Carl Jung: Analytical Psychology
Broke from traditional psychoanalysis and rests on the assumption that occult
phenomenon can and do influence the lives of everyone.
Jung believed that each of us is motivated not only by repressed experiences but
also by certain emotionally toned experiences inherited from our ancestors.
These inherited images make up the collective unconscious.
The CU includes those elements that we have never experienced individually but which have come down to us from our ancestors.
This theory includes:
Archetypes – The most inclusive archetype is self-realization and can be viewed as a balance between various opposing forces of personality.
It is a compendium of opposites (introverted/extraverted, rational/irrational, male/female, conscious/unconscious, past events/future expectations).
Background
Born in 1875 in Switzerland Religious upbringing (10 pastors)
Occult background on mothers side Middle of three children; oldest died after 3 days; sister was 9 years younger
Experienced an early separation from his mother; had positive/negative feelings toward mother
Became interested early in dreams, during childhood
Identified separate personalities early on in his life (#1 & #2)
Interested in archeology as a young student but settled for medicine Experienced séances as a child
Befriended Freud; had a long training period with many of the pillars of
psychology including Bleuler and Janet
First president of the International Psychoanalytic Association
Multiple trips to America
Interested in dreams and interpreted Freud’s dreams while in America
Dissatisfied with relationship with Freud and they went their separate ways
Had an apparent mother complex which was based on his volatile relationship with his mother.
Spilled over into his relationships with women in his life
Had multiple relationships with women while married and with the knowledge of his wife
Had erotic feelings toward Freud which may have been a factor in the termination of their relationship. Was also sexually assaulted by an older man who was his confidant as a young man.
Went through a deep period of isolation and searching which ultimately helped him better understand himself and help his theory develop Taught medical psychology at the University of Basal
Died on June 6, 1961
Levels of the Psyche
Like Freud, Jung believed that the mind had both conscious and unconscious levels.
Unlike Freud, Jung strongly asserted that the most important part of the unconscious springs not from personal experiences of the individual but from the distant past of human existence, a concept called the collective unconscious.
Of lesser importance to Jung are the conscious and the personal unconscious.
Conscious
Images are those that are sensed by the ego
The unconscious elements have no relationship to the ego
Jung’s notion of the ego is more restrictive than Freud.
For Jung, the ego is not the whole personality but must be completed by the more
comprehensive self, the center of the personality is largely unconscious
In a psychologically healthy person, the ego takes a secondary position to
the unconscious self
Consciousness plays a relatively small role in analytic psychology
o An overemphasis on expanding one’s conscious psyche can lead to psychological imbalance
o Healthy individuals are in contact with the conscious world but also allow themselves to experience their unconscious self
o When this happens the individual can then achieve individuation
Personal Unconscious
The personal unconscious embraces all repressed, forgotten, or
subliminally perceived experiences from one particular individual
The personal unconscious is similar to Freud’s view of the unconscious and the preconscious combined Contents of the personal unconscious are called complexes
o These are emotionally toned conglomerations of associated ideas
o For example, the concept of “mother”
o Complexes may be partly conscious and may stem from both personal and the collective unconscious
Collective Unconscious
Has roots in the deep ancestral past of the entire species
These include distant ancestor’s experiences with universal concepts like God, mother, water, earth, that are transmitted through the generations so that people in every time have been influenced by their primate ancestor’s primordial experiences
The contents of the collective unconscious are the same (more or less) for people of every culture!
These influence may peoples myths, legends, and religious
It is human’s innate tendency to react in a particular way whenever their
experiences stimulate a biologically inherited response tendency (like a mother’s unlearned or unlikely response of love toward her newborn
Initially contact with these images are forms without content but with practice the content emerges and become relatively autonomous images called archetypes
Archetypes
Archetypes are ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective
unconscious.
They are similar in that they are emotionally toned collections of associated images.
While complexes are individualized components of the personal unconscious, archetypes are generalized and derive from the contents of the collective unconscious.
The potential for countless numbers of archetypes exists within each person, and when a personal experience corresponds to the latent primordial image, the archetype becomes activated.
Archetypes are expressed indirectly and, when activated, it expresses itself through dreams, fantasies, and delusions.
o Dreams are the main source of archetypal materials and offer what Jung considered proof for the existence of archetypes.
o Dreams produce motifs that could not have been known to the dreamer through personal experience
Examples of archetypes include:
o Persona which is the side of personality that people show to the world.
o Not necessarily the same as the public face that one shows others.
o Jung believed that, to be psychologically healthy, one must strike a balance between the demands of society and what we really are.
To be oblivious to one’s persona is to underestimate the importance of society, but to be unaware of one’s deep individuality is become societies puppet.
Shadow is the archetype of darkness and repression, representing the qualities that we do not wish to acknowledge but attempt to hide from ourselves and others.
o The shadow consists of morally objectionable tendencies as well as a number of constructive qualities that we are reluctant to face.
o We must continually strive to know our shadow and this is our first test of courage. It is easier to project this dark side onto others that we refuse to see in ourselves.
o To come to grips with the darkness within ourselves is to achieve the realization of the shadow. Most of us never realize our shadow and this leads to tragedy in our lives and feelings of defeat and discouragement.
Anima is the feminine side of men and originates in the collective unconscious as an archetype and remains extremely resistant to consciousness.
o Few men become well acquainted with the anima because this task requires great courage and is even more difficult to become acquainted with than their shadow.
o To master the projection of the anima, men must overcome intellectual barriers, delve into the far recesses of their unconscious, and realize the feminine side of their personality.
o Jung believed that the anima originated from early men’s experiences with women including mothers, sisters, and lovers which combine into the concept of women.
o At times the archetype of anima is an image and at other times it is represented as a feeling or a mood.
Animus is the masculine side of women and originates in the collective unconscious as an archetype that, too, is resistant to consciousness.
o The animus is symbolic of thinking and reasoning and is capable of influencing the thinking of women yet it does not belong to her.
o It belongs to the collective unconscious and originates from the encounters of prehistoric women with men.
o Animus originates from early women’s experiences with men including fathers, brothers, and lovers that are combined into the concept of men.
o Both the anima and animus can influence the relationship of men and women with partners.
o The animus appears in dreams, visions, and fantasies in a personified form.
Great mother is a derivative of the animus and anima.
o Every man and women possess a great mother archetype.
o The pre-existing concept of mother has both positive and negative feeling which extends to this archetype.
o The great mother represents the opposing forces of fertility and nourishment on the one hand and power and destruction on the other.
o It is also known as godmother, Mother of God, Mother Nature, Mother Earth, the stepmother, and even a witch.
o Fertility and power combine to form the concept of rebirth which, itself, may be a different archetype altogether.
o Rebirth is represented in the process of reincarnation, baptism, resurrection, and individuation.
Wise Old Man is also a derivative of the anima and animus.
o The archetype is representative of wisdom and meaning, and symbolizes human’s pre-existing knowledge of the mysteries of life.
o This archetype is unconscious and cannot be directly experienced by the individual. The collective unconscious cannot directly impart its wisdom to
an individual.
o The wise old man archetype is personified in dreams as father, grandfather, teacher, philosopher, guru, doctor, or priest.
o It can be a king, sage, or even a magician in tales and stories.
Hero is an archetype that is represented in mythology and legends as a owerful person, sometimes part god, and one who fights evil.
o Heroes are always mortal because an immortal person has no weaknesses and cannot be a hero.
o The image of the hero touches an archetype within us, as demonstrated by our fascination with heroes in movies, novels, plays, and on television. When the hero conquers the villain, he or she frees us from feelings of impotence and misery.
o At the same time the hero serves as a model for the ideal personality!
The self is the most powerful archetype.
o Jung believed that each person possesses an inherited tendency to move toward growth, perfection, and completion, and he called this innate disposition the self.
o The most comprehensive of all archetypes, the self is the archetypes of archetypes because it pulls together the other archetypes and unites them in the process of self-realization.
Dynamics of Personality
Jung insisted that human behavior is shaped by both causal and teleological forces and that causal explanations must be balanced by teleological ones.
Adaptation to the outside world involves the forward flow of psychic energy called progression while adaptation to the inner world relies on a backward flow of psychic energy is called regression.
Progression inclines a person to react consistently to a given set of
environmental conditions, whereas regression is a necessary backward step in the successful attainment of a goal.
Balance of both regression and progression leads to health personality development
Psychological Types
Various psychological types grow out of the union of two basic attitudes
(introversion and extraversion) and four separate functions (thinking, feeling,
sensing, and intuiting).
Attitudes
Attitude is a predisposition to act or react in a characteristic direction.
Introversion is the turning inward of psychic energy with an orientation
toward the subjective
Extraversion is the turning outward of psychic energy so that a person is oriented toward the objective and away from the subjective
People are neither one nor the other but, rather, a balance of both Functions
These four functions are combined with the two attitudes to form eight possible
orientations.
Sensing tells people that something exists
Thinking enables them to recognize its meaning
Feeling tells them its value or worth
Intuiting allow them to know about it without knowing how they know
Functions Attitudes
Introversion Extraversion
Thinking Philosopher, theoretical Research scientist, accountants, scientist, some inventors mathematicians
Feeling Subjective movie critics Real estate appraisers, objective art appraisers movie critics
Sensation Artists, classical musician Wine tasters, proof-readers, popular
musicians, house painters
Intuition Prophets, mystics, Some inventors, religious reformers religious fanatics
The four functions usually appear in a hierarchy, with one occupying a superior
position, another a secondary position, and the other two inferior positions.
Most people cultivate only one function, so they characteristically approach a situation relying on the one dominant or superior function.
Some people develop two functions, and a few very mature individuals have cultivated three.
A person who has theoretically achieved self-realization or individuation would have all four functions highly developed.
Development of Personality
Jung emphasized the second half of life
o The person can bring together various aspects of life to gain self realization
Childhood
o Early morning…full of potential
o Lacks consciousness Anarchic phase
(chaotic, disconnected islands of consciousness, primitive images of consciousness)
Monarchic phase
(development of the ego, logical & verbal thinking, see themselves objectively in the third person, islands are larger, more numerous, but still disconnected)
Dualistic phase
(ego is both objective and subjective, refer to themselves in the first person, aware of the existence of other people as separate, islands are now continuous land, complex self with ego that recognizes both the object and subject)
Youth
o Morning sun
o Climbing toward zenith toward impending decline
Young people strive to gain psychic and physical independence from their parents, find a mate, raise a family, and make a place in the world
Middle aged people that attempt to hold on to youthful values face a crippled second half of life, unable to self-realize and to establish new goals and seek out new meaning in life
Middle life
o Brilliant late morning sun but heading toward sunset
Begins at 35 or 40 and is filled with much anxiety and periods of tremendous potential
Discover new meaning in life and often have a new religious orientation and deal with life/death
Old age
o Evening sun
o Once bright conscious that is now markedly dim Fear of death, meaning of death
Self-realization
Analytical psychology is essentially a psychology of opposites, and self-realization
is the process of integrating the opposite poles into a single homogeneous individual.
This process of “coming to selfhood” means that a person has all psychological components functioning in unity, with no psychic processes atrophying.
People who have gone through this process have achieved realization of the self, minimized their persona, recognized their anima or animus, and acquired
a workable balance between introversion and extraversion.
In addition, these selfrealized individual have elevated all four of the functions to a superior position, an extremely difficult accomplishment.
Psychotherapy
Word Association Test (responses reveal complexes)
Dream Analysis (reflect a variety of complexes and concepts)
o Proof of the collective unconscious
Active Imagination (requires the person to begin with an impression like a dream, image, vision, picture, fantasy, and to concentrate on it until the impression begins to move). Follow the image and try to communicate with it no matter where it goes.
Psychotherapy – Four basic approaches
o First, confession of a pathogenic agent
o Second, interpretation, explanation, and elucidation (insight, too)
o Third, education of the patient as social beings
o Fourth, transformation of the patient into a healthy human
Critique
Nearly impossible to verify or falsify
Difficult to test empirically
Generated a moderate amount of research
Moderate rating on organizing research
Low rating on practicality
Has some internal consistent but terms can have more than one meaning
o Low internal consistency
Low rating on parsimony
Neither optimistic nor pessimistic
Neither deterministic nor purposive
Both conscious and unconscious
Motivation is both causal and teleological
Has a clear biological orientation
Emphasizes highly the similarities among people
Low on individual differences
[The above has been taken from a document found on Mr. Internet. The document, however does not provide and author or source of its contents.]
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