Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

Analytical theory (Part I)

“My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious
seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious
conditions.”
—Carl Jung
Brief history

• B. 26th of July, 1875 in a small Swiss village, Kesswil, on Lake Constance.

• The family moved to Laufen by the Rhine Falls when Jung was 6 months old.

• He was the oldest child and had one sister.

• His father, Paul Jung, was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church.

• Emilie Preiswerk, Carl's mother, has been described in history as depressed, and more
interested in the occult than in showing any affection to her son. She had to be
hospitalized for a period after suffering a breakdown when Carl was about three, an event
that made a lasting impression on him. Jung records that he was never able to trust
women again.

• When he was nine years old, Jung's sister Johanna Gertrud (1884–1935) was born.
Known in the family as "Trudi", she later became a secretary to her brother.

• Jung had powerful dreams at a very young age, which he describes in his autobiography,
“Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.”

• In his childhood, Jung experienced a number of visual hallucinations. He also appeared to

have had the capacity to evoke images voluntarily.

• His interest in philosophy began since his early teenage years.

• He developed a sense of living in two centuries. His sense of duality took the form of two
alternating personalities, which he dubbed NO.1 and NO. 2.

NO.1 was the Basel schoolboy, who read novels. It wanted to be free of the melancholy and
isolation of personality NO.2.

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NO.2 pursued religious reflections in solitude, in a state of communion with nature and the
cosmos. He inhabited "God's world." This personality felt most real.

• As the time drew near for him to choose a career, the conflict between the two
personalities intensified. NO.1 wanted to pursue science, NO.2, the humanities.

• Jung recalls having two determining dreams which ultimately led him to choose
medical science in the University of Basel, Switzerland, graduating in 1900.

• In his university days, the interplay between these personalities continued.

• In addition to his medical studies, Jung pursued an intensive program of extracurricular

reading, in particular the works of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Swedenborg, and writers on
spiritualism.

• Nietzsche's “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” made a great impression on him.

• He participated in a student debating society, the ‘Zofingia’ society, and presented

lectures on these subjects. Spiritualism particularly interested him, as they appeared to be
attempting to use scientific means to explore the supernatural, and prove the immortality
of the soul.

• In 1900 he moved to Zurich, where he worked at the Burghölzli clinic under Professor
Eugen Bleuler. Jung became Bleuler’s first assistant and remained at the Burghölzli until
1909 when he left to enter private practice, which he continued with some interruptions
until his death in 1961.

• Jung started his association studies under the director of the Burghölzli Clinic, Eugen
Bleuler (psychiatrist; gave the concept of schizophrenia---dementia praecox; four As-
association, affect, ambivalence, autism).

• Jung's medical dissertation focused on the psychogenesis of spiritualistic phenomena.

Published in 1903, it was titled “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult
Phenomena.” It was based in the analysis of the supposed ‘mediumship’ of Jung's cousin
Hélène Preiswerk, under the influence of Freud's contemporary Théodore Flournoy.

• Flournoy had published a study of a medium, whom he called Helene Smith, which
became a best seller. What was novel about Flournoy's study was that it approached her
case purely from the psychological angle, as a means of illuminating the study of
subliminal consciousness.

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• In 1902, he became engaged to Emma Rauschenbach, the daughter of a wealthy
industrialist from Schaffhausen whom he married and with whom he had five children: 4
girls and a boy.

• In 1909 they built a house on Lake Zurich in Kusnacht where they lived the rest of their
lives.

• For Jung, his marriage marked a move away from the solitude to which he had been
accustomed.

• Emma Jung, whose education had been limited, evinced considerable ability and interest
in her husband's research and threw herself into studies and acted as his assistant at
Burghölzli. She eventually became a noted psychoanalyst in her own right. They had five
children: Agathe, Gret, Franz, Marianne, and Helene. The marriage lasted until Emma's
death in 1955.

• Jung’s wife and five children learned to accustom themselves to the wide range of
his eccentricities.

• In addition to being required to accept one of his mistresses as a member of the

household, they also lived with the paranormal phenomena which seemed to increase in
the household when Jung would shut himself away in privacy to practice “active
imagination”—inducing a state somewhere between waking and sleeping (hypnagogia),
in which he would commune with his inner voices in order to resolve any conflicts
between the conscious and the unconscious.

• In 1902/3, Jung left his post at the Burgholzli and went to Paris to study with the leading
French psychologist Pierre Janet, who was lecturing at the College de France. During
his stay; he devoted much time to painting and visiting museums.

• Jung’s work on word association experiments at the Burghölzli led him to contact
Freud. This led to Jung writing to Freud in 1906, and in 1907 the Jungs travelled to
Vienna, where the first conversation between Jung and Freud lasted for 13 hours. Freud
recognized Jung’s talents and later referred to the younger man as his “crown prince.”

• For the next six years, Jung was a leading adherent of Freud’s, and he represented
psychoanalysis both in Europe and in the United States, becoming the first president of
the International Psychoanalytic Association (1910), and editor of the major

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 psychoanalytic journal and various books. The bitter breakup of their relationship is
dramatically chronicled through the letters they exchanged; resigned from the post of
President in 1914.

• Had an apparent mother complex which was based on his volatile relationship with his
mother.

• It spilled over into his relationships with women in his life.

• Had multiple relationships with women while married and with the knowledge of his
wife. His relationship with two of his former patients, Sabina Spielrein and Toni Wolff
has been highlighted in particular in literature. Both of these women were leading
psychoanalysts of their time.

• Following his break-up with Freud, he went through a deep period of isolation and
searching which ultimately helped him better understand himself and help his theory
develop.

• The first use of this term is in his Psychology of the Unconscious, written in 1912–1913.

• In 1921 Jung published a major work, Psychological Types, where he described the now
well-known typology introversion/extraversion, along with the feeling/thinking and
intuitive/sensation functions.

• By the 1920s, Jung’s reputation and psychology had become well established.

• Travelled widely throughout Europe and the US along with trips to South Africa and
India.

• 1934: became President of the International Medical Society of Psychotherapy and in that
capacity he worked closely with colleagues strongly identified with the political
leadership of Nazi Germany for which he had received criticism.

• 1928-29: interest in alchemy grew.

• 1938: visited India.

• 1944: had a heart attack.

• In 1948 he inaugurated the founding of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich.

• D. June 6th, 1961, in Zurich at the age of 85.

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• ‘Memories, dreams, reflections’ (1961) remains his inner and spiritual autobiography.

Freud vs Jung

Sigmund Freud once designated Carl Jung as his spiritual heir, but Jung went on to develop a
theory of personality that differed dramatically from orthodox psychoanalysis. He fashioned a
new and elaborate explanation of human nature quite unlike any other; he called it analytical
psychology. The Society of Analytical Psychology, founded in 1947, publishes the Jungian
Journal of Analytical Psychology.
The first point on which Jung came to disagree with Freud was the role of sexuality, the
second major area of disagreement concerned the direction of the forces that influence
personality and The third significant point of difference revolved around the unconscious.
Dreams: Like Freud, Jung believed that dream analysis allowed for a window into the
unconscious mind. But unlike Freud, Jung did not believe that that the content of all dreams
was necessarily sexual in nature or that they disguised their true meaning. Instead Jung’s
depiction of dreams concentrated more on symbolic imagery, he believed dreams could
have many different meanings according to the dreamer’s associations.

Analytical psychology
• “Analytical Psychology” is the name that Jung gave to his theoretical and methodological
approach to the psychology of the unconscious following his break with Freud and
psychoanalysis in 1913.
• Unlike psychoanalysis, AP does not hold the structure of the unconscious to be limited to
contents that were initially a part of consciousness.
• The goal of Jungian analysis is what Jung called individuation. Individuation refers to the
achievement of a greater degree of consciousness regarding the totality of the person’s
psychological, interpersonal and cultural experiences.

Levels of the psyche/systems of personality

In Jung’s view, the total personality, or psyche, is composed of several distinct systems or
structures that can influence one another.
Psyche: Totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious.
The major systems are the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious.

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Ego: The conscious aspect of personality; the centre of consciousness. Responsible for one’s
feeling of identity and continuity. It stands at the junction between the inner and outer
worlds.
Personal unconscious: in Jung’s system is similar to Freud’s conception of the
preconscious. It is a reservoir of material that was once conscious but has been forgotten or
suppressed because it was trivial or disturbing.
Collective unconscious (universal): The deepest level of the psyche containing the
accumulation of inherited experiences of human and pre-human species. To Jung, the
collective unconscious was the powerful and controlling repository of ancestral experiences.
The psychic residue of human evolutionary development, a residue that accumulates as a
consequence of repeated experiences over many generations.

Complexes
• Contents of the PU are called complexes. A complex is an emotionally toned
conglomeration of associated ideas.
• Themed organizations in the unconscious mind centering around patterns of memories,
emotions, perceptions, and wishes, patterns that are formed by experience and by an
individual’s reactions to that experience.
• In simple terms, a complex is a collection of emotions, thoughts, memories, and ideas that
are clustered around a central theme or experience. These complexes are often

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 unconscious, meaning we are not fully aware of them, but they can significantly influence
our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Key Points about Jung's Complexes:

• Clusters of Unconscious Material: Complexes are like mental knots, made up of related
thoughts and emotions, often connected to personal experiences.
• Personal and Emotional Influence: These complexes have strong emotional charges.
For example, if someone has a "mother complex," their thoughts and behaviors related to
their mother (or motherhood in general) may be deeply influenced by unconscious
emotions and past experiences with their mother.
• Autonomy: Jung believed that complexes have a certain autonomy, meaning they can
operate independently of our conscious control. This is why we sometimes act in ways
that surprise even ourselves, or get "stuck" in repetitive patterns of behavior.
• Connection to Archetypes: While complexes are personal, Jung also related them to
broader, universal themes called archetypes. For example, a "mother complex" may be
linked to the "mother archetype," a universal symbol of nurturing and care. Thus, a
mother complex is determined not only by the mother–child interaction but also by the
conflict between archetypal expectation and actual experience with the real woman
who functions in a motherly role.

Clinical Examples of Complexes:

1. Mother Complex: Imagine a person who had a controlling and overprotective

mother. As an adult, this person might have difficulties forming independent
relationships, or they might feel an overwhelming need to please authority figures.
They might not realize that their behavior is tied to unresolved emotions and
experiences with their mother. This is an example of a "mother complex."
2. Power Complex: Consider someone who was bullied as a child. They may develop a
complex around power, leading them to either seek dominance in every situation (to
avoid feeling powerless again) or, conversely, shy away from positions of authority
because the idea of power brings up unresolved fears. This could manifest as
difficulty in handling situations involving authority or competition.

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• Often behave in a rather automatic manner, which can lead to a person feeling like the
behavior that arises from them is out of his or her control. People who are mentally ill
or mislabeled as “possessed” often have complexes that take over regularly and markedly.

Archetypes
Representational images and configurations with universal symbolic meanings.
The ancient experiences contained in the collective unconscious are manifested by recurring
themes or patterns Jung called archetypes (Jung, 1947). He also used the term primordial
images.
Jung says archetypes are “inherited mode(s) of functioning, corresponding to the inborn
way in which the chick emerges from the egg, the bird builds its nest, a certain kind of wasp
stings the motor ganglion of the caterpillar, and eels find their way to the Bermudas. In other
words, it is a “pattern of behaviour”. This aspect of the archetype, the purely biological one,
is the proper concern of scientific psychology”.
Among the archetypes Jung proposed are the hero, the mother, the child, God, death, power,
and the wise old man. A few of these are developed more fully than others and influence the
psyche more consistently. These major archetypes include the persona, the anima and
animus, the shadow, and the self.
 Persona archetype The public face or role a person presents to others;
 Anima archetype Feminine aspects of the male psyche;
 Animus archetype; masculine aspects of the female psyche. Jung insisted that both the
anima and the animus must be expressed. A man must exhibit his feminine as well as his
masculine characteristics, and a woman must express her masculine characteristics along
with her feminine ones. Otherwise, these vital aspects will remain dormant and
undeveloped, leading to one-sidedness of the personality.
 Shadow archetype The dark side of the personality; the archetype that contains primitive
animal instincts. a. Not only is the shadow the source of evil, it is also the source of
vitality, spontaneity, creativity, and emotion.
 The self-archetype represents the unity, integration, and harmony of the total personality.
To Jung, the striving toward that wholeness is the ultimate goal of life. This archetype
involves bringing together and balancing all parts of the personality.

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