jung gave a talk on psychological types, the introverted and the extraverted type, in analytical psychology. This constituted the introduction of some of the key concepts which came to distinguish Jung's work from Freud's in the next half century.
In the following years Jung experienced considerable isolation in his professional life, exacerbated through World War I. His Seven Sermons to the Dead (1917) reprinted in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (see bibliography) can also be read as expression of the psychological conflicts which beset Jung around the age of forty after the break with Freud.
Jung's primary disagreement with Freud stemmed from their differing concepts of the unconscious. Jung saw Freud's theory of the unconscious as incomplete and unnecessarily negative. According to Jung (though not according to Freud), Freud conceived the unconscious solely as a repository of repressed emotions and desires. Jung agreed with Freud's model of the unconscious, what Jung called the 'personal unconscious,' but he also proposed the existence of a second, far deeper form of the unconscious underlying the personal one. This was the collective unconscious, where the archetypes themselves resided, represented in mythology by a lake, or body of water, and in some cases a jug or other container. Freud had actually mentioned a collective level of psychic functioning but saw it primarily as an appendix to the rest of the psyche.
Travel
Jung's first trip outside of Europe was the 1909 conference at Clark University. The event was planned by psychologist G. Stanley Hall and included 27 distinguished psychiatrists, neurologists and psychologists. It represented a watershed in the acceptance of psychoanalysis in North America. For Jung especially, the experience forged welcome links with influential Americans. Jung returned to the United States the next year for a brief visit, and again for a six-week lecture series at Fordham University in 1912. He made a more extensive trip westward in the winter of 1924-5, financed and organized by Fowler McCormick and George Porter. Of particular value to Jung was a visit with chieftain Mountain Lake at the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico.
Jung spoke at meetings of the Psycho-Medical Society in London in 1913 and 1914. His travels were soon interrupted by the war, but his ideas continued to receive attention in England primarily through the efforts of Constance Long. She translated and published the first English volume of his collected writings and arranged for him to give a seminar in Cornwall in 1920. Another seminar was held in 1923, this one organized by Helton Godwin Baynes (known as Peter), and another in 1925.
In October 1925, Jung embarked on his most ambitious expedition, the "Bugishu Psychological Expedition" to East Africa. He was accompanied by Peter Baynes and an American associate, George Beckwith. They became acquainted with an Englishwoman named Ruth Bailey on the ship, and she joined their safari a few weeks later. The group traveled through Kenya and Uganda to the slopes of Mount Elgon, where Jung hoped to increase his understanding of "primitive psychology" though conversations with the culturally-isolated residents of that area. He was later to conclude that the major insights he had gleaned had to do with himself and the European psychology in which he had been raised.
After Jung's 1925 trip to the United States he did not return there until 1936, when he gave lectures in New York and New England for his growing group of American followers. He came to America only once more, in 1937. He left Zurich again in December 1937 for an extensive tour of India with Fowler McCormick. In India he felt himself "under the direct influence of a foreign culture" for the first time. His conversations in Africa had been strictly limited by the language barrier, but in India he was able to converse extensively. Unfortunately, he became seriously ill on this trip and endured two weeks of delirium in a Calcutta hospital. After 1938 his travels were confined to Europe.
Response to Nazism
Jung had many friends and respected colleagues who were Jewish, and he maintained relations with them through the nineteen thirties, when anti-semitism in and around Germany was on the rise. However, until 1939 he also maintained professional relations with psychotherapists in Germany who had declared their support for the Nazi régime, and there were allegations that he himself was a Nazi sympathizer.
Jung's interest in Germanic collective psychology was serious enough for one biographer, Richard Noll to characterize his worldview as "Volkish". Though Noll describes Jung as "perhaps anti-Semitic", he finds "no evidence that he was ever a Nazi."
There are writings that show that Jung's sympathies were against, rather than for, Nazis. In his 1936 essay "Wotan" Jung described Germany as "infected... rolling towards perdition", and wrote "...what a so-called Führer does with a mass movement can plainly be seen if we turn our eyes to the north or south of our country." The essay does, however, speak in more positive terms of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer and his German Faith Movement which was loyal to the Führer.
In 1933, after the Nazis took power in Germany, Jung took part in restructuring of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy - (Allgemeine Ärztliche Gesellschaft für Psychotherapie), a German-based professional body with an international membership. The society was reorganized into two distinct bodies
A strictly German body, the Deutsche Allgemeine Ärztliche Gesellschaft für Psychotherapie, led by Matthias Heinrich Göring, an Adlerian psychotherapist [24]and a cousin of the prominent Nazi Hermann Göring;
An International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, led by Jung. The German body was to be affiliated to the international society, as were new national societies being set up in Switzerland and elsewhere.
The International Society's constitution permitted individual doctors to join it directly, rather than through one of the national affiliated societies, a provision to which Jung drew attention in a circular in 1934. This implied that German Jewish doctors could maintain their professional status as individual members of the international body, even though they were excluded from the German affiliate (as from other German medical societies operating under the Nazis).
In 1934, when Jung presented his paper "A Review of the Complex Theory" in his presidential address, he did not discount the importance of Freud and gave as much credit as he possibly could to his old mentor.
As leader of the international body, Jung assumed overall responsibility for its publication, the Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie. In 1933, this journal published a statement endorsing Nazi positions and Hitler's book Mein Kampf. In 1934 Jung wrote in a Swiss publication, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, that he experienced "great surprise and disappointment" when the Zentralblatt associated his name with the pro-Nazi statement.
Jung went on to say "the main point is to get a young and insecure science into a place of safety during an earthquake". He did not end his relationship with the Zentralblatt at this time, but he did arrange the appointment of a new managing editor, Carl Alfred Meier of Switzerland. For the next few years, the Zentralblatt under Jung and Meier maintained a position distinct from that of the Nazis, in that it continued to acknowledge contributions of Jewish doctors to psychotherapy.
In the face of energetic German attempts to Nazify the international body, Jung resigned its presidency in 1939, the year the Second World War started.
In 1943 Jung aided the U.S. Office of Strategic Services by analyzing the psychology of Nazi leaders.
In an interview with Carol Baumann in 1948, published in the Bulletin of Analytical Psychology Club of New York, December 1949, Jung emphatically denies rumors regarding any sympathy for the Nazi movement, saying:
It must be clear to anyone who has read any of my books that I have never been a Nazi sympathizer and I never have been anti-Semitic, and no amount of misquotation, mistranslation, or rearrangement of what I have written can alter the record of my true point of view. Nearly every one of these passages [referring to a list of quotations cited against him] has been tampered with, either by malice or by ignorance. Furthermore, my friendly relations with a large group of Jewish colleagues and patients over a period of many years in itself disproves the charge of anti-Semitism.
A full response from Jung discounting the rumors can be found in C.G Jung Speaking, Interviews and Encounters, Princeton University Press, 1977.
Spirituality as a cure for alcoholism
Jung's influence can sometimes be found in more unexpected quarters. For example, Jung once treated an American patient (Rowland Hazard III), suffering from chronic alcoholism. After working with the patient for some time and achieving no significant progress, Jung told the man that his alcoholic condition was near to hopeless, save only the possibility of a spiritual experience. Jung noted that occasionally such experiences had been known to reform alcoholics where all else had failed.
Rowland took Jung's advice seriously and set about seeking a personal spiritual experience. He returned home to the United States and joined a Christian evangelical Re-Armament movement known as the Oxford Group. He also told other alcoholics what Jung had told him about the importance of a spiritual experience. One of the alcoholics he told was Ebby Thacher, a long-time friend and drinking buddy of Bill Wilson, later co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Thacher told Wilson about Jung's ideas. Wilson, who was finding it impossible to maintain sobriety, was impressed and sought out his own spiritual experience. The influence of Jung thus indirectly found its way into the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, the original twelve-step program, and from there into the whole twelve-step recovery movement, although AA as a whole is not Jungian and Jung had no role in the formation of that approach or the twelve steps.
The above claims are documented in the letters of Carl Jung and Bill W., excerpts of which can be found in Pass It On, published by Alcoholics Anonymous. Although the detail of this story is disputed by some historians, Jung himself made reference to its substance — including the Oxford Group participation of the individual in question — in a talk that was issued privately in 1954 as a transcript from shorthand taken by an attendee (Jung reportedly approved the transcript), later recorded in Volume 18 of his Collected Works, The Symbolic Life ("For instance, when a member of the Oxford Group comes to me in order to get treatment, I say, 'You are in the Oxford Group; so long as you are there, you settle your affair with the Oxford Group. I can't do it better than Jesus.'" Jung goes on to state that he has seen similar cures among Catholics.
Source and additional information: Carl Jung