As a doctor it is my task to help the patient to cope with life.
Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.12)
As a doctor it is my task to help the patient to cope with life.
I cannot presume to pass judgment on his final decisions, because I know from experience that all coercion-be it suggestion, insinuation, or any other method of persuasion-ultimately proves to be nothing but an obstacle to the highest and most decisive experience of all, which is to be alone with his own self, or whatever else one chooses to call the objectivity of the psyche.
The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself.
Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Page 32
Dr. Jung was a Medical Doctor of Psychiatry
While there are justifiable reasons to think of Dr. Jung metaphorically as being a: Magician, Shaman, Taoist, Gnostic, Mystic, Alchemist, Astrologer, etc. the fact is that Dr. Jung was first and foremost by profession a Psychiatrist which the first three volumes of his Collected Works bear eloquent testimony too.
Volume 1: Psychiatric Studies
Volume 2: Experimental Researches
Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease
The day in and day out treatment of ordinary living breathing human beings bearing all of the frailties and banalities of human existence was the therapeutic and empirical foundation of the remainder of Dr. Jung’s Collected Works.
I am a doctor and a specialist in nervous and mental diseases
As I am a doctor and a specialist in nervous and mental diseases, my point of departure is not a creed but the psychology of the homo religious the man who takes into account and carefully observes certain factors which influence him and, through him, his general condition.
It is easy to denominate and define these factors in accordance with historical tradition or ethnological knowledge, but to do the same thing from the standpoint of psychology is an uncommonly difficult task.
What I can contribute to the question of religion is derived entirely from my practical experience, both with my patients and with so-called normal persons.
As our experience with people depends to a large extent upon what we do with them, I can see no other way of proceeding than to give you at least a general idea of the line I take in my professional work. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Paragraph 11.
Image: Jean Fouquet: The Trinity with the Virgin From Mary the Book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier (Chantilly) which appears as first image in Dr. Jung’s “Psychology and Religion.”
The mandala encloses the three identical male figures composing the Trinity and a fourth, female figure, together with the four symbols of the evangelists, three in the form of animals and one (Matthew) in the form of an angel. Mary is Queen of the Angels.
Related Slideshow Link: fouquet images
As a doctor it is my task to help the patient to cope with life.
Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.12)
As a doctor it is my task to help the patient to cope with life.
I cannot presume to pass judgment on his final decisions, because I know from experience that all coercion-be it suggestion, insinuation, or any other method of persuasion-ultimately proves to be nothing but an obstacle to the highest and most decisive experience of all, which is to be alone with his own self, or whatever else one chooses to call the objectivity of the psyche.
The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself.
Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation. ~Psychology and Alchemy (1944) CW 12: P.32
Jung regarded himself primarily as a doctor, a psychiatrist.
Jung was led to a confrontation with religious questions by a number of different routes. There were his childhood visions, which brought him face to face with the reality of religious experience and remained with him to the end of his life.
There was his insuppressible curiosity concerning everything that had to do with the contents of the psyche and its manifestations–the urge to know which characterized his scientific work.
And, last but not least, there was his conscience as a physician.
Jung regarded himself primarily as a doctor, a psychiatrist.
He was well aware that the patient’s religious attitude plays a crucial part in the therapy of psychic illnesses.
This observation coincided with his discovery that the psyche spontaneously produces images with a religious content, that it is “by nature religious.”
It also became apparent to him that numerous neuroses spring from a disregard for this fundamental characteristic of the psyche, especially during the second half of life. ~ Aneila Jaffe, Memories Dreams Reflections
